Page 61 of An Oath at Midnight

Jenna shook her head. “Not tonight. I just want to be close to you all. I just want this.”

Things progressed from there. People switched partners, and somewhere along the line, most of them ended up on the floor. Maria yanked up her dress, climbing on top of Isaac. “Oh fuck,” she groaned.

Isaac arched beneath her, his moans making me feel nauseous. Robert climbed off the couch and moved in behind her, undoing his pants, and joined the fray. All three groaned. Then they were moving, fucking.

Chase sat on the couch, and Jenna slid down between his spread thighs, unzipped his pants, and sucked his cock into her mouth. Ryan moved in behind her, eyes wild, excited, and shoved her dress up, then jerked open his pants. Jenna made a muffled cry when he slammed into her, then started fucking her almost brutally.

I was trapped in a room while a bunch of witches had an orgy—and one, or more of them, could be a serial killer. This sure as hell hadn’t been what I thought I’d find when I came here tonight.

This was bad, really bad. My skin crawled as their moans and cries grew louder, the sloppy sounds, the scent turning my stomach.

Maria moved faster, both Robert and Isaac fucking her at the same time. Chase had Jenna’s hair fisted, and Ryan looked almost angry as he savagely fucked her from behind. Jenna seemed to love it, though, and her screams for more made my stomach rebel.

A panicky feeling filled me, and I squeezed my eyes closed, doing my best not to hyperventilate.

I had to get the hell out of there before I had a panic attack. I had no idea how long this would go on for, but I couldn’t be in this room a moment longer. The door was close. So damn close. No one was looking my way. They were all fully occupied.

Easing out from behind the curtain, I dropped to my hands and knees and quickly crawled behind the couch closest to me.

There was no way they heard my panicked breathing over Jenna’s screams and Ryan’s obscene grunts and groans, but I held my breath as I rushed for the door.

As soon as I made it out, I clambered to my feet, then ran like hell back the way I’d come. Slipping out the kitchen door, I pulled it quietly closed behind me, dragged fresh night air into my lungs, and rushed for the gate.

I felt for a ward, but there wasn’t one. They’d forgotten to put it back up. Thank fuck.

CHAPTER 15

Magnolia

Gripping the steering wheel, I headed for home, my mind in a whirl. There was so much to unpack from all I saw and heard at the Hazarks’, and I wasn’t sure where to begin. The witches who started off on the prom committee had stayed tight. No, they weren’t just close, they were close, and I had to assume that’d been going on for a while now.

There was more, though, there had to be. I growled in frustration, and again wished Bram was with me. We were like two halves of the same person, mind, body and soul, and I was lost without him.

A weird pain swirled in my gut, spreading to my chest, and I rubbed at it. I took the next turn, but the sensation kept growing, twisting into a feeling of…intense wrongness the farther away from the city I got—it was like the call to my task, like last time, when we found Calvin, but also…different, and it was screaming at me to turn around and go the other way.

I had to follow it, right? To let the intense feeling guide me.

Last time, when I was led to that garage, the feeling had come from within. This time it was an outside force. Someone was guiding me, and they were insistent. It didn’t feel malevolent exactly, but there was a sense of darkness.

I felt…I felt the way I had when I was in Agatheena’s cottage.

It was Agatheena, she was guiding me, I was sure of it. She wanted to show me something. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t think she meant to hurt me. Maybe she was actually trying to help me? I could also be wrong and she was sending me straight into a trap. But the sense of urgency inside me, the dread when I tried to ignore it, was so fierce and all-consuming that all I could do was let her lead me where she will.

I drove along dark streets in a part of the city I’d only ventured to a handful of times. It was near the demon neighborhood, but I felt the urge to stop before I got that far. Strapping my knife to my thigh, I pushed the car door open, got out, and scanned the streets. There were a couple dive bars nearby. Across the street was a diner, closed for the night, and between it and the thrift store next door was a dark alleyway.

And, of course, that was where I was being urged to go.

Awesome.

Muttering a protection spell, I pulled my knife free, letting it hang loose at my side, and strode across the street. I treaded as light as possible into the shadows, searching the dingy, narrow space. It carried on ahead to another older building behind the diner. The place was crumbling, and at some point most of the windows had been smashed.

The door hung on its hinges, black nothingness yawning behind it. I really didn’t want to go in there, but my senses screamed louder for me to do just that.

Fuck.

My senses on high alert, I gripped my knife tighter and stepped over the threshold. Broken glass crunched under my boots as I moved deeper into the building. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end the deeper I went. Something was in here, something evil.

Why the hell would Agatheena send me to this place? I was starting to think that perhaps her motives hadn’t been so wonderful after all.