Page 34 of Hunted
Chapter 12
Ruya
The quiet that fellover the room was like the held breath before a scream.After Sanka’s last failed attempt at a protection charm, my sorcerer had been obsessed.He had seen that his attemptscouldwork, and it drove him to solve the puzzle—like this was some personal challenge he refused to fail.He had disappeared for a few days, and no one could drag him out of the workroom.But he insisted he had it now.That he’d figured it out.I was equal parts hopeful and terrified, given his track record.He had requested my presence in case my healing magic was needed.That said enough all on its own.
This had to work.I couldn’t bear to see Josh collapsing in on himself the way he had been ever since Acacia turned him.
I waited as Sanka directed Josh to stand in the center of a protective spell circle.I could just make out the faint shimmer of Sanka’s new prototype charm, a waver in the blur at the center of the workroom.I could hear Josh’s shallow breathing from across the room.And for the first time in weeks, I couldn’t sense Acacia coiled behind his aura like a snake poised to strike.
My heart beat so loud I thought everyone must be able to hear it.It was working, so far.
Cicely sat cross-legged beside me on the edge of the outer ring of protections Sanka had set up to shield the rest of us in case his magical solution...backfired.Cicely didn’t speak, didn’t move—he was justthere.A fixed point of calm, using his empathic abilities to nudge us all toward hope.
Sanka paced in slow circles around the ward perimeter, muttering equations and incantations under his breath.He had tried to exude confidence when he told everyone the plan.But I could sense how wound-up he was.Sanka wasn’t an alpha, but he was a caring man—a protector in his own way.And it was killing him that he had failed to use his notoriously strong magic to save Josh—this time it had to work.
I silently said a prayer in my mind, asking the Goddess and any deity who was listening to bless this ritual with success.
I knew from the voices of the people around me, and a comment Robin had made, that Richard lounged on a stool in the corner, chewing an unlit matchstick and pretending not to care.It seemed he was always gnawing on something.I had a hunch that his cravings for blood had increased with his time and distance away from the coven.He never mentioned it.But his entire aura flickered with unease to my magical senses.
He could have left by now.The charm he wore around his neck had worked for him much better than it had for Josh.And yet here he was.He liked to pretend he was this unattached drifter who didn’t care about anyone or anything but his own hide.But that was just an act.He wanted us to succeed.I thought maybe he wanted to stick around long enough to help this court make the world a safer place for people like him.
Sadavir’s powerful alpha presence called to me from behind where Josh was standing, just outside the spell circle.I didn’t need Cicely’s empathic skills to be able to feel the desperation rolling off the naga.I sensed Dusek’s dark presence not far from Sadavir, a black shadow guard hanging motionless, watchful.
“It’s working,” Sanka said, his voice coming from somewhere nearby as he apparently stopped his pacing and muttering.“How do you feel?”
Look.Cicely spoke into my mind, giving me warning before he performed the high fae magic he’d been practicing just for me.For one brief, flickering moment, he was able to push a vision into my mind, to let me “see” what he saw.
Josh’s eyes opened.
I could feel Cicely’s emotions—his interpretation of what he was seeing.For a moment, Josh looked like himself.Not the fractured, blood-starved shadow everyone had been avoiding contact with.Not the barely-holding-it-together consort to a royal naga and potential spy.Just...Josh.Relieved.Human.Whole.
He smiled.Just a little.The kind that barely curled the corner of his mouth, but still felt like the sun rising.I almost cried at the sight of his relief—and at the fact that Cicely had managed to show me this.Then Josh gasped, and the strained, flickering mental image Cicely had provided slipped away.
A flash of light flared from the vicinity where Josh was standing, and I knew it was the charm, bright and suddenlywrong.I felt Cicely jolt beside me in surprise.
“No,” Josh whispered.
The word wasn't his.I knew it before the sound even finished leaving his lips.Acacia’s presence, her sick aura that had previously been dimmed, surged back into the room like a flood.Josh screamed.
Then he lunged.
I moved too slowly, not realizing the threat was aimed at me, until the rushing blur was already in front of me.Cicley moved faster than I had.He threw himself between Josh and me before I could even blink.Josh slammed into him with unnatural force—a snarl tearing out of his throat like something feral had taken over.
The scent of blood hit the air.The copper tang of it burned in my nose.My healer’s senses flared in protest, flooding me with the knowledge of pain and torn flesh.
