Witch Unbound by Debbie Cassidy
Chapter Fifteen
If Jasper were here, he’d have come with us. His power would have been uber helpful right now, but he wasn’t here, and it was up to me and my mini crew to get the job done.
I’d jumped us to the coordinates provided by Mel, and now we were standing in the storeroom of a grocery store. Interesting spot for a rift. Had anyone accidentally fallen through? Also, how had the Magiguard found this particular rift in the first place?
I adjusted the potions belt Sloane had insisted I wear. Witches may not be able to access miasma in Faerie, but potions should still work fine. Or so she believed.
I wasn’t about to turn down the extra help. Besides, I got the impression this was her way of being present even though she couldn’t come with me.
I reached up to touch my mouth that still throbbed from her kisses. I wanted more, and I’d make sure I got them.
But first we had a mission to complete.
“You guys ready?” I looked from Lauris to Bramble, then to Rune, who had Wren hanging onto his back like a furry backpack. “We stick together on the other side. No wandering off, got it?”
We’d dressed in black to blend with the night, weaponed up with iron, and loaded up with potions. Lauris carried supplies Sloane felt might come in handy in a pack hanging off his shoulder. We were as ready as we’d ever be.
The rift was a silver crack in the air, inviting and ominous. I took the lead and stepped through from cement floor to forest floor, from anemic light from a single bulb to moonlight so bright that for a moment I thought it was day.
The others spilled into the fae realm behind me and fanned out.
Wren made a soft sound, almost a whimper.
“It’s okay, buddy,” Rune said.
But Wren was too busy shaking like a leaf, eyes so wide I was afraid they’d pop out of his head.
“Wren? Buddy?”
“Noooo. No, no, no, bad. Cora, this is bad.”
His fear was palpable, pressing against my skin as I gently tugged him off Rune and cradled him to me. “Hey, hush, calm down. What is? Talk to me. Where are we? Why is it bad?” He was breathing so fast I was worried he’d pass out from hyperventilating. “Wren!” I injected a snap into my tone. “Focus. I need you to focus.”
He stilled and then tipped his face up to mine. “Enter not the dead dark trees for evil lurks and danger creeps, all that ignore this warning rhyme will dance with death a thousand nights.” He shuddered. “Cora, we’re doomed. Dooomed.” His wail was so mournful it made my insides shrivel and shake.
“It’s okay; we’ll be okay.” Rune smoothed a hand over his head. “We’re not doomed. We have potions and weapons. All we need to know is which way to the tower?”
Wren sobbed softly and shook his head. “Wren not know. Wren never been in the dead dark forest.”
“So we find a way out,” Bramble said. Her wings materialized behind her—beautiful, tapered butterfly wings, black and studded with silver. “I’ll take a look.” She gave me a jaunty salute that melted the foreboding Wren’s wail had awakened.
“Be careful,” Lauris said.
She dropped him a wink. “We got this.” She looked over her shoulder. “Don’t we, wings?”
Was it my imagination or did her wings shiver in response?
But there was no time to dwell because she was already in the air, rising up toward an epic starry sky that made my heart ache with longing to touch it.
She was high enough for me to be able to see the soles of her boots when a low moan riding a gust of air lashed past me. My hair whipped into my eyes, momentarily blinding me. Bramble let out a cry of alarm that was chased by Lauris’s bellow.
“What the fuck?” Rune cried.
I shoved hair out of my eyes and stared at my friend suspended in mid-air by black, twisted tree branches. They were wrapped around her limbs like ivy, as if they’d reached out to grab her before she could peer over the forest canopy.
“No, no, no….” Wren shook his head vehemently. “Bad things, bad things will come.”
Bramble bucked and twisted. “Fuckin gerroff!” Blood bloomed at her wrist and she let out a squeal of pain.
The branches were tightening. “Don’t struggle. The more you struggle, the tighter they’ll hold you.”
God, this was insane.
Bramble stopped fighting the fauna. “Get me out of this. Fuck, it hurts.”
I locked gazes with her, momentarily struck by helplessness.
“Cora…” She glared at me. “No. Don’t freeze up on me. Get me out.”
My heart thundered, body flooding with the need to do something.
Think.
My power! It worked here.
My hands lit up.
“Yes!” Bramble said.
“Do it,” Lauris demanded.
I blasted the branches, expecting them to sizzle and char, but my power bounced off the wood ineffectively, killing the spark of triumph in my chest. “Dammit!”
“The trees must be immune to your power,” Rune said.
Okay, what else did we have?
The potion bombs! We had a spell to slow time and explosive potions. Slowing time wouldn’t help here, and the explosive potions risked hurting Bramble. Crap.
There had to be a way to get her free of the branches.
“Cora… It hurts.”
Her voice sounded small and vulnerable now, nothing like the kickass pixie I’d become accustomed to. The pain must be getting worse.
“We need to get her down.” Lauris paced beneath her. “Bramble, hold on.”
A soft sob drifted down to us along with more drops of blood. Was it tightening around her? My pulse beat erratically as I scoured my mind for a solution.
Fire. We needed basic fire. “Lauris, do we have a way to make fire in that pack?”
He shrugged the bag off his shoulder and rummaged quickly through it, coming up with a box of matches. “Yes!”
“But how the hell are we going to get up to her to burn away the branches?” Rune asked.
I scanned the branches holding her above us and followed them back to the trees they belonged to. “We won’t need to. Rune, help me gather some kindling. Lauris, get ready to catch her.” I looked up at Bramble. “I’ve got this, babe. I’m gonna get you down.”
“I trust you. Just do it. Whatever, just, fuuuck…”
“Shit.” Lauris wiped blood off his face. Bramble’s blood. “Hurry up!”
My gut twisted. We were running out of time. I scrambled to gather twigs and dried leaves, and two minutes later we had a small campfire burning right up against one of the trees assaulting my friend. The fire flared to life and began to lap at the tree trunk.
It was working. “Let her go or burn!”
A low moan filled the air and Bramble screamed.
“Shit, Cora, you’ve pissed it off.” Lauris stared at me in panic, then back up at Bramble.
Above us, Bramble’s face was covered by a fresh branch. Her muffled screams filtered around gaps in the wood, and more blood dripped from her wrists as the slender branches holding her slid and cut deep into her flesh.
“Stop it!” Lauris ordered, striding toward the fire, intent on snuffing it out.
I shoved him back. “No. Wait. It has to let her go. Its self-preservation will kick in.”
I tipped my head up and raised my voice. “I will burn you down if you don’t release her.” I walked away from the tree so I was standing between the two aggressors. “I’ll burn this whole fucking forest down.”
Bramble’s muted sobs intensified.
I stalked over to the fire and added more fuel to the flame. It crackled and flared up like a hungry phoenix.
The forest moaned in protest.
“I mean it! Let her go or you will burn.”
Blood flowed freely now, hitting the earth in a pitter-patter. Bramble’s sobs turned to shrill whines of agony and my stomach twisted with doubt.
“You’re making it worse,” Lauris cried.
Oh, shit. Oh, fuck, the blood, so much blood. This wasn’t working.
My resolve snapped. “Stop! Just stop!” I kicked at the fire, putting it out. “You win. Just let her go. Please.”
Bramble’s whines grew shriller, and she made a wet gurgling sound.
Panic clamped its fist around my heart. “Let her go!” I hammered the tree trunk with my fist, tears of impotence blurring my vision. “Let her—”
A strange cracking sound cut through the air, and then, with a rustle, the branches released Bramble.
Lauris rushed forward to catch her. She landed in his arms, head at an odd angle, arm bent back at the elbow, broken, shattered, pale skin criss-crossed with weeping welts, wings crumpled and torn. She stared at me with accusing, glassy, dead eyes.
My heart stalled and ice flooded my veins. “Bramble?”
Lauris gently cradled her to his chest, peering down at her with an expression I’d seen on my guys’ faces many times.
Love and pain.
“Bramble?” His tone was tentative. “Bramble, please…”
But her eyes were empty. She wasn’t breathing. She was…No!
My bottom lip trembled as the reality of the situation washed over me. “She can’t be…she can’t…” My voice was a whisper buried beneath Lauris’s chest-quaking sobs.
No, fuck no. “Bramble, wake the fuck up.”
Lauris met my gaze with silvery vengeance. “She’s dead. They released her because she’s dead. And it’s all your fault.”