Captive Witch

by September Stone

  Calder grips my forearm with so much pressure it almost hurts. His eyes are wide with authority when he yells, “Run!”

  Bryn is the first to take off, and as much as I don’t want her to get too far ahead, I can’t leave Calder behind. His stride is unsteady after his collision with the tree.

  The daemon strides toward us with slow, measured steps, like he’s in no hurry at all. I would prefer he run at us. His calculated motions send a chill of dread through my body.

  Calder slips his hand into Bryn’s as we run up the riverbank. Hail pelts us and I long for cover, but the forest will be no safer. At least out in the open, the daemon can’t use the trees as weapons.

  But as an icy ball the size of my fist hits the small of my back, I realize he doesn’t need the trees’ help.

  “We can’t outrun him!” I yell over the roar of the wind.

  “Then let’s take him out!” Calder shouts. “I’ll shield us!”

  A jolt of surprise punches my gut. We’ve spent countless hours training to use his telekinetic powers for protection, but the results have always been spotty at best. But we’re not training now, and if this doesn’t work, there’s no doubt in my mind the daemon will take both of us out to get to Bryn.

  Still, it’s not like we have a choice. “On three?”

  As Calder begins the countdown, I rub my fingertips against my palms and call on the magic banked in my core. Everything in me wants to put as much distance between myself and the daemon as possible, but our only chance is to face him.

  On three, Calder tugs Bryn to a stop and releases her hand before raising both his arms above his head. Immediately, the wind is cut off and the hail stops bombarding us. Instead, the icy globs smack against an invisible barrier surrounding us before sliding to the ground.

  “I can’t believe that worked,” Calder says, grinning.

  I wholeheartedly agree, but there’s no time to waste with congratulations. I hold out my hand in front of me and unfurl my fingers. Just like earlier this evening, a fireball flickers to life above my palm easily. I launch it at the daemon, but before the flame makes it halfway, it’s extinguished by a chunk of hail.

  As I summon another fireball, Bryn stills beside me, closing her eyes. Somehow, even amid the chaos surrounding us, her beautiful face is peaceful as she seeks out her calm center.

  I tear my attention from her and throw a second flaming orb at the daemon, followed immediately by a third. But he’s ready for them and directs gusts of wind strong enough to send them both off course.

  I focus on the glow of magic in my core, coaxing it to burn brighter until its warmth spreads through my whole body. This daemon is strong enough to stop a few softball-sized spheres, but how will he hold up against a sustained blast. I pull energy into the palms of my hands and hold them in front of me, but before I can let loose, the gusting wind hits me full force.

  “Dammit,” Calder hisses, but before he can reform his shield, the storm kicks up so hard it’s a struggle to stay on my feet.

  I open and close my hands rapidly, but my flames don’t stand a chance against the gale threatening to topple us.

  Bryn squeals as something silvery snakes around her ankles. I stomp on the object, hissing as icy water sloshes up over my shoes. By the time I realize what’s happening, the daemon has directed enough water from the river to encase Bryn from ankle to thigh. She swipes at it, but only a few droplets scatter before the remaining liquid hardens to ice.

  Does this daemon mean to freeze her to death? Not on my bloody watch. I summon heat into my hands, but before I can move to melt the ice, the wind kicks up to hurricane force. I’m knocked back on my ass and blown back a meter. Calder’s surprised grunt tells me he’s not faring much better.

  The daemon’s lips curl as he saunters forward, his pace unhurried. As he nears, the wind pinning me down intensifies, but the air around Bryn seems to still. Her blonde hair falls around her shoulders as she fights to break free of the ice shackling her legs. Her lips move, but I can’t hear her words. The daemon’s response is also lost amid the howl, but his expression bears no malice. If anything, his face holds the same resignation I saw on Bryn’s features when I led her to her workroom to brew potions for Mona.

  Raising his hand, the daemon focuses on his palm. His lips move, but I can’t hear the words he’s speaking. But as his hand begins to glow red, my stomach drops. I fight to get my feet under me again and reach Bryn, but the force of the storm might as well be a solid block of concrete for as much progress as I make against it.

  But before he can touch Bryn, something streaks out of the forest, colliding with him. In an instant, the storm dies away. As the daemon and the attacker tumble into the river, they knock into Bryn’s icy shackle, shattering it.

  “Bryn!” Calder shouts as she stomps to shake chunks of ice off her pants. “Over here!”

  I spare a single glance at the men tussling in the river. The daemon squares off against an unlikely adversary—Poe, the bounty hunter.

  Not that it matters where our salvation comes from at the moment. I get my feet under me and hurry toward Bryn and Calder. We need to get out of here before either of the men gets the upper hand over the other.

  We’re streaking toward the forest when Bryn lets out a surprised yelp. She pitches forward and slams into the ground. I skid to a stop and rush back to her, reaching her side at the same time as Calder. I grab one of her arms as he grabs another, and the two of us haul her to her feet. But before we can make a run for it, Bryn squeals as someone jerks her out of my hands and pulls her back to the ground.

  The daemon is on his knees, his hand locked around Bryn’s ankle like a manacle. His silver hair is plastered to his head, and a gash on his forehead bleeds down the right side of his face, but the glint of triumph in his eye is unmistakable as he hauls Bryn toward him.

  The daemon mutters words in a language I don’t understand and his hand glows against Bryn’s ankle. She kicks out with my other foot, but he grabs that one and pins it down, too. Calder and I dive for the daemon, but a fresh wind picks up, throwing us both backward.

  The hand wrapped around Bryn’s ankle glows red in the darkness, and I struggle against the force holding me back. I don’t know what the daemon has planned for Bryn, but I know it can’t be good.

  “Let go of her!” Centimeter by centimeter, I claw my way toward her.

  A figure rises from the river. Poe doesn’t bother shaking himself off before racing toward us. He’s still a few yards away when he releases a feral roar that sends a shudder through the daemon. The wind ceases for an instant—long enough for me to get my feet under me.

  Poe leaps, arcing through the air like a jungle cat. I’m not sure whether his current target is Bryn or the daemon, but I don’t intend to wait to find out.

  I reach Bryn first and take hold of her right arm. She cries out and I almost release her again, but I know I’m not the one doing the damage. Whatever the daemon is doing is causing her pain, and the only way to stop it is to get her away from him.

  Calder throws himself into the bounty hunter’s path, and the two slam to the ground beside Bryn. I try to ignore as they scrabble over each other, my focus on the daemon causing Bryn harm. But as I stretch my arm toward the daemon to loosen his grip, a white-hot pang stabs through me, the racing toward a single target—the palm of my left hand.

  Calder’s fingers curl around Bryn’s calf, and Poe’s arm hooks around her waist. I reach toward the bounty hunter to dislodge him, but it’s too late. Everything’s too late. A piercing shriek rends the night, turning my blood to ice.

  Chapter Ten

  Taj

  Bryn’s scream tears a hole in my chest, but it’s nothing compared to the agony of what comes after.

  Silence.

  I push myself up on my knees, squinting in the silvery moonlight to take in the scene. The daemon still clutches Bryn’s ankle, and Calder’s hand is locked around her calf. The bounty hunter unwinds his arm from B
ryn’s waist and props himself up on his hands and knees, shaking his head as if dazed.

  Calder gets his feet under him and clambers around Poe to get to Bryn’s head.

  “Is she okay?” I reach for her throat to check for a pulse, but Calder’s fingers beat mine there.

  He meets my eyes. “She’s alive.”

  Relief sweeps through me. I can’t imagine a world without Bryn’s light in it. For months, I’ve been steeling myself for the moment the Front will provide her with her new life and send her off to live it. I hate the idea of not seeing her regularly, but I convinced myself that just knowing she was living her life as a free woman somewhere would be enough.

  In this moment, I know that’s not true. I don’t just want Bryn in the world, I want her in my world.

  My eyes latch onto the man laying prone at Bryn’s feet, his hand still clamped around her ankle. “What did you do to her, daemon?”

  He groans incoherently.

  “What…” Bryn murmurs. Her eyelids flutter for a few seconds before she manages to peel them open. “Calder?”

  Something inside me twists at the sound of his name on her lips. It makes sense, of course. Not only is he the closest one to her, but she has a history with him. I’ve known about it since before I took the mission. It’s a large part of the reason why I lobbied for him to be my backup tonight. I knew that if she didn’t trust me, there was a strong possibility she would trust him.

  What I didn’t count on was how attached I’d become to her. Bringing books for her to read began out of pity. Although the sketches that filled her room were lovely, they were repetitive and generic, as though even her imagination was imprisoned. I never expected those novels to pump life not just into her drawings but her spirit. She lit up when I brought her a new story or when we were discussing her favorite parts of the last chapter she read, and our brief times together were filled with thoughtful enthusiasm and shared enjoyment.

  I thought Bryn felt a connection to me, too, but now that she’s out in the world and faced with someone she cared deeply for, I’m afraid that connection has snapped forever. The mere thought lodges like a knife in the region of my heart.

  “Are you hurt?” Calder asks.

  She blinks before lifting her left hand and studying it. Her brows furrow as she lowers it again. “I… I’m not sure. I feel… tired.”

  The daemon groans again and Calder rounds on him. “What the hell did you do to her?” He flips the man over and leaps on him, straddling his waist. “If you hurt her, I swear…” He draws back his arm, balling his fist. But before his fingers curl closed, I glimpse something that sends a shock of ice through my veins.

  “Calder!” I grab his wrist before he can pummel the daemon, who’s still too out of it to speak. Against Calder’s protests, I unfurl his fingers, bile rising in my throat when my fears are confirmed.

  “Taj, what the—” The question dies when Calder looks at his own palm. “Fuck me.” Seared into the center of his palm is a black mark in the shape of a crow.

  I’ve only ever read about curses like this, but no matter how many times I try to convince myself I’m not seeing what I’m seeing, the truth is undeniable. “The death mark.”

  Bryn moans and I make it to her side before Calder. I pick up her left hand as gently as possible, praying to whatever force might be listening that I’m wrong. But my pleas go unanswered when I glimpse the same mark on her palm.

  “Taj.” Bryn brings her hand to my face, her fingers stroking my cheek. “What is it?”

  I don’t want to tell her, but how can I not? The daemon wasn’t sent here to collect her for a bounty. Whoever sent him wants Bryn dead.

  This poor girl who’s lived in captivity twelve years, who’s been trapped in solitary confinement for the last four. How can I tell her she’s doomed to die?

  “The little fuckwit marked us all for death,” rumbles a low voice behind me. Poe has his feet under him, although he doesn’t look entirely steady. His gaze is pasted to the palm of his left hand.

  Bryn tries to sit but only manages to prop herself up on her elbow. “Death?”

  Despite every fiber of my being warning against it, I flip over my own hand to inspect my palm. Sure enough, the crow is there.

  Calder gathers a handful of the daemon’s shirt and shakes him. “Who sent you? Why do they want Bryn dead?”

  The daemon grunts once more before opening his eyes. With more speed than I expect, he pulls himself out of Calder’s grip, scuttling backward on his hands and feet until he’s put more than an arm’s length between himself and Calder. “It doesn’t matter,” he grumbles, pressing himself to his feet.

  “No, it doesn’t,” I say, striding toward him. “Because you’re about to undo it.”

  But the daemon only shakes his head. “Doesn’t work that way. And, yeah, it’s shitty the rest of you got caught up in this, but you should’ve let me do my job.”

  I clench my fist, wanting nothing more than to punch the daemon in his smug face. But that won’t help us now. “What can we do?”

  He lifts a shoulder. “Get your affairs in order? You’ve got until the next full moon.” He glances up, his nose wrinkling. “Three weeks—give or take.” Touching two fingers to his right brow, he salutes. “It’s been real, but if you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way.”

  “If we don’t mind?” Calder sputters incoherently as the daemon spins on his heel and strides into the forest. When he moves to follow, Poe shakes his head.

  “It’s no use,” says the bounty hunter. “We’re not likely to get any useful information from him. That silver hair isn’t a fashion choice. He’s bound. And when someone nasty enough to order a curse like this tethers a daemon, their first order is always to forbid them from revealing who they work for. I’ve seen it dozens of times. Besides, it’s like he told you, he can’t remove it.”

  I study Poe’s face. It’s not common for a shifter to know much about curses. “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’ve worked for the elders a long time. There’s not much I haven’t heard them discussing at least once.” Poe tips his head back, studying the moon. “When a daemon is bound, he can hardly take a leak without the master’s say-so.”

  “What now?” I steal a glance at Bryn, who has pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. She looks so small. Not helpless so much as hopeless.

  “I’m not letting you take her,” Calder says, staring down the bounty hunter.

  But Poe heaves out a breath. “I don’t aim to take her. Not much point anymore.”

  Calder and I exchange glances. It could be a trap. Bounty hunters aren’t known for their understanding natures.

  Poe snorts as if reading my mind. “If I’ve only got three weeks left to live, I might as well make the most of it. Elders be damned.” He turns toward the trees and strides in. Within seconds, the darkness swallows him.

  Calder starts pacing. I’ve only seen him move with such agitation a handful of times before—most recently when we were waiting to hear from Ryder whether he had approved the infiltration mission that brought us here tonight. “This can’t be it,” he mutters, barely loud enough for me to make out his words. “Someone has to know something.” He stops mid-step, his back straightening as he pulls the phone from his pocket. After swiping at the screen, he brings the device to his ear, only to pull it away a split second later. “No service.”

  I tilt my head. “Calder?”

  “I’ll be right back,” he says lifting the phone in the air and staring at the screen. “I just need to find a pocket where I’ve got some service, and I’ll call some witches I know. If anyone knows how to help, they will.”

  I watch him as he wanders up the riverbank. Leave it to Calder to believe there’s a silver lining, even when the clouds are at their darkest. I’ve never envied his optimism, but now I wish I had a measure of it for myself.

  A sniffling sound draws my attention. Bryn’s face is buried in her knees an
d her shoulders shake gently. My heart breaks for her, but I don’t have any words that would make this situation better. Loathe as I am to admit it, Calder would be better at comforting her—but I don’t want to simply let her cry until he returns.

  I move slowly, not wanting to spook her. When I make it to her, I sink down beside her. She tenses for only a moment when I rest my arm over her shoulders.

  She gulps in a few breaths of air before turning her tear-streaked face to me. “It’s not fair.”

  The words are a dagger in my chest, but I try not to let the pain show. “I know.”

  Her lower lip trembles. “What’s the point? After all those years, I got this close to a real life, only to have it snatched away before it could even start.”

  There’s nothing I can say that will take away her hurt. But if I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that the only thing that can lessen pain is perspective. “Would you rather still be at the compound? Doing Mona’s bidding, brewing potions that hurt people?”

  “No,” she says firmly. “I just want to live. Is that so much to ask?”

  It isn’t—not really. So many people presented with the opportunity to do whatever they want in life squander the gift. Somehow I don’t think Bryn would have.

  If I could go back in time and make it so she never ended up in Mona’s possession, I would do it in a heartbeat. But since that’s not an option, I can only offer her the time she has left. “Let’s make a bucket list.”

  Her brow crinkles and she wipes her tear-streaked face. “A what?”

  “A list of all the things you want to do before…” I leave off the euphemism at the end. The words won’t soften the reality we both face. “Do you want to go skydiving? Swim with sharks? Climb Mount Everest? Make a list. And we’ll spend the next three weeks doing everything we can.”

  Bryn’s mouth twitches and I’m afraid I’ve said the wrong thing. But when the corners of her mouth curve upward, warmth spreads through my chest.