Page 26 of Curses & Cold Brew (Maple Hollow #2)

RAMONA

A t the sound of Iris’s scream, I bolted into the kitchen in nothing but a bra and briefs. Panic lanced through me when I heard glass shatter. Was she hurt? Did she faint? Did a portal to hell secretly open in my linen closet?

Those were the only three things I could guess as I ran, but what I saw when I entered the kitchen made my heart plummet.

“No.”

Iris was held by the throat, her back pinned to her captor’s chest—a captor who was the only other person who could get into my house.

Terror morphed into confusion. What in the fuck?

“Naphula,” I growled. “Let. Her. Go.”

My best friend squeezed the witch’s throat tighter in response. Iris’s eyes bulged in panic, the vein in her forehead pulsing.

“Naphula. Listen to me.” I tried speaking like I was calming a skittish horse, but I was beginning to suspect my friend’s mind wasn’t in the building with us.

Naphula’s glassy eyes were unfocused and stared blankly at .

. . nothing. They were empty voids that held no hellfire, just blank spaces that reflected the morning light like obsidian mirrors.

It was as if her body were just the shell of my best friend, a conduit, a vessel for another.

I didn’t know if she had chosen to work for Esme or whether she was under the vampire’s curse, but in that moment, with her hand around Iris’s throat, I didn’t care.

“Naphula, let her go!” I shouted this time, but she didn’t move. My mind reeled with all my potential plans of action, but each one ended with Naphula snapping Iris’s neck. “If you try to take her, I will slit your throat right here and now. Do you hear me? Damn our friendship to hell.”

“Ramona—” Iris rasped as Naphula’s grip constricted, threatening to choke the life out of her.

The air around them started whirring, and my gut plummeted.

“No, no, no!” I yelled, rushing to grab Iris, but I couldn’t reach her in time.

She and Naphula vanished before my eyes, leaving no traceable essence for me to follow.

Gone.

“Fuck!” I picked up a vase of roses from the island and slammed it into the wall. The spray of water and ceramic shards joined the shattered glass where Iris had dropped her drink.

How could I have let this happen?

I bolted up the stairs to my room and threw on the first items of clothing I could find. Then I shoved my feet into my running shoes and tied them with a wave of my shaking hand before I took the steps two at a time to my front door.

My rage burned brighter than the forges of hell. I would turn the entire town upside down to find them.

Goose bumps rose on my arms as I ran toward the center of town, a wave of nausea curdling my stomach. It was eerily calm, even for this early in the morning.

Too empty. Too calm.

All the while, a vein of evil was running in the undercurrent of our sleepy town.

Esme and Naphula had taken Iris somewhere, and even if I had to call in every soul and every favor I’d ever collected to find them, so help me Lucifer, I would.

My lungs burned, but I pushed harder until I practically crashed into Agnes just outside the antique shop.

“Ramona?” she asked, instantly concerned. “What’s going on?”

“Naphula took Iris,” I huffed, cursing my human form and the fact that I couldn’t use portal magic the same way Naphula could. She was the perfect tool for Esme—my friend and confidante, a demon with incredible magic, the keeper of all of my secrets . . .

“Naphula?” Agnes balked. “But I thought it was Esme we were looking for?—”

“She’d been cursed,” I gritted out before breaking into a sprint. “Her eyes, there was nothing behind them. She wasn’t herself. It was as if she couldn’t even hear me.”

“A mind-control curse,” Agnes said with an affirming nod.

The elderly vampire was able to keep a preternatural pace with me without even trying.

“Must be. I’ll tell the others. We’ll find them.

” She broke off at the town square with military precision as I kept running.

“Billy!” I heard her yell. “Get the phone tree, we’ve got a missing witch! ”

Even through my panic, I knew half of Maple Hollow would be awake and on the hunt for Iris within the hour. Hopefully, the wolves could track her scent, or the witches could perform a location spell on her, but I kept running.

Because I had to. I couldn’t just wait, helpless, hoping that she would be alright.

Esme didn’t have Naphula break Iris’s sigil like the others. They’d taken Iris from me because Esme wanted to use Iris to hurt me. And after that?—

No, I couldn’t think about what would happen to Iris. I couldn’t think about her being taken away from me—permanently. Not after everything felt right for the first time in longer than I could remember.

So I just kept running. Because I needed Iris. Because I loved her.

I let out a feral growl at that.

I loved her.

The thought made my brain split in two.

I didn’t think love was an emotion I was capable of; I didn’t think it would ever exist in me. Sex, sure. Desire, most definitely. But love? No.

But this feeling—like my heart was exploding through my ribs, like my mind was always reaching for her, even when she was in my arms, like I wanted to fuse my soul with hers and even that wouldn’t be enough—was love , wasn’t it?

Seven Hells, I thought love would feel a lot less like torture, but maybe the two were one and the same.

Nothing would be right again until Iris was safe in my arms.

It was nonsensical. Iris was fun and lighthearted, brave and silly, smart and joyful and all kinds of sunshine-y chaos, and I was none of those things. But she made me want to be. She made me excited about every possibility. For her, I wanted to be everything .

I halted abruptly. A thought had me skidding into the middle of the dewy square, and then I was turning toward the pumpkin patch and picking up speed.

Esme needed a remote location within the town limits to hide out, and Randy had said he was pretty sure someone was squatting at the house in the patch.

Maybe they weren’t ghouls after all . . .