Page 292 of Alpha Mates

Aiden

The air. That’s the first thing that threatens to strangle me the moment I fall into witch territory.

Their power is infused into it, into every speck of dirt for miles. It radiates from the Earth and rises like manacles that try to drag me down.

Max shifts restlessly, already demanding a retreat I agree with, but that would be tucking tail, and that is a humiliation neither of us is ready to bear when we’ve only just arrived.

The magic-sodden earth seems to sense and oppose that decision though, because a moment later, I find myself emptying my stomach over the root of a rowan tree.

“Good Gods,” Katerina hisses as she crouches at my side. She presses a hand to my stomach, but the unfamiliar warmth that gathers does not soothe me. All it does is encourage fresh bile to spew from my lips. “What the—”

“Stop,” I rasp as I push her hands away. Whatever she’s trying to do is only making matters worse because, clearly, my body does not take kindly to witch’s magic.

“I hope no one felt that,” Kat whispers as she straightens to pay a keen eye to the land around us.

“Felt?” I question as I spit the last threads of bile free. I wipe my mouth and straighten for my own perusal of this strange land.

“Some leave dormant magic within the roots,” she explains in a watchful murmur. “It’s not so much for security as it is for gathering animal fur for spells. But there are those in the coven who’d froth at the chance to capture werewolf venom … or just a werewolf whole.”

Unease slithers over my skin as I look around with newly stoked attention. The very last thing I need is to end up on a witch’s table with sections of my fur glued into a grimoire.

“Is it not safe to mask my scent then?” I ask while I eye the trees around us with sudden distrust.

“Better if you didn’t touch them,” she advises before waving a hand that has blades of sage falling in front of my eyes.

I snatch the dried leaves from the air and quickly crush them in my fists. I smear the makeshift paste over my scent glands, blotting out my scent until nothing is left of me but the heap of vomit that Katerina makes evaporate with a wrinkled nose.

I didn’t know what I’d been expecting for a coven—perhaps strung up chicken bones clicking from nearby tree branches, but there’s none of that. As far as my eyes could see, trees cover the land around us, with spidering branches that weave together as they grow to one great roofing that purposefully keeps Goddess’s light out.

It makes the light beneath it almost black in hue, deepening the lingering shadows until they stand like watchful spirits. Eerie. It’s all so fucking eerie.

I shift my gaze to Kat, meaning to find out what her plan is, but she just stands there, staring straight ahead. Her usual erratic or sharp brown eyes are stretched wide, refusing to blink. I follow the path of her gaze to the lone tree that stands isolated from the rest.

It is a monstrous beast with wickering branches that bear no leaves, and a black trunk—not from the shadows or the lack of Goddess’s light. It’s just … black.

There’s one branch that stands out from the rest. It’s longer and sharper, as though it’s been etched so by a swordsmith who’d mistaken its wood for steel.

I glance back at the witch beside me, and demons dance in her eyes as she stares at it.

“This won’t take long,” she says quietly, a haunted whisper that rides the foul wind. Her gaze never shifts, not even to blink. “Listen out for rats.”

“Be careful,” I warn as I feel the now telltale sign of her magic gathering beneath her feet.

It’s only a passing warning, but I might as well have cursed her name with how Katerina’s head snaps in my direction. Now that she’s looking at me, I can see the way the edges of her eyes burn with unshed tears, but I don’t acknowledge them.

I know grief, and I know fear—they don’t need any more attention than what they frequently stole.

“Don’t get distracted by how you feel,” I state as I look at her. “I can’t have you dying on me before I get my ride home.”

Katerina blinks at me, then a few more times as if she’s been reawakened and has only just remembered herself.

A small smile cracks her clasped lips apart as she nods. “Got it,” she says, wavering for a moment more before she disappears.

I don’t know where Katerina goes. I can’t tell from here, not even as I strain my ears and spin around in search of the dark woods, but I soon feel it.

I feel the avalanche of magic that descends from both her and then from the ones she fears as they become aware of her presence.

The earth shudders, as if an earthquake is starting, but nothing about this is natural.