Chapter 37 Fight Against Witches
Brea's POV
I stood close to the fountain in the center as it had long since gone dry, its basin cracked and stained with years of neglect.
Fog curled low across the cobblestones, thicker than it should have been for a clear night.
My fingers still tingled from the iron I’d touched along the way, the last threads of my spell sinking deep into the earth.
Rayne walked beside me like a perfect, obedient shadow. Drake stayed close on my other side, still jealous. I barely noticed him as I heard voices chanting in my skull.
"Now, the key. Open it." I stopped at the edge of the fountain. My hand slipped into the folds of my skirt and closed around the obsidian blade I didn’t remember carrying until this moment.
It was cold and without warning, without hesitation, I drove it straight into Rayne’s side.
The blade sank deep, just under his ribs. His body jerked violently.
“Fuck—Brea?!” Rayne gasped sharply, equally shocked and felt betrayed.
His eyes widened in sudden pain and disbelief as he stared down at the hilt protruding from his body.
“What the hell are you?!”A surprised, agonized grunt tore from his throat as dark blood gushed out instantly, splashing across the stones at our feet.
His hand flew to the wound and his fingers slipped to my neck, but the compulsion I’d placed on him kept his body from fully fighting back.
Drake shouted in alarm, lunging forward. “Rayne! Brea, what the fuck did you just do?!” But it was already too late.
The moment Rayne’s blood hit the ground, the hidden circle ignited. Blue-violet runes blazed to life in a perfect ring around the fountain, pulsing like veins.
The ground trembled beneath us as Rayne staggered, still gasping, “Brea… why…?” His eyes flickered, fighting the compulsion now that pain ripped through him like fire.
The smoke came next. It rose from the glowing runes in thick black coils, twisting upward into humanoid shapes.
One after another, the witches materialized nine of them as their skin were pale as moonlight. They had glowing white eyes.
Their robes were tattered remnants of another century, hair floating as if underwater.
Power rolled off them in waves so heavy it pressed against my chest like a physical weight. They were strong. Terrifyingly strong.
Seraphine didn’t hesitate. From the rooftop across the square, she dropped like a falling star, landing in a crouch that cracked the cobblestones.
She moved with blinding speed as her claws extended, ripping through the nearest witch’s throat. The witch barely flinched.
Instead, she backhanded Seraphine hard enough to send her flying twenty feet into a stone wall.
Seraphine rolled to her feet instantly, blood on her lip, with blazing eyes. She ran with intense speed again, dodging spells that turned the air into shards of ice and fire.
Drake yanked two silver daggers from inside his jacket and charged in beside her, roaring.
He buried one of his dagger in a witch’s eye. The second slammed into her chest. Drake was already closing the distance, roaring as he drove his shoulder into her like a battering ram.
The witch grabbed him by the throat mid-air, lifting him off the ground. Her voice hissed coldly, “Mortals are so fragile… so quick to break.”
Drake’s face twisted in pain, but he snarled back through gritted teeth, “Then break, you undead bitch!” With a guttural shout, he wrenched one dagger free from her eye and stabbed it repeatedly into her neck and face in savage, brutal thrusts.
Black ichor exploded across his arms and chest. The witch finally released him with a silent screech, staggering back.
Another witch lunged at him from the side, her fingers elongating into jagged bone blades with a sickening crack. “You will feed the circle, human,” she whispered.
Drake barely twisted out of the way, but the blades still carved three deep gashes across his chest, ripping through muscle.
Blood poured down his torso instantly.
He roared, “This isn’t going to stop me!” Grabbing her extended arm, he snapped it backward with a wet crunch, then drove his dagger straight through her throat, twisting viciously before kicking her away. “That’s for touching me, you freak!”
The witches were too strong. Every wound that should have ended them only seemed to fuel their rage.
They kept regenerating, kept advancing, their power growing as the circle drank more of Rayne’s blood.
A third witch raised her hand toward Seraphine, dark energy crackling around her fingers. “Your speed is amusing, little one. But you cannot outrun death.”
She unleashed a wave of freezing darkness. Seraphine flipped over it at the last second, but the edge still caught her side, slicing deep.
Blood sprayed from her ribs as she snarled and kept moving.
Rayne had already dropped to one knee right beside me, breathing hard, dark blood pumping steadily from the deep stab wound in his side.
The glowing runes beneath us drank every drop greedily, flaring brighter and faster with each of his blood.
A cold, unnatural laugh tore from my throat, layered, haunting, like three voices speaking through me at once.
One of the witches turned her burning white eyes directly toward me.
She raised a skeletal hand, whispered a single guttural word, and flicked her fingers in my direction as if scattering ash into the wind.
“Enough of this. Sleep, vessel.” The spell struck me like a silent thunderclap.
Everything vanished at once. As my touch was gone. My three senses ripped away in a single heartbeat.
Only my sight and hearing remained. Then, without warning, a new agony exploded deep inside my chest, like white-hot needles piercing straight through my heart.
I threw my head back and screamed into the silence.
“AAAAAHHHHHHHH—!!”