“We can stand here and debate this until the ceiling falls down on us, or we can run and argue once we’re out of here. It’s your choice, Belmarina,” Sasha interrupted. I opted to stay quiet, figuring that would be our best bet to get the witch to comply. Her brown eyes settled on me with thinly veiled hatred.
“For my pup,” she said eventually. “Once we’re out of here, all bets are off.”
She looked at the younger witch who couldn't have been much older than sixteen. The girl’s eyes changed from burnt orange to steel gray as Belmarina nodded once.
“Ruth and Sienna in the front. Belmarina in front of Piper—”
“I will not—”
“You will, because I say you will,” Sasha snapped. “We don’t have time for this. Rafi can walk behind Piper, and I’ll go behind him. We’re all stuck here, and she’s just a human without her guns. Are you really that scared of a human?”
Sasha knew for a fact I was not human. But she and Sienna also accepted the one universal truth.
Knowledge is power.
There was no reason for this witch to know. It’s not like I’d use my power. Not unless I was left without a choice. Better to let her think I was harmless because time was ticking. I knew from experience Ronan might be patient, but not by much where I was concerned.
“Fine,” the witch said in an exasperated voice. “But if she—”
A crack appeared in the ceiling that cut her off. Seeming to finally understand the importance of what Sasha had been trying to say the whole time, we got in a line and started down another dark and dusty corridor. Sand leaked through larger cracks the further we went, creating a cloud that was hard to breathe in or see through. Every door we came across, though, either Sienna or Ruth seemed to be able to handle.
I could tell we were getting further away from the pit when the dust died down and the cracks became fewer. The trembling was less violent, making me wonder what the hell was going on above us, but I wouldn’t let my curiosity stop me from saving Nat. She was the one that needed me now. Not Ronan.
We stopped at the end of a hall. I peered over Belmarina’s shoulder to see Ruth muttering under her breath. Whatever spell she was trying wasn’t working.
“What’s the hold up?” Sasha demanded from the back.
“Door won’t open,” Sienna replied.
I listened to Ruth command it to unlock, to open, to break.
Seconds ticked by. Sound pricked my ears as footsteps thundered through the hallways, still far off, but moving closer. Behind me, Rafi stiffened. He heard it too.
“They know we’re missing and that we took her,” he said.
“I can’t get it,” Ruth exhaled in a growl. Frustration and desperation leaked into her voice. “The spell isn’t responding. I can’t tell if it’s not reaching the locking mechanism, or if I’m just not strong enough.”
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek.
Those footsteps drew closer.
“Keep trying. It’s gotta work,” Belmarina started in a low tone meant to be encouraging, if not for the pressure behind it.
“It’s not going to work,” I said quietly. “You’re attacking the lock, not the spell. They’re banking on that. You need to unravel the secondary spell acting as a barrier, then go after the lock.”
They all went quiet. Ruth turned back to look at me over her shoulder, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion.
“You’re not a witch,” Belmarina said, rounding on me. “How dare you—”
“How do you think I took so many witches out in so little time? I studied your kind. Your magic. I learned about you. And then I used that knowledge against you. The pits are meant to keep supes in. If the locking mech won’t open, odds are they used a secondary spell just to bide time for their guards to get here if someone tried. If witches are the only ones that can open this, then whoever set this up relied on your general weaknesses to counteract witches wanting to get out. You’re slower than the other species. Your bodies are as human and breakable as mine. There’s probably a backup mechanism set to explode, or somehow slow us after the door opens to account for that as well. I know because it’s what I would do if I were designing a prison for your kind.”
Her jaw fell ajar, but before she could recover, Ruth’s voice piped up. “She’s right. I got it.”
The lock clicked, but instead of flinging the door open, Sienna put a hand on Ruth’s shoulder. “We should send Rafi through first, just in case.”
I shuffled to the side, pressing against the wall to let the hulking man slip past me in the tight corridors. Ruth and Sienna backed up a few feet as he opened the door.
And then, in the most predictable way that would have been satisfying were I not trying to escape with them—all hell broke loose.
A siren alarm sent Rafi to his knees. I would have been right behind him if not for the gas that seemed to come out of the very walls. My muscles slowed, and bright flashing lights blinded me. I lost my bearings and direction as my senses were overwhelmed.
My skin prickled as a cold breeze brushed against it painfully.
The combined reactions made black spots appear in my vision. It was only just starting to clear, and my senses coming back to me, when I registered it was not the cold, hard concrete beneath my feet anymore.
It was sand.
I was in the pit. Again.
19
Ronan
I stepped into the Underworld and it trembled.
My rage was barely contained. Only thousands of years of hard-won control kept me from unleashing it all on the very city I intended to conquer.
There was a time in my first millennia or two that I would have let my power rule me, but that time was gone, and the Harvester before me ensured it would never happen again—except under one condition.
The death of my atma.
I wouldn’t let that happen.
Power coiled between my fingertips. I closed my hands into fists, and the buildings bowed. Boards threatened to snap, concrete shook, small fissures forming as it threatened to crack and crumble.
Everything in me pulled taut, but I held it there at the edge of darkness. Of death.
I wasn’t here to punish the city. I was here for Piper—but the witches needed to know they’d made a grave mistake in going after her. One that would cost them—once I could find them.
The second blood exchange deepened my connection to Piper, but it didn’t finish it. While I could sense her nearby and drawing closer, I couldn’t pinpoint where. Not without her using her own power as a beacon. Something she wouldn’t do when the price she paid afterward was time.
And time was the one thing neither of us had.
“Well, well, what brings you here, Harvester?”
I stopped when a being close to chaos—but not quite there—walked out of the shadows before me. Her light brown eyes were as wicked as the serpentine tongue she used.
“Where is my atma?” I spoke quietly, barely containing a power that would crush most beings.
She smiled, unsurprised. “Atma . . . tell me, how does one of your kind bond to a mere human?”
The female wanted to play games with me. I stepped through the void, appearing in front of her, then grasped her neck in my fist.
Red bloomed in her cheeks, but she didn’t stop smiling. The smooth skin against my fingers melted into shadow and mist.
She disappeared.
No . . . my eyes tracked the black cloud that sunk through the ground beneath me. She didn’t disappear, she simply changed form. That was not a witch ability, but she was not a shapeshifter. The taste of her magic was . . . tainted. Raw yet rotten. Strong but brittle. It was a cumulation of flavors that blended into something monstrous.
The sort of beast I hunted through the eons.
But she was not of my world.
Entering the void, I traced that unusual magic. When a flicker of pure rage hit me, followed by the scent of smoke and roses, I entered the physical realm.
The
n stopped in my tracks.
I’d seen the pits in memories I’d stolen from several witches and warlocks when I’d come to Earth, but I’d never seen the way they were now. Filled to the brim with supernaturals, and utterly silent.
Instead of the cheers I’d expected, it was the ghostly quiet that made me realize there was something more going on.
The fact that Piper stood in the very center, lips parted and fists clenched, said even more.
“I do enjoy a good choking every now and then, but I wouldn’t try that again,” the woman—the creature—said, standing behind Piper, cupping her neck. My hunter’s eyes flashed a shade violet as she shrugged her off and gave the woman in the dress a look of pure loathing. I lifted one hand and extended it to her, the other I lifted to put an end to the nonsense. “I’ve spelled her blood to turn to acid if any harm comes to me.”
My atma had just started to lift her hand, hesitance and the smallest amount of trust warring within her, when she also stopped short.
Her breath caught.
“It was you.” Piper rounded on the other woman. “You had the man in the alley tail me. You spelled his blood to turn to acid.”
“Pity I did. Damien was pretty, and the best at his job. Both of them.” She grinned salaciously, and Piper’s face morphed in disgust.
“Why? What is the purpose in killing me?”
“You assume we meant to kill you,” the other woman replied. “Though your name sets a precedence, it may come as a shock to you that as a human, your greatest use is bait.”
Both their eyes shifted to me at the same moment.
20
Shit.
I brought my hands together in a slow clap. A callous laugh slid from my lips. “The riverboat was never about me either.”
The Morrigan narrowed her eyes quizzically, but answered, “No. I was testing the demon.”
“And the guy in the alley, Damien, you said—that was for Nat, wasn’t it? But when that failed, you went to your backup plan. Barry.”
She tilted her head, watching me closely. “You’re bright. It’s a pity you were born a human. You would have made a good witch.”
Then she snapped her fingers. A gate rose behind Ronan. His dark gaze drilled into me. Four warlocks came forward. Two were holding a set of heavy chains. Dread thickened in my gut. My fingers itched to reach for my guns, but they weren’t there, and a handful of glass and sand wouldn’t work a second time.
“Answer me this, creature. Why go through the trouble of protecting yourself from my wrath when I could simply take my atma and leave?” Ronan asked. His eyes didn’t leave me, though his question was clearly directed at Morgan Le Fay. Judging by the clench of her jaw, she didn’t care for that much.
Her hand twisted, and a knife appeared in it.
“Because you’re not going anywhere,” she said. The knife pressed into the heel of her palm, and I lurched. My blood quickened. My heart pounded. “Not if you want her to survive, that is.”
“Son of a bitch,” I growled under my breath.
I clenched my hands into fists and stayed on my feet through sheer force of will.
“Stop,” he commanded, and Morgan Le Fay hesitated. Her light brown eyes darkened.
“Chain him,” she told the warlocks. They wearily moved closer to Ronan. “He won’t stop you, will you, Harvester? If you hurt them, I’ll cut deeper, and then we’ll really see what the human is made of.” Her grin was malicious, but sure.
She had him, and we all knew it.
Ronan took a deep breath, and then extended his hands. They clapped large manacles over his wrists, muttering a binding spell to seal. Then they knelt around him and secured the other end of the chains around his ankles. His dark jeans bunched around the metal. The brands on his bare chest pulsed.
Dark magic and devastation poured from him, gravitating toward me. I felt heat and flame against my skin. My arms pebbled from a mere look. This bond, this intimacy, it was too intense. Too coarse. Like sandpaper brushing over skin.
It had been that way with us since the very beginning.
But when Morgan Le Fay spoke again, that connection flatlined.
That darkness I felt in him dissipated.
That invisible tether that pulled me toward him snapped.
Ronan frowned, then blinked. His lips parted right before he fell to his knees.
“No.” It might have been a command as well, were it not for the deep anguish put into those two letters. “No.”
“Oh yes,” Morgan said. She twisted her hand again, and the blade disappeared. “You see, Harvester, after we took your brother, we knew it would only be a matter of time before you took his place, and from the things he told me . . . well, I couldn’t run that risk. We’ve been held back for hundreds of years under the control of others. But now . . .” She looked at me and smiled. Then, in the most unexpected turn of events, she cupped my cheek. “Now with the help of a human, the Piper Fallon, no less, we’re taking this world back—starting with New Chicago.”
I yanked my face away, and she switched her grip, twisting it to grasp my jaw and hold it into place. “I still don’t know what’s so special about you, but I very much look forward to finding out.”
Her smile was cold and calculated. I didn’t know what she had planned, but I knew it wasn’t good.
“Now, send her back to her cell—”
“You think my brother was bad?” Ronan interrupted her. “When I get out of these chains, you will wish for death.” His voice was gravel and thunder. The black brands pulsed, seemingly alive with power. But the pit did not tremble. The Underworld did not bow. And Morgan Le Fay did not cower.
She laughed softly, her hair falling forward to block out her features.
The sound was melodious, almost childlike in a way. She lifted a hand outward, and a short sword appeared in it. My heart skipped a beat, making my chest constrict painfully.
The Morrigan was hundreds of years old, but you’d never know it with the way she strode forward and swung without hesitance.
Ronan grunted.
A trail of scarlet appeared on his chest.
Not deep, but still painful all the same.
When Morgan Le Fay dropped the sword, I frowned and stepped forward.
“Restrain her,” she commanded. Two of the warlocks moved onto either side of me as she knelt in front of Ronan. Her dress sprawled in the sand, and she tucked her bare feet under her body as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to that angry red line.
I gasped as spots appeared in my vision, and it was only the two men who’d suddenly grabbed my arms that kept me restrained.
My blood hummed.
My pulse raced.
Faster.
Faster.
Fas—
“Get your hands off my atma,” Ronan said quietly. Most alphas would have roared that command. Any male fated mate or bonded partner would be falling into their own frenzy. I knew because I’d used it against the supernatural kind more times than I could count. But Ronan didn’t. And somehow, his calm, even voice that promised death was enough to anchor me.
I blinked and took a shaky breath.
“I wouldn’t give commands if I were you,” Morgan said, lifting her head from his chest. “These chains were my own design. I created them to hold demons. While I can’t drain your power without a siphoning spell—or rid you of it entirely—I can confine it. Anger me. Threaten me. Disobey me—and next time, your atma will pay the price. She’s only human. How many cuts will it take before her blood runs out? How many spells can her mind handle before it breaks?” She asked these questions, and Ronan’s fangs lengthened, cutting into his own bottom lip. His silver eyes glowed with power. “Very good. I like you quiet. We’re going to have so much fun.” She lowered her head once more, licking his chest like a dog lapping at water.
Fury rose in me. Anger I couldn’t control. It was different than the guilt or resentment that had plagued me for over a decade. Not more,
but not less either.
Something inside me gnashed its teeth and extended its fangs at the sight of her hands on him. Fire rose when her tongue darted out, trailing his skin.
I clenched my hands into fists, only vaguely registering the warm wetness that smeared across my palms as my fingernails pricked them.
He wasn’t mine. The magic was the cause. These feelings were a lie.
And yet. And yet. And yet—
“You do realize that too much of my blood will kill you,” Ronan said, risking her ire. I wondered if he knew his voice was the only thing grounding me. I wondered if he felt my magic rising, despite his being confined. “Only soul-bonded demons can withstand more than a couple of drops.”
“Your concern is appreciated, Harvester,” Morgan said, leaning away. “But I am no ordinary witch. Your atma is safe. For now. But question me again, and she won’t be.” She licked her lips, then used her fingers to gather the excess from around her mouth and licked that too.
It disgusted me.
It angered me.
It . . . confused me.
Because the bond had flatlined. I could no longer sense him the same. And yet . . . I was jealous.
That realization stopped me cold. I quit fighting and focused on my breathing.
Later, I could think about what it meant. Alone, I could ponder my own feelings. But right now, I had bigger problems. Namely keeping the most dangerous witch to have ever existed from learning that I wasn’t actually human, but a demon made.
Easier said than done when I had to save Nat from her own family.
I wasn’t sure when my priorities had changed. When I’d changed.
But what I did know was that Ronan was right that night on the pier.
I was changing because of Nat—and despite knowing it, I wasn’t going to stop.
For once in my life I had someone that had my back, and now it was time for me to repay the favor.
Not that I would tell her that when I got her out.
I liked keeping her on her toes.
“If you’re done with me, I’d like to be sent back to my cell now.”
Haunted by Shadows: Magic Wars: Demons of New Chicago Book Two Page 13