Page 128 of Witch Undecided
“We can worry about that once we get them out.” Jessie traced runic patterns on the door and then slipped her hand along the hinge, extracting a piece of obsidian crystal. “There you are, you bastard.”
The air vibrated.
The spell was broken.
A wave of alarm rushed over me. A metaphysical cry. The buzz in my veins was suddenly a scream.
I clutched my belly and curled into myself.
“Cora?” Sloane put her arm around me.
The threads binding me to my guys thrummed urgently, and I caught movement to my left as the guys abandoned their vigil and rushed over.
“It’s okay.” My voice was a whisper. “It’s her. The connection…The spell on the door must have been muting it.”
“Then let’s tell her to tone it down.” Leif tugged open the door, and the smell of urine and faecal matter hit us.
“Fuck.” I covered my nose and mouth.
Tor, Leif, and Rune entered the tower. Cries of alarm were followed by gasps of shock and sobs of relief.
The alarm vibrating my body cut off suddenly. The connection was severed. Warmth rushed through me, sweeping away the final vestiges of the cold burn that had been eradicating the infection.
“Cora, are you okay?” Sloane was still with me, her arm around me as I straightened.
“I’m fine.”
We backed up as the guys emerged, trailed by the shifters. Astrid was huddled against Leif and the rest of our dire wolf shifters trailed behind him. Tor emerged a moment later carrying a shifter I didn’t recognize. I locked gazes with her arctic blues and a connection zinged between us.
“It was you,” she whispered through cracked, dry lips. “You’re one of us.”
“No, she isn’t,” Tor said, jaw tense. “You don’t belong here, and I’m going to make sure you get back.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “You’re not going to kill us?”
Tor frowned at her. “We’re not the ones who started this war.”
She looked like she wanted to argue but thought better of it. “There’s not much time,” she wheezed. “Our bodies are dying. We can’t…can’t stay much longer.”
Another golden-haired varga hugged the door frame. “They took the others of our kind weeks ago but left us to die.”
“They took Elsi,” one of the Holm shifters said. “They just took her. Can you find her and get her back?”
Sloane and I exchanged glances, but it was Jessie who spoke. “Not right now, but we’re gonna figure this out. I promise.”
“We need to get out of here before they come back,” Poppy said.
Sloane shook her head. “No, we get everyone else out and we scope this place.”
Arctic Eyes groaned in pain.
We need to get the varga through a rift, Rune said.
He was right, we needed to get the varga home and the shifter females back to their packs. There wasn’t enough room for all of us in the two vehicles we’d brought, but there were pack wolves surrounding the lot. Some of us could get a ride with them.
Okay, so I had a plan. “Leif, Tor, get the varga home and our shifters back to their packs. Jessie, you’ll have to go with them. Sloane, Poppy, and I will grab a ride with one of the other wolves once we’ve done a sweep of this place.”
Astrid whimpered and Leif reflexively tightened his grip on her. I caught her slight smile and irritation bit at my chest. I’d never considered myself territorial, but I’d never thought I’d get sexy with two guys at the same time either.
