Page 83 of To Keep A Wolf
Directly beneath the archway, Rina repeats her incantation. Three times, she’ll say the necessary spell before the magic is complete. Our eyes meet. She offers me a secret smile, urging me to drink. Like she’s known all along it would come down to this.
When I look back at him one last time, Levi rises onto his elbow and nods.
I blink, a single tear escaping down my dirty cheek. A goodbye and a thank you.
“I love you,” I mouth.
“I love you too, mate.”
His words reach me even as low as he speaks them. And somehow, they give me the strength I need to do what comes next.
If I can’t stop Jadick, I’ll stop him from using me. It’s the best I can do. And maybe it’s always been where this was headed. Maybe there was never a chance of breaking the cycle without breaking me too.
The only way to win is to die.
Marilyn’s words echo inside my head, urging me on.
With fumbling fingers, I manage to uncap the vial, and then, with an awkward wrenching of my body against the hard stone, I manage to lean down so that my mouth reaches my bound hand.
Tipping up the vial, I bring it to my lips and upend it until the bitterness explodes against my tongue. This is nothing like the venom I’ve been injected with before. This is so much worse.
The warm liquid is a death sentence.
I drink it all.
CHAPTER24
Someone screams, and it’s urgent enough to make Jadick take notice of what’s happened. He looks at me sharply, eyes dancing over my face then down to my hand—the empty vial still clutched there—and finally, back to my face again, which is already beginning to burn with the effects of the poison I’ve ingested.
My heart skips a beat and then races. My head hammers with what feels like a two-by-four being slammed into my temples. This poison—it’s so much more potent than anything I’ve felt before.
The fire it brings is instant and consuming.
My lungs seize, and I jerk with the effort of trying to draw breath.
Dots dance across my vision, and I fall back against the stone altar, paralyzed by pain.
“What have you done?” Jadick breathes. He grabs the vial and holds it up. “Poison? Where? I ordered all of this destroyed. No one was to have this here tonight.”
Tripp looks up at Burnett.
Jadick notices, and his eyes narrow, but then Grey steps forward, smug. “She’ll end this. On her terms,” Grey tells Jadick. “And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
“No,” Jadick roars.
He drops the knife and the bowl of blood. It splatters at his feet, which feels like a victory in itself. Ignoring the loss, he grips my shoulders, shaking me until I can’t see straight. His mouth moves, but I don’t hear the words over the roaring of flames inside me.
Then he looks at the witch, eyes wild. “Don’t stop,” he orders, and I realize she’s done exactly that.
“The poison,” she begins, but he’s not hearing any of it.
“She has still given her blood,” he insists, lurching for the bowl again. He holds it under my mouth, letting the drops fall in one by one. “Don’t stop the spell,” he orders her.
“She has poisoned her blood,” the witch says calmly. “She is compromised. This ritual demands pure blood, or the magic will reject your request.”
Jadick turns back to me, eyes blazing with a fury I have to wonder doesn’t somehow burn him like the poison is burning me.
“Jadick,” I say, the word a choked sort of whisper.
