Persie Merlin and the Witch Hunters - Bella Forrest Page 0,33

dressed all in black. Towering well over six feet, he had the broad V-shape of a swimmer, all wide shoulders, toned arms, and lean waist. He probably hadn’t even broken a sweat when he’d carried me away. My abductor was a young man in his early twenties, I guessed, with a full head of tousled black curls and hard, dark eyes that glared at me. The rest of his face was obscured by a bandana that covered his nose and mouth.

“Why do ye keep harpin’ on about these djinn? Do I look like a djinn te ye?” His glare intensified.

I gulped. “I saw r-red eyes.”

“Aye, well I ain’t no djinn,” he spat the words and strode forward. I wriggled backward to try and escape. He could crush my skull in his large hands if he wanted to, and I had no idea what abilities he might be hiding. “But ye seem te know an awful lot about curses, and yer goin’ te tell me who put this one on me.”

I paused in my helpless getaway. “So… you are cursed?”

“As if ye don’t already know.” He knelt down, getting in my face. “I know yer sort. Ye have te know who did this te me. All ye witches, yer all know each other, so don’t even pretend ye don’t.”

“W-witches?” I stammered, my mind a blur of terror and confusion. In the magical world, “witch” was a derogatory term. The same went for “warlock” and “wizard.” Even “sorcerer” and “sorceress” were considered archaic.

His eyes narrowed to reptilian slits. “Yer goin’ te pretend ye don’t know what they are now, are ye? Yer goin’ te barefaced lie te me, when I know yer one of them?” He lifted his hand to my face as if he was going to punch me. I flinched, my eyes snapping shut. But the blow didn’t come. Instead, I felt something soft being draped around my shoulders. Startled, I opened my eyes to find that he’d covered me in a woolen blanket. “Don’t look at me like that, witch. I don’t want ye dyin’ of hypothermia before I’ve got this curse lifted.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” I blurted out, confused by the thoughtful gesture.

“What?” he barked.

“Witch.”

He pulled back, snorting under the bandana. “‘Cause that’s what yer are.”

He’s not a magical… Understanding dawned. No magical would call another by that term. I’d thought he was trying to insult me before, but now I could tell he didn’t know any better. He thought that was the right word. But if he wasn’t a magical, then how the heck had he known that magicals even existed? Or gotten hold of Atomic Cuffs? And why had he chosen me to help him with his curse? He clearly didn’t know as much as he thought.

“Where did you get these Cuffs?” I asked him outright, trying to turn my fear into courage.

He snickered. “Ain’t no business o’ yours. I’m the one askin’ the questions. So, start squawking—who put this curse on me, and how are ye goin’ te remove it?”

“I don’t know what curse you’re talking about!” I shot back, hoping it didn’t get me a smack in the face or worse.

“I think ye do, since this all started with ye.” The man grabbed my hoodie drawstrings and pulled, jolting me forward. “I didn’t have no problems before ye arrived at that secret witch place. I’ve been watchin’ it for a while as part of me duties, then—bam!—I’m turning into a growling, smoky beast like I’m a were-something, only it don’t give a damn whether there’s a full moon or not.”

Panic jangled in my veins. “You know about our… hideaway?” I didn’t want to call it the Institute in case I gave something valuable away, but if he’d been watching us, then it stood to reason that he already had a decent idea what it was.

“Yer Institute, aye.” He pulled harder on the drawstrings, puckering the hood. Given the flicker of pure rage in his eyes, the action proved as menacing as a hand around my throat. “My people wouldn’t let me get te the root of this curse thing, but here I am, showing I can handle it, despite what me da might have te say.”

There were too many missing pieces for me to properly keep up. This guy clearly had some father issues, but there was more to the picture. He’d mentioned duties and dealing with an unknown curse, and he definitely knew a fair bit about the Institute. How much