I don’t know what to say to that, so I keep my mouth shut, trying to shove down the fear that claws at the inside of my chest.
“I felt you poking around in my head,” Cleo goes on, taking a few steps to one side as her gaze rakes over me. “I thought you would be… more. You’re just a child.”
If I weren’t so terrified by her presence, I’d be a little more pissed at her dismissal.
“Why did you bring me here?” I demand.
“I wanted to meet the bitch who ruined my plans.” Cleo’s hands come to rest on her hips, and she cocks her head slightly. “I could have had them if it weren’t for you. One by one, I could have annihilated them all.”
She has strange lavender-colored eyes, and the feel of those eyes focused intently on me makes me feel like my skin might burst into flame. My body is tense, poised to leap into motion like I might run away—but where the hell am I supposed to run to?
Her expression hardens as her gaze rakes up and down my body. “Interesting how a little nothing of a nobody got inside my head.”
I grit my teeth. I want to argue that I’m not a nobody. It’s like standing in front of my uncle all over again as he screams at me, telling me how I’m a useless waste of space, worthless, nothing. My gut reaction is to run and hide, but my new reaction—the one formed from my time with my mates—urges me to snarl back.
Like a coward, someone caught between who I was and who I am, I keep my mouth shut.
“Well, regardless. Here we are,” Cleo says, a slow smile spreading over her sharp-featured face. “I’m so glad to meet you.”
The emphasis on the word “glad” chills me to my bones. She knows now. She knows we’re bonded. The question is, does she know why? Did she know Clint? Does she have some idea of what was going through his head when he traced the sigils that bound me to her?
Before I can get up the courage to ask her anything at all, Cleo holds out her hands, fingers splayed wide. Blackness roils around her palms as she traces a complex sigil in the air, and pain lances through me, stealing the breath from my lungs. I fall to the hard rock floor, my vision darkening at the edges. Even though I’m not in my real body, the pain is unbearable, as if my insides are boiling, contracting, trying to tear away from my soul.
Cleo isn’t attacking my body. I don't have one here.
But I do have a soul. An essence.
And she’s making it bleed.
I scream, though I’m not sure if the sound is physical or just in my head. The dark cloud wells up inside me, and I can’t tell if it’s trying to attack Cleo, to fend her off… or if it’s joining with her to tear me apart. I struggle against Cleo’s spell, some part of me seeking the tunnel that will lead me away from here. It must be there. The coven leader dragged me right out of my body and into this limbo, so I know I can get back.
I reach for the cackling dark cloud inside me and take hold of it, fury dampening a little of the pain. It will not control me. It will help me, or so help me God, I’ll find a way to cut it out of me if it’s the last thing I do.
Black smoke obscures my vision, and a moment later, the spell Cleo cast breaks. Her hold on my soul falters, and I hurtle away from the cavern, my consciousness spinning through space.
I jerk awake on the floor of Malcolm’s dining room.
Archer cradles my head, while Ridge, Trystan, and Dare crowd close on either side of me, identical looks of concern on their faces. Amora’s pale face peers over Archer’s shoulder as she wrings her hands, and the elders remain where I left them, seated around the room but watching the turn of events with an aura of fear surrounding them.
From the black sigils still burning on my body, I presume.
I take a deep breath and look up at Archer. I’m shaking all over, sweating like I just ran across the Montana wilderness to save the shifter packs. But I can’t relax yet. I focus on his green eyes and piece together a barrier between me and Cleo, shoving as much power behind it as I have left to give.
“What happened?” Archer asks, his voice rough. “Sable, what the hell happened? You stopped breathing. Your heart slowed to the point where it was barely beating…”
My heart flutters in my chest.
Shit.
“Cleo,” I mutter. I still feel dizzy and weak, my pulse too sluggish. “It was Cleo.”
The connection between me and the coven leader is fully established now. Gwen said she thought it was weaker because the binding sigils were drawn by my false uncle and not Cleo herself. But he did everything he could to strengthen that bond, and now that she knows it’s there, it feels like something has shifted—like a tunnel has opened up between me and her.
A two-way street.
The bond is more solid than ever, and we can both use it against one another now.
Dammit. How long can I keep her out? She’s infinitely stronger than me. A well-trained, well-seasoned witch, and a psychopath too.