Page 88 of Craved By a Wolf

She swore hurt glittered in his eyes but he still didn’t look at her.

She tried to calm her magic, wanting to use it to see whether Godiva was manipulating him, but it refused to settle while her feelings were in disarray, her mind churning at a rapid pace and her heart aching as if he had plunged a knife into her chest.

“Since you have fulfilled your end of the bargain by luring the witch to me as you promised, you may wait for me in the adjoining room for your reward,” Godiva said, her imperious air making Hella want to fly at the bitch and rip her red hair from her head.

But she was too busy staring at the wolf as his eyes changed, the sharp edge of anger they had held melting away into something akin to regret.

Or perhaps relief.

“Yes, wolf, you fulfilled your end of thebargain,” Hella bit out and he frowned at her now, coming to face her, but he still didn’t step away from Godiva. She knew she was being unreasonable but the thought that he really had betrayed her, that he had orchestrated this whole thing, making her fall for him, hurt so badly that she couldn’t breathe and couldn’t bear the sight of him. “You may leave.”

He growled at her, flashing fangs, and got that look in his eyes, the one that always made her feel as if he was considering putting her over his knee.

She focused on Godiva, shutting him out as she tried to pull herself together and put things into perspective, something that was hard as his presence sucked the air from the room and made her ache with a need to fall into his arms and beg him to tell her that Godiva was lying.

What she really needed to do was beat the living hell out of Godiva.

“You spineless bitch,” she spat and Godiva’s dark eyes widened, and Hella wasn’t buying her apparent shock because she was sure plenty of people had called the witch worse things over the years. “You cursed him to get to me because of Ethyrian and you should have just come at me instead.”

“Oh, but this was more fun. You took something of mine, and I took something of yours.” Godiva smiled slowly and stepped up behind MacKinnon. She stroked her hand over his chest and he didn’t push her away. Hella hated that the witch knew the pain she had caused, that she knew that Hella had recklessly fallen for MacKinnon and now she was paying for it. Godiva slid him a heated look. “You should wait in the other room. I’ll be done in a moment and then we can catch up.”

Hella glared at her, magic swirling around her fingertips now, a maelstrom that lacked direction as she struggled to focus on something other than the way Godiva was running her hands over MacKinnon’s chest and how he was slowly turning his face towards her as his eyes began to glow gold.

She couldn’t watch this. Even if it was a spell making him do this, this betrayal was too real.

Hurt too much.

She raised her hand and unfiltered magic shot from her fingertips as she screamed, struck the air between Godiva and MacKinnon and hurled them apart. Godiva slammed into the wall between two windows and landed with a grunt on the wooden floor. MacKinnon hit a partition wall with such force that he went straight through it.

“I never took anything from you!” Hella barked and tasted the lie on her tongue. She clenched her jaw and reined in her anger, trying to focus her turbulent thoughts and stop her magic from reacting again. “Look, if I had known Ethyrian had gone to that masquerade ball with someone, I would never have left with him. I saw you dance with him a couple of times, but he gave me no indication that you had come together and he never mentioned you once in the time we were together.”

The tips of Godiva’s long red hair fluttered as she picked herself up, her expression blackening as stars lit her dark eyes, and Hella felt like a bitch, which was wrong on so many levels given how much Godiva had just hurt her.

Hella held her hands up by her sides. “But you know what… you win. You can have Ethyrian. Please… take him.”

She hesitated as MacKinnon stepped through the hole in the wall.

Only he looked not at her, but at Godiva.

She focused on him, running through an incantation in her mind, devoting all of her attention to it and shunning her hurt and anger. When she managed to complete it without a hitch, which surprised her given how the wolf was staring at the other witch with heat in his eyes, she waggled her finger in his direction.

And felt nothing.

If he had been under a spell, she would have sensed it.

Which meant his actions were done of his own free will. She kept telling herself that it was possible she was mistaken, but it wouldn’t stick, and in the end the pain became too much and she needed air, needed to get away from him for a moment at the very least.

Forever at most.

This was for the best.

She sucked down a breath, gathered the pieces of her broken heart, and looked into Godiva’s eyes, shutting out the wolf.

“You can have both of them,” Hella growled. “I want nothing to do with either the nymph or this wolf.”

Hella wasn’t sure what she had expected in response to that. Some wild attempt to stop her from MacKinnon? A growl? A howl of rage? A sign that he wasn’t himself. That was what she had wanted. A powerful enough reaction would come to the surface regardless of any spell he was under. The fact that he just stood there, not even looking at her cut her to her soul and told her what he wouldn’t.

It was over.

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