Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68024 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68024 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“She did,” Xander replies.
“Having something like that inside your head is exhausting,” I confirm. “And scary. I understand why she wanted to come home to sleep. Breena has always been one to want comfort.”
“I wanted to stay with her, to lie down with her, but it felt like an intrusion, so I came out here. And that pisses me off, too.”
“Why?”
“Because if she’d just talk to me, listen to me, we’d be together, and I wouldn’t feel like a damn outsider in her bedroom.”
“It’s not the time for that,” Xander says. His voice is firm but not unkind. “I know you’re impatient, but the time will come, Giles.”
I try to reach out for Jonas, but there’s still nothing. Not even the static anymore.
“I’ve lost my tether to Jonas.” I can hear the quaver in my voice. “For the goddess’s sake, Xander, he could be in danger there.”
“This is where we remind you,” Lorelei says, “that Jonas is a powerful, centuries-old witch who can absolutely handle himself. Lucy, he’s not powerless or weak.”
“I know that.” My frustration is only growing, and I’m agitated. “Jonas can handle anything that comes at him. But, damn it, I love him, and I’m freaking out here.”
“Where is she?” Hilda bursts into the room with Astrid close on her heels. “Where’s my baby?”
“She’s in her room, asleep,” Giles says, but Hilda shakes her head and runs through the house to Breena’s bedroom.
“It has her!” Hilda yells and bursts into Breena’s room.
All of us are knocked back on our butts from the force coming through the doorway.
Standing in the middle of the room in nothing but a sheer nightgown is Breena.
Her eyes are glassy and white. Unfocused. Her blond hair billows in an unnatural breeze, and walking around her, almost ghost-like, is a man.
One I don’t know or recognize.
“Breena!” Giles stands and tries to walk into the room, but it’s as though the doorway is covered in glass, and he can’t get through. We can watch, we can hear, but we can’t go inside. “Goddamn it, you motherfucker, let her go.”
The man looks our way and smiles but doesn’t stop doing whatever he’s doing.
Jonas, where are you? We need your help!
There’s no answer.
“Start the chant,” Xander says. “The same one from earlier at my house.”
Lorelei and I join hands, the others follow suit, and we begin the spell.
Evil be gone, washed clean away, leave this witch free of affliction today.
But after just the first time through, he simply laughs at us and pulls a long length of rope out of a bag, beginning to loop it over the chandelier in the bedroom.
“Help me,” Breena croaks.
“Godsdamn it,” Giles mutters and tries to break through the door again, failing. “Get me in there, Xander.”
“Not my baby,” Hilda whispers. “No, not my baby.”
I glance over and see my mother standing with her sisters, and when her eyes meet mine, they’re full of grief and sadness as if she knows he will be successful.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Mom, what do we do?”
“Hold on.” Lorelei takes a deep breath before lifting her arms and beginning the recitation of a broken barriers spell.
We join in, and that gives the evil pause. He frowns over at us, and when the barrier is broken, Giles bursts through, and Breena begins to scream.
“HELP ME! GILES! HELP ME!”
But the evil raises a hand, and Giles goes flying backward, hitting the wall.
We’re all in the room now, but we can’t get close to her. We’re unable to move.
With us at bay, he returns to his task of fastening the rope into a noose and slipping it over Breena’s head.
“NO!” she screams, over and over again. “I do not receive this. I do not receive this.”
With a flash of light, my mom whips into the room and attacks the evil, knocking him back.
His face crumples in fury, and he lashes out at her, leaving Breena huddled on the floor, the noose still around her neck.
“I can’t get to you, baby,” Giles says, even speaking seeming to take great effort. “I’m trying, but it has me trapped.”
“Don’t want to die,” Breena whispers as her white eyes focus on something on the floor. “Don’t want to go so soon.”
The evil throws Mom out the window, but she flies back in again, her teeth bared and eyes red, ready to kick some ass.
But the evil draws in a deep breath and then screams in a wail so sharp and shrill we all try to cover our ears.
My mother disappears.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jonas
The scream pulls me out of my panic, acting like a slap across the face while drowning.
I scowl and look around, but I can’t see where it came from, and then the mark on my hand begins to burn.
I take a breath, close my eyes, and feel the power within me build, starting at my sacral chakra and moving up like a fire.