“If you don’t mind, trying to die in peace here,” I muttered, pulling the blankets up over my head to hide the tears.
“It’s my room, witch,” he sneered.
“Then please, send me anywhere else. Fuck, tie me to a fucking tree, and set the bitch on fire if it gets you off. I’ve had the pleasure of being burned at the stake twice already, and I think I prefer the bite of flames to your company anyway,” I chuckled. “And for your information, the King of England loved my tits. He even offered to remove his queen’s head if I let him taste them once. The Bastard King of Scotland also begged to taste my flesh, but I refused him, a pity that, since he has the longest tongue of all the kings I served. I wish I could have ridden his face just once and felt it, though I may not have ever gotten off on his mouth.”
“You were alive when the Bastard King of Scotland lived?” Moira asked in a shocked tone.
“A downside of being cursed to live forever, I’m afraid,” I said harshly from where I hid beneath the covers. “I may be tiny, but I assure you, I am made to endure even the worst brutes that walk this earth, current company included. So is there a tree available? Preferably not one your dog has pissed on since piss makes the fire smell worse as it burns the flesh.”
“No one is burning you at the stake, witch,” he snapped.
“Damn, can’t say I didn’t try.” I closed my eyes as the door opened and closed, and I exhaled in relief until he ripped the blankets from the bed. I refused to look at him or see the disinterest burning in his gaze from my less than desirable assets. “Can I help you, puppy?” I asked, staring at the wall.
“I told you I would need to replace my scent, and since the entire male population can smell your pussy dripping with the need to be fucked, I will,” he snapped.
“Jack off in a jar and bring it to me, wouldn’t want my tiny cunt to disappoint you, now would we?” I laughed silently.
Braydon yanked my feet without warning. He held my legs apart while he began crawling up the bed to settle between them. I watched him through angry eyes as my annoyance rose, and anger pulsed through me. He started working his pants, unbuttoning them. I kicked him in the face without warning, turning to move back up the bed as he howled in anger.
“Fucking hell, Laura, stop!” he snarled, grabbing me again, catching my leg with his hand as the other touched his face. I sat up, punching him with everything I had left in me as he took it, smiling coldly through the blood that pooled from his broken nose. I scrambled backward, but he caught my leg again, tightening his grip on it until I cried out in pain. “You want it rough, little girl, I can be rough,” he promised with a voice that wasn’t all his.
He threw me onto my stomach, slamming down on top of me, knocking the wind from my lungs as he held me there. His teeth sank into my shoulder, and I screamed out as pain ripped through me. His hand gripped my hair, baring my neck, which he savaged next. A sob exploded from my chest as he nudged my legs apart and began rubbing his cock through the slit of flesh. I spun around, sinking my nails into his shoulder as I tried to cross my legs. Pounding started on the locked door, but he ignored it, backhanding me to stop my assault. Stars erupted in my vision as I lay there, waiting for him to rape me. More pounding started before the door burst open, and men flooded the room along with Moira.
“Jesus, Braydon!” she hissed as she took in the damage to each of us.
“She started it,” he warned. “This isn’t your fucking business, woman.”
“You would rape her?” she asked, and he turned to stare down at me, finding me trembling, bloodied, and naked with him poised to enter my body. “You are the alpha of this pack, and you lead it by example. Do not do this; look at her! Look at her, Braydon. She is bleeding and terrified. Who is the one forcing who now?” she snapped without fear.
“Get out,” he warned. “Get out!” he shouted, and she held firm even as the men with her did as he said. “I will not rape her, get out.”
My eyes closed in relief or swelling, whichever one it was didn’t matter. My body trembled uncontrollably as he watched it. My body ached from his assault, as his no doubt did from mine. I remained unmoving as Moira left the room, closing the broken door in her wake.
“If you attack me, witch, I will retaliate in the same manner,” he warned. “I am the alpha, and my wolf considers your fighting foreplay. Do not do it again.”
I remained silent as blood threatened to choke off my airway. When he moved back and released me, I turned to spit it from my mouth. My scalp ached from where he’d torn my hair out; he gasped as he took in the damage to my neck and shoulder and swore violently. The pressure of the bed eased as he left it, only for the door to open and close, and then do so again.
Cold hands touched me. I shivered violently as Moira spoke. “You can’t fight him; his wolf won’t let him allow it. He is the alpha here, and cannot appear weak.” She requested items from someone else in the room and then examined the damage to the back of my neck. “These bites are deep,” she continued, even though I didn’t respond. “The moss will prevent them from bleeding if you leave it on. Your face, though, that will bruise badly. Is there anything you need, Laura?”
“To escape him and this place,” I whispered. “I have to get out of here. Hope has to get out of here before the madness overcomes him. You think this is bad, wait until his berserker comes out to play. It doesn’t tire, doesn’t feed, and doesn’t stop taking what it wants. The last time we triggered the curse was the worst one. Braydon’s berserker took me for a fortnight straight, never stopping to see what he’d done to me. It broke me, made me bleed, and I almost died before I finally killed it. If it comes again, no one here will be safe from it. If I am gone, he will follow me when the madness overcomes him. You say you care about your people, then free me to escape their home so that when the curse is triggered, they’re spared his wrath.”
“No one here will aid you in escaping him,” she clucked her tongue. I heard his snort from the other room and closed my eyes. “He is kind and just as alpha of this pack. He doesn’t lose his temper, not until you came here.”
“I didn’t come here. He brought me here. I don’t want him, and I sure as hell don’t want to be here. I am the Queen of the Witches of the North, Moira. I rule a coven of both dark and light magic witches, combined with the strength of the King of the Vampires of the Inland Northwest. Do you honestly think they will sit around and do nothing while his only child and I are missing?”
“No, but I also don’t think you understand where you are, either. We use magic to protect this village by placing confusion spells to prevent it from being found. Now turn over and stop threatening me so I can prevent your flesh from scarring too horribly.”
“You think anything you do can scar my flesh?” I laughed emotionlessly. “I have been burned at the stake twice until my flesh melted from my bones, drowned nine times by priests for my supposed wickedness, and then stoned to death at their hands because I found their efforts cute. I have counseled kings and queens alike who betrayed me and watched kingdoms rise and fall to the whim of churches who took my head three times beside the queens I counseled. I have been beaten, abused, and cursed by my mother for betraying my coven and my order to assassinate that monster in the other room. I ripped her fucking heart out and cursed her to drown in the River Styx for eternity. Do you think I care about myself? I assure you, I do not. I will, however, raze your entire fucking pack to the ground if they harm one hair on that child’s head. In all my time alive, I have never broken a vow. I vowed to protect Avery’s daughter at all costs, and I made that vow to the only woman I have ever liked. So you with your faked kindness can get the fuck away from me.” I sat up, uncaring that blood ran down my body from Braydon’s bites.
He entered the room, observing me.
“There is nothing that can kill me but him. Trust me, I’ve tried it a ti
me or two,” I whispered harshly. “You must get creative if you plan to murder me, woman.”
“But I can, and I bit you, Laura. You’re bleeding out, and if you’re dead, I have no use for Avery’s daughter, now do I?” he uttered, watching as realization slammed into me.
I laughed until it sounded almost hysterical. He’d fucking done it. He’d savaged me until my life hung in the balance. He watched me as Moira backed up.
“Well, look at you, finally growing a nut sack. Good for you, puppy,” I snorted before more laughter took hold of me while blood soaked the bed. “Finally,” I wheezed while tears slipped from my eyes to slowly race down my cheeks. He watched me through narrowed eyes while I held his heavy stare. “About time you finished this.”
“She’s positively mad,” she whispered in a horrified tone.
“Ready the moss,” he snapped, moving toward me. “If you fight me, you will die. If you die, I will snap that girl’s neck and leave her corpse to feed the wildlife so that her parents never get closure and never know what happened to either of you. Do you understand me, Laura? Avery will never find either of you and will spend the rest of her life searching for you.”
“Or you can free her, and let me die and end this,” I breathed. “Let me go, and just end this for us both. All you have to do is walk out that door and let this happen.”
“And allow you to make me into the monster you are? No, thank you. You will survive this, and I will find another way to end the curse that doesn’t include ending your life,” he said, slowly moving toward me. I flinched when he got too close, recoiling as if his presence alone was an assault. “I won’t hurt you.”
“No?” I laughed as my nose bled, dripping down my naked chest. “You always hurt me. It is part of the curse. Eventually, you will destroy me. You won’t be a monster if you end my life, not really. Let me die, Braydon. Just let me go so I can know peace.”
“Not happening,” he hissed, sitting behind me, carefully pulling my naked form against his. “Use the moss, Moira. Secure it to her bites, and then bring the salve for her face and legs,” he ordered.
His hand turned my head, baring my neck for her to secure the moss to the bite. They forced tonics down my throat as more and more people entered the room until consciousness escaped me, and darkness took hold.
“You will not die here, I promise you that, littlest witch,” he uttered as I gave in to the darkness that beckoned me to it.
Chapter 8
An entire week passed without seeing Braydon since the fight. He didn’t come to check on me, and I didn’t ask for him. Moira came and went in silence, never speaking to me after I’d threatened the life of her pack. I didn’t eat the food she brought and didn’t drink the tonic which she placed by the bed every night, to escape the nightmares that haunted me.
I was rudely informed about just how much I stunk by the healer. She’d forced me to bathe and applied lavender to the bath to make me stink less like rotting flesh, according to her. Her beady brown eyes studied me, and yet the bites hadn’t healed on my shoulder or my neck. Either no one had realized that they were the bite of an alpha claiming his mate before now, or they were choosing to keep that knowledge to themselves. However, the ancient crone of a healer hissed as she revealed the wound, clucking her tongue at the damage.
“So, this is why you summoned me? To look at the alpha’s claiming mark? She is claimed and dying because he left her.”
“It’s not a mating mark, he just bit her because they were fighting,” Moira countered. “It isn’t! That is not allowed to happen. It’s barbaric and can end in the death of the female wolf. My father abolished that practice when he only sired daughters. Braydon wouldn’t mark her; he intends to be my mate, eventually.”
“He didn’t mark her, child. His wolf claimed her as its mate. Braydon wouldn’t have control over it any more than she would. The wolf can sense what the human doesn’t, and I assure you, this is its mark. That is why it isn’t healing. He may have claimed her, but he didn’t finish biblically claiming her, which means she is not long for this earth. If he doesn’t finish it, she will die. That mark is a poison if he abandons her without finishing the mating ritual.”
“You’re saying she has to fuck him?” she snarled.
“Or you can watch her die. I suggest you notify him of the mark he placed on her and see how he wants to proceed.”
“He doesn’t want her dead,” Moira argued, more to herself than to the healer.
I exhaled slowly, closing my eyes. “Make sure Hope gets freed because the moment magic is restored, no confusion backwater magic spell will protect you from Conner Halverson and Avery Cheveron. You will run for the rest of your lives as they hunt you down one by one until not one wolf remains of your pack. That’s not a threat; it’s a fact. Now get out,” I hissed weakly as I rested my head against the pillow to sleep.
“She doesn’t have long,” the healer said, ignoring me.
“Braydon released his wolf to run off steam.”
“I suggest you tell the boys to go fetch the alpha. She will be dead before the sun rises in the morning without him. Her immortality has prolonged the inevitable, but she isn’t healing, nor will she unless he finishes claiming her. His venom has been slowly killing her, and it’s reached the end of its cycle.”
“I’ll send them, but if she dies, it won’t be the worst thing, would it?” she whispered.
“You think she lies? Even now, creatures are scouring the bayou for her and that girl. She’s hexed to be neutered magically, but eventually, that will end. Every hex has an out, just as every curse has a cure. Once she triggers it, she will be powerful. I’ve heard of her before, as have the other witches in the bayou. She isn’t some weak witch to be messed with, Moira. She’s a Cheveron witch, born of the blood of Hecate herself. You might as well have walked in and slapped Lucifer in the face and tried to get away with it without consequences. Right now, her friend, as she calls her, who is also a Cheveron witch, is out there searching for the other fucking Cheveron witch we hold. He brought in some of the most powerful witches, and while we hold the cards now, we won’t for long. Pray she does not die, for if she does, I doubt Avery would go away quietly into the night. If he hadn’t bitten her, I’d free her and that girl myself to protect this pack.”
“I’ll tell the boys to find him immediately. Keep her alive until he returns. We can worry about the others later.”
It was hours before I awoke again after listening to the healer inform Moira of just how screwed they were when something caught my attention. My eyes opened as a groan slipped past my lips. Death by wolf-bite sucked ass. Blue eyes glowed from the shadows of the room, and I paused, staring into them as a wolf slowly stepped into the candlelight. It was huge, immensely larger than the one that had guarded the door, or walked us to this place upon being captured.
I moaned as I moved back, trying to put distance between us as it slowly crept forward with its head lowered as if it hunted me.
“Good doggy, don’t eat me, please,” I whispered the barely audible words, unable to make myself speak louder. Whatever they’d put in the tonics they’d forced me to drink had me seeing double and worse, I was pretty sure I was drugged. The wolf looked familiar, and yet I couldn’t place him while high on their tonics. Not that it really mattered since I was dying, and the thought of it terrified me. Facing mortality wasn’t something I’d ever had to worry about, not until now. Thinking or saying death could happen was one thing; knowing it was coming, well, it was terrifying. “Oh, this is really going to suck,” I croaked as I felt the bed at my back, and the moss dropped from my shoulder, exposing the raw flesh that had spider-webbed where the poison had spread.
The wolf jumped onto the bed, and I yelped as my hands bunched into the blankets and I closed my eyes, praying to whatever God would hear me as it bared its teeth and sniffed the mar
k.
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; they will be done…” I paused as the wolf licked my shoulder, pulling me from the prayer to the current situation. I didn’t care which God heard or protected me and was covering all my bases. “I’m not good to eat, I promise. I’m boney and too thin. I probably taste like the wicked witch, and I don’t care what anyone says, witches do not taste like chicken. Please don’t eat me, be a good wolf, and go find someone else to eat, please?” I whispered. “On earth as it is in heaven. Lead me not into temptations yadda, yadda, yadda, or however this thing goes, and I’ll bake you some bread…” My head tilted with the wrongness of the words. I hadn’t said a prayer since the early 1300s, and it was showing because I was pretty sure Jesus didn’t want me to bake him anything. “I invoke thee and call upon you, Hecate. Mother of us all, hear my prayer, and hear my call. Take my soul from this wretchedness; feed my magic back into the well of my bloodline and protect them through the hardest times; of this, I request of thee. I call upon thee to bring me home. Hear my prayer, hear my call, take me past the pain and wrath, and take me where my soul can rest, I invoke thee. Okay, doggie, let’s do this.”
I opened my eyes, staring into ice-blue glaciers that studied me. The wolf licked my shoulder again, and I nodded to it. My vision blurred as everything seemed to spin around me, which indicated I was seconds away from passing out and being spared feeling the painful bite of his strong jaws.
“Go ahead, but for the record, going out as puppy chow is an all-time low way to die, even for me, puppy,” I uttered as I prepared to cross the veil and face whatever awaited me there. I wouldn’t give this beast the satisfaction of me closing my eyes as it devoured me, either. I’d face it and its razor-sharp teeth head-on with what little strength I had left. “Are you sure you’re not a hellhound that Hades sent up to help me? He owes me a favor. I gave him an eternal source of power when I cursed my mother to drown in his river.” The wolf stared at me, and I could have sworn it was smiling at my words. “Well, get on with it. It’s impolite to keep a woman waiting, beast.”
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