Page 53 of Druid Cursed

“They were for you?” Maggie blew out a breath that nigh sounded like laughter. “Not for Wendy or Sorcha, but you. I should have guessed.”

Aibreann set the ring on Maggie’s forehead, her fingers long and corpse-pale.

“For the poison of the mind, a Ravenwood’s poisoned gift to me in life.

” The key she placed on Maggie’s breastbone.

“For the door to the soul, personally forged by another Ravenwood to open a protected room.” She settled the locket on the hollow of Maggie’s throat.

“A tie to generations of druid magic.” The rock went beneath her feet.

“To tether bone and earth through our familial bloodline.”

“Question.” Maggie wheezed. “Where did you find Aunt Maeve’s rock?”

Sorcha hissed. “That bitch’s interference stole a decade from me.

My own kin obstructed me from the very blood we shared, from the magic I had siphoned for centuries.

She used the last of her power to shield you from my sight.

That rock holds the remnants of her spell, the final spark of my ancestral power. ”

“Feral Aunt Maeve.” A touch of regret entered Maggie’s voice. “Smarter than us all.”

As Sorcha began chanting, Aibreann leaned over Maggie, as if to kiss her.

Maggie arched completely off the dolmen and screamed.

…

Pain unlike anything Maggie had ever known shrieked through her body—every limb and nerve, tissue and bone on fire.

Aibreann’s unearthly, perfect face above her blurred.

Her heart thundered and convulsed, as though being slowly ripped from her chest cavity with iron talons.

Her scream made an endless echo, a surround sound circuit, forever trapped in Caedmon’s magic cage.

The ring, key, and locket burned her skin like dry ice.

That her best friend’s body was being used to carry this out was like salt on every wound.

Sorcha paused in her chanting and crouched, drawing some sort of symbol on the ground. The torture abruptly ended.

Maggie sucked in a sharp breath and fought to focus through a wave of panic.

Caedmon’s entire plan to free Wendy from Sorcha hinged on her.

She didn’t have much time. Whatever hex Sorcha used to hold Maggie down made it impossible to crawl off the altar, but her hands remained free.

She blindly fumbled for Kellen’s knife in her belt, hidden beneath her soaked sweater with the spindle.

She’d offered to sacrifice her blood, her life, but that had been for Kellen, not her witchy ancestors. They said one couldn’t choose their family, and as much as she treasured the legacy her father had left behind, she was about to make an exception to her mother’s.

Aibreann blocked her view, only a few spare inches between them.

Her breath brushed Maggie’s lips, winter-cold.

At their first introduction, her eyes had been deep wells of darkness.

Now, they were the green of moss, her skin less of a ghostly sheen and more living flesh.

A lock of her long hair fell over her shoulder onto Maggie’s throat, the rich shade of fall foliage.

They were all stolen fragments of her life, ripped away in seconds by Sorcha’s spell. How many more seconds could she last before Maggie O’Malley no longer existed at all?

She slipped her fingers beneath her sweater, and cool metal brushed her fingertips.

Sorcha threw something into the fire, and a sickly sweet odor drifted on the smoke. Energy shocked Maggie’s skin, tiny needles drilling holes through flesh, piercing bone, burrowing for her soul.

Aibreann stroked Maggie’s hair back and gripped her face. “I will honor your gift of life.”

“It’s not a gift if it’s stolen.” Maggie wrapped her tingling fingers around Kellen’s knife.

Aibreann’s mouth opened impossibly wide.

Agony swept over her, screaming in every pore as she frantically clung to consciousness.

A tornado roar filled her ears, vibrated in her skull.

Her thoughts fractured, regrouped, only to shatter again.

She snatched at the scraps and struggled to hold on.

If she didn’t, both Wendy and Caedmon would die.

Kellen would remain cursed for eternity.

All of Ravenwood would be ruined, twisted into evil.

“Begone.” The deafening barrage in her head drowned out all other sound. She couldn’t be sure she’d managed to speak at all.

Her fingers on the knife had gone completely numb.

Darkness edged her vision as a vacuum sucked away her strength, faster and faster.

She couldn’t stop it, couldn’t do anything.

She hadn’t inherited the family magic, was nothing more than an unemployed divorcee with a nothing future.

Letting it all go was the best she could possibly do.

From somewhere deep, as if floating up from an endless well from another world, a quiet voice pierced the chaos.

Fear is merely a sign that you have found someone precious enough to fight for .

Caedmon’s words, spoken only an hour ago. She’d found Kellen when she’d lost all hope of a lifetime love. A keen caught in her throat. Wendy would never give up on her. What was more precious than a best friend and true love?

Gritting her teeth, Maggie forced her unfeeling hand to grip the knife tucked in her belt.

Color drained from her sight, lost in the black void of Aibreann.

The world spun, an unstoppable funnel taking her down.

She couldn’t breathe. The pressure in her head ached and writhed like snakes buried in her skull. Holy hell, it hurt.

Fight, O’Malley!

With the last dregs of her will, she freed Kellen’s knife. Weakly, she waved it at Aibreann and whispered the single word echoing in the consuming emptiness. “ Taibhse .”

As if a storm died mid-rage, the pain abruptly ended.

On a gasp, Maggie slumped onto the cold stone.

A sob of relief wracked her shoulders as she wheezed for breath.

Every muscle groaned. Her bones vibrated with the burning echoes of Sorcha’s spell.

Damn, even her hair follicles hurt. She opened her eyes to full color.

Aibreann was gone.

“What have you done?” The low malice in Sorcha’s voice slashed through Maggie’s reprieve.

Shaking, she scrambled to a sit. The scavenger hunt items toppled, scattered on the table and ground.

Sorcha was closer than before, her eyes blazing as if lit by venom.

The fire flared, and wicked, green-tinted flames licked at the sky, a frightening backdrop to the woman who hardly resembled her best friend.

She looked awful, her curls a tangled mess of sticks, moss, and leaves, her lovely face smudged and twisted with a witch’s rage.

Wendy would be royally ticked off if she got wrinkles from that expression.

“Maggie.” At Kellen’s rasp, she dared a glance at him.

He crouched on all fours in the mud, his dark hair hanging in his face, Caedmon’s cloak swallowing him in blackness.

The veins in his neck bulged, as if he struggled not to fall.

Stretching between them, the vapor drawn by Sorcha’s spell boiled like acid, an unpassable boundary.

He met her gaze and bared his teeth in a snarl. “Get out of jail and flee.”

The words jolted through her, a reminder of what rested in her pocket against her hip—Caedmon’s last-resort spell. Her get-out-of-jail-free card, tucked beside the sphere to separate Sorcha from Wendy’s body.

“I cannot reverse the reincarnation spell, you fool.” Sorcha drifted nearer, and as much as Maggie wanted to back away, to keep every inch possible between them, she’d signed up for this dangerous task.

She was the only one who had a shot at success.

The witch’s unblinking gaze resembled a cobra’s, pitiless, inhuman, and whatever warmth she’d felt for Maggie as distant family had disappeared.

“You have destroyed decades of my labor.”

“Must be a new family trait.” Maggie cleared her dry throat and eased off the rock, wincing at the aches in her battered body. “But you know what? I’m through apologizing for my choices.”

Her knees threatened to fold beneath her weight, and she leaned against the dolmen to hide her weakness.

As casually as possible, she slipped her hand into her jeans’ pocket, touching leather.

In the commotion, the silver ball must have wound up beneath the pouch.

She waved the knife still somehow in her grip, more an act than anything.

Even if Sorcha was within reach, she wouldn’t stab Wendy.

“No matter.” Sorcha visibly relaxed, shedding her emotions like a snake would its skin.

“I will bide my time, recreate my spell, and call my daughter forth once more when the proper moment arises. Until then, I will manage the Ravenwood power in the company of my sole living descendant.” Her impassive tone sent shivers down Maggie’s arms. “My long-awaited granddaughter.”

Maggie gathered the sphere into her hand as her pulse drummed in her ears. “Can’t. I have plans. Big plans. Starting my own business.” Her tongue seemed to have taken control of her brain. “No time to hang out with family. Too much to do. I’m sure you understand.”

“I dearly wish to slay you for vexing me, to watch your druid love helplessly witness your lifeblood draining into the earth, but you are the only vessel capable of housing Aibreann’s spirit,” Sorcha continued, unfazed by Maggie’s babbling.

“What about her unborn child?” The words were out before she considered the consequences of reminding Sorcha she’d lost both her daughter and grandchild on the same day.

“The babe’s spirit was pure, unsullied by the stains of the world, beyond even my reach. I thank you for reminding me of that enduring loss.” Her smile was born of nightmares, sharp and full of dark promise. “How there are many torments that do not result in death.”