Page 11 of The Witch and The Blood Oath

As Gloria put my worst fears into words, rage and despair warred inside me. I shoved both down with icy determination.

“What do you propose I do?” I asked. “Put him down?”

“You need to be prepared to do just that,” Gloria said, “if it’s what’s best for the coven.”

I ground my teeth.

“Why did you help me save him that night?” I asked.

Her feminine features softened, and she shook her head. “I’m not sure why. Something in my bones just told me to.”

Oddly, I understood. It hadn’t been mere desperation guiding my spell that night. Some greater force had pushed me to save Walker.

Saved,however,didn’t feel like the right word. Though I loathed to admit Gloria was right, the cowboy was drifting from himself. We could hide it in stolen kisses and pleasant distractions all we wanted, but the truth still boiled beneath the surface.

Walker was losing himself.

As I argued day in and day out to maintain my place as the future Coven Mother, he wasn’t the only one. Every day, new problems emerged. Some members of my coven were determined to use the battle as an excuse to attack the darkwitches. Others were more concerned with the vampires. I worried one of them would strike against the other races on their own and yank my coven into a fight, whether the rest of us wanted it or not.

Though it was my job to ensure the safety and well-being of the coven, no one ever trusted me to do so. I wondered if they sensed how little I trusted myself.

I wondered if I would ever be coronated as Coven Mother after how I had saved Walker.

“What are you going to do?” Gloria asked.

Goddess, I was tired of that question.

“I don’t know how to help him,” I admitted. “I-I don’t know how to do any of this.”

Be a leader to the coven. Be a daughter who would make her mother proud. Be whatever the goddessdamned thing I am to Walker.

“To earn the coven’s respect,” Gloria said, “you must get your greatest liability under control—the boy. There’s a reason witches don’t fall in love, Freya. Men’s actions always fall on women’s shoulders. Now, you must make a choice—become strong enough to bear that weight or shed it entirely.”

???

“Darling,” an achingly familiar voice said. “You must wake.”

Clutching my white comforter, I shot up. I was in my new apartment’s bedroom. Moonlight lit cream walls and generic decorations. The sparse books on the shelf were in place, as were the lamps on my bedside table. Still, I trembled.

“Wait,” I whispered.

Iwasn’t shaking.

The world was.

Everything in my room rattled. I waited for the earthquake to subside, but it only grew worse. Paintings fell off my walls, and glass shattered across the tiled floor. I lurched out of bed and half-crawled out of my room. It wasn’t safe to move during an earthquake, but instinct told me this wasn’t a natural phenomenon.

My magic flared to life. As I hurried through the living room of my apartment, I used wind to protect myself from falling light fixtures, books, and fans.

“Arion!” I called, but my familiar was nowhere to be seen.

Odd. He had rarely left my side since the Bloodmoon.

I finally reached the black door of my apartment, but when I attempted to open it, it wouldn’t budge. I blasted it with wind, but the door remained closed. Fear twisted my stomach into knots. I needed to take cover, but all I could think about was getting out, out,out.

“You can’t run.”

I spun around and found myself alone. No one sat on the plush, gray sofa or loomed by the quaint kitchen countertops. I didn’t need to see her anyway.

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