Page 6 of A Forest Witch

A gentle hand pushed the damp hair away from my face. It stuck to my cheeks in places.

I think I was crying.

Oh, the shame.

“What’s your name, pretty witch?”

Nobody had ever called me pretty before.

It was for that reason and that reason alone that I found my mouth opening and a single word breathed out past my cracked, parted lips. “Autumn.”

My name.

It actually felt right to share it.

“Pretty. Just like you are.”

Was it? I had never thought of it like that before. I had been born in autumn twenty-two years ago. One of the Elders had named me and I always thought they picked autumn because they weren’t very creative.

My head dropped forward and it was far too heavy for me to lift back up this time. I simply gave up.

Maybe this was it. Maybe my time had finally reached its limit. I thought maybe it was too soon but I really didn’t think I was cut out to spend the rest of my life as a Forest Witch anyway.

“Fuck. Cut her down right now.”

My mind shut down and I had no idea what happened after that.

I just knew I wasn’t lucky enough to die. My life never worked out like that.

4

Raven

I was never, ever speaking to Rain Kimber, his do-gooder daughter Ariel, and that psychopath Quinton Alexander ever again.

They got my entire coven into this shit and I was never doing anything like it ever again.

I didn’t care if the guys wanted to do something of this nature ever again. They could go by themselves. I wasn’t participating in this bullshit again.

We were just here to observe and report back to Rain. We were the closest coven to this place that he knew and trusted. So he’d obviously asked for a favor. I had only agreed because I trusted Ariel, his daughter, and he promised we wouldn’t have to do anything to really get our hands dirty.

Rain Kimber was a fucking liar.

We’d found a reddish purple haired witch naked, tied to a fucking tree, and slowly bleeding to death from multiple knife wounds on her too thin body.

A beautifully damaged body that was covered in very old markings of protection. Someone had taken great care to protect the girl and these people were beyond stupid to ever even raise a finger towards her that was meant to harm.

Autumn, she’d said her name was before the pain had taken over and her brain shut down to heal herself.

A beautiful name for a beautiful witch.

And of course we were bringing her home with us.

I could see it in their eyes already that the guys were curious. It always started out like that.

Annabell.

Ariel.

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