Page 4 of Witch Unbound
Thing was, I didn’t know what she wanted from me, and right now I didn’t care. All I wanted was Rune back.
“I’ve given you what you’ll need to complete the task,” she continued. “The task I made you for.”
Wait. What did she mean? “Youdidn’tmakeme. Fee did.”
A soft sigh drifted around me. “Fee imagined you into being, but I knitted you together. I gave you the face to charm an original from another world, although I underestimated how badly he’d want to go home. Still, there’s time. You’ve been changed, but those changes will prove useful in more ways than one.”
She was speaking in riddles and I didn’t have time for them. “I want Rune back. You made a deal with me to save my life, so make another to save Rune.”
“Ican’t give him back to you.”
“Liar. Loke said there was a way.”
“Yes. Loke seems to have a soft spot for you.”
We were wasting time here, and agitation was a worm in my belly. “Tell me. Please. I’ll do whatever you want, just tell me how to get him back. Please.”
Silence pressed in on me, and for a moment I thought she’d left and our discussion was over, but then she sighed once more.
“I suppose sometimes risks can yield rewards. It will still come to pass…” She said it softly, as if speaking to herself. I held my breath, waiting. “Loke will take you where you need to go. But bringing Rune back will be up to you. You will return here whether you fail or succeed, and I will reveal my price.”
The knot in my chest loosened even as my gut twisted in foreboding, because I had no idea what I’d agreed to the last time we’d bargained, and no idea what more I was agreeing to now. Back then, when the infection had me in its grasp, I’d wanted to live, and right now, I needed Rune to live. The price, no matter what, would be worth it.
“Are we agreed?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The light flared so bright I had to close my eyes and throw up an arm to shield myself.
“Cora?”
I was back at the bus stop with Loke.
He was dressed in jeans and a cream shirt open at the neck, sleeves rolled up to expose more tattoos.
“Looks like you convinced her.” He sounded impressed.
I walked up to him. “What now?”
He cupped my shoulders. “The fact that you still have a connection means a part of his soul is still connected to yours and to your world. You only get one shot at this, Cora. Tarrifel will sense you don’t belong, and it will work to eject you. You’ll need to act fast to remind Rune that his life there isn’t real. Tap into the part of him that remembers you.”
“I can do it.”
Loke drew me closer, and my body tingled at his proximity.
I resisted the instinct to pull away but shot him a back-off glare. “What are you doing?”
His mouth tipped up in a crooked smile. “Oh, did I not mention? I’m the gateway to Tarrifel. You want in, then you’re going to have to kiss me.”
I called bullshit, but fuck it, I’d kiss a thousand fucking frogs to get to my mate. What was one gatekeeper?
I gripped his biceps, pushed up on tiptoes, and pressed my lips to his. I was going for a chaste peck, but before I could pull back, I was hauled up against his chest in a full-frontal assault. My head tipped back as he deepened the kiss, slanting his mouth expertly across mine and claiming me with his tongue. My mind rebelled but my body reacted with instant heat, returning the kiss and molding to him eagerly.
Hell no.
I turned my face away sharply, breaking the kiss, and speared him with a lethal glare.
He stepped back with a smug smirk, and I realized we were no longer at the bus stop. We were in a moonlit parking lot under a starlit sky. Music drifted to my ears, coming from a building behind Loke.
