Page 119 of The Blood Witch

“Linh, what?—”

WHAM.

Linh slammed her head down against the wood again, with a sickening crack. When she sat back this time, there was blood smeared over the table. It was dripping down her face, coating the front of her robes.

Alice was on her feet, a hand pressed to her chest in shock.

“Linh STOP!” Leandra screeched, reaching for the Witch. But her hand barely touched the sleeve of Linh’s robe before the woman twisted away, slamming her head back down on the table again and again.

And again.

“Merciful Goddess save us,” Sana gasped, hands over her mouth.

“Someone stop her! Grab her!” Alice screamed, pushing her chair away and racing toward her.

Kallista was faster. Shadows snapped around Linh’s shoulders, jerking her backwards out of her chair and away from the table. Alice glanced over at the Demon, who now stood, her own chair knocked over backwards behind her and her face just as shocked as theirs.

“I’ve got her,” Kallista said, voice frantic, edged in panic.

Linh fought, struggling against the shadow bonds that held her.

“What in the name of the Goddess was that?” Leandra asked in a shaky voice.

“Something’s wrong with her,” Callum said, stunned. He hadn’t stood, but he looked at the older woman with obvious fear in his eyes. “Why would she?—?”

Snap.

Sana screamed as Linh’s head twisted violently on her shoulders, her neck breaking with a crack like a whip.

Goddess help us all, Alice thought, hand over her mouth, as Linh’s head lolled forward.

Dead.

Linh was dead.

“What did you do to her?” Leandra screeched at Kallista.

“I didn’t do anything!” Kallista snapped back. Her shadows immediately disappeared, and Linh’s body slumped to the floor, lifeless and heavy. “I was just stopping her from hurting herself! Something you should have been capable of doing!”

“This is it,” Callum whispered, eyes wide, as he looked around the room, at them, yes, but also at the corners, the ceiling. “This is what killed them, isn’t it? Kellos, my father…”

“That’s ridiculous, this—” Leandra began, but Alice held up her hand to silence her.

“Talk,” she demanded, eyes on Callum.

He looked at her, pupils blown wide with fright.

“Winston, my father’s servant…he said my father tried to get him to run,” Callum told them. “Tried to get him to hide me, as though I were in danger. As thoughhewere the danger. He wasn’t acting right. It was like he wasn’t in control of himself.”

Alice stared at Linh’s body, puzzle pieces falling into place as she weighed everything. Had she really been this blind?

Kellos, attacking another Shifter, a Shifter he loved. The sister he’d spent his life protecting.

Cassiel, ordering his guards to protect his child, before taking his life by his own hand…

“If I were being controlled by something,” she said, the reality of what was happening finally hitting her. “If I were at risk of hurting the people I love? I would hope I would have the strength to slit my own throat, as well.”

Callum’s head whipped toward her, a look of horror and pain flashing over his face.

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