Page 94 of Owning His Mate

“I am. Your mother will destroy everything if she is freed.”

Hester arches a brow. “Now you definitely sound scared. You probably should have thought about the repercussions before you killed so many of her bloodline.”

I try to access my power, but whatever the witch with him is doing seems to have put some kind of block on my magic.

“We should all be scared. Revna will kill all of us.”

Hester’s fear morphs into something else, something far more sinister. Her lips tug into a snarl as she glares at him under her lashes. “Not if I kill you first.”

She attacks him with power, the scent of it filling the air a moment later. She was so quick, I didn’t even have time to register what she was about to do. But her wave of magic doesn’t hit him. The witch deflects it, tossing it aside as if it were nothing.

Hester attacks again, but the counterattack slams into her chest, knocking her down to her knees. My stomach plummets.Get back up…

It takes her longer than I would like to climb back to her feet, but her brother and the witch don’t attack her. Interesting. They don’t want to kill her. So what does he want from her?

“Quit attacking me,” Erik snarls. “I just want to talk.”

“So talk.”

“Despite what you think, Revna coming back will not benefit you or your half-breeds. She’s been trapped in hell for over a millennium. She’s not going to care about protecting her precious offspring. She’s going to want revenge, and you know it.”

“On you maybe. The rest of us will be absolutely fine.”

“You know that’s not true.” Hester flinches, and his eyes narrow. “You’ve already seen it, haven’t you? You’ve seen what happens when she returns.”

“So what if I have? There is no force on earth that would make me stand with you, Erik. I would rather my mother burn everything to the ground than be at your side. I hate you. I hate everything you are, and I hope like hell you burn for what you’ve done. All those lives lost. All those unnecessary deaths. You are your father’s son, and I don’t think you’ll ever change.”

I keep my head low, discreetly trying to fight the magic holding us down, and I can sense the others doing the same. I don’t like lying here, vulnerable, but the power his witch wields is too strong.

I glance in the direction of the white-haired man, the asshole behind this nightmare, wishing I could just take him out, and it’s then that I notice his little redheaded witch has her gaze locked on me. Cold spreads through my body as she doesn’t look away.

What the hell?

“Quiet,” she says, and both Hester and Erik fall silent, even though their mouths are still moving. I barely feel the whisper of her magic doing it, and yet it is as if someone pressed the mute button. She steps over the dead body of a wolf, striding toward me.

What is going on?

I scramble onto my knees, but that’s as far as I can go before I hit the barrier she’s put in place.

The burning scent of magic fills the air as Hester unleashes hers on the witch, but she deflects it with barely a twitch of her hand, her eyes never leaving me.

Hester hits her again, and it is then I see movement. Figures come out from behind the buildings, more females, and I can smell their power as well.

With them is the woman Savannah pulled out of her dream. She has ugly purple marks around her wrists where she was tied up, and her hair is dirty. The smirk on her face terrifies me as she hangs back, watching, waiting.

“What are you doing, Avalana?” Erik demands his witch. “Get back here!”

She ignores him, still moving toward me. Halle’s hand tightens in mine, Dove grabbing my other one, and I try again to reach my magic with their help, but I can’t find it.

“Avalana!” He roars her name, but she doesn’t listen. “You belong to me! Do as I command!”

She pauses, glancing over her shoulder toward him. “I never belonged to you. You were nothing more than a means to an end to find what we truly needed.” Her eyes meet mine. “The key.”

Avalana steps up to me, and I can hear Kye freaking out. His panic in my mind is unsettling, and it draws my fear to the surface as she grabs my face, squeezing it between her hands. Slowly, she rotates my head from side to side, her eyes scanning every inch of me. “You’re about to do something great,” she says softly.

“I’m not doing shit for you,” I spit out.

“I’m afraid that’s not your choice to make.”

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