She made a scoffing sound and swept her hand back and forth to encompass his body. “Because I don’t trust myself around you right now. If we were in the shower together, I’d forget all about my list and about trying to locate Veyda’s damn house for real so we can get Kiara out of there. Okay?”
“Sure.” But he chuckled again.
She turned around and headed toward the bathroom which gave him yet another great view of her ass. Only this time, there were no jeans to mar the perfection.
Chapter Four
As Maeve showered, she turned her attention once more to Kiara’s plight. She’d tried so many times to find a better spell, but had failed. If she didn’t figure things out, it wouldn’t matter if she had Braden’s wolf-strength by her side or not.
Yet right now she felt a profound need to try again.
Something about her latest visit to Kiara, of seeing the fresh spell burns on her neck and the gaping wound, nagged at her.
As she worked the bar of French-milled soap into a lather, she got it. Kiara didn’t have long to live. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. She also knew that her death wasn’t imminent, as in Maeve had some time, just not a lot of it.
When she’d first found Kiara, she’d told Maeve of the other women in the cells. The torture would escalate then one night the women never returned. Burns on the neck definitely meant things were ramping up.
As she continued to soap up, she also recalled something Kiara had said several months ago. “I think Veyda runs a snuff shop.”
“Are you serious?”
“From everything I’ve pieced together, from rumors I’ve heard, the covens hold their rites in a room with two-way mirrors.”
“So, you think she offers torture for pleasure, and possibly murder, for a perverted clientele to observe.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Maeve wasn’t sure why the memory of this conversation came back to her right now. She turned toward the spray and rinsed off. As she did, however, another memory surfaced. But it hit her like a bolt of lightning piercing her head.
She turned away from the water and backed up to the side of the shower stall. She could hardly breathe. Her neck arched as she planted her hands against the tile for support.
The memory took her back to the killing room for her failed induction ceremony. She saw fire and smoke. She heard women screaming. The chanting of the witch choir had stopped and the women had raced for cover in a
ll directions.
In the center of the room, the dark fog began to roll back. She recognized the two witches at the south end of what was a raised platform. But this time, she could also see that a woman was strapped down to the same altar-like platform.
A terrible fear moved through her. She didn’t want to see any more of this and a terrible high-pitched noise entered her mind. She began to scream. She held her hands over her ears, trying to get the sound to stop, but it wouldn’t.
“Maeve!”
She heard Braden’s voice through the din in her mind. The water stopped and she felt a towel surround her then big strong arms.
The shrill sound began to fade until it disappeared. Tears flowed down her cheeks. She started to sob and couldn’t stop. Still, his arms remained firm, a cocoon against the half-remembered memory.
She now had the image in her head of pale legs and ankles strapped to the table. But the dark fog continued to boil everywhere else.
She shook. Something terrible had happened that night, worse than her abduction or even her killing of the witches. What had they done to this poor woman?
It took her a long time to calm down. She didn’t know what she would have done if Braden hadn’t been holding her.
Braden slowly drew back but he didn’t release her completely, just enough to see her face. “What’s going on?”
“I’m remembering.” She gripped his arms. “Something else happened the night of my failed induction. I think it was horrific but I don’t want to remember it.” She sounded silly and foolish.
“You’re remembering because it’s safer now.”
She lifted her face to his. “How would you know that?”