Witch Bound

when Christian spoke her name.

“He’s here. Up ahead near Aiden. Can you dismount?”

Forcing her shaking muscles to move, she grabbed the arm Christian offered to steady herself. He grinned at her before letting go, lifting his chin toward the front of the line. “Up there. Hurry.”

Aiden had already dismounted and climbed onto a ledge. As she approached him at a shaky run, he held out his hand. One of the crows perched on an outcrop of rock above them, the other still circled far overhead, a black speck, calm and far removed from the chaos on the ground. Maybe being a crow wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

Aiden grabbed her forearm and pulled her up. And Raquel found herself standing face to face with the most powerful witch she’d ever encountered.

There was a definite pecking order within any coven. Nonwitches, even pure-blooded ?sir, usually couldn’t distinguish levels of power unless they were of enormous magnitude. Aiden’s frown was fierce and she wondered if it hid as much fear as she felt welling up inside her. How could she hope to contain someone like this?

The Vanir was ancient, very powerful, and he was dying. Glassy gray eyes blinked open above hollowed cheeks. A face that looked to have been lean to begin with was now emaciated and pinched with pain. It wasn’t lack of food that had done this. She could feel the power draining from him. Rane was right, whatever the demons were using to steal his energy was buried beneath the rock that encased the lower half of his body. How did they channel it? She wondered if—

“Can you get him free?” Aiden demanded.

She stepped forward, dropped to her knees and pressed her face to the rock. She couldn’t see a damn thing, but she could feel the energy and it was familiar enough that she didn’t really need a sight confirmation. A piece of Gleipnir, the chain that had bound Fenrisulfr until the last battle. Her clan had a link of it in the vaults, as did most of the others. She’d studied it extensively back in junior high.

She looked up at Aiden and nodded. “Stand back.”

Rane cawed and he leaped down from the ledge. As soon as he was clear, Raquel pressed both hands to the rock as close as she could get to the witch’s legs without actually touching him. She didn’t want to touch the chain’s magic yet. The rock first. Closing her eyes, she went to work.

A pained gasp came from the witch a moment before she felt the rock liquefy beneath her palms. She kept a portion of her concentration directed toward keeping the ground beneath her knees solid. “Can you pull yourself out?”

“I can’t move my legs.” But Kamis reached back to grab onto the lip of rock. With his right hand. He was missing his left. “I think...I can do it.”

After a few seconds of watching him struggle to lift his weight, it became clear to her that he simply didn’t have the strength.

“Aiden,” she turned to shout. When she looked back, the witch was already swinging his legs free, yanking at the chain wrapped loosely around his ankles. She lifted her hands and Aiden hauled her to her feet.

Kamis looked directly at Raquel and ice slid down her spine. “All this trouble just to kill me. You should have sent the crow to do the job.”

Aiden shook his head. “We haven’t come to kill you.”

The Vanir witch laughed, which was particularly creepy because his mouth never moved. She could simply feel his amusement through the telepathic link he used to communicate.

“I cannot cross Asbru. Odin spelled the bridge to prevent us from traveling to Midgard. Who knows what damage this—” he cast the chain away in disgust, “—has already wrought?”

She pulled the amulet from beneath her armor and the witch’s attention shifted to her. He stared at the amulet at first in confusion and then in dawning horror as he recognized what she held. “You think I’d rather be your pet than Surtr’s? You don’t know what powers you play with, little girl.”

“There’s a risk,” she said, and the Vanir barked out a harsh laugh.

“It’s a simple geis.”

“I know what it is,” he hissed.

She swallowed hard. “It will allow you to cross without danger to the bridge.”

“Or it might kill us both. You cannot know for certain.”

“The reason the demons can cross Asbru is because of the geis binding them to us. They can’t leave Asgard until all of us are dead. If you’re bound to me, you can cross too. It will work.” She saw confirmation of that on the witch’s face.

“You dabble in things you do not understand, child,” Kamis said. “Even the gods did not place such things lightly.”

“It’s the only way I could think of so. Unless you have a better idea...”

His jaw clenched and she felt certain that he would deny it even though she knew she was right. Rane dropped from her ledge, landed a foot away from him. Kamis looked at her and some of the defiance seemed to drain from him. “Until Surtr attempted to use my magic to break the curse laid on his kind by mine, he believed that there was a chance he could one day return to his home. They’ve lost their connection to their world and only survive because you do. The geis keeps them alive, binds them to you and allows them to cross Asbru. It has also...changed them. Once they were not so very different from you or I. I don’t know exactly what your geis will do to me, but it will change me as well.”

“But will it work?” Aiden repeated.

Kamis stared at Raquel as if looking into her soul. Measuring, weighing her and the price she was asking him to pay. The geis would give her complete control over not only his power but his will, if she chose to abuse the link. “It will allow me to cross Asbru.”

“Will you accept it?” Aiden asked him. The alternative was death, he didn’t need to say it out loud. But many people would choose death over the alternative she offered.

When Kamis nodded, Raquel stepped forward to place the slender chain around his neck. At first there was nothing. Kamis touched the small stone which was bound in silver and suspended on a leather cord. She felt a flash of disappointment as she started to climb to her feet. Then the rune magic activated and dropped her to her knees. Too much. His power compared to hers—the imbalance was too great. The witch’s power wrapped around her body and entered her, seeking to bond to her magic, trying to find space inside her where there was none.

He was so strong. She’d never imagined...

Vaguely, she was aware of someone shaking her shoulder and then of Aiden shouting in her ear. She couldn’t swim up to the surface to answer him. It was the Vanir that kept her from drowning when he could have taken control of her magic, overpowered her through the link and leashed her instead. He...pulled back even as Aiden tossed her over his shoulder and passed her to Christian. When Christian called her name, she blinked and the world snapped back into place.

But this wasn’t her world. They needed to get the hell out of here.

The demons were beginning to swarm. The hounds were still holding them back but even as she watched, the circle tightened. They would need Christian’s sword and he couldn’t fight when he was carrying her.

“I can hold on.” By the time she was secure behind Christian, Aiden had managed to get the Vanir witch onto the horse with him. She didn’t know how Kamis was holding on. He looked half-dead, but his face tightened with determination as Aiden gave a shout. The hunt was on the move again.

She was aware of motion. At one point, she was nearly bumped out of the saddle by a sudden stop, but Christian grabbed her arm and jerked her back into place. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she shouted, but she wasn’t really. It was taking all her concentration to get a grip on the binding. Kamis was not only the most powerful witch she’d ever encountered, he also had exquisite control over his power. She was beginning to suspect that he’d nearly reversed the geis just to show her that he could. To prove a point. Not out of pride, but out of warning. It wouldn’t matter. He couldn’t remove it now that it was set, no more than he would be able to remove the amulet from his neck. He was hers, but she was having a hell of a time adjusting to the change. It was more of a burden than she’d expected and she felt like a donkey with a poorly weighted load.

“An ass,” came the amused commentary from down the link.

Oh, shit. “Get out of my head.”