Until I do, I don’t want to hurt my fam.
If you don’t listen to its warning, you’ll hurt yourself too.
I yanked open the cage, snapping the lock, before reaching inside towards the chattering squirrel.
Then I screamed.
An electric current shot through my fingers where they touched the bars; I vibrated, as if a hot prong had been shoved through my hand.
Howling, screeching, bellowing, squealing…
The familiars were being shocked too, and this time, as they cringed or rolled on their backs, they shrieked their distress. And they didn’t stop.
It was the perfect alarm system: the witches would hear us.
J had been right again.
I tried to wrench back my arm, but I couldn’t move it. Then Ash’s hands were curled around my shoulders, tugging. I stumbled backwards into Ash’s citrus wings, as Rebel tenderly kissed my burnt fingers.
“Spell, now,” I hollered at Mischief.
But opening the cage hadn’t only set off the electric shocks.
Mischief stared back at me with haunted eyes, as boa constrictors wound around him, holding him in place. He struggled for breath, even as another stone snake from the path transformed and slithered up his leg.
Bastard spell casters.
“Get a grip, Tinkerbelle, this is about saving the world.” I knew it was a low blow, but Mischief was losing himself in the terror of his own personal nightmare come to life. “Or is it your brat arse that doesn’t remember Fynchan?”
Mischief’s gaze snapped to mine, sharp once again. “So, the beast is catching on.”
Mischief’s eyes closed; his face creased with pain.
A glass box, like the one that’d trapped my brother, materialised between us in the stable, before slowly expanding.
Hiss — the snakes writhed, tightening around Mischief.
“Screw the shocks, open the cages,” I growled.
Yet before I could battle against the electric current, the air around us quivered.
“That you, Mischief?” Rebel asked.
Mischief shook his head.
“Clever little creatures with magic,” a simpering female voice arose in the air around us.
A freezing draught, which was scented with berries, howled through the stables.
The witch of the House of Snakes.
I spun, but there was no one there.
I drew Flight, just as Rebel unsheathed Eclipse. Ash nodded his head towards Mischief, before booting aside a snake to crouch over him, resting his gun on the head of the glaring boa constrictor.
Smash — the glass box shattered, as if a giant boot had stomped on it.
We all flinched.
Rahab’s spell had been broken like it’d been nothing but child’s play, and so had my chance of winning the Mage’s Challenge.
Numb, I gripped Flight until my knuckles whitened. I’d bastard lost my brother, Ash, Rebel…
I hadn’t realised I’d been shaking, until the cloaked witch giggled. “I hoped I’d caught a wolf, but instead it’s a little quivering bunny. Still, we’ll play just the same. They all play.”
Ash dropped his shooter, shrinking back.
I hadn’t won the Mage’s Challenge. The Head Coven had caught my fam and me. And now a psycho spell caster wished to play.
I hadn’t planned Kinky Date Night strung up in the Head Coven’s Honesty Tower. Sometimes, however, you just had to go with the spontaneous.
Clank, clank, clank.
I slammed my shackles against the red-brick, rubbing my wrists raw, whilst I struggled. I swung on tiptoes against one side of the tower; my shoulders ached. I shivered, as the night breeze gusted through colossal circular windows on each wall. There was no glass, and the night roared in, mingling with a magic that was so wild I could taste it.
The witches’ magic wasn’t ordered and controlled like the mages’; it was free and dangerous.
Dazzling.
But Honesty Tower…? It sounded like something girls pledged to please their daddies.
The chamber lay in a dusty gloom, except for coiled silver lights, which hung high on the ceiling. The tang of baked raspberries and cranberries like an aged red wine clung to it. A locked mahogany door scowled at me from the other side of the room, and neat waves of clothes skirted it.
My fam and me had been posed around the tower like gargoyles, as if the room had always been waiting for us.
Clank, clank, clank.
I wrenched at my shackles again.
“For the love of all that’s holy, would you give it a rest?” Rebel blinked at me. He’d been stood on a central pedestal with his wings outstretched. His jacket and top had been removed, but at least his trousers hadn’t been taken, even if he’d been placed in such extreme bondage that he couldn’t move a feather. “You’ve been at that all night. The chains are angel and vampire proof, and hurting yourself only hurts us. Why won’t you admit that sometimes there’s no way out?”
I snarled, banging against the wall. Then I battled to slow my breathing. “Not sleeping on us are you, Brigadier? You don’t want to miss playtime.”
Ash shook his head groggily as he arose back from the Freddy Greuger style Dream World, which we’d been whammied into by the witch. He’d been shot the hardest because he’d shot Little Miss Invisible with his gun.
Her outraged shriek had been better than her simpering.
“All present and correct,” Ash slurred, tugging at the restraints, which held him on one knee like Atlas. “As soon as I can feel my fingers, I’ll be up for some witch burning.”
Mischief snorted, “The Wynter sisters here at the Head Coven are renowned. Do you wish to hazard a guess what for…? Their hospitality, perhaps? Love for trespassers? Extensive donations at charity auctions? No, that’s it…their cruelty. Hatred for mages, vampires, Addicts, and monsters. As well as extensive perverse ways to make them suffer for their lack of perfection.”
“Cheers to our manager in charge of morale boosting.” I bit my tongue, forcing down the panic, as I glared at Mischief; he’d been chained to the floor facedown. And didn’t that just set off alarm bells? “I’m voting a witch bonfire.”
Crash — the mahogany door slammed open.
“Sweet Jesus…” Rebel breathed.
Nope, the bastard glowering at us from the doorway was neither sweet nor our saviour.
Angel Titan shambled into the tower, clutching a wooden bucket and ladle. His ginger hair had been clipped close to his head; his violet eyes were glassy.
Was he an Addict like Rebel?
Although Angel Titan was dressed in a fancy three-piece burgundy suit, a gag had been shoved into his mouth like he was a pampered butler at a BDSM convention. It reminded me of the gag that’d been forced between Drake’s lips by Och.
What the hell was happening to Drake in the Reformation Room? Although, at least he wasn’t strung up with us. Then why did I miss him?
Drool dribbled from the corners of Angel Titan’s lips, dripping onto his posh collar. He didn’t notice, however, because his gaze had focused on Rebel, who shuddered, even though he couldn’t recoil in his bonds.
“You know the rules I gave you?” Ash’s voice was tight, as he flexed his numb fingers. “Follow them.”
How did Ash know so much about being held by witches? If he’d been at their tender mercy, why didn’t he have the same wagging tail as Blaze and Spark? The ancient powers surged in terrified swells at the thought of losing Ash…that I might still lose him…yet I also had the urge to stroke imaginary fox Ash.
Yeah, I’m screwed-up.
Rebel was as transfixed with the new Addict, as Angel Titan was with Rebel. “General Lamechial, I’m mortified so I am to see you like this, after we fought such a number of battles together. But idiot as I am, you’re after wanting to listen: this is our princess. Queen. She’s—”
Crack — Lamechial backhanded Rebel.
Rebel’s lip split; I retched at the s
ight and scent of his candy blood, transported back to the Bailey and swish — thud of the cat o’nine tails.
“Why do I have a feeling you haven’t won us an ally?” Mischief sighed.
“We’ll help you, General,” Rebel insisted. “We’ll take on these battle-axes and free you. I know what it’s like to think this is how it should be. That fam has to hurt but it doesn’t.”
Slosh — Lamechial banged down the water bucket.
I winced, as water slopped over the edges, and Lamechial slammed the hard ladle against Rebel’s teeth.
Rebel turned his head to the side.
No drinking in a coven: I’d learnt that rule back in the House of Rose, Wolf, and Fox. Rebel had kidnapped me to keep me safe with his adopted family of witches, except one of them had poisoned me and all she’d needed had been a glass of water.
Lamechial narrowed his eyes, before throwing down the ladle and clutching Rebel’s small head between his massive hands.
“Keep your hands to yourself.” I growled. “All heads are nondetachable.”
Rebel whimpered. “The General here’s also known as the Truth-seeker because—”
“Let me guess? He forces you to tell the truth?” Mischief scoffed.
“There’s no more dangerous weapon,” Ash yanked more urgently on his chains. “We’ll be flayed.”
“Sometimes I still think I’m lost in the dark,” Rebel said, before his eyes opened comically large. If he’d been able to slap his hand over his mouth he would’ve done. Instead, the traitorous words continued to slither out, “And that Feathers never saved me because who saves bad angels? I was just mad as a box of frogs and thought she did. So, I’m still there, on Angel World, locked away in the birdhouse prison and I never got out…never…and I dream that because how is any of this more real? How could she love—”
“Stop it,” I hissed. “Just bastard stop this.”
Lamachial raised an eyebrow at me. But he didn’t lift his hands away from Rebel.
“I’ve lost two families, and both times it was my fault; I bleeding miss them.” Rebel’s eyelashes were matted with tears; his mascara ran in thick spider tears down his cheeks, and he couldn’t wipe them away. “But I’d die happy just to be blessed with a moment of my new family’s love, even Drake’s…and he can be a difficult git. I didn’t choose to be Bonded or Marked, but I’ve loved my princess forever and—”
“Love, loss, bored.” Ash gritted out, rattling his chains to drown out Rebel’s agonising confession.
I didn’t miss Rebel’s hurt flinch, but I knew a distraction when I heard one.
Ash had warned that we’d be flayed. Yet it hadn’t only been Rebel. I shook from the power of his words and love.
Honesty Tower: yeah, I got the point now. I wished that I bastard didn’t.
Ash shrank back, as Lamechial stamped over to him, crouching down and offering the water.
Ash straightened his shoulders. “Unless that’s vodka, I’ll pass and get straight down to the agonising interrogation by truth.”
“How about you pick on somebody your own size? OK, much smaller, but let’s take off these cuffs and see if bigger is actually better?” I booted against the wall, but Lamechial ignored me.
Instead, he touched Ash on the temple far more gently than he had Rebel.
“Dirty,” Ash whispered. “Creature. Seducer. Pet 52.” What the hell was that? Yet even as I battled against the spiralling rage and panic, I bastard knew: why Ash was no stranger to the spell casters. “I’m meant to be a soldier; I should be able to take…anything…without breaking. But I’m broken. The Wynter’s pet familiar in training, I lured an apprentice witch into freeing me. Because that’s all I’m good for: seduction. I deserved Lucifer’s punishment to become the army’s whore and my sisters’ deaths… I don’t deserve to touch Violet and desecrate the memory of real love. How could anyone love what I’ve become? Love this—”
“Is there no other truth than love?” Mischief tried for swag, but his face was as wet with tears as my own.
This is why we hid behind secrets, lies, and masks because our truths were our own. Our self-beliefs — not the truth but those we believed — were too raw to be spoken.
Unless some bastard dragged them into the light.
Lamechial held the water up to Mischief’s lips, as his head was turned to the side against the floor; one hand was already pressed to the base of his skull.
“They made me hurt my little brother, Nathanael.” Mischief’s eyes gleamed with tears. “And he had to hurt me. They wished to break our sense of family, until there was nothing but the Legion and obedience. Yet I’m weak, feminine, wrong, and I couldn’t inflict pain like the others, so I learnt instead the trick to take it upon myself. But now the beast who torments me both takes my pain and gives it to me in greater measure than I-I…” Mischief stared at me, his eyes widening. He took panicked breaths through his nostrils as if battling the Truth-Seeker’s Angelic Power. “…Greater measure than…”
Mischief lapped at the water.
I gasped. “Bastard no….”
But it was too late. Lamachial gave a satisfied nod and tipped the ladle.
Mischief swallowed.
Ash roared, rattling and clinking his chains, as Rebel called out to Mischief. But Mischief had already slipped into unconsciousness…not dead, please hell, not dead…on the cold floor.
The world was blurred by my tears, as I hung, helpless. What truth had so terrified Mischief that he’d risked drinking the water? Or had it been me? Was it what he’d reveal about me?
Suddenly, I was shrouded in the winter scent of cranberries. I blinked through the haze, only to recoil from two crimson fingernails, which had shimmered into existence on the end of bony fingers. They poised like snakes about to strike over my eyes.
I froze; my heart thundered.
“Those who don’t recognise the truth, child,” the same simpering voice that had haunted me in the stable murmured into my ear, “are blind.”
The talons twitched forward to poke out my eyes.
15
If I could’ve bleached away the view of Wynter Sister the First slowly pulling down Rebel’s red bondage pants and batting at the silver skull chained to it like it was a kitty toy, whilst Rebel stood trapped on his pedestal, then I would’ve done.
But I wouldn’t have plucked out my eyes. A bitch wasn’t crazy.
Wynter Sister the Second’s talons were still poised over my eyeballs like a threat. My eyes felt dry and itchy; the air stung them, until tears collected in their edges.
I’d never known your eyes could be held to ransom.
I could still summon up, however, the death glare. “Oh look, it’s the Enchantress.”
Wynter Sister the Second’s grey eyes narrowed. There wasn’t a mark on her from Ash’s shot to her guts. With her wavy black hair and porcelain skin, she looked like a china doll that was desperate to star in Chucky. Her sister was a study in opposites: fair hair and sky-blue eyes. Their outfits were identical: crimson lace dresses. Except, the sister who had her claws out was also power dressing in a black wolf fur coat, just as I’d joked to Rahab.
Yeah, maybe I should be the one who was gagged.
They both could’ve been Jade’s age, except if you caught them just right, their masks wavered: they were as powerful as Mischief and as old as Ash.
We were screwed.
Hadn’t Rahab said no one had completed the Mage’s Challenge? How many Mages had he sent here to suffer — die — at the hands of the Wynter sisters?
I glanced at the clothes all around the tower, which were like the soft lining of a coffin. Wynter Sister the First blinked her reptilian eyes, rubbing Rebel’s trousers down her cheek, before folding and adding them to the closest pile on top of his leather jacket.
I drew in my breath. We were buried in the clothes of the transformed familiars and the dead.
And we were next.
Mischief still lay unmoving and silent.
I couldn’t let myself think…that…about him.
Please, hell, let him not be poisoned.
Mischief had to be OK because anything else tore my insides, as the silver stormed in a savage sea, brutal and raging even at the thought.
When had Mischief become so essential to me? His connection wasn’t the same as my one with Rebel, Ash, or even Drake. It ran deeper: a part of me like my new magic.
I didn’t understand it, and as the truth he’d spoken had made clear: neither did he. Yet we needed each other. He didn’t treat me as a queen, but when I didn’t yet know what he was to have such power, I didn’t hate him for that. Instead, I loved him.
Hell, I loved him.
Panting, I clenched my fists. “Before you have your fun with my eyeballs, tell me what was in that water?”
Wynter Sister the Second raised her eyebrow. “The monster loves the mage.” I flushed. “Fear not, child, he only sleeps. The water was a test, and what deliciously agonising truths your slaves spilled. Except for the mage, who hid his secrets because all nasty mages do, you know.”
“They’re not my slaves.”
“Sweets, they are.”
When Wynter Sister the First, who I was starting to think was mute or telepathic because she spoke to her sister only through darting glances, reached for Rebel’s collar, he whined. “By all the saints, if you’re to kill me, at least let me die as—”
“A bad angel?” Wynter Sister the Second smiled at me, as if I was in on the joke; I scowled back. “Elinor, leave the collar. Even runaways can be saved. Let no one say Sibyl Wynter can’t break an Addict of his wickedness. Even Lamechial’s a good boy now, and he was such a challenge. If our new acquisition misbehaves, we’ll replace his collar with our own.”
I knew I hated spell lobbers.
How did they know Rebel…? Had he been unlucky enough to be saved by them, when he’d been a captive himself of his own adopted witch family?
Elinor sniffed Rebel’s neck in long, jerky snorts, before licking around his collar. Rebel screwed closed his eyes, shuddering.
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