Davina (Davy Harwood #3)

She did.

Davy’s vampire boyfriend brought this guy to help her so she had to trust him. She closed her eyes and drank the bitter tasting liquid. It churned her stomach, making her feel nauseous, but Mavic clamped his hand over her mouth and began uttering words under his breath. He was spelling the liquid and she began to sputter, feeling it spark to life inside of her. Her body seized, wanting it out of her. Her stomach began to spasm, trying to push it all back up, but even when it hit her mouth again, ready to spew outwards, her lips wouldn’t open. They’d been spelled shut. The liquid kept trying to break free, but nothing. Her mouth wouldn’t open and a scream built up inside of her. It was like cement hitting cement. Pain sliced through her, then backed up and rammed through her over and over again. She was bleeding inside. She tasted it among the bile, but Mavic was undisturbed. His hand remained over her mouth, and his head went down. He kept the same chant until her body surrendered.

The liquid began to seep inside of her, merging with her body’s organs and down to the cellular level. It was becoming one with her, and casting one last chant, Mavic backed up. He held his hand still in the air, but it wavered. He was ready to slam it against her mouth again if need be, but as he watched, he saw the transformation begin.

The spell was working how it should’ve. It was moving throughout the witch. It was a physical structure, therefore it couldn’t be spelled from her like all the other magic he cast, but it could root out wherever her magic was locked up. It was supposed to find the location inside of her and it would help unlock it. He knew The Immortal had been able to do the same, but with The Immortal’s power. His wasn’t as strong, but if anything would help, this would, or he hoped. His choices of getting her magic unlocked were fast depleting.

Brown watched him as he watched her, but she was held immobile. She couldn’t move, not during whatever was going on with her body still happening. She felt the change inside of her. The liquid found her core, and it settled there. It was her spiritual core, where her magic was, and she closed her eyes, suddenly knowing what was going to happen.

The magic he forced inside of her was going to do a full-on assault where her magic was, to open it up. She knew it was going to be painful, and she had a second to brace herself.

Then it began, and a scream erupted from deep inside of her, lifting her body in the air.





LUCAN


He stared down at Kates’s bloodied body. He had broken her so many times, mended her, and then broke her again. As it was now, she was done. He saw that she was at the edge. She had no will, no fight, nothing more.

He withdrew from the table that he tossed her onto and grabbed a washcloth. Wiping at the blood left on his hands, he washed himself clean and glanced over when the door opened to the room.

Jiyama stood there, her eyes going to Kates’s broken body first. An emotion akin to sympathy flashed in her gaze before she said, “Three of our men never returned from their mission. They’re believed to be dead.”

Davy . . .

His jaw hardened. “Did the Healers go out?”

She nodded, her head bowed to the ground. “Their essence was last sensed at the river. It is believed they died there.”

That meant . . . He frowned, distracted for a moment by Jiyama’s actions. She was acting like a demure little girl. He ground his teeth against each other before asking, “Why are you acting like this?”

She stiffened and her hands tucked under her long sleeves. “I feel . . . remorse . . . I think.”

“You think?”

She lifted her head then, and a pained expression was there. Her gaze trailed to Kates before she said, softly, “I’ve only felt wonder. I’ve wondered about life, about who Davy was, about the magic inside of her, about the world beyond these lands, about life as a human, but I have never felt this sensation inside of me.” Her hand, fisted around her sleeve, lifted and pressed between her breasts. She kept it clutched tight to herself. “I have never wondered about the side of life, about right versus wrong, but this—” her hand left her chest and indicated Kates, who hadn’t moved or made a sound. “I feel almost like crying. I’ve never experienced that emotion.” She lifted haunted eyes to Lucan, her bottom lip falling open. “Why is that?”

Anger filled him, but he bit back a curse and moved to the vampiress. Cupping the side of her face, he made sure his tone was soft as well. “That just means you are evolving. That is all.”

Her eyes traced back to Kates. “I feel a pit in my stomach. I have only felt the fullness of blood in there.” Her eyebrows pinched together. “I do not like this emotion.”

“It’s because you’ve spent too much time near humans.”