“Go to fucking hell.”

“Not yet.” She grinned again, looking down at the phone. “First, we need a blood sacrifice.” She tapped my phone, then I heard the whoosh of a text leaving the type box. “And I’ll bet that text gets her running to her lover’s side.”

The rush of fear and fury rocketed through my blood. I yelled and strained against her invisible chains. Sandra laughed again and flicked her finger, locking all sound inside the witch’s circle. All I could hear as she walked back toward the house was my own anguished cries.

Chapter 33

~EVIE~

“This new amethyst is beautiful.” I layered the chunks of purple crystalized rock onto the display plate Clara had set out on our front table.

“It is, isn’t it? I also ordered some larger pieces of amber. Our customers snatch those up.”

I sipped the tea I’d made that Beryl had given me. We were completely out of tea, so I went ahead and used it. Probably not what Beryl intended, but after last night’s events, I needed a pick-me-up.

“What does amber do again?” Tons of people, including round-the-year tourists, came into the shop for some metaphysical help of some sort.

“Draws out negative energy, then heals the body and mind.”

“Or you could just go to a witch healer,” I offered, stroking Z’s head where he lay by the cash register.

“True.” Clara assembled her pretty display just right. “But how many witch healers are available for the thousands in pain?”

Funny how Clara could talk about the wounded spirits of the world as easily as she could talk about baking a cake.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket. Pulling it out, my heart leaped and did a somersault at Mateo’s name.

“I know who that’s from,” said Clara, giving me a wry smile.

Without answering, I tapped the message open.

Mateo: Hey. I delivered my sculpture today, and you’re not going to believe what I found out here. I know who cast the spell. Come meet me!

Evie: No way! How? I thought you were at Sandra’s house?

The little dots started moving before a message popped up.

Mateo: I am! Sandra knows who it is, but she’s afraid to tell me everything. She wants to, but she seems scared. I thought you could help me talk her through this. Please come meet me.

I stared at the message. Talk her through this? It just felt off. Why wouldn’t he just tell me over the phone? How did Sandra know anything? Before I could respond, another message popped up.

Mateo: If you’re busy, that’s fine. But I’m going to stay and talk to Sandra a while. She’s really scared and needs a good friend right now to comfort her. I may not be home till late. I just thought you would want to hear it yourself.

Well, hell. Now I had to go. I remembered the way Sandra had looked at Mateo in the coffee shop. Yeah, they were friends, but I wasn’t stupid. She might have a crush on my man, and my green-eyed monster reared her ugly head. I wasn’t going to hang here while he stayed and comforted her about whatever she was afraid of. Besides, she knew who the witch was who cast the spell?

“Clara, I need to go.” I walked behind the counter and pulled out my backpack. “Mateo says the woman he delivered his commission to today knows who cast the spell on him.”

“What?” Clara frowned at me, and I’m sure I was looking at her the same way. “Who is she?”

“A good friend of his. She actually is the whole reason he has that nice gallery.”

Clara walked to the shop door, flipped the lock, and turned the door sign to closed. “I’m going with you.”

“Awesome. Thanks.” I brushed Z’s head as I passed. He let out a strange meow. “Be back in a bit, Z.”

Then we were off. I typed back to let Mateo know I was on my way, so he sent me the address. The trek outside the city was actually a nice drive, making our way from all the concrete to lush green.

Clara regaled me with the antics of our boisterous cousins after we left the cocktail party. Since Mateo and I had left a wake of tension behind us, Travis had decided to start a conga line. But only after Drew had led a round of shots where he poured them telekinetically down the throats of the eager witches at the bar.

“Let me guess. They were all stunning and a bit lusty,” I said, following my GMap directions off the main road.

“This is Drew we’re talking about. Of course, they were. He could catch the eye of old, dried-up spinsters.”

“That doesn’t sound very exciting, though,” I said. “Pouring shots telekinetically?”

“Oh, well, Drew had one stipulation to the participants. If even a drop spilled, he’d lick it off them.”

I smiled. “That’s my Drew. What was Cole doing? Scowling and rolling his eyes?”

“Yeah. But that always turns on the hard-to-get witches. They were doing their damnedest to get his attention, too.”

“Too bad the guys had to head back so soon.” A warm tingle swirled in my chest, a buzzing that called to my magic. It was the tea. I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have drank it today since Beryl told me to wait till the right time. I felt focused. Strong.

Clara stared out the window as we passed through a rural area, very few houses around. “They were put out that, number one, you hadn’t told them you were, quote, shacking up with a werewolf. And two, you hadn’t introduced him.”

“Please. They just wanted to try and intimidate him with their overprotective, big brother vibes.”

“Maybe. But poor Travis actually pouted.”

“For what? Five minutes?”

“Ten,” Clara said. “Then he formed the conga line and was all better.”

I shook my head. “That’s Travis for you. He just wants all the attention.” I laughed, amused at Travis’s antics, but the car went quiet all of a sudden. I glanced at Clara, her expression sobering quickly. “Hey. Are you okay?”

She was gripping the door handle, her knuckles white, and her face as somber as the grave.

“Hey, are you okay?” She stared out the front, her posture going rigid. “Clara?”

“Something’s wrong.”

We turned off the main road onto a tree-lined drive, then rolled to a stop in front of the house. Mateo’s truck was backed up off to the left where he must’ve parked to offload the sculpture. The house was dark, but there were tiki-torches lighting a garden path.

“Evie. Something evil is here.”

“Text Jules.”

Clara punched in a quick text while I parked and got out of the car. “Wait,” she hissed, jumping out, too, and meeting me at the front. “We should wait.”

“Is Jules coming?”

A buzz. Clara looked at her phone. “She’s on her way. With Ruben.”

I had a fleeting wonder why she’d bring Ruben, but then I couldn’t think at all beyond the mind-bending compulsion to follow the path that led off into the garden.

“It’s too quiet, Clara.”

“I know.” She glanced around nervously, fear marking her eyes. Something I never saw on Clara. “We should wait.”

There was no sound at all, then suddenly a blood-curdling scream and a beast’s roar came from the direction of the torches. Unable to hold still, I took off.

“Evie!” Clara ran right behind me. “Don’t go!”

“It’s Mateo!”

That was all the explanation I could get out, because there was no doubt in my mind that the roar came from the man I loved. He was in pain. Agony. I heard Clara’s pounding feet behind me as I zipped past a fountain and followed the path, winding around some tall shrubs into an open square where I stopped on a gasp.

Inside a witch’s circle of fire, which I’d never seen before, was Mateo on his knees. Like he was glued there. And yes, he was screaming, despair and fear shining in his eyes, glassy with tears, but there was no sound. None at all. I was confused. And horrified.

It took me only two seconds to take all this in before I summoned my magic, ready to punch a hole into the circle to get to him, when two devastating things happened at the same time. One was the distinct thud of something heavy hitting Clara and watching her body fall to the ground right beside me. The second was a strong telekinetic shove that pushed me through the fire and into the circle. I fell onto my stomach, sliding across the stone slab to Mateo.

My gaze flitted to the sculpture he’d made in my image, the silver steel glinting bright by the magical fire.

“My God, Evie.” He hauled me to him and pressed me close. “I’m so sorry. So sorry.”

A burst of magic sparked the air. I jumped in his arms, watching as Clara shot a bolt of her magic at Sandra. Sandra, glowing with a red-orange aura, her eyes glittering like a demon’s. What the hell was going on?

I wondered what Clara’s magic could do to someone with darkness wrapped around her like a cloak, but before I could find out, a large object in my periphery flew through the dark.

“Clara!” I screamed.

She glanced at me a split second before she turned, but too late. An empty stone planter knocked her on the side of the head. She fell limp to the ground. I screamed, hoping and praying she was just unconscious.

“Isn’t that sweet?” came the sinister witch’s voice. I tried to wrap my head around the fact that she’d been the one all along, but she spoke again and knocked me out of my dazed confusion. “What a fond farewell.”

Sandra stood on the outside of the ethereal fire, flicking the fingers of one hand in the air, turning the witch sign floating above her palm.

“The key,” I murmured.

“Yes,” she hissed with venom, “the key.”

“What does it do?” I was stalling for time, trying to figure out what to do, hoping Jules and Ruben got here fast. But it had taken us thirty minutes to get here by car.

“You’re going to find out. Don’t worry your pretty little head. Mateo will show you.”