Page 52 of Blood of the Fallen
Seriously? It was just a wink.It had to be my hormones raging like lunatics. There was no other explanation.
Tearing my attention away from him, I glanced around, wondering what it was I needed to watch. I got my answer when Bethel stepped off the trail and approached a dead tree. The trunk was hollow and bleached by the sun. It stood amid a group of small bushes and scattered rocks, while the rest of the woods seemed to curve around the area.
Facing the trunk, Bethel took off one of her many bracelets and plucked a bead off of it. She held it between thumb and forefinger and, as her lips moved silently, dropped it inside the hollow.
I held my breath, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did—at least not until Bethel splayed her hand over the truck and murmured another spell under her breath.
Then the tree started glowing slightly, its edges becoming sharper as if someone were shining a spotlight from the other side. The light also illuminated Bethel’s beautiful face, casting a midnight blue shine on her black hair and showing that the whites of her eyes had gone entirely black.
I couldn’t help the shiver that tiptoed down my spine. There was so much I didn’t know about the witch covens and their powers. I had no idea what Bethel was doing, and the unknown factor spooked me despite myself.
The glow around the tree diminished slowly until it completely disappeared. Bethel let out a heavy breath, stepped away from the tree, and blinked. When she opened her eyes again, they were back to normal. Nonchalantly, she returned to the trail and stood at the edge of it, her hands interlaced together over her stomach. She twiddled her thumbs, staring at the forest beyond the dead tree as if waiting for something.
I followed her gaze, then glanced at Kall, who shook his head at me when I started to open my mouth to ask what was going on. He still wanted me to learn by watching. Fine, but tonight I would drill Ila, and whoever else would let me, about any witch spells and pack secrets they were willing to share with me.
After ten or fifteen minutes had passed, everyone started to fidget, looking worried. Whatever we were waiting for didn’t seem to be coming.
Unable to resist it anymore, I leaned closer to Kall and whispered, “What are we waiting for?”
He frowned, looking worried. “They should’ve responded by now.”
“Who?”
“The Paquiwoc pack.”
So the spell that Bethel had performed was some sort of call to summon another pack here. It was a magical cell phone and clearly, they were getting a busy signal.
Kall cracked his fingers, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Had the Academy gotten to them already? Were we too late to warn them?
Tension rippled through our pack the longer we waited. I bit my lower lip, trying not to imagine magistrates wreaking havoc at the Paquiwoc camp, snatching the children from their parents’ arms and killing everyone else without mercy.
“There!” someone called a note of relief ringing in their voice.
They pointed toward the forest. My eyes flicked in that direction, darting back and forth searching for… then I saw it: a tawny wolf, yellow eyes glowing in the shadows.
“Thank the moon,” Kall said in a drawn-out breath.
“Everyone wait here,” The Chieftess ordered, morphing into her wolf form and trotting toward the yellow-eyed wolf.
Biting my lower lip, I watched Chieftess Yura approach the newcomer carefully, her tail and ears lowered, not in submission but in the reassurance that she meant no harm. When she got there, both wolves bowed their heads, then quickly shifted to their human forms. The Paquiwoc member was another woman, their Chieftess, perhaps?
They talked in tones too low to hear, but I could well imagine what Chieftess Yura was explaining, and it was playing clearly on the other woman’s expression. She understood the precariousness of the situation.
Something dark and heavy seemed to fall over my heart. The packs and all other supernaturals in these lands had already been whittled down to the bare minimum. There had been so many of them when the colonists first arrived, and now they were scraping to survive. Another concerted effort from the Academy would annihilate them completely.
My throat burned with emotion. I slipped my hand into Kall’s large one and asked, “What if we can’t stop the Academy?”
“You just worry about winning the trials, all right?” he sounded serious, though not mean.
At that moment, Desna walked in front of us, her dark eyes immediately traveling to our interlaced hands. Her mouth twisted in distaste. I started to snatch my hand away, but Kall held it in place, meeting her animosity with some of his own.
After she was out of earshot, I asked, “Why is she like that?”
“A bully, you mean?”
I nodded.
He opened his mouth as if to offer some unkind retort but stopped himself. After considering for a moment, he finally said, “She’s been through a lot. She… witnessed a magistrate murder her father when she was only five. It might have even been the same day you were taken. She was hiding with her younger siblings, protecting them. She probably thinks there’s something she could’ve done and blames herself.”
