Page 98 of Bewitched By the Djinn
Hugh tuts. “Ah, young love. Messy, isn’t it? But also useful.”
With a flick of his fingers, half a dozen guards emerge from behind him. Armed.
We’re surrounded.
Helen lifts her hands, but before she can use her magic, another spell pulses from Hugh’s hand, an invisible force that flings her back against the far wall.
She crumples with a cry.
“Helen!” Bennet moves toward her, but two guards block his path.
“Don’t worry. She’s not dead. As for the rest of you, well.” His eyes land on me. “Let’s test the strength of the bond between you, shall we?”
Cold panic floods through me.
Bennet growls low in his throat, but then another invisible force strikes him square in the chest, dropping him to his knees.
“No,” I gasp.
A guard yanks me back.
“Lock them up. Keep them separate.”
“No!” I struggle, but it’s no use. The guards squeeze my arms behind my back with bruising force.
I catch one last glimpse of Bennet’s face, twisted with concern, before we’re dragged in opposite directions.
Before the door slams shut, Hugh’s voice echoes off the stone. “You should’ve stayed away.”
Pain.
It envelops me in cold arms, invades my lungs, infiltrates my pores. It coils around my bones like barbed wire. There’s no thought, just the violent, pulsing ache of absence.
I can’t breathe. The walls press in, slick with damp. Am I in a cage? It doesn’t matter. My own body is the cage now. Every nerve is scrubbed raw, every beat of my heart like a scream.
I don’t know where I am. Only that I’m alone.
Time ceases to have meaning. All I know is throbbing agony.
Somewhere, beneath the agony, a whisper stirs. A warmth. Distant. Familiar.
Bennet.
No words, just a sense. A steady presence I didn’t know I’d come to rely on. That I’vealwaysknown, in some impossible, terrifying, beautiful way.
Cassie.
I gasp. The pain lurches, then sharpens. My body curls forward on instinct, but then like a flare in the dark, his magic brushes mine like an outstretched hand.
But it’s weak. Flickering.
He’s hurting too.
“I’m here,” I whisper, not sure if I’m speaking out loud or in my head. “I’m here, I’m here.”
You have to choose, a voice whispers in the back of my mind. It’s not Bennet’s voice, it’s mine.
Seriously, is it that hard? Oh no, some super-hot genie prince who’s great in bed loves me and wants to treat me likehis queen for the rest of my life.The voice huffs.Don’t be a dumbass.
