Page 11 of Wolf Tamer

I wait a few more minutes to be entirely sure that I’m alone again, even though the magic of the cell keeps me from sensing anyone else; Mae might be watching.

She knows something. Call it a gut instinct, call it intuition, whatever, but she knows something, and she’s not just here to rub it in my face.

She wants to get rid of me for a reason, and it’s not the one she’s telling her coven about.

I turn my back to the cell door just in case there are prying eyes and hold my hand out in front of me again.

Come on, magic, work for me. Baby, work for me.

I’m pretty sure my witch powers aren’t going to respond to any nonverbal sweet talk any more than they respond to everything else, but I have to try. I managed sparks before, right? Those sweet little stars should have been impossible with the spells in place.

I did the impossible.

Is it really such a stretch to do it again?

I stare at my palm until sweat breaks out along my forehead and a headache blossoms in my temples. Something has to give. I come from two very powerful witches. It’s in my blood. My invisibility might not work, but this has to, and it came about when I least expected it to.

It takes me longer than I want to admit to summon a spark, a single shooting star that soars out of my skin. A smile flashes across my face at the sight. It’s there and gone in an instant, like an invisible wind shooting through the cell.

And unfortunately, it’s real. The breeze and the magic.

The gust shifts my hair away from my face as the witches open the door to the cell and seize me.

“Time to go,” the first one mutters in my ear. Neither one of them wants to look at me, and they choose instead to keep their gazes fixated on the floor.

They might be here to escort me, but I’m not making it easy on them. I fight one off, kicking her in the stomach with a rush of satisfaction. My elbow digs into the other one’s side, but she’s quicker than her friend. She pivots abruptly and wrenches my arms behind me. A pair of manacles slaps down on my wrists, cutting off the rest of my movement.

“Dammit.”

The witch I kicked sounds out of breath as she takes her place at my side, and this time, she keeps well out of the way of my flailing feet.

“A little help in here, please!” the second witch calls out.

Reinforcements do little to ease the tension inside me, even with the ego boost.

More of them pour into the cell, until they take hold of me from either side, managing to stay just behind my kicking feet. Six of them to one of me, and they finally have me captured.

“It’s time to go,” another one says. “You will greet the sun with dignity. It’s the least you can do.”

I’m yelling, but I can’t make out any of the words, trying desperately hard to fight back and do the unthinkable: save my life.

I’m not sure it’s ever been enough, attempting to go against the coven that even my parents eventually rejected, and no matter how hard I fight, they continue to drag me down the hallway. My hands are bound behind my back, and their magic is strangling me from the inside out.

There’s no hope.

I’m not enough.

I lose my last shred of hope on the stairs before we push into the watery light of predawn.

My final thought is of Reid. The witches drag me toward the pyre and the stake spearing out from the center, the fire ready to light. Sturdy and immovable—the way I’d always thought of myself until now.

There’s no way out of this for me, I realize with a sinking feeling in my gut. It hits me faster than a stone thrown into a river. This is really happening. These witches have me cornered, and for what?

For nothing. My death will be for nothing.

The closer we get to that stake, the harder my heart beats, until tears burn in my eyes and I can hardly breathe.

It’s time.

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