Ashes Reborn by Keri Arthur

Author:Keri Arthur
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2017-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

The rise to consciousness was abrupt. One minute I was out; the next I was awake. It was the sort of abruptness that wasn’t natural, but rather the result of some sort of stimulant. I could feel it coursing through my body, making my heart race.

But worse than that was the sudden awareness that I wasn’t alone—that there were two others in the place with me. Both were male, and if their voices were any guide, they were very familiar.

One of them was Rinaldo’s witch. The other was Theodore Hunt, the werewolf hit man who’d sworn to kill me because I’d apparently ruined his reputation by stopping him from committing murder. Not once, but twice.

Fire rose unbidden, but rather than erupting from my skin, it continued to rage within me and seemed to hold little in the way of heat. Something—someone—had managed to restrict my most powerful weapon.

It wasn’t difficult to guess who.

I forced my eyes open.

Something dangled in front of my gaze. I blinked, trying to focus, and saw what looked like multicolored strings entwined together.

It was Grace’s charm, loosely wrapped around a decidedly bony-looking finger rather than my neck.

That was the reason my flames were restricted—with the charm no longer around my neck, its protective barrier had been deactivated, and Frederick’s spell had finally been able to curtail my flames. But was my access to the mother similarly stopped? And dare I even reach for her after what had happened last time?

“This,” Frederick said, his voice conversational, “is a rather brilliant bit of spell casting. Who made it for you?”

“A witch.”

It came out croaky. I swallowed heavily, but it didn’t ease the dryness in my throat. I wondered how long I’d been out; wondered what in hell they’d given me.

“Obviously,” he said. “But who? She’s someone I’d be interested in speaking to.”

“I doubt speaking is what you’d be doing. Not after what happened to those three witches you helped infect.”

“Infect, yes, but you, my dear, killed them.” He leaned closer, his pale features looming out of the darkness in an almost ghostlike manner. Or maybe it just seemed that way, thanks to his gaunt, almost skeletal features. “Tell me who it is.”

“How about you go fuck yourself.”

I reached for the mother. Energy surged at my call, but it was a distant thing—a heat I could feel but not yet use. Frederick’s spell had placed a barrier between us, but it was one that restricted my access rather than completely forbade it. And that suggested his power was the darker kind—the kind that came from blood sacrifice and personal energy rather than from the earth and the energy of the world itself. He undoubtedly knew about both, but he’d have little experience with the mother and no true understanding of her.

Which was both good and bad. It meant I should be able to access her given time, but time was something I might not have a whole lot of.

Frederick sighed. “Theodore? Please show Ms. Pearson the error of her ways.

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