Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles 1)

Lena’s body seized and she screamed—at least she opened her mouth and looked as if she was screaming, but she didn’t make a sound. I couldn’t take it.

“Do something! Help her!” I shouted.

“What are you doin’ here? Get out of here. It’s not safe,” Larkin warned. The family had noticed me for the first time.

“Concentrate!” Macon sounded desperate. His voice rose over the others’, louder and louder, until he was shouting—

“Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est!

Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est!

Sanguis sanguinis mei, tutela tua est!

Blood of my blood, protection is thine!”

The members of the circle tensed their arms as if to give the circle more strength, but it didn’t work. Lena was still screaming, silent screams of terror. This was worse than the dreams. This was real. And if they weren’t going to stop it, I would. I ran toward her, ducking under Reece and Larkin’s arms.

“Ethan, NO!”

As I entered the circle, I could hear it. A howl. Sinister, haunting, like the voice of the wind itself. Or was it a voice? I couldn’t be sure. Even though it was only a few feet to the table where she was lying, it felt like it was a million miles away. Something was trying to push me back, something more powerful than anything I’d ever felt before. Even more powerful than when Ridley was freezing the life out of me. I pushed against it with everything I had in me.

I’m coming, Lena! Hold on!

I threw my body forward, reaching, like I reached in the dreams. The black abyss in the sky began to spin.

I closed my eyes and lunged forward. Our fingers touched, barely.

I heard her voice.

Ethan. I…

The air inside the circle whipped around us violently, like a vortex. Swirling up toward the sky, if you could still call it a sky. Into the blackness. There was a surge, like an explosion, slamming Uncle Macon, Aunt Del, everyone onto their backs, into the walls behind them. In the same moment, the spinning air within the broken circle was sucked up into the blackness above.

Then it was over. The castle dissolved into a regular attic, with a regular window, swinging open under the eaves. Lena lay on the floor, in a tangle of hair and limbs and unconsciousness, but she was breathing.

Macon pulled himself up from the floor, staring at me, stunned. Then he walked over to the window and slammed it shut.

Aunt Del looked at me, tears still streaming down her face. “If I hadn’t seen it myself…”

I knelt at Lena’s side. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. But she was alive. I could feel her, a tiny throb pulsing in her hand. I lay my head down next to her. It was all I could do not to collapse.

Lena’s family slowly contracted around us, a dark circle talking over my head.

“I told you. The boy has power.”

“It’s not possible. He’s a Mortal. He’s not one of us.”

“How could a Mortal break a Sanguinis Circle? How could a Mortal ward off a Mentem Interficere so powerful that Ravenwood itself came all but Unbound?”

“I don’t know, but there has to be an explanation.” Del raised her hand above her head. “Evinco, contineo, colligo, includo.” She opened her eyes. “The house is still Bound, Macon. I can feel it. But she got to Lena anyway.”

“Of course she did. We can’t stop her from coming for the child.”

“Sarafine’s powers are growing by the day. Reece can see her now, when she looks in Lena’s eyes.” Del’s voice was shaky.

“Striking us here, on this night. She was just making a point.”

“And what point would that be, Macon?”