rogue ethereal 01 - woman of blood and bone by Annie Anderson

Author:Annie Anderson [Anderson, Annie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-02-26T23:00:00+00:00

15

MAX

In the unlikely event I made it out of this mess, I was going to kill Ruby. Based on her directions – which I really should have read all the way through before embarking on this goddamn trip – I was supposed to leave the trailhead located two-point-four miles past the parking lot at Hanging Lake, and make my way down into the valley gorge. At four in the freaking morning.

This had to be a joke.

I don’t camp. I don’t hike. The most outdoorsy thing I do is grow herbs and flowers in a greenhouse and drink wine on my freaking patio.

I also sure as shit did not want to jump into a pitch-black valley from this outlook spot since that was the only freaking way to get there. Oh, and it was the only way to get there because the cliff face was a ninety-degree slope.

Ruby’s note specifically said no magic. Well, Ruby and her note could go eat a dick.

There is no other way to get down there besides rappelling off the damn cliff, and I can’t exactly do that in Chucks. It’s bad enough I had to walk this path in the pitch-black dark armed only with a backpack full of spell ingredients and a flashlight by myself since Striker is nowhere to be found.

Yeah, I’m four hundred years old. Yeah, I can take care of myself. But… there are bears and cougars out here. And snakes and creepy crawly…

Fuck it.

I’m not spending one more second out here in the damn dark. Snapping my fingers, I transport myself to the tree-laden gorge. Granted, landing in a stream was not my intended destination, but I’ll take the soaked Chucks over almost certain death. I slosh my way out of the stream, snapping my fingers once again to dry my feet.

I should have listened to Ian. Don’t trust Caim and Ruby, he’d said. Did I listen? Nope. Did I even give him the time of day when he tried to talk me out of this shit? Double nope. I’m the dumbass who said I needed to go to bathroom and fucking left him there. Honestly, I’m no better than Striker.

Survey says? I’m an asshole.

Maybe I was still reeling from what Ruby said. Maybe I can’t deal with being that close to Ian. Maybe Striker really fucking hurt my feelings. Maybe a little bit of all of the above is making me a little out of sorts.

But hurt feelings aren’t going to get this brand off, that is for damn sure. Hopefully, this random-assed trek in the mountains will do that.

Now that I’m down here, I can faintly see the pale white hex marks surrounding the perimeter of a warded rickety-looking cabin. Smoke wafts from a crooked chimney, filtering through the ward and disappearing off into the night.

I could walk through the ward, but most Witches don’t like the violation, so I do the only polite thing and knock, touching a tiny bit of magic to the warding lines. I have to be careful, or I’ll bust the ward, and then everything will be shot to shit.

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