United. (Book 5 of the Lupus Antiqua Series)

Part of her knew that her reaction wasn't normal. Part of her understood that falling for someone this fast and getting so attached wasn't the done thing. It wasn't healthy. But she didn't know if this was happening because she had unhealthy attachment styles, or if it had something to do with the mating bond.

But most of her could focus only on the fact that her mate was in danger, and had been taken by one or more Anguis. She knew what they did to their prey. She knew that they tended to starve because their favorite method of feeding was lethal.

Anguis could live on food like any other True Witch, yes; but they enjoyed feeding on the pain of others. They savored it like fine wine. When there wasn't an Imperium around in fact, the Anguis served as the punishers of the Witch world. She'd witnessed the horror in the face of a victim of an Anguis. She imagined Endymion's features twisted in that same terror.

Her vision went red tinged around the edges. Her breathing came faster. They knew he was under her protection. Why would they dare to actually take him? Did they think she wouldn't come for him? Then again, it was likely that they did.

They'd only ever seen her in her relaxed state, mixing potions and medicines and puttering around her garden. In that moment her life played before her like a little movie. She began to see how isolated she'd been, how she'd allowed the Matron to control everything about her life from how often she had company to what she was taught.

How much didn't she know? How many things had she been missing out on? Was Endymion suffering even now while she stood here frozen in fear and realization?

Her mate. In the hands of an Anguis.

Something inside of her pulsed and her vision went black and white in the middle and the red tinge on the edges started pulsing.

"Enough." She growled. That pulse of power inside her pushed out and everything near her lifted up in the air and blew back several feet. The door frame cracked, and the bed slammed into the far wall.

She turned and stepped towards the door. When her other foot landed she appeared in the Matron's living room, right in front of her. The older woman's eyes widened. It would have been comical, if Abby had any room inside her for humor.

She lashed out with her mind and slammed that force into the Matron's brain without mercy. The older woman choked on a scream which Abby cut off. She didn't care to give the older woman the outlet.

"Where do the Anguis reside?" She asked. There was something different about her voice when she spoke. It was sonorous in a way it never had been before. It was power, she realized. She was using power she'd never tapped before and it was manifesting itself physically.

"Abigail, what.."

"Where?" She demanded.

"It was for your own good." The Matron choked out. Abby froze.

"What was?" She asked. The ice in her voice could have frozen a lake.

"He was corrupting you." The Matron gasped. Abby blinked. The Matron was behind the Anguis taking Endymion. This was her doing.

Her vision went completely red. She shoved herself into the Matron's brain brutally, without a care for what damage she did. She yanked the location of the Anguis from the woman's brain and then she set off the nerve centers in the Matron's brain.

She walked away with an emotionless face as the matron screamed behind her. The woman's pain would be all consuming and never ending. Not even a coma would be able to save her from it. For putting her mate in danger, and orchestrating his suffering, she felt it was only right that the Matron suffer too.

She stepped outside the Matron's house and appeared the next moment outside of a cave system. It was old and cold emanated from it as well as the tinge of poison which seemed seeped into the very rock itself.

The Anguis stronghold. She could sense him. Endymion was in there. She knew it in her core that he was there. She entered the cave, completely unafraid.

Some part of her registered that she should be afraid. This was their turf, their stronghold. For most this would be a suicide mission.

But she wasn't most, and the mate bond and whatever rage was currently fueling her was pushing out any fear she might otherwise have experienced.

She met with no resistance when she entered and she soon realized why. It was a maze in here. There were hallways small and large going in all directions just past the entrance. A person could wander for weeks in here and never meet another soul before perishing of starvation or thirst.

She held out her hand in front of her and felt the magic well up from within her like a golden dust, swirling around her fingers.

"Ostende mihi viam." She whispered, Latin for 'show me the way.' That golden dust rocketed from her outstretched hand and lit a glowing trail down the tunnel that led downwards.

She followed it with alacrity, walking with purpose. Her vision was all red again, rage guiding every movement she made.

**

Natalie grinned down at the handsome werewolf as he writhed and sweated. She hadn't used her poison on a werewolf in ages. His pain seeped into the space around them and she breathed it in like the most aromatic incense.

He was quite handsome and she knew that once the poison reached his brain and he became addicted to it, she might enjoy that large frame and those fine features in her bed before she killed him.

Her sisters were jealous. She could feel it emanating from them even from further up in the cave system they called home. This pleased her too. She was the oldest and most favored of them, and she had first choice on the victims they took so rarely.

She held out her hand and pushed one of her talon-like nails slowly into one of the hard muscles of his abdomen, unleashing yet more poison into his bloodstream.

She smiled sweetly down at him as he let loose a grunt of pain. He was trying so hard not to scream, poor thing. But he would. They all did eventually.

She was about to lean down to taste the blood leaking from the new cut on his stomach when the very stone itself shuddered.

Natalie paused and straightened, looking around in alarm, reaching out with her senses. The wards; defenses that had been erected around the cave system for centuries were suddenly just gone.

What in all the worlds?

The stone shuddered again and countless small snakes, rats, and insects rushed through the alcove she was in and down further into the cave system.

She watched the mass exodus in alarm. Fear and survival pushed those creatures to run that way. It could mean only one thing.

There was a predator here. One that they feared more than the Anguis themselves.