[Sacrifice Me 08.0] Season Two: Part 2

by Sarra Cannon

  Sacrifice Me, Season Two

  Part 2

  Sarra Cannon

  Dead River Books

  Copyright © 2018 by Sarra Cannon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover by Ravven

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  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Episode Four

  Episode Five

  Episode Six

  Three Free Books

  Join Sarra’s Newsletter

  Also by Sarra Cannon

  About the Author

  For Joe & Sherry

  Your hard work and loyalty means so much to me! Thank you for always being there. I hope you know how much I appreciate you!

  Episode Four

  In Sacrifice To The Mother

  Rend

  My mind was trapped in a body that might as well have been made of stone.

  I couldn’t breathe or move, but I could feel every moment of the Mother Crow’s visit as it tore through my heart.

  She was right there. Close enough to touch, and yet she could have been on the other side of the world for all the power I had right now.

  I screamed inside my head, pushed as hard as I could against the spell with the powers locked inside of me. But I was helpless. Completely lost and broken. Frozen in time as I watched a glowing black stone get thrust into the chest of my love.

  My brain couldn’t process this. What had gone wrong?

  Had it all been a trap from the beginning?

  What did this mean?

  I wasn’t sure if my mind couldn’t put it together, or if it simply didn’t want to.

  Wasn’t it enough that the Devil had taken her from me once? That I’d had to risk everything just to get her back?

  Or that Katy was in some kind of coma and might never wake up?

  Wasn’t it enough that I had to complete this nearly impossible task to save my life and the lives of my brothers? We were so close to seeing the end of our struggles.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  My eyes met Franki’s for a brief moment just after the stone was placed in her chest, and I could read them as if I were reading a book.

  I’m sorry.

  My heart broke in that moment, understanding that she blamed herself for all of it. Knowing that she felt it was over. There was no hope in her eyes, and whatever she’d realized when that stone entered her body, that knowledge had stolen something from her.

  There was no message of ‘come find me’ or even ‘I love you’ written in her gaze. Only regret and sorrow.

  An apology.

  The Mother Crow dragged Franki’s body through the swirling portal, and it closed with a snap. The windstorm around us calmed instantly, and whatever spell held my lungs and body in stasis lifted.

  I gasped, drawing a violent breath and then yelling at the top of my lungs, my fists clenched as I leaned back and let it all out. My anger. My need for revenge. My pure, unbridled sorrow.

  I fell forward, clutching the feather that now lay on the ground between us.

  I snapped it between my fingers, my rage flowing through me like an erupting volcano. I had no words, only a fury so intense, it ignited a bloodlust within me I hadn’t felt in nearly a century.

  Silas lunged forward, reaching for the black book that held the tracking spell. He flipped through the pages quickly, searching for the right page.

  When he found it, he brought a trembling hand to his mouth and shook his head.

  “What does it say?” Mary Anne asked quietly. Her pale skin looked almost translucent in the light of the moon, as if she had turned into a ghost at the Mother Crow’s appearance.

  “Dabit mater mea me in sacrificium,” Silas said. He looked up, his eyes meeting mine with an expression I did not want to see. “I willingly give my life in sacrifice to the Mother.”

  My jaw tightened. I grabbed the book from his hands and read the words myself.

  Why had none of us insisted on reading through the spell ourselves? I understood some of the ancient language from my time reading through books on alchemy, but Silas was the only one here who understood it perfectly.

  Why didn’t I have him look over the spell first? To make sure it was safe?

  Understanding how easy it would have been to avoid this terrible moment only made it worse. The warning was there in plain text. We just simply failed to even look for it. None of us even suspected it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have looked at the spell. I should have known.”

  I sucked in a breath and shook my head. “It’s not your fault,” I said. “I should have been looking for any sign of betrayal or a trap. I let my guard down.”

  “You’ve had a lot going on,” Azure said, coming to my defense as always. “How could any of us have known it was all a trap? The feather, the book. All of it seemed like coincidence. A product of the actions we were taking, not some grand scheme to guess our next moves.”

  “More like determining our next moves,” I said. “The Mother Crow understood exactly how to manipulate us, and we just walked straight into it, following her lead the entire time. Everything from Franki finding that spell to the witch at the club getting away to that damn stone she left with Katy. All of it was a setup. Even the witch who got away from us at the small village. She could have waited until we were gone to appear, but she didn’t. She made sure we saw her.”

  “And she made sure to drop a feather,” Silas said, running a hand across his cheek. “She knew we wouldn’t doubt that feather because of how we found it.”

  “Well, however it happened, we have to figure out a way to fix it,” I said, swallowing a thick lump of doubt that had settled in my throat. “We have to find Franki, and I have to kill the Mother Crow.”

  Silas avoided my eyes, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.

  We had both heard the words of the Mother Crow.

  Soul transference spell.

  I didn’t fully understand it, but there was no way it was a good thing. Was the Mother Crow putting Franki’s soul into that stone? Was she planning to use Franki’s soul stone to make her look young again?

  I didn’t think that was it, but I didn’t want to make any assumptions until we knew for sure what was happening.

  What we had to focus on now was getting to Franki and killing the Mother Crow before she had a chance to complete whatever this soul transfer was that she’d been talking about. As long as we killed her first, we could still end this.

  But we had to find them.

  “What can we do?” Mary Anne asked, her eyes wide. I’d always known she was a young witch, but there was something about the fear in her eyes that suddenly made her look like a child, despite all the things she’d been through.

  “We’re right back where we started on finding the Mother Crow’s village,” I said, standing and running a hand through my hair. “We’re completely out of leads, and I don’t even know where to start, honestly.”

  “I have something I need to take care of,” Silas said. “When I come back, I may have something that can help, but I won’t know until I go home first.”

  “What about the girls back at Harper’s?” Azure asked. “Maybe they know more than we think.”

  I shook my head. “They don’t know where the Mother Crow is right now,” I said. “That much they answered truthfully. I don’t know how t
hey could help us outside of that.”

  “It still might be worth a few more questions,” she said.

  “We can try it, but we need more of a plan than that,” I said. “We have to find her fast.”

  Even just saying the words and thinking of what might be happening to her right now made my heart tighten in my chest. I’d come so close to losing her once before, but this felt different.

  This was much more terrifying.

  As we walked back into the house to come up with a better plan, it suddenly hit me why this felt worse.

  Because this time, I wasn’t sure I would be able to save her.

  Lost Forever

  Franki

  The high winds roared in my ears as a rotting hand with long, pointed fingernails dragged me through a portal of pure darkness and chaos.

  My skin tingled as the ground changed from dirt and snow to smooth concrete. As if some weight had been lifted off my chest, my lungs opened and air rushed in. I nearly fainted from the intensity of the past few minutes, but I held onto consciousness, terrified that if I lost myself for a moment, I would be lost forever.

  I wrenched my arm from the Mother Crow’s grasp and rolled over as I took heaving breaths, nearly choking on my own desperate need to breathe. To be anywhere but here. Tears ran down my cheeks, and I slammed my fist against the concrete.

  “Why?” I screamed, refusing to even look up at her.

  The Mother Crow cackled. The skirts of her long, black robes swept against my arm.

  “Pick her up,” she said.

  I lifted my head and looked around. I hadn’t realized there was anyone else here, but when my eyes finally opened, I could not believe the sight before me.

  Witches, dressed all in black, gathered in a half-circle around us. Women and girls ranging in age from tiny newborns to at least sixty years old. Each of them had black hair, just like mine. Bright blue eyes that matched my own.

  I scrambled to sit up, my hand flying to my mouth as a sob escaped my lips.

  I was surrounded by family for the first time in my life, and it was the most horrifying sight I’d ever seen.

  Not even one of them walked over to offer their hand to me. No one said hello or smiled.

  Instead, they stared at me with fear and pity in their eyes. Some looked away, their bodies shaking or their eyes filled with tears.

  Still others looked at me as if I were the punchline in some cruel joke.

  Two women about my age grabbed my arms and jerked me into a standing position. It took everything I had not to pull away or fight back, but there would be no point here. Not now, with everyone looking at me.

  One sign of defiance, and I would be unconscious in minutes. Right now, I needed to stay as awake and aware as possible. I needed to figure out exactly what was happening to me, and more importantly, how to stop it.

  The stone embedded in my chest burned, but I didn’t dare touch it. I shook my head, wanting to believe that it wasn’t real. It was just some kind of nightmare. This wasn’t really happening.

  But when the Mother Crow walked two feet away from me to address the rest of the coven, I could literally feel her distance from me increase, as if we were connected by some chain that was being pulled taught.

  My body wanted to move toward her. To be closer.

  Bile rose in my throat, and I swallowed it down. I would not fall apart in front of these people.

  “This is Mary Francis,” the Mother Crow said, smiling to show her rotting teeth. “It has taken me years to find her, and as of this moment, she is now my most prized possession. No one is to harm her or say a harsh word to this girl, do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Mother,” a chorus of voices immediately answered.

  “The power that courses through her veins is valuable to all of us,” she continued. “She represents a new generation of crows, and through her, we will rise to our rightful position as leaders and rulers in the world. That is all you need to understand for now, my daughters, but I want to make it absolutely clear that Mary Francis is to be treated as one of our own. She is to be waited on hand and foot at all times. If she asks for anything, you do what you can to make sure she gets it. Make her your priority above all else, is that understood?”

  “Yes, Mother,” the voices said again.

  The Mother Crow turned and looked at me, a smile in her red eyes that I knew was not meant for me directly. It was meant for my body and for the power I represented to her. She had conquered me, and I was helpless to do anything about it.

  For now.

  I couldn’t imagine what Rend and the others were going through right now after the shock of what happened, but I knew one thing was certain. He would come for me, and when he found me, he would put a dagger through that crow’s heart.

  There was still hope, and as I stood there, I held onto it with everything I had.

  The Mother Crow nodded towards the women still holding my arms. “Take her to her room.”

  The women tightened their grip on my arms and pulled me forward. My legs were slow to respond, and I wondered if I was still in shock. My mind was still trying to process what had happened, and my body didn’t seem to be cooperating with the orders I was giving it.

  I stumbled along a worn path toward a large red house that stood slightly apart from the others. It was at least three stories tall with a huge porch that held two rocking chairs and a handful of flowering plants.

  If I could have forgotten where I was, even for an instant, I would have said I was in any normal neighborhood. The kind where children play together in their yards and have dogs and cookouts on the weekend.

  But I wasn’t in a normal place.

  I was in hell.

  The women marched me up the stairs, yanking on my arm when I missed a step and nearly fell to my knees. For all the Mother Crow’s talk of treating me gently, these women were being rough as hell. I would likely have bruises on my arms from the way they were gripping me.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked, finding my voice as we stepped into the darkness of the house.

  It still smelled of fresh paint, and I wondered how long the crows had been in this particular village.

  “This is the Mother Crow’s personal residence,” the woman on my left said. “You are to be her guest here. She’s created a nice suite of rooms for you on the third floor.”

  “Real homey, I’m sure,” I muttered, but my sarcasm only made the women tighten their hold on me.

  “Our Mother honors you, and I will not have you showing her any disrespect in the time you have left,” the other woman said through clenched teeth as we started up the long staircase.

  The time I have left?

  The words fell into a pit in my stomach. How long was that, exactly?

  Weeks? Days? Or mere hours?

  I just had to hold on until Rend was able to get here. I knew he would save me. I just had to stay alive until then.

  We walked in silence up to the third floor of the red house, even though I had a hundred questions rocketing through my mind. Would I even be allowed to leave these rooms? What, exactly, was happening to me? If the Mother Crow was taking my body for her own, what would happen to my soul once the transfer was complete? Would I have to live in her old and decaying body?

  But I didn’t dare speak a word as we climbed.

  Exhaustion tilted my head downward, and my knees buckled as we finally reached the top step and turned toward a black door.

  The door had five locks on it, all bolted from the outside.

  I shuddered.

  So, they didn’t intend on letting me leave this room, that much was clear. At least not until I proved I wasn’t going to rebel against whatever was going on.

  I had to force my feet to move as we approached the door, but my only chance of ever getting out of here was to make them believe I was never going to fight back.

  Or that I simply wasn’t capable.

  One of the women released my arm and unlocke
d each of the bolts until the door creaked open. She nodded to her friend, and the second woman pulled me inside.

  The lights flickered on, revealing a completely windowless set of rooms. The first was a sitting room with a small couch, a tattered rug, and a coffee table.

  When the woman holding me finally let go of my arm, I stepped into the second room to find a large queen-sized bed with a thick, handmade quilt. Each colorful patch was decorated with a different type of flower, each sewn in as if by a child’s hand.

  A wooden nightstand sat against the wall on the far side of the bed, and on top of it, there were half a dozen daisies soaking in water.

  I turned and surveyed the space, looking for any type of escape.

  No windows at all. It wasn’t even that they’d been boarded shut. They just simply didn’t exist.

  On one side of the bedroom, there was small door, but when my eyes landed on it, the woman behind me told me it was the bathroom.

  I was certain I’d find no windows or doors to the outside in there, either.

  The space was clean, and for the most part, it looked very comfortable. But a prison was still a prison, even if there were flowers and a handmade quilt meant to make it look like home.

  “I trust this will satisfy your needs?” the first woman said.

  “What will I do about food?” I asked. “Will I get to come down and eat with the rest of you?”

  “No,” she said. “Either myself or one of our sisters will bring your food to up to you for each meal. At least at first.”

  She raised an eyebrow in warning, but her words made me think there was a way to get out of here. I had a feeling good behavior would go a long way in a place like this, but that totally sucked, because good behavior wasn’t exactly my specialty.