I want to.
Fuck, I want to end her right now.
A twist of my wrist, a little more pressure, and—snap. It would be over.
But I don’t know what she’s done to Trinity. What if she cursed her or put a spell on her or something, and we can’t undo it without the witch’s own power?
It takes every bit of strength I have in me, but I ease up just a little on the old woman’s throat. She draws in a ragged gulp of air as I drop my head, putting my face inches from hers. She smells like cobwebs and musty dirt, but I ignore it as my gaze bounces between her rheumy blue eyes.
“You’ve got three seconds, witch. And then I will kill you. Tell me what the fuck you did to her.” My lips curl into a snarl, my entire body shaking with the need to unleash violence. “Three… two…”
“It was an accident,” she chokes out, her voice even thinner and more high-pitched than it was before. “I took too much, too much by accident. How is Morrigan to know how much blood an angel has? My mistake, my mistake.”
“That’s a fucking lie. You don’t accidentally fill up multiple bags of someone’s blood.”
“M-mistake.” She tries to shake her head, but my grip on her neck is too strong to allow any movement. “Not an accident. A miscalculation.”
“Ford.”
Beckett’s voice behind me draws my attention away from the witch, and I glance over my shoulder. Trinity’s eyelids are fluttering. She’s not dead, at least, but she’s in rough fucking shape.
I catch my brother’s gaze, reading the expression on his face. The angel needs help. With a curse, I turn back to the witch, pressing her hard against the wall.
“Give me a damn healing potion right now. The strongest you have. And I don’t care if death witches don’t deal in healing—if you don’t have one, make one. You get me?”
“I have one, I have one.” She flails wildly, like she’s desperate to give me what I want. “I’ll let you have it, no charge. Free. Then I’ll start working on the charm for the dead demon right away. For controlling the dead demon, yes? Yes?”
Fuck.
We still need her for that motherfucking charm. Not that I give a shit about it right now, but that’s the whole goddamn reason we came here.
I slam her against the wall one more time for good measure, ignoring Remi’s noise of disapproval behind me. She slides to the floor as soon as I release her, then quickly scrambles to her feet and hurries over to grab a small box off a shelf. After pulling a vial from inside, she wheels around and practically hurls it at me.
“There. There. You see?”
I pluck it out of the air, wrapping my fingers around the cool glass. Then I turn away from her. I’m done with this bitch. If she doesn’t make the charm we came for, she’ll get to see up close and personal what pure wrath looks like. But until that moment, I have no more use for her.
Striding over to Trinity, I heft the fallen angel into my arms. She feels as light and fragile as a butterfly, and I try not to think about how much damn blood she’s lost as I carry her back out toward the front.
When I’m halfway down the hall, I look back over my shoulder. “Nix, stay with the witch. If she tries anything, you better kill her first, or I will.”
“On it.”
For once, my lazy-ass brother doesn’t complain about being given a job to do. The witch closes the door behind us, but before she does, I see Nix watching her with folded arms and a scowl on his face.
A second later, I re-enter the front room, Beckett and Remi right behind me. I use my foot to dislodge the dead demon from the chair. His corpse tumbles to the floor and lands with a heavy thud; I kick it aside and settle Trinity into the creaky seat instead. Her head lists forward, and I steady it with one hand as I tug the cork from the bottle with my teeth, spit it out, and bring the small vial to her lips.
It’s possible the witch lied to me, and that this will kill the angel. But she’s dying anyway, and I’ll be damned if I don’t at least try to save her.
I pour the liquid down her throat and close her nose, making her swallow it.
“Come on…” I mutter. “Come on, goddammit.”
Remi and Beckett are behind me. I can feel their focus on Trin just like mine is, and my heart slams angrily against my ribs as we wait for several long breaths.
Finally, she blinks her eyes open.
The dark brown pools of her irises are foggy and hazy, and that little line I recognize appears between her brows.
“Wha… what...?” Her whole body jerks as her vision snaps into focus, and she tries to leap to her feet, panic radiating from her. “No! No, you can’t—”
I shove her back down as gently as I can, keeping a tight grip on her shoulders to prevent her from rising again.
“It’s fine,” I tell her roughly. “You’re fine.”
The angel’s eyelashes flutter like bird wings as she blinks again, and she shifts her gaze from me to my brothers behind me. Her fingertips lift up to graze over the spot inside her opposite elbow where a small drop of blood wells.
“I…” She swallows and shakes her head. “She… she didn’t stop, did she?”
“No.”
“I realized what she was doing, but it was too late. We were talking, and then…” A shiver moves through her. Fear glimmers in her eyes as she trails off, and my jaw clenches with renewed fury.
Then Trinity’s expression shifts. The horror in her eyes fades a little, and her tongue darts out to wet her lips as she looks from me to Beckett to Remi. “You… you saved me.”
Something sweet and almost hopeful breaks across her features, and my breath freezes in my lungs. The look in her eyes hits something deep inside me, clawing at an old wound.
A wound that’s never fully healed.
I don’t want her softness.
Her sweetness.
Her hope.
Anger and fear rise inside me like a tidal wave, and my heart lurches in my chest, pounding at my ribs like it’s trying to break them.
I hate the emotions she brings out in me. I fucking hate the way this small, beautiful creature makes me feel.
I want to destroy her.
I want to save her.
I want—
Surging to my feet with a growl, I almost shove her away. She looks shocked at the sudden loss of my touch, and I turn on my heel, a dangerous cocktail of emotions churning in my stomach.
Storming down the hall, I pound my fist against the closed door that leads to Morrigan’s back room.
“Witch!” I bellow. “Hurry the fuck up!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Trinity
I’m still incredibly woozy, and I jump as Ford bangs on Morrigan’s door at the end of the hallway again. His fist sounds like it’s as heavy as a sledgehammer.
“Careful, please.” Remington glances at me as he speaks, and I know he’s thinking about my head, which throbs in time to my heartbeat.
Ugh, I’m so dizzy. The world seems like it’s spinning around me.
“How long am I going to feel like this?” I ask, forcing my tongue to form the words.
“For a bit,” Remington admits, sounding genuinely apologetic. “I’ll make you something to eat. That’ll be the best thing for you.”