Page 20 of Branches of the Willow

“Who are you and what do you want with Jessica?”

The witch took a closer look into his eyes and gasped.

“It matters not, as I’m too late.”

“Oh, it matters, lady. I suggest you start talking before I lose my patience.”

“Your focus needs to be elsewhere now.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

She ignored him and addressed me instead. “My name is Serena. The witch, Sophia, is one of my seven sisters. She will stop at nothing in her quest for vengeance. You must be stronger than even you know possible, Jessica. I came to warn you of her impending deceit, but I see it is all too late.”

Mikael’s head twisted left and right, obviously looking for me and not realizing that I was watching through his eyes. “Jessica isn’t here, why are you speaking as though she is?”

“She is among us, watching through your eyes right now, I see her there.”

“What?” Mikael blinked, a long slow movement before he turned to my father. “Go get Jess,” he demanded. My father left the room and Mikael turned back to Serena then.

“You are too late. When you all insisted that I be locked up before talking, you cost us those precious minutes and now she is lost to them. You have traitors amongst you who aided in her capture, and they must be dealt with if they are not already also in the wind.”

Mikael scoffed. “We’ll see about that.” The sound of the door opening behind him made my mate turn to look once more. It was to see my ashen-faced father standing there, gripping onto the threshold as if he needed help in keeping on his feet. “She’s gone,” he whispered.

“What the hell do you mean, ‘she’s gone’?” Mikael shouted at him.

“Eileen came to get her. According to Avery, Annabelle claimed to have information on Malachi’s whereabouts, and she would only speak to Jessica, as she knew that the white wolf was the only one who could grant her leniency. I sent men to go check at Betsy’s house, where we had both Annabelle and Leanne under guard. Avery went with them.” My father turned to Serena then. “Tell me what the hell you have done to my daughter!”

“She didn’t,” Mikael started to say.

“My sister is the one who has your daughter. I came to warn you, but these bars and your precautions made me too late in the action.”

My father laughed at her. “You think I would believe you? You think I’ll trust that you showing up, just as my daughter disappears, is pure coincidence?”

Mikael stood there, not speaking, almost as if he were searching for me within himself. I didn’t know how to make him feel me, especially since my abilities appeared stunted by whatever the witch and Leanne had used to knock me out.

Serena ignored my father and looked to Mikael again. “I don’t know what she plans to do with you this time, since she realized your bond cannot be broken. You need to be wary of anything she does, Jessica. Stay on guard, do not allow yourself to become vulnerable again as you are now. Get back to your own body! Wake up! You must be ready!” Serena shouted the words as if they were an order and I felt the world, the one I saw through Mikael’s eyes, slipping away just as my dream visions always did. Everything became gray again as my father started shouting, but his words were unintelligible then. I had lost the audio, and the visual was fading fast. How the hell did she expect me to avoid knock out dust, or whatever those bitches had used on me? I had to hope that the men would believe Serena and use her to aid in finding me, rather than punishing her for the fact that she had come to try to warn me.

8

Blood and Bonds

Ihadjustbeeninside Mikael’s head. It felt like waking from a dream only to land inside of a nightmare. Every muscle in my body ached, and the more I tried to move the more the pins and needles sensation from my feet crept upward along my entire body, as if every fiber of my being was just now coming out of a deep, uncomfortable sleep. Now that I thought about it, even my tongue felt thick in my mouth. Thick and dry. I tried opening my eyes, but my lids ripped at my eyeballs as if they had been lined with sandpaper. It was a feeling I remember from being drugged another time. This wasn’t the same feeling as the tranq darts though. There was something a bit extra potent about whatever had been in that powder. Considering there was a witch involved in my kidnapping this time, I assumed the extra was magic in nature. Needless to say, everything ached, but what hurt the most was feeling the bond I had to Mikael. It still existed, but it felt stretched so perilously thin, that I just knew I had to be far away from where he was. Either that or our link was being diminished somehow.

I waited another moment or two, trying to let the sensation of bugs crawling through my skin come and go again. At least, I hoped it would go again. Finally, painstakingly, I was able to crack one eye open. There was still a floor beneath me, but not one that I recognized. They had indeed moved me from where I’d fallen at Betsy’s place. The cold, unforgiving ground beneath me meant that either I was in a cave or on a slab of stone somewhere, or it was a building made using stone floors. I moved my eye a little further, to open up my peripheral vision a little more. There were bars in front of me. Just the sight made me want to vomit as flashbacks of the last two times I had been trapped behind bars came back in flashes. Once, when I’d been shot inside of them, and the other when it had been Mikael dying inside the confines of a cage.

Fear and anger warred inside of me, bubbling up as bile ready to erupt one moment and shiver-inducing adrenaline the next. There were bars in front of me, and I was laid out on a rock floor. My eyes burned as they tried to fill with panic-laden tears, only the tears wouldn’t come at all. My body was too dried out for that. I closed my eye instead, ignoring the burning pain the movement caused. I needed to think. I needed to calm myself and come up with a plan, but in order to form a plan, I had to wake the hell up and gain all my senses back. I needed to see where I was, the whole picture, not just bits and pieces of it.

I reached down inside me for all my reserves of strength and managed to open both eyes this time. I was in a large room, obviously closer to the back corner than the middle. There was one, small window that looked to be about seven feet off the floor. In front of me was a white rug, and off to the left a long wooden table with all sorts of glass tubes, herbs, and books on top. It looked like something straight out of an old apothecary, or a witch’s cottage. “Crap,” I muttered to myself. “Not again.” I was in a cage, and there was a witch somewhere nearby.

My memories from the initial attack came back then as I remembered Leanna blowing something in my face, and then… Sophia was there, in the shadows. “Damn it.” I yelped inadvertently, and a lot louder than I intended to. I had jerked backwards when I realized it was Sophia I had seen before I passed out. Now, my head was positioned staring straight up at the ceiling, and it hurt like hell where it pressed to the stone. Apparently, I had some sort of contusion back there that hadn’t healed yet. That was a good sign. It meant I had been out for less than 24 hours. Any more than that and a bump to the head would be gone.

“Finally, love!” Zach cooed excitedly from across the room. “I wondered when you were going to wake up.” I didn’t miss the fact that he had used Mikael’s endearment for me. Only coming from his mouth, it was a perversion. Dirty. Twisted. Vile. No matter how cheery he made his voice sound, it didn’t change the way the word was tainted on his lips.

“I am not…” I tried to get out but ended up coughing as my dry throat refused to cooperate.

“Best not to talk yet. That’s some nasty stuff they used to knock you out. Dries you out like crazy.”

“I have.” I had to cough again. “Never.” I sucked in another dry breath and tried to finish. “Been. Your. Love.”

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