by Lucia Ashta
“No need,” I said. “I already did.”
All heads swiveled back to me. Mulunu studied me, apparently with admiration—the witch was strange; nothing new there.
“Y-you killed Naomi Nettles?” Irving’s eyes were round, his forehead scrunched into lines.
“I did,” I said, injecting strength into the admission. I didn’t regret having done it, not when it was the only way for Quinn and I to survive.
“I see time on land has been as good for you as I’d hoped,” Mulunu said, and I clenched my jaw at the sudden anger that flared inside me.
I narrowed my eyes at her and glared. If I said what I was thinking, it wouldn’t end well, and things were bad enough as it was without pissing off our most powerful, albeit reluctant, ally.
“You sending her to land has almost gotten her killed!” Liana yelled—my reliable best friend. She seethed. “She’s almost been killed more than once by the sound of things.”
“Lots of times,” I added helpfully.
“See!” Liana said. “That’s all because of you.”
“No, that’s because of the destructive power of her magic.”
Liana’s pretty mouth settled into furious lines. She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at our frightening leader. At least one thing would never change: Liana had my back, no matter what.
Mulunu, however, seemed unperturbed by our accusations. “If Naomi’s house is nearby, and she’s dead, then our plan changes. Every witch worth her weight has magical objects that serve as backup energy sources. In case of emergency, they can draw on them. If she died unexpectedly, then those reserves should still be there. I can pull on them instead of on the others to shield Quinn and you. That’s better. I wasn’t sure Irving and Brogan would be able to survive how much I’d need to pull from them, especially Irving.”
We all gawked at her, save Trina, who seemed more skittish even than before, overwhelmed by the analytical killer sea witch among us, I figured.
“You said…” Irving stuttered.
“I know what I said,” Mulunu snapped. “I said what I had to in order to secure the most important goals. Just as you lied to me to secure Quinn’s life, when you really shouldn’t have. We wouldn’t be in this heap of a mess if you’d just done what you promised to do.”
Irving opened his mouth, his thick beard shaking, pronouncing the rage that vibrated through his entire body. But he didn’t manage to say anything before Quinn groaned loudly and mumbled unintelligibly.
As one, we all moved to his side; I scooted across the ground to get there. Even Mulunu and Trina towered over us, peering down at him, waiting.
He groaned again and slowly opened his eyes.
“Holy shit!” He retreated across the grass until he bumped into my shin.
I jumped back like he was contagious, only it was me I was worried about. I was the one who seemed to hurt him every time we touched. It was my magic that had sent him spasming into convulsions, and my magic once more that had pulled him into unconsciousness for what felt like hours.
No matter what Mulunu said about Quinn’s magic, mine was the only power that had caused any problems. I was destructive and dangerous.
My fusion magic was what might end up getting us all killed.
And though it pained me as if I were ripping my heart from my chest with my bare hands, I forced myself to step back until Quinn could no longer peer up at me through the circle of people that surrounded him.
I’d hurt him badly enough to nearly kill him twice already. There wouldn’t be a third time. I wouldn’t allow it. I couldn’t.
When Quinn called out for me, pain in his voice at my withdrawal, I hardened my heart against my desperate, agonizing desire to go to him and wrap him in my arms. No matter how much I wanted to press his lips and body to mine, to stare into his eyes until I convinced myself he was well, I wouldn’t.
Quinn had told me he didn’t think he could survive without me. Well, I understood with complete certainty, it was the same with me. I wasn’t sure I could live on without him anymore. My magic was inextricably linked with his. Why? I still didn’t understand, but that didn’t change the fact.
All I knew was that I needed him like I needed to draw breath, and the only way to have him was not to touch him. It’d break my effing heart, but it was how it had to be.
When Quinn called for me again, I retreated another step, and swallowed the sob filtering up my chest, threatening to cleave me in two.
13
“Selene!”
Quinn’s agonized call wrenched at my insides, worse than the effort of delivering all of them from Lizbeth’s fortress to here. It was as if he understood what my slight physical distancing meant, and he was already mourning the loss of the connection we shared. Now we wouldn’t get the chance to explore it, to figure out what drew us together so strongly and so completely.
“Selene!” he shouted again, his voice hoarse, my name cracking in a perfect reflection of my heart.
As I sat there, staring through the line of our companions to him, the sob I’d been striving to restrain broke free. I folded over to make myself as small as possible, wrapping my arms around my legs tightly. The tears came swiftly and powerfully. Like a torrent tearing through me, I mourned as much as Quinn, his own cries morphing into sobs, as if my distancing were breaking him in half.
“What the hell is going on?” Brogan asked.
“They’re acting like babies is what’s going on,” Mulunu said, and I snapped my head up to glare at her through the blur of my tears.
I imbued all of my pain and anger into my stare. “If you think that, then you have no idea what it feels like.”
“What what feels like?” Liana asked, swiveling to look between Quinn and me. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“Selene is being melodramatic,” Mulunu said. “By moving back from Quinn, she’s telling him they can’t be together. Obviously they can’t be together. Their power is too destructive individually. Together it’s even worse.”
“I am not being melodramatic,” I snapped, realizing I sounded like a petulant child but not caring. She had no idea what it felt like! She couldn’t, or there was no way she’d be this uncaring toward us. Separating from Quinn felt like gnawing off one of my limbs with my own teeth.
Mulunu stalked right up to me, slammed her staff angrily on the ground next to me, and stood there, towering, until I looked up at her.
“You two cannot be together. There is no way it will work out well, unless you plan on going out like shooting stars and burning up together. That is almost guaranteed to happen if you attempt to connect again—in any way.” She looked at me meaningfully, but her message was already clear. We couldn’t make love, but even worse than that, we couldn’t be together at all. Even companionship was dangerous.
How could life be so cruel as to bring us together and forge this intense bond between us, only to make it impossible for us to act on it?
A sob shook through me, rattling my entire body, and I winced, angry that Mulunu watched as I broke. I wished I were strong enough to accept the fact that Quinn and I couldn’t be together with detachment, but there was nothing neutral about what I felt toward Quinn.
“Selene, no. Don’t listen to anything she says,” Quinn implored. “We have to be together. We’re meant to be together. It has to be that way.”
I didn’t say anything. I ducked my head back between my knees. What he said felt right. Every part of me beyond my rational mind wholeheartedly agreed with him.
“You feel it too,” Quinn continued. “You know what I’m saying is true.”
A wail circled the grassy knoll, and it took me a moment to register that it originated with me.
“Oh come on already,” Mulunu huffed. “We don’t have time for this nonsense.”
Even from my place of grief, I understood how from the outside our reactions might seem extreme and exaggerated, but from the inside our reactions actually seemed minimi
zed. If Quinn was feeling half of what I was, then it hurt more than the attack of a hundred of Dimorelli’s goblins.
“Selene,” Quinn sobbed, beginning to drag himself along the ground toward me. I stared at his approach, commanding myself to move, to run away, to put as much distance between us as possible, but my traitorous body wouldn’t move an inch.
My cries ceased as I stared at him. Appearing exhausted, drained, and weak, he dragged himself to within arm’s reach. And when he extended his arm toward me, I froze, unable to do anything but wait, breath hitched, anticipating the touch that would expel the pain … and possibly deliver our instantaneous death.
Mulunu slammed her staff on the grass next to us so hard that it sank half a foot into the ground. “Enough already.” She bent low and grabbed Quinn by the collar of his shirt, holding him in place. “Unless you two want to kill each other right here, right now, and save us all a boatload of trouble, then we have to move. And now.”
When neither Quinn nor I answered, she pressed: “Your enemies won’t be giving up while you’re here flailing on the ground, whining. They’ll be directing their tracking spells right at you. They might have already pinpointed your location while you wasted our time.”
Her warning snapped me back to myself. I nodded rapidly, noticing that the vertigo was finally gone, and rose to my knees. Once I was certain I wouldn’t fall, I stood; chagrin swept over me that so many had witnessed my reaction.
Quinn, however, didn’t seem embarrassed in the least. His eyes refused to leave mine as he silently broadcast his plea. Of course I wanted nothing more than to give in to his request that we continue building our connection, but with a shaky sigh of wobbly determination, I tore my gaze away from him and toward Mulunu, the witch who’d done so much to ruin my life in the guise of helping it.
“Good,” she said when she noticed my attention.
But I couldn’t maintain it. When loss bubbled up through Quinn’s chest, I snapped my stare back at him, and the sea witch sighed unpleasantly.
“Can you at least run without looking at the boy?” Mulunu asked.
“Of course I can run,” I spat out before even thinking. Of course. I felt like a stiff breeze might blow me over, but after the witch had witnessed me breaking, I wasn’t about to admit to any more weakness.
“I don’t think Quinn can run,” Irving said. His commiseration for our circumstances bled into his voice, and I was thankful that he at least attributed importance to the emotional link Quinn and I shared. He’d been there to observe its beginnings and knew we hadn’t gone looking for it. The bond had come to us on its own, as if it had its own kind of magic.
“Brogan, can you carry him?” Irving asked, but Quinn was already gathering his feet beneath him and pushing to standing. The instant he was upright, his hand shot out to grab Brogan’s shoulder; he leaned most of his weight into the shifter as he wobbled.
Brogan gave Quinn a long look. “It will be much easier to carry him in my bear form.”
Without delay, the two men swapped places. Once Quinn was leaning on Irving, who appeared moments away from crumpling under his weight, Brogan whipped his clothing off and tossed it to Liana.
My best friend grabbed the clothes from the air with a surprised squeak, her gaze pinned on the naked specimen before us. I too stared, mostly because I was curious about his shift. I’d only seen shifts three times, and Quinn’s shift had been remarkably different from the shifts of the werewolves at the academy.
Brogan was all muscled planes and handsome man, but I did my best to watch out of my desire to learn. Liana … not so much. Her bright tawny eyes heated as she took in the shifter, whose body began distorting almost immediately.
Unlike the werewolves at the academy, and more like Quinn, snapping and crackling preceded the distortion of Brogan’s physical form. Once he fell to his hands and knees, his body twisted and contorted in a hundred different ways at once. In less time than seemed possible, a massive polar bear chuffed and padded over to Quinn, bending his head, signaling that Quinn should lie across his back.
“Uh,” Quinn started, checking with Irving, brows raised. “I just hop on?”
“Yea, lad. Brogan is doing us a favor by allowing it. Shifters aren’t overly fond of having riders.”
Brogan huffed and stomped one of his front paws.
“He’s right,” Mulunu said, as if she spoke polar bear. “We’ve wasted enough time.” Glaring at both Quinn and me in turn, her face softened as she took in Trina.
“Will you be able to follow all right?” she asked.
Trina nodded, and though she appeared as beaten as before, I wasn’t surprised. She possessed the wildness of beasts, along with their sense of self-preservation. She’d find a way to trail us.
Irving and Liana helped slide Quinn onto Brogan’s back, but I suspected Liana offered her help so willingly because she wanted to touch Brogan’s rich, thick, white fur. I caught her running her hands along his back a few times when it wasn’t necessary.
“Lead the way,” Mulunu said, prodding me into motion with her staff—she feared touching me, obviously.
Without being sure I remembered the exact way to Naomi’s house, I set off at a tentative run. Once I was certain I could actually run without collapsing, I picked up the pace, thankful once more that my angel magic seemed to have enhanced not only my coordination but also my strength.
After a few glances over my shoulder to confirm they all followed, I focused on the path ahead, and reached for my magic to tune into the right direction. I didn’t think I could count on Quinn to guide us, but certainly I should be able to find the way. Pushing away the beating footfalls behind me, I zoned into the feeling of being at Naomi’s house. Regrettably, that also meant I had to tap into the panic I’d experienced when she attacked us, but I drew on those fearful memories to forge an energetic line between me and their origins.
Come on, magic. Help me out here.
On cue, my magic leapt to respond to my call, almost eagerly. I had no idea how the incompatible elements worked together within me, but there could be no doubting that they worked. The result wasn’t always smooth, but more and more often my magic was delivering real results—and real danger too.
As if Naomi’s house were pulling me to it like a sweeping current, I simply followed the flow. Settling into a steady stride, I ran as fast as I could toward the house I’d hoped never to visit again. My worried thoughts blessedly eluded me while I focused on my stride, and before I knew it we’d arrived.
Only slightly winded considering the length of our run, I stopped and waited while the others pulled up behind me.
Liana bent over at the waist, panting. “Holy starfish, S. What the … what the hell? Where’d you learn to run like … that? By Neptune.” She collapsed onto the grass beside me, flopping her legs out in front of her.
Mulunu breezed past her, her calf-long hair covering most of her back. “Get up, Liana. Something bad is coming, and we don’t want to be caught scratching our asses when they get here.”
Liana’s eyes widened to sand-dollar size. I was sure mine did too. There was so much we could say about that, but Liana only asked, “How is she not out of breath? She’s older than the ocean!”
I didn’t think Mulunu had heard her until she called over her shoulder without turning. “When will you children learn? Our bodies are only limited by our beliefs.” She climbed the steps that Quinn had serenaded me from before we’d fallen asleep, cradled in each other’s arms, and stopped short of the back door to Naomi’s house. It still gaped wide open, just as we’d left it.
“What is it? Do ya sense something?” Irving asked her while he helped Quinn release the death grip he had on Brogan’s fur and dismount. Quinn promptly slid to the ground right next to the gigantic bear.
“We took too long,” Mulunu whispered, before raising her voice. “We wasted time we didn’t have to spare.” She whipped around, her long hair whipping around with her, its seashells clin
king together aggressively. When she beamed her frustration at Quinn and me, Liana stood up and stepped in front of us.
“Selene moved all of us across the land in a way that shouldn’t have been possible. And Quinn was nearly dead. So back off, Mulunu.”
“Or what?”
Liana didn’t even hesitate. “Or you’ll have me to deal with.”
Mulunu arched her peppered brows at that. “We have much more worrisome things to deal with than you. And we have to deal with them now. Get inside.”
When all of us, even Trina, leaned forward in an attempt to peer into the creepy dead witch’s house behind her, she roared, “Move!”
“Naomi had protective spells in place before,” I protested nervously, remembering how Quinn had become lodged in one of her spells in the doorway.
“I can recover from the type of spell Naomi is likely to have in place. I’m not so sure any of us will get over what’s chasing us.”
Sick of the lack of answers, I walked toward her while asking, “What is chasing us, Mulunu? Will you just tell us already?”
“No time. Hurry!” Frantically, she waved us all inside, but Trina tried to enter Naomi’s house and became lodged in what appeared to be the same exact spell that had caught Quinn. She buzzed as if electrified, caught in the middle of the threshold as if trapped in a giant spider’s web. She struggled to maintain her defensive, hunched-over posture, but Naomi’s magic pulled at her naked limbs so as to press them fully against her snare.
We piled up behind her, alternating looking at Trina and whatever might appear behind us at any moment.
“Too late,” Mulunu whispered, stalking past us again, descending the stairs and spreading her arms out to either side before digging her staff into the earth. I guessed she meant to draw on the power of the earth to augment her own depleted power.
“What about Trina?” I asked. “You can’t just leave her stuck in Naomi’s spell!”
But Mulunu didn’t even turn. “We have bigger problems now, Selene. I need you up here with me,” she said while Liana reached for me, shaking her head.