Chapter 222

Chapter 222: Chapter 222

Heather

Almost dying took its toll, which meant it was time to make food, and not just a little food—sandwiches and Cheetos weren’t going to cut it—but a ton of food, including lots of meat. Brent grilled some massive steaks that had to have been at least half a cow, but he said it wasn’t even nearly that much. Still, a family of ten could live for a few days on the food I chowed through. I’d made four boxes of wild rice and a large salad.

It’d taken no time at all for us to devour the entire feast, and now we were sharing a half-gallon of coconut chocolate chip ice cream while we watched The Princess Bride. I couldn’t believe that Brent had never seen it. For whatever reason, my family watched it every Christmas Eve. Watching it with him was seeing it for the first time again. All the jokes were a surprise for him, and I got to feel that zing of surprise, too.

But as the credits rolled on the movie, the anxiety started churning again.

Everything is going to be fine.

I just hate waiting. I wish we could’ve left tonight.

I tried. Soonest the boat could come was in the morning.

I gave his hand a squeeze. I know you did. I’m not complaining. Just anxious. A fight’s brewing and we’re a million miles away.

He put down the carton and tucked me in closer to his side. "We’ll be home soon enough. For now, just relax."

"Doing my best, but if this thing killed Muraco, then are any of us safe?"

"No."

I winced. "You didn’t have to be so honest." I grabbed the ice cream and groaned when I saw it was empty. Only more of the creamy coconutty awesomeness with those little crunchy chips could help me now. It was heaven in a carton.

"We have another one. Want me to get it for you?"

"Kind of. I mean, eating more ice cream won’t fix anything exactly, but it definitely won’t hurt."

"As you wish." He tapped my nose as he got up.

A laugh slipped free, and I realized it wasn’t just the ice cream that was helping me feel better. Still, when he came back, I snatched the carton from him. "What should we watch next?"

"Whatever you want?"

I flipped through Netflix for a while before settling on a movie I’d never heard of. "What about this?"

"As you wish."

I snorted. "Dork," I said, but I was glad he’d enjoyed it so much. I hit play, and as the movie started, I’d never said thank you to him.

He raised a brow. "For the ice cream? De rien."

"No. For saving my life," I said with a mouth full of coconut perfection.

"Just don’t make it a habit, okay?" His tone was teasing, but he was still freaked out. I didn’t need the bond to see that. The white-knuckle grip he had on the spoon was making it bend a bit. I tapped his fingers, and he sighed. He bent the spoon back to normal-ish.

I snuggled into my blanket and scooped out a giant bite of ice cream. It was going to take time for both of us to recover, but this was helping. "I’ll do my best to make sure I don’t almost die again."

"Good."

I jammed the ice cream into my mouth and pain hit my head so hard that I closed my eyes and dropped my spoon. It clattered to the cement floor, but the sound was far away. I slapped my forehead. "Shit. Brainfreeze." The pain eased a bit and I was able to open my eyes. Black spots filled my vision. "What the..." Time slowed. It took too long to turn to Brent, and the black dots expanded.

Brent was gone.

Everything was gone. I was in a black abyss just like my vision on the beach.

Panic made my lungs grow tight and my heart race, but when magic pricked my skin, fear crashed over me.

What the hell was happening? I tried to blink but nothing changed. I was sitting in the dark. Either I was about to have the most fucked up vision ever or someone was messing with me.

I said a prayer for the vision to kick in. For the black abyss to become something else. For anything to happen that would make this into something that I could understand.

When the vision didn’t immediately start, I knew something was wrong. Really fucking wrong.

Magic spread along my body and it felt like slime.

Disgusting. Evil. Very possibly deadly.

So what was this? A spell? From who? A witch? Had some fey captured me? Questions raced through my mind at a million miles an hour, and I didn’t have any answers.

I couldn’t smell any sulfur. Which was good, but when I thought about it, I couldn’t smell anything at all. So, ruling out a demon wasn’t smart. At least not yet.

I reached for my bond to Brent, and suddenly the air grew too thick for me to breath as my panic amped up.

No. This was bad. Really fucking bad.

If I couldn’t reach Brent...

I could still feel the bond, but it was usually like a thick rope, bigger than my thigh, that tied us together. Here it felt like dental floss—so thin and fragile. So far away I could barely reach it. The only other time this had happened was when I went to live with Claudia on la Aquelarre’s compound.

The boundary of the coven’s land had been warded to keep anything from crossing. It’d cut Brent and me off from each other, nearly driving Brent mad.

This wasn’t as bad, but it sure as shit wasn’t good either. The bond was too thin for me to tell if he was freaking out or losing his mind or...

My mouth grew dry and I tried to control my panic spiral. I had to find a way out. I had to get back to Brent.

I got off my ass and walked, holding my hands in front of me. If I was in some kind of room or chamber, I’d hit a wall eventually. If there was a wall, then there had to be a door. If there was a door, I could try to break it down either physically or magically.

That was a lot of if’s, but it was a theory. My best one so far.

I walked and walked and kept walking for what felt like hours. After a while, I started counting my steps. When I passed ten thousand, I growled. Fur rippled along my arms and I closed my eyes as I fought for control.

I gritted my teeth as I tried to think through my frustration. Losing control to my wolf wasn’t going to help. What I needed was a plan. If I had that, then I had a goal and I could figure this out. I was smart. I wasn’t going to be stuck here forever.

I let out a breath and the wolf settled down.

I needed to get out of here—wherever here was—but walking clearly wasn’t working. I was stubborn enough to keep trying to reach a wall, but if I hadn’t reached one yet, I had to assume that this place didn’t have them.

And if there weren’t any walls, then there probably weren’t doors either. It had to be a magical holding pen of some sort.

I had to try some magic to counter it. But what spell? What did I need most?