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Still, she was lying to herself if she continued to deny an attraction that she’d felt from that pivotal moment.
“Who says I don’t want him?”
That… might’ve been the wrong thing to tell the witch.
The air crackled with magic. The purple smoke thickened, turned heavy, went dark. The wind picked up, making Evangeline feel like she was standing in the center of a tornado. Her hair slapped her in her face, stinging her eyes. She threw up her hands to protect them.
“You can’t,” hissed the witch. “He’s mine. We’re going to be together as soon as I get rid of you!”
Evangeline gulped. The pressure was back, pushing against her, forcing her to bend her knees. Her right hip twinged; the ache that never quite went away was a memento from her accident. Thank goodness her ankle held out otherwise she’d be flat on her face on the invisible floor.
Her stubborn streak returned with a vengeance. She refused to give the deranged witch the satisfaction of seeing her weak. Forcing herself to straighten, she said, “I’d like to see you try it.”
“No. You wouldn’t.” The witch’s expression was eerily calm, a juxtaposition to the elements surrounding her. As the wind picked up its pace, roaring around Evangeline, the magic gave the witch a wide berth. Not one perfectly straight piece of hair was out of place as she strode even closer, erasing the gap that existed between them. “You listen to me, human. One last chance. Get out. Get out now. You’re just a mistake Maddox will regret once I’ve bonded to him. He’ll look back on his time with you and his wolf will want to tear out your throat for being a distraction. And that’s if I don’t lose my temper and finish you off first myself.”
A burst of purple exploded over the witch’s head, showering her in violet fireworks. Evangeline buckled, dropping to her knees when she recognized the flash of purple power.
It was the same flash she had seen in every single dream that forced her to relive the crash that nearly killed her.
The witch’s clear, haunting voice lifted high, carrying over the rush of the wind. “You survived me once. Are you lucky enough to do it again?”
The witch lifted her hands. She held them in front of her, keeping her palms facing each other with about a foot of space between them. Her fingers started to take on a pale lilac glow.
“Is it worth it?” she wondered. “Ask yourself that. He’ll hate you for the rest of your life. Considering Maddox’s wolf is an unpredictable beast at the best of times, that’s assuming he even lets you have a life. Come, come… are you that desperate to have someone love you?”
Evangeline tilted her head back, glaring up at the witch. “I already have someone who loves me.”
Her mother, her father… Adam. Sure, they didn’t cause her to dance along the thin line that existed between anger and hate, attraction and something so very primal, she almost—almost—understood why Maddox felt like he had to abduct her, but she had no doubt that they loved her even so.
A glowing orb the size of a softball hung between the witch’s hands. The color darkened to lavender, throwing garish purple shadows across the hatred in her face.
“Good,” she bit out. “Remember that.”
Before Evangeline could duck, the witch threw the orb right at her.
It struck her dead in the chest.
22
Choking, Evangeline’s eyes sprang open as she suddenly came to. An instant later, she shot straight up in the bed, panting as if she’d just finished running a marathon.
Apart from the mild ache in her ankle, she didn’t feel any pain, though her hands were wrapped around her middle, cradling her chest. Poking her side, probing her rib cage, her first instinct was to check for an injury.
There weren’t any. Her skin was unmarked.
Her heart was still racing, though.
And that’s when she noticed the man sitting in the corner.
Maddox.
Of course he was there.
He looked like hell. Some time while she slept, he had dragged a big wooden chair into the corner across from the bed. He was perched on the edge, his elbows on his thighs, his hands folded aimlessly in front of him. His hair was longer than it had been, or maybe that was because he’d been anxiously running his claws through
it. Strands stuck up all over the place. The scruff on his jaw was so thick, it was more like the beginning of a beard.
Purple bruises shadowed a pair of dull, golden eyes rimmed with red. He was watching her closely, barely blinking. His body language screamed he was alert while his eyes were glazed over. It seemed as if he hadn’t slept for days.
