Page 12 of The Vipers and Their Vendetta

He places the bowl back down and picks up what I recognize to be a smudge stick, which he proceeds to light. He walks around the room waving it in front of him, and the scent of sage fills the air. When he’s finished cleansing the entire room, he brings the sage to me and waves it in front of my face. The smoke catches in the back of my throat, and I cough, sending fresh waves of pain through my ribs.

“You are now cleansed of what we did in here,” he says to me. “It cannot affect you going forward. You can go back to your life in the college, and no one will be able to tell that you were a part of this.”

“A part of what, exactly?” I snap. “Your stupid little games? None of this is real. You understand that, right? This magic stuff is bullshit.”

He leans in close, and I can see the flecks of gold in his eyes.

“Believe what you want,” he says with a smile, the skull covering his face grinning manically. “I know the truth, and sodoes Malachi. We don’t need you to believe, we just needed your contribution. Now we have it. Freya thanks you.”

Who the fuck is Freya? Some Viking goddess? These guys are absolutely insane, and I need to get out of here.

“Will you let me go now?” I beg.

I wish I’d had the strength to run out of here before all this shit started, but I hadn’t. They’d have caught me before I even reached the door. It was safer for me to go along with what they wanted and hope they release me.

What will the Vipers do when they find out what these men have done?

But I shake the thought from my head. They won’t do anything, because I won’t tell them. The Vipers are none of my concern anymore, and I’m none of theirs.

“Yes, of course, once I’ve seen to your arm.”

He reaches for me once more, and I yank my arm back, ignoring the pain, and hide it behind my back.

“I can fix it myself. It’s not even bleeding that badly anymore.”

That’s a lie. It could definitely do with stitches. I don’t know what I caught it on when I came off my bike—maybe a piece of sharp stone or a stick, or perhaps it was even a twisted piece of metal from my poor damaged Harley—but either way, it needs proper medical attention, not freaks in an old water tower.

His eyes narrow behind his mask. “I’m not letting you go tramping back through those woods with a bleeding wound. We’ll take you back ourselves. Let me just clean this up first. I have some good herbs here for cleansing.”

I really don’t want him sticking herbs into my wound, but I also don’t want to antagonize him. All I want right now is to be back in my room, safe and sound. I don’t want to see the Vipers, I don’t want to see any of the girls either, I just need time to myself to think. I’m not sure I even need to be here anymore.All I want, really, is to be back within the safety of the club. My thoughts about staying no matter what have been dampened by this latest experience. I don’t think I’ll ever be safe here. There are dreadful people every which way I turn.

Cool against my skin makes me jump, and I realize I was so lost in my own thoughts I hadn’t been taking notice of what Roman was doing. He’s dabbing at my wound with a clean white cloth and gently removing the dirt and blood crusted around it.

Once he’s finished cleaning it, he applies a thick ointment.

“What’s that?”

He glances at me briefly. “It’s a healing cream I made myself. It contains manuka honey and calendula, both of which have intense healing properties. Better than the antiseptic ointments you get in the pharmacy.”

I bet it’s not, but I don’t say anything.

“Is the spell you’ve created intended to kill them?” My voice is small as if I’m a child again.

I don’t need to explain who ‘them’ refers to. I’ll never forgive myself if the strange, dark magic they tried to bring to life in here actually works. Not when they used parts of me to make that magic.

He laughs and shakes his head. “What an imagination you have. That would be extremely dark magic, and we would never go there. No, it won’t kill them, it’s just going to give them a run of bad luck, you might say. We need them to lose a few fights, and we really want that peacocking little shit, Saint, taken down a peg or two. That’s what we’ve asked for.”

So, Saint is now in danger, because of me. My heart sinks, but I give myself a shake. I should want him to come to a shitty end.

I should want that for all of them.

So why does the thought make it hard to breathe?

CHAPTER 5

Saint

I’ve been wanderingaround in this goddamn forest for at least thirty minutes. I don’t really know what I’m doing. If we don’t find her, Lex will call the authorities. I understand that he’s right, deep down, but I also know once they’re involved, we won’t get to see her again.

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