and places them both on the collars, her eyes studying them. “Hmm. The conjurer who broke your tracker was quite strong, but a bit inexperienced, if I had to guess,” she says to Jetta. “I’ll have to untangle the mess to fully break the magic. It could take a bit of oomph.”
“Okay.”
Adele shifts her hold on both Jetta’s and Heathcliff’s collars with firmer grips, her fingers curling beneath the metal. “Hold still.”
Heathcliff reaches over and clasps Jetta’s hand as the conjurer’s eyes fall closed, while I stand ramrod straight beside Hugo.
A sense of uncomfortable unease soaks into me, like stepping in a puddle with just your socks on. What if, for whatever reason, she can’t get the collars off? What if they’re forced to wear them forever?
Worry suddenly writhes in my insides like worms I want to bury.
“Hmm.” The conjurer’s closed eyes squeeze tighter as the sharp tinge of magic fills the air. Her grip on the collars gets tighter, until she’s jerking their necks closer. The cloud above her head begins to rumble with thunder.
Heath and Jetta both slam their eyes shut too, and a second later, I see smoke start to rise up from the collars.
My teeth grit as the conjurer’s arms start to shake. I see sweat bead on Heath’s brow. When Jetta suddenly flinches, my eyes latch onto her expression, the pain evident in her face.
Adele looks pained too, her brow furrowing and her mouth turned down in a tight formation as she continues to pulse with magic, her cloud grumbling as tiny lightning strikes spark out of it.
“Shit…” Jetta curses, her fingers tightening around Cliff’s. I open my mouth to ask what hurts, but then I spot the redness on her neck where the collar is touching.
“It’s burning her,” I growl to the conjurer, but Adele is totally focused on her task. I move to go forward, but Hugo stops me with a hand on my shoulder, and a second later, Heath’s collar pops of with a spark, the dead metal clattering to the floor.
Adele uses the opportunity to grip Jetta’s collar with both hands, her eyes still closed in concentration. Jetta’s collar starts to crackle and spark, but it doesn’t give way.
“Come on…” the conjurer whispers, rain falling down on her as her cloud rages, seemingly bringing a whistling wind out of nowhere that tears at my clothes and rushes at my face.
Adele’s and Jetta’s hair flings around them, more and more smoke rising from Jetta’s collar as her teeth grit together. Heath keeps hold of her hand, and my animal grunts and paces inside of me, not at all pleased that our female is in pain.
“Almost…” Adele grits out between clenched teeth.
The wind gets stronger. The cloud grows bigger. The thunder sounds louder. Lightning actually strikes onto the floor, sending blinding light around me that makes me remember fucking Kaazu and makes the hair on my arms rise up.
I open my mouth to say something, I’m not even sure what, except that I want it to stop, but then a thunderous noise erupts. It’s unlike anything natural. It’s a noise born from magic, and it fills the air, making my animal nearly rip right out of my skin.
I flinch, my eardrums pulsing with the noise. The conjurer’s hands fall away as she lets out a shaky breath, her fingers bright red from where she’d touched the metal.
For a second, I worry that it didn’t work, but when Jetta sits back, I see a crack right down the center of the collar, and a whoosh of breath leaves me.
I stride straight over to my female, dragging her up before I even realize I’m doing it. My animal is demanding that I get her the hell away from the danger and pain, even though rationally, I know she’s okay. I sit down on the chair with Jetta on my lap, breathing hard.
“Jetta?” I ask, staring at the broken metal still sitting on her neck.
Tentatively, she reaches up and rips apart the two jagged pieces. And just like that...it’s off.
Finally, after all this time, after all those goddamn years she was forced to wear that thing, it’s gone. No more symbolism of being owned. No more reminder of that bastard Kaazu.
She holds it in her hands, staring at it like she’s in a bit of shock, while I gently brush over the redness of her neck, blowing my breath on the angry skin to try to calm it.
Adele whistles and wipes off the raindrops from her