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I manage to sit up, using the slimy stalagmite to steady myself. But before I can get to my feet, Cleo attacks.
Magic slams into me and sizzles along all of my nerve endings. I grunt from the impact and fall back onto the ground, my arms and legs seizing. The fact that it’s not my real body doesn’t matter one bit. It hurts just as much as it would in the real world.
“You bitch!” Cleo shrieks, appearing in my line of sight with black, smoky magic flooding from her fingertips. Her eyes are crazed, and her red lips are twisted into an inhuman snarl. “You think you can come onto my land? That you can defeat me?”
As she raises her hands to shoot another blast at me, I throw my own hands up between us and quickly etch out a protection sigil. It’s basic, so simple child witches can probably do it, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind. No matter what I do, I’m still an untrained witch up against a woman who’s been honing her powers since birth.
The sigil flares to life and deflects Cleo’s blast so that the magic hits the wall of the cave. Dust and debris break off and rain down from above, and I roll quickly out of the way, scrambling to get my feet beneath me even as she attacks again.
I duck behind the stalagmite and crouch low. Her magic slams into the top of the formation, ripping the peak off in an explosion of shattered rock.
Cleo speaks again, her voice low and dangerous. “You should never have come here, you fool. We will kill you all.”
I close my eyes and reach for Archer. Cleo hasn’t given me a chance to bring any of my men over yet, and as another blast ricochets off the wall right next to my head, I realize she isn’t going to. I’ll have to defend myself while bringing them into the astral realm. Fight and do complex magic at the same time.
Fuck. I don’t know that I’m strong enough to do that.
“Coward!” Cleo screams. “Come out!”
Then the stalagmite erupts, exploding outward.
I toss up my arms and cast a shield charm, though I’m a few milliseconds too late. Sharp chips of rock slam into me, cutting into the skin on my arms, my face, and my neck. It’s the strangest sensation—an astral attack made physical. Astral dangers that can hurt my astral form. Blood wells up on my arms where I took the brunt of the blow.
I use Cleo’s own destruction against her and cast a levitation spell, lifting all the broken debris off the floor and sending a cloud of it shooting for her face. She’s not expecting it—hell, I don’t think she honestly believes I could ever overpower her. She splutters and coughs, disappearing in the tornado of debris, and I take off running toward darker corners of the cave.
As I sprint, I reach out with my mind, searching desperately for my men through the connection that binds us.
Archer grasps on to me tightly this time, and I reach through the bond past him to find Ridge’s essence humming with tension as they wait for me to come for them. They have to know something’s wrong. The minutes are ticking away.
But Cleo doesn’t let up. Magic rushes after me in the darkness, and I dart out of the way just as I latch onto Trystan. I’m not fast enough to completel
y evade the attack though, and the dark energy slams into my side. Electricity sizzles through me, dropping me to the ground again. The stone floor here slopes, and while I’m motionless and paralyzed by her spell, I roll back toward her.
Cleo stops me with her foot before I can roll right into her legs. She extends her hands down toward me, murder in her eyes.
But then I have Dare in my grasp. I pull with everything in me, wrapping all four of my mates in my astral essence. Cleo’s magic may have paralyzed my form, but she didn’t paralyze my power.
A howl cuts through the cavern, and my mates burst from the darkness at the edge of the cave.
They’re here. They made it.
Cleo whirls around, her mouth dropping open. For a moment, shock renders her motionless. She stares at the four approaching wolves as if she’s never seen one before.
And that slight hesitation is all the opening they need.
All four wolves leap over my prone form and converge on the witch.
The element of surprise was exactly what we were hoping for. Cleo slams into the stone floor a few feet away, Ridge’s rust-colored wolf on top of her. Dare’s large black wolf slides his jaws around her neck, his teeth latching onto her skin. Archer and Trystan take her arms, not even flinching at the black smoke still seeping from her fingers.
“Get off me, you monsters!” Cleo shrieks, struggling against their hold on her. She casts a spell—a blast meant to blow them off her—but I hurl my magic outward, intercepting hers. All five of them shudder from the force of the two spells colliding, but her attempted attack fails.
I clamber to my knees, a little dizzy from the magical assault. My mates have her cornered. They have her pinned. All that’s left is to finish her. The idea of them tearing her apart in cold blood makes my stomach twist a little, but at least it will all be over quickly.
But before Dare can clamp his jaws down and end her life, tendrils of energy shoot out from Cleo’s hands and wrap around me before I can cast a counter-spell. Dark magic slithers around my middle, squeezing, and I know instinctively she’s going to threaten me to force them to let her go. I can’t let her do that.
“Finish her!” I shout, hoping my mates will obey no matter what happens. At least she and I will go down together.
“Don’t. Or I’ll kill the baby,” Cleo says coldly.
