If I couldn’t trust my own mother, how can I trust a man I barely know? I don’t know where Taj plans to take me. I don’t even know where I am. The only thing I know for sure is I need to get away now before I end up in another cell.
With his long legs, Taj could easily outrun me. And I know nothing of the terrain. Even with a head start, if I run off in the wrong direction I could end up on the edge of a cliff or on the banks of a river too deep to cross.
Light from the waning crescent moon illuminates the dips and divots in the ground and highlights a few scattered rocks between us and the forest beyond.
A plan spins in the back of my mind. “Lead the way.”
Relief spreads across Taj’s face as he starts toward the trees. “Let’s just put some space between us and the compound, and I’ll explain everything.”
I make sure he’s turned totally forward before dipping low and grabbing a fist-sized rock from the ground. I tuck it against my palm and pick up my pace until I’m at his side.
My heart pounds as we step into the forest. The moonlight filters through the leaves overhead, giving just enough light for us to pick our way through the undergrowth.
“What will they do to me? The people you work for?”
Taj turns, his handsome face pinched with an emotion I can’t quite place. Pity? “Bryn, they won’t do anything to you. I can’t imagine how scary this all must be. But please believe me when I say I’m taking you to a better place.”
Something deep inside me tugs toward him, his words like a magnet I’m ill-equipped to resist. But the truth is, Taj is a virtual stranger. Yes, he brought me books and took an interest in my sketches, but it could have all been an act. After all, hasn’t he already proven what a good liar he is? Otherwise, there’s no way he could have been working for Mona while secretly planning to break me out of her compound.
The rock feels heavy in my hand. If I don’t get away now, I’m afraid I’ll start believing what he’s saying. Even though I hadn’t hit double digits when I was still living with my mom, I knew something was wrong with her. But she insisted so often she was fine that I eventually accepted it as truth. I can’t let history repeat itself here.
I step closer to Taj, the air between us warming, charging. For a moment, I’m transported back to the hallway outside my workroom, and I long for the feeling of his arms around me. I wish things could be that simple, but they’re not. “Okay,” I whisper, looking up at him through my eyelashes. “I’ll trust you.”
Taj’s lips quirk like he wants to smile, to say something. But instead he holds my gaze, intensity building by the moment. It’s not like the hungry look Aldridge and the other guards would get when I was alone with them. This look coils something deep inside me, something I want desperately to explore. It’s dangerous, and I know I’m right to get away as fast as possible.
Keeping my right hand firmly at my side, I lift my left and graze my fingers along his jaw, stubble scraping across my fingertips.
The tiny move is all it takes. Taj’s eyes close and I act before the guilt can stop me. Gripping the rock, I swing my right arm up until it slams into the back of Taj’s skull.
He releases a surprised grunt before crumpling to the ground like a discarded doll.
I need to run, to put as much distance between me and the compound and Taj as possible. But something won’t let me go. I crouch to his side and press my fingers to his throat until I find a pulse thudding steadily beneath his skin. He’s unconscious, but alive.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur as I stand. Dropping the rock, I sprint off in the direction we were heading. Maybe there’s a road or trail nearby I can take to safety.
Branches scrape against my arms as I race between tree trunks. The night is alive with the buzzing of insects and the calls of nocturnal birds. Even the sound of air rustling through leaves sounds like a symphony compared to the dull drone of the compound’s heating and cooling system.
I don’t slow until the trees thin ahead. Heart hammering, I creep forward.
In the moonlight, the glade is painted silver and black. I pick my way over the tall grasses. I can’t keep running with no direction. I need a destination—a river or a road.
I don’t know how many years it’s been since I’ve had the earth beneath my feet, but when I stop in the middle of the clearing, the instinct to seek the source of my magic takes over. Each witch is born with a certain affinity. My mother’s connection was to water. She always said she felt most at peace when near her element, which is why every home we ever lived in was within a quarter mile of a lake. She used to joke that I had it easy as an earth affinity, because my source was everywhere.
Except she was wrong. Those years in captivity cut me off from nature almost entirely. As I connect with the ground below my feet, I’m overwhelmed by the weakness I sense within me. Somehow I’d convinced myself that since I could still craft potions, I must still be strong. But now I know that glimmer of power was nothing compared to what it could have been. I can brew an elixir, sure, but standing here, I know I’m capable of so much more.
As magic seeps into my body, filling up the empty spaces with a warm green glow, I send a question into the dirt. Where should I go? Guide me.
I don’t expect an answer in words, but I do wait expectantly. When I was a little girl, I wandered off in the woods behind our house alone, in search of a bunny. I was convinced that I could hide it from my mother and keep it as a pet. But after a fruitless search, I realized I’d wandered too far from our back yard, and I didn’t know which way to go to get home. The way my mom told the story, she was beside herself when I came wandering out of the woods at sunset. When she asked how I returned on my own, I told her that the forest had shown me the way.
I just hope she wasn’t making the story up.
The beginnings of a path start to swirl in my head. I don’t see it so much as sense it—a tug in the right direction. For the moment, it’s general—somewhere vaguely northeast. But with each beat of my heart, it strengthens, giving me an increasingly clear sense of which way to go.
I don’t know where it will lead me, but at least I won’t be anyone’s prisoner. I have nothing—no money, no friends. Even if I knew where my mother was after all these years, I wouldn’t go back to her after the way she gave me up.
Still, no matter where I end up, I’ll be better off than I was before.
Even though my path still isn’t entirely clear, I strike out in the direction nature is leading me. But before I’ve made it more than a few paces, a sound makes me freeze.
Someone’s coming.
Taj must have woken up. I curse myself for not changing directions sooner. He’ll find me, and after what I did, any goodwill he felt toward me will be gone.
I sprint toward the nearest trees. If I’m fast enough, maybe he won’t see me. He’ll never know I was here.
But less than halfway to the woods, my foot sinks into a patch of loose soil and I pinwheel forward, slamming into the ground.
I push myself up on the heels of my hands, stars popping in my vision. I try to shake them away, but my head is woozy. Swallowing down the bile threatening to rise, I force myself to my feet just as the sharp scent of peppermint cuts through the air, announcing the arrival of the man I hoped never to lay eyes on again.
I try to run, but his arms snake around my middle, pulling me against his chest with an iron grip.
“You’re not going anywhere, Bryn,” Aldridge grunts against my ear.
Chapter Four
Bryn
Icy fear spreads through my body. “Let me go!”
My arms are pinned to my sides, and no matter how I strike out with my legs, I can’t make contact with him.
“Why would I do something like that?” Aldridge asks, his breath moist on my ear.
I writhe, trying to slither out of his grasp, but he just grips me harder. “Please don’t take me back. Tell her you couldn’t find me. Please.”
He chuckles, sprea
ding his warm hand over my stomach. “What are you willing to give me to make lying for you worth it?”
I try to cringe away from his touch, but there is no escape. He surrounds me, his peppermint smell filling my nostrils, making my stomach roil.
“Do you know what she makes me do? What those potions are for?” I twist, but my body can’t break free. “I don’t want to hurt people.”
“We don’t always get what we want, sweetheart,” Aldridge says, adjusting his grip and sliding his hand upward until his fingers brush along the band of my bra. “Mona certainly has seen to that over the years.”
Acrid bile stabs the back of my throat and I attempt to wrench my wrist out of his grasp. His grip tightens like a vise. “Please. You don’t have to do this.” I have to choose my words carefully. If he knows Mona is likely already in police custody, it’s possible he won’t be so adamant about bringing me back to her. But without whatever threats she’s used to keep him and the other guards from touching me, there’s no doubt in my mind he’ll take advantage of his new freedom. If his fingers steadily creeping under the fabric of my bra are any indication, he’s planning to push that envelope as far as possible.
I scan the vicinity for something—anything—I could use as a weapon. If I can convince him that I won’t run away, I might be able to get close enough to knock him out.
Just like I did with Taj.
Guilt bubbles in my stomach. If I hadn’t knocked out Taj, I might not be in this mess now. We would have been further away, so maybe Aldridge wouldn’t have caught up with us. Or if he had, there would have been two of us to fight him off.
But is the devil I don’t know better than the one who’s held me captive for so long?
“We don’t have to go back to her,” I say, still searching for something I could use against Aldridge. But the waning moon doesn’t provide much light through the leafy canopy above. I’d hate to dive for what I think is a rock only to find a clump of dark moss. “The police are going to shut Mona down. We can… We can start over somewhere else.”
His laugh turns to a snarl. “If you think some noms with guns can take Mona down, you’re mistaken. She’ll just rebuild, and she wants her favorite pet there to help speed things along.” He swipes his tongue behind my ear and I twist my head away. “If someone really managed to take her down, we wouldn’t be having such a pleasant conversation right now.” He shifts his hips and something hard pokes my rear. “Never could figure out why Mona cares about you so much. Any other girl is fair game, but you we’re not allowed to touch. But maybe tonight she’ll be so happy to have you back, she’ll make an exception.”
Panic floods me, along with an icy dread. Is it possible Mona escaped the raid? As much as I want to believe he’s wrong, his presence here only proves it’s true. And if he hadn’t been sent by Mona directly, I have no doubt he’d already be doing more than groping my breast.
Even if Mona doesn’t allow Aldridge to take what he wants from me, I can’t let him to take me back there. Two hours ago, the idea of freedom was laughable. I had pretty much resigned myself to being hidden away in my cell until I died. But this taste of freedom—brief as it’s been—has woken something inside me that I can’t ignore. I can’t go back to being locked up.
“We’d better get back to Mona before I get myself in trouble,” Aldridge says, his voice gruff. Before I can come up with an argument, he shoves me back toward the compound. I try to kick, to drag my feet, but all he does is lift me up with more strength than I would have credited him with. In his arms, I’m nothing but a useless rag doll. I’m not strong enough to break free—and even if I were, I wouldn’t be fast enough to escape.
Tree branches scrape against my face as Aldridge pushes us steadily forward. I could scream out for help, but what use would that be? If Mona sent more guards after me, I might draw the attention of one who’s less inclined to wait for her say-so before playing out pent-up fantasies with me. The only person who might help lies unconscious on the forest floor, knocked out by my own stupid hand.
But as I go limp in Aldridge’s arms, dragging my feet over the uneven forest terrain, I realize I’m not entirely alone. Nature provided me a direction when I asked. Maybe my affinity will help me again.
I clear my mind, ignoring the feel of Aldridge’s body pressed against mine. An earthquake could dislodge him long enough for me to get away, but he would only give chase. Vines could pull him off and bind him. I focus all my energy on the plants around me, willing vines to snake across the ground to protect me.
But no matter how hard I try, they don’t come.
Chapter Five
Taj
My head is throbbing when my eyes crack open. Nothing makes sense. Why is my room so cold? Why does my mattress smell like dirt?
It isn’t until my fingers graze damp blades of grass that memories flood my system.
Bryn knocked me out. She drew me in close, I let my guard down, and she blindsided me with a rock.
Shit.
I ignore my protesting muscles as I push myself to my feet. How long have I been out? I can’t get a clear look at the stars through the overhead canopy of leaves, but the moon looks like it’s in about the same place as I remember. Maybe I wasn’t out for long. Bryn doesn’t know where to go, which could work to my advantage. It’s possible she hasn’t been moving too quickly.
Although it’s just as possible she ran blindly through the woods at top speed. Fear can make people do crazy things.
I hold my open palm in front of me, summoning energy from the spark deep in my core. A flame flickers to life on my exhale, and I’m so surprised by its sudden appearance that I almost snuff it out. That’s odd. It usually takes longer for me to create fire from nothing.
Limited mastery of elemental affinity. I’m a witch with poor control over my magic. It’s the reason Mona hired me—as well as the reason my boss, Ryder, was hesitant to allow me to take lead on this mission. Mona chooses employees based on several factors, including pliancy and supernatural ability. Although she’s a siren, stronger-willed individuals can take more effort on her part to control. And while she wants strong shifters and witches with useful affinities in her employ, she doesn’t want any of them to be powerful enough to pose a threat to her. As she demonstrated in my employment interview, her siren magic is strong enough to order a degree of control into supernaturals who might otherwise not be able to channel their abilities as effectively on their own.
But this flame is different. I remember the interview process only vaguely. She used her song to make me summon fireballs and launch them at targets spread throughout an empty warehouse. And while I’d been able to create each one quickly, it wasn’t without a degree of pain as each ounce of magic was ripped from my body. This fire feels natural, like an extension of myself.
Carefully, I coax extra oxygen into the tiny flame until my hand cups a dancing ball about the size of a baseball. If I’m lucky, I can catch Bryn’s trail.
I can’t lose her. I’ll never live the failure down.
I had to fight like hell to convince my commander at the Liberation Front to let me even apply for Mona’s organization. It was supposed to be straightforward—simple intelligence gathering to help the nom police organizations build a case against Mona. While her organization deals mostly in black market magic, it dabbles with enough non-magical illegal enterprises that we could convince the noms to do the dirty work of taking her down. When the police raided the compound, it was my job to break Bryn out.
But it’s not the fear of failure that drives me forward. My months spent in Mona’s employ were grim. It went against every fiber of my being to feign not just indifference toward but delight in various aspects of Mona’s crooked empire. When the foul jeers of the other guards began to find their way easily to my lips, I feared spending too long among the bottom-feeders of the underworld would twist something inside me that could never be made straight again.
Then I met Bryn. I remember every detai
l of our first encounter with aching clarity. I didn’t know what to expect from the girl I’d been sent to rescue—only the details those at the Front had managed to cobble together. Bryn Wilder, twenty-one. A prodigiously strong earth affinity witch brought into Mona’s collection at age nine. By all accounts—or, more accurately, by exactly one account—kind and as well-adjusted as could be expected up until she was moved into solitary confinement at seventeen. But four years without a single friend can do strange things to a person, so I had no way to know how the time in isolation had changed her.
Although I’d been briefed to deal with every extreme from depressed and closed-off to belligerent and violent, I wasn’t expecting to find Bryn as she is—rail-thin and mildly unkempt, with luminous hazel eyes. While she was withdrawn and wary during our first encounter, she also possessed a spark of curiosity that seemed desperate to be fed. For the sake of my mission, I knew I would need to gain her trust; I didn’t know how much I would want to earn it. And as she began opening to me by degrees with each encounter, I found she was fast becoming more than just a mission objective to me. My heart would leap any time I was scheduled to transport her to or from her workroom. After our first few interactions, I began smuggling books in to her—reading them beforehand so we could discuss them during our walks. Despite knowing whatever potions she was instructed to brew would be used to harm or even kill Mona’s adversaries, I longed for the wicked brews to be ordered so I could steal moments with Bryn.
I didn’t realize until it was too late that I was falling for her.
But my affections alone aren’t enough. I was supposed to have more time. Gaining Bryn’s trust was imperative, but when Mona orchestrated the murder of an important elder from Twin Rivers, our timetable got moved up.
Captive Witch Page 3