Bound by Spells (Bound Series Book 2)

by Smith, Stormy

  “Joran, does she speak the truth?” Julia seemed to know the exact time to call me on my crap. I stood with my head held high, leaning slightly toward Julia in the aggressive stance Cole had taught me to use whenever I needed to appear stronger or more confident than I was. I waited for Joran to tell her the truth, to confirm I was lying through my teeth.

  “She speaks the truth, your highness. The darkness must be tempered.” Joran’s words shocked me, but I let nothing show. I knew Rhi watched my every move.

  A slow smile crept across Julia’s lips and ice snaked down my back. “Rhi, let’s show our guest the same hospitality we provide all mixed breeds, shall we?”

  Before I could internalize her words, Rhi had locked his arms around me and we were across the room. “You play dangerous games, Keeper, and you cannot win. I always win.” His breath was hot in my ear and the pads of his fingers burned into my arm, making me cry out as he threw me into the cell on the other side of the tiger.

  I landed in a heap and didn’t have a chance to duck before a pillow and blanket were thrown at me. I tangled in the blanket and ripped it away, only to hear the clang of the lock as the cell door closed. Rhi smiled from the other side and moved away as Julia came to the door.

  “You have two days. You will find this control or I will find it for you.” Julia’s eyes blazed red. She hadn’t used much magic in front of me and her display of emotion unnerved me.

  I heard her heels click across the room as she commanded Rhi and Joran to follow her. I wanted to yell for Joran, but realized it wouldn’t help me and might hurt him, so I stayed quiet.

  I dropped my head into my hands, my fingertips massaging my forehead as I tried to figure out what I had just done and what the hell I was supposed to do about it. I tried calling out to Micah via our connection, but I couldn’t find a trace of his power. I wished I had my mother’s journals here with me so I could see whether she had left me any information I could use. Finally, I went back to the Keeper room and tried breaking apart the Hunter power mix, hoping it would give me the strength I needed to get out of the cell. But the orb slammed back together so quickly, I never had a chance to hit the bars with a blast of power.

  I was so frustrated, I started shooting violet bursts at the lock, one after the other. I pushed everything I had into trying to get through the bars until I heard, “You can stop. It won’t work. Nothing works. They are all made by Hunters.”

  Somehow I had forgotten about the women. I moved to the wall of the cell and looked out through the bars. Across the room, the woman with the braid was leaning toward me. She was one of the few I could actually see from my angle, and she couldn’t move far, the restraints keeping her in the bed.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “Eight years,” she responded. Her eyes flickered blue for just a second.

  “Are you an AniMage? How are you out there?” I had just assumed the human-looking women were Mages.

  “You typically stay in whatever form you came in here as, and AniMages give birth in human form. They wanted some of the women in their shifted form to see if it made a difference, but it doesn’t. When they took all of us, we were pregnant, so they knew we had the ability to conceive. When the children are born human—which, if they are born at all, they are—they take them.” Her voice was hard, the emotion gone. She had been here too long, been through it too many times, to grieve anymore. I could feel the numbness she’d forced on herself. The detachment she held in place. Right now, she didn’t look pregnant and I wondered whether she held similar detachment when a tiny life was inside her.

  “They keep inseminating us. We can only assume the fathers are Mage, but every child is either miscarried or born human. I have listened to women scream as their children are brought into this world and the Queen has tested her every theory on how to unlock the power she believes is still in them. She forces the female Hunters to attend our births and experiment on our babies.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to ask what had happened to the children.

  “Can you help us? I see what you did for Nell, but what can you do for us? For our children?” she asked.

  It took a second for her question to register but as soon as it did, I was on my feet and yelling. “Nell? She was Nell? Elias’s Nell?” I tried to see over to Nell’s cell, but it was two down from mine and impossible to see anything but the bars in the door. The woman recoiled, as did those who had been quietly listening around her.

  “I’m sorry,” I dropped my voice and tried to be calm. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just know of her. Her husband thinks she’s dead. But if that’s her, then she’s alive!” I was both elated and sickened to realize Elias had spent all those years believing his wife was dead.

  “All of our husbands believe we are dead. It is why they haven’t come for us. The Hunters raided the villages in search of us. They killed hundreds, both for sport, because Hunters are evil creatures, and to hide what they were really after,” she said. “We are nothing but incubators and our children are lab rats. You have to help us.”

  “What’s your name? I’m Amelia. And I honestly don’t know if I can help you, but I’m going to try.” I would try like hell. This was the first time the prophecy was tangible—sitting right in front of me and making it clear it wasn’t about having a choice. These were my people and I would help them.

  “Cora. My name is Cora. You are the Keeper. I believed in the Elders and their sight. If you have their power, you will find a way.” She sat back onto her pillows, her head held high as she nodded at me. I wished I had her faith.

  “Are you the only one who can speak? Are the others okay?” I strained my neck to see through the bars past Cora to the other women.

  “I’m Nadine, a Mage. I’ve been here three years.”

  “Sully, an AniMage, five years.”

  “Willow, a Mage, seven years.”

  I leaned my head against the bars as the names continued. One after another, they told me who they were and how long they had been here. Lydia had been here the longest at ten years. It left me wondering how many women had been deemed useless to Julia and killed after being bred like animals?

  “How do you do it?” I wanted to clarify the question, but I couldn’t find the right words to ask how they could possibly keep going.

  Willow identified herself. I couldn’t see her from my cell, but her voice carried across the space. “No matter who the fathers are, these children are a part of us. They come from us. We give them as much as we can in the time we have with them. We sing to them, tell them stories of our people, where they come from, and we pray the spark we have inside of us will be in them. The Hunters have bound us so we cannot fight them, but they left our power within us to be passed on.”

  I closed my eyes and opened myself to their auras and emotions. The more I worked with my Keeper, the more I felt and heard in those moments when I opened myself up to it. I went to the green and violet orb inside me, whispering all the reasons I needed this to work. I needed the intuition and ability to feel what it would bring. Mages rooted in green magic were always more empathetic and emotionally sensitive. When I pulled my fists apart, the power scattered throughout my body and layered with my own. It didn’t fight me at all. I wished I understood why sometimes it worked and other times it didn’t. The sensations were overwhelming, but I needed to understand. I wasn’t a mother. I hadn’t had a mother. I needed to feel what they felt.

  The protective instinct was everywhere. Hope for the future. Fear of the unknown. Terror over knowing what was to come as the babies left their protection. Anger at the circumstances preventing them from being true mothers. Agony over those they had lost. Love for the tiny heartbeats. More love than I could comprehend. So much so, I could barely breathe, it was so thick in the air. Their gift for giving life had been turned against them, yet they still loved with abandon. It was only those who had recently lost who were weighed down with grief and anger. The darkness spread th
rough them, leaving them on the edge of sanity.

  “I swear to you, I will find a way to help you and your children. I don’t know how yet, but I will find it.” I said the words as loudly as I could. I had been a motherless and basically fatherless child. I knew exactly what that did to a kid. I had an inkling of what it had done to their mothers. And I could only imagine what it had done to the husbands who had no idea their wives were still alive and their children were gone. I struggled to speak, tears swimming in my eyes. The combination of grief and love surrounding me was more than I could take.

  “Rynna, please come soon. Please, please be coming soon,” I whispered as I slid down to the ground and hugged my knees to my chest.

  Chapter 23

  Elias, Derreck, Nathaniel, Bethany, Will, Rynna, Charlie, and I had been in what we deemed “the war room” for hours. Charlie hadn’t left Bethany’s side and more than once, I found him looking up at me expectantly. We had been having the same conversation, over and over. The AniMages had been running from the Hunters for years. They had scattered across the globe in small packs, or alone, to evade the Hunters. Lately, the Hunters weren’t as focused on them and no one knew why, but they wanted to attack. They wanted their vengeance and they wanted the Queen taken out.

  Rynna, Nathaniel, and I had been making the same counterpoints, over and over. “We need to get Amelia out of there. She needs to fully mate with Aidan so she can access her power.” Rynna’s voice was becoming clipped and I could sense her frustration. I felt the same way, even though it was extremely uncomfortable to have people talking so blatantly about you “mating” with someone. Especially when that someone’s father was standing three feet from you, nodding like it was the most normal conversation in the world.

  “She is the one who can end Julia’s reign,” Rynna continued. “It was foretold and that is how it will be. We cannot enter Cresthaven without the purest of intentions. We can only go in to get her out.”

  Voices raised over each other and the room was suddenly too small and too loud. “Enough.” I didn’t yell or pound my fist on the table like I wanted to, but I put the alpha power I’d found into it, shutting the AniMages in the room up and allowing the Mages to feel the maddening frustration inside me.

  Bethany stood across from me with a quirked brow and a small smile. She crossed her arms and gave me a short nod. At least someone aside from me was impressed that it had worked.

  “We’re wasting time,” I said, looking around the table at each person. “We are leaving tonight and we’re going to get Amelia. We are not going after Julia yet.” I looked at Will and Elias. Will glared while Elias nodded. “I understand what you’ve told and shown me, but we have to be smart about this. We will go back, but right now, we have one objective and it is to get Amelia out. Now, can someone explain to me the best way to accomplish our objective?”

  Derreck stepped up to the table and the large map laid across it. “We’re here,” he said as he pointed toward our location in Northern California, “and Cresthaven is here, in Washington.” Hundreds of miles stretched between our two locations and the distance only served to make me more anxious. “Rynna, Nathaniel, Bethany, and I will leave tonight and drive through the night. We’ll take all the supplies we can in my truck and we’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.”

  Charlie started barking low, quick yips until Derreck muttered something about damned dogs and turned to him. “And yes, Charlie, we will stop by my place, pick up Onyx, and the two of you will come with us.” Charlie sat back on his hind legs, his ears standing straight up. If Great Danes could smile, I would say he was.

  “Rynna?” Derreck gave her the floor and Rynna laid a different map over the first. This one was of a giant home on a huge acreage.

  “My sister surrounds herself with only Hunters. Both male and female, though, typically, the Huntresses are inside the home cooking and cleaning. They act as her servants. The men patrol both the building and the grounds. They are all controlled by the collars they wear. The collars only activate when Julia wishes them to, but she has the ability to control their actions and see through their eyes at any time. It’s a drain on her to do so, but she can and will.

  “We aren’t going to have a lot of time to get in and get Amelia out, but as a direct family member, I have the ability to get in the house without it setting off alarms and alerting the Hunters.”

  I kept leaning down toward the map, squinting as I tried to figure out what exactly I was looking at. “What is this? What’s behind the house? Is something wrong with this map?”

  “Good gravy, Aidan. Haven’t you ever seen The Labyrinth?” Bethany had stayed fairly quiet during the discussion, and her voice coming from the corner of the room surprised me. “You know,” she continued, “David Bowie? Hoggle? The babe? The babe with the power?”

  I just kept staring at her, having no clue what she was talking about. Her eyebrows rose and she threw a hand in the air, saying, “Oh, you are hopeless. It’s a maze, Aidan.”

  I caught Will, of all people, humming. “Is that from the movie?” I asked, clearly judging him.

  He shrugged. “I’m an AniMage, not an animal. I’ve had a TV.”

  I shook my head. “Let’s get back on track. There’s a maze. Can we use it?” I turned to Rynna for answers.

  She nodded. “We won’t just use it. The maze is our lifeline. Julia and the Hunters refuse to enter the maze. The Elders enchanted it and it has the ability to sense the intentions of those inside of it. It will give you what you need, if your intentions are pure. We are on a rescue mission and it will know. But it also means we have to be very selective with who we take.” Rynna paused for a moment and looked around the table. “As we just saw, there are AniMages who question Aidan and will likely have more than just the rescue on their minds. Those people cannot come inside with us. The maze will never allow them to leave.”

  “Cheese and rice, you Immortals like to make things uber-complicated,” Bethany muttered from her end of the table and I caught a snort from Charlie, his form of agreement. I nodded in solidarity.

  “So, we’re going to use the maze to get in, be selective about the people who come with us—maybe Elias can do his ‘invade your brain’ thing to vet them—and then how are we going to find her? Or figure out whether Cole is there, too? And how in the hell are we going to get them out before the Hunters kill us all?” There were seven or eight more questions rolling around in my head, but those were the most relevant.

  It felt overwhelming. There were so many angles to consider and situations that could arise. And while my brain was supposed to be focused on being a leader and making a battle plan, it was bouncing between the conversation at hand and Amelia. I’d had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach all day. I hadn’t had time to shift since the situation with Braxton and I wanted to find her in the dream place I knew existed. I wanted to hold her, reassure her we were on our way, tell her she didn’t have to worry. Instead, I stood around a table, wondering if I was about to get myself, and all of the people who were now my responsibility, killed.

  “Mikail will help us. He knows we are coming eventually and he will make sure we have a direct path to get to Amelia and, hopefully, Cole. We don’t even know that he’s there, but right now, we have to go with the assumption. Since we’ve decided on the plan, I will use Tragar to get him the message and he’ll be ready. He’s been working with Amelia to help her prepare for what’s coming, and I know he’s taken care of her.” Rynna kept talking, but those last words sent jealousy roaring through me. My wolf howled and the rumbling mix of emotions, frustrations, and fear had me close to shifting.

  A hand clamped down on my shoulder and I whipped around, ready to take someone’s head off.

  “Hey!” Elias put both hands up as he pulled away. “Bring it down a notch, eh? You aren’t listening because you’re too busy worrying about the Prince hanging out with your girl, and you need to hear what she just said.”

  “Stay out of m
y head, Elias.” The words were close to a growl as I said them. He laughed and it only shot my rage higher.

  “I wasn’t in your head. All anyone has to do is look at you to see the green-eyed-monster rearing his ugly head. Well, technically, yours are blue right now, but you get the drift.”

  I gazed around the room and everyone looked away awkwardly, focusing on anything but me. Charlie let out a snort. Bethany was rolling her eyes, but I also saw the flicker of pain she was trying to suppress as we talked about Micah.

  “Oh, don’t you look at me like that, Aidan! I don’t need your pity. He’s not even worth the energy of a kick in the bits, which is exactly what he deserves.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared. Not at me, but I was sure there was a continued rant going on inside her head. I’d had one too many of those lately and could relate.

  “It wasn’t pity for you, B. It was pity for him. The poor guy probably has more to be worried about when the two of you see each other again than anyone in there.” I gave her a smile, trying to diffuse the hostility I could feel growing in the room. I was rewarded with a laugh and her posture relaxing.

  “Okay,” I said. “Rynna, give us the run down. I want to understand, step by step, how you see us getting in and out. I’d like to know when and how we’re contacting Micah, we need to decide who’s coming with us, and then I want to get on the road. We’re walking into a complete shit show and we all know it.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “We have no idea where Amelia or Cole could be inside this place, or what kind of condition they are in. We hope we can fend off the Hunters, but we can’t be sure. This whole thing is a crap shoot.”

  “You shouldn’t be going with us.” I was surprised to hear Amelia’s father finally speak. He’d watched and listened, but he had yet to voice an opinion.