Page 59 of Witch Untold
I followed his gaze as it tracked over my shoulder to find Lauris. The hybrid was covered in blood, clothes tattered and torn, silver eyes bright. He locked gazes with Bador and something passed between the two. Bador raised his chin slightly, nostrils flaring. Was that pride?
“Cora!” Poppy ran over. “Sloane?”
“I’m here.” Sloane joined us. “We’re good.”
The clearing was suddenly heavy with the calm that follows a battle. Vlad and his brothers stood in the midst of dead ice walkers. Dressed in dark clothes with their hair whipping about their faces, they looked like angels of death.
“There are more,” Bador said. “This was not all of them.”
“We know,” Radu sneered.
“We put up a barrier to keep them in as soon as we realized what was happening,” Jessie added. “I doubt any got off Grimswood grounds.”
“We will find them,” Vlad said.
“There could be more back at their hole in the ground,” Bramble said.
Vlad’s attention zeroed in on her. “You found their nest?”
She shrugged, all nonchalant, even though I know how terrified she’d been. “Found, fell into, same thing.”
“There could be sleepers,” Mircea said to Vlad. “Maybehewent back to their base.”
Were they talking about Razor Smile?
“No.” Vlad shook his head. “He wants to be free. He’s here. We need to find him.”
“We’ll escort you,” Bador said.
Vlad smirked. “Don’t worry, we have no interest in feeding off your witches.” His gaze fell on me and the smirk fell from his lips. “We’re still full from our last meal.”
My stomach turned.
Jasper let out an unhuman growl, the kind that precedes an attack, but Vlad and his brothers were gone, moving too fast for the eye to track.
Bador let out a curse. “Find them!”
The gargoyles around us took to the air as the head gargoyle turned to us. “Stay here until I give the all-clear.”
He strode away, wings sprouting out of his back, and then launched himself into the night air.
“I’m going to kill those sons of bitches,” Jasper said coolly. “Once they’ve served their purpose.”
“You can’t kill them,” Elijah reminded him.
They’d killed me, or at least had a good pop at it, and yeah, I’d been fucking pissed, but could I honestly say I’d have done different in their shoes? If I’d been dragged out of my world, bound to another, and had my power siphoned by a bunch of witches, would I have turned my back on a chance to be free?
No.
They’d done what they had to.
They were doing what needed to be done. Unfortunately for me, I’d been their means to an end.
Yeah, it was easy to forgive when you’d been given a second chance.
I was back.
But why? What did this entity want from me? What was the price?
