Page 98 of An Oath at Midnight

I handed it to her, and she poured another circle, overlapping the edge of the one we were in. But the crones were working together and the wind they’d created had become a wild storm in the cavern, whipping around us, not letting the salt settle in a thick line. The one surrounding us was thinning with every passing second.

“Fuck,” Mags said and reached for something in her bag.

The circle broke—

Cold, grasping hands grabbed me, wrenching me away and tossing me across the cave. My body slammed against the hard stone wall, jarring every bone in my body.

“Bram!” Mags screamed a moment before she was tossed across the cavern as well and pinned to the opposite wall.

I roared, fighting, but the crones were too strong.

A force slammed my head back, and light danced across my vision.

She is ours, a distorted voice whispered in my ear.

CHAPTER 25

Magnolia

The crones’ laughter echoed through the room as they attacked Bram. His shirt was torn off and scratches were appearing across his skin, then bruises, slices.

“Let him go!” I screamed, fighting. “Please, let him go!”

The crones hissed with fury, ignoring my pleas, holding me fast.

You’re staying with us, little witch.

You are ours.

We’re going to make you bleed.

Tear you limb from limb.

Their whispers filled my head, their cold breath brushing my skin and chilling me to the bone. Bram roared, fighting, blood dripping from his body and down his face.

This wasn’t happening. I wouldn’t let it. No one I loved was getting hurt, not again, not because of me.

I screamed in fear, in rage, and words filled my head. A spell swirled, coming from deep inside me. Again, somehow, I just knew what I needed to do.

My hands were being forced against the wall. I fought, managing to get my knife from my pocket, and carved a hexagon into my palm, one inside the other, then sliced across them from point to point until the lines crisscrossed my palm, and I repeated the words filling my head. “Hear me, darkness, crawl from your slumber deep in the shadows and leash these restless souls, bind the evil in their bones, and thrust them back from where they came.” Hissing through my teeth, I lifted my hand. “Eyes blinded with blood. Hands, feet, mouths bound with skin,” I yelled, then slammed my palm against the stone wall with a cry.

Fire burned through my hand, blasting, exploding inside me. I screamed as a force flowed from me, a wall of magic pouring from my body, so heavy and wild that it threw the souls back, dragging them screaming back down into the caves they’d come from. I dropped to the floor, and silence filled the cavern again.

Bram hit the ground, and I scrambled to my feet, running for him. “Bram? Oh, goddess, what did they do to you?”

He coughed, then staggered to his feet. “I’m okay. Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

I wrapped my arm around his waist, and we stumbled across the cavern and out through the wide entrance, then ran along the path under the falls. I stopped as soon as we were far enough away. “Let me see you?”

He leaned against the trunk of a dead tree, and I cupped his face, taking in the scratches just below his eyes, letting my hands hover an inch above his chest, using my magic to search for any serious injuries. There was nothing life threatening, but he was cut up badly. “You’re okay, you’re going to be okay.”

He fisted my shirt at my belly, pulling me closer. “What the fuck happened back there?”

“I don’t know, they were…so much stronger than I thought they’d be. I’m sorry. I almost got us killed.” I rested my hands against his chest, then I pulled the one I’d cut back with a hiss.

Bram grabbed my wrist.

“What the fuck did you do to yourself?” He uncurled my fingers.