Page 26 of Bloodmoon Hit
Twelve
JETT
Coming to, I find my head is aching. I try to lift my hand to rub my temple, only to realize that I can’t, something heavy is holding my wrists down. I glance down to see why and find my wrists are chained to poles in the ground on either side of me.
My heart starts beating rapidly. There were women scattered around, almost like they were making a circle. Off to the side, my heart skips a beat at the sight of Arely there. Her life seemed to be drained from her.
“No,” I whisper.
I don’t . . . I can’t . . . it’s not possible. Arely, my best friend, sweetest, yet funniest person I know, looks to have her life stolen from her. Tears spill down my cheeks. She can’t be gone. I just know it.
I’m unable to look away from Arely’s prone body.
If only I could’ve stopped what happened to her.
That woman at her shop . . . she said they were draining her of her energy or something like that. I’m not completely sure.
“She’s awake,” someone says, and it’s all I can do to force my gaze away from Arely.
The pain of her loss is hitting me harder than I can remember the pain being. I can’t even remember hurting like this when I lost my mom, and that had been one of the worst days of my life.
Focusing on the woman who spoke, I immediately notice she’s the one I’d seen at Arely’s shop—the one who hit me with some orb of some kind.
“What do you want with me?” I manage to ask.
“It’s not you we really want,” she says, cackling. “But you’re the daughter of Apollo.”
“And how would you know this?” It’s not something I air out for those to hear all over. I’ve kept it secret.
“I won’t reveal to you how we know. It seems too cliche drawing things out with how someone knows this or that.” She waves a hand through the air nonchalantly and grins. “I’m Maera. The leader of this coven and you, daughter of Apollo, are going to help us see to setting things to the way they should be.”
“Setting things to the way they should be?” What does she mean by that?
“Yes, you will bleed, and Death will rise,” Maera says, stretching her hands wide and starting to spin around. “The Red Caps will see. Death will rise again. And the earth will soon belong to the witches to rule over.”
Okay, this woman is nuts.
Maera stops spinning and looks to another woman. “Levana, it’s time to begin.”
Levana nods, bows, and comes toward me, a blade in one hand, what looks like herbs in the other. “Do not fret, Daughter of the Sun. You’ll be of great use. This will not hurt so long as you do not fight. We’re just checking your purity of lightness.”
My purity of lightness?
These people are nutso.
“First, the sun goes down,” another woman calls, raising her hand to the sky as others follow suit, as they all start chanting.
My stomach plummets as darkness starts to swirl around us.
No. No. No.
This isn’t what should be happening right now.
Levana is closer to me, and I focus on her while wondering where Aziz is. Does he know I’m missing? Can he sense my panic? I couldn’t even feel anything from him. Have they somehow blocked my connection to him? Is that something that was even possible?
I wasn’t a witch, so I didn’t know what could and couldn’t be possible. What I did know was that whatever these people were trying to accomplish wasn’t good.
A twinge of something in my soul caused me to stiffen. It was almost like an unadulterated anger flows right through me.
