Page 12 of Unbound

“No, I’m not here to murder you,” she says, glancing over at me with a smirk. “This is a cover. Just a place for us to park our cars so we can walk to the portal.”

“Oh.”

I realize there are a significant number of cars here compared to the number of rooms the place seems to offer.

“Does anyone actually stay here?” I ask.

“No,” she tells me. “It’s warded to keep humans away. They’ll pull up and feel the urge to just keep driving. Plus, the fact that it looks like you’re guaranteed bedbugs and a staph infection doesn’t exactly make it the most desirable location.”

I laugh. “Yeah, this place definitely looks like a rent-by-the-hour kind of motel.”

Sucking in a breath, I unbuckle my seatbelt and swipe up on my phone, opening a text to Xavier.

With Marie. I’m looking for answers. Love you.

I hit send, then quickly silence my phone.

I open the group chat with my brothers and send one word. Here. Then I put my phone in my purse and get out of the car, following Marie toward the main entrance. Dim light glows through the curtained windows, and I can hear old-timey music playing from a radio inside the office. Marie waves her hand in front of the door, whispering some sort of incantation.

The door opens on its own, and we step through. The office fits the time period of the motel—early nineties with doctor’s-office waiting-room vibes. But it’s clean and carries the calming smell of lavender and sage. There’s no one at the front desk, and Marie doesn’t hesitate. She motions for me to follow her through the office. We go around the desk, through a door, down an empty hall, and emerge outside into a courtyard.

The whole thing is startling and makes absolutely no sense in terms of how a motel should be laid out. But again, she said this place is just a cover. The courtyard is pretty and well-kept. A cobblestone path leads away from the exterior door and stretches several yards toward a large, round garden bed. Two trees stand in the middle, their branches arching toward each other. Pretty white flowers adorn the branches, and normally by this time of year, they would’ve already fallen. Something tells me these trees always look like this.

“Come on,” Marie says softly.

She takes a small onyx brooch from the strap of her purse, pricks the tip of her finger, and steps right between the trees.

“So,” she says, squeezing her finger until a single drop of blood falls in front of us. Almost instantly, energy swirls through the air, creating a door between the two trees. My mouth actually falls open in shock. I stand there unmoving, blinking several times because I can’t believe this is real.

Marie reaches behind her for my hand. “You just step right through,” she tells me. “You might feel a little dizzy since this is your first time, but you get used to it fast.”

“And if I want to leave?”

“Then you just leave.” She shrugs. “Simple as that. From the inside, the door is always open. From the outside, only someone who has been accepted by blood into the coven is able to open it.” She holds up her finger. “Hence the pinprick.”

“Okay.” I force myself to take a calming breath, take her hand, and step through.

Chapter

Five

It’s exactly like she said. I’m hit with a sudden wave of dizziness, like every single cell in my body has been rearranged. But it dissipates quickly.

And then I’m standing inside another courtyard. This one is quintessentially charming. It’s like I’m on a little corner of New Orleans Square. A large, white plantation-style home looms in front of us.

It’s nighttime here as well, and a blanket of stars covers the dark sky above me. There’s a fountain in the courtyard in front of the large house, complete with uplighting and perfectly kept flower beds. Lights glow from inside the house, and though it already looks quite large from where I’m standing, I can tell it’s impossibly big by the energy it emits. There’s another building to the right, set back slightly. Lights are on inside that one too, and I can see people moving around inside. Music softly floats from it, and I’m getting the sense that it’s a bar of some sort.

A wide cement sidewalk connects the building to the mansion. Beyond it, I can see the dark shadows of even more buildings. Someone exits the mansion and walks toward the other building. The music gets louder when the door swings open, and I catch a glimpse of people sitting around tables.

It is a bar. With food. And drinks. And people acting like this is totally normal.

“Sorry,” I say when I realize several minutes have passed. “This is just…”

“A lot,” Marie finishes for me.

“Yes.” I look around again. “I had no idea this existed.”

“I know,” she tells me. “And I feel like telling you I’m sorry it took so long for you to finally come home only goes so far.” I turn, realizing I haven’t even looked behind me yet. The two arched trees are still there, but instead of a doorway buzzing with energy, there’s just a regular door between them. I walk around it and find that it looks like a normal door from the other side too.