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I suffocate my embarrassment and do as she instructs. Nudity is part of coven life the same way it’s ingrained in shifters. My mother and I didn’t have such a relationship, and I loathe to let them see my naked skin.

Still. I slip the necklace off and put it with the shirt. I lie facedown on the cold wooden table, tensing all over as my breasts and stomach touch the polished surface.

Candles are placed around me. Hands shift my hair off my back, twisting it and resting it over my shoulder.

My nerves will eat me alive.

I take slow, deep breaths. It’s an attempt to rein in the panic, but it’s not working.

One voice strikes up. Maeve, I think. She’s right above me, at the head of the table. Her features still distort, ever-changing with the concealment charm. Cecelia stands beside her, in my direct line of sight. Her brows are pinched, but she smiles when my gaze meets hers.

Hands grasp my wrists and ankles.

Something drips over my skin. It’s hot, but not unbearable. It rolls off my back and drips onto the table. They pour the liquid higher, up my spine. Foreboding follows a heartbeat later, sharper than a knife slipped between my ribs.

“First, we rip the bond away,” Maeve orders.

My brows furrow.

Bond to the demon? It didn’t possess me.

They chant as one, the words foreign. I don’t know why I can’t understand it. Their faces slip away as I stare, but the grips on my arms and legs strengthen. I feel the pull under my ribcage. It’s stretched like a rubber band, reacting to their words. It hurts.

Rip the bond away.

It occurs to me that when I asked Cecelia about my safety, her hesitation could’ve had nothing to do with Kian… and everything to do with this coven.

“Wait. Stop.” I struggle against the hands. “I don’t want that.”

My own magic rises inside me, swift and sure. It burns through their cloying magic, and I take my first deep breath since I walked inside this cursed house. I hadn’t even noticed the pressure, the fatigue in my limbs, until it lifts.

Someone screams.

Maybe it’s me.

The tether in my chest is burning. I can see it in my mind getting weaker, a rope fraying along a knife’s edge. Instinct drives me to wrap my magic around it. They feel like two separate pieces inside me, but they collide when I tangle them together. My magic is hotter than theirs, like wildfire compared to a single candle.

The screams get louder. My throat burns. My fingers dig into the edge of the table.

There’s a crack, a whip through the air, and that burning feeling explodes out of me. It doesn’t hurt—suddenly all the pain stops, and everything goes silent.

No more chanting, no more hot liquid, no more searing pain in my soul.

It all just stops.

My ears strain, but there’s nothing. Not even the ticking hand of a clock signaling time moving forward. I can’t lift my head.

Darkness pushes at the edges of my consciousness. I expended too much energy, but I need to be able to defend myself. My heart beats a frantic rhythm, and I fight to stay awake. I press my forehead to the wood and register the tap-tap-tap of blood hitting the floor. My nails ache, broken from gripping the edges of the table.

I’m not safe.

Not until a low growl fills the room.

Relief washes through me. As strange as it is, I recognize the sound. And then I let go.

Chapter 16

Kian