Page 73 of The Soulless Witch

Isaac

‘Thereisstilloneshooter!’Daniel shouted through the mindlink, baring his teeth at the two hunters that were blocking his way. I turned frantically, catching sight of the hunter who was just reloading his weapon. Another human ran for me, a silver knife in his hand, but I dodged him, darting for the one with the gun instead.

Unaware of my approach, he pointed it at the back of the nearest wolf—at Allison, I realized with horror—and prepared to shoot. I closed my teeth around his arm, jerking it aside just as he pressed the trigger. The bullet flew past her head and she whirled. I had already torn his head off by then, and his blood was soaking my fur.

‘Thank…’she started when another gunshot echoed through the room. I spun, searching for the shooter, but all the hunters who remained were fighting with blades, not guns.‘There!’Allison jerked her head to something behind me and I prepared to charge, but then my eyes caught sight of something red. I looked at the corner where I had left Celeste, only to find it abandoned.

‘Damn it!’I thought, not caring if everyone over the mindlink heard me. I was just about to run to her and drag her ass back to the corner when she raised a gun, aiming it at the nearest cell. Something moved behind the bars, curling in the corner, and I sucked in a sharp breath as I recognized it. Human forms. No…werewolfforms.

Panic rose in my throat at the sight of that gun—a gun most likely loaded with silver bullets—raised in their direction, but before I could stop her, she fired. Then fired again. The lock on the cell door burst and she yanked it open, moving to the next cell and aiming the gun again.

I gasped in surprise. She wasn’t trying to kill them like she did with my pack. She wasfreeingthem. She could barely stand a few minutes ago, and now she was fighting to freemypeople. She didn’t even look back, as if she didn’t care if someone attacked her from behind.

Celeste fired again, but the gun jammed. Slipping the magazine out, she snarled and threw it to the ground. She was just turning around when a figure snuck behind her, raising a long blade. Its surface was dark and not as shiny, so it couldn’t have been silver. Not a werewolf hunter then.

I opened my mouth to shout for her to duck when I realized I was still in wolf form. Padding through the floor, I ran toward her, but she was already dodging the blade. A wave of relief washed over me as she stepped back, facing the hunter with a determined expression.

‘Isaac, incoming!’Allison screamed in my head and I tore my eyes away from Celeste, looking at the door where more hunters poured in. Many, too many. We had already lost a lot of people and the goddamn wolfsbane was slowing us down. If they kept coming, we might be overwhelmed. We needed to get out of there.

Where the hell were Roman and Malakai?

I glanced over my shoulder to where I last saw Celeste, only to find she had somehow snatched the weapon from the hunter and was now holding it against him.

Could she actually fight without her magic? She seemed to be doing fine for now, so she had to deal with that guy alone. He wasn’t wielding one of those weapons with the purple thing on them, so she should be fine. As long as he wasn’t a witch hunter, she could last for a few minutes while…

Something burst through the door, throwing itself at the nearest hunter and tearing his head clean off. Blood sprayed the ceiling and everyone paused, staring at the tall, dark-haired man with a blood-soaked suit. He dropped the human head with a nasty thud a second before the rest of the body fell at his feet.

Never in my life had I been happier to see Roman’s infuriating face. Especially after he lunged at another hunter, who twirled around, readying to shoot him with his crossbow. Roman avoided the bolt with a jerk of his shoulder, then sank his fangs into the man’s neck. Ripping off more than a human body could heal, he left the man to fall on the floor, choking on his own blood. The vampire spat what was left in his mouth with disgust.

Be it his viciousness or the hunters’ temporary hesitation, it had the remaining werewolves attacking without waiting for orders. I was just running toward the nearest hunter when a female scream turned my blood to ice. It was filled with so much pain that my own body spasmed as if I was the one in agony.

Whipping my head back, I looked to where Celeste last was, hoping it hadn’t been her. When I saw her kneeling on the ground, her hands pressed to her stomach, my heart dropped. The hunter stood over her with a blade lax in his fingers, blood dripping from the tip along with…something purple.

‘No, no, no!’I screamed as I lunged toward the human. He heard me approach—or maybe he had an excellent sixth sense—because he turned just before I landed on his back. My teeth locked on his arm instead of his neck and the two of us crashed onto the ground, rolling a few times before we hit the bars. Blood filled my mouth, warm and sweet and…charged with something odd. It wasn’t magic, and it wasn’t anything supernatural, but not entirely human either.

I clenched my teeth harder, ready to snap his arm, when I noticed he was no longer holding the blade in it. I rolled away just before the weapon—now in his other hand—sunk into my side, the tip nicking my skin and leaving a burning sensation behind.

“Celeste!” Roman’s voice had me turning despite my better judgment, and when I found him, he was kneeling on the ground, cradling Celeste’s body with one hand while the other pressed on the wound in her stomach.

I returned my attention to the hunter, eager to finish him off before checking on the witch, but he was gone. I hadn’t even heard him move, but as I looked around, he was nowhere in sight. In fact, all the other humans were running away.

Some of my men gave chase, but I ran the other way—toward her. I stopped when I reached her, willing my body to shift to human despite the exhaustion and fatigue. Her face was deathly pale, and there was already so much blood pooling around her. But she was alive. I could hear the subtle beatings of her heart as they slowed and slowed until I could easily count them.

“Why isn’t she healing?” I asked, looking at the blood that continued to pour between Roman’s pale fingers. Red eyes rose to meet mine, and he bared his fangs at me.

“Because she was struck by a poisoned blade, you moron! It destroys a witch’s reserves of magic so she can’t even heal herself, let alone fight back!” Roman snarled, his hands tightening so hard around her that I was afraid he might snap her in half. Then it hit me—that purple substance. That’s what it was. That’s why she had looked so wary of it and why that blade had passed through her ward.

“What…what can we do?” I asked. Roman growled—a sound so primal and threatening that my senses told me to prepare for a fight. The chamber had quieted, the people from the cells slowly stepping out while the remaining wolves drew closer.

“We can do nothing,” Roman sneered, his voice dropping to a hopeless whisper. “We can bury her and wait for her to come back.”

“Come back?” somebody gasped, and we both looked at the blonde woman who was standing nearby, hands pressed against her mouth. Celeste’s humans, they were here too. The man was holding his unconscious daughter in his arms while the boy clung to his mother’s side, tears streaming down his face. “Is she going to die?” Roman swallowed as if trying to keep calm, so the woman looked at me. “Please! Is there anything that can be done?”

The desperation in her voice stung as hard as silver.

Why were these people so desperate to save her? Why was a vampire, who cared for no one and nothing, looking at this woman like he was ready to forfeit his eternal life for her? Why was my body yearning to touch her, to protect her, to save her? Was it some kind of spell? Did she enchant us all?

When nobody replied, the blonde woman burst into sobs, hiding her face in her husband’s shoulder.

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