Page 40 of Cage Me

I might not have wanted Drake at first, but now that I have him? Nobody else will touch what’s mine.

Natalia nods toward him. “His blood contains old and sinister magic that hasn’t been seen in this world for centuries. So long, in fact, that most believe these witches were nothing more than a fable used to scare us into maintaining a pure bloodline.”

She pauses, idly rearranging the bottles on the shelf next to her before she continues. “There was a coven millenniums ago. Their leaders were mated to demons, ones hellbent on power. Stories say, they recruited the worst of the worst, finding ways to increase their lineage magic until they were unstoppable. Our elders say the coven was killed off, but I’m starting to believe otherwise.” Natalia glances at Drake. “The darkness in your blood? Whatever curse she’s placed on your wolf is likely the only reason you’ve survived this long with that much dark magic pulsing through your veins.”

“How do you know this for sure?” Drake asks, his voice gruff.

Instead of answering him first, she glances at me. “When I mix your blood with my magic, the crimson turns white before becoming almost translucent. That’s the purest kind of power I’ve ever mixed with my own.” While this revelation is new to me, I don’t get to say anything before she looks at Drake again. “When I did the same to your blood, it turned black and then began to smoke. Not even the dark witches still on this Earth can make their blood truly go black. Not like this. I knew right then what I was dealing with, even though it should be impossible.”

Drake grabs my shoulder and frowns. “She could be right. Tartarus is thousands of years old. Kel might have been sent there at the creation instead of born in the world like I was. I never wanted to know her well enough to ask that kind of question before she spelled me.”

“So, what?” I ask, looking between the two of them. “She’s one witch left from a coven that no longer exists. That doesn’t mean she’s unkillable. Quit trying to scare us, Natalia. Break the curse and tell us how your ancestors killed her coven before.”

Natalia frowns and shakes her head. “She could have been banished for a reason, like because she couldn’t be killed. We have no clue, and I’m not willing to risk my life to find out.”

I’m up on my feet in the next second and glaring at her as my chest rumbles. “But you’ll risk the lives of everyone you’ve helped by refusing me?”

She steps toward me, but I don’t back down. Even though I’m bluffing, I’m not scared of her or her power. I never have been, and I sure as shit don’t intend to start now.

“Quit threatening people, Spencer,” she says calmly. “Lying doesn’t look good on you. You might have gotten to me before, but I wouldn’t have done business with you for so long if you had that kind of evil inside you.”

Damn this smart witch.

My mind scrambles to think of another way to force her hand, but before I find something to throw back at her, she surprises me once again.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to help you,” she snaps back. “I said I wouldn’t risk my life. If you two want to be idiots and go after her, then I won’t stop you, but you won’t return to my shop again until she’s dead. If you do,” she looks back at me, face devoid of all emotion, “I will help this other witch find you.”

I’m pretty sure that’s as good of an offer as we’re going to get, so I nod. “Fine. We have a deal, then.”

Natalia goes back to digging through her shit on the shelves, I assume to find items that we wouldn’t know to ask for that might help us survive killing the darkest of dark witches from the sounds of it. Even assuming that, when I turn back to Drake, I’m not afraid.

He spent hundreds of years trapped inside his own mind and body, basically frozen in time. While my situation of running and gathering for the last three years can’t exactly compare, I’m ready for this to be done for the both of us.

This entire day has awoken a part of me I’m not sure I ever knew existed. For the first time in maybe ever, I want all the things I thought I could never have. I want a real home that isn’t filled with fear. I want friends I can count on. I want—my stare stays on Drake—him.

Change happens fast, and being done trying to control everything around me is a peace unlike anything I’ve known.

We will find Kel, kill her, and end whatever nightmare she might be out there right now trying to conjure.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Drake asks me quietly.

I grin up at him and nod. “The moment I accepted that there was no point in fighting the pull toward you, it was decided. I don’t do anything half-assed, and I won’t live the rest of our lives wondering what’s around the next corner. Nobody should live that way.”

Saying that now makes me realize how dumb my plan was before. Building a cabin in the woods and hiding my family there would have been doing just that, but it was the only option I could think of while still respecting my mother’s wishes to not kill my father.

Though, that’s no longer a problem.

Natalia makes an odd noise, garnering my and Drake’s attention. When we both look her way, she’s holding a towel and dusting off an old bottle as she turns around. “There you are.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

The glass is etched but I can’t make out the finer details from across the room. The top isn’t the normal cork style I often see. It’s made from silver and worn down so much that there are only faint lines from whatever design was once there.

“Something that will help,” she says confidently. “Like I said before, I’ve only heard the stories of these witches. By knowing how powerful her spell is through Drake’s blood, I can guess that this Kel was higher up in the coven. Maybe not a leader, but possibly so. Either way, you’re going to need old and new magic to combat whatever she has become in Tartarus. This is the start of that.”

She hands Drake the possibly ancient potion but doesn’t release it once he holds his hand out. Instead, she grips on to him and stares intently. “You will only get one shot at breaking the curse. If anything goes wrong, I can almost guarantee your death, and I make no promises this will work.”

Her sharp gaze cuts to me as she takes the potion back. “You will make a magical vow right here and right now that if this fails, if Drake dies, you cannot retaliate against me or anyone else because of what you’re making me do.”

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