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…
Aramaic, my mind whispers to me.
Before I can make out what that word is, the creature rushes us.
All around me, witches gasp.
I throw my magic at the creature, pulling power from the ground just like the priestess instructed. It feels like taking a large breath, then forcing out a powerful exhale. The soft orange plume of my magic leaves me, barreling across the room. It slams into the being, knocking it off its feet and into the stone wall behind it.
Its body makes a dull cracking sound, and the creature collapses in a heap.
Empress, what is going on?
“You fucking fool,” the priestess says to me. To the creature, she calls out, “Creature, repair yourself.”
The being begins to move, but it’s no natural movement. Things are jerking and shifting beneath its robe.
My hold on the girl tightens, and I back us up.
The shifter moans, drawing my attention away from the room for a moment.
“Are you okay?” I whisper to her.
“Don’t…feel…so good…” she mumbles, leaning her head against me.
The girl is sweating and trembling and very obviously intoxicated with a drug or a spell or both.
I can barely think over the pounding in my heart. “Can you run?” I whisper. “Or shift?” I’ll take an intoxicated wolf over this room of witches any day.
“Ungh,” she says, her head seeming to roll on her shoulders.
I think that’s a no.
I head toward one of the lit passages branching from the room.
“Oh no, you don’t,” the priestess calls. “Leave if you want, but the wolf is mine.”
Her magic fills the air, and when I turn to her, her mask is gone. Blood still drips down her chest, and I can still smell the remnants of the dark magic tinging the air. Dark magic I participated in.