Bewitched (Bewitched, #1)(68)

Nothing about it sits right with me.

“What is going on?” I ask the green-eyed witch.

She gives me a look that plainly says to shut up but says, “This is just part of the new moon spell circles.”

The woman in the shift stumbles a little, and when she rights herself, I notice how small her limbs are.

My heart seizes.

Not a woman but a girl. She can’t be more than sixteen, which is technically considered the age of adulthood for supernaturals, but come on. She looks too young to be out here participating in a spell circle. And definitely not inebriated, which she looks to be.

For a moment, the skin of her forearms shifts, her arm hair elongating. Then it recedes back into her skin as though it were never there to begin with.

I suck in a startled breath.

She’s a lycanthrope?

Why is she being led into a witch’s spell circle?

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

All of this feels wrong.

The girl’s companion moves a hand to the back of her neck and guides her down to her knees.

For a moment I am paralyzed by fear, my horror seizing up my limbs.

What the fuck is going on?

My eyes move from witch to witch, but none of them look anxious or agitated.

Why do they not look worried?

“Join hands once more, sisters,” the priestess says, stepping into the circle with the two guests of honor.

My heart feels like it’s in my throat as I clasp the palms of the women around me, sealing the circle. Magic thickens in the air.

I must be misunderstanding something. Surely I am.

The priestess lifts her arms and speaks once more in Latin. “I call on the darkness and the old, hungry gods who will bear witness to my deeds.”

She drops her hands and reaches into her robe. From it she pulls a gleaming ceremonial blade.

As the priestess speaks, she lifts a ceremonial blade in one of her joined hands.

Holy fuck, who gave her a knife?

My gaze sweeps over the rest of the circle. Several witches are swaying, and the eyes I can make out in the dim room look a bit glazed, but not one of them appears surprised or uneasy.

Why is no one else freaking out?

Pulling the collar of her robe down, the priestess brings the blade to her sternum. And then she drags it down. I see skin split, hear cloth tear, and when the first drops of it hit the marble floor inside the circle, my magic senses it, rising in my veins like a leviathan, eager to draw on the fluid. And that smell, that earlier smell that’s plagued me, I recognize it now—

Dark magic.

It oozes into the air, drifting up like smoke.

The priestess touches her fingers to her wound. Once she’s coated them, she approaches the girl, removing the latter’s mask.

“With blood I bind,” the priestess says in English, marking the girl’s forehead with her blood. “With bone I break. Only through death shall I at last forsake.”

At the center of the circle, the girl whimpers, then begins to scream.

No.

I drop my hands from those of my sisters, and the circle’s collective magic dissipates away with a whoosh as I rush for the girl.

I don’t know what I’m doing, only that I should’ve stopped earlier, when the blade came out, or the dark magic, or hell, even when they mentioned pulling from the darkness of the earth. This situation is all sorts of fucked up, and no amount of money is worth whatever is going on.

I knock the priestess aside before dropping to my knees in front of the girl, distantly aware of the priestess shouting as she loses her balance, her knife clattering out of her hands.

I grab the girl by the hands, terrified for her.

The girl’s robed companion turns to me, and from beneath the mask comes a monstrous hiss.

On instinct, my magic lashes out, slamming into the figure and throwing them back.

Empress? Memnon’s voice speaks into my head.

Crap. Not him. Not now.

“What the fuck are you doing, Selene!” Kasey yells, coming toward me.

I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing, and this shifter is probably an adult who agreed to this, and maybe I’ve gotten everything wrong, but her pupils are blown, and she’s making wolfish whimpering noises, and I will fucking fight anyone who comes between me and her.

“You’re okay,” I whisper to her, and I wrap an arm under her shoulders and help her rise to her feet.

She sways, placing most of her weight on me. I feel her lean closer and breathe in my scent, reminding me of Kane.

Must be a wolf thing.

Around us, the women are shifting and murmuring, and for the first time this evening, they’re starting to look nervous. A few of them have moved over to the priestess, helping her up and trying to staunch the flow of blood from her wound.

“Come on,” I whisper softly, urging the girl to move.

If I can get her up the stairs and into my residence hall, I can get her proper help.

“Creature,” the priestess calls out, “avenge me.”

Across from us, the shifter’s original companion now rises from where they fell. Only now, their hood has slipped off, revealing a pale gray face, smooth, lusterless skin, and eyes that are entirely black. Though it resembles a person, it’s not human. It doesn’t even seem to have a life force at all.

Along its forehead is a single word, one that’s been scrawled into its skin, written in…in…