Anya Bast - Witch Heart

She tipped her head back and closed her eyes. He was right, of course. Unless Rue showed up right this second and took back the weapon she'd never wanted to possess, she had no real choice to make. The elium had to come out of her or she would die and all the elemental witches on Earth would be in danger, not to mention all the demon breeds but the Atrika on Eudae.

She couldn't outrun Tevan and Kai forever. Eventually, she would tire, as she already was tiring. Eventually, her luck would run out.

It went like this: if the spell backfired and the elium was released into this world, all would be lost. If the spell worked, all their problems were solved. It was a hell of a gamble and Claire was not the gambling type.

Her stomach grew cold. That coldness inched up into her throat.

She opened her eyes. "Fine. Let's do it."

Adam was there. He had moved to her side while she'd been having her mini crisis. With a firm, strong hand, he guided her to the small reclining couch that sat in the corner and helped her lower herself onto it. Then he knelt at her side and took her hand in his.

Micah went to stand at the table, near the spell pot and open grimoire. The spell was so complicated he couldn't even memorize it. Great.

"What do you need me to do?" she asked.

He flipped through the book, frowning. "Relax."

"You could ask me to drag down the moon, too; it would be just as likely I could do it."

Micah chewed his lip for a moment, then looked up at her in surprise, as if what she'd said had just registered. "I really do need you to relax, Claire. I need you to let go of the elium when the time comes. You'll know when that time is because you'll feel a tug on the condensed magick in your chest. Until then, just let the spell float you. It's designed to put you at ease, a little like a drug. It actually should be pleasant." He paused. "For a time."

"Lie back and close your eyes," said Thomas. "Micah will do the rest."

Relax and close her eyes? Right.

She glanced at Adam, who looked pissed off. She frowned. Why was he pissed? His eyes swirled with rage, his jaw was locked, and his shoulders hunched a little — tense.

"Is this going to hurt her?" Adam growled at Micah.

"Huh?" Micah glanced up again, a distracted look on his face. "I don't think so."

A muscle in Adam's jaw twitched. "You don't think so?"

Micah understood the warning in Adam's tone and gave him his full attention. "Obviously, not hurting Claire is my primary concern, Adam, but we're dealing with alien magick here. I don't even know if this spell will work. It's not like we could test it beforehand. It's the result of days of meticulous research and preparation, not years. I can't read the future."

She squeezed Adam's hand. "It's okay, Adam, I'm willing to take a risk to get this junk out of me."

He turned to stare deeply into her eyes. "You might be willing to risk your well-being, Claire, but I'm not willing to risk you."

The words, the warm, honeyed tone of his voice, and the emotion in his eyes left her speechless.

Adam turned to Micah. "You know what I will do to you if you hurt her, right?"

It was the threat of an alpha male in a situation in which he felt powerless. Adam wanted to control things and couldn't, so he threatened. Claire recognized the behavior immediately, having seen it often in Ytrayi males. Adam cared for her enough to be terrified right now, maybe even more terrified than she was.

"Cut it out, Adam," Thomas growled. "You know the last thing Micah wants is to harm someone."

Claire cleared her throat. "Let's get on with this. Every moment we wait is another moment the demons could be tracking the other witches." She leaned back and closed her eyes, thankful for the steadiness of Adam's hand around hers.

Paper rustled, items on the table were picked up, set down. A wooden spoon hit the side of the spell pot. Low words were muttered in a masculine voice.

Lethargy.

It stole over her body slowly, moving from her toes up her body like some super-enhanced meditation. Her muscles, tense from stress and fear, relaxed one by one, giving up their strain to a curious irrational peacefulness.

It was a little like when she'd been a child with a bad appendix and the Ytrayi healers had been forced to remove it. Back then they'd used a spell like this one to put her mind elsewhere while they cut the offending part from her body.

What Micah did now was also a kind of surgery and the sensation she felt was her anesthesia. It was so powerful that even if she'd wanted to fight it — and a part of her did from simple instinct — she could not.

Her body went limp and heavy, as though in slumber. But she could still hear what was going on around her, still feel sensation in her body and the steady, reassuring clasp of Adam's hand.

The first touch of the foreign tendril of power entering her wasn't even a shock. The curling bit of earth magick went for the seat of her magick first. Inwardly, she pulled herself around it, protecting it, though she knew that was not what Micah sought.

After a moment of exploration, the tendril moved on, this time brushing against the elium. Despite the deep relaxation she was immersed in, she jerked at the light touch. The elium was like an open, unhealed wound inside her and every slightest stroke against it seared her with shock and pain.

Another brush, another. Each got successively more aggressive. She heard a low moan and realized it came from her. Adam's grip grew tighter and low, angry words she couldn't understand bubbled through her limited consciousness.

Pain.

It ripped through her and bowed her spine. The tendril no longer brushed, it gouged. Like a scoop made from a flattened sword, Micah's magick tried to cut the elium from her body.

Claire's eyes opened and she screamed. The pain immediately stopped.

Darkness, then light. Dark. Light. Unconsciousness wove in and out.

Her eyes flickered open and across the room she caught a glimpse of Adam with his hand around Micah's throat, pushing the earth witch up against a wall. Thomas was bellowing and trying to haul Adam off.

Darkness closed around her for good and she fell back against the couch.

"It wasn't working anyway," Micah grumbled.

He rubbed his throat and Adam glanced away, almost sorry he'd leapt across the room and pinned Micah to the wall. At the time he hadn't been able to stop himself. Claire had been in obvious pain and he would have done anything to make it stop.

Thomas glared at Adam. "So Adam didn't interrupt the spell."

Micah shook his head. "I need to tweak it. There are some anomalies in Claire that I hadn't counted on, stuff related to her magickal structure and her power level. I presumed the core of her was earth with the other elements tacked on, but that's not true. Claire's core is all four elements combined. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. Rue altered her down to her very DNA."

Adam looked down at Claire, who lay pale and unconscious in the bed where they'd moved her to recuperate. "Great."

"At least we didn't blow the Coven up," Micah muttered. "Let's look on the bright side. I'll try again with an altered spell."

"The fuck you will," answered Adam. "I'm not watching Claire go through that again."

"That's for her to decide, isn't it?" Thomas asked.

Adam just locked his jaw and stared down at Claire. Her hair lay tangled against the pillow and her face was pale and drawn. All he wanted was for everyone to leave the room so he could crawl into bed with her, hold her close, and sink into the fact she was alive.

During the last part of the spell, right before he'd lunged across the room to force Micah to stop it, Adam had not been convinced she was going to live through it. He was fucking sick of almost watching her die. That was twice now.