Page 157 of Ravenous

Her power thrummed, tasting the magic tangled around him. Rosewyn’s clung to the king. Clever little viper. She must have tampered with the containment spells even before Meera ever sent them.

How did I miss that?

Ditch would figure it out and blame Meera.She’ll kill me for my failure.

Or she’ll try to.

“Meera!” Ditch screamed, hardly noting her nakedness. “Thank Hecate! Use your power on him!”

Meera hesitated. Could even Ditch handle the fury Meera Newteye planned to unbridle on Lowell and his kind? On Lowell and his newmate? Meera’s lips drew back from her teeth. Maybe Ditch taking a permanent vacation was exactly what needed to happen.

Then a flicker of her former loyalty resurfaced. A Lykae was attacking a fellow witch, and she could stop it.

Just as Meera was about to strike, Ditch shrieked from the mountain path, “You traitorous fool! Follow my fucking orders, or I’ll dine on your corpse!”

Just as she had with Lazara, Meera’s friend and mentor.

The reminder turned Meera’s cold heart colder. The Wrath Mother gave Ditch a cheery salute and called, “Go with gods!”

Thane and Ditch disappeared up the path on their way to another world.

Just as well.

I’m the high priestess now.

Chapter 60Rose

Rose’s skin glowed, luminous and healed, from Meera’s bounty of power. As she returned to her secluded cottage, her body felt lighter than air, as if rage itself carried her aloft.

Her mother, Hecate rest her soul, had once told her friends that every witch’s body was a cauldron: What you poured into it determined what boiled out. Tonight, Rose’s was overfull with magic and defiance, her cauldron brimming.

Otherwise, she might have hesitated before standing down in the face of a Lykae attack. Might have hesitated to use the Riders to neutralize Ditch’s carefully woven traps and containment spells. The laws of the covenants forbade tampering with another witch’s power. But needs must; Ditch deserved punishment.

And those traps weren’t really to keep the coven safe. They were to keep two royal Lykae brothers from reaching her, an outcome Rose wanted above all things.

One brother meant to abduct her from the Skein. The other meant to kill her.

And Rose—well, she could’ve gone either way.

Now she felt it like a tremor in her bones: Thane was on his way to the hidden portal no one was supposed to know existed.

Rose had broken worse laws for far less. She’d bartered charms to the stone nymphs for secrets, selling forbidden spells for whispers. What was one more sin when the payoff glittered so bright?

When she’d heard Thane’s rough howl carrying from a distance, she’d laughed.Take her far, wolf, she’d thought.All the way to Gaia.Even now, imagining Ditch’s outrage made Rose smirk, her expression sharp as glass.

The smirk froze when another howl split the night—closer, deeper, threaded with fury.

Rose stilled.

The other brother.

Shouldn’t he be pursuing his prey?

Another call, even nearer, ripped through the trees.

Her stomach plummeted. “To…myhouse?” she whispered.

The air thickened around her, heavy as vapor. He would find no defenses. Because she had disabled them all.