Page 215 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

Conrad once again winced, as if my skin itself was burning him. He removed his hand from my mouth.

“Explain how they’re doing this,” he spat in my face. “You have ten seconds to start being useful or I will fuck you like the useless cunt that you are.”

Instead of talking, I started yelling. “Hekate!” I called as purple burned through my third eye. I didn’t need magick to pray.

Light my way out. Protect your daughter.

Conrad’s hand went back over my mouth. His hips lowered.

The door flew open.

Aster tackled Conrad to the floor. My collar exploded.

Aster punched Conrad in the face. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Conrad attempted to infect Aster with his pain magick, but it was thwarted by Aster’s shielding abilities. So they wrestled on the ground the old-fashioned way.

I shot through the open door, delighted by how disgusting and feral I must’ve looked.

I was pure animal, not a drop of humanity left in my veins. The guards who had once taunted me, shoved a pillowcase over my head and thrown food at my feet, now gurgled on their own blood.

When they dropped to their knees, I grinned. “Order has been restored.”

I heard Aster and Conrad arguing loudly inside my old cell. I left them behind, killing anyone standing between me and Conrad’s study.

Around the corner, the next hallway was quiet. Downstairs, guests were congregating, likely wondering about the noise above. Or maybe they were too drunk on elixir and blood to care.

Breathless, I barged into the room, only to realize quickly I was in the wrong lord’s study. I didn’t have time, but I stole just a few moments, anyway.

The world was alive again. Energy from above, below, and in each cardinal direction was both a blessing and a distraction. Too much had been repressed and for too long.

I let my surging, regained witchy senses guide me. I shoved books off Aster’s desk until I saw the root of Juliette’s torment. The map of notes and jottings about witches like me. Notes on my magick as a child. Notes about my trauma, my mother, and my coven. Arrows leading to Jacob Whitfield, Celeste’s, and aman in a black skull mask.Question marks. Underlines. Even things I’d told him in passing—foods I liked, books I’d read.

Juliette was only obsessed with me because Aster had been obsessed with me. She’d told me over and over that Aster hadn’t forgotten about me. I could see that clearly now.

I moved quickly, casting a glance over my shoulder and grabbing a letter opener off Aster’s desk.

Out in the hallway, I pricked my skin and ad-libbed a spell, chaos-witch-style. I whispered to my shadows, sowing confusion, masking my scent.

I slipped into the correct study this time, knowing my impromptu spell was temporary at best, unable to hold without the proper glue.

With the snap of my fingers, I lit a candle on Conrad’s bookcase. I offered the flame to my spirits and guides, asking them to illuminate my way.

I used my own body as a pendulum. A surge of warm tingles meantyes,and a lack of sensation or warmth meantno.I opened a drawer.

No tingles.

No other drawer elicited a response. I put my hand on the desk. Nothing.

I started opening up books, tearing the room apart as footsteps sounded below and grew heavier by the minute.

In front of the grandest bookcase, my body finally surged with tiny pinpricks. I nodded, a shaky smile forming.

“Okay, understood.”

My hand glided over each book, waiting, listening, finding stillness amid the palpable chaos around me.

They were looking for me. But they’d been thrown off by the spell. It nearly sounded like soldiers were storming through the estate.