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Gage smiles. “I look forward to finding out.”
The air prickles with something foreign, and I shudder. Automatically, I reach for my magic again, and the same blinding pain stabs my mind. As soon as I release it, it stops.
Gage just keeps on smiling. “There’s another use for you, by the way. After my wolves tear Kian apart.” He leans in and inhales. “Then, no one will stop me from draining every last drop of magic from your body. Over and over again, until you’re nothing more than an empty shell.”
That’s not possible.
Wolves can’t do that.
But Gage motions behind me, and a shifter grabs me. He tows me backward. I fight now, struggling against them and getting nowhere. My magic flares, but it’s not enough. I’ve got nothing, no reach with the earth, no sign of life in this house except the wolves. I throw my weight backward, but I’m a feather battling iron.
Useless.
We leave Gage behind and go down a hall off to the side, then descend two flights of stairs. They stop me in front of a metal door. It’s got inscriptions around the frame in Latin. My heart thunders, and I squint at the worn markings. My Latin is rusty. Covens might require it, but my mother didn’t. I can’t translate it in time.
One of them gets the door unlocked, and we enter another long hallway. This one is dark and lined with doors. There are square windows in each of them at eye level, and I flinch when one fills with a face.
A woman. Her cheeks are gaunt, her skin pale. Her sunken eyes follow me until we get out of sight. But there are more of them. More women shuffling up to their doors to see who’s being dragged in, each in worse condition than the last.
No men.
A deep sense of foreboding sweeps through me. The air gets thicker by the second, seeming to press into my skin. It almost hurts how much it weighs on me, as if trying to burrow into my bones.
“That’s your fate, witch.” One of the shifters chuckles. “Don’t worry, though. After the first few times, you’ll be as docile as a pup.”
“Shut up,” the other one grunts. “Leave the torture to the alpha.”
My throat works, and my mind is trying to keep up, or at least untangle what I’m seeing. It doesn’t make sense. None of it.
“Are you trying to turn them?” I blurt out.
One grimaces. The other scoffs, like the idea is ridiculous.
No, then.
I swallow.
They look worse than burnt out. Wolves can’t orchestrate that, though. They don’t have that connection to magic like we do. And no witch would betray her sisters to help wolf shifters.
You did, a small voice in my head whispers. You killed a coven. You’re siding with Kian. Helping his cause and searching for a blood witch.
Dark magic can be used to drain a witch’s magic, but it’s been forbidden for centuries.
My mother spoke about it in my lessons. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, especially at night. I woke every morning trembling like a leaf, my head full of images of my arms cut open by a bone dagger, and a hooded, evil blood witch standing over me.
So he has a blood witch. And blood witches do not care about what is forbidden.
Gage wants my power for whatever reason. He wants these other witches’ power, too. Who knows how long he’s been syphoning off of them, over and over. Just as he promised he’d do to me.
I’m going to throw up.
The men open one of the last doors in the hallway. They untie the cord around my wrists and shove me through. It slams behind me before I can even stumble to a halt. The sound echoes around me, seemingly magnified. I spin in a slow circle, impossibly tired. I rub my wrists and roll my shoulders, but even that doesn’t make me feel better.
There are no windows. Just a single light bulb over my head, trapped in a metal cage. There’s a thin mattress on the floor, and a metal toilet and sink in the corner.
Whatever hope I managed to hold on to deflates.
The oppressiveness hasn’t let up. If anything, it’s worse. Sweat rolls down the back of my neck, and I shift my weight. My options are limited, and I can’t feel the earth. That’s the strangest thing. We’re underground, or very nearly, and it’s more like I’m a thousand feet in the air. My breath lodges in my throat.
