The Calling Read Free

cooperate.”
    Malachi paced the length of the room as he considered the option.
    “No. Kill her,” he said. “She’s too powerful. We can’t risk it.” Tallon opened his mouth to answer, but Malachi waved him down. “The moon magic is rising. We will lose control and Arroway will falter.”
    Jarrod stepped forward. “Perhaps there is another way.” Malachi whirled to face him. “I think you forget exactly who this witch is. She’s only twenty-two and she already bears the moon mark.
    Even Casterix did not show such power so young. She must die.” Jarrod flinched as the name stirred up old emotions; guilt, loss, anger, and despair. They rose up inside him, saturating his mind.
    Casterix.
    The witch who had nearly destroyed Arroway a thousand years ago. Tallon nodded once and left the room. Jarrod gazed after him. He had to find a way to get to his daughter before Tallon, and the only way he could think was with Freya’s cooperation. And she hated him.
    ~*~
    The heavy door swung shut behind her, leaving her alone in the cell. She was underground, in the dungeons hewn out of the rock below the Keep. The only light came from a metal grill in the ceiling, dim but sufficient to make out the room, less than ten feet by ten feet and bare, no furniture, and rough stone walls. But at least the air was fresh and clean.
    They had unbound her hands, and she rubbed at the red patches on her wrists where the rope had chaffed. The Enforcer hadn’t hurt her, but he had been implacable and taken no chances on her escaping. She hadn’t tried anyway—at least while he was bringing her here, he wasn’t hunting Shayla. Besides, most of the way, she’d been unconscious and in no state to attempt anything. Once she had come to, she hadn’t allowed herself to consider where they were heading, what would happen at the end of their journey.
    Now she needed to think. But she was finding it hard to overcome the encroaching despair that clouded her thoughts. She was back in the one place she had vowed never to return, and she could already sense the air of pervading evil that saturated the Keep. The tendrils tugged at her mind, sapping her will and making it hard to concentrate.
    She hoped that Shayla would be sensible and not come looking for her. With luck, she wouldn’t even be aware her mother had been captured. They’d separated, hoping to confuse their pursuers, and it would hopefully be days before Shayla discovered what had happened.
    Freya presumed she would be dead by then. She wouldn’t let them use her to ensnare her daughter. And no way would she submit to any warlock; they would have to kill her first.
    Briefly, she wondered what had happened to the warlock who had helped her all those years ago. Both Freya and her daughter owed him their lives, but she could hardly remember his face. Was he still here? She pushed the thoughts aside. She hadn’t understood why he helped her back then, and she wouldn’t allow herself to hope. Besides whatever his reasons, he was still a warlock. Without his kind, there would have been no need to save her from anything, and she would never forgive them for what they had done to her and the other witches they kept as slaves.
    The power within her daughter terrified her at times, but it also showed her exactly what the Order had taken from them. Their magic ripped from them at birth leaving them empty shells to be used for the Order’s pleasure.
    She sank onto the rock floor, leaned her back against the rough wall, and hoped it would be over soon. Would they torture her? Try and make her tell where Shayla was? Would they use magic?
    Her one hope was to anger them enough to kill her before they could use her. And maybe if she were lucky, she would get the chance to take one of them with her.
    She’d learned a lot in her years on the outside. How to look after herself. How to fight. She had trained side by side with Shayla, determined her daughter would never be anyone’s victim. Shayla