into wolf form. Only claws and teeth would do for the sorcerer. He didn’t deserve a punch in the face. He would die in blood. In pieces.
Henry snarled and dodged another wolf—pale brown and petite—as Mercy scampered through a sudden rising tide of wolves. Far away, but still close enough, a grizzly bear groaned and grumbled and pounded the earth with his paws. That damned Russian bear finally showing up to the party.
His heart pounding against his chest, Henry strained to reach Ophelia. Something kept him away—some invisible wall. He had to get to her. He had to reach her. The sorcerer was too close, was whispering something in her ear, and she started to droop. He could almost see her confidence draining away. The possibility that she would surrender, would be beaten down again... He couldn’t let that happen. Not when he knew—he knew—that she was strong enough to survive.
He just had to remind her.
Henry shook off the wolf’s insanity and staggered to his human feet.
He roared, “Ophelia!” and hoped to every star he’d ever prayed on that she heard him.
Chapter 39
Ophelia
I got the scarf around Rocko and he almost flew apart in a rage. He didn’t know what it was, not really, but he sensed something amiss. Some kind of trap, maybe, if he allowed himself to notice my petty machinations. Deirdre tried to hex him but it bounced off his defenses, and Rocko tried to pull her into one of the rifts again. I barely got there in time.
I linked my arm through hers and tried not to look at where Nola’s wolf body lay still and motionless in the dead grass. She had to be fine. She was just stunned. I swallowed hard and turned my attention to Rocko as he drew himself up and tried to fix me with a mocking smile.
“Little mouse, you’ve gotten so brave,” he crooned. His long, yellowed fingers grasped at the air, trying to summon me to him.
My feet moved against my will as his magical net cast out and trapped me—again. Again. I wanted to scream in fury. I wasn’t the same kid who’d gotten snared by his sweet talk the year before. I wasn’t helpless and adrift and uncertain. I knew who I was. I knew what was wrong with my magic.
I knew... I clenched my jaw and searched for that well of chaotic, crazy magic. All the times in my life when it had worked against me, when it ruined my life and forced my family to move, all those times the magic billowed up and took over. And yet when I needed it, when I needed to have crazy magic, suddenly it was well-behaved.
I needed Henry to throw me off-balance. I needed something to shock the hell out of me. Leaning against Deirdre, I said, “You’ve got to keep him distracted. I need to bind him.”
She nodded and threw a few hexes at him, the icy bitch face returning until she looked like a completely foreign, ancient witch. “Come here, asshole, and I will show you who is a little pigeon.”
From her voice, I knew damn well she wasn’t the little pigeon.
Rocko, however, didn’t get the memo. He smiled and crept toward her, his hands still moving, and whispered the kinds of phrases that meant spells and chains. Things that would tie her to him, would mark her.
I shivered and lifted my own hands so I could reach for the magic in the knitting. I’d poured everything into it as the panic bubbled up in Deirdre’s house, as we sat there and tried to figure out how to save Silas. And all of it was falling apart, literally right in front of me. Chaos broke out as animals and people appeared out of nowhere, enough of them that Rocko would no doubt decide to run away and fight another day or sneak about in the shadows until he caught me alone.
I couldn’t handle the indefinite threat of Rocko stalking me the rest of my life. My vision blurred and I choked on the need to finish him off. To finally end the goddamn misery of suffering under his thumb.
My magic seethed as my anger rose, as emotions tugged at my control. It wasn’t fair. I pulled at the binding and whispered the words that would close it tight around Rocko, would keep him anchored to that land so we could finish him off. As it was, a wolf darted in and tried to bite him but