Текст книги "Bewitched"

Автор книги: Laura Thalassa

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

CHAPTER 42

“What?” I nearly drop the phone.

Across the courtyard, a few guests glance over at me as they head inside, clearly startled by my outburst.

I must’ve heard Kane incorrectly. There’s no way—

“Tonight,” the shifter adds. “They have a warrant out for your arrest. Apparently, they found a shoe of yours with blood from that witch who recently went missing.”

“Kasey,” I whisper.

As for my shoes, I am missing the pair I left behind the night of the spell circle. Did the Politia find one of them? If so, why would it be in the woods, and how in the hell did it get Kasey’s blood on it? I was barefoot by the time the fighting out there occurred.

There must be some mistake.

I’m about to say so when Kane continues. “The Politia thinks you committed the murders.”

I can’t seem to draw in enough air. It’s one thing to be a suspect in a murder case, but they’re planning on arresting me? Tonight?

“Goddess…” I whisper, feeling the world tilt as more guests head back inside the conservatory. “I’m innocent, Kane.” I need to say it, even though I can’t remember everything.

“If any of us shifters thought you committed these killings,” Kane says, “then friend or not, we would turn you in.”

I exhale a shaky breath. Packs are notoriously loyal but even more notoriously protective of the innocent—particularly their own.

“We believe someone’s framing you.”

It feels as though someone kicked me in the stomach.

Framed. I’m being…framed.

I’ve been so caught up in proving my innocence that I didn’t stop to wonder why my name kept popping up in the first place. I just assumed it was some combo of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being unable to prove my alibi.

I hadn’t considered the possibility that someone was deliberately leveraging my memory loss against me.

I should’ve though.

I press a hand to my brow. “Shit.”

Shit, shit, shit.

Kane’s tone sharpens. “My alpha wanted me to pass along this message: Cooperate with the authorities. We’ll send in one of our lawyers to help sort this out once the Sacred Seven are over.” Once the lycanthropes can fully control their shifts again.

I put a hand to my head. My mind is screaming, and I can’t seem to draw in enough air.

“Kane,” I say softly, “I…thank you.” What he’s saying may not prevent me from getting arrested, but knowing I have an entire pack’s backing makes the whole ordeal seem a lot less hopeless.

The lycanthrope’s voice grows deeper. “Cara told us what happened as well as she could remember. It’s not much, but it’s still enough for us to know how much you risked, saving her. From what it sounds like, they were going to force Cara into—” His next words get mangled. Kane stops, clears his throat, and continues. “A bond against her will.” Another several seconds of silence pass, and I can only imagine he’s fighting his need to shift. “We would like to hear the story of that night in your own words, once we sort out the situation with the Politia.”

“I can do that,” I say quietly.

Hearing Kane speak like this—like the leader he must be getting groomed to be—is throwing me. I had a crush on him for years, but I never knew him. And now I’m discovering that maybe he isn’t just some gorgeous shifter; even as young as he is, he may be a commanding member.

He hesitates, then adds, “Also, Selene, this is unofficial, but I’d like to see you again.” His voice roughens once more, nearly to the point of indecipherability. “I’ve wanted to since I said goodbye to you that night.”

He and I left things off in a strange place—somewhere between a fling, a crush, and a near-death experience. At least, I think that’s where we left off.

“I—”

Little witch, are you ready to play…?

I press a hand to my heart at the sound of Memnon’s voice inside me. I can barely focus on my earlier need for revenge in light of what I’ve now learned.

“I just wanted you to know where I stand on that,” Kane says before I can give him a proper response. He clears his throat. “Anyway, try not to answer any questions until one of our lawyers can speak with you.”

“Okay,” I say, my voice a little lost.

I’m now vividly picturing Politia officers swarming the conservatory and cuffing me in front of all my coven sisters.

I need to leave and get back to my room. If I’m to be charged and arrested tonight, I don’t want an audience. Especially not one that consists of my friends and peers. This will be a bad enough experience to live through as it is.

“When are they going to get here?” My voice wobbles.

“I don’t know,” Kane admits remorsefully. In the background, I hear a wolf howl, then several more. “In an hour? Maybe later, maybe sooner—I didn’t get the specifics.”

I rub my eyes, and I can’t decide if I want to laugh or cry. This whole situation is nuts.

“I am so sorry, Selene,” he adds softly. “I—”

Screams echo from inside the conservatory, and I nearly drop my phone.

I curse under my breath.

Memnon—I know this is his doing.

“Kane, I have to go.”

Before he can respond, I end the call, cutting across the eerily silent courtyard, the train of my dress whispering behind me.

I head for the double doors that lead into the main section of the conservatory. Even from here I can see the guests inside, but I don’t hear the music playing anymore, and now that my eyes sweep over the supernaturals closest to the windows, they seem unusually tense.

“Selene!” Memnon bellows from somewhere in there.

The hairs on the nape of my neck stand up.

I reenter the enormous greenhouse, brushing past guest after guest. Their eyes are wide, and lots of nervous magic wafts off mages and witches and floats high in the air.

“Selene!” he calls again.

There’s such a thick crowd of supernaturals that I don’t see him. Not until I slip past the guests ringing the dance floor.

Standing in the center of the dance is Memnon. He’s not alone.

In his clutches is a blond witch, her entire body trembling. He holds that fancy dagger with the golden hilt almost casually to her throat. I know in my bones it’s an honest threat. He’d slit that woman’s throat in an instant if it suited him. He may still do worse.

“Selene!” This time, it isn’t Memnon calling to me.

I turn toward Sybil’s voice, searching for my friend in the crowd. I catch sight of her red dress, then her panicked eyes. “Run—”

“There she is,” Memnon says, his wicked eyes glittering when they catch sight of me.

Everyone around us stands watching in frozen horror.

For a moment, I’m just as frozen as they are. I was expecting something awful from the sorcerer, but not this.

Finally, I find my voice. “Let her go.” The command comes out stronger and calmer than I thought it would.

Memnon’s attention drops to the witch, and he considers my words. Beneath his blade is a thin line of blood.

“No,” he eventually says, “I don’t think I will.”

My pulse thunders in my ears. Around me, the guests are still rooted in place. It’s only now that I notice Memnon’s magic weaving between them, and I sense it’s what’s keeping them from intervening or fleeing.

My attention returns to the sorcerer. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, Memnon, you won’t get away with it,” I say. “This isn’t the ancient world, and you aren’t a king anymore. You have hundreds of witnesses here. The Politia will get you.”

He laughs, the action causing his dagger to shift and the witch in his arms to cry out. Another line of blood forms beneath the edge of his blade.

“The Politia?” Memnon says. “I find it highly amusing that you would trust them, considering your own situation.”

He tilts his head. “Have you already forgotten our conversation on power? Those who hold it make the rules. And those who don’t must follow them—including the Politia.”

Around me, I hear people murmuring and the quiet sobs of one or two of them, but in some fundamental way, the room has gone lethally quiet.

“Strange how the murders always seemed to involve you,” he says. “How many times have you wondered if you were guilty of them? The Politia sure seems to think it was you. I wonder who could have possibly directed their eyes to such an innocent, law-abiding witch?”

We believe someone’s framing you.

I stare at him in growing horror.

“You,” I breathe. “It was you who framed me.”

My stomach roils, and for a moment, I think I’m going to be sick.

“But…” My brows draw together. I asked him point-blank if he’d murdered those witches while he was under a truth spell.

“I didn’t kill those witches,” he concedes. “That was another. But I did move their bodies before they could be destroyed. I found that I could expose the deeds of those who were guilty while implicating you for their crimes.”

There it is, his confession, said before a room of hundreds of my peers. It terrifies me that he’s unfazed by that—especially because I’m sensing that his indifference doesn’t come from ignorance of our modern ways. I think it may truly come from having enough power to make problems go away.

I can’t seem to catch my breath. “What have you done?” I whisper.

“So many things I couldn’t possibly recount them all to you here.” He scrutinizes his dagger. “A warlord is more than just a sword arm, est amage. There is so much strategy involved.”

My magic rises, pressing against my skin.

“We can’t come back from this, you know.” Even as I say it, I ache. Ache for something that might’ve been deep and real but now I’ll never get.

What monster does something like this to the one they love?

But the answer has always sat there, right in front of me.

Memnon’s wife, Roxilana, went to incredible lengths to hide Memnon from the world. Perhaps she saw this side of him before I ever did.

“We can’t come back from this?” His eyes spark with his power, and his grip on the woman in his arms tightens. “Est amage, I did not endure in that cold, bleak sarcophagus for two millennia to lose you all over again.”

The witch in his arms whimpers. There’s a growing number of tear tracks down her cheeks, ruining makeup she probably put on with excitement. Tonight was supposed to be fun, not some sort of nightmare.

“Let the woman go, Memnon,” I say again. My magic continues to gather, mounting beneath my skin and sliding through my veins. “This is between the two of us.”

Memnon’s gaze drops to the witch. More blood drips down her neck. She shifts, and I see her magic thickening beneath her palms, the emerald wisps of it dissolving inches from her. I don’t know what enchantment he’s placed on her, but it’s neutralizing her powers.

“How badly do you want her freedom?” he says. “What would you be willing to do for it?”

I’m caught off guard by the question. I feel all the eyes in the room on me. This bargain isn’t just for the witch in Memnon’s arms. It’s for Sybil and all the others here who are trapped under the sorcerer’s magic.

“What do you want?” I say, my power churning inside me.

“You know what I want.”

I suddenly remember his words from a week ago.

You are under a curse, mate. One made by your own hand. Of course we will remove it.

He wants me to remember our past. What would this revenge even be for if I couldn’t recall the crime that earned it?

My magic spikes in alarm, a little slipping out through my palms.

I look from him to the witch and back. I know this is where I’m supposed to capitulate, but I can’t. Not on this point, and not to this fucker.

So I choose violence instead.

“Explode,” I whisper.

My magic blasts out of me, and as it leaves, I get a dizzy head rush, my power eating through who knows how many memories. Only at the last minute do I think to hone it like a blade.

It slams into Memnon’s shins, knocking him backward. The witch in his arms screams as his dagger drags across her skin, slicing into her shoulder. But the cut is shallow and imprecise.

The moment the witch is free of Memnon, she scrambles away. The woman only makes it a few yards, however, before she gets tangled in the same spell that’s locked the limbs of the rest of the room.

I hear her frustrated cry, and the guests near her reach for the woman, murmuring to her in terror-laced whispers.

Memnon regains his footing, then gives a sinister low chuckle, “Naughty wi—”

“Explode.” I launch another spell at him.

This one hits him square in the chest, blowing him off his feet.

More magic gathers in my hand. “Explode.” I fire off. “Explode. Explode.” I’m forming and throwing the spells as quickly as I can. They hit him in quick succession, detonating against his body and knocking him back. One of them misses, shattering the window behind him.

I stalk forward, a vicious hunger rising in me. For revenge, for blood.

“Slice.” The spell slashes through his fancy suit and his skin, making it bloom red.

Thick indigo plumes of Memnon’s own magic pour out of him before pooling around his sprawled body and creeping across the floor.

Even with my strikes and the spells he’s already placed on the room, his own power seems to be growing.

I step up to him, each hit of mine only making me angrier and more resolved. Hurting him doesn’t feel good. I want it to—fuck, how I want it to—but it doesn’t, and that only seems to fuel my rage.

I scowl down at him.

The mighty sorcerer touches his chest, where his blood is spilling. He looks at the red liquid on his fingertips, then at me, his eyes glittering. “Have I told you, mate, that battles have always been my favorite sort of foreplay?”

His magic descends on me at once, throwing me back. I hit the ground hard, and the air leaves my lungs as my body slides across the dance floor.

Around us, the other guests are panicking, their shouts and cries filling the air, along with their magic. Memnon’s power wraps around the entire building, barricading everyone inside.

I haven’t even stopped sliding when my own magic strikes out at him again, the wordless spell lashing against him like a whip.

Memnon grunts at the impact, but then I see him pull himself to his feet.

More magic pours down my arms. “Explode.” I sling the spell from where I lie.

This time, a tendril of Memnon’s power swats it away, and it explodes against a cluster of trees and shrubs, blowing them apart and causing the nearby guests to scream.

I force myself to my feet as Memnon’s own shoes click against the ground. He runs his hands through his hair, looking bloody and violent in the most primal of ways.

I try to draw on Memnon’s own power through our bond—

“Ah, ah, little witch. That’s a cute idea, but I’m afraid I won’t be sharing my power for this.”

I reach for my own magic before flinging it at the sorcerer with abandon. His power rises to meet mine, the dark blue clouds of it crashing against my lighter orange ones, holding it at bay.

“Exquisite mate,” he says, his eyes beginning to glow. “I would fight you all evening just to watch your ferocity,” he says. “I hope you know it fills me with pride to see you unleash yourself.

“Unfortunately,” he continues, “I still need your help to lift our curse.”

I wipe the corner of my lips, where a little blood has slipped out from a cut in my mouth. “I’ll never agree to that.”

“But you will,” he insists. “See, I know your heart, Selene, better than anyone, so I know that while you may be willing to take me on alone, you’d never put others at risk.”

The first icy tendrils of true fear skate down my back.

“I will harm every single person in this room until you agree to lift the curse,” he vows.

My magic leaks out with my panic. “Memnon.”

“I do so love it when you say my name like that,” he says. “Agree to help me lift the curse, mate. Like you said yourself, no one else has to get hurt. This is between you and me.”

I glare at him as he uses my own words against me.

“Or we can do this the hard way.”

The words are barely out of his mouth when I hear a sharp inhalation.

To the right of me, a witch with dark curly hair clutches her throat. There’s seemingly nothing wrong with her, and yet she sways, reaching out and gripping a stranger’s shoulder as she tries and fails to draw breath.

On the opposite side of the dance floor, a mage grabs his neck, making pained choking noises as his canary-yellow magic moves restlessly around him.

Guest after guest clutches their throat, their breath seizing in their lungs until the entire conservatory is suffocating on nothing more than Memnon’s magic.

The room fills with panicked magic that’s tangling together and making the air hazy. All of it, however, is soon overwhelmed by the deep blue hue of Memnon’s power.

This time, my magic unleashes before I even consciously choose to fight back. It fills the room, the pale peach hue mixing with Memnon’s magic. I feel it pulling at the ends of my mate’s power, trying to draw the lethal magic away from the throats of all these supernaturals.

I grit my teeth as I meet resistance.

“Agree to lift the curse, mate.”

“No.” A wave of power explodes out of me, knocking Memnon’s away for a moment. I hear dozens of ragged gasps as, for a moment, people drag in a desperate breath of air.

My head throbs, and the edges of my vision turn hazy as memory after memory burns away. I don’t know which ones, but there’s a hollow ache in my chest at the loss.

Then the sorcerer’s power is back, clogging people’s windpipes and tightening like a noose around their necks.

I let out a frustrated cry and redouble my efforts.

I pull from the earth beneath me and the moonlight above me, drawing as much magic into myself as I can.

I form it crudely inside me, then funnel it down my arms and into my hands.

“Remove Memnon’s magic from their necks,” I incant, only belatedly realizing I’ve spoken in Sarmatian.

My magic races out of me, once again prying at Memnon’s.

Not enough. It’s not enough.

I force out more, more, more. My mind feels on fire, my magic straining like an overworked muscle.

“Impressive, my queen,” Memnon says across from me. His eyes glow like embers, and his hair ripples with his power. “Truly. I didn’t expect to have to give in to my truest nature for this fight.”

His magic strengthens against mine, and all the ground I thought I was gaining is undone at once.

I scream from exertion, nearly falling to my knees. Using this much magic all at once is becoming painful. I feel as though I’m ripping my own muscles away from their bones, the magic unmaking my body bit by bit.

Worse, despite my efforts, people are still suffocating; I can see their eyes bulging out and their faces changing colors as they’re deprived of oxygen.

I draw on yet more magic. The throbbing beneath my skull has increased, and the haze at the corners of my eyes has spread, obscuring my vision.

The first witch falls, her body hitting the floor with a dull thud.

“Stop,” I plead.

“Agree, and I will.”

Another body falls. Then several.

Now I do drop to my knees, my muscles weak and shaking. I can hardly see him through my blurred vision. “Please, Memnon, end this.”

“I will, once you agree to my terms,” Memnon says.

Burning away, everything is burning away…my high school memories, then my childhood ones. I’m sure of it.

“Speaking of terms,” he continues, his hair billowing in some invisible wind, “there is one more demand I forgot to mention earlier.” He strides toward me, magic billowing out of him with every step he takes. “I’ll need you to agree to it too.”

I stare up at him as he comes up to me, his ominous form looming.

“Marry me.”

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CHAPTER 43

“What?”

I want to laugh. I want to scream. Around us, bodies are still hitting the ground, and I’m the one on my knees, and this can’t possibly be an actual proposal.

Memnon’s hand slips beneath my chin. “Marry me.”

I can’t see him well through the strain shrouding my eyes, but my ears heard him correctly.

“Agree to lift the curse and be my wife in earnest, and I will release these people.”

“You’re sick,” I whisper.

His grip tightens on my chin.

“You’re running out of time, little witch. Better decide fast.”

“No,” I say breathlessly. “Choose different terms.”

He lets out a laugh, as though there’s anything amusing about this moment.

“Why would I?” he says. “I have you right where I want you.” His expression grows serious, and his gaze burns. “I am still awfully bitter about being locked away for fucking millennia.”

I glare at him as he kneels before me, putting us at roughly eye level.

“But I love you,” he continues, his entire demeanor gentling. “I have always loved you. The night I found you half dead in that forest made me face a truth I tried to bury. I cannot live without you.” Iron enters his voice. “I won’t.”

My body trembles, and the throbbing in my head only increases. He’s given me an impossible ultimatum, one I must agree to if I want these people around me to survive tonight.

“If you do this,” I say softly, “I vow to make every day of your life a living hell.”

A slow, wolfish smile spreads across his face. “I look forward to it, est amage.”

More magic is pouring out of me, though it’s sluggish now, and it’s battering uselessly against the sorcerer’s. My mind is starting to feel hollowed out. I’ve overdrawn my power, and still more supernaturals are falling to the ground.

There’s no escaping Memnon’s demands. Not in any real sense. My hate and anger nearly swallow me whole, but the sorcerer is right. I don’t want anyone else to die on my behalf.

Around me, the room has gone quiet, except for a few panicked gurgles and those unsettling thumps.

My shoulders heave with every ragged breath I take. I’ve done everything I can. It just isn’t enough.

“Fine.”

With that, I collapse forward, falling into his waiting arms, my breathing heavy, my magic spent.

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