Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 61

Chapter 61

Chapter 61

MIA

The voice came from somewhere in front of me, female, cold with barely controlled rage.

My vision cleared slowly, adjusting to the dim light, and I found myself facing seven women arranged in a semicircle around me.

They wore dark robes, each bearing symbols I didn’t recognize but that screamed “dark magic” with alarming clarity. Their faces were uncovered, revealing expressions that ranged from fury to cold calculation.

A coven. I was facing a coven of witches.

“Do you know why you’re here?” The woman who’d spoken before stepped forward. She was older, maybe fifty, with iron–gray hair and eyes that held no mercy whatsoever.

“I don’t-” My voice came out hoarse. “I don’t know what you want. I haven’t done anything-”

“LIAR!”

The word exploded from her with enough force to make me flinch. Magic crackled around her hands, dangerous and barely controlled.

“You killed her,” she continued, her voice dropping to something more deadly than shouting. “You and that pathetic excuse for a doctor. You killed Elara’s daughter.”

Elara’s daughter. Bianca.

My stomach dropped to somewhere around my knees.

“I didn’t–it wasn’t-” I stammered, trying to find words that would make this better, that would save me from whatever these women had planned.

“Don’t lie to us.” Another woman stepped forward, younger, with dark hair and a face that could have been beautiful if it wasn’t twisted with hatred. “We’ve been tracking Elara’s bloodline for years. Searching for her daughter. We finally found her in Silver Moon territory, and before we could make contact, before we could bring her to us, she died.”

“Cremated,” the older woman added with bitter fury. “Nothing left. No body to retrieve, no essence to harvest, no way to complete what we’ve been working toward for a decade.”

They’d been looking for Bianca. Planning to kidnap her, maybe, or worse. And I’d accidentally killed their target before they could get to her.

Which meant these weren’t good people. Weren’t trying to protect Bianca or avenge her.

They were angry because I’d stolen their victim.

“So we decided,” the older woman continued, circling me like a predator, “to focus our anger on those responsible. The doctor who performed the ritual. And you. The woman who orchestrated it.”

“Dr. Hartwick-“I started.

“Is dead,” she finished coldly. “Cursed three days ago. He died screaming, if you’re curious. Begging for mercy we had no intention of giving.”

They’d killed him. Murdered him with curse work, and now they were going to do the same to me.

“Please,” I heard myself beg, desperation overriding pride. “Please, I didn’t mean—I didn’t know-

“We don’t care about your intentions.” The younger woman moved closer, and I saw something glinting in her hand. A knife.

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We care about results. About the years of planning you destroyed. About the power we lost when you killed our prize.

“You’ll stay here,” the older woman said, her voice clinical now, detached. “Until your Alpha realizes you’re missing. Until he starts searching. And when he finally tracks you down, he’ll find your body delivered to his office. Gift–wrapped. A message about what happens when you interfere with our work.”

Terror flooded through me so completely I couldn’t breathe. They were going to torture me. Kill me. Use my death to send a message to Matthew.

Think, I commanded myself desperately. Think of something. Anything.

And then it hit me–a terrible, desperate idea that might be my only chance at survival.

“Wait!” The word came out too loud, too sharp. “Wait, please, just listen. You’re right, Bianca is dead. Gone. But–but her bloodline isn’t.”

The older woman paused, her eyes narrowing. “Explain.”

“She had a son.” The words tumbled out rapidly, fueled by panic and self–preservation. “Theo Morrison. Four years old. He shares her DNA, her magical signature. If you needed her bloodline for whatever you were planning, her son would work just as well, wouldn’t he?”

The women exchanged glances, and I saw calculation replace some of the rage in their expressions.

“A child,” one of them murmured. “The bloodline would be purer in a child. Easier to manipulate.”

“He’s protected,” another pointed out. “The Alpha’s son. Guards, security, pack bonds. Kidnapping him would be-”

“I can get him,” I interrupted, desperation making me reckless. “I’m close to Matthew, to his family. I have access. I can–I can bring Theo to you. No guards, no security. Just give me time.”

The older woman studied me with eyes that saw too much. “Why would you do that? Betray the child of the woman you killed?”

Because I wanted to live. Because survival mattered more than guilt or morality or whatever shred of conscience I might have once possessed.

“Because I don’t want to die,” I said honestly. “And because–because Theo is part of why Bianca’s dead anyway. If she hadn’t had him, if Matthew hadn’t been tied to her through their son, none of this would have happened. So why shouldn’t he pay the price?”

The logic was twisted, sick, the kind of reasoning that turned my stomach even as I spoke it. But it was working. I could see them considering it, weighing the options.

“Three months,” the older woman finally said. “You have three months to deliver the boy to us. Unharmed, with his magical signature intact.”

“Three months,” I repeated, my mind already racing. “But how do I–where do I-”

“We’ll contact you with instructions.” The younger woman pulled out a phone–my phone, I realized—and did something to it. “We’ve installed a tracking app. We’ll know where you are at all times. If you try to run, if you try to warn anyone, if you fail to deliver the child…” She let the threat hang.

“I understand,” I whispered.

“Do you?” The older woman leaned close, close enough that I could smell something acrid and wrong on her breath. “Because if you fail, if you betray us, what we did to Dr. Hartwick will seem merciful compared to what we’ll do to you. We’ll make your death last weeks. Make you beg for an end that won’t come. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.” The word was barely audible.

“Good.” She straightened, and with a wave of her hand, the ropes binding me fell away. “Three months. Starting now. Don’t

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disappoint us, Mia. You won’t survive it.”

They left–simply vanished in a shimmer of magic that suggested teleportation or portal work–leaving me alone in the abandoned warehouse, soaked and shaking and alive.

I sat there for a long moment, trying to process what had just happened, what I’d just agreed to do.

Kidnap Theo. Deliver a four–year–old child to a coven of dark witches who wanted to use his bloodline for gods knew what

purpose.

It was monstrous. Unthinkable. The kind of thing that would destroy any remaining shred of humanity I might have claimed.

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