Soulbound

39. Ashe

“She's useless to us like this!”

Oh God, my fucking head. What happened?

“Calm down, Garren. We can still salvage this.”

“We did agree to wait until after it was safely removed. With this rash decision, our window of opportunity is limited at best.”

The back of my skull throbs as I slowly blink open my eyes. Blinding white light sends a searing pain shooting through my nerves and I quickly squeeze them shut again. These strange voices were not helping to ease the pounding in my head, either.

“Leave it to a witch to go and fuck everything up. No offense, Cass.”

A witch?

Like a movie playing in slow motion, it was all coming back to me. The kiss I shared with Dani last night, a kiss that whispered of false promises and a life I could not offer her no matter how badly I wanted it. The choice I had to make, a choice that would cost one of us everything no matter which path I decided to take. The church from my past where I went to try and clear my head of the ghosts that haunt me.

The Enlightened. The puppetmaster. Nessa.

Rose!

Hesitantly, I squint my eyes open again. Glossy white tile fills my vision, gleaming under florescent lights. It was a small room, no bigger than an exam room in a doctor's office, with no windows and reinforced steel walls. To my left was a row of cabinets and a stool with wheels tucked carefully under the built-in desk; to my right stood a blur of bodies, all garbed in matching black jackets. My eyes had not yet fully adjusted to the light and so it was hard to tell if I was in some kind of hospital or a prison. But I knew where I was not.

This was not part of the ruins of Bethel Baptist Church.

“Exactly what part of that statement was I not supposed to take offense to?”

“I didn't mean nothing by it, Cass, you know that. It's just that, we had a plan and we didn't stick to it. You know how he hates surprises.”

“Well she is here now and the witch has her blood. That should be enough for what needs to be done.”

“I hope you're right, Lou. If she gets free then we're all as good as dead.”

A sharp sting pinches my arm and reflexively I hiss and jerk my head upright. I try to lash out at the assailant but something holds my hand at bay. As my eyesight adjusts, a familiar glint of silver draws my attention and I glance to the side to see a chain—my chain—snaking around my wrist before stretching away from my body, securing itself to a metal ring jutting out from the adjacent wall and rendering my arm immobile.

I pull against the binding in an attempt to get my arm free but the metal rattles in place, unrelenting. The magic does not even respond when I try to recall the ink back into my skin and I curse. I was bound. I was bound by my own goddamn mark! What the hell did they give me, a suppressant? Where was my fucking demon anger!

“She wakes.”

“Shit. You better hope your magic holds this time, Cass.”

“It'll hold, Erik. Go get Kyros.”

Heavy footsteps echo down a hallway as I turn my head to get a better look at my captors.