Page 83 of Filthy Little Witch
CHAPTER 27
Marta
I opened my eyes and sucked in a gasp, focusing on the stars overhead. They twinkled off in the distance, casting a backdrop to the full moon radiating through the treetops.
The full moon.
It wasn’t waning. It wasn’t?—
“There she is,” came a familiar voice from above my head.
“Bridge?” I croaked. My voice sounded hoarse like I’d been in the desert for two months instead of the liminal and, when I lifted my hands to rub my face, my muscles twinged in protest.
“You bet your sweet ass, Marts.” She leaned over me with a smile, and the sight of her bright blue eyes nearly brought me to tears.
I tried to sit up, but I got woozy and fell back again.
“Whoa, take it easy,” she said. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“Wes? Atlas?” The thought of them sent a sudden panic through my chest. Had they made it back, too?
“Over here,” Atlas said from my left. He was propped up against a tree, grinning as Leander prodded at his ankles and Val took his pulse. Wes sat on the other side, garnering the same attention from Circe and Gullevig. The rush of their presence coursed through my veins, settling in my chest like warm soup in a blizzard. We were back. We were together.
I wanted to be happy, to be overjoyed that we’d done it. We’d gotten out of the liminal. But even in that moment of blessed reunion, I sensed the wrongness in all three of us, almost like I’d left my entire life somewhere else with no way to go back to get it.
“Is she with us?” Crunching leaves preceded the tall, statuesque form of Lilith, the Harlots’ president and high priestess of our coven.
“She’s here,” Bridge said. “We’ve got them.”
“Good.” Lilith squatted down so she was eye level with me and grabbed my chin between her index finger and thumb. She stared into my eyes with her umber gaze, unnerving me with its intensity. As the leader, she had more power than any of us could ever know, and when she looked at me like that, I was terrified of what she might see.
Could she tell what we’d been through in the liminal? Could she see what I had to do to get free?
Lilith raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips before pushing to her feet.
“I want them all in quarantine until we can figure out what happened,” she said before turning to walk away.
My heart sank, and I tried again to stand, to go after her and tell her off for thinking I would go into isolation. I’d just spent two months there, for fuck’s sake. But maybe she had a point. Something was still off, and when I lurched to my feet, I got dizzy again. Bridge grabbed onto my arm to keep me up.
“It’s okay,” Wes said, reaching into my mind. “They can’t take us away from each other. We’re home now, and that’s all that matters.”
I nodded and let Bridge guide me through the woods, the same forest where we’d fallen into the liminal at the beginning. I glanced over my shoulder at Atlas and Wes just behind me, being helped by my other sisters and warriors. But when we got to the cars, they tried to put Atlas and Wes in separate vehicles.
The thought of being parted from them, even for the drive back to Asheville, ripped my heart apart. I wouldn’t tolerate it. I couldn’t stand it. The jolting force of panic squeezed my lungs until I couldn’t breathe.
“No,” I protested, digging in my feet. “We go together.”
“Marts?” Bridge furrowed her brow at me. “You okay?”
“Bridge, I go with my warriors,” I said. “Don’t force us apart.”
“It’s only an hour drive,” she said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Please,” I said, gripping her hands, sinking my nails into her skin. “Please, we need to stay together.”
Atlas and Wes made a similar fuss a few feet behind me as they attempted to explain that they would be getting in the truck with me, or the Harlots would have to knock us out again.
Two months ago, the mere mention of having to spend an hour in a car with them would have had me growling and rolling my eyes. Now, I feared what would happen when we were apart. Blood binding, flesh binding, and…whatever had happened at the end, it tied us together in ways that were likely unhealthy. And when the rest of the coven found out the extent of it, I feared they would do everything they could to break it apart.
