Page 106 of When Bones Whisper
“Somewhere safe, in the city.”
That damned traitor. Darkness coiled in her soul, eroding all the kindness that once softened her to monsters like them.
Oh God. They were going to sacrifice her, just as they had done to the last witch in the Serea bloodline.
Charlotte tried to swallow, but her tongue felt too big for her mouth. Peering through cracked eyelids, she watched the monster grunt, his jaw hanging open revealing the chunks of mold hanging from his yellowed, crooked teeth.
Grimacing, she looked away, scrunching her nose when a horrifying thought clawed its way into her mind. What would happen to her body after the witches siphoned the energy fromher death? Would they leave her body to the monster, for him to feast upon her flesh and bones?
Peering to her left, she just managed to see the familiar tall hedges bleeding into the path of her vision. They were almost at Lysanmore family graveyard.
She wanted to scream at Gertrude and demand to know what they had done to Nathaniel, but the words wouldn’t form. After tonight, she would never see him again and could never tell him the truth, how when she was with him, it felt like home, a feeling she thought was lost forever. He deserved love and a chance to start over, but now he would never know she thought that.
The inevitability of what was to come hung in her heart as the monster walked clumsily. When they reached the wrought-iron gates of the graveyard, the familiar, extended creak of its opening screeched in her ears. Only minutes stood between her and death.
The metal groaned as bars scraped against the stone path. With every sluggish step, his arms around Charlotte’s torso tightened, his gnarled fingers scratching her skin.
It was getting harder to breathe.
A sea of frosted, skeletal leaves carpeted the ground between crypts and jagged headstones. While it might have been spring, everything that touched the Lysanmore burial ground seemed to quickly die.
Keeping her gaze, which pricked with stars, as far to her left as possible, she spotted the candle-lined path to the altar,illuminating a group of cloaked Avery witches waiting for them, their hands linked.
Purple and black wax dripped a fragrant puddle from their iron holders and the name Lysanmore was barely visible beneath the frost and lichen on the weathered stone crosses and tombs.
Sweat covered her upper lip, her hands clammy despite the frosty night air. Shivers ran through her in waves, wracking her body against the corpse’s arms. The sacrificial altar came into view, placed upon a single crypt mausoleum. Her body shook when she took in the slab of stone encased in a tangle of nettles. On it, iron hooks clutched the ends of woven, knotted cords of rope and blackthorn, meant for her.
A croaked plea spilled from her trembling lips, but exhaustion squashed the words. Adrenaline speared through her veins and into her heart, making it thump loudly against her ribcage. The seconds it took to walk to where the witches had congregated passed in silence.
The vial of vampire blood pushed against her ribs. It was the only thing that might bring her back. She tried to lift an arm against the paralysis, but not a single muscle reacted to her mind’s cues.
The silver light of the moon cut over the altar as the monster stopped above it, slowly placing her against the rough, freezing stone.
Her dress billowed out around her, the neckline tight around her heaving chest still stained with her blood. Gertrude planted herself on a large stone step, gray eyes that matched her sons intruding her tear-stricken irises.
With a clenched jaw, Charlotte glared at her with an unspoken promise of vengeance.
“I will take this,” Gertrude said, her bony, ringed fingers sliding between her cleavage and plucking out the glass of blood. “Do not look so hurt, little Lysanmore witch. You would not have come back anyway. Not when your body is promised to someone else.” Gertrude’s eyes lit like a monochrome flame, thin, wrinkled lips stretching. “Now I will have the power of the Lysanmore bloodline and the return of my dear, departed friend.”
Wait.No.How had she missed it?
Bile bit up her throat, making her mouth salivate.
The Smiling Woman had taunted her, telling her that her body was promised to her.
Gertrude turned her attention to the other Avery witches and Katherine who slinked out of view. Loudly, she announced, “After tonight, we will never suffer at the hands of humans again. They will bow to us. Her magic will enrich our bloodline, and once she is dead, we will hunt the others.”
Choking on a gasp, Charlotte mulled over Gertrude’s words. Her plan was always to eradicate all thirteen bloodlines but her own, so they might have all the power meant to be spread across the original families blessed with magic. The Avery family was a scourge on the earth, one that had to be stopped.
Gertrude lifted the dagger higher, the pointed, sharp edge holding steady directly over Charlotte’s heart. There had to be a way out of this. If she could only focus on her power enough to break out of the paralysis. She couldn’t die. There was always away out. Just like the night of the massacre. She’d come so close to death, but she never fell in.
Her life couldn’t end so quickly. It just couldn’t. While she always assumed she would meet her death with dignity, panic took over, every one of her senses cowering.
The Latin chants grew louder, the sound swirling in her ears. Magic hummed through the altar, in a rhythmic pulse. Her eyes widened, focused on the sharpness of the blade. Paralysis kept her in place, her heart pounding faster and stronger than ever before, as if the organ knew it had only a few beats left.
Her lips quivered under the suffocating reality of death. The reality of the permanence of what was about to happen shot adrenaline through her veins, heightening her senses.
She wanted to fight back but was helpless to move.
