Page 25 of Protector

CHAPTER 9

TRAPPED

So. The long and short of it is: we’re trapped.

I’d hoped that maybe it was just me. When I swore I sensed a witch outside of our cave, I went motionless for a few minutes, trying to figure out if they knew where we were. For a couple of blissful seconds, I convinced myself that they didn’t—and when my protective wolf urged me to go out and see for myself, I discovered that I couldn’t.

As though there’s some kind of invisible barrier blocking the narrow crevice that leads to the cave, I can’t get through it. Worse, it zapped me so hard when I tried, it tossed me backward.

Not the best thing in the world when you’re naked and the crevice you’re wiggling your way through is maybe three-feet wide at the most. I got tossed around in there like I was a Luna-damn ping-pong ball.

My scrapes and bruises were basically healed by the time Tristan came to, but to show him what I meant, I volunteered to try again.

And, yup, it hurt even worse the second time.

I tried to tell him not to attempt it himself. After all, he only just woke up from the last witch spell that hit him. I can take a hit and be fine. But Tristan? He’s still healing other injuries.

Though, I notice now that our bond seems to be working again, he’s recovering a lot faster than I would’ve expected.

In the back of my mind, I can’t help but think that my suspicions were true. That he did use too much of his shifter energy to block me, but now that he isn’t? He’s regenerating at the usual pace for a beta wolf.

Great. That still doesn’t explain why our bond is open—unless he needed that extra energy. But if that was the case… was our bond open before he got hit? Or am I just being delusional again?

I refuse to think about that right now. Especially since Tristan insists on poking the invisible barrier. He doesn’t walk right into it like I did, so at least that’s something, though he does get zapped. Luckily, it’s not as bad as mine—he only gets knocked back on his ass instead of tossed around—but it does let us know one thing: we’re both trapped.

And Tristan thinks he knows how.

I made another mistake. Gabriel was the bigger threat, but that didn’t mean that Claude was harmless. By not double-checking that he was dead dead, it seems as if he was able to follow us to the waterfall, using his blood to create a ward that neither Tristan or me can escape.

Because that’s what that is. A blood ward designed to keep us in.

After living alongside a witch coven for almost a century, Tristan knows a bit about blood wards. While the most well-known type of ward is when a witch takes a little blood for someone, using that as a basis for the warding spell, it seems like death magic is a thing.

Claude didn’t use our blood to seal us up in the cave. He used his own, and the fact that it’s impenetrable means it was probably the last thing he did before dying. And since a death curse uses the last of his life force to cast it, it doesn’t disappear as soon as he stops breathing.

Nope. It’s not just impenetrable—it’s seemingly unbreakable.

Lovely.

Here’s hoping that he, like, dropped just beyond the waterfall or something. It’ll make it’ll a whole lot easier for the rest of the pack to find us if there’s a dead witch covered in shifter wounds acting like a fucking neon sign, saying: two wolf shifters trapped inside.

Fallon’s the coven leader now, right? She can get one of her witches to reverse it.

Right?

Hours later, we’re both still in our human shapes.

I can shift to my wolf. Tristan, though? He can’t.

That must have been one last fuck you from Gabriel. Whatever his spell did to Tristan, it made it impossible for the Beta to tap into his wolf.

He’s taking it much better than I am. I guess, after seeing what his Alpha went through—dealing with becoming a feral beast during the full and new moons every month—losing control of his shift is a much better curse to be dealt than having a beast he can’t control.

Tristan assures me that he can still reach his wolf. It’s more like his wolf is sleeping, and he suggests that we try to do the same.

“Things will look better in the morning,” he promises. “My wolf will be okay. Luc and Fallon will probably realize something’s wrong and come looking for us. Everything will be fine.”

Those are all very Lorelei things to say. My twin always looks on the bright side of life, and I’n so fucking glad our twin bond doesn’t stretch across states, because I’d hate for her to have any idea what kind of trouble I’m in right now because… yeah. Pessimistic Jeannie Lipton is pretty sure this situation is gonna look as crappy when we wake up in the morning as it does now.

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