After a moment of exploration, the tendril moved on, this time brushing against the elium. Despite the deep relaxation she was immersed in, she jerked at the light touch. The elium was like an open, unhealed wound inside her and every slightest stroke against it seared her with shock and pain.

Another brush, another. Each got successively more aggressive. She heard a low moan and realized it came from her. Adam's grip grew tighter and low, angry words she couldn't understand bubbled through her limited consciousness.

Pain.

It ripped through her and bowed her spine. The tendril no longer brushed, it gouged. Like a scoop made from a flattened sword, Micah's magick tried to cut the elium from her body.

Claire's eyes opened and she screamed. The pain immediately stopped.

Darkness, then light. Dark. Light. Unconsciousness wove in and out.

Her eyes flickered open and across the room she caught a glimpse of Adam with his hand around Micah's throat, pushing the earth witch up against a wall. Thomas was bellowing and trying to haul Adam off.

Darkness closed around her for good and she fell back against the couch.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

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"It wasn't working anyway," Micah grumbled.

He rubbed his throat and Adam glanced away, almost sorry he'd leapt across the room and pinned Micah to the wall. At the time he hadn't been able to stop himself. Claire had been in obvious pain and he would have done anything to make it stop.

Thomas glared at Adam. "So Adam didn't interrupt the spell."

Micah shook his head. "I need to tweak it. There are some anomalies in Claire that I hadn't counted on, stuff related to her magickal structure and her power level. I presumed the core of her was earth with the other elements tacked on, but that's not true. Claire's core is all four elements combined. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. Rue altered her down to her very DNA."

Adam looked down at Claire, who lay pale and unconscious in the bed where they'd moved her to recuperate. "Great."

"At least we didn't blow the Coven up," Micah muttered. "Let's look on the bright side. I'll try again with an altered spell."

"The fuck you will," answered Adam. "I'm not watching Claire go through that again."

"That's for her to decide, isn't it?" Thomas asked.

Adam just locked his jaw and stared down at Claire. Her hair lay tangled against the pillow and her face was pale and drawn. All he wanted was for everyone to leave the room so he could crawl into bed with her, hold her close, and sink into the fact she was alive.

During the last part of the spell, right before he'd lunged across the room to force Micah to stop it, Adam had not been convinced she was going to live through it. He was fucking sick of almost watching her die. That was twice now.