Page 73 of Fire Bound

I think I’ve aged twenty years since she was taken from me and each minute I’m apart from her the anxiety and fear take another year off my life. She’s alive, that much I know, but for how much longer? Sterling wouldn’t have taken her if he didn’t have a plan in mind for her.

I’ve been leaning against this tree with my eyes closed, counting down the seconds for who knows how long, but the anxious pacing coming from my right finally has me opening my eyes. “You don’t have to be here, man,” I tell Ryker. “If I knew where my mate was, I’d be with her in a second protecting her myself.”

Pruitt is stashed away in a secluded hunting cabin many, many miles away from here. Margot, Whisper, and an enforcer are there with her. She wanted to be part of the fight and be there for her pack, but she needed to prioritize the life of her unborn child. Which we all understood and supported.

“I’m where I need to be.” Ryker stops moving to rub his face with a frustrated sigh. “Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier, though. I want to protect my pack and get my sister back, but it’s torture leaving my pregnant mate behind.”

“I get it, dude.”

Dropping his hand, he looks at me with an emotion I never thought he’d look at me with. Understanding. Solidarity? “When Nicolai took Pruitt and I didn’t know where she was, I’ve never felt more terrified and helpless in my entire life. My world went dark, and I swear I thought I was dying.”

I take low, steady breaths to keep myself under control. “That sounds about right.”

“We’ll get her back,” Ryker promises. “And when we do, you’ll never want to let her out of your sight again. You’ll be like me and panic when she goes to the grocery store without you. Knowing Rem, she’ll fight you every step of the way, but you won’t care if she’s mad at you because she’ll be safe.”

“I would give anything to have her be mad at me right now,” I admit. I would take a thousand verbal lashings from her if it meant she was back in my arms.

Ryker’s tattooed hand squeezes my shoulder. “We’ll get her back,” he repeats for me, but I think it’s for himself too.

There’s the faintest rustle of leaves overhead before Isabeau drops from the branches silently. Even when her knee-high, laced-up combat boots hit the dirt ground there isn’t a noise. It’s small things like this that made her Sterling’s favorite.

“I counted just over one hundred and twenty of them,” she informs the group of us keeping watch here.

There’s more rustling in the trees, this time is much louder and there are a few whispers cursed. Winslow finally emerges from the dense foliage. “Will someone help me down? I don’t have super-strength vampire ankles like she does and if I jump, someone will be carrying my crying ass out of these woods.”

Ranger stands underneath the branch and raises his arms, motioning for her to jump into them. With a childlike squeal, she drops the five feet or so into his waiting arms. Once on the ground, she straightens her bulletproof vest and beanie on her head. Waving the binoculars she has in her hands, she says, “Something is wrong with those people. They look weird.”

“You try growing up in a ten by ten foot, medical-grade jail cell while constantly being poked and prodded at the whim of a man who wants to use you as a weapon and tell me you wouldn’t be a little weird,” I respond dryly.

Winslow ponders something for a second before asking innocently, “I was tied to a bed, starved and drugged while a priest my grandmother hired performed an exorcism on me. Is that kind of the same thing?”

“Yeah, because you definitely came out of it fucking weird.”

“I swear to God, this family is going to go broke paying for therapy,” Ryker mumbles while rubbing his face with his hands exasperatedly.

“What do you mean they look weird, Winnie?” Ransom asks.

“There’s something wrong with their eyes. It’s like the lights are on but no one is home, if that makes sense. It reminds me of the patients that were overmedicated at the hospital. Or even the ones who got askoshtoo much electric shock therapy.”

Ranger looks at me like I am somehow the one with all the answers. “Does Sterling drug his people?”

I shrug my shoulders. “Not that I know of, but what do I know? It’s been a long time since I was in the know on everything.”

Beau pipes in, “She’s right, something isn’t right. They’re too still. If they were just released from being captive all these years, they should be pretty fidgety. Nervous even, but they’re standing perfectly still.”

We all fall silent as we think over our options. It stays that way until Winslow, whose attention is suddenly on her chipped black nail polish, offhandedly throws out, “They could be spelled. Hexed even.”

All eyes turn on her and when she brings her nail up to her mouth to chew off a piece of polish, she freezes in place and her two-toned eyes widen when she finds us all looking at her. “What? What’d I do?” She tucks her hands behind her back. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Why would you guess they’re hexed?” Ranger asks.

“Probably because I was just reading one of Esme’s journals about hexes, so it’s just fresh in my mind.” Esme is Winslow’s aunt and the high priestess of this region. She’s arguably the most powerful witch in America.

Ryker looks to the witch next to him. “How do you know for sure if someone is hexed? Is there a test or something we can do to find out?”

“You’d need to look at their palms and the bottom of their feet,” Winslow answers like it’s just an ordinary thing to say. When Beau passes her an incredulous look, Winnie scoffs, “Don’t look at me like that. It’s a real thing. If Sterling has hexed them to keep control over them, that means he would have cast an ascendency hex. To use those, you have to carve the spell into the palms or feet. It’s how you control their movements. Think of them as his puppets and he’s now pulling the strings. He would have needed a fairly strong witch to do something like that though.”

Smirking, I nod my chin toward Winslow. “It’s a good thing we know a high priestess then,” I tell her before turning and walking away from the group. “Call Esme!” I holler over my shoulder.

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