Page 109 of Dark Flame

Harlow!

I push off the tree, intending to get to her. Fuck the High Priestess. Fuck every witch and warlock who’ll raise their magick against me. They can chain me to a tree for all I careafterI save Harlow.

Two steps from the treeline, an invisible force slams me back.

No!With a growl, I throw myself at it again, forced to witness the air shimmer white.

“Let me through! Witch, look at me!”

The High Priestess doesn’t.

Ineedto get to Harlow. Need it more than blood. More than anything.

A crack beside me has me momentarily distracted, Freya landing on the grass.

“Remove this!”I flash my fangs. First Witch or not, I’ll rip her fucking throat out if she doesn’t help.

“Morgan put it up to keep you both safe.”

“Safe?She’s not safe. Let me get to her!”

Freya shakes her head, grimacing as Harlow screams again, her cry echoing through the deepest parts of me. The parts that are burning in their own personal hell.

“Then why the fuck are you here?”

“Because they’re about to see a lot that’ll raise questions, and the High Priestess will need guidance towards the right path.”

The right path. The rightfuckingpath. She’s speaking about witchy bullshit while my mate is in fuckingpain?

I run into the barrier again and again. I’ll never stop fighting until I get to her.

When she screams again, my insides shred apart.

Forty-Two

HARLOW

It drifts from my mind,hovering in the air like a projection screen for the entire coven to view. Their gasps seem so far away, lost amidst the throbbing of my head. It’s only the projection that compels me to lift my head, my fingers knotting around the blades of grass in my vicinity as I try to focus on what’s being unleashed.

“Mommy!” I dart towards the woman across the yard, wrapping my arms around her knees.

My mother lifts me in her arms, swinging me back and forth in that way she knows I enjoy before instructing me to head inside and get changed for bed.

That vision fades, and a knife-like scraping sensation against my brain physically yanks another one forward. And then another. And another.

“Make it stop, make it stop…” My hands clench my head, each scraping more painful than the last.

“Mom, it’s hurting her!” a voice screams. Carina, I believe.

In the distance—or my head, I can’t figure out what’s what anymore—Alec bellows in rage.

On and on they go, flashes of my parents—my real parents. Mom’s hair is vibrant red, and I see now how weak in comparison Violet’s hair was. There are images of her telling bedtime stories with the smoke and shadows made by her flames, and it is nothing like how Violet would tuck me into bed.

Alec screams my name. I wonder why he hasn’t come yet. I want him to save me.

“Carina, over here! Let’s play hide and seek. You first.” Carina bolts down the road from her house to mine.

Memories of early childhood flit through the numerous scenes, but I need them to stop. I’d rather be lost and deal with the unknown.