A rush of power shot through my veins, and I kicked out over and over again at the two men attempting to abduct me.

“Hold her!” one of them barked.

The bigger one pinned me from behind, his thick arms wrapping around me, and a memory flashed in front of my eyes. Tessa being taken. Meaty hands on her. Star Tattoo Guy overpowering her and holding her down.

I tried to cry out, but despite the binding spell shattering, the gag spell still held.

But just as that spell began to falter, too, the one holding me slapped a band of cuffs around my wrists. Zinging pain sliced through my hands and forearms, and a draining sensation pulled at my witch magic, but the gag spell had already faltered. A small yelp escaped me.

I tried to call on my witch powers again, but they had me at the window now, both of them pushing and grunting as I fought, and I couldn’t concentrate enough to harness it. My eyes bugged out when I saw a carpet hovering just outside of my third-floor bedroom.

An enchanted carpet. From the fae lands. Hovering in mid-air here on earth. And it was outside of my bedroom window.

We would literally be flying away in seconds. My home would be gone. No trace of my struggle would be left. Tessa would simply think I spent the night at Prisha’s because she hadn’t seen me come back tonight.

I can’t get on that carpet. I can’t get on that carpet. I can’t get on that carpet.

The intruder at my back shoved me hard toward the window, but I slammed my feet against the wall as fresh terror hit me like a million volts of electricity. I tried again to call upon my witch powers, but the cuffs’ buzzing magic had wilted them to nothing.

“Bind her!” the one holding me grunted.

The other sorcerer whipped out a spell, and then . . . all of my movements stopped.

The new binding spell held, the power of the cuffs draining my witch magic so much that I couldn’t fight through it.

They’re going to kill me.

And knowing that . . . terror like I’d never felt before consumed me.

Out of nowhere, gushing black magic rushed into me as the two supernaturals threw my lower half through the window. A sliver of my still functioning mind recognized what was happening. My new power.

But that thought was there one second and then gone the next because my legs were dangling outside.

More black magic rushed into me. A surge of raw fury sliced my insides. Foreign magic pummeled me, so dark and angry, as the man holding me from behind groaned and staggered. His grip slipped, and my upper half fell backward.

“Rigger?” the other one said.

My legs flopped. I couldn’t move with the new binding spell in place. The carpet hovered only feet away as the first supernatural struggled to hold his grip while his magic barreled into me.

My vision grew dark as whatever this awakening power was inside me unleashed itself. Please not now.

So much angry magic. Too much.

“Rigger, get the fuck up!” the first one yelled in a thick accent.

But Rigger’s magic continued slamming into me, the large supernatural growing weaker by the second. His power filled my soul like a snarling beast. His sorcerer magic mixed with my witch magic until it felt as if lightning coursed through my veins, but I couldn’t unleash it. Not with the cuffs’ containing my power.

I tried again to move my arms, to break the cuffs as I focused on the first supernatural, but the binding spell held.

But the cuffs didn’t contain my awakening power.

Invisible tentacles of my new magic slithered from me toward him. I could feel them. They felt like strands of light intermixed with zapping power. Sweat dripped into my eyes, and my vision blurred again.

Just stay conscious. Don’t pass out!

Concentrating on those tentacles of power, I begged them to listen to me and imagined wrapping them around the first intruder like an octopus’s arms.

They responded, and a jolt of power hit me when they clamped onto him like the jaws of a shark, jagged teeth serrating through his magic. A brief swell of victory hit me even though my hands were still cuffed, and my body was like a rag doll. You’re mine.

His rage hit me first. Then his fear. I sank my claws deeper into him. He cried out as his magic bubbled out of him like a cauldron blowing its lid. It poured into me, soaking all of my cells. So much. Too much.

My vision darkened again. I couldn’t hold on.

The smaller man also fell to my bedroom floor. Both were down now, and writhing around in pain, as my heart beat so fast it felt as though it would stop. My legs were still outside, my back awkwardly arched over the windowsill with my arms behind me. My hands were still cuffed, but at least the intruders had stopped trying to get me through the window.

Another blast of power hit me. Nausea made my stomach heave as the magic pummeling me doubled. So much magic. Too much. Too much. Can’t breathe. Can’t think. Must get inside.

Rigger bucked, which shoved me upward, and I slid out of the window farther, my butt now barely perched on the ledge. He continued to twitch like a flopping fish, every movement from his large body propelling me closer to the edge.

Oh gods.

I struggled internally against the cuffs again, anything to pull myself back inside, but the binding spell held as the sorcerers’ potent magic hit me again and again and again.

Power. Gods, so much power. I was drowning in it. Their magic was suffocating, knifing through me in never-ending slashes. I screamed in agony—a loud scream as my voice finally broke free from the remnants of the gag spell.

I fell another inch.

“Help!”

I tried to propel myself back in as gravity threatened to claim me, but my limbs wouldn’t respond, and the tremendous magic hitting me over and over was like being smacked into by a freight train in unrelenting punches.

Blackness danced across my vision as my heart pounded.

A moan came from one of the men just as more cold air caressed my skin.

I’m going to fall.

My door whipped open. “Tala!” Tessa screamed.

I felt my twin, felt our bond stretch and pull toward her as she leaped across the room, but then a large hand grabbed my shoulder, but it didn’t pull me inside.

It pushed.

And despite all of the power that I’d stolen from the two men, despite the ocean of magic surging through my veins, I couldn’t fly.

That final shove broke what little hold I had on the windowsill. I slid out.

Coldness greeted me first, and then air.

A scream followed, but it wasn’t my scream.

Tessa.

The air rushed past me as my stomach shot into my throat. I plummeted downward as the second story windows sped by. The ground was careening toward me. So incredibly fast.

My body tumbled of its own accord. I twisted upward at the last moment and saw the magic carpet hovering above me, then the flash of a waxing crescent moon, and then Tessa’s horrified expression as she strained out of the window, her arms extended as though trying to reach me.

It was all over in a heartbeat. So incredibly fast.

My body made a sickening crunch when I hit the concrete alleyway below.

Then I heard nothing at all.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 5

“Tala!”

The rough voice came from far away. So far away. As if in a tunnel. As if beckoning me from a distant nether world as I hovered on the precipice above it.

“Drink for me, Tala! Drink!”

My eyelids cracked, slitting open. I tried to open them fully, but they wouldn’t obey. It was as though my lids weighed a thousand pounds.