Page 77 of Magic in the Woods
There had to be some sort of healer.
Elise.
“I know a place we can go,” I said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Dafni
It had startedoff so promising. My feet had been light. They only got heavier as the adrenaline wore off. My mind became heavier, too, filled with flashbacks of the last time I’d been in these woods, on my way to the Coven.
A witch was hard to kill. Almost impossible. You needed poison. That, of course, I didn’t have. But this time, I had something I hadn’t come here with.
Friends.
This time, I wasn’t alone.
I led the way, each of us taking turns pulling Emily along for the better part of an hour. Gideon held my hand as we walked, Luke’s wet nose brushing against our calves as he passed us, scouting ahead before doubling back to report.
It was funny how things never seemed to go to plan, especially when you didn’t have a plan to begin with. I’d been a foolto enter the Academy, expecting everything to just work out. It was only because of the friendships I’d made and the confidence I had in myself that I’d succeeded. This wasn’t a fairy tale. I wasn’t a princess who got her prince and the castle at the end of the story. Instead, I got a male witch and a coven full of homeless witches.
The air element witches kept a breeze on our backs, pushing us forward. The earth element witches cleared a path, willing the vines they grew with their magic to pull back the long grasses and young saplings. Water elements pulled ingredients from the woods for their potions as we walked, the pockets of their knit sweaters stretched to their limits.
Luke barked in the distance and then howled. We all froze for a moment before running toward him.
His tan wolf sat on his haunches, his nose to the sky next to a wall—a stone wall, the rocks uneven, the mortar holding them together jagged and patchy. My eyes followed the wall up, up to the top. A building, a house loomed behind the wall, standing higher than the wall, higher than the trees in the woods.
The packhouse.
I was back.
Although this time, I wasn’t anyone’s kitten.
Well, except maybe Gideon’s.
EPILOGUE
Everett
“They want to see who?”Kleio rushed to keep up with my long footsteps as I made my way down the hall and to the top of the stairs. I had to see them with my own eyes. Thesepeople—I didn’t know if you could even call them that. There was one ofuswith them. A tan shifter.
“The guard at the gates mind-linked me. They want to see my father,” I said.
Kleio’s breath got caught in her throat. She stopped following me, bending over, coughing over the spit she’d inhaled. I didn’t have time for this.Still, I stopped and turned around, whacking Kleio on the back a couple of times to help clear her airway.
“Everett! You’re doing it too hard!” She swatted my hand away as she stood up, her neck and chest red from choking.
Elise poked her head out of the room where the pack’s pupswere playing. She’d taken a liking to spending time with the youngest members of our pack. Seeing her with the young ones stirred something deep within me. “What’s going on?”
“Lyka, Kleio and I were?— ”
“What were you doing too hard?” Elise asked, eyeing Kleio’s red neck and chest.
“Me.” Kleio’s lips raised playfully in my direction. Damn her.
Elise blinked, closing her eyes for a moment before the left corner of her lips raised ever so slightly. She was using her mind-link.They were teasing me.She’d gotten entirely too good at that.
“Everett!”Jack’s voice bellowed from the room Kleio and he shared at the far end of the hallway.“If you touched Kleio, I’m gonna kill you!”He emerged from the room, his chest puffed out, and his eyes on me.
