Page 63 of Baneful Magick

Falke growled. “I have an idea of who they would send here in our place. They’ll kill everyone and wipe the entire place out of existence. If there is even a chance of their target being here, they will claim killing everyone is better than letting him walk away.”

“Let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that,” I told them seriously. “We need to do everything within our power to make sure we fly under the radar and track him down.”

“We don’t even know if it is a him,” Ambrose pointed out, his tone even. He met my stare with a calm look. “Him, her, they… whatever– It could be anyone at this point. But I have an idea that could help us get a few steps closer to our goal.”

“A horrifying thought,” Falke joked.

“Do tell,” I crooned.

Then the high fae laid out a shocking and violent plan that had Falke sitting down to hear.

“That’s…” Falke tried to respond once Ambrose was done, but his words faded.

“How do you propose to put that plan into action?” I asked, my expression grim.

Ambrose slowly smiled, the promise of cruelty making his features sharper than normal, and my blood ran cold at his suggestion.

We were going to get killed doing this, but I didn’t have a better idea.

It was time we got our hands dirty.

Again.

Or all of Greywood would suffer along with us.

Chapter 24

Isla

WEDNESDAY

Echo had lost it.

His desperation and hunger were growing as time went on, but I had no idea how that was possible. We’d been fucking for what felt likedays. I’d pass out with him pounding into me and wake up to him sliding inside of me, ordering me to let him in again. There wasn’t a part of my body that wasn’t sore and aching from the marathon sex.

“Let me feed, damnit!” he growled, the rumble in his chest so deep I could feel it in my bones.

“I don’t understand,” I managed to force out, trying to stay still. Like any predator, he only seemed triggered by too much movement.

Echo bared his teeth, an inhuman glow warming his gold and green eyes. The one spot of blue in his right eye was bright when he leaned close enough that we were only a breath apart.

“You. Aren’t. Letting. Me. In.”

Each word was more distorted than the last, and I couldn’t help but flinch back from the malevolence in his tone. The tiniest hint of the man I recognized slipped through at the movement. Pain and regret teased the coldness in his eyes for only an instant before they were gone.

“I’m letting you fuck me. What else do you need?!” I shot back. How dare he pin his dissatisfaction on me! I’d given my time and my body, yet he still wanted something more. What more was there to give?

He pulled out of me, laughing cruelly when my body fell limply to the bed, seemingly boneless. I cried out, craving him even though no physical part of me longed for his touch.

“I guess I need to try something else,” he rasped before stalking out of the small room.

We were still in the greenhouse, closed away in the tiny study room that smelled like sex. There were smears of blood on the glass walls from the first time Echo had fucked me in here. Covered in the blood of the bullies, he had claimed me so thoroughly that I became delirious.

After all this was over, I was going to find out more about these ruts. I had put together that it had to do with him feeding on sex, but that was it. This seemed more complicated than that, though. He resembled a starving man, dead set on gorging himself on lust, and for whatever reason he couldn’t.

I’d worry that I was shielding on instinct, but Iwasn’t. The only shielding going on was from Cas, but that was merely separating us from each other. There was no reason it should cutmeoff from anyone in the outside world. Maybe it had to do with my powers? Me being a witch? I just didn’t have enough information to form even a guess.

The bottom line was that I was clueless, and Echo’s growing anger and frustration had me starting to wonder about Aizel’s advice: no fighting, go with the flow, cooperate. I wasn’t usually the type of person to do any of those things unless I had a good reason, but I’d really tried my best in this clusterfuck of a situation.

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