Page 114 of Bad Witch

“We’re told about Matilda from a young age. She is a protector. She stops witches who have been corrupted by dark magic. Those who have delved too deeply, who have lost themselves to darkness. The ones there is no hope of saving. All we need to do is call for her help, and she comes and takes the evil away.”

I stared at her, stunned. “Takes them where?”

“I don’t know. But once they’re gone, they’re gone for good.” Her gaze slid away, and when it came back, there was a whole lot of guilt there. “I realized who she was when you called me to that house and she’d vanished, and I’ve felt like shit since, because I tried to distance myself from her after that. You know I have an…affinity for dark magic, and I guess I was afraid of her.” She shook her head. “She had an ingredient, a plant, thought to be extinct, something she was forbidden to use outside her coven, but she did anyway. I used that as an excuse to push her away even more. She saved so many people, she saved my nephews and my sister’s mate. But at what cost to her?” She hugged herself. “I wasn’t a good friend when she needed me. I’m sure she knew there would be repercussions for what she did to help us, but she did it anyway. She might’ve even been cast out of her coven, and still she went up against Disease, to help everyone she could, by herself.”

My female had been going through all of that on her own.

“So Disease came for her, to stop her from getting in his way?” Rome snarled.

“That would be my guess, yes,” Mags said.

The beast roared inside me, my head jerking back as the animal slammed against my subconscious. The need to shift burned through me so hard and fast I had to grab for the wall. My mind spun as my canines punched through, now long, sharp fangs.

“You’re mated,” Roman said to me. “You can find her. Where is she?”

My pulse pounded in my skull. I was panting, ready to explode into action, but I didn’t know where she was, where he’d taken her. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” he said, getting in my face. “She’s your mate. Tap into that, brother, tap into your connection.”

“Do we have anything with Tempest’s scent on it?” he said to Magnolia.

I didn’t hear her reply, but I knew we didn’t or I’d already be gone. Tempest’s scent was burned into me, but that wasn’t enough right then. I needed something concrete, not just a memory.

“Fen.” Bram’s voice reached through the red rage and panic slamming through me. “I’m not a hound, but my connection to Mags has to be similar, and once you lock on to it, on to her, finding her again will be as easy as taking a breath.”

“What if Disease is concealing her?” Roman growled.

“He has no way of knowing she’s mated,” Mags said, coming up beside Bram, who had moved to stand in front of me. She touched my arm, and a wash of calm flooded me. “Fender, you can do this.”

“Close your eyes,” Bram said. “And look inward. She’s there, she’s in there, Fen. How does Temp feel to you? Mags is fire, and comfort, she’s happiness and home. Think about what Tempest is for you.”

She was kindness and sweet awkwardness. Tempest was generosity and beauty and care. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm my shit down, and on the exhale it was like something snapped into place—as if Tempest had been floating untethered inside me until I reached out and took hold of her, anchoring her to me where she belonged. “I’ve got her,” I rasped. “Fuck, there she is.” My eyes snapped open. “The blue cliffs. She’s at the blue cliffs.”

“How the hell did they get there so fast?” Roman said. “It’s easily a day’s walk.”

“I think Matildas have a way of traveling, like their own kind of gateway,” Mags said.

I ran for my bike, Roman behind me.

A gateway of her own. That explained her front door to nowhere and how she’d vanished in that house. It also explained her disappearance when I’d followed her into the garage at the clubhouse.

Chapter

Thirty-Three

Tempest

* * *

My skin was on fire, but my bones were ice. My chest rattled with every breath, and my skin ached and burned. I was covered in sores. Blood slowly seeped from exposed wounds all over my body. Every time I coughed, I tasted blood, and as fast as the Agattealia Pontella in my blood tried to heal me, the more Disease threw at me. I hadn’t been sure it would still work, if I wasn’t a member of my coven anymore, but so far it was working hard to keep me alive. Whether that meant I was still a Matilda, I had no idea.

Disease had forced me to use my door handle to get us here hours ago, then dragged me into the caves under the blue cliffs, and used his power to pin me to the wall. Brigid’s ward had washed over me. I’d felt its touch, but it hadn’t resisted our entry. That could mean one of two things: she remembered that she’d granted me free passage and had kept her word, or after I gave her back one of her knives, her fear and rage had finally receded, and her ward with it.

That didn’t explain her allowing Disease entry. She was terrified of him, though, and that was as good a reason as any for her retreat.

“Tell me what was in your potion?” Disease snapped at me once more.

I said nothing. I would not betray the Matildas again, and I sure as hell wouldn’t give him a way to create another virus that Agattealia Pontella couldn’t stop. I was positive that’s what he’d do if I told him what he wanted to know.