Page 41 of How to Charm a Coven (How to Flirt with a Witch #2)

Their presence swirls around me, everything mingling like currents in the ocean. And among them, as steady as ever, is Natalie. Even in turmoil, my body knows where she is, as if we’re connected by an invisible tether that nothing can break.

The chimeras hear me. They’re coming.

“You two-faced, lying coward,” Hazel snarls, and I snap my eyes open to see her stalking forward.

Oaklyn is getting to her feet at the edge of the clearing, her gaze fixed on Hazel.

“You knew what Sophia was planning!” Hazel says, redirecting her aim.

“Hazel, focus!” I shout. “We need you.”

Too late. With a roar, she lets loose a blast of magic, and a deep CRRRACK! fills the forest. A tree beside Oaklyn sways, a line running through its trunk like someone’s taken a chainsaw to it.

“Oops.” Hazel looks at her palms.

“Oh my God,” I say as the tree wobbles.

As if in slow motion, it begins to fall.

“Back up!” Sky roars, grabbing Natalie by the arm.

We all scramble away.

“I’ve got it!” Hazel sends another blast of magic, and the trunk explodes, sending splinters flying like missiles in every direction. We all hit the ground, shielding ourselves.

“Stop trying to fix it, Hazel!” Natalie shouts.

“I’m trying to give Oaklyn what she deserves!” Hazel yells, wild with vengeance. Her hair is a mess, her face sweaty, dirt streaking her skin. She strikes again, and a geyser of dirt flies into the air and rains down on us.

“Hazel! Sophia first, revenge later!” I shout, trying to keep tabs on everyone. Shit, where did Sophia, Fiona, and Hayley go ?

Hazel keeps advancing on Oaklyn, creating explosions of earth and vegetation, none of which hit her target.

Oaklyn raises her dagger. “I didn’t know she would use you like that! I wanted you with me—”

“Liar!” Hazel shouts. The ground beneath Oaklyn’s feet turns to mud, causing her to sink ankle-deep.

Oaklyn stumbles, genuine fear crossing her face. Hazel falters. Her hands shake, tears carving streaks through the grime on her face. For a split second, there’s a glimpse of my rational, careful best friend.

Then Oaklyn’s expression hardens into that familiar smirk, and something in Hazel snaps.

Her scream rips through the forest as she unleashes more power. The earth between them detonates. Soil and stone shoot skyward, leaving a crater.

I can feel her heartbreak in the air, so raw that my throat tightens. It’s not just anger, not just sadness, but the soul-deep agony of realizing someone you knew intimately has been lying—that you didn’t mean as much to them as they did to you.

With each blast of magic and each explosion of the forest floor between them, it’s like she’s trying to destroy the evidence of what they had. Every kiss, every smile, every touch, pulverized like the rocks exploding into sand at their feet.

“Incoming,” Sky warns, pulling my attention back.

Sophia marches through the hurricane of debris with Hayley and Fiona flanking her like guards. Fiona’s arm is held at a sickening angle, but she doesn’t seem to care, moving like a zombie with a target.

The stolen magic pulses under Sophia’s skin, flowing through her veins like tar. Sweat pours down her face. Her chest heaves. Even for her, the magic isn’t easy to wield—and that might be our only advantage .

Then, something shifts. The sensation of chilly mist gives way. A surge of determination that isn’t my own fills the woods, wild, ancient, and more powerful than any of us.

The trees at the edge of the clearing sway. Leaves shudder. Branches crack. Everyone turns, even Sophia, her eyes darting to the disturbance.

A massive stag charges out of the bush, its antlers reaching skyward, its russet fur rippling over muscle. The ground trembles beneath its hooves.

It’s only the first.

Behind it comes an avalanche of chimeras—a polar bear with gleaming silvery fur, a serpent that could swallow a car, a flaming red bull…and Lucy, magnificent in griffin form, her wings unfurling to blot out the sky. Each feather is edged in golden light.

My heart leaps with hope.

Sophia’s face contorts as she raises her palms toward the creatures.

But there are too many for her to stop. They pitch and roll, dodge and transform, advancing closer.

Natalie and Sky seize the moment of distraction, racing forward to grab Hayley and Fiona.

As they drag them away from Sophia, Hayley fights like a wild animal, her nails raking down Sky’s arm and drawing blood.

Fiona is more subdued, her eyes rolling back in her head as she struggles against Sophia’s control.

Surround her, I tell the chimeras. Break her focus.

They do, scattering to come at her from all angles. Sophia backs up, teeth gritted, eyes focused like a hawk.

My skin prickles as more magic approaches, and I turn to find dark figures racing closer through the trees.

The Shadows have arrived, bursting into the clearing.

“Sophia has bio magic!” I shout. “Pin her down!”

They launch attacks with earth magic. She retaliates hard, a wave of soil surging outward and forcing us to hit the ground .

My ears ring, and I cough, my lungs full of dust. When I look up, the chimeras have all transformed into crows, cawing loudly overhead. They circle like a dark tornado and dive at her like missiles, and she’s forced to duck as their beaks and claws draw blood.

“It’s working!” Natalie exclaims. Her hand finds mine, locking our fingers together like she never plans to let go.

Sophia roars, her eyes blazing, wisps of purple lightning bursting from her palms.

“This magic doesn’t belong to you!” I shout, stepping forward among the chimeras and bringing Natalie with me.

A crow lands on her chest, its claws digging in. Sophia screams again, thrashing.

“Don’t kill her!” Oaklyn cries. Tears stream down her face, and I catch a glimpse of humanity beneath her darkness—the part of her that drew Hazel in.

Hazel’s brow pinches. She hesitates, then turns her back to the Madsens, shoving through the witches and out of sight.

Lucy lands beside me in griffin form, the gust of air pushing me back a step. Her feathers brush my arm as she settles her wings against her side. “We will separate her soul from our sister’s, but we must work quickly. Her soul is binding to the magic with each beat of her heart.”

“What will you do with her when it’s done?” I ask.

“What would you like us to do?”

I turn to Natalie and Sky, hoping for an answer, but of course they can’t hear Lucy. Natalie watches me with concern, squeezing my hand tightly.

I look back at Sophia, this woman who was ready to torture us all. I think of the dungeon I was locked in, and the cell Troy spent months trapped inside beneath the Madsens’ vacation house, and the cages that held the chimeras for a hundred years .

“Hand her over to us,” I say. “We’ll see to it that she gets what she deserves.”

Sophia writhes and screams as the crows land all over her, her back arching off the ground. The dark light in her veins seems to be fighting with the chimeras, the current between them growing so strong that it hurts to stand by, like touching metal during a thunderstorm.

Hayley gasps, falling to her knees. Fiona cries out, stumbling backward and cradling her broken arm. They’re breaking free from Sophia’s hold. The separation must be working.

Oaklyn shrieks and tries to get closer to her mother, but the swarm of chimeras stops her. Wyatt stays at her heels, watching calmly with that chilling intelligence in his eyes. I don’t know which side either of them is truly on.

Wyatt’s behavior is even more puzzling than Oaklyn’s. Why was he protecting the chimera Sophia and Oaklyn caught? Is he part bio magic like the witches suspected? And maybe more interestingly… What does that say about Freddie, given that he could communicate with Wyatt?

Oaklyn shakes her head and backs up, tears streaming down her cheeks. There’s so much pain on her face. Regret, even. Did she ever care for Hazel, or was it all manipulation from the start?

She scans the crowd—maybe looking for Hazel or seeing how outnumbered she is. Then, she turns and runs, dagger in hand, Wyatt flanking her.

She disappears into the shadowy woods, leaving her mother behind.

My breath catches, my body pulling toward her like I’m subconsciously itching to chase her down. But Sophia is our priority—and we’ve almost got her.

At last, the dark light in Sophia’s veins recedes, rising from her body like smoke into the air. Her roar echoes through the trees, mingling with the cawing crows and raising goosebumps across my skin .

Sophia collapses as the smoke drifts down, where it spreads like fog and forms the shape of a sleeping doe. The crows descend, landing gently and helping to heal it.

My heart lifts to see Sophia separated from the chimera, but I don’t have time for emotions—the Shadows move in quickly, grabbing Sophia and binding her hands to prevent her from doing earth magic.

“Bring her in immediately,” Sky says. “Don’t stop for anything.”

I suck in a deep breath, a sense of justice trickling through me. We did it.

In my periphery, Lucy begins to shimmer and contract. Her massive wings fold inward, her feathers melting away like mist. When I turn to look at her, she’s a kitten again, fluffy and cute, sitting primly on a boulder.

“We will retreat from your civilizations,” she says, her powerful voice at odds with what I’m looking at, “if you promise to protect us in return.”

It won’t be easy to change centuries of tradition, but I won’t let that stop me. “I promise. No more cages, no more hunting.”

Lucy’s purple eyes study me. I can feel her in my head, reading me, trying to gauge how truthful I’m being.

“You saved Natalie,” I say. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“The Guardian relationship goes both ways, sister.”

I nod, feeling safer than I have in a long time. In that simple statement, there’s a profound truth that the coven doesn’t understand: magic is meant to be respected and protected. If we do that, it will protect us in return.

I study the cute kitten, who looks so much like Ethel when she’s like this. “Is this your true form? Or is it the griffin?”

She just stares at me.

“I—I know you don’t really have a true form,” I say. “Chimeras are everything at once, right? But I wondered… ”

“That is true. But we all have forms that are easier to manifest than others. I find this one the most pleasing. The griffin is…for when I’m having fun.”

I smile.

She turns around and hops off the boulder, trotting away with her little tail in the air.

As the chimeras turn their attention away from Sophia, I feel them searching my thoughts, gently and one at a time, like they’re all trying to figure me out as much as I’m trying to figure them out.

My heart beats fast as my purpose materializes before me like someone’s lifted a curtain. I’m not meant to be a witch, or a Tracker, or even a Guardian in C.S.A.M.M.’s sense of the word. I’m meant to be a bridge between witches and magic.

The realization settles into my bones with a rightness that suddenly makes sense. For so long, I’ve been trying to find my place in the world, not quite fitting in anywhere. Now I understand why. I’m meant to carve my own path, and to find my own coven with the people closest to me.

I look at Natalie, her face smudged with dirt and blood but still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. She smiles at me, exhausted but triumphant.

“Ready to go home?” she asks, extending her hand.

Home. Not a place, but wherever we are together. I take her hand and nod.