Page 25 of Witch Unexpected
“Are you okay?” I couldn’t help but be concerned.
Her head whipped round to me. “If you don’t do this, she’ll die. You understand? She’ll die, and the seal will crack anyway.”
Fuck. I knew that look. I’d seen it in Fee’s eyes. I’d felt it in my heart when Fee had been in danger. This was personal for Bramble. She cared deeply about the current anchor witch.
“I’m sorry.” I meant it. “Look, I’m not a bitch, okay? I just need to know what I’m signing up for.”
Her jaw unclenched. “I get it. Let me break it down for you. You’ll be signing up to save a shitload of lives, and yeah, I get the whole stigma associated with the wordanchor,but trust me, none of that will matter if Croatoan gets free. Because the world will go to shit.”
Well, when she put it that way.
“You may not even be enough,” Elijah said. “You need to be tested to see if you’re strong enough to be an anchor and be mated to the wolves. Not all potentials are that strong.”
“But if you are, then you have to do this,” Bramble said. “Please.”
Fuck. I sat back and closed my eyes.
What could I say now? Lives were at risk. Loads of lives. Being anchored to three shifters couldn’t be worse than being bound to Jasper. Wait…
“Did you just saymated?”
“That’s what they call it,” Elijah said. “The anchor mates with the wolves.”
“Whoa, I amnotmating with anyone. No one said anything about sex.”
“No!” Both Elijah and Bramble spoke in unison.
“Okay…”
Elijah met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Mating is just what they call the binding. But you canneverget sexually involved with the wolves you’re bound to. That’s one of the cardinal rules. If you do, the seal is compromised. The purity of the binding is what gels the anchor witch’s power to the wolves’”
I exhaled in relief. Bloody semantics. “Hey, that’s fine by me. I’m done with bindings that involve sex.”
The words were out before I could stop them, and Elijah’s brows snapped down in the rearview.
I hadn’t given him all the details of Jasper’s deal with me. It was personal and kinda ick. I didn’t want him knowing, but now he did. Urgh.
“Cora—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Bramble twisted in her seat again to look at me, but I didn’t make eye contact. Let her think what she wanted. I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone. I was here, and I’d do this anchor thing to save the people I loved.
My choices in this matter had run out. “I’ll test, and if I’m strong enough, I’ll do it.”
Bramble’s eyes misted, and she turned her head away to look out the window. “Step on it, E. We got a potential to test.”
Chapter Seven
We’d been driving for forty minutes when Wren sat up, wide awake, with a look of urgency on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
He glanced at the front of the vehicle and climbed up to my shoulder to whisper in my ear. “Wren needs to go.”
“Go?”
“Badly.”
