This Coven Won't Break - Isabel Sterling Page 0,40
to Morgan’s house.
“Come in with me?”
She looks so worried, the ghosts of tear tracks on her cheeks and sleep in her eyes, that I can’t possibly say no. I follow her into the house, creeping quietly into her bedroom, where she shuts the door firmly behind us.
“Your parents won’t mind that I’m here?” I peel out of my jacket and set it on the back of her desk chair. The collage of pictures on her wall has grown since the first time I was here, the photos with her dance class back in Duluth interspersed with shots of the two of us together, sometimes with Gemma, too. She even kept the apology card I painted for her after I bailed on our first date to rescue Veronica. That was the first time Benton broke into V’s house, though we didn’t know it was him at the time.
“They’ll understand, especially once they know what happened with Riley.” Morgan’s entire body goes stiff when she says his name, fresh tears pooling in her eyes. “I can’t believe he found me. That he’s here, in Salem.”
“Hey,” I soothe, crossing to her and pulling her close. I rub circles on her back, like she did for me so many times this summer. “You’re safe. He can’t get you anymore. Archer has him locked up.”
Morgan’s muscles go rigid, and she pulls away. “I don’t feel safe. Not yet.” Her gaze drops to her hands, where she spins the ring on her middle finger round and round and round. “But I will be.”
She pulls off the ring and removes the pin from the inside groove. Moving too fast to stop her, she pricks two of her fingers and lets blood well up on her skin. And then in a blink she’s at her door, pressing her bleeding fingers into the frame.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping him out. Keeping them all out.” Shimmering, bloody runes take shape along the edge of the door. Her movements are frantic and desperate, the blood on her fingers flowing faster than she can trace the runic lines, leaving a path of blood dripping down her wrist.
“Morgan . . .”
“You don’t know what he’s like,” she insists. “You don’t know what he did.”
“So talk to me. Tell me what happened.” I try to reach for her, try to stop her frantic writing, but she pulls away, adding runes to the other side of the door.
“You want to know what happened? You want to know what he did when he saw the small cut on my thumb heal itself?” Tears pool in her eyes, and she hits the wall, leaving an imprint of her hand behind. “He grabbed my wrist and carved a blade across my palm.”
“Fuck, Morgan.”
She shakes her head and goes back to drawing runes. “That’s not even the worst of it. I’m stronger than him, I knew I was, but I was so scared I couldn’t move. He cut so deep and it hurt so much, I couldn’t stop my magic. The skin stitched back together right in front of him. He called me a Blood Witch and he . . .” She swallows hard, and the tears slip down her cheeks. “He tried to slit my throat. I barely got out of there alive. We fled the state as fast as we could, and now he’s back, and I—”
“And you are going to be okay.” I grab a hand towel from the laundry basket and reach for her hand. This time, she doesn’t stop me. Gently, I run the towel from the crook of her elbow to the tips of her fingers, wiping away the trail of blood. “I won’t let him hurt you. I promise.”
She laughs, but there isn’t any humor in her voice. “I’m a Blood Witch, Hannah. I’m a monster, just like Alice. The same power that hurt you today runs through my veins, too. You aren’t supposed to love me. You’re supposed to be afraid.”
The last of her blood shimmers and absorbs back through her skin. I want to tell her that I do love her, but those words are still too scary to say out loud. Instead, I bend and press a kiss to the inside of her wrist. Even though I don’t feel her magic humming through my bones, my own magic stirs inside me. The air swirls around us, tossing our hair and nudging us closer together.
I let the air push me forward until there’s only a breath between us. “I’m not afraid