by Eve Langlais
“Turn one demon lord into a sniveling imp and, suddenly, you’re not welcome anymore in the pit.” She sniffed, then spat out something that hit the tin pot by her side with a ring of metal. “I see you brought the pup with you.” The gaze fixed on Logan. “I wouldn’t mind putting a collar on that one.”
“I’m not a pet,” Logan grumbled.
“The collar I’m talking about wasn’t for taking walks but to tie you to the bed.” More lip-smacking, and Logan turned a shade of green.
Adara moved forward, placing herself ahead of both men. She extended her hand. “Hello. I’m Adara.”
The rheumy gaze switched to her next. She frowned. “You’re a strange one. What did you bring me, vampire?”
Titus inclined his head. “This is Adara. We spoke about her on the phone.”
“You didn’t mention she was special.”
“Meaning what?” Titus asked.
“I can’t see her properly.” The old witch canted her head. “Did you know there’s a veil on your aura, child?”
Adara shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Someone cast a spell on her.”
“Don’t point out the obvious, vampire. I see much more than you could ever hope. Come closer, girl, let me have a lick.”
Instead, Adara tucked her hands behind her back. “I don’t think so.”
“There will be no licking,” Logan stated.
“Spoken by a jealous dog who wants to be the only one to lick her butt. But the question is, will you share?” Her gaze turned to Titus as she cackled.
As for Logan, he turned a shade of red and shifted restlessly as he addressed Titus. “You can’t be serious. This is who you think can break the bond?”
“Most powerful witch there is,” Titus replied.
“Even my gas has magic.” The woman angled her body, lifting a cheek. Blart.
Titus knew she did it on purpose. The wolf didn’t. Logan’s incredulous expression said it all.
“Honey, I don’t know if I can still agree to this,” Logan said to Adara, holding his hands up in defeat. “Maybe we should look a bit further into this magic stuff.”
Rather than sway Adara to his cause, her shoulders firmed. “Don’t be silly, Logan. Titus wouldn’t recommend her if she were incompetent.” Adara turned to the witch. “Please excuse him. I do want to do this. Can you please remove their mark from me?”
“So polite. Why not say it the way you truly mean it? You want nothing to do with these men and would rather see them dead than bear their taint.”
Adara’s lips rounded into an O, but it was the color in her cheeks that told Titus some of Baba’s words held truth.
“I never said that. I don’t want you dead,” Adara hastened to reassure.
“No worries, honey. I see what the old witch is doing.” Spoken by Logan with a glare.
“Can you see, Alpha?” The eyes, slightly milky with cataracts, peered at him. “You can be rather narrow-minded and blind to the things you’d prefer to ignore.”
Logan curled a lip. “Don’t think I don’t recognize what you’re doing. You’re trying to start shit. Ignore her, Adara. She’s doing it on purpose to drive wedges, and she’s about to forfeit whatever payment she negotiated if she doesn’t start behaving.”
“I am always a good witch, Alpha,” the crone stated.
“A witch who didn’t check in with the local pack. When did you open up shop in my town?” Logan asked.
“Time is such a flimsy measure of things. Sometimes, I am here. Sometimes, I am there. It depends on the needs of the world and the wandering feet of my house.” Baba Yaga gestured vaguely with her hand.
Since they’d veered off topic, Titus brought them back around. “I apologize for missing the previous evening’s appointment. We were unavoidably detained.”
“Such a tame explanation, considering demons came knocking. Why don’t you let them in?” The bleary eyes peered at Adara.
“I can’t let them in.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re demons. They’re evil.”
“Evil is as evil does,” the crone sang.
“They tried to hurt me.”
“Did they? Or are they merely trying to show you the truth you keep saying you want?”
“They can’t show her shit if she’s dead,” Logan growled.
“Who says they want her dead?” the crone retorted. “She needs to decide what she wants.”
Adara’s lips thinned. “That’s easy. I want to remember.”
“I doubt that, silly child. Even I don’t wish to peer too deep into your past. It’s not a pretty place.”
“I thought you couldn’t see her aura?” Titus prodded.
“Her aura might be hidden, and her origins, too, but the taint of her trauma lingers. So much pain and suffering. You must have greatly angered a god.”
“There are no gods,” Adara said flatly.
“I wouldn’t say that if I were you.” The crone pressed a finger to her lips. “Even the demons know they exist—and shudder.”
“Quoting scripture?” Titus knew enough of the Bible to recognize a partial passage.
“It’s the truth. There are things even you don’t know, walker of the night.”
“I never claimed to be omniscient. Life is a constant education, but I’m not here for a lesson on the mysteries of the world.”
“A shame, you have much to learn. But you are right. You have other needs this fine evening.” The crone clapped her hands. “You need me to cast a spell. The question is, which one? There are so many things we could do to this one.” She ogled Adara.
“The bargain we struck was to free Adara of the marks tethering her soul to ours.” Titus gestured to Logan.
“Are you sure you don’t wish to purchase something more useful? Doorway to another dimension? Urn for your ashes?”
“Threatening us, now?” Logan growled.
“No, merely stating how you will end if you remain involved with this girl. Free advice: stay far from her if you value your life.”
Titus could have cursed as the witch reinforced Adara’s erroneous belief.
Adara stiffened. “They won’t be dying, because I wasn’t planning to stick around once the tie is gone.”
“As if you have a choice,” snorted the sorceress.
Getting impatient, Titus offered a terse, “Either you honor our bargain, or we are leaving right now.”
“Just making sure this is what you desire. There are no refunds if you suffer from buyer’s remorse after.”
“I’m sure.” Adara sounded quite firm on that point.
“Very well, follow me.” The old lady got to her feet and didn’t get much taller. She waved a hand, and the sign in the window flipped from flashing a neon orange Open to a dull, glowing Closed.
Baba led the way through a set of beaded curtains, the strands jingling and dancing as she passed into the other room. Logan followed, only to hesitate before plunging through, his nose twitching, his hands down by his sides, the fingers lightly flexed. Adara went next, head high, no outward sign of the nervousness flooding her insides. No screams followed. Always a good sign. Titus entered last.
Expecting a small storage room or office, even he gaped like a simple-minded yokel when he saw the king’s court. Titus had seen much in his life, but this was impressive. The last time he’d visited Baba Yaga, this was a storage room with a circle etched in salt and blood on the floor—he’d had a spell cast to help him deal with his sun allergy. It had lasted less than a day. Not something the witch had warned him about when he paid a kingly sum for it. Nor did he know until his skin started sizzling after only minutes spent in the sun’s bright rays.
And now he trusted the witch to help him again? He could only hope there were no hidden catches. He’d done his best to hammer out a deal beforehand, but the old witch had a way of twisting results.
Still, he’d do anything if it meant pleasing Adara. Emasculating as that
sounded. He couldn’t have said why, but since meeting her, it was the only important thing in his un-life.
Shaking his head clear of doubt, he took note of his current situation. An odd one, given he stood in a vast chamber that shouldn’t exist. Where the shop out front was remarkable for the number of things crammed into a small space, this ballroom-sized chamber was the opposite with items scattered, many sitting atop lone pedestals. Such as the tank with clear waters and tiny glowing motes floating within. A pot with a single thin tree growing from it with only one branch and, at the end, a bloom. So many strange things on display.
Along one wall stretched bookcases, the sections about three feet wide and yet, for some reason, only held one book per shelf. Some of those tomes were behind protective glass. It made him wonder what dangers hid within their pages.
Overhead, the chirps of birds and a veritable city for them. Perches and houses, even an odd waterfall and a small pond hung suspended overhead. Fascinating and frightening. What if the magic or science making it possible failed?
Titus would be very wet.
His steps didn’t echo on the stone floor despite the vastness, as if the sound itself were muffled or absorbed. He ignored the wares for sale as he followed the crone. It took more time than expected to discover the center of this place.
“Don’t cross the line,” admonished the witch.
Startled, Titus ceased walking and glanced down at the floor. He noted the giant silver circle etched into the stone itself, the thick channels lined in metal at the very bottom.
Adara and Logan stopped on either side of him and followed his gaze.
The wolf remarked, “Is it me, or do I smell blood in that silver groove?”
It only took one syllable. “Yes.” Titus smelled it, as well. But wasn’t surprised. Blood was a part of most rituals, the powerful ones at least.
The breaking of the ties between them would take more than blood, though. It needed magic.
He turned to ask Baba Yaga what would happen next, only to blink. The short crone shed her shawl, letting it fall to the floor in a fabric puddle. She stood tall. Tall as Logan, and willowy thin with long hair, a deep chestnut layered with strands of white and gray.
The eyes still bore a milky sheen, but the curve of the lips was taunting, and the skin supple.
Impressive magic. Even Logan let out a low whistle. “Damn, lady, you must be killer at a Halloween party.”
Titus shot him an incredulous look.
For his part, Logan shrugged and grinned. “Just saying she could compete for best costume and win.”
Adara giggled.
Yet this wasn’t time for comedy. Baba gestured to Adara. “You and only you, get into the circle. The very middle. And don’t move.”
Logan snared her before she could take a step. “Honey, you sure you want to do this?”
Couldn’t the wolf feel through the ties binding them just how necessary this was?
Adara needed her freedom.
She tugged herself free. “I know you care. I feel it. I appreciate it. Really, I do, but I have to do this.”
This time, Logan wisely kept his hands and words to himself as she traversed the silver channel and made her way to a symbol carved in the center.
“What is our role?” Titus asked the witch.
“Be quiet until you are spoken to.”
The rebuke clamped his lips tight. Titus didn’t enjoy the rude manner in which she treated him, and yet he also couldn’t afford to flex his annoyance and still expect her to help. It required the reining in of his pride and simple silence. A man of his abilities found it easy.
Logan trembled with the effort.
Animal.
The smug superiority helped with Titus’s control.
Baba Yaga paid none of them any mind. Her eyes closed, her head tilted to the heavens. Slowly—so slowly he almost missed it at first—she began to dance and chant, the low, guttural words unintelligible. Her movements were jerky and odd, lacking grace, and yet the longer he stared, the more hypnotizing it became.
Unbidden, his body swayed in time, choppy left to right, and his eyes closed to mere slits. Not being a magic user didn’t mean he couldn’t feel the power in the air.
The tingling of it. The smell, similar to the ozone before a storm.
He found himself humming as he swayed, a sound interrupted when he began to see lights, veins of luminescence, crossing the air in front of him. Thin strands. Thick ones. Some deep with color. Some so pale as to be almost invisible.
Titus’s eyes traced some of those strands to a larger spool. He realized he looked upon the witch. Or at least looked upon her core, an inner light that shone a tarnished green with many threads leading out from it.
Fascinating. Titus turned his gaze to Logan at his side, not surprised at all to see a core comprised of pure, primal beast. Which wasn’t a color, more a sensation as he stared at the shifting browns and greens and reds, a moving swirl with its own threads leading out. It was then an old theory he’d read returned to him. One about how things were connected. Living things, at least.
He glanced down at himself and felt a sort of relief to see he too had a core of light—a deep, dark red one, rich like blood, with veins leading outward, not as many as the witch or the wolf, but he had a few. He could follow the thick artery, which split and led him to…his flock.
All those he’d created, all those bound to him by blood. His people.
As for the frayed threads that dangled? Those that died…more than he cared to recall.
Amidst the veins pulsing from him, there was one different than the others. It coiled out from him, then met with one coming from Logan. They twined around each other and led to Adara.
Only she didn’t have the same inner light. Her core was hidden behind a cloud, or so it seemed to Titus’s sight.
“Why is she so foggy?” Logan asked.
Apparently, Titus wasn’t the only one to notice it. “Part of the magic hiding her, I imagine,” he whispered in reply, afraid of breaking the spell.
Just before that dark morass, their twining threads split and then entered. A reddish strand from him, and an equally noticeable one from Logan. Unlike everyone else, Adara only had two ties in this world.
And they were about to take them away.
“It is time for the blooding. Slice deep and true and hold it over the circle,” the witch commanded, drawing Titus’s attention.
Logan didn’t hesitate, just scratched his wrist and let the blood well and drip. Titus, on the other hand, hesitated.
Were they doing the right thing?
He stared at Adara, and in that moment, her gaze met his. Frightened and yet, at the same time, he saw the firm resolve.
She needed this, and if the lack of ties set her adrift?
I’ll have to make sure I provide an anchor.
His nail slashed his skin, and blood spilled hotly.
Chapter Seventeen
She’s making them bleed. Adara gasped from her spot in the middle of the circle. For some reason, it had never occurred to her that Logan and Titus would be hurt during the spell.
Then again, she should have realized. It took blood to bind. It stood to reason it would take the same to remove it.
She pressed her lips tight and reminded herself as they slashed their wrists and held their arms steady over the chasm cut into the floor that they did this of their own free will.
And once this was done, she’d be free, too.
As the blood filled the channel, the hum vibrating her teeth deepened. She might not see the magic or understand it, but it made its presence known, filling the air with a crackling static that tickled the skin and lifted the hairs on her body.
A part of her wanted to move. To get far away from here. Away from the power. Given how magic appeared to be the root of many of her problems, she had to wonder if she should trust it.
Especially since something about it didn’t feel right. Amidst the steady h
um, Adara could swear there was a discordant note. Low. Barely noticeable, yet it sent a shiver up her spine.
Something isn’t right. It didn’t help that Adara stood all alone, the focus of everyone’s attention. She hated the fact that she had no control over what happened next. Really disliked not being in charge.
What a change from before. There was a time, not so long ago, that a more timid Adara had let people act for her. Wanted the big, strong men to protect her.
She was done being that woman.
New Adara wanted to be the one making the decisions. Charting the course of her life. But could she be sure she was acting for herself with Logan and Titus inside her head?
She needed them out, but she didn’t know how to do it. The crazy witch dancing and singing offkey apparently did.
So, Adara ignored the blood dripping in tandem from Logan and Titus, ignored the tingling racing through her body, and paid no mind to the fact that she kept thinking she saw lights glowing all over the place. Yet, if she looked directly, they disappeared. How odd.
“Hold out your arms,” Baba ordered.
Startled, Adara spoke rather than act. “Why?”
The witch snapped her fingers.
Adara squeaked as something pricked her. “Ouch.”
“Hold out your arms,” Baba said again more tersely.
“Do you want me to flap them, too?” Adara grumbled, extending her arms. She felt like an idiot, but on the upside, she hadn’t been asked to slice open her wrists.
No need. Because her entire body was attacked.
A thousand needles jabbed her at once. Every part of her screamed in pain. However, not a sound escaped her lips, not even a gasp of agony, as she couldn’t find the strength to even breathe.
Her body bowed, and she knew her mouth was open wide. She closed her eyes, yet she could still see. She saw herself standing on that all-too-familiar gray plain, yet this time, there were other things to see. Such as a circle of silver and, outside of that, three blobs of glowing light. Murky green, deep red, and camouflage. Which she never even knew could be a color.
But she didn’t pay the cones of light much mind, more interested in examining herself. It proved uncanny, seeing herself from this angle. She floated overhead, a ghostly specter to her own torture.