Bring her to me. Odine stood near a towering pine tree. Mila, bring her to me.
Then Odine disappeared in a puff of dark smoke.
Black magic did this to the woods. Until it dissipated, horrors would live here. Mila ran her hand over the snow where Roman’s bones had been just to convince herself he was still okay. Blaire was real, though. Maybe the bad magic was coming from her.
“What do you see?” Mila asked her.
Blaire looked around the woods with wide green eyes, her red hair lifting in the stiff wind. “Nothing.”
Shit. Blaire was in deep if she couldn’t even tell the effects of the magic that was pulsing from her body. Mila stood and made her way to the woman, but hesitated touching her because she didn’t feel right. She felt dangerous.
Mila knelt and scooped her up, then carried her through the woods toward Hunter Cove. She followed Blaire’s tracks until she could see the smoke from the chimney of the inn. And then Roman was there, standing on the tree line, leaned against a spruce, his arms crossed over his chest like he’d been waiting for her.
Mila was happy to see him. Relieved, but her stomach hurt worse every step she took toward him. Defying Rhett’s order was making her sick.
She stumbled with Blaire in her arms, but he blurred to her and took the burden of the weight from Mila.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked shakily, wrapping her arms around her stomach to keep herself from shredding apart.
“Best if I don’t say.” He turned with Blaire in his arms and made his way toward his Jeep.
“W-where are you going?”
“Psychodine’s.”
She would’ve laughed at his unexpected nickname if all of this wasn’t so seriously un-funny. “Roman, I don’t think that’s a good idea. She’s been summoning Blaire—”
“Blaire’s really sick, Mila. Can’t you smell it? She and Gentry have a few days left at most. He hasn’t woken up all day. It’s the witch or death, and I just got my brother back. This is your pack’s fault. This is your alpha’s fault. You want to help fix this? Get in the Jeep.”
“I can’t.”
“You can,” he called over his shoulder.
“No, you don’t understand. I am under an order to stay away from you!”
Roman loaded Blair into the back of his Jeep and then turned a furious gaze on Mila. “Fight it.”
And she wanted to. She wanted to find her inner badass and cut her heart from the pack. She wanted to take a knife to the ropes that tethered her to Rhett. She wanted to be strong like Roman. But her stomach already hurt so bad, and she felt so weak she couldn’t imagine riding in a car with Roman right now. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
Roman’s lips twitched into a sad smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Me, too.”
And then he got into his Jeep, shut the door, and pulled away.
Chapter Six
Roman rubbed the chills from his arms and shook his head for the tenth time since he’d sat his butt on the bottom step of Odine’s cabin. Whatever she was doing inside had sucked the warmth from him. He’d rarely been cold in his life, but she was draining him. He felt like shit, and the longer he sat here, the worse it got.
“She needs it,” Asher murmured as Roman stood to go pace the yard. “Don’t burn energy right now.”
When Roman looked up to the top step of the porch, Asher looked like death warmed over and was slumped against the railing.
“Son of a fucknugget,” Roman gritted out. “Is she gonna kill us all?”
“She won’t kill us.”
“Yeah, and how do you know that?”
Asher didn’t answer, and Roman hated him a little more for all his damned secrets. Always defending the black witch, and for what?
“Because she saved Blaire once, asshole. She didn’t have to, and it hurt her to do it, but she did it anyway. And if you think she isn’t draining herself in there trying to bring back Blaire and Gentry, you’re wrong. She’s shaving years off her life for them.”
“You reading minds now, Asher? Is that what dancing with the devil earns you? Stay out of my head.” Roman concentrated really hard on a cartoon dick dancing the Macarena, but Asher didn’t react. Maybe he was full of bullshit like everyone else in Roman’s life. “What kind of animals did you bring her this time?” Roman asked snarkily. Hell yeah, he was judging Asher for trading life for life. He’d brought Blaire here thinking Odine could do a chant or feed her a magic potion, or hell, anything other than round two of raising her wolf.
“I brought her healthy ones, like I should’ve done the first time. It’s probably your fault Blaire’s wolf didn’t take in the first place.”
“You really are evil.”
“Fuck you, Roman. I do what I have to do to protect the people I care about.”
“And Gentry is one of those people? You’ve spent your whole life hating him.”
“Yeah, well,” Asher said softly as he stared off into the evening woods. “Not everything is as I thought. And it’s not just Gentry either. Blaire’s important.”
Another wave of dark power pulsed from the house and made Roman want to yack in the snow.
Mila had looked scared earlier, and her cheeks were red like she’d been running. Maybe she had overexerted herself carrying Blaire through the woods, but Mila’s mom—her ghost mom—had warned him that Mila was in trouble. She’d been standing right beside him outside of Jack’s while Roman watched Rhett shove Mila into his truck. And then a vision of Mila walking through the Winter’s Edge woods carrying Blaire had flashed across his mind, and her ghost mom had smiled sadly at him. That had never happened before, getting a vision of the future from a ghost. Rangeley wasn’t good for avoiding his abilities. Being here was making them stronger. He needed to leave soon and get on with real, semi-normal life, but the thought of being separated from Mila made his wolf want to dig his claws in and stay.