SOMETHING WICKED

by Mitchell, Liza

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BRIANNA

  Brianna paced the living room. He may be trying to protect her, but she was sure that wasn't his only motive. Fucking alpha asshole. This fight could have gone down so many ways, but he chose to let his damned ego get in the way. To top it off, he doubled down on the lie that his decision to keep her here was only for her safety. Bullshit. He was wounded and pissed off and decided to scramble for control because, for once, he couldn't control her.

  Why did he have to ask her to be his mate now? Why now? There was too fucking much going on, and Brianna didn't think it was unreasonable to want to vanquish the evil witch coven first and then talk about blood vows and babies. She wanted to say yes. She felt safe with him. She felt comfortable around him. He was exciting. They had chemistry. There were so many reasons to say yes. But when she needed a fucking partner, an equal, he turned into an immature, dominant asshat.

  She kept walking around in circles, obsessing over the last few hours, trying to figure out what the hell she was going to do about him. She wished she had some sage or lavender or some shit. Grace would know a ritual to bring calm and clarity. She was always buried in a spell book.

  Fuck. She’d almost forgotten why she wanted to see her sisters. Betty had shown her how to bind the witches. She needed to get to them. She looked around the apartment and ran over to Ransom's discarded pants. She dug around in the pockets and found his keys and cell phone. Score. She clicked through the phone, thinking she should call Eileen and tell her to gather the rest of her sisters, but she realized that she had no idea what Eileen's cell phone number was. The only number she had memorized was her childhood landline.

  Well, she'd just have to drive to The Winchester. She had no idea where Grace and Cara were staying. If she couldn't find Eileen, then she’d have to come crawling back to Ransom and ask for his help to track down her other sisters.

  He was going to be so pissed, for so many reasons. But fuck him. He could have helped her when she asked, and instead, he chose to run away. She pulled down the driveway, obsessively checking her mirror, expecting to see a deep grey wolf come running out of the forest. She drove white-knuckled the whole way to The Winchester. She was going to be in so much trouble when Ransom came home. He would definitely punish her…

  She pulled up in front of the bar and scurried out of the car, still looking over her shoulder for Ransom. This would be fun if it were game, but she knew he'd actually be furious and betrayed when he found her. She should file this away for later—if there were a 'later' with him. She hurried through the front door, closing it behind her.

  Turning to the bar, she saw all three of her sisters already seated at the table.

  "What the hell is going on here?" she asked, feeling left out.

  "Don't be upset." Eileen stood up and grabbed and chair from another table. "Some more alpha bullshit. Cain left, and then Heath and Malcolm dropped off Grace and Cara."

  "It's more than just the alphas," Grace added. "My whole pack left when Heath brought me here."

  "Malcolm's too." Cara fidgeted with her keys. "He wouldn't say what was going on, just that he didn't want to leave me alone."

  Brianna took a seat at the table. "Ransom said he was going to talk to the wolves. I wonder if he's behind all of that. But it doesn't matter. Listen. He took me to a witch who helped me figure out what we can do about Claudia and the coven."

  "But we don't know who's involved," Eileen said. "Or even if Claudia is involved."

  "Claudia showed the witches’ bodies to Cara. Claudia talked to Laine before Laine led Ransom to me. Claudia tried to kill me in The Brew yesterday."

  "She what?" Eileen yelled.

  "Yeah, she suffocated me, without touching me, and kept a veil over twenty other people's eyes while she did it."

  "There's another thing," Cara added quietly. "Sydney was reported missing last night. I saw it on the news this morning."

  "There you go," Brianna exclaimed, hitting the table. "It's fucking Claudia and the whole coven. Betty didn't think one witch could have started the attacks."

  "Who's Betty?" Eileen asked.

  "A witch Ransom took me to. She was old as fuck and really smart…”

  "But can we trust her?" Eileen countered. "I mean, you think the whole coven is trying to kill you, so why do you trust this witch?"

  "Just let me finish, and you can decide. Okay, so, we couldn't figure out why Claudia is attacking witches. Or why she escalated to killing them. Although after seeing how much power she gained from killing two of them, I bet she won't stop. But since we don't want to become the Dark Prince's concubines, our options are limited."

  "She killed those witches?" Grace asked. "How do you know?"

  "Do you know any witch who can suffocate someone without a spell?" Brianna asked. Grace shook her head, and Brianna continued, "So Betty showed me a ritual to bind the coven's powers. It's simple, but we need to get them all in one place. Oh, and, it might bind all of our powers too."

  "What?" Grace practically jumped from the table. "No!"

  Cara shrugged. "Fine with me."

  "Fuck you, Cara." Grace glared at her sister.

  "Is that our only option?" Eileen asked.

  "Why are you even considering this?" Grace asked in a panicked, high-pitched squeal.

  "We need to stop them. If there's no other way, then we should do it. I'd rather bind their powers and risk losing mine than kill them and have to deal with the Law of Three Fold taking my life, or yours." Eileen was always pragmatic. Sometimes to a fault. At least this time she was on Brianna's team.

  "Fuck," Grace said, sitting down. "I guess the goddess could decide not to take our powers, right?"

  Brianna nodded. "I wouldn't count on it, though."

  Grace glared at Brianna but didn't respond.

  "So what do we do?" Cara asked.

  "We need to cleanse a sacred circle, get the coven to the circle, then bind their powers by wrapping the circle in a rope." Brianna thought back to Betty's spell book. "Counterclockwise to bind. Their powers will be stripped and tied to the earth."

  "Yeah, and so might ours," Grace said bitterly.

  Eileen swatted Grace's arm. "How do we get the coven into a circle that we have cleansed?"

  "We ask them for help. Well, Grace does since she has the best relationship with Claudia. Claudia still invites Grace and me to rituals, but since she tried to kill me, I'm probably not the best person to ask for help. We ask for the coven's help, get them to the grove, and bind them in the clearing."

  "Fuck." Eileen exhaled. "You want to let them into the grove? Only our ancestors have stepped foot in those woods since we came to the land two hundred years ago. And now you want to invite dark witches there?"

  "What does it matter since we may never practice again?"

  "Grace, shut your fucking mouth!" Brianna finally snapped. "None of us are happy about this, and you are not helping. Listen, we use the grove because that's where we have the most power. Grace will call asking for their help. If Claudia doesn't say yes then I don't have another plan. I guess we could cast a spell luring them there, but that's one extra unknown variable."

  "If Claudia has been using dark magic, will we even be able to bind them?" Eileen asked.

  Brianna shrugged. "We have to try. Otherwise, Ransom is going to kill them all. And I don't know if the whole coven is guilty, but I could sleep at night knowing I'd bound an innocent witch. I don't know if I could handle it if my mate killed her instead."

  "Excuse me?" Cara raised her eyebrows.

  Brianna froze, she hadn't even realized what she'd said until Cara called her out. "We aren't mated," she said quietly. "I'm not even sure if I want to be mated to him."

  "Spill," Grace commanded as she scooted to the edge of her chair.

  "I thought I knew what I wanted, but then he flipped out and turned into a not-fun alpha, and I'm not sure I can deal with that forever."

  "Everyone has their flaws," Eilee
n said. "You just have to decide if you can accept them. And it's okay if you can't. I mean, that's what dating is. I think the highs and the lows are just amplified with wolves because they know when they’ve found their mates. And they think they get some sort of extra asshole room if they're an alpha, but that doesn't mean you have to give it to them. And that could be a deal-breaker."

  "Or you can just not pick a mate," Grace said with a sly smile.

  Brianna waved them away. "All right, stop it. Let's deal with these witches and then my mating issues. Grace, can you call Claudia and beg her for the coven's help?"

  "What kind of help do we need from them?" Cara asked. "It seems unbelievable that you all have turned down their invitations for years but now you’re calling and inviting them onto your sacred land?"

  "You might be over thinking the SOS call," Grace said. "Brianna was just kidnapped. I'll tell her we've cast spells to find her attacker, but they haven't worked and we must not be strong enough."

  Grace stood and walked into the back to make the call. Brianna listened to Grace's muffled voice trying to make out what she was saying, but it was impossible. Eileen and Cara looked just as anxious, and the three of them sat in silence waiting for Grace to return.

  "Let's go!" Grace yelled triumphantly.

  The four sisters piled into Brianna's borrowed—slash stolen—SUV, and Brianna sped through town to their home. Home? She wasn't sure if that house still felt like home. Her attack might have robbed her of that sense of safety. None of her sisters had returned there, either. They were all living with their wolves. LeFays had lived in that house for almost two centuries. She couldn't let the witches take that from them.

  When they reached their home, the sisters divided to gather everything that was needed for the ritual. Brianna went to the garage and found a roll of twine, then headed toward the sacred grove of trees in the back of their property.

  Her ancestors had planted the ash trees hundreds of years ago. Many of those same ancestors were buried around the clearing—or at least all of the women were. The grove was powerful, and only LeFay witches had ever entered the woods, but their best chance at binding the Wildwood coven was to bring them to a place where the sisters had the most power.

  In the clearing, Grace and Eileen were cleansing themselves with a stick of sage and juniper. Brianna set down her twine and joined them.

  "Where's Cara?" Brianna asked.

  "She's waiting out front for Claudia. I wasn't sure if she would participate in the spell, so I had her stay out there." Grace handed the smudge stick to Brianna.

  "I doubt she’ll ever practice again," Eileen said. "She did it for Brianna because there wasn't any other option. We have other options here. Shitty ones, but they still exist."

  The sisters stopped speaking and focused on clearing their minds and cleansing their spirits. Brianna had plenty of bad energy, but how could one really be pure when they were planning on stealing another witch's powers? She closed her eyes and knelt on the ground, slowly passing the burning herbs over herself, visualizing swirls of blackness evaporating from her body as she cleared her mind. When she lost track of time and had forgotten what she was doing, she knew she was ready.

  The sisters walked around the outside of the grove and smudged the circle. They banished any negative energy and called in the power of their ancestors, continuing their procession even after Brianna heard voices approaching.

  Cara and Claudia walked through the trees with a line of a dozen witches behind them. Brianna struggled to breathe when she saw Claudia and Laine. She stared at the ground, followed Grace's footsteps, and hoped the no one had noticed her reaction. Their plan was so simple that even the slightest hint that the sisters didn't trust the coven would destroy their chances at successfully performing the ritual.

  Eileen led Grace and Brianna in a clockwise circle around the clearing, opening the sacred space for the Wildwood coven. Cara was whispering with Claudia, her hands moving wildly as they walked into the clearing. The rest of the witches poured into the empty space in the middle of the grove and milled around aimlessly.

  As soon as all of the witches were inside the circle, Brianna and her sisters turned around and began walking in the opposite direction. Counterclockwise to close. She vaguely heard Claudia ask about the ritual and smelled another smudge stick burning, but Brianna focused on the sound of her feet against the earth as she set her intentions and picked up the twine and tied it to a tree limb.

  She walked as quickly as she dared, wrapping the clearing in a thin strand of rope, asking the goddess to bind the coven's powers. Asking for safety for her family and her town. Over and over she repeated her requests. When she’d made a full circle, she exhaled, knowing the witches were trapped. She didn't feel the need to hurry now. Soon they would realize what had happened, but she should be safe. She continued the ritual, wrapping the grove in twine until she heard an earth-shattering scream.

  "What have you done?" Claudia was on her knees, her hands tearing out fists full of hair.

  "We've bound your powers, Claudia, the whole coven's." Cara remained calm as the entire group fell into hysterics around her.

  "You stupid bitch." Claudia stood and closed in on Cara. "You've bound your own powers too."

  But Cara just shrugged. "I didn't want them, anyway. I don't want to be a part of your world."

  "My world? You stupid, young witches think you have a choice, but you don't. You live in my coven's territory, you live by our rules. Or at least you should have. Instead, you think you can do whatever the fuck you want. But you're denying our coven access to your powers. We could have been twice as powerful if you had just fallen in line!"

  "That's why you kidnapped and killed those girls? Because they wouldn't join your stupid cult?" Cara’s voice burned with rage. "What the fuck would you even do with that kind of power?"

  "Everything is about money and power, you stupid girl. And the witches of Wildwood could have had both. We were going to have both! Nobody had to die. When I became high priestess, I invited all of the lost witches to come back to the coven. Only one returned. I hoped that the attacks would cause everyone to close ranks and come back to us. That didn't work either!"

  Brianna stared at Claudia. "You've always used black magic, haven't you?"

  "Fuck, everyone uses black magic. White magic is basically glorified prayer. What's the point in having powers if you don't actually have any control over them?" The rest of the coven had gathered behind Claudia and were watching the argument intently.

  "Well, it seems to work well enough for us." Brianna turned around to leave the grove. She just wanted to go home and get away from Claudia. When she turned her back to the clearing, a pair of hands closed around her neck and slammed her to the ground. She grabbed at the fingers around her throat trying to pry them loose one by one. Her forehead hit the forest floor one, two, three times. Lights exploded behind her eyelids with each collision. She kicked and fought against the weight on her back, but it didn't budge. The hands pulled her neck up again, lifting her head higher and higher until suddenly the hands were torn from her neck.

  She rolled over and saw Claudia pinned to the ground by a deep grey wolf. The animal snapped at his prey and snarled, baring his teeth.

  "No." Brianna choked her voice hoarse from her attack. "No, Ransom, let her go."

  The wolf looked at Brianna, then at his prisoner. Ransom drew back a paw and struck her across the face viciously, leaving four distinct claw marks across her cheek. Brianna heard other growls and screams in the clearing, but she couldn't take her eyes off of her wolf.

  Claudia cowered in a fetal position, until Ransom bit at her heels, spurring her to run out of the grove. The wolf came and sat next to Brianna and licked her forehead, cleaning her wounds with his tongue. Her heart soared, and she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his fur. While she was grateful that he’d saved her life, she was so happy that he had come for her at all. One fight couldn’t destroy
what she felt for him. She wanted to be his mate. She'd wanted it in the car this morning too. It was just too much, too fast.

  But now she didn't want to wait.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RANSOM

  Ransom needed to hold her, needed to talk to her. He shifted and scooped Brianna into his arms holding her to his chest.

  "I'm sorry." His lips brushed against her ears. "I was selfish. I was wrong."

  He’d never put his pride and dominance aside for a partner. Brianna was worth it. The two of them fit together so well, he would do whatever he needed to keep her. "I promise to compromise, to not treat you like my submissive."

  "Don't you dare! That's not the mate I fell in love with." Brianna wrapped her legs around his waist and leaned back in his arms.

  "Mate?" He pulled her toward him, kissing her feverishly. He pressed her body against his. His cock throbbed, and it grew harder with each kiss.

  "All right!" A voice boomed around them.

  He froze. He had forgotten he was naked. In the LeFays' grove. With Brianna's sisters. And a dozen other wolves.

  He lowered Brianna to the ground. Unfortunately, her body sliding over his dick did not help the situation with his erection. She was giggling, but his cheeks burned. "Leave us!" he roared, glaring at the other wolves in the clearing. Most of them slunk away into the woods, but one moved next to Eileen and another circled Cara while four wolves sat at Grace's feet.

  "You're practically fucking my sister in public. You don't get to be pissed." Apparently, it was Eileen who had scolded them.

  Ransom growled and pushed out his chest. Eileen's wolf bared his teeth.

  "Everyone settle down." Brianna stepped between the wolves. "After everything that's happened, Ransom making out with his mate should be the least of our problems."