Page 69 of The Soulless Witch

“Lead and I will follow,” she said, stepping over the corpse like it was nothing but a rock in her path. The words made my heart skip a beat before rushing even faster than it did when those silver bullets were flying toward us. Shaking my head to get rid of the strange sensation, I eyed the staff in her hand, relieved that she wasn’t entirely defenseless. Then my gaze slid over the knife that had pierced her spell, and I wondered if that really was the case. I had never cared about the witch hunters or the ways they killed witches, so I didn’t even know what that thing was. But if it instilled fear in her heart, then I had to keep an eye out for more of those.

Turning around, I followed the others down the dimly lit corridor, trying to catch more scents through the receding smoke in the air.

‘Four more ahead,’one of Daniel’s men announced from further ahead.‘They have guns, likely with silver bullets.’The brown wolf turned, his eyes sliding to Celeste. She was the only one in human form now, and despite most of the werewolves’ large sizes, her head still rose above us.‘I saw her stop a bullet. Can she do it again?’

‘You want to send a helpless human in front of armed hunters?’I snapped, regretting it immediately. Whispers of confusion filled my head.

‘She is not a human, she is a witch.’Daniel’s clipped voice rose among them as his almost white wolf stopped by the door.‘And she is not helpless. In fact, she should be wiping the floor with them right now. Or is there something you want to tell us?’I snapped up a wall in my mind, keeping my personal thoughts away from the mindlink. With all those strangers in my head, I couldn’t trust myself not to say something dangerous, even if I decided to share the truth with my own pack.‘If she is not here to help, why is she here?’

“You, wolves, are extremely rude,” Celeste spoke before I could answer. I felt her brush her fingers against my fur before she strode ahead, her hand tightening on her staff. “You want me to go first, don’t you?” She stopped by the brown wolf that had suggested it and, for a moment, I wondered if there was a spell that could allow a witch to read our minds or join our mindlink. “How many? Nod.” The brown wolf hesitated, but then he nodded four times. “If they come at me with magic, you are on your own. I can only stop the bullets.”

‘Come at her with magic? Was that knife magical?’I thought, but then her eyes found mine and I stared as she turned to face the door.

“Count to ten, then attack. I’ll keep them occupied as long as I can,” she said, pressing the tip of her staff against the door. Nobody moved while we watched her take a deep breath, slamming the enchanted wood into the metal surface. The doors flew open, one of them falling off its hinges and sliding over the floor.

Celeste’s staff flew in a circular motion, creating a ward just as the first bullet hit. It didn’t escape my notice that the bullets came closer to her as if the spell was weaker, but she didn’t flinch even when one flew past her head.

I had no time to think, I just ran with the others as they flooded the room. The space was large and devoid of any furniture, save for an overturned desk in the center, where two of the hunters had taken cover. The other wolves charged into the chamber, heading for the ones on the sides, but I aimed at the table, sending the two hunters flying to the ground. I was just on my way to finish them off when Celeste screamed.

I whipped around to find her sitting on the ground, the last of the wolves rushing past her as they moved to secure the room. My heart rose to my throat while I ran back to her, eyes dropping to her hand clasped over a shallow graze on her arm.

She must have seen something in my eyes, because she muttered, “I’m fine!” then got up on her own, grabbing her wand. “If this place is like the others, the cells should be this way.”

The chamber had grown quiet with the hunters dead, but the voices of my pack echoed in my head, telling me nobody had found anything yet. I wanted to ask her what she meant by those words, but changing to my human form now would have been a waste of energy. Her eyes flickered to mine and she gave me a morose smile.

“They captured me once and brought me in for experimentation. They can be very stuck in their ways, so let’s hope that applies to their choice of architecture. In any case, this weak security means that they didn’t expect us to hit them here. Something is not adding up.”

How was she doing that? I couldn’t help but wonder as I paced by her side, ready to jump at the sound of any approaching threat. I noticed Allison walking behind with more of our people, watching us. She sent no thoughts my way, but I knew what that look meant—and when she narrowed her eyes at Celeste, there was no doubt about the questioning I’d be getting if we survived this.

And I couldn’t blame her. Not after realizing that ever since we entered this place, I hadn’t had a single thought about killing Celeste. I had even jumped to save her from the blast without thinking about it. I told myself it was because I needed her alive to answer my questions, but looking at her profile as she walked with her chin up and those pale, thin fingers squeezing her wand, I had a hard time reconciling that image with the monster covered in blood and fire that had destroyed my life. Just what was wrong with me? Even if there was more to the secrets and lies surrounding that night, she still killed my people. My father. My…

Her wand grew into a staff in the blink of an eye, then it flew toward my face. I snarled, but then realized she wasn’t aiming to hit me, just to stop me. Raising the end of the staff over the floor, she looked at me.

“When it closes, run for the next 10 feet. It takes a few seconds to reset.”

I didn’t have time to ask even if I could, because she tapped the edge of her staff on the ground. The floor swooshed open, revealing a hole full of spikes on the bottom—two wolf bodies were lying punctured in several places, their hearts quiet. She lunged forward just as the ground returned to normal. We followed. Looking back at the others who had remained to wait for the trap to reset, I received a nod that showed they knew what to do.

When I looked toward Celeste, she was already walking forward with the staff in front of her. Down a flight of stairs we went, and then through another corridor with even more traps set in the walls and the floor. I had no idea how she found them, likely using her magic, even though the glow around her grew fainter by the minute, but by the time we reached another heavy door, we had no casualties.

“It’s too easy,” she murmured under her breath, staring at the door with narrowed eyes. I nodded my head, sniffing the air for what was on the other side of the door.

People, lots of them, but most weren’t humans. Werewolves. We had found them.

I took a step toward the door, but the concentrated look on Celeste’s face made me pause.

I tried to focus my senses again, to feel every different person, mark their scent, their position, their state of mind. There were humans there too, a few of them, but not enough to be that serious of a threat. She was right. It was too easy.

‘We can’t just stand here,’Allison said, taking a position by my side.‘Even if it’s a trap, we have to go in. The others are coming this way. We’ll have to win this with sheer force before they take our people Goddess knows where.’

I nodded, turning my head to Celeste. There was no sign of her annoying smirk, of the overflowing confidence and taunting demeanor. She barely looked like a witch—just smelled like one now—and those eyes held unease instead of malice. It unsettled me more than the thought of what we might find on the other side of that door.

“I can give you a couple of seconds,” she said, willing her wand to turn into a staff again. It took her longer to conjure it this time, and the weapon wasn’t nearly as thick or long as before.

She raised her staff, slamming it into the doors. They gave in with ease, almost like they had been pulled open from the other side. Nobody waited at the entrance and nobody shot at us. The darkness of the room beyond made it hard to distinguish the forms moving in the shadows.

I took a step forward, preparing to charge, when something landed a few steps away from us, rolling to a stop at the door. A low hiss came from the container, but before I could even shout for the others to run, the world exploded in a cloud of pain.

Chapter 36

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