Chapter 30

Iknew damned well my new mates were magical. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t. But they weren’t the same kind of magical creature that Di was, so I didn’t know how they were pulling any of this off. Di was the only person I knew who was capable of any of the shit they’d admitted to and the shit I’d highly suspected was them.

They usually only fed the basement once a day. It was generally much less for me. They’d bumped the whole basement up to twice a day. My portions were still tiny, and they were only feeding me once a day, but it was still so much better than it was before, even if they were just giving me the equivalent of what I ate when I was broke and hiding from demigods back in the day.

I usually just fancied up what I could forage with herbs I grew with my magic. It was generally a lot healthier than slapping butter on cheap toasted white bread and sprinkling it with parmesan, but this tasted amazing after the bologna sandwiches and nothing for so long.

And I knew my mates did this, I just didn’t know how. I also didn’t know how Benji had avoided the basement. I was glad he wasn’t down here, but hybrids and demons came to the basement by default and Benji was both.

And another ward broke. My magic was creeping back. Everyone’s was. Jezebel and I managed to spread the word to the rest of the basement that it might but to pretend like it wasn’t until they got a sign. I didn’t really know what the sign was, but I was guessing it would be big.

There were cracks in the floor and it was pretty dank down here. I almost had enough magic to coax a weed through the crack. Everyone thought green witches were weirdos who cared more about plants than people and that our magic was kind of useless aside from helping crops and making healing potions.

But it wasn’t. My curse wasn’t the only deadly thing about me. I could snap a neck with a vine I grew. I could split the earth and have it swallow someone whole. If I was fully charged, I could force tree roots through the floor of the basement, rip the doors off of our cells, destroy the door to the basement, and kill anyone down here who tried to stop us.

Except that was me being the heroine who saved her own ass, and that definitely wasn’t what was going to happen. I couldn’t save the entire basement because I could barely stand up. Yeah, they started feeding me again, but it wasn’t enough to undo the damage they did by starving me as punishment.

And as a green witch, I had certain dietary needs. Every single person in this place did. The extra portions would definitely help and give most everyone else a fighting chance, but it wasn’t really what we needed.

I’d come to the realization Di probably wasn’t going to find me before my mates did their thing. My mates were going to come for me. The mate bond was stronger than me asking them to stay away.

I was a little more motivated to fight it than they were because I didn’t want to kill them.

And I didn’t even have the strength to fight my own way out of this basement and go on the run again.