Page 123 of The Witch and The Blood Oath

“It’ll be okay,” she promised. “If things don’t go well, it won’t be the first time Dad disappointed me.”

I forced a smile at her attempt at a joke. No one had told Cadence about her involvement in Josephine’s message, and I intended to keep it that way. She already possessed too great of a hero complex.

Thea opened the exterior door, and I pushed Dad down the cobblestone path and into the field behind the apartments. The temperatures had dropped, but the air was still, as if even the wind held its breath to see what happened to Clyde Reid. The first streaks of sunlight loomed on the horizon, but the moon remained a watchful eye in the sky.

Freya and her coven were gathered on the expanse of groomed grass. With her jaw set, her gaze focused, and her shoulders squared, Freya was the picture of Coven Mother. I wondered if this was how she had looked when she saved me.

As I pushed Clyde to Freya’s side, the coven encircled my dad, Cadence, and me. Objects surrounded Freya, including pinecones, a framed photo of my family, and butterfly wings.

“Right there is good,” Freya said and gestured behind her. “Join the circle.”

Thea and a blonde witch with a crooked nose and attitude offered their hands. Blondie had sneered at me too many times to count. I claimed the spot next to Thea and Cady occupied the space beside me.

With the circle complete, Freya chanted a spell.

As Freya’s magic thrummed in the air, it tugged at my own power. With a deep breath, I relinquished my hold on my magic, and thunder crackled. Freya used a small, sharp dagger to cut Clyde’s skin on his face and chest. She gathered various magical objects, but I struggled to pay attention to the details. Magic roared in my veins, and fear churned my stomach.

When the blood on Clyde’s body glowed, my already racing heart beat faster. As if he were a puppet pulled by strings, Clyde jerked upright. Magic brightened his green eyes. As he gasped, they glowed like Cadence’s.

He stared at me with wide-eyed horror.

“Clyde,” Freya greeted.

He gasped again, and thorned vines sprouted from his hands. They trailed down his bed like blood. As he struggled for breath, veins popped out of his neck, and his skin reddened. In another life, I would’ve thought he was in a drunken fit of rage.

“You’re safe,” Freya promised. Clyde’s stare didn’t falter from mine. “Clyde?”

She reached for his hand, but as soon as she touched him, he bellowed. Those thorn-covered vines crawled up her arm, and gashes opened where the vines dug into her pale skin. I lurched, but Thea gripped my hand.

“You can’t break the circle,” she hissed.

Flames destroyed the vines, and to my relief, more didn’t grow in their place.

“No,” Clyde said. His horrified eyes bored into mine. “No, no,no!”

Not even in his most drunken, obnoxious states had Dad ever looked less human. Magic flared under his skin and moved like glowing worms through his body. It reminded me sickly of how it had writhed under Josephine’s skin, but unlike Freya’s goddessmother, Dad didn’t welcome the power. He shrieked and thrashed like a cornered animal.

“Make it stop!” he yelled. “Make it stop!”

Vines wrapped over his legs and tore into his skin. As terror froze me in place, they wrapped farther up his body, until they covered everything up to his chest. Beside me, Cadence shook. Soon, Dad barely breathed under the weight of the vines, but he didn’t struggle against their hold. As I realized what he intended, I screamed.

“Put him back to sleep!” I screamed. My magic swelled like a tidal wave.“Stop him!”

Dad froze and so did the growth of his vines. Cadence broke free from the circle to point her hand at the vines. Her magic ripped them off Dad, and he took heaving breaths. Freya murmured a spell, and her coven quickly mimicked it.

Dad’s eyes rolled back in his head, but his breaths became smooth and steady, and the roar of his magic quieted.

???

Apparently, watching your dad—with whom you had a complex relationship with, to say the least—try to kill himself because of a spellyouwished upon him and be forced back intoan endless sleep was enough to get even an enraged werewolf to cut you some slack.

Silently, Ryder paced the small length of Freya’s apartment. The hostess perched on the couch with a thoughtful expression. She had showered again, and her still slightly damp braid hung over her black, long-sleeved tee-clad shoulder. Despite her pensiveness, her jewelry still glittered around her throat. Cady, pale and with red-rimmed eyes, sat by her side.

“I just don’t understand,” Freya said again. “Everything was the same. Maybe it was the Blood Moon? Was that what gave me the power to transform you?”

“I don’t know if I ever told you this,” I said, “but I heard you call for me to return, Freya. I heard your magic. Maybe Dad…maybe he just didn’t want to come back.”

“He’s been lost for a long time,” Cady agreed, “without anything to anchor him.”

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