Page 82 of To Keep A Wolf
A sacrifice and another,
Death of your desire,
Born of your decree,
As we will it underneath the black moon,
So mote it be.
She nods at Jadick. I watch as he picks up the crooked blade from the table and turns toward me, using his free hand to grip my wrist. My body reacts, struggling to get free, but the bindings pulled taut against my limbs are unyielding. Jadick brings the knife down against my forearm, and I gasp at the sudden sharpness of the pain.
Blood pools then begins to run from the wide gash.
Rina comes forward, placing a bowl to catch the blood, and the drip-drip-drip is a disgusting rhythm, a song heralding everything I’ve fought to stop.
I breathe, shoving back the panic at seeing such a large wound opened. It won’t be long before the blood loss hits me. Especially after the gunshot that’s already left me weakened. Once I lose consciousness, there will be no coming back.
Rina’s expression is grim but also clear. She knows I’m finished.
This is it.
The spell will be cast, and my life will be lost, all so Jadick can manipulate fate.
I glance at where Levi lies in the grass. His eyes are open and trained on me. The unexpected awareness jolts me, and I inhale a sharp breath as a thousand unspoken words pass between us.
A lifetime, really.
One we’ll never know for ourselves.
An entirely different path, a destiny we’ll never meet.
If blood loss wasn’t threatening to end me, the loss of a future with Levi would.
My heart cracks, and in the empty places, I feel the magic itself begin to take root. It’s a black hole, eclipsing. A current, eddying. And the presence itself is such an invasion, I shove back against it. My back arches, and I let loose a scream that echoes into the treetops before being swallowed by the stars.
The guard beside me grunts, and I look over to see some sort of altercation happening just beyond where I’ve been laid out.
A hand shoving toward Burnett’s belt.
Tripp’s face lurches closer just before it’s smashed by the butt of a rifle.
As he goes down, his eyes flick to mine. Desperation flashes, and he hurls something toward me.
The tiny vial sings through the air, and I only barely manage to open my hand in time for it to land against my palm. Tripp falls to the ground with a muted thud, and Burnett’s there, planting his massive boot against Tripp’s neck to keep him from getting up again.
I want to scream for my friend’s life, but the vial is hot in my hand, and time is too short.
My eyes flick to the poison I now hold.
The venom Tripp just risked his life for.
Then I look over at where Levi still watches me from the same place Jadick put him down. He hasn’t tried to get up again. He won’t. I know it as surely as I know he’s the one who told Tripp to get me this venom.
All that poison.
All those times it almost killed me.
I glance sideways to see Burnett still looming over Tripp. On my other side, Jadick’s slicing my mother’s arm open and filling a bowl with her blood. He hasn’t noticed my prize.
