“Be vigilant. Spread out into fighting formation and be silent.” I looked back at the trail, frowning as it occurred to me that we might have been called away so Aria could escape.
Anger rushed to the forefront of my mind at the thought her family would be so evil as to murder thousands of people to free her. If anyone could have accomplished that spell to bring down an army of warriors, it would have been Hecate witches, an entire coven of them to be exact. Aurora had ulterior motives. That much I’d discovered in Haven Falls. She’d planned on bringing the girls back into the Nine Realms, but why?
She’d spoken about it openly to the alphas. Aurora had asked them to return with her, yet she hadn’t mentioned it to Freya’s daughters, who she’d raised as her own. What were her motives? It was unheard of for Hecate witches to sacrifice for their sisters or offspring. I didn’t trust them, not one fucking bit. Aurora fed Aria’s mind with knowledge, while Aria fed her mind folklore, legends, and fantasy books.
Aurora had hidden Aria’s scent, knowing she wasn’t meant to be among those in the mortal realm. Aria had been a ticking time bomb set to go off, but Aurora had allowed Aria to remain where she could have slaughtered an entire race of innocent people. That didn’t speak sweet mother figure to me, and I didn’t assume she wasn’t aware of Aria’s father’s identity.
We moved back onto the road, and I stopped dead in my tracks, staring at the sight before my eyes. Blood turned to ice in my veins as Killian lifted his gaze, his hands covered in blood. He lowered his eyes and bowed his head where bodies lay ready for burial. I remained frozen in place, unwilling to see who we’d lost.
“Who fucking did this?” I demanded.
“Witches,” he swallowed.
“I’ll fucking kill Aria myself,” I growled.
“I wouldn’t be too quick to kill Aria. I don’t think they intended her to live for long,” Killian stated. “She was fighting with us against them, but we got overpowered, and something prevented us from calling our creatures to the surface. My guess is magic. They dragged Aria into the forest as I stayed to defend Lore and Greer. She didn’t go willingly.”
“Lore and Greer?” I asked, frozen in place.
“Alive. They’re wounded but alive.”
“How bad?” Brander asked, dismounting to walk toward the dead soldiers.
I dismounted to join him until a noise started, stopping me in my tracks. The hair on my neck rose as I turned in the sound’s direction. My heart pounded against my ribs, painfully mirroring the need to rush blindly toward the noise.
“What the fuck is that?” Brander groaned, his teeth pushing through his gums as his claws did the same.
A quick glance toward Killian showed he’d fared no better. Everything within me demanded I go to it, that I follow the sorrowful howling coming from off in the distance. It was a broken wail, one that begged to be answered. My soul cried to go, and before I’d given the order, we all rushed toward our waiting mounts.
“You feel that?” Killian asked as he turned his horse, facing the forest that loomed endlessly before us.
“To my fucking soul,” I whispered. “It’s Aria. I know it is. I can feel her fear.”
“It could be a trap,” Brander pointed out, and we all turned toward him.
“It could be, but we’re ready for whatever they try to use against us,” I snarled, unable to fight the beast within me, demanding I rush to her.
“Then why the fuck are we on horses?” Killian asked, and we dismounted, pulling magic to us as we became one with the jetstream.
“Let’s go witch hunting, brothers.”
Chapter Three
Aria
Someone dragged me into the forest and tossed me onto something hard and unforgiving. The dark bag over my head prevented me from seeing what was happening around me. My body lay prone, unmoving as I pretended to be beneath the witch’s spell. Grunting sounded, and the whinnying of horses filled the woods as the sound of steel meeting steel abated as if the fighting had ended.
Pain echoed through my head while blood pumped through my veins, causing my ears to fill with the roar of it coursing through me. The wagon lurched forward quietly, and the sound of the wheels and horse’s hooves crunching over the forest floor filled the air. I assumed they were taking me north, to Ilsa, and the Kingdom of Vãkya instead of Norvalla.
I could hear hushed grunts and words that flowed around me. Men talked in a strange language I couldn’t identify or understand. The witches within the caravan spoke the language taught to me since birth, uncaring that I would hear them if I woke, which meant they didn’t intend to keep me alive.
Tears burned my eyes at the thought of Knox finding his brother and men slaughtered without a sign of me, and pain rocked through me. He’d assume I had helped murder them, and that would send him off the rails, hunting me down to end my existence. My heart lurched, tightening until a sob threatened to explode from me.
Greer, Lore, and Killian couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t right for them to die on some road because witches wanted me dead. I’d rushed through the kingdom, leaving havoc and ruins in my wake of chaos, and now they were all dead because of my body count while showing Knox I wasn’t some child he could threaten and own.
“Lord Andres had better hope he is present when we arrive. I am not willing to allow her to live much longer. Her death should prevent the king from finding her, with her sickly sweet breeding stench oozing from her. Lord Andres should have told us what she was so we could have had something to counter her aroma. I’m not even her species, and I can smell her reek.”
I sniffed myself, frowning. Was I the only one who couldn’t smell my scent?
“The bodies we left on the road will slow down the king. One is his brother, which means we should go before he arrives. If he shows up with an army, they will outnumber us, and not even you can match the King of Norvalla in strength.”
“We won’t be here when he arrives. I only need to extract her scent and mirror her image. Once we have finished with that, I will appear like her, and the king won’t be able to tell the difference between Aria Hecate and myself.”
I rolled my eyes at the woman’s reasoning and then frowned. Was it possible to duplicate someone and appear as them? Yes. Easily, but this was Knox. He’d figured out my replica within minutes of being close to me when I’d used it on him. Not that it would matter if I were dead.
“Ditch the wagon. It’s slowing us down,” a woman ordered.
Someone wrenched me up like a sack of potatoes and slammed me onto the back of a horse. I sucked in air, forcing no response to escape my lips or lungs. Beefy hands pushed into my spine, using me as a prop to get onto the horse’s back. Even the horse grunted beneath the heavyweight.
We took off again, this time at a faster pace as if fear were rushing us away from the site where they’d murdered Knox’s brother and friends. Like that would prevent him from reaching us? For once, I was glad for the tattoo on my inner thigh, relieved that he would track us, drawn to the general vicinity in which they intended to murder me. Hopefully, he’d show up before they ended my life.
Hours passed before we entered what sounded like a camp as metal clanged and voices spoke or argued. The moment we breached the hub of noise, silence reigned. The male that had ignored my existence, other than to grab my body when I started to fall, yanked me from the horse, and held me in his arms.