AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Atty, no. It’s perfect. I wish I could stay and show you how much I—”
A sharp gasp cut through the cold, forcing my eyes open, and I spun just in time to see the stricken look on both of Atlas’ faces. Blood dripped from Laramie’s nose and then her ears.
“Past,” Atlas screamed. “Enough. It’s enough.”
My mouth fell open. The Harrowing. Goddess be damned. The fiery witch with the purest love hadn’t betrayed him. No. No. No. This was so much worse.
“Laramie?” Young-Atlas’ voice broke into a thousand pieces as he reached for his witch, carefully taking her face into his hands as he searched her vacant eyes for an explanation.
Atlas moved to my side, shoving his fingers into his hair as he spun around, refusing to watch, trying and failing to take in a breath. I wanted to help him, to console him, but what could I do that would fix this? There was nothing. So, I rested a shaking hand on his back and moved it in slow circles as young-Atlas panicked and lifted that poor cursed witch into his arms.
“Tell me what to do, Lar. Just tell me what to do. Laramie!”
My legs fell weak, pressure building in my chest because I’d forgotten to breathe. The devastation was monumental. Tears filled my eyes until I could hardly see through them. I couldn’t think past the swell that grew like a dagger in my throat as Atlas silently cried beside me.
The scene changed, yanking us into the center of the Forest Coven’s main village, swarming with witches.
“No. Atlas, no.” My eyes widened. “Why would you bring her here?”
“I thought…” he answered from some place far, far away, though he remained beside me. “I didn’t know how else to save her.”
The screams from the witches came first. But young-Atlas shouted above the crowd. “Please. There’s something wrong. I don’t know what happened.”
“What have you done?” a woman shrieked, breaking through the people to stand before the shifter. “What have you done to my daughter?”
“I don’t… I didn’t. Please, she needs help right now.”
Though Laramie had gone rigid in Atlas’s arms, a man covered in markings yanked her away. The second he took her, Atlas took three steps back, showing his palms. “Please. We love each other. I don’t want any problems.”
“You cannot love a witch, you disgusting animal. You are incapable,” someone from the crowd yelled as they cast, sweeping Atlas’s feet out from under him as he crashed face first into the ground, landing on the sharp edge of a rock the size of his own boot. Blood poured from his forehead rapidly enough to pool below him as they pinned him down with magic.
“You will watch the pain you have caused her,” Xena Foresthale, the Forest Coven leader, said, yanking Atlas’ bloodied face from the ground.
He squeezed his eyes shut, either to block out the world or to keep them from filling with the blood from his wound.
Laramie lifted from the ground, her arms outstretched, head fallen back at an unnatural angle. There would be no saving this witch. Only one had ever survived.
“Please,” Atlas begged from beside me. “Make it stop.”
It was as if he’d counted. Replayed this memory in his mind so many times, he could recite the exact seconds of her death. With his back still turned, facing away from the memory, he reached for my hand, trembling. I moved to stand before him, wrapping my arms around his waist as that body, no longer caging the wild soul of that witch, fell to the ground with a thud.
6
“I know you’re in there, Marley!”
The angry shouting from outside my room yanked me from sleep. The sun had barely inched above the horizon, casting the room in deep amber shadows. I jerked upward, forgetting where I was for only seconds, until that rough voice yelled again.
“Open this fucking door.”
Ripping off the blankets that had tangled my legs, I stopped for a second, wrapping my robe and tying it around my waist. Of course he would have questions. They always did, but typically I didn’t answer the door or let them know where I was staying. Last night was different, though. As today would be.
Twisting the handle with a firing heartbeat, I was not shocked to find him just as disheveled as me, one arm holding him against the doorframe, the other mid-knock.
“I’m fairly certain there are other people trying to sleep here, Atlas.”
“Oh yeah? Like I was last night before your ghosty wrenched me out of bed and put me through hell?”
I couldn’t answer that. It was a fair question and obviously rhetorical. Instead, I reached forward, grabbing his loose collar, and dragged him into the room before quietly shutting the door. He moved swiftly, striding back and forth for several minutes, fingers twined in his coarse, ashy hair. He’d pause, open his mouth to say something, and then return to his pacing, nearly stumbling over the boot strings he hadn’t bothered to tie.
