Page 34 of Filthy Little Witch
I sighed and grabbed a book from the top of Marta’s stack, and that got her attention. She whipped her gaze up and tried to grab for it, but I clutched it tighter to my chest.
“Ohhh, what do we have here?” I said, running my hand down the smooth black leather. “Signa sanguinis et animae.” I pursed my lips as I translated. “Signs of Blood and Soul.”
“I didn’t know you read Latin,” she said.
“I know ten different languages,” I replied with a smirk. “Give me a break.”
It was true. Dad had been a strict drill sergeant, forcing Wes and me to learn as much as we could about magic, including all the ways it had been created. Then, I flipped through the pages, shivering against a sudden gust of energy that surged up my arm. Ignoring that, I glanced over some of the words, focusing on a ritual or two.
Blood magic. Flesh bonding. Sex magic. Soul tethers. Knives and carving and consuming.
“This is a dark book,” I said, looking back up at Marta with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, it’s…uh…a bit out of touch,” she said.
Then my attention caught on something about a witch with “two warriors.” I squinted and leaned in to make sure I’d read it correctly.
“Wait.” I leaned forward on the table. “She was bonded to two warriors?”
Marta visibly swallowed and glanced at Wes, whose eyes widened and back straightened. He looked over my shoulder and then gazed back at Marta.
“I don’t know how much to buy into her ramblings,” Marta said. “It seems like she was trying to experiment with her warriors to make something more powerful than the bond.”
“Hold on,” Wes said, grabbing the book from my hands. “She had two warriors and lost their bond?”
Marta licked her lips and stayed silent, clearly caught red-handed.
“And you didn’t think to mention this?” Wes scoffed as he quickly ran his gaze down the words.
“I didn’t want to give us false hope,” Marta said. “The last entry is her attempts to knit their souls together. Since she didn’t come back to say whether it worked or not, I have to assume it didn’t, and they all died trying.”
“Yeah, but this is a start,” Wes said.
“Listen, that book is full of chaos magic,” she said. “I felt it as soon as I touched it.”
Yeah, I’d felt it too, and I wasn’t even a witch.
“Where’d you find it?” I asked.
“It was in my room when we got to the estate,” Marta answered, clutching the pendant around her neck. “I’ve never seen it before, and I certainly didn’t put it there.”
I heard what she didn’t say. If she didn’t put it there and she’d never seen it before, then maybe it had always been in the liminal. Perhaps it was the demon playing games with us. But that only pissed me off more.
“You’ve had this book the entire time and didn’t say anything?” I shook my head and took another sip of beer. “Typical.”
“What was I supposed to do?” Marta pushed to her feet, spreading her hands on the table, and I countered, towering over her, making sure she understood that I didn’t appreciate being kept in the dark. “Say here’s a book full of strange magic. Let’s do some and see what happens?”
“This bond affects all of us,” I said. “We’re trapped here, the same as you.”
That gorgeous blush filled her cheeks, her eyes glittering with the start of a fight. It took everything in me not to grab her neck, bend her over the table, and fuck her into submission right here in front of Wes.
On second thought…could be kind of hot.
“The least you could do is be honest with us,” I growled.
“I wanted to make sure I understood what it was before I brought it to you,” she snapped. “This could hurt us. This could kill us.”
“Or it could fix this whole fucking mess,” I shouted.
