Chapter Forty-Two
FORTY-TWO
I hit Hamish. It’s a punch hard enough for Ann to wince. It’s not what Hamish expects, and he totters back, breathing hard, staring in shock.
“Please don’t do this,” I say.
“You bitch.”
He charges again. I cast a binding spell, and it holds him, and the fury frozen on his face is terrible to see.
“No one is watching you,” Ann says to Hamish, trapped in my spell. “No one will know if you stop this now.”
I break the spell and he stands there, heaving breath, eyes rolling in rage. Then he scans the battleground and sees that Ann is right. Everyone is caught up in their own battles.
His lips curl in a smile that sends a chill through me. “Then I guess no one will see you die.”
He starts to charge, but at the last second, he veers, and I don’t see it coming.
He swings around, grabs me, and throws me.
As I go down, Ann makes a move to leap in, but I lift a hand, asking her to wait.
She doesn’t like that, especially when Hamish punches me in the stomach hard enough for me to retch.
But she stays out of it. Stays out and stays ready.
With the wind knocked out of me, I’m slow recovering.
Hamish grabs my hair, and if men have their weak spots in a fight, this is a woman’s.
It hurts like I would never imagine it could, and he easily gets his hand in it, wrapping the long strands around his fist and yanking me off my feet.
As he goes to throw me again, I cast a quick fireball.
I throw it into his face, and his hand releases its grip in my hair.
I still go flying, hitting the ground hard, my scalp on fire.
I roll and yank at my skirts. They’re separate from my bodice, the alteration a gift from Ann. The skirts come free, along with the petticoat, leaving me in my drawers. That makes it easier to fight but it also costs me a few seconds, enough for Hamish to slam his fist into my stomach again.
“Can I help now?” Ann says.
“I have this,” I wheeze.
“Stubborn witch.”
I grin at her, and that gives Hamish time to swing at me, which I expect, and I grab his arm and yank him off-balance.
As he stumbles, I hit him with a knockback.
That sends him to the ground, and I leap on him, hoping to keep him there, but while he may be old, he’s still a werewolf, still stronger than me.
He pushes easily to his feet, throwing me off. Now I stumble, and he falls on me, but I roll aside before he can pin me.
I scramble to my feet, but he grabs my foot. I kick hard, and my boot toe connects with his eye. He falls back, yowling. I kick him again, square in the face, and something cracks, and I inwardly wince.
We go a few more rounds. At one point, Ann snaps at me to “use a goddamned spell.” I ignore her.
“You’re a witch,” she shouts. “Stop fighting like a werewolf.”
I’m reserving my power and I continue that, even as skirmishes in the field break up, even as Bishop gallops over, blood dripping from his jaws. He doesn’t try to interfere. Oh, he doesn’t like staying out, and as he circles us, I know not all his growls are directed at Hamish.
A moment later, Rufus is there, too, a huge reddish-brown wolf.
Instead of leaping in to help me—or guarding Bishop—he runs between Ann and two Caledonians …
who have made absolutely no move to touch her and are focused on my fight instead.
Ann gives him a “What the hell?” look and I shake my head and keep fighting.
“Yield,” I pant, as Hamish and I circle each other, both of us bleeding.
“Never.”
“You can’t get out of this. You lost your chance to kill me.”
“No, I don’t think I have. Such a fragile little neck. One crack…”
His gaze goes to Bishop. Taunting him. Wanting him to jump in so he can have his real fight and maybe his noble death.
When that fails, Hamish lunges at Bishop. I kick him in the back of the knee, and his foot slides. He goes down on one knee, and I grab his hair. It’s not nearly as long as mine, and so it isn’t nearly as easy to hold, but he still yelps when I yank.
Then I cast my spell.
And it fails.
I haven’t practiced it enough. Lenora had been working on it for months, and I expect to have mastered it less than a week after getting Edith’s grimoire?
Hamish rips from my grasp and knocks my arm, hard enough for my shoulder to give a little crack, pain slamming through it. Bishop snarls, but I put out my other hand, asking him to wait.
Hamish swings for me again. I dodge, and race around him. The circle of wolves has grown, and it’s several deep now. They don’t egg us on. They just stand, silently watching.
I ram my fist into Hamish’s back, right at his kidney. I swear I hear grunts of approval from the onlookers as Hamish falters, gasping and snarling in pain.
I can’t beat him otherwise, and he isn’t going to yield.
He charges, and I don’t quite get out of the way in time. His shoulder strikes me, and when I topple, he knocks me down.
As I cast again, I pour all my determination into the spell. I don’t think about why it won’t work. I think about why it has to work. I must prove that I am more than an Alpha’s mate. I can speak for Bishop. I can act for him. I can fight for him.
I draw on everything that’s been said about me. Every insult. Every indignity. Every pointed sneer and casual offense. I will not be ignored or dismissed.
My power flares, and the spell catches. At first, Hamish only coughs, shaking his head as if an insect flew into his mouth.
Then he coughs again and tries to inhale.
And nothing happens. He can’t draw air into his lungs.
I push from under him, and I rise, straightening and brushing off my clothing, as if it’s not taking every bit of my strength to hold the spell.
Lenora’s suffocation spell. The one she got from Edith before her friend’s death.
Hamish claws at his throat. His eyes bug. Sweat beads at my hairline from the strain of concentration, but I only circle Hamish, moving deliberately but casually.
“Yield,” I say.
He glares at me, and around us it feels as if no one else breathes either, as if they are all locked in that same spell.
“I won’t kill you,” I say. “We made a promise to your sons. So you have a choice. Yield and maintain your dignity. Or refuse and fall unconscious, slumped to the ground, sleeping like an old man who needs his afternoon nap.”
“Yield, sir,” a voice says. It’s Hamish’s enforcer. Bishop didn’t kill him, of course. The man is only bloodied and unsteady on his feet, one leg ripped open. He walks closer to his Alpha.
“There’s dignity in yielding, like the lass said. She’s a formidable opponent.”
Even as he chokes, Hamish glares at that.
“She is,” the enforcer says. “It was a witch who routed the Albion Pack. This is her granddaughter. Silas’s daughter. No shame in acknowledging the victor in a fair fight.” His gaze darts to Bishop. “I did.”
I bend at Hamish’s ear and whisper, as quietly as I can, “Bishop dealt fairly with you, and you didn’t deal fairly with him. You left him no choice.”
He growls, but when I meet his gaze, he glances away. He might have become a tyrant, but he wasn’t always one and he isn’t entirely one.
“I yield,” he mouths.
And I snap the spell.