“Close your eyes,” Carrigan whispers, trilling his fingers over the outline of my face. He waits until my world goes dark before humming my name a few times. The sound of his voice soothes me to the point that my tears aren’t angry anymore, but dry with a note of giving in to the sweetness Cary always seems to have on tap. I don’t know how he’s managed to get this far in life unscathed by the bitterness the world impresses upon a person. His gentleness makes him a rare gem in a sea of the mundane. I cannot believe my good fortune in stumbling upon such a treasure of a man.
“I don’t want you to see me like this. It’s humiliating,” I admit. He deserves someone spectacular, not a girl who fights with invisible forces to the point of puking.
Of all things, Cary chuckles. “You’ve seen me next to the toilet, so I guess we’re even now. I don’t need the best version of you at all times, Sophie Mae. I want you as you are.” He pauses, and I can tell by the slow way he proceeds that he’s weighing out his words. “You told me to leave.”
“Can you blame me?”
He winds one of my curls around his finger. “No, but I can want more of you than the cleaned-up version. I wonder if this is how Jonas felt every time I locked him out when I wasn’t well. Remind me to apologize to him.”
Mother screams in a sudden cry to move, and my stomach lurches. I struggle to get out of Cary’s arms so I don’t accidentally splatter him with sick. “Now. We have to go now. She’s going to hurt you.”
“You’re white as a sheet. Give it a few minutes.”
“No time.” I don’t like that I have to lean on him when I finally stand, but I’m so dizzy I can barely think in a straight line, much less walk in one. Lucky for me, Carrigan doesn’t mind. With one arm around my shoulders, his other arm crosses his body, offering his hand to steady my steps.
When we make it back to the clearing, Valor shuffles to my other side, holding my elbow with concern tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Water. Water and ginger. Do you have ginger in your herbal bag?”
My heart flutters at the sweetness. “I do.”
Jonas’ voice cracks into our midst without polish. “So, which is it—deadly disease or is she knocked up?”
Carrigan ignores his friend, but Valor’s glare is biting. Only Jonas can make the ashamed and repentant vampire break out of his funk for a fight. “Enough. Is this the first woman you’ve ever met? You can see she’s barely upright. Come, young one. Let’s sit you closer to the fire.”
“We have to go,” I insist, leaving the more detailed explanation for Cary to deliver while I rinse out my mouth and chew on some raw ginger from my bag to settle my stomach and clear away the puke taste. I’m packed and ready to go, with Hagan’s discarded shirt stashed in my bag. I reach for his pack to bring it with us, but Carrigan beats me to it. Valor wrests my bag from my shoulder, and it’s then I realize I’m not alone in my constant battles with Mother anymore. They understand me enough to have my back when I’m too prideful to ask for help.
Mother is angry now. Every step that I don’t take away from the clearing is one she’s going to make me regret.
I open my mouth to tell the guys to hurry up, but the rustling in the trees turns my head. It’s not Hagan coming back, but a harsh wind that moves through the branches like a prowler on a mission. The air over my head is still, but in the not-too-far distance it sounds like a well-aimed tornado is whipping towards us.
“Everybody down!” Valor shouts, and before I can brace myself, he’s tackling me to the ground. His suspender clips cut into my hip, but I count the whole thing a success because I manage not to puke on him. The nearly dowsed sickness roars anew, and a shiver rolls through me that starts in my belly.
Mother is worried now. She knew this was coming. This was the thing she was trying to get me to escape, but I didn’t move fast enough.
“What is this?” I hear Jonas shout. He’s kissing the ground next to Carrigan, whose eyes are locked on mine. He’s not nearly as territorial as Hagan, but he’s sensitive, aching when I’m hurt and feeling the gap when we’re apart. The wind whips a few feet above us, picking up the edges of our shirts as we cling to the ground and pretend we’re not here. We’re in a high-stakes game of hide-and-go-seek with the wind that feels as if it’s intentionally seeking us out.
When Valor doesn’t answer Jonas, I dig my nails into his biceps. “Baby doll, what is it?”
He lifts his chin up and sniffs the air like a hound. “It’s Elowen. She knows we’re here.”
Chapter Six
Sophie
Hagan’s howl tells me he’s experiencing the blast of wind, too. My heart lurches when he crashes into the clearing, shirtless with jeans unbuttoned and boots unlaced. “Sophie!” he shouts, making my heart stutter.
“Hagan, get down!” I call, but I’m not sure he can hear me over the violent whistling that whips at his face. I can tell by the purposeful cracking of branches funneled in a narrow pathway that the wind is more forceful and direct than an average blustry day. But when it nears us, it loses its control like a poorly-pitched baseball. It dawns on me that this is magic at work, which runs into a tailspin when it gets close enough for me to mute it.
Valor swears, his eyes closing as if resigning himself to his fate. “Forgive me.” He buries his nose in my cheek, gripping my hip to let me know that he doesn’t want to do whatever it is he’s about to when he pulls away from me.
Valor sits up to let Hagan cover me with his burly form. Our vampire always looks dapper, but now he seems more classic haunting creature of the night when he stands and walks away, announcing to the wind that he’s here. He moves too many yards away for my magic-muting to be effective, but not so far that he’s completely out of our sight. He holds out his arms in a mix of welcome and defiance, his chin raised as the air smacks his face. “Yes, you can see it’s me, Ellie. You’ve no reason to send out your feelers like this.”
The wind seems to answer back by dying down so that the whistling stops. It kisses Valor’s face in a caress that makes his eyes close. I can’t tell if he’s in pain or at peace by the twist in his expression. He looks ethereal in his beauty, and entirely otherworldly.
My breath is shallow from all the puking, my body exhausted. Still, I burn to stand with Valor, wrap my arms around him and make sure he’s alright. When I try to get out from under Hagan, my effort is marred with embarrassing ease. “Stay down, honeycomb. I’ve got no idea what’s going on.”
Valor sees my movement and gives me a small shake of his head, warning me to lie low. “I’ll take care of this, young one. Trust me to protect you.”
As if in response to Valor being sweet to me, a branch breaks off from a tree overhead with a purposeful crack that makes me startle beneath Hagan’s weight. I’ve not dealt with mages before. I’ve never seen one use their power. I blink with horror when the branch as thick as my thigh flings not toward the ground, but to the back of Valor’s head, slamming into him so hard, he’s knocked forward onto all fours.
A laugh burbles from his mouth before he collapses, a wicked smile on his lips. “Still unsatisfied without me, are you? Haven’t found anyone who makes you sing the way I can? I must say, I’m unsurprised.”
I cast around, knowing Elowen can’t be too near, otherwise her magic would be muted entirely. Still, I feel the presence Valor goads on. He’s laughing in the face of his jilted lover.
Then it dawns on me when Valor stands, his chest puffed with a cockiness he hasn’t worn in at least a week, that that’s exactly what I’m seeing. He was Elowen’s lover, and she’s pissed he’s come back standing instead of crawling.
“If you’re not going to come out, then I’ll go to you. Prepare yourself, Elowen. I got this far into your domain without your knowledge. You’re slipping without me around to keep you young.” A second branch cracks, and my heart can’t take it. Another blow, this time to his ribcage, and my entire being is screaming how very wrong this all is. I don’t have it in me to watch a man get
beaten for daring to stand.
Somehow I manage to wriggle out from underneath Hagan. My unsteady feet scramble over to Valor, who holds his side, his face scrunched in a silent scream. My arms are shaking but they find their way around him. I tense when the wind picks back up to a rampant roar, this time angry, almost indignant. My body braces against the wind in hopes of shielding Valor long enough for him to catch his breath. The magic around me is turned on its head. It whips through the trees, but can’t beat on Valor anymore. The wind we’re getting is tornado run-off, which is no small inconvenience.
I lower Valor to a supine position, ignoring Hagan’s growls when I cover my vampire with my body. I’m smaller than him, but I do what I can to make sure Valor has a chance. I don’t want him to think he has to face off against Elowen on his own, but that’s exactly what flashes in his eyes as he winces.
He gasps when the wind whistles, whipping at my shirt and hair with a ferocity that grinds my teeth. He reaches his hand up to cup the side of my face. “You shouldn’t have done that, young one. Now she knows.”
“What?” I shout, though Valor’s only a few inches from my face. “What does Elowen know?”
Valor holds my gaze, not breaking it when Hagan crawls over to us, tipping me to the side so my shoulder hits the grass. “She knows I’ve found someone.”
Hagan isn’t capable of sitting back and watching me get pelted by the wind. He covers us both with his larger body, but I can’t tear my gaze away from the intensity burning in Valor’s eyes when he turns his head to the side to tell me too many things without opening his mouth to speak them into the world.
As if sensing the threat of… me in the air, the wind climbs higher so it can more fully control its reach. Apparently my deformity has height limits, because she has no trouble shaking the trees above us when she gets three stories up. The wind lets loose on one of the branches hanging over our heads. “Hagan! Hagan, watch out!” I shout, but Hagan holds his ground. Carrigan calls out a panicked warning, but there’s not enough time to move.
The branches—some thick as tree trunks—don’t fall to the ground, but pelt themselves at Hagan’s back one by one as they’re cracked from the trees and aimed at our living, breathing shield.
Hagan grips the ground on either side of Valor and me, his teeth grinding at the beating the forest doles out. I scream while Valor shouts at the air, commanding Elowen to stop. Tears stream down my face; I’m horrified that Hagan’s affection for me might get him killed. The whole thing is made even worse when Hagan takes in my distress and pauses his pain to kiss my cheek. “It’s alright, honeycomb. I’ll take care of you.”
It’s the best and worst thing he could’ve said, and I love him for every word.
Chapter Seven
Sophie
Hagan’s body jolts with every beating meant for Valor, but he doesn’t make a sound. He absorbs the punishment, his eyes locking in on mine with a silent plea that I don’t need words to decipher. I love you, he promises. He is determined to shield us—me, the woman he cares for, and Valor, the lost soul I’ve collected along the way.
Hagan’s eyes seem to see something in his mind replaying, as if the beating from Elowen brings back some memory that haunts him. His eyes go dead and stony, and I worry that he’s going somewhere that hurts him far worse than heavy limbs banging him across his thick back.
Though he’s currently saving me, I have the need to save him from whatever memory has him captive. It keeps him from crying out, from feeling anything at all. My hand reaches up and presses to his chest, and just like that, Hagan’s eyes come to life and snap to mine. Hurt floods his face, but so does determination and a ferocious protectiveness that assures me nothing will take him from me—not even that haunted look.
“I love you, Hagan.” I’ve never spoken the words to anyone except for my father, but in this moment, I can’t contain them.
His chest swells in time with the worry that rises up in me. I’m concerned that I can feel something so powerful in such a short time.
So caught up in Hagan’s eyes am I that I only just notice movement to my left. Jonas runs from us to stand a room’s length away. At first, I think he’s ditching us to save his own neck, but when he turns, I see he’s trying to move outside my magic-muting range. His eyes are stormy and his hands are raised in defiance of all the chaos that’s reigning down on us. He looks like he’s conducting the wind, but I know that’s not possible. Psychics are divided into two groups: those that can hear conversations when they focus their abilities, and those who can perform feats of telekinesis—things like moving a pen across a table without touching it. It’s a hard and fast rule of the universe that a psychic is born with telepathy or telekinesis—never do they have both.
My mind clings to this truth as it crumbles to pieces before my very eyes.
Jonas’ full lips are pulled back in a growl, his hands aimed at the space above our trio with such ferocity in his features, I half-expect lightning to spontaneously shoot out from his palms, if such a thing were possible. I can’t imagine Jonas is a terribly powerful psychic, formidable enough to go up against Elowen’s magic, but the determination on his face makes me question that verdict.
My chin angles toward the trees above that are shedding their branches, handing them over as weapons for Elowen to use. I can feel Mother’s indignation at this gratuitous use of nature. I want her to do something about it, but instead she lets Hagan shield me so she doesn’t have to do any of the heavy lifting. I want to help Hagan but I’m trapped, watching him take blow after blow.
When Jonas cries out in something that sounds like triumph mixed with pain, I tear my eyes from Hagan’s barely-controlled agony. I follow Jonas’ gaze, screaming when the tree to our left cracks in half. The wind pushes it in our direction, and I know we’re goners. Even if Hagan wanted to get up and try to make a run for it, that ship has sailed. He sags against us, squashing the oxygen from my lungs in a gust of defeat. No part of me wants Hagan to sacrifice himself like this, but I’m powerless to stop it all.
Jonas, however, wears an expression that makes it clear he isn’t accustomed to surrender. It must be the one upside of being a stubborn ass.
The tree teeters and starts to fall, but it catches midair, as if some invisible force has hold of it. I marvel at the oddity in shock, wondering if not being able to take in a full breath is starting to mess with my lucidity. I know Elowen isn’t all of a sudden growing a heart. The wind is livid that some telekinetic psychic is messing with her mojo, and shrieks indignantly through the branches high above us.
Only there aren’t any telekinetic psychics in the mix. There’s only Carrigan and Jonas, who are telepaths.
“No!” Jonas takes a step toward us, and I know he’s now too close to me to access his magic. But the tree remains still, and his arms are outstretched as if his power is holding it static in the air. Anger flashes in his eyes and courses through his clenched jaw. It looks almost painful as he clings to his power. Ferocity shakes his cheeks with a tremble that scares me, though I don’t understand it. I don’t understand any of it. When the tree is pushed backwards with a hard shove that Jonas mimes, my mouth falls open. Jonas—it has to be Jonas—sends the oak careening into its buddies behind it, using magic he couldn’t possibly have, around a person he certainly can’t do magic near. The whole thing makes no sense.
Oddest of all is Carrigan, who shouts his best friend’s name in warning. He doesn’t seem afraid that Jonas will be hit by the errant branches, but that Jonas himself is somehow the danger. Cary attempts to rein him in, and I start to realize I know absolutely nothing about Jonas.
The wind seems just as shocked as I am at someone messing with its toys. The hard whip sensation dies down from above, and finally the mess of the clearing holds nothing more than a pleasant nighttime breeze that mocks us with how innocuous it is, as if rolling its eyes to ask what all the fuss was about. It tickles our skin with tiny fingers, and I exhale with relief that
Elowen has moved on from tormenting us. She moved on because of Jonas. Because he saved us with magic he shouldn’t have.
I manage to slide out from under Hagan and sit up, gaping up at Jonas while Valor and I try to clear the bramble off of my beloved shifter with trembling arms. “How did you do that?” I manage to ask, holding back none of the fear in my voice.
Jonas is shaking, looking at his hands as if checking to make sure they are still attached. “Shut up, witch. I didn’t do anything. It was Elowen, is all. She must’ve lost hold of the wind or something when her magic got too close to you.”
I open my mouth to argue but Carrigan catches my eye and shakes his head to warn me not to dig deeper.
Dread coats my insides when I realize that whatever is going on with Jonas, Cary knows the details. It’s worrisome enough that he wants to keep me far away from the truth.
I have no idea what sort of mess I’ve landed myself in, but as I help clean Hagan off, I feel Mother warn me that the anger in the wind is only a taste of the chaos to come.
Chapter Eight
Carrigan
“Cut the bullshit, Jonas!” Sophie Mae shouts. I try to sneak her a look that tells her not to ask about it, but really, who am I to ask her to ignore the obvious?
Jonas is shaking but his eyes are cold, so the trembling drops to the bottom of the list of things to focus on. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I saw the same thing you did, and I can’t explain it either.”
“I watched you use telekinesis to stop the tree from crushing us!”
Man, I love watching her get fired up. She’s so passionate, like this angry little pixie demanding the truth.
Savage Possessed: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy Adventure (Twin Rivers Possession Book 2) Page 4