Page 58 of Witch Unexpected
“Cora! Cora, get up!”
Bramble’s cries were a distant thing as the world fogged and grayed. I tried to raise my hands to cover my ears, but my limbs were leaden weights.
“Fecking hell.”
Boots cut across my vision. Bramble’s boots.
A war cry was followed by a wail. She was fighting something.
A gray shape lunged at her, but the world around it was warped and foggy. I caught sight of a hood, white eyes, and a dark, yawning maw that seemed to vibrate.
Bramble slashed at it, silver blades winking in the sunlight. She made contact, and the thing reared back, but another took its place. How many were there?
Fucking hell. I needed to get up, I needed to—
“Take off the amulet, Cora.” Jasper’s ethereal face appeared beside mine. “Take it off.”
But I was immobile, words stuck in my throat.
“Dammit, woman. I’m no use like this.”
He stood and the temperature dropped, then Bramble hit the ground in front of me.
Fuck. He’d siphoned off her.
The keening was in my head now, a part of me, tunneling into me. I was barely aware of Jasper as he attacked the creatures, moving so fast he was a blur. Invisible power pushed them back, forcing them away from him and from us.
He rushed toward me and tore me off the ground, breaking gravity’s grip.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “I’ve got—"
“Motherfucker!” Bramble leaped to her feet, and I slipped through Jasper’s arms. Literally.
Jasper made a sound of exasperation, his face contorting with impotent rage then he vanished.
He left me? The fucker just left me! My eyes pricked and grew hot. What the fuck? Why did I expect anything less? Gah. I needed to move.
Bramble stumbled back so she was abreast of me, body in a crouch, daggers at the ready.
The keening was part of me now, but Bramble resisted.
She stood over me, blood pouring from her nose and ears. “Fuck you. You don’t get to have her. Not today.”
The banshees surrounded us with vibrating dark maws that echoed the sound of death, that sucked at my soul and scraped at my mind.
Rage unfurled and whiplashed in my chest, only to be beaten back by the weight the keening was pushing onto me. A flame flickered inside me, wanting to be free, wanting to burn, but held at bay.
The fucking amulet.
The fucking thing was going to get me killed.
“It’s going to be okay!” Bramble shouted over the wails. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
The sweet, delusional thing. I wanted to hug the prickly bitch, but it was unlikely that would happen because the banshees were almost on us, the darkness in their mouths swelling like live things, pushing outward, toward us.
The air popped three times, and silver fire burned my vision.
The banshee keening cut off, sudden and sharp, then the world was filled with gray dust. It rained down to kiss my cheeks and sting my senses with a metallic scent.
