Chapter 26

Red mist, like sparkling dust, settles into my body as the stars overhead finish their passing. Silence falls all around me. An eerie stillness.

I blink, unable to move or speak or even cry. The cuts on my body slowly stitch back together, but I've lost a lot of blood. It soaks my clothes and pools around my body. I manage to twitch my fingers and let out a groan.

Archie scoops me up in his arms and carries me out of the circle.

I'm so broken. So spent. All I can do is let silent tears fall as he holds me. I just died three times in the most horrendous ways. I feel like I was away almost a week, but to them, it's been moments.

Dorian and Shaw step forward on either side of us. Neither look at me but stare straight ahead. They're focused. Hands on the hilt of their swords and every muscle rigid.

‘She okay?' Shaw asks quietly.

‘Breathing,' Archie replies. ‘Needs blood.'

‘Don't open any veins,' Dorian warns. ‘We can't offer them any power. Pixie will have to wait to have our blood.'

Archie's heart races beneath his chest as all three remain transfixed.

I hear a soft laugh and turn my head to see what has their attention held so completely.

Three women stand in the centre of the circle. Each watches us with a sadistic smirk, all cocking their heads to the side.

The woman in the centre shimmers in a smoky glaze. Black embers float around her, and the air hums. Her dark hair falls past her hips, and atop her head is a crown of bones.

I know her. She's the spirit that has haunted me my entire life.

She reaches out her hand. The tips of her fingers are black as if dipped in ink, with the darkness spreading up her arms like veins.

Dark magic spews from her fingers. Pure, dark magic. The boys stagger back, but it doesn't reach past the circle of blood.

With a cruel chuckle, she lowers her hand and steps forwards.

‘My dear Ronan,' she coos with a soft voice. ‘My love. How I have missed you. And to see you through my own eyes and not that of another.'

‘Hello, Neve,' Shaw replies.

Neve. The Blood Queen. The leader of the Unseelie. Destroyer of thousands of souls. Reborn and stood before us all. Before her former lover.

He steps forward.

She smiles, matching his step with one of her own. Her gaze takes him in, soaking up every bit she can. The towering lord, brimming with strength and power.

This is why they killed and maimed? This is why they wanted me? Why they trapped me in that circle and forced me to die three of the worst deaths known to witches?

To bring back his lover?

All the manipulation. The lies and betrayal… all to return another woman from the dead.

They take another step towards one another. Neve remains smooth and calm, slowly blinking as she holds his gaze. When close, she lunges to grip his throat. Her hand meets something solid and unseen. A barrier.

Shaw laughs, seeing her frustration.

‘Release us,' she commands, that dark magic swirling around her fingertips.

‘We will release you,' Dorian says. ‘When you undo the curse you placed on us.'

‘My dear Dorian. Is that you?' The woman to Neve's left steps closer, stopping at her side. Her tone is dark and bored and she looks hard and unforgiving as she sees Dorian. ‘Once so eager to please. Now seemingly so desperate to die.'

‘The only ones at risk of dying are you and your sisters, Dhalia,' Dorian replies.

‘Where's my puppy?' the third woman giggles as she strolls to Neve's other side. She looks past Shaw, her pale blue eyes landing on Archie as she chews her lower lip. Her eyes drift down to where I lay in his arms, and her face hardens. ‘Who do you have there, Puppy?'

Archie's arms firm around me. His heart beats faster. I feel it through his chest.

‘Neve. Do you see what my puppy has?' she sings to her sister, looking at me and giggling like a child. ‘A little baby blood witch.'

‘I do, sister.' Neve looks at me too. The icy stare of the blood queen steals my breath as fear grips my heart. ‘That belongs to me.'

‘She belongs to us,' Shaw replies simply. ‘Reverse the curse, Neve. And we will let you go free.'

‘N-no…' I manage, attempting to wriggle free of Archie's arms. A useless effort. I'm far too weak.

Releasing her is releasing death. Freeing war. Returning evil. They would do that all so they can have their magic back? So they won't need to rely on me?

‘I will break your curse,' Neve smiles, that wicked grin growing. ‘If you free us and give me the little blood witch.'

Shaw looks back at me over his shoulder, contemplating the offer.

‘Those are my terms, Ronan,' Neve declares. ‘And to make it a sweeter deal, I will vow that my sisters and I will never cross your paths again. After we part ways this night, we will not come after you or seek revenge for killing us.'

Sinthia goes on to argue. Neve raises her hand, silencing her.

‘Your freedom. Completely. In exchange for ours. And for the little witch your mutt has in his arms, of course. I will want her back.'

‘Why do you want her?' Shaw asks, turning away from me.

‘A powerful little thing like that?' she chuckles, eyeing me hungrily. ‘So new and already able to perform a spell of resurrection from my Grimoire. Oh. I must have her.'

‘You can't have her,' Dorian replies with the slightest shrug of his shoulders. ‘Your bargain with us assured it.'

Bargain? What bargain?

Neve's smile falters as she looks at me again.

‘That's impossible.'

‘Nope,' Shaw sighs smugly. ‘Not impossible. Careless of you and highly fortunate for us. But clearly not impossible.'

All the sisters turn their cold stares at me, and I shrink further into Archie. He welcomes my need for comfort by holding me tighter still. The witches look at me like I'm their new enemy. Like I'm next to die at their hands.

‘Impossible,' Dhalia whispers.

‘She can't be,' Sinthia breathes, shuffling closer to Neve. ‘Can she be?'

‘Trust me, blood bitch,' Dorian grunts. ‘She is. And she's ours. Just as you promised us.' He leans over and reveals one of the bite marks on my neck. The one he placed on me. His mark, making me his.

Sinthia looks to Dhalia, her fingers to her lips in shock.

‘You claimed her?' Dhalia growls.

‘We all did,' Shaw adds, revelling in the pain and anger this is clearly causing. ‘She's ours now. So free us, and we shall free you.'

‘How did she survive?' Neve sneers at me as if I'm disgusting. ‘I slit her throat and buried her deep.'

‘Seems that at the same time, a young earth witch buried her recently dead daughter. Only to be given another child in return.' Shaw nods to me. ‘Your daughter. Bleeding and close to death, healed by earth magic and given to a loving earth witch to raise. Seems the earth wished her to live.'

I force myself to look at Shaw, who reveals a truth I had no idea existed.

‘An earth witch raised a blood witch?' Neve looks at my hand as it hangs limp. ‘She has a Kindred mark. The coven should have slaughtered her.'

‘It was kept hidden with a glamour.'

‘You've had her this whole time? As we festered in the pits of Hell, you had my child for yourselves?' Her fists clench, and that dark magic swirls wildly around her. ‘You killed me and kept my daughter, Ronan?'

The whimper that escapes me is of utter despair. I think they hear my heart break in that single gasp because they all turn to look at me, the same worrying frown on their faces.

‘S-she's my mother?' I look at them all for an explanation. They shift, uneasy at the revelation but also preoccupied with the lethal witches held fast in the blood circle.

‘You ensnared my child and hold her hostage?' Neve yells. ‘You refuse to return her to her mother? Her mother whom you murdered?' She slams her foot into the ground. It splinters in all directions, stopping at the blood circle and spreading no further. The confinement holds. ‘Three hundred cuts. You tied me up and dragged your dagger over my flesh three hundred times for the crimes of being what I am, and yet you keep my child? Hold her like she's a prized possession? She is mine, and you will return her, Ronan.'

‘The claiming is done. You swore to us you would give us a blood witch after the war. One which we would keep. One we would command and own.'

‘You murdered them all and betrayed us. You have no right to the gift I offered.'

‘We didn't kill this one.' Shaw nods his head in my direction. ‘And we would never have been able to claim her if you had not given us a covenant to do so. It cannot be undone, and we will not hand her over to you.'

She looks him up and down again.

‘Gods below,' she scoffs. ‘You reek of love. You are in love with my daughter.'

He remains silent, but his back straightens.

She burst into angry laughter, narrowing her eyes on him.

‘You are mine, Ronan. I made you. We made you all. And now you dare hold us hostage and make demands when you hold my child as your hostage?'

‘You made us monsters,' Archie says, his voice a little firmer but still far from his usual confident self. ‘Do as we want. Reverse the curse. Agree to our terms, and we will break the seal to let you out.'

Sinthia giggles wildly.

‘My puppy has learnt how to bark. I like it.'

The way she looks at him. Like he's a new toy to break and put together again.

‘Child,' Neve says softly, looking at me. ‘Free us from the circle, and I will free you from their claim.'

‘The claim can never be undone, and you know it, Neve. She is ours. Now reverse the curse.' Dorian grips a doll in his hand, and the blood queen doubles over, screaming in agony.

‘It cannot be undone!' Dhalia bellows, holding her sister. ‘Our bloodline cursed you, and it will only end when our bloodline is no more.'

Dorian's grip on the doll eases.

Dhalia comforts the crazed blood queen.

‘The only way to end the need for a blood witch's blood is to kill us.' She nods at me. ‘And to kill her.'

The guys look at me in Archie's arms. Silence falls between us.

I wait. That's all I can do. Wait to see if they end me. End us all. After all, that's what this has all been about, right? To get their magic back. To rid themselves of their need for me.

I'm just a little pixie. A blood whore. A mud witch.

I'm nothing to them.

‘Pixie…' Shaw says. ‘I'm-'

‘Make it quick,' I tell him. ‘Don't let it hurt.'

To hang. To be crushed. To be cut. I can't bear the idea of feeling it again. I lift my head, exposing my neck.

‘Do it. End this fucking nightmare.'

The ground trembles. They spin to see a tremendous winged creature which has crashed to earth, shattering the ground and creating a small crater beneath its feet. Black wings stretch out from its back. Its body is covered in what looks like horse hair, and two massive horns protrude from its head.

The witches laugh.

‘Shit…' Archie whispers, staring at the beast. ‘That can't be good.'

‘Unseelie,' Dorian growls.

They face the beast.

‘Get the little witch,' Neve commands. ‘And make our pets heel.'

The creature releases a roar as one after the other, more and more creatures emerge.

‘Do we run?' Archie asks.

‘Run!' Shaw agrees.

We turn and come face to face with another monster, the same as the winged beast. With a swipe of its great arm, we're all sent flying. Archie tries to keep a hold of me, but I slip from his grip and slam into the ground hard, rolling several meters before stopping. My already battered and exhausted body screams in agony. The dirt seeps into my mouth, and my blood drips from a cut on my forehead. A pair of feet stand close. I look up and see my mother standing over me. Her sisters – my aunts – peer down at me. Sinthia's beaming ear to ear. Dhalia glares with hatred.

‘Hello, daughter,' Neve says, inspecting me from head to toe with a disappointed expression.

I'm inside the circle. Sealed in with the blood queen.

My mother…

She reaches out her hand. Her dark magic emanates from her fingertips, reaching out to me in dark tendrils that smother my chest, hauling me upright. I hover there before all three, limp and strangled, as her twisted magic wraps around me.

‘Hmmm. A powerful little thing, aren't you?'

Her hand balls into a fist. Inside, I crunch. I feel my ribs break and my lungs collapse. My mouth opens in a hollow ‘o', and a stream of blood spews out, flowing like a river towards the blood queen. It covers her hand, soaking it, and the cracks surrounding her spread, destroying the blood circle surrounding them.

Sinthia giggles with glee and skips beyond the boundary. Dhalia follows.

My mother walks closer, looking up at me.

‘There can only be one blood queen. And those men belong to us. Consider yourself lucky. Your death will be quick. They will not be so lucky.'

With a roll of her eyes, she tosses me away, sending me soaring through the air and deep into the trees, where I hit a trunk and fall to the ground.

I watch her follow her sisters to where the Unseelie fight the others.