“Vita, Vita. you know I don’t want to hurt you. Just tell me what I need to know about the Hybrid.” Persephone gritted her teeth, her patience already running thin.
Vita’s head hung low as she tried to regain her strength from the last shock that she was given.
Persephone grabbed Vita by the chin with her long, thin fingers and lifted her face to look at her.
“Tell me what I want to know and this all ends,” she said.
Vita refused to talk. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know much about Amanda. She wasn’t going to give them anything to help them find her and kill her.
“Again.”
“Mother, I’ve pushed her to her limit. Any further and she’ll be dead.” Tristan told his mother.
Persephone was growing impatient.
“Maybe you could talk some sense into her,” Persephone said before she turned and walked out of the dark room.
Tristan looked down at the girl he once loved. He hated that he was being forced to hurt her. He walked over to her with a glass of water.
“Here, drink this,” he offered.
At first, Vita was hesitant.
“I promise it’s only water.”
Vita lifted her head and allowed Tristan to pour some water into her mouth.
A sigh settled through Vita as the cold water flowed through her.
Tristan squatted down so that he could get a better look at her. He could tell that she was getting weaker.
“Why are you being so headstrong about this? Just tell her what she wants to know, and you’ll be free.”
Vita let out an unamused huff.
She lifted her head slowly so that she could look Tristan in the eye.
“You really think your mother is going to let me go once she gets what she wants? I’m dead either way. Besides, I don’t know anything.”
Tristan shook his head.
“You have to know something, why else would my mother have you taken and brought here?”
Vita shrugged slightly.
“Who knows why your mother does anything she does.”
Vita let out a painful moan as she felt the back of Tristan’s hand hit her across the face.
Tristan felt regret the moment his hand made contact with her face.
“Vita, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. You know I didn’t mean to do it,” he told her.
Tristan tried to run his hand through her short hair and get her to look at him.
Vita kept her face turned in the direction that she was slapped and refused to talk with Tristan.
Tristan stepped back as anger started to burn. He clenched his fist, as the anger bubbled inside him.
“Maybe some time alone might be best for you.”
Tristan walked out of the room.
Vita sat there as she assessed her situation. She knew that she couldn’t do any magic where she was, but she wondered if she would be able to astral project herself to her house. She might be able to find something there to help get out of here.
She closed her eyes and concentrated.
She didn’t know exactly where she was, but she did have a coming home spell that helped her find her way home. She just hoped it would work.
She envisioned her home; she envisioned being inside her kitchen. She remembered being in the kitchen before she blacked out. Keeping her breathing calm, she felt a pull and then appeared in her kitchen.
But something wasn’t right.
There were two men in her kitchen. Wait, was that?
“Zachary?” she called out.
Zachary jumped when he heard Vita’s voice. He looked up but he could barely see her standing there.
“Vita, are you okay?”
Vita felt herself being shaken.
“There’s no time. Just know it’s Persephone,” she told him before she disappeared.
Tristan grabbed her by the back of her head.
“Where did you go?” he said tersely.
“Ahh!” she called out as she looked into the fierce eyes that were staring back at her.
“Nowhere. I was just trying to get some rest, that’s all.”
Tristan stared at her for a long moment. Again, he didn’t know whether or not he could believe anything that came out of her mouth. His heart still hurt from her deception and leaving him all alone.
“Here,” he said as he placed a tray in front of her filled with some food and drink.
He moved over and released the cuffs that kept her arms tied to the chair, but the manacles remained in place.
“Thank you,” she said softly and started to eat.
Zachary and Deak sat in the kitchen, confused by what they just experienced.
“Do you think she was able to astral project all the way here?” Deak asked with hesitation.
“She must have some sort of anchor that helps her find a home,” Zachary told him.
“And what is this about Persephone? Is she talking about the Greek goddess?”
Zachary shook his head and reluctantly started to pace.
Persephone. Persephone.
He had heard that name before, but he couldn’t quite place where.
He started looking around Vita’s kitchen, looking at spell books, journals, anything.
And then something sparked his memory—the coven that Vita had met after the falling out with her parents. Persephone was the leader.
“I think I know where she might be.”
Deak looked at him with hope in his eyes.
“You do?”
“I need to find something with a strong signature of the magic, try to see if you can find a map. I might be able to cry and find out where the coven is.”
“Why didn’t we try to find Vita with this?” Deak asked.
He was feeling anxious and wanted to get to his mate as quickly as possible.
“Her magic is weak. Most of her traces would have just let us back here. If we scry for the witch that took her, then we have a better chance of finding her.”
Zachary lifted up an old book that seemed to carry a reasonable amount of the witches’ signature magic. He moved over to the dining room table and started to clear it off as Deak went off searching for a map.
“Here.”
Deak walked back in with a large map of the country.
“Do you think this will work?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Zachary told him as he started to mix different ingredients into a small bowl and grind them together. Once completed, he placed the powder on top of the book, rubbing the ingredients into the cover before he blew them gently onto the map.
Zachary started to chant a spell over the powder.
Deak watched with fascination as the powder started to spread showing where the magic had been, and a small amount of the powder clumped together in a spot about thirty miles from where they were.
“Care to go on an adventure?” Zachary asked Deak as he lifted his head up from the table.
“Will I be able to hurt some people?” Deak asked as he began to crack his knuckles.
Zachary nodded. “There’s definitely a possibility.”
Deak gave Zachary a devilish grin.
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Mated to my Bully (Book 1)