Page 74 of Fire Bound

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to go snag me one of the weirdos across the way.”

Winslow was right.They’re hexed.

It was fairly easy work grabbing one of Sterling’s soldiers. I’d flashed in behind them and grabbed one of the ones loitering in the back. Before they could yell or move, I had my hand over their mouth and I was dragging them into the tree line, out of sight. The whole event took less than five seconds, but in that short time, I could still feel the power radiating off the large group of people. Sterling is a sick fuck, but he knows how to create powerful people. Like yours truly.

Now, back on our side of the territory fence, we have the young kid—he can’t be more than fifteen—tied up and in the back of Ranger’s gray SUV. He still wears all-white clothes that were customary at Sterling’s facilities. The fit and style are similar to a pair of medical scrubs, but the material is softer than that. All of the captives that are here tonight are wearing them.

Isabeau, Ransom, and Ryker had stayed in the trees while the rest of us left to meet Esme up on the back road so she could examine him.

Imagine what a stereotypical psychic palm reader would look like and that’s Esme. The flowing patterned skirts, the loose blouses and colorful shawls. She always has multiple bracelets on her wrists that make noise every time she moves, and she even has been known to wear charms and feathers in her hair. She looks like she should be selling homemade goat’s milk soap at a farmer’s market in New Mexico next to a man swearing his crystals cure cancer.

The high priestess parks her yellow vintage Volkswagen bug before hurrying across the road to us. “You think Sterling is dabbling in hexes now?”

“I don’t think he is.” Winslow grabs for the boy’s restrained hands. I can smell the coyote shifter on him. Silver should affect a normal coyote shifter, but who knows what Sterling has made this kid invulnerable to. Just to be sure. I’d filled him with enough hellfire to keep him passed out. She exposed the boy’s palms to Esme. “I know he is. Ascendency hex, right?”

Esme takes her reading glasses from the top of her mess of curly hair and drops them onto the end of her nose. “Well, I’ll be damned. I haven’t seen one of these in a long time. You’re absolutely right, Winnie. This is an ascendency hex, it’s been modified so it can work across a large group of people, but it works the same way. As long as the hex is in place, their master is in charge of them.”

“How do we remove it?”

“The easiest way is to kill the one they’re enslaved to, but seeing as that’s easier said than done, the next choice would be to contain it before we can reverse it.”

“Okay, if we can’t get to Sterling, how do we contain it?”

Esme ponders over the question for a second before snapping her fingers as an answer comes to her. “A binding circle should do the trick.”

I blink blandly at her when she doesn’t offer any further explanation. “I’m sorry, some of us only have two ounces of warlock blood in them and magic is still pretty foreign to them. What the hell is a binding circle.”

“Think of it as a vortex of sorts where magic ceases to exist.” Esme makes a circular motion with her finger. “I’ll cast my own spell in a fairly large area and once the hexed ones step foot into the circle, any magic in their system, whether it’s their own or someone else’s will stop working. The binding can’t be broken until the original caster” —she points at herself— “me. Drops the shield. Once they cross that line they’re stuck. Almost like magic magnets, theirs will adhere to the spell I cast, and it’ll keep them in place until I say otherwise.”

“Why don’t we use this more often?” Ranger looks at the high priestess like she’s been holding back on us.

“It only works on witches and people affected by a witch’s magic. I wouldn’t be able to bind any old wolf shifter or a vampire inside one.”

“Gotcha.”

“It’s only going to work tonight because all of those people are hexed and have magic in their systems.”

“This all sounds like a great plan, but how the hell do we get them inside the binding circle?” Winslow asks, her arms crossed. The bulky gear looks out of place on her petite body. “Are we going to set it up around them while they’re just standing there?”

“You have to walk into a binding circle, one can’t be formed around you.”

“Okay, so we herd them inside?” Ranger questions.

I grin excitedly at him. “We use bait.”

“When you said bait, I didn’t think you meant us, you asshole,” Ranger growls unhappily at me as we prepare for all hell to break loose.

“Did I leave that part out?” I cock my head to the side. “My bad. It’s just a good thing you’re fast because this is about to get hairy.”

Isabeau cuts me a look as she swings a large gun over her shoulder. “That’s putting it mildly. This is like poking a hornet’s nest.”

“I’m notpokinganything,” I scoff. “I’m sticking a bar of C4 in it and blowing it up. It’s different.” Okay, I’m not actually blowing it up, but I want Sterling to think we are.

Just like we are waiting for Sterling to make a move, we’ve deducted that he’s waiting for us to do the same. And like I said, I’m tired of waiting and doing nothing. My mate is out there, and I need to get to her. For me to do that, I need Sterling to show his hand.

So, we’re forcing the issue.

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