Page 39 of How to Charm a Coven (How to Flirt with a Witch #2)

Suddenly, I’m seeing through different eyes.

I’m fighting Agnes, swiping at her with my claws extended.

I’m trying to save Millie, who’s pale and weak in Sebastian’s arms as he carries her away from here.

I’m galloping, my hooves reaching forward and digging into the earth, my long legs carrying me at blinding speed through the trees.

Beside me, a fox races through the underbrush.

Above, a hawk soars through the treetops. I’m tracking, sensing…

Ahead, one of our own is bound. The humans have her and are about to perform the blood ritual.

Hurry. Need to hurry.

But a tangle of roots lashes out, wrapping around my legs. I stumble and hit the ground, sliding on my shoulder.

The others keep going. The ritual has begun, and we cannot stop.

A canine comes through the trees—not fully one of us, but enough. His mother was magic. He calls to us. They are here.

I break free from the roots and stand, and my sisters and I change course, following the canine.

There!

The ritual is underway. Our sister is dissolving, joining the blood of the older witch.

“Nat, keep breathing!” Sky’s voice pulls me back to my body—my knees on the ground, the blinding pain everywhere. The vision of Sophia dissolves, of Wyatt leading the chimeras to her, of the dark forest… And in its place is Natalie’s graying skin, the blood, the people crowded around her.

I can feel the threads of magic connecting everything—witches, chimeras, the earth beneath our feet. I can sense the fear behind Fiona’s anger, the love driving Sky to protect her sister, the confusion and wonder in Hazel’s transformation… And Natalie. Her life force, draining away.

She’s about to die. The fragile strands tethering her to this world are fraying, closer to snapping altogether by the second .

Help her, I plead silently, hoping the chimeras can hear me as I can hear them. She doesn’t deserve this.

I pour everything I am into the plea—all my love for Natalie, all my fear of losing her, all my desperate hope that we can still fix this mess.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then a small shape detaches from the forest—Lucy in her kitten form, padding toward us on silent paws. Her eyes glow as she approaches Natalie and sits back on her haunches, her tail swishing.

The air grows thick with magic, heavy and electric. It presses against my skin, fills my lungs, makes my hair stand on end. Lucy begins to shimmer, becoming more powerful with each frantic beat of my heart.

“Katie, what’s it doing?” Sky asks, her voice strained through her tears.

Her fingers close around my arm, cold and sweaty, the terror of losing Natalie plain on her face.

After all they’ve been through together, losing their mom, nearly losing their dad, risking their lives to protect the public from dark magic, they’ve always had each other.

I shake my head, unable to explain what I don’t understand.

Natalie’s breaths quicken, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her eyelids flutter like she’s dreaming. Her life force isn’t as weak anymore. It pulses in the air, wrapping around me.

Do I dare to hope? I lift her sweater, which is soaked and torn. The wound in her side gapes open—but it’s getting smaller. Tissue is stitching closed by an invisible hand. Blood stops flowing.

“Lucy,” I whisper, gratitude overwhelming me.

Slowly, color returns to Natalie’s cheeks. The bluish tinge fades from her lips, replaced by their natural pink. It’s like her body is regenerating blood—and maybe it is. Her breathing deepens, steadies.

I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can hardly believe what I’m seeing.

Her eyelids fly open, and she gasps, gulping down air like someone breaking the surface after nearly drowning. “What happened? Where’s Katie? ”

I grab her face, tears streaming down my cheeks and neck. “I’m here. Are you okay?”

She stares up at me, confusion giving way to recognition. She reaches up to cup my hand against her cheek. “Katie. Don’t cry.”

I can barely breathe, choking back a sob as her warmth seeps into my palm.

Lucy backs up. The heavy press of magic recedes like a tide, the air seeming to grow cooler and thinner.

Thank you, I tell her silently, knowing I’ll never be able to fully express my gratitude.

She blinks, then turns and trots back into the forest.

Natalie tries to sit up but falls back with a groan, her face contorting in pain. “Feels like that boulder really did land on me.”

“Stay down,” I say, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

She grunts and sits up anyway. “I can still fight. I just— Shit, is this all mine?”

She gawks at the pool of blood.

“Yeah,” I say thickly.

Sky throws her arms around her sister, squeezing her briefly before sitting up and wiping her cheeks. “Don’t ever do that to me again, dumbass.”

Natalie’s lips twitch. “I don’t plan on it.”

Fiona’s eyes are huge. “Katie, how did you do that? Can you control them?”

I shake my head. “I didn’t control anything. I just…asked.”

Her expression twists, like she wants to be angry but doesn’t understand why. “This is the first time bio magic has been used on a witch in a century.”

I reach out mentally, searching for her mind the way I connected to the chimeras.

It’s like clawing through stone to get beneath her rigid exterior.

But there, nestled deep inside her, is a complex web of thoughts and emotions.

Pride and fear mix together. There’s concern for the state of the world, and a desperate desire for all feral magic to be harnessed, even if that means destroying it.

There’s hatred for this power that isolated her from her non-magical family, and there’s the need to protect them—her niece, her sister, her parents.

I am descended from the ancient Guardians, Fiona, I think, trying to project it into her mind. I’m here to maintain the natural balance. Free magic is not your enemy.

Fiona gasps, looking at me with a mix of fear and something else. Something less defensive and angry than usual.

“We’re on the same team,” I say, “and we have to work together if we want to protect the world from harm.”

“Katie’s a Guardian of ancient magic,” Natalie says, sounding more like herself. “She can talk to the chimeras. She’s been trying to tell us.”

Fiona shakes her head. “Ancient Guardians are a fairy tale.”

“They’re not,” I say fiercely.

The fight is still raging around us. A lynx pounces on Hayley, its claws raking her chest and tearing open her cloak. She screams, the sound rising into the treetops.

Stop! I shout inside my mind.

The lynx turns its blazing eyes onto me. Hayley moans in pain beneath it, blood oozing through the gashes in her cloak. The lynx bows its head, and slowly, it backs away.

Fiona stares at me, her expression shifting from shock to something grudging. “Prove it, then. Call them all off.”

I nod, reaching out again with my mind. Stop this fight, I tell the chimeras. The witches are not our enemies.

The effect is immediate. The chimeras hesitate, the battle quieting like someone has put a damper on it. One by one, they turn to me.

“The Guardian asks us to stop,” one hisses.

“Why should we stop defending ourselves?” another growls .

There’s a greater threat to us all, I reply. Please trust me.

Slowly, they back away from the Shadows. They don’t retreat entirely, but they stop attacking, watching me.

Fiona studies me, her expression unreadable, then turns to survey the battlefield.

My heart lurches as I see the number of witches hunched and injured, their blood pooling on the rocks and staining the shoreline.

The chimeras gather at an uneasy distance, many flickering and wounded.

But as I look at them, they heal themselves like torn material being stitched back together—bio magic at work. Like Lucy did to Natalie.

“Shadows, stand down,” Fiona calls out. “The Madsens have stolen bio magic. This changes our priorities.”

The witches lower their hands, turning to Fiona in stunned silence.

“They’re doing the ritual now,” I say. “Sophia’s absorbing the magic.”

Everyone stares at me, eyes wide, lips parted in surprise.

“I can’t explain,” I say, my voice shaking. “But I saw it. It’s happening, and if we can’t find her before she gets out of the woods, we’ll never be able to stop her.”

Natalie pushes to her feet, swaying.

“You rest,” I say, reaching out to steady her.

Her hand finds mine, squeezing firmly. “I promise I’m okay. Fully healed. I just…”

“Have a magic hangover?” Sky supplies.

Natalie makes a finger gun. “Exactly.”

“Let’s move,” Sky says, turning to Fiona. “Before we’re too late.”

A terrible, heavy silence falls over the cove.

Fiona nods.

It’s as close to an alliance as I’m going to get right now, and I’m happy to accept it. Because if Sophia is about to gain the ability to do mind control and God-knows-what-else…we’ve got a much bigger problem to worry about.