Feral Heart: A Witch Hospital Romance (The Witches of White Willow Book 2)

by Angela Addams

  Bas glared at her, noted Duke’s clenched jaw, then shifted his gaze away. “Yeah, well, if I had known she was a human…” What, what would happen if he’d known? Would he have felt less lust toward her? Would he have rejected her? Hard to believe when his heart felt like it was just run through a blender. “She has a grimoire. Didn’t you say that some home made love spells could actually work?”

  Hazel snorted. “Figures that’s the thing you remember.” She drank down the rest of her tea. “It’s possible I guess, like a curse. But I doubt it.”

  “Because there has to be something there to begin with? Fine, what if there was? What if I wanted her? Lust, you know? Could a love spell take advantage of that?” Had to be what was going on. No way he’d fall for a human witch, not when the last time he meddled with one his mother died. Besides, Mina as much as admitted that she’d cast on him.

  Sometimes spells do funny things and what you really want…it manifests.

  “There’s a way to tell,” Tate said. “It’s not exactly pleasant but if you want to know for sure—”

  “Do it.” Bas snapped his eyes to Tate.

  “O-o-o-okay.” Tate put his plate down and rubbed his hands together. “But you’re going to have to let me in your head.”

  “Whoa, wait!” Bas held his hand up. “You learn some kind of psycho bullshit spell?”

  “It’s not bullshit.” Tate huffed. “It’s grounded in sound Healer theory.”

  Hazel laughed. “I’m out of here. I have another shift in a few hours.”

  Duke finished eating. “I’m going to clean up in here. Why don’t you guys do your psycho bullshit in the den where it’s quiet.”

  Hazel laughed again, kissed Duke briefly then left the kitchen.

  “Forget it,” Bas said, getting up from his stool.

  “Yeah, I get it. I’d be scared, too, if I thought I was cursed.” Tate gave him a sympathetic nod.

  “I’m not scared!” Bas growled.

  “It’s okay, Bas, nothing to be ashamed about. Hey, you want some help cleaning up, Duke?”

  “Fine, Tate, whatever, let’s do this.” Bas stormed out of the kitchen and went straight into the den.

  Tate trailed after him. “Don’t feel like you have to—”

  “Just do it, Tate,” Bas snapped.

  “Okay, lay down on the couch. Get comfortable.” Tate motioned to the plush leather couch against the wall. “You want a blanket? You cold?”

  “I don’t want a fucking blanket!” Bas thumped onto the couch, his head on the soft arm.

  “Sheesh, no need to get cranky.” Tate hovered over him. “I need you to close your eyes, take some deep breaths and try to relax.” Tate put his hands on either side of Bas’s head. “You’re going to feel some pressure. I need you to stay relaxed. Don’t fight me while I’m in there. Anything that I see, you have to know, I will never tell another person. I’m bound to secrecy.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Bas knew the logistics of working the psych ward. Any treatment and conversation was protected by a silencing spell. Anyone working there would be physically unable to gossip about what they saw or heard unless it was for the purposes of healing.

  Bas closed his eyes, took some deep breaths and tried to let his muscles relax.

  He felt Tate enter his mind like a pop of a balloon. It was jarring and not pleasant to feel someone not only invade your brain but take a stroll through your thoughts. Tate poked and prodded, pulled at places, and peeked behind closed doors. When he finally pulled out, it seemed like hours had passed.

  Tate slumped down on the ottoman next to Bas. “Whoa!” His cheeks were scarlet. “You’ve had some interesting experiences…I’m in awe.”

  Bas smirked. “That’s what you get for snooping.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t snooping. I was looking for any trace of a love curse in there.”

  “And?”

  “There’s isn’t one.”

  Bas grit his teeth. “Fuck.”

  “No sign of a love curse, or any kind of curse actually. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s real.”

  Double fuck.

  Bas sat up and rubbed his hand over his face, feeling exhausted.

  “So what happened down there?” Tate shrugged. “I didn’t explore the memories after I saw…um…a few things I’d rather unsee.”

  Bas let out a long breath. “Bridget told me that I can come back to the internship and Mina flipped the fuck out.” Because she needs your help, asshole. “I wasn’t planning on ditching her right away. I was willing to help her get things ready for the Saviors.”

  “Wait…there’s Saviors coming? For real?” Tate’s eyes were wide.

  Bas cocked an eyebrow. “Focus, Tate.”

  Tate waved his hand. “Right, we’ll talk about the Saviors later.” He shook his head. “Saviors though. Man, that’s cool!”

  “Anyway, she overheard my conversation with Bridget and didn’t give me a chance to explain and just assumed I was leaving her.” Also, he’d said he loved her…but not the right way. He’d blurted it like it was nothing. Like she didn’t fill his heart with hope and fulfill the missing parts of him that he hadn’t realized were gone.

  What kind of asshole fell in love over a few weeks anyway? Couldn’t be real, right? Had to be a curse or a love spell, right?

  Apparently not.

  “She overheard you talking to your ex-lover, and you have to assume she knows about you and Healer Rose since everyone seems to know what was going on with you guys. And she overheard you say you were leaving the Dungeon to resume your internship? You don’t see how that could make a woman crazy mad?”

  Bas’s stomach clenched. “Yeah well, she lied to me.”

  “Because she’s half-human?” Tate clucked his tongue. “I don’t blame her. You’re such a raging bigot when it comes to humans.”

  “Hey!”

  “It’s true and you know it. If something happened between you guys, maybe she didn’t mean for it to either, but it did. Maybe she got caught up in her feelings for you as well and let it go and then got too far in and couldn’t tell you the truth because she was scared how you’d react.”

  Tate was actually making sense.

  “Why would she put herself out there and take a risk? You’d have to have balls of steel to admit you’re the very thing your lover loathes.”

  Mina was tough and she was brave, but yeah, no one would risk rejection like that over something so sensitive.

  “And given her family history, being disowned by your entire extended family, well, she probably has felt the loneliness of that her whole life. And worse, she probably has always felt like she didn’t fit in anywhere. Not a pure witch but too powerful to pass as a human? Could you imagine what that would be like?”

  Bas looked at Tate with a new lens. He was for sure the longest, most prolific visitor of the friend zone with any woman, Bas was sure, but the guy had some insight that Bas hadn’t considered.

  “You know her mom died, right?”

  “Of course!” Bas scoffed. “She’d mentioned it.”

  “Well, did you know that her father’s family, the pure witches, wouldn’t help her? No money, and they’re rich as all get out. No offer of support.”

  “How do you know this?” Bas felt sick over that. Her parents had been outcast and then in a time of need, shunned again, despite terminal illness.

  “She’s a unique witch, Bas. I remember my parents talking about her. They reached out I think but it was too late by that point.” He shrugged. “Another reason for her not to share her heritage, I guess. Pure witches are sometimes the worst of our species.”

  Bas’s chest felt tight. “She could have told me.”

  “Really? Could she have? You ever let her see a side of you that wasn’t anti-human?”

  No. Fuck.

  She’d lost her mother as well. A shared connection that wasn’t lost on Bas. While his mother had been murdered by humans, Mina’s had been neglected by pure witches, fam
ily even. So maybe it wasn’t the genetic makeup of the witch that mattered but actually the person inside.

  “I messed up.” Fuck, he could have handled things so much better and it wasn’t just because he didn’t know this stuff… He should have been more considerate anyway because fuck, he did love her, human or not.

  “Well, if you underestimated her feelings for you and then told her you were leaving to work with your ex…”

  “I should go back. She’s had some time to cool off.” He could explain things. Apologize. Hope to hell that it wasn’t too late. If it were him, he’d shut her out forever. Good thing she was nothing like him.

  “Yeah, good idea, man. And don’t do too much talking this time…listen to her.”

  Bas nodded, pushing himself up from the couch. This was so not going to be pleasant. “Thanks, man.”

  “Any time, Bas. That’s what friends are for.” He moved in for a hug.

  “Don’t push your luck,” Bas warded him off, raised his security card and swiped it.

  Somehow he ducked in time to avoid being slammed with a curse. It whizzed next to his head and splattered against the wall behind him. “What the fuck?”

  He pulled his blade, crouching low and scanning what was going on. Chaos reigned all around him. Sin Eaters everywhere, casting spells haphazardly. Some were on the ground, unconscious or dead, he wasn’t sure.

  Where is Mina?

  The familiars were everywhere, too, circling the fallen, keeping them down, no doubt. Zeus was yowling by one of the fallen Sin Eaters, guarding the body.

  Bas wasn’t sure what the hell was going on but he guessed the Sin Eaters had lost their shit and Mina needed help.

  “Not Sin Eaters.” Zeus’s particular brand of voice echoed in Bas’s head. He was circling one of the bigger witches now, hissing and spitting.

  “Got it, kitty.” Not Sin Eaters.

  Bas drew blood, pooled a power blast of magic and launched it out, then quickly cast again, a web-like binding spell that he threw right behind it. Bam, bam, two witches went down, and stayed down with his netting. He thumbed his security card, alerting security.

  Two burly dudes showed up immediately. “What’s going on down here?”

  “I don’t know but I don’t think these clowns are Sin Eaters.”

  The cats had cornered the three remaining ones, hissing and spitting to keep them contained, some kind of magical pulse restraining the intruders painfully.

  Their robes were tattered, their hoods down and faces unmarred. There was no indication that they were holy ones. “They’re imposters.”

  “Alert the team. Let them know we have intruders,” one of guards said.

  “Mind the cats, they bite.” Bas moved toward Zeus, who was now guarding a fallen Sin Eater. And this was a true Sin Eater—her scarred hand was exposed, unmoving, just like the rest of her body. “Angel?”

  Zeus answered with a meow. Bas crouched down and lifted Angel’s hood. Her eyes were open, pupils blown out like she’d taken an overdose. She wasn’t dead though. Her breathing was shallow and she had a pulse.

  “Angel, where’s Mina?”

  The cat yowled, this time pacing toward the double doors that stood wide open.

  “Taken,” Angel’s lips didn’t move, her voice came out like a croak.

  Bas leaned closer, jolting Angel with something to soothe her.

  “No, Healer, no sedatives. Please.”

  “Angel, you’re dying.” His voice was hoarse. He felt a knot in his chest. “Let me help you.”

  “It’s my destiny. I’ve fulfilled my duty to Mina.” Angel clasped his wrist. She blinked her eyes closed and when she opened them again and looked at him, he saw the truth there. “But you must go now and help her. One of the intruders, his name is Merrick. He’s ruthless. He will do anything to—” She gasped, her face contorting as her skin split across her cheek, opening a wound as if a blade had just sliced her there.

  Bas’s heart leapt to his throat. “Where did he take her?”

  “Into the Dark Forest. You must go. Leave me.”

  “At least let me tell Mother Stone.”

  “Mother Stone already knows.” The Great Mother was standing at the door, her arms folded, taking in the scene. “Leave Angel to me.”

  “Mina’s in trouble.”

  Mother Stone didn’t acknowledge that comment. Instead, she turned to one of the security guards. “Call a code orange and get your teams to sweep the building. We should be sure that there aren’t any more intruders lurking around. Notify the Trappers that we have Breeders here.”

  “We should leave—”

  “The cats seem to have things under control,” Mother Stone snapped.

  “Yes, ma’am,” one of the security guards said. He snapped his fingers at the other security, who immediately scrambled to do Mother Stone’s bidding.

  Bas squeezed Angel’s hand then stood. “I’m going to get Mina. She’s been taken.”

  Mother Stone turned to look at him. “You need to suit up if you’re going into the Dark Forest.”

  Bas shook his head. “No time for that.” He started for the door.

  “Healer Frank!” Her voice boomed.

  Bas looked over his shoulder at her, daring her to forbid him from leaving.

  She scanned him from head to toe, then sighed and waved her hand. “Mind the vines. They’re devils this time of night.”

  Zeus meowed. Bas nodded once, then bolted out the door.

  24

  Her plan hadn’t gone exactly as she’d expected. Her fury had blinded her from danger until it was too late. Despite the fact that her magic came out like the feral familiars’, erratic and shooting off in all directions, at least she’d taken out three of the Breeders before Merrick had grabbed her.

  She’d forgotten that her binding spell on him was connected to her own. When Angel released her, he was released as well, and then she had been too distracted to notice as he shook off her spell and drew his own blade.

  “You and your cats demolished my team,” he mumbled roughly. “You’re mine now.”

  He had her wrists bound behind her back. Not with a spell but with a plastic tie that was too tight and digging into her skin. He’d held her in a neck lock with his blade under her chin until they’d cleared the lawn. Now that they were in the Dark Forest, he pushed her forward, his hand never leaving her back.

  “The Dark Forest will kill us,” she scoffed, banking on the typical pure witch ignorance about the rumored danger in the woods. Not that it was all myth. The vines that hung overhead were perking up, twisting and turning toward the noise they were making as they stomped through the underbrush.

  He clasped her close to his chest, an arm around her torso, his lips at her ear. “Nah, sweetie, this is my second home. There’s nothing here that can kill me.”

  “Your breath is rancid.” She gagged.

  “You pampered Healers, afraid of your own shadows living in your utopia while the rest of us have learned what it really means to be a witch.”

  He squeezed her until her ribs felt like they would snap. She let out a whimper. Okay, maybe she should bench the bravado and accept that she was in a shitload of trouble. Not to mention that no one knew where she’d been taken.

  Angel was unconscious, not dead, thankfully, but too out of it to know what was going on. The animals—well, they were doing their own thing, fighting the intruders with power that was impressive and all consuming. She didn’t have her security card or her blade. She was incapacitated and with a Breeder who didn’t mind roughing her up. While she had a slight advantage because she knew White Willow’s Dark Forest quite well, she had to take Merrick at his word. He seemed very comfortable manoeuvring through the thick branches and roots.

  “You should be more worried about me, girl,” he drawled. “I’m the one who’s more likely to kill you, not the forest. But only if you misbehave. We’ve got no problem if you keep your mouth shut and do as you’re told.”
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br />   He held her stare, too close once again. His eyes were a pale blue, pretty but devoid of emotion. Dead eyes of a killer. She shuddered.

  “My father’s family won’t negotiate with abductors. You won’t get any money out of them.”

  “My plans have changed. You’re more valuable to me as an employee.”

  “I won’t work for you. You’re a monster, what you do to those animals.” Shut up, shut up, shut up.

  He knocked the back of her head, sending her sprawling forward with no way to stop herself. Her face bounced off the ground and she bit her lip. Pain shot up her skull and down her spine. She let out a moan.

  “Shut your mouth.” He was on her, his weight pressing into her back, his knee between her legs. “Or I’ll shut it for you.”

  She clamped her lips shut, stifling a whimper. Her jaw throbbed and dirt scratched at her cheek.

  He hauled her up by the tie around her wrists, pulling a scream from her as he wrenched her back.

  “Get off your high horse, princess, and take a look around you. You’re in no position to give me lip.”

  Something screeched from above. Mina shuddered. Merrick laughed. He pushed her forward, making her stumble before she could get her feet working properly.

  Her face hurt, her arms were sore and yes, she was scared. The forest felt heavy with magic, tickling along her skin in a creepy way. Birds squawked, leaves rustled, flowers opened wider, sending out thick plumes of musky scents and it was all so ominous. A feeling of doom ran over her spine and she couldn’t stop shivering. The farther they walked, the darker it got, and the heavier it all felt.

  “This is far enough.” With a heavy hand on her shoulder, he forced her to sit.

  She thumped down onto a log, her back scratching against the bark of a tree. “Far enough for what?”

  “I’m expecting a ride.”

  Mina slumped down against the tree. The forest was really dense—the canopy blocking the moon, the trees so close together that they’d been walking on roots rather than dirt ground. She hadn’t been in this part of the forest yet and had lost her bearings. They hadn’t been walking long though so they couldn’t be that far from White Willow.