“Goddess, Zara. What were you thinking?!” Darius yelled at me as soon as he set his eyes on me, but he rushed over to me and comforted me with a tight hug, as if he was scared of letting me go like I would run away again.“Why would you leave without telling me you were leaving like that? Why would you that? Don’t ever do that again. You have no idea how scared I was. Where did you go?” He bombarded me with questions and pulled away as he looked at me.“I went to the witches’ coven,” I admitted honestly, not seeing any reason to lie about it.“You walked into the midst of witches and didn’t care to tell me about it?” He questioned as he grabbed a blanket and placed it around me to keep me warm.“Would you have let me go if I had told you?” I challenged.From the look on his face, I knew I had my answer. He wouldn’t have.“Where is Stone?” I asked as he started to pace around and ask me if I wanted a warm bath or something to eat. I didn’t want anything until I saw that my son was okay
The wind was now getting heavier, but you knew it wasn’t from you. This was solely from Janet. The tip of her wand was glowing with a yellow light that made your heart skip a beat at the sight of.“You have done more than enough in this place,” Janet said, her eyes turning white as she raised her wand up to the sky.“And you have done more than enough in general,” I retorted, glaring at her as my hands started to heat up with power flowing in my veins. “It’s time to end it.”A bright light emerged from her and blanketed the rest of the witches, one by one.“This is a spell I haven’t perfected all that well,” she said. “But I’ve gotten used to it enough to use it to send you back to wherever you came from.”All at once, the witches started to walk over to her and gather around her. Their wands all glowed the same shade of yellow. I looked down at my body to look at the light which was coming off of me. It was still flickering, a sign that I was in trouble and their attack could hit me
I grabbed a vial out of the strapped pouch along my waist, just one second away from opening it and letting it into the air.“Don’t do anything stupid,” I warned Janet. Before she could respond, one of her witches had casted a spell, and it had hit me in the back with a hard zap that caused me to turn around swiftly.In one quick motion, the vial was open and the poisoned air headed straight for the witch. Almost in the same way it had happened to Cleo, the witch dropped her wand and clawed at her neck.“Merida!” One of the witches who was close to her ran over to where she was, casting spell after spell to stop what was happening but failing.I turned back to Janet, who was staring at what was happening. She looked like she wasn’t breathing or even trying to. Her eyes were welling up with fresh tears. I was met with nothing. I felt nothing at seeing how devastated she was. She wasn’t devastated enough to me.“You know, I just had an idea,” I said, drawing her attention back to me. “J
The small basket of the witch I had killed was sitting beside me on the ground as I watched the sun set.The dull ache was no longer there when I thought about Aeron. I didn’t know why or how it happened so fast. It was my one reason to keep going, to destroy them all. But now, I was met with a wall whenever I thought of him.I was numb.“How do I keep going if you’re not here to remind me to do that?” I asked, not sure if it was directed at Aeron, the moon goddess, or both.Had I been completely abandoned by the moon goddess?When it was dark enough to go unnoticed, I stood up and grabbed the basket in my hand. It was something I would use to show Janet just what had happened to one of her innocent witches because of her actions and what would happen to the rest.I was a bit surprised that she hadn’t gone out to look for the witch as she had been out for quite a while. Perhaps I had overestimated how much she cared for her witches.“This is for you, Aeron. Whether you can see me or n
It had taken a lot of walking, running, and doubting myself, but I never turned back. I never gave up and decided to leave the plan to return to my child. I would only return to Stone when there was assurance for him that there was no future danger to him out there.And now, I had the chance to do that.“Here,” I whispered, panting from walking all the way. The entrance to the witches’ coven stood in front of me, well hidden but not to someone who knew what to look for. Not for a mate scorned.And with that thought came the ache under my skin. The image of Aeron getting stabbed and the person who had done it came to mind.The sun had risen while I was on the way there, and I was sure that Darius would have been searching the highs and the lows for me by now. I also imagined that he would remember the talk we had and the promise he made to me to protect Stone.“You’re only a few feet away,” I said as I sat behind a tree, perfectly hidden away from any witches who would be stepping out
“Who do you think your brother would want as the alpha of the pack?” I asked Darius when we finally found ourselves in the room and alone for the first time in a long while.“I’m not sure,” he said with a sigh as he relaxed into the bed and closed his eyes for a while. “I don’t think I ever spent enough time in his pack to know who he would trust.”“How do you suggest we do this then? We can’t possibly leave them on their own until they have an alpha. You know that, right?” I reminded.He opened his eyes and shifted his gaze to me with a smile. “I never hated my brother. And now that he’s gone, I don’t think I hate him enough to abandon his people just because he’s dead. You have nothing to worry about. I’ll guide them.”There was silence in the room, and I let it pass enough before I placed a hand over his hair and carefully pulled strands of it, twirling them around my fingertips.“How do you feel now that he’s been buried into the earth? Anything changed?” I asked, not sure what I