Page 159 of Their Blood Rite

‘She okay?’ Shaw asks quietly.

‘Breathing,’ Archie replies. ‘Needs blood.’

‘Don’t open any veins,’ Dorian warns. ‘We can’t offer them any power. Pixie will have to wait to have our blood.’

Archie's heart races beneath his chest as all three remain transfixed.

I hear a soft laugh and turn my head to see what has their attention held so completely.

Three women stand in the centre of the circle. Each watches us with a sadistic smirk, all cocking their heads to the side.

The woman in the centre shimmers in a smoky glaze. Black embers float around her, and the air hums. Her dark hair falls past her hips, and atop her head is a crown of bones.

I know her. She’s the spirit that has haunted me my entire life.

She reaches out her hand. The tips of her fingers are black as if dipped in ink, with the darkness spreading up her arms like veins.

Dark magic spews from her fingers. Pure, dark magic. The boys stagger back, but it doesn’t reach past the circle of blood.

With a cruel chuckle, she lowers her hand and steps forwards.

‘My dear Ronan,’ she coos with a soft voice. ‘My love. How I have missed you. And to see you through my own eyes and not that of another.’

‘Hello, Neve,’ Shaw replies.

Neve. The Blood Queen. The leader of the Unseelie. Destroyer of thousands of souls. Reborn and stood before us all. Before her former lover.

He steps forward.

She smiles, matching his step with one of her own. Her gaze takes him in, soaking up every bit she can. The towering lord, brimming with strength and power.

This is why they killed and maimed? This is why they wanted me? Why they trapped me in that circle and forced me to die three of the worst deaths known to witches?

To bring back his lover?

All the manipulation. The lies and betrayal… all to return another woman from the dead.

They take another step towards one another. Neve remains smooth and calm, slowly blinking as she holds his gaze. When close, she lunges to grip his throat. Her hand meets something solid and unseen. A barrier.

Shaw laughs, seeing her frustration.

‘Release us,’ she commands, that dark magic swirling around her fingertips.

‘We will release you,’ Dorian says. ‘When you undo the curse you placed on us.’

‘My dear Dorian. Is that you?’ The woman to Neve’s left steps closer, stopping at her side. Her tone is dark and bored and she looks hard and unforgiving as she sees Dorian. ‘Once so eager to please. Now seemingly so desperate to die.’

‘The only ones at risk of dying are you and your sisters, Dhalia,’ Dorian replies.

‘Where’s my puppy?’ the third woman giggles as she strolls to Neve’s other side. She looks past Shaw, her pale blue eyes landing on Archie as she chews her lower lip. Her eyes drift down to where I lay in his arms, and her face hardens. ‘Who do you have there, Puppy?’

Archie’s arms firm around me. His heart beats faster. I feel it through his chest.

‘Neve. Do you see what my puppy has?’ she sings to her sister, looking at me and giggling like a child. ‘A little baby blood witch.’

‘I do, sister.’ Neve looks at me too. The icy stare of the blood queen steals my breath as fear grips my heart. ‘Thatbelongs to me.’

‘She belongs to us,’ Shaw replies simply. ‘Reverse the curse, Neve. And we will let you go free.’

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