Page 150 of The Witch and The Blood Oath

“Let’s make them pay,” I said and sent all that bottled anger and power into his collar.

My lightning rippled across the collar, until it gooped off Arion’s skin and pooled at our feet. Though my head swam from the exertion of magic, I sent twin blasts of lightning into his shackles. As soon as they melted to the ground, Arion glowed with familiar magic—Freya’s magic—and his wounds healed.

Arion shifted into his horse form and whinnied.

“Get on!” Freya screamed from the crowd.

Cady launched a final wave of rocks at the nearest three guards and jumped onto the familiar’s back. When she was safely on, I mounted behind her, and Freya got on behind me. As soon as her warmth settled against me, we took off.

“Come on!” Freya yelled at Ryder and Elle.

As we winded through the court on Arion’s back, Elle and Ryder trailed after us in their beastly forms. We entered an opulent white hall, which Ryder and Elle crashed into a moment later. Footsteps and rolling waves of magic boomed behind them.

“Through the painting!” Freya yelled.

We rushed into a bedroom and leaped toward a vibrant painting of a water droplet hitting a pond. As the we were sucked into the ripple, Freya pressed a kiss against my neck and whispered words I never thought I would hear her say.

“I love you, cowboy.”

Shocked by her admission and overwhelmed by the wave of power we faced, I braced myself for impact and tried to wrap my arm around Freya and Cady, but when I reached for my Anchor, she was gone.

???

Freya

As the High Witch towered over me, heinous rage marred her pretty, pale face. Her minions—bloodied and bruised by my friends—gathered closer. Each of them wanted to kill me.

“You will pay for this, Redfern,” the High Witch vowed.

I didn’t care.

Walker, Arion, Cady, Ryder, and Elle—all the people I had hurt by trusting the monster before me—they were a worldaway. They would tell my coven of what had happened here, and they would do something to stop it. They would be able to do something to stop it because they werealive.

I had made sure of it.

“To lead is to sacrifice,” I murmured.

The High Witch grinned, and the scent of sickly-sweet decay overwhelmed my senses.

“Then sacrifice, you will.”

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