Page 2 of The Wolf and the Chimera (The Witch and the Cowboy #3)

Ryder

Elle crumpled to the ground, and I lunged for her. Dark splotches still danced in my vision, but instinct guided me. I caught her shoulders and head before they hit the concrete and listened for the steady beat of Elle’s heart.

Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.

I raised my gaze to the Coven of Hecate Elders, blinked away the rest of the temporary damage to my sight, and fought to keep my lips from curling into a snarl.

The hair on my arms bristled, and my teeth ached from the urge to shift.

My wolf didn’t care for the way they’d incapacitated my mate, regardless of the fact she’d been under the thrall of an ancient, evil sorceress.

The wolf inside me wasn’t exactly logical when it came to Elle.

Then again, neither was I.

“The sorceress has been bound once more,” Gloria, the Elder Freya was closest to, said. “The chimera should wake in a few hours as herself but without access to the sorceress’s power.”

Gloria’s full figure was hidden by the customary purple robes of the Elders, which I’d always found to be a little too cultish for comfort, and her gray eyes pierced me like they always had when she’d caught Frey and I sneaking around.

Behind her, Lyra stood with her arms crossed, but her dark-eyed glare was fixed on the warlock behind me. She tossed her long, white hair over her misleadingly frail shoulders and stormed toward him. The other four Elders, Gloria and ones whose names I didn’t know, followed her on silent feet.

“Where is she?” Lyra clipped.

As my wolf settled and my panic over Elle finally eased, I registered Cadence’s sobs and Walker’s stark silence.

Though I had already slung a towel around my hips, I grabbed another one from the nearby rack and laid it over Elle’s bare form.

By necessity, shifters were comfortable with nudity, but dread pooled in my stomach, and I didn’t want to face its source naked.

Arion bellowed, part whinny and part roar, and the Elders murmured their confusion, but it wasn’t their reactions that fed the fear slowly sinking into my chest. It was the absence of Freya’s voice. Swallowing, I forced myself to face them and nearly sank to my knees.

Freya was missing.

“No,” I whispered and cleared my throat. “ No. She was right there—I saw her! She was right there .”

My words brought Walker back to life. As he raised his freaky, electric blue gaze to mine, his power crackled in the air. He pushed himself to his feet.

“She’s here,” he said. “I know it. She was there…she’s gotta be here somewhere.”

“What happened?” Lyra demanded. Freya’s distant cousin among the Elders took a step forward and looked around the room.

Walker searched the basement, as if Freya had hidden behind one of the many deadly weapons it contained. As he walked around the sparring ring, he tossed knives and throwing stars aside, but it only made his sister cry harder. One look at Cady’s tear-stained face, and my breath caught.

“Walker,” Gloria said firmly. “She’s not here.”

I cleared my throat. “Did she not make it through the ripple? ”

“The rest of you made it,” one of the Elders I didn’t know said. She tucked her brown, short hair behind her ear. It was a gesture that made her appear younger than she was. “Freya isn’t one to fall behind.”

“If she had made it to the ripple,” Lyra agreed, “she would’ve made it here.”

Gloria clutched Lyra’s hand and squeezed it. It was the first time I ever saw tears well in the witch’s eyes.

When Lyra fell silent, Gloria crouched in front of Cadence.

“Can you tell us what happened?” the old witch asked gently.

“I—,” Cady said and took a deep breath. “The High Witch was trying to entomb Elle, but she needed—she needed Freya’s and Walker’s Anchor bond to fuel the spell—”

“Anchor bond?” a blonde Elder mused.

Gloria waved her off. “Continue, child,” she instructed Cady.

“There was only one way to stop the entombment,” Cady said, “and Freya did it. She said the sorceress’s name.”

Lyra and the other three Elders gasped.

“The risk of it,” the dark-haired one murmured.

To speak the sorceress’s name was to summon her, but it had been the only way to awaken Elle from the High Witch’s spell. I growled, and the Elders fell silent.

“It was brave,” Cady corrected with steadiness a kid shouldn’t possess. She focused on Gloria once more, who patiently waited for the twelve-year-old to continue. “Elle turned into…well, you saw what she turned into. All hell broke loose.”

Cady paused and glanced at her brother. He was too busy checking every square inch of the basement to correct his sister’s foul language like he normally did.

Cady’s lip wobbled. “I helped Walker unlock his cuffs, but when we went to help Freya, she was already free. I should’ve known.

” She sniveled. “I should’ve known it was odd when she told me and Walker to save Arion, but everything happened so fast. The next thing I knew, we were all on Arion’s back and leaping through the ripple, but when we got here, Freya was gone. ”

Walker abruptly stopped his search. Thunder boomed outside, and magic set my teeth on edge.

“They hurt her knee,” he said quietly, “and her magic was already drained. She wouldn’t have had enough left to heal in time to run toward the ripple or help save Arion.”

My chest tightened.

“She only had enough energy to astrally project,” Lyra deduced. “She knew she had to make you all believe she was escaping at your side to get you out of there.”

I wanted more than anything for it not to be true, but that tactic was so painfully Freya. The only person I’d ever met more willing to sacrifice herself was Elle.

“So, she’s still there,” I said.

She thinks I hate her.

Fuck.

Did she do this to make up for turning Elle over to the High Witch? Only Freya would find such a dramatic way to say I’m sorry.

My heart cleaved in two.

I could never hate Freya. She was my first love. She was my oldest friend.

As Walker realized what Freya had done and why, he glared at me with viciousness I hadn’t known the amicable cowboy possessed.

“This is your fault,” he accused. “You made her feel so guilty for trying to save us all! You convinced her she wasn’t worth saving!”

My anger sparked. “I don’t remember you being gracious when she got your sister mortally wounded, and Elle had to turn herself over to the High Witch to save her.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Walker promised.

“Walker,” Cady snapped, but her brother stepped toward me with knotted fists.

Though I knew I shouldn’t, I couldn’t resist the urge to rile him further.

“I’d like to see you try, Walter,” I shot back.

Lightning skittered across his skin, and thunder boomed once more. The Elders shifted nervously, but Cady rose to her feet and charged toward her brother. As she moved between us, Walker’s gaze remained trained on mine.

“This isn’t Ryder’s fault,” Cady said. “We both know Freya makes her own decisions.”

Walker finally looked down at his sister, and his lightning receded. Sorrow crumpled his face, and his shoulders shook with the effort to hold back his tears. When he sank to his knees, Cady hugged him, and Walker buried his face in her neck and cried.

Afraid I would lose it too if I watched them a second longer, I returned to Elle’s side. Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t wake.

“We’ll get Freya back,” Gloria promised. “We have to.”

“How do we know she’s still alive?” a gray-haired Elder asked. She pulled her cloak more tightly around herself, and her thick, golden bracelets glimmered. “How are we sure there will be anything left to save?”

“I can feel her,” Walker said and released his sister. He rose to his feet. “I would know it if she’s gone.”

“Because of your bond,” Gloria surmised.

Walker nodded. “Until I knew it was there, I never really noticed how our powers mingle with each other. I always assumed that how connected I felt to her, even when she wasn’t there, was emotional, but…but I can sense she’s alive. I just know.”

I prayed what Walker sensed was real and not the result of wishful thinking, but logic told me he was right.

“The High Witch still needs her alive to entomb Elle,” I said. “Cordelia won’t kill her—not until she gets what she wants. ”

“And what she wants is your Anchor bond,” the blonde Elder said with distaste. “Whatever Goddessforsaken thing that is.”

“The Goddess didn’t forsake Anchors or warlocks,” Lyra argued and shivered. “The sorceress did.”

I wanted to ask how Lyra knew about Anchor bonds, but as the white-haired witch stared vacantly at the floor, she was deeply flummoxed. I couldn’t bring myself to push her. Gloria brushed her hand against Lyra’s.

“I’m going back for her,” Walker said.

Before anyone could stop him, he charged toward the closet and threw open the door. Instead of finding a ripple, however, there was only cleaning supplies and cobwebs.

“What the hell?” Walker demanded. He slammed the door shut and reopened it, but nothing changed. He turned to the Elders with a wild expression. “How does a ripple move?”

“It doesn’t,” Gloria replied.

The other witches murmured their agreements. Arion stomped impatiently.

“It took us directly to Cordelia’s court,” Cady said and frowned. “Ripples can access all different pockets of dimensions. They take you anywhere you tell them to go, right? They’re basically mega-portals?”

“Yes,” the dark-haired Elder agreed.

“So either we’re really good at navigating across dimensions,” I realized, “or Cordelia somehow controlled this ripple to bring people right to her dungeons.”

“She was waiting for us,” Walker added and shook his head. “That had to be how we landed in her dungeons. How’d she gain control over a mega-portal inside a hunter’s house?”

“That,” Gloria said, “I don’t know. But it’s the only explanation for the ripple’s absence.”

Elle slept soundly beside me. When I considered what we were up against—a witch capable of controlling doorways to other dimensions—I shivered.

“I have to take Elle somewhere Cordelia can’t find us,” I said.

The words tasted like bile. I wanted nothing more than to search for my friend and save her from the clutches of a power-hungry witch, but Elle was my mate for a reason. Fate had decided I was the one to protect her, and I was damn sure going to do it.

Walker scoffed. “You’re just going to leave Freya behind? You got your mate back—who we all know hates you—and you’re just going to run off into the sunset with her?”

Elle resented me for leaving her parents behind to save her, but it wasn’t a decision I regretted. I didn’t back down.

“Keeping Elle out of the High Witch’s hands ensures Freya lives to see another day,” I said. “Don’t you remember when Cordelia tried to take your bond? It almost killed both of you.”

“He’s right,” Gloria admitted. “I hate it, but he’s right.”

“The wolf has his role in this,” Lyra agreed. “He must keep the chimera out of Cordelia’s hands at all costs. It is up to us to save our Coven Mother.”

“She was never coronated,” the gray-haired, short Elder said. Her face stayed puckered, like she’d just eaten something sour. “She’s technically not our—”

“Anything Freya has ever done,” Walker interjected, “has been for all of you. For us. For her coven. Watch how you speak about her.”

Lightning crackled on his fingertips, and the sour-faced Elder swallowed. I wondered if I was about to witness a fight between Walker and the old witch, but movement caught my eye. Beside me, Elle groaned, and her hand twitched. When she opened her eyes, fear clenched my heart.

“She should not have awoken so quickly,” the dark-haired Elder whispered in a rush.

I crouched beside Elle. Her eyes were the color of my favorite tree bark—the richest shade of brown, not the blazing, ruby they turned when her powers activated.

“It’s her,” I said. “Not the sorceress. ”

Elle swallowed and sat up. When her towel fell askew, she gasped, but I trained my eyes on the wall and shielded her from the view of the others. Obviously, Elle was not so used to the whole nudity thing.

“She hasn’t blinded or bitten anyone yet,” Cady agreed. “That’s a good sign.”

The Elders continued to eye Elle wearily, and Walker inched closer to his sister.

“It’s me,” Elle promised. She stood on shaky legs, and when I reached to steady her, she pulled away.

Of course, she did.

When I had forced her off the burning ship and abandoned her parents, I’d been willing to deal with her wrath later. I’d done what I needed to do to save her life.

It was too bad I’d damned us in the process.

I wondered if Elle would ever forgive me, but I couldn’t accept a fate in which she didn’t.

I would simply have to work harder to earn her trust and affection.

Not to mention, I would have to keep her out of the hands of the High Witch and the sorceress too.

My father’s favorite saying rang in my ears.

Nothing worth having is easy.

No words had ever been truer.

Gloria pulled me from my thoughts.

“Wolf,” she addressed, though she knew my name. “We can’t be sure how long our spell will keep the sorceress at bay. Get your mate somewhere safe and keep her out of the High Witch’s hands.”

“Cordelia’s Handmaidens could arrive at any minute,” Lyra agreed. “Go.”

I grabbed Elle’s hand and decided to worry about winning her heart later. For now, I needed to keep her alive.