Read Online Pure Blooded by Amanda Carlson - Free Book Online Page B

with you. Let’s push forward and assume the Pack is coming for us as soon as they can. If we get to her and start fighting, I bet we can weaken her hold on the wards.”
    My eyebrows shot up my forehead. “Two seconds ago you were heading back to the boat with Tyler,” I said. “But you’re right, James would never forgive us if something happened to you. Maybe going forward is not such a great idea.”
    She placed her hands on her waist, drumming her hips. “If you ruin this one chance we have to defeat the priestess because you’re worried about me not being
man
enough, I’m going to be upset. I assure you, I can handle it. I know I lost it when I saw those things coming at us, but red eyes mean possession. Their sole purpose was to intimidate and threaten. But I swear to you right now, I’m ready. I can be an asset.”
    Marcy was a powerful witch, but she was extremely new to being a foot solider in this war. If she got hurt, I didn’t need James’s wrath—I’d never forgive myself anyway. But maybe there was a way around it. “Let’s split the odds,” I said. “Rourke, Tyler,and I will continue to investigate, but not engage, while you and Danny search for a doorway. Whoever finds what we’re looking for first is the way we go.”
    “Okay, I can live with that.” Then her voice fell a few octaves, to just above a whisper. “And, just so you know, if we run into serious trouble, I can make my magic dark if need be. I have ways to make it more potent, and if we’re stuck between a possessed python and a hard place, that will give us a better edge. It would just take me a little time to get it ready, but once I was done, it would pack a punch.”
    “And how exactly would you make your magic dark?” I asked, my head inclined toward her. I didn’t like where this conversation was headed.
    She shrugged. “I’d use blood.” She tried to make it sound blasé, like she used blood in all her spells, but it didn’t work.
    I threw my arms up. “Marcy, you can’t be serious! I’m not letting you practice black magic under my watch. Not only will James rip me limb from limb, but your aunt will have my
head
if she finds out I sanctioned such a thing. No way in hell is that happening.”
    “Cool your jets, Glinda the Good Witch,” Marcy countered. “I said it would take time to get it ready. I’m talking about brewing a dark spell, not sacrificing a chicken. Blood
brewed
in spells is different than ingesting it. Blood gives magic strength no matter what, but one way it’s given freely and in another it’s taken by force. If I drank your blood or ate your heart, and then gathered my magic from the blood sacrifice through my body, my magic would be jet black. But if I used a few drops of blood in a brewed spell, it gives it potency, but it doesn’t make it black.”
    “But you just said your magic would be
dark
,” I said. “Dark is bad.”
    “Yes, dark. But not
black
,” she huffed, her long red hairstreaming down around her shoulders in a mass of beautiful curls. It was quite a stark contrast to our current environment. “I’m not insane. Once a witch nose-dives into black magic, there’s very little that can bring her back. Blood magic is like smoking crack for witches. It makes them feel invincible—and many times they are, because their magic becomes super strong. But it also makes them crazed, which is why it’s banned in every Coven in the entire world and has been for a thousand years. If all witches were walking around hopped up on blood magic, the world would’ve come to a grinding halt eons ago.”
    “So how exactly are you going to brew dark spells here?” I asked, gesturing around me. “We’re in the middle of the Everglades in an alternate reality.”
    Marcy glanced around at the barren landscape. “Well, I never said it was…
ideal
. I just said I could do it if pressed. But, really, I only need a few things to make a simple protection spell. I always carry a vial