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Not that I wanted to come back here, but it sounded like a good plan to me.

“You’re Ariel Kimber,” the blond on the right said in a deep voice I hadn’t expected to come from him.

I rolled my eyes. I was getting really tired of everyone knowing who I was upon first sight.

I dipped my head in a silent yes. “I’m sending all you boys up to the front of the motel to wait for my coven. They are on their way and should be here soon. You should take all of your belongings with you, because you will likely never be coming back here again.”

They both gaped at me. “But what about—”

I didn’t have time for this. “Just get your butts out of here. Please.” That please hurt a little bit coming out of my mouth.

I didn’t stick around to see if they would listen to me or not. I left the room and continued on my way. They either got with the program or they didn’t, but I wasn’t going to stand there any longer while they ogled me as if I were some sideshow at the circus.

I found two more rooms with a total of ten more children in them, all under the age of fifteen. None of them eyed my breasts or so much as tried to argue with me, they all just did as they were told, like good little boys.

That was all I was willing to allow myself to think about, because if I started to think about the fact that some of them weren’t wearing any clothes and others were crying and… my mind blanked. Yeah, I wasn’t going there because I couldn’t afford to if I wanted to be able to think straight.

The longer I spent time down here, the more sick to my stomach I became. This was no safe haven for witches, it was a motel of nightmares instead. A place where vulnerable people came to be abused.

A place that needed to be obliterated.

Owned by the Council that also very much needed to be obliterated.

Something beneath my skin itched, desperately wanting to be let out.

The abuse down here in this dark basement was bringing my own painful memories to the surface. There was too much pain trapped down here, too much pain trapped inside me that I had fooled myself into believing I was over.

I was so fucking stupid, and who the hell knew whatever else I’d been fooling myself into believing, but I seriously hoped it stayed buried deep inside of me.

Hello, denial and obliviousness, thanks for being one of my closest friends. Not that I had many friends who were real to call my own.

How sad was that? Now I was claiming emotions and feelings as friends because I had no people to fill those roles.

Something in the dirt corridor before me had my steps slowing down as I approached a corner. The air blasting from there almost seemed arctic, and the already dim light looked darker.

A feeling crept in from around the corner—a feeling of immense dread.

I hoped it led me straight to Marcus Cole and the rest of the Council.

That got my feet moving again, and I whispered a quick spell to keep my footsteps silent to help mask my approach.

I sidled up next to the dirt wall and pressed my palm flat against it while I peeked around the corner.

Apparently the bedrooms had stopped, and the space before me was huge and open, cavernous. I couldn’t see the end of it, but the corner I could see was closest to me and dark. There weren’t even walls to see, and as far as I could tell, the space just eventually faded into darkness on all sides. It was creepy as fuck, and any sane, smart woman would have turned and ran far, far away. I should have gone back upstairs and waited out front with those boys for my coven to arrive so they could back me up.

It was stupid to do this alone. I knew that.

But, the thing was, I wasn’t about to walk away from the scene in front of me.

Oh no I was not.

Fuck no.

I had finally found Marcus Cole, and I was going nowhere until I got my pound of flesh—that was, after someone else finished getting their pound of flesh from him.

It was something I knew I’d never forget seeing, and it made me want to keel over and vomit at witnessing it now.

I could have gone my whole life without seeing this.