Beyond Bewitching Read Online Free PDF

prisoner while the tunnel led them to yet another time and place.
    He fought a wave of nausea at being dragged through time under someone else’s control. Voluntarily jetting along in the wake of a traveler had never disturbed him, but hitching a ride sure messed with his equilibrium. The cloud of Sarah’s essence could’ve had something to do with it, or the winding path she chose. Given the urgency of his assignment, he’d only let go if she killed him—a distinct possibility. The likelihood didn’t deter him.
    The earthy scent of damp, decaying leaves hit him as he materialized face down on the ground. A groan escaped.
    Where the hell are we now?
    “You will let go of me.” Sarah’s slow, deliberate tone had John levering up on his elbow. She held Tanner’s chin in her hand as she looked down at him.
    Tanner raised his eyebrows and smirked. “That mind-persuasion shit doesn’t work on us.”
    Glancing at John, she locked gazes with him. “Let go of my ankle.”
    He tightened his grip and shifted to sit at her feet. “Not happening. By authority of the Xanthus clan, we hereby claim your bounty, Sarah Pennymead.”

Chapter 4
     
    Every nerve ending in her body was on fire, but Patience kept her reaction bottled inside her. She’d buried her emotions for so long, the cold lack of response came without thought. Only the utterance of a name she hadn’t heard in over three hundred years stole the air from her lungs.
    Standing before her judge, she’d frozen when he’d announced the verdict and punishment. “Sarah Pennymead, you are hereby found guilty of murder and practicing witchcraft. You are sentenced to hanging at sunrise.” A glance to her husband confirmed that he believed the judgment to be justified, his smile and quick exit from the meeting hall an obvious agreement that she had caused the death of their son. Not that the judge’s reversion to her maiden name hadn’t already made it perfectly clear.
    “I am not Sarah Pennymead.” She nearly choked on the words.
    That woman had ceased to exist the night she sat in her cell and listened while the man who’d betrayed her set fire to the jail. Sarah had perished in the blaze, eventually giving life to Patience Wyndham. Percy Ellington awoke to a knife in his back, payment in kind for throwing her to the wolves and trying to burn her alive. After more than three years of living without a name, she’d finally chosen a new one. She may have been a Pennymead witch in 1692, but she wasn’t anymore.
    The man holding her ankle narrowed his eyes at her as he slipped the shoes from her feet. “Give up the pretense. No disguise can conceal your true identity from a bounty hunter of Xanthus.”
    A bounty hunter?
    “I am Patience Wyndham. Sarah Pennymead is dead.”
    He snorted. Even with the conviction in her voice, he clearly didn’t take her word for anything but lies. “You leave a trail of red mist wherever you go. Only one who abandoned the lawful ways of the Goddess could have an essence so filled with the color of blood. Bind her hands with the cuffs, Tanner.”
    Red mist?
    Her soul had bled dry the night her son had died.
    Cool metal closed around one wrist, and her vision blurred. She considered fighting for one short second. Hurting the men would serve no purpose. Hadn’t she already decided that dying didn’t damage her cause?
    She held out her hand for the other cuff. “Kill me.”
    Her death would weaken Naga to the point of being unable to leave the catacombs. He’d need decades to gain enough strength to conduct the search she’d feigned, and she would finally find peace.
    The man who’d grabbed her around the waist—Tanner—narrowed his eyes at her. The second band snapped into place. “Reverse psychology doesn’t work, either. Our job is to bring you to justice, not carry it out. Bind her legs, John.”
    John removed a coil of leather lacing from his belt. “Unlike the elders of the Black Triad, we don’t act as judge, jury,