Page 90 of The Witch's Pet

“It’s a quarter to six,” Elizabeth says. “If you want to break this spell before your time runs out, you’re going to have to convince a woman who’s currently terrified of you that she can trust you. It’s the only way.”

I stare at her. Does she realize how impossible that sounds?

Knowing Rebecca must be checking the time and smiling makes me flex my fingers, itching to blast something to dust.

Elizabeth turns to leave.

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” I blurt, and there’s no masking the panic in my tone. How can I convince Hannah to trust me when I cannot even trust myself?

She looks back over her shoulder, a crease between her eyebrows as she studies me. “Surrender requires vulnerability. If you want Hannah to surrender her heart, you might need to surrender yours first.”

I scoff. That advice is about the furthest from useful she could get. I never asked for Hannah’s heart.

“And clean this room up,” she says as she climbs the stone steps. “I want everything back in its place.”

I scowl after her.

Elizabeth has always been fair and trusting toward all witches who join our coven. She tries to find goodness in everyone, even the cruelest among us. But she does not understand what it’s like to have darkness written into your soul. To know that every relationship, every connection, every moment of tenderness is a prelude to destruction.

Soon, Hannah will be trapped with me forever—a slow death sentence for a girl whose only crime was burning the wrong book.

Rebecca has created the perfect prison, one where I’m forced to watch another woman I…yes, a woman I care about…waste away, knowing I’m the cause but powerless to stop it.

I try to imagine a future where Hannah and I could coexist. Is it possible? Is there a way she could remain in my life without wasting away?

But all I see is Charlotte’s corpse, and suddenly it’s Hannah’s empty eyes and gray skin in her place. The vision is so vivid I can feel it—Hannah going cold beneath my lips, her pulse weakening until it stops, that terrible moment of realization that comes too late.

My insides lurch. I splay my hand against the wall to steady myself.

I cannot survive watching another woman die because she was foolish enough to trust me.

Maybe that is my real curse. Not the binding spell, but the certainty that I will destroy anyone who gets too close. And maybe Rebecca understood that all along.

I seize the grimoire once more, determined to find a way out. I have to keep trying until our time is up. Not because I believe Elizabeth’s platitudes about choice and destiny, but because watching another woman waste away at my hands is a torment I will not survive twice.

26

Hannah

Thegrandfatherclockstrikessix by the time I get up the nerve to enter the parlor again. Only an hour until the moon sets. An hour to convince Julia to surrender, which I’m willing to bet is something she’s never done before.

Julia is in one of the wingback chairs, a stack of ancient books beside her, one of them open in her lap with symbols written across the page. She’s concentrating so hard she doesn’t see me, so I lean against the doorframe to watch her for a moment.

Her profile is striking in the firelight—the sharp angles of her cheekbones and jawline, her neck, the straight line of her nose. Her thick hair is tucked behind her ear and her ankles are crossed, making her look so normal. She’s running an elegant finger down the page, her lips moving silently as she concentrates. My fingers ache to touch her and smooth the crease between her brows.

The room is peaceful, just her and the crackling fire, which has been rekindled with more wood. I picture myself sitting beside her and picking up my own book, the two of us reading under the warm glow while frost builds outside, catching each other’s eye and smiling.

A whole other life that will never happen.

Why did that image come to mind, anyway? Julia is not that type of person. She and I could never be on those terms.

I watch her fingers move across the pages with surprising delicacy for someone so deadly—those fingers that were inside me a short while ago. My thighs clench at the memory. I’m still tingling between my legs, wanting more.

I trace my gaze down the swell of her breasts and the curve of her waist. Is there anyone more beautiful in the entire world?

My breath hitches as I try to keep my composure. Slowly, over the course of the evening, I’ve become insatiable for her. Even the simple flex of her forearm as she turns the page makes my mouth dry.

I shut the parlor doors and lock them, and the click makes her look up.