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Chapter Fifteen

Ena awoke to the sounds of an ax chopping wood.

She looked blearily around, not remembering where she was for a minute.

Then she glanced over her shoulder and saw Ty using said ax to split a downed log into firewood and it all came crashing back.

An instant wave of grief swept over her entire body, like a heavy blanket weighing her down.

Her escape had failed. Ty had tracked her.

She was once again at the whim of a daemon, being used for Iblis only knew what purpose.

And on top of all that, she was stuck with the man who’d carelessly taken her virginity and broken her heart.

She would have to look at his stupidly handsome face all day, knowing he regretted what had been some of the most romantic and perfect days of her life. Knowing she was just a mistake to him.

But she’d be damned if she’d let him know how much this all hurt, so she shoved it all down, down, down, and focused on what was right in front of her.

She had no choice but to continue on with Ty and his plans.

She couldn’t use her magic against him, and she couldn’t escape—not with his heightened senses.

Her only choice now was to see this through and hope to Gaia that he spoke the truth and would let her go afterwards.

So she was back to her original plan. Whatever they wanted with the amulet, she still needed to learn.

If she could figure that out, at least she’d have something to bring back to her Coven.

Something to show for the absolute shittiest couple of weeks of her entire Goddess-damned life.

Doing this, and foiling their plan, would be her revenge.

Ena stood up slowly and stretched her muscles.

The rain had stopped sometime in the night, and the Sacred Pool seemed to glow in the early-morning light.

It was undeniably beautiful, the way the trees framed the pool, leaning over it as if reaching to touch it.

Tendrils of light-green moss dangled from the branches like curtains, adding a feeling of mysterious enchantment to the pool.

She had been so cold and shocked yesterday, in more ways than one, that she hadn’t truly taken notice.

Now she did, and she took strength from the sacredness of this place.

It was a source of Wiccan power, meant to serve her kind.

She drew on that knowledge and used it to fill the broken places in her heart before readying herself to face what was ahead of her.

Feeling around for her wet clothes, she was pleased to see that her shift and socks had dried fully overnight.

Her dress and cloak were still slightly damp, but that was to be expected, since the wool took forever to dry.

Having little choice, she turned her back on Ty and stripped down as she dressed in her own clothes.

He could watch if he wanted; she was done caring about what he did.

Once she was fully dressed, she went to relieve herself behind a tree in the forest. When she returned, Ty had taken out some provisions from the pack he’d brought.

“Here,” he said, handing her a piece of the jerky that she had been coming to loathe, but now felt like a delicious treat after the last several foodless days.

She took it wordlessly, along with a hunk of cheese and an apple he offered her, and inhaled them, barely tasting them as they went down.

Seeing that she was done, Ty slung the saddlebag he’d converted into a pack onto his back and kicked out their fire. “Come on,” he said. “We’re heading north.”

Then he took off into the woods, not bothering to check if she followed.

The bastard had the nerve to seem upset with her, as if she had been the one to take him from his home, force him to serve an evil god, and feign ignorance about his identity. Well, she had technically done that last thing, but she had only been following his lead.

Ena walked behind him in silence. Trekking with him on foot was much different than on horseback.

His strides were so long that she had to occasionally jog to keep up.

Every step she took felt like a huge loss.

She was once again heading in the opposite direction of her home, losing all the progress she’d made on her escape.

She knew they would be heading northwest again to meet back up with Steig and Turner in Attax.

That would mean almost a week of traveling.

Alone. With Ty.

Gaia, help her.

They stopped at the same delicate stream she had followed the day before and filled up their waterskins. Ena found some more bittercress as a snack, but she didn’t share any with Ty.

All the silence gave Ena ample time to think about everything that had happened, and everything she still needed to do.

The past seemed to weigh heavily between them now, since there was no more pretending.

It was like a physical entity that hung in the air.

Everything they’d once shared seemed to contrast sharply with everything they now were to one another, but neither of them acknowledged it.

They’d clearly come to an unspoken agreement after last night to leave the past in the past. It was better that way.

One thing she’d learned stuck with her, though, and there was only one way to get the answers she needed, so she was the first one to break their silence.

“You said your mother was a witch.”

It wasn’t the smoothest transition into a delicate conversation, but she didn’t have any patience for small talk right now.

Ty, who had clearly been lost in his own thoughts, seemed startled to hear her speak. He looked back at her skeptically. “I did,” he replied, in a tone that said he was wary of where this conversation was headed.

“How is that possible?”

“Are you asking me how babies are made?” He grinned mockingly at her. “You’re a little old to still be wondering about that.”

Ena scowled at him. The fucking nerve of this man.

Biting back a growl, she replied over-sweetly, “No, I mean, how is it possible that your mother was a witch and your father was a daemon? We’re opposites, foils, enemies. Intercouplings don’t happen.”

“It happened with us,” he replied matter-of-factly.

Even the brief mention of their time together had Ena clenching her jaw in shame, remembering what he’d said to her last night. And the way he said that…“happened,” as if he didn’t purposefully and willfully lie to her and manipulate her into thinking he was mortal.

Fuck, what had happened to their unspoken agreement to leave the past in the past? Maybe this was her own fault for poking at old wounds.

The silence between them was deafening.

Forcing her jaw to unclench, something else occurred to her then that hadn’t before—she had slept with a daemon. Blessedly, no child had come of that misbegotten union. But what would that look like? Her curiosity grew, and she had to know more.

“Were they together? Did she live in the Underworld with you?”

Ty sighed in frustration, and for a second, Ena thought he wouldn’t respond, but then he did. “No. I never met her. My father took me after she gave birth to me, and I never saw her again. I don’t know much, but I know their union wasn’t forced, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“No,” Ena said hurriedly, horror rushing through her at the thought. “No, I wasn’t implying that.” Then after a beat, she asked, “So what happened to her?”

Ty was quiet for a second, seemingly focused on dodging some particularly protuberant tree roots.

Ena was aware that she was prying into private matters, but when someone kidnapped you, lied to you, and casually threw the loss of your virginity in your face, you had a right to be somewhat tactless, right?

“Her Coven banished her and she wasn’t welcome in the Underworld, so she left. I don’t know where she went.”

Ena was quiet after that. She hated Ty, for everything he’d put her through since she’d met him, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel a little sympathy for him.

She’d lost her parents at a young age, too, but to know that your mother had likely suffered because of your birth was a lot to deal with.

She felt the urge to change the subject quickly, so as not to force either of them to dwell on the past.

“How does your Gift work then?”

“The venator ?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never met another witch who had it before.”

Ty looked over at her in surprise. Did she say something wrong? Before she could dwell on it, the moment was gone, and he answered her question.

“Well, I can see really far, farther than most humans, even in the dark. I can see a wider spectrum of colors, too, than I used to, before I got my Gift. And I have an unparalleled sense of direction. It’s virtually impossible for me to get lost. And I also have a heightened sense of hearing and smell, like a hellhound.

” Ty smiled to himself at that. Ena had heard of the mystical beasts that kept the daemons company in the Underworld.

She’d thought they were a myth, just like so many other things having to do with daemons.

Ty spoke about them with something like…

affection on his face, which bewildered her to no end.

“That’s what allowed me to find you, even in the rain,” he continued. “You were surprisingly fast, I’ll give you that. And you were right—you didn’t leave much of a trail, but I could still smell you.”

Ena scrunched her nose up at that. That was…weird. She wondered what she smelled like to him. “How did you get your Gift without a Summoning? Do daemons have a Summoning?” she asked, changing the subject away from her smell.

“Sort of. We have a version of it where we receive our Powers from Iblis. It’s…intense.”

Ena was quiet for a second, wondering if she should pry further. She didn’t know how much he’d be willing to share, but surprisingly, Ty continued on his own.