When Cary kisses Sophie after her shirt goes over her head, he tears his eyes from me, but I still burn with whatever that look was supposed to mean. I don’t want to know, because it’s got nothing to do with me. She helps Cary stay off his pills, so she has to stick around. Fine.
Valor whaps me upside the head, his voice low so Cary and Sophie don’t hear it over their slow makeout. “If you want to join them, you can always just ask,” he teases.
My upper lip curls in disgust. I want to shove him, but he’s already too far away. Stupid vampire. “I’ll pass. I just want to get to Elowen, see what she can do, and go back to normal life.” Only Sophie is going to be everywhere I turn because she, Cary and Hagan are a package deal now. If anything, I should stay far away from her, since she mutes magic.
I clench my fists a few times, trying to push the worry from my mind. It’s a good thing that my magic is stronger than hers, and that I can still protect Cary if I need to even if she’s around. I’m not gonna lie, though. It’s unsettling to break through a barrier like hers. No one except for Cary has any idea what I can do. Everyone assumes a psychic can only be telepathic or telekinetic. They don’t know being both is possible because they don’t push themselves. They assume the rules are what they are. No one makes a point of breaking them. That’s why they never see me coming. Magic isn’t all that different from running a business, in that respect.
I get out of my sleeping bag after my dick decides to stop being a traitor and finally goes back to sleep. I miss my suits, but jeans are fine. My clothes stink like campfire when I pull them on. “How much longer until we find Elowen, Vamp?”
Valor retrieves apples from his backpack for everyone and hands them around, once Sophie and Cary join the rest of us. We’re circled around the dormant firepit, crunching into the fruit while Valor weighs out my question. “Elowen knows I’m here, so it’s anyone’s guess. We were a day out, but she may’ve moved.”
“So we have no idea what we’re doing or where we’re going? Super.”
Cary ignores my attitude, but Sophie frowns in my direction. She’s wearing jeans and the lavender V-neck t-shirt I saw her in yesterday. It’s obvious she’s a Double-D. Not that I care.
Valor keeps a steady tone. “We’ll go to her cave and I’ll summon her as planned. If she hasn’t struck out again, there’s a reason. Maybe she wants me to find her. Can’t disappoint the great mage, can I?” He scratches at the chain around his neck, touching the keys out of habit, which I’ve seen him do when he’s worried. I’m very good at poker, so I’m a champ at reading people, even though I really don’t have to, since I can just listen to their thoughts. Still, it’s helpful during videoconferences. And I can only hear one person’s thoughts at a time, so I’ve learned to study nervous ticks. Valor’s are going off like fireworks as he thinks aloud, airing his veiled anxiety to us. “It’ll be fine. So she saw me with Sophie. Clearly my young one’s still breathing, so Elowen must not be that angry after all.”
Cary shakes his head. “This seems like a bad idea all the way around. If Mother Nature isn’t pushing Sophie Mae further into the woods, then maybe we should head home.” His hand drifts to her stomach, rubbing it in soothing circles. It’s like he’s attached to her body. She moves, he compensates. It’s so fluid, the whole dance they do. Hagan doesn’t always accommodate her movements, but I can see his animal eye always keeping track of where she is. Valor pretends he’s not watching her nerves play out in the way she chews on her lower lip, but he is. I hate their whole stupid arrangement, but I can see that Valor’s itching to be invited in.
Hagan, of all people, shakes his head at Cary’s suggestion. “I’m not having a vampire with no conscience on my hands. We’re going to Elowen to get her to give Valor’s conscience back, if nothing else. Then he can go live his life. And I seriously doubt Mother Nature’s going to just let you go back home without finishing the job. She made you sick, honeycomb.”
Valor’s face falls but he says nothing. I know what he’s thinking, and if Hagan sees it too, he doesn’t say anything. If Valor’s cured, there’s no need for him to stick around Sophie, other than actual… feelings. I do not understand their arrangement. But the way Valor looks at her, as if she’s the only vagina for miles, it makes me pretty sure that even if Elowen does give him back his conscience, Hagan’s going to have to deal with him for years to come. I’ve got a sense about these things, even if I can’t hear his thoughts.
That really chaps me, giving up the use of my magic just because I want to make sure Cary’s not being taken advantage of by yet another witch. I want to get in Sophie’s head and see what her game is, but of course, I can’t, because she’s the eternal buzzkill.
My hands are still tingling, so I shake them out when we start on our trek through the woods. They feel like tuning forks, vibrating without visible movement. It was hard to sleep last night because ever since I broke through the little witch’s barrier and stopped the tree from crushing her, my hands have been ringing intermittently.
Not her. I was saving them from the tree. I only care if she survives because she gives Cary a break from the pain. I’ll put up with anything for him, including her big Bambi eyes and the silence that makes me crazy. It’s obvious she has an opinion about going to search for Elowen, but she’s keeping it to herself. It’s because she’s trying to get me to ask about her reservations, which I won’t do. I don’t need her to try her manipulations on me. I know what the little witch wants. She’s a freeloader who wants to sponge off of Cary and Hagan, who are so blind that they want nothing more than to pay her way through life. It’s quite the arrangement she’s landed for herself. I’ll have a talk with Cary about his portfolio. Need to make sure he can’t sign anything over to her.
The trees are harder to get through, as if the forest doesn’t want us there. Valor seems to know the way, like he’s traveling with some internal compass we’re all supposed to just trust will get us where we need to be. I want to argue, but I know Cary will just pull his shitty diplomatic act and tell me that I should lead the way to Elowen instead. Which, of course, I have no idea how to do.
So I go where Valor leads, trusting a vampire to carry us further into the woods.
Chapter Thirteen
Jonas
I take up the rear on our hike—to call it a walk at this point doesn’t do it justice. The terrain is uphill and uneven. There are boulders we have to climb over and branches we have to cut through just to make it another handful of yards. I don’t like anyone at my back, and I can tell Hagan doesn’t, either. He keeps turning to look for me, constantly vigilant and needing to make sure his little witch is safe from me. Like I’d really try to take away something that’s good for Cary.
Hagan’s eyebrows crease when he follows my eyeline. I didn’t mean to be staring at Sophie. She’s two people in front of me. Where am I supposed to look? Still his territorial hand migrates to the small of her back, his upper lip curling as if he’s caught me in a haze of lust for his girl. Cary’s girl.
As if I don’t have someone to wet my dick. I do. Her name’s Melanie.
It’s two hours before Hagan takes his hand from her, finally judging me not a threat to their ridiculous attempt at a relationship. Cary’s never had a girlfriend before, and I doubt Donkey’s been the type for long-term anything. They have no idea what to do with a woman like Sophie, who’s a wild card with a bucket of secrets.
My hands are killing me by the time we stop for lunch. I go off into the woods to take a piss, and my fingers ache so badly that I’m afraid to touch my dick. I worry my joints will lock up and I’ll accidentally choke my seven inches. I manage the feat, but it’s not without a shot of anxiety that my hands still aren’t calming down.
We sit on a felled tree, taking off our packs while Valor passes around more trail mix, which I’m starting to develop a taste for. I’m used to the hotel food. That’s where I eat most of my meals. It’s why Cary and I are so picky about the services there,
because we use them ourselves. We’ve been through too much shit to compromise on things like thread count and fine dining.
My hands are shaking so bad, I drop a fistful of food we really can’t afford to throw away. Dread crosses my features when I have to reach down and scoop up the bits of nuts and dried fruit, blowing the dirt off it so it’s edible. Barely.
Sophie gets up from her standard position between Hagan and Cary and moves to my end of the felled tree. “Can I see that?” she asks quietly as she sits beside me, glancing at my fistful of dusty food.
She’s two feet from me, but I don’t like her so close. Still, I open my hand to show her the trail mix in hope she’ll soon go away. She smells like lavender, which is ridiculous. She should smell like sweat and campfire and the woods and filthy clothes because she’s worn the same jeans every day I’ve known her and wears that light purple t-shirt like it’s her uniform.
The little witch doesn’t say a word as she scoops the handful of dirty nuts into her palm and replaces them with some fresh trail mix from her bag.
I frown at her. “We really can’t afford to be throwing away food.”
“I know. You just looked unhappy at having to eat dirty trail mix. I don’t mind.” She crunches on the snack, looking ahead instead of at my suspicion. I’ve never seen a woman eat food that’s been freshly polluted. I can’t figure out her angle, and I check the nuts she handed me for weird herbs or something witchy that might tip me off to her game. When she talks, she doesn’t look at me. It’s like she knows I don’t want her around, but for some reason, she needs to be sitting right next to me. “Your hands are going through raptus because you broke your magic, using it how you did to save us. Is it painful yet?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Go mother your boyfriends.”
I see from her wince that my words cut her, and I hate that I want to apologize. I don’t, of course, but the desire to embarrass myself by taking it all back is just as bad. She clears her throat and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. She has two damned boyfriends, but neither of them care that her hair is falling out of its bun and bothering her. Come on, Cary.
She still doesn’t look at me when she speaks, like a show of submission I didn’t ask for and don’t need. It won’t help because I hate her, no matter how selfless she pretends to be. “It’s going to get worse if you don’t let me help you. Your fingers are ringing now, but soon your joints are going to lock down. That’s a lot harder to come back from.”
“I don’t need your help.”
She chews on her lower lip, and I can see responses flickering across her blue eyes. They’re so very blue that I almost forget I hate her. They try to give her away, even if she’s determined to always keep me guessing. “Cary loves you, so no matter how much you don’t like me, I don’t want him to have to see you in pain. It scares him. For Cary’s sake, maybe you’ll consider letting me help you when you can’t use your hands anymore. It’ll hurt more to cure you by that point, and I know Cary won’t be happy with me if I could’ve helped and didn’t.”
I scoff at her weird choice of words. Before I can help myself, I’m being nice, like a chump. Like she’s already got me trained. “You could spit in his face and Cary would still swear you were the best thing that ever happened to him. You don’t need to worry about me, Soph.” I hate the way her name sounds on my tongue.
My use of her name jerks her face around so she’s staring at me, blinking in shock. Now it’s my turn to look straight ahead and pray she doesn’t decipher all that I’m thinking. “Okay,” she replies, and the simple compliance when I know she’s brewing a storm behind those ridiculously blue eyes irks me. Before I can lash out and piss Cary off, she’s up and sitting back between him and Donkey. Hagan tries to trade her dirty trail mix for some of his clean reserves, but she holds it covetously to her heart. “No. You’re not going to eat food that’s been on the ground.”
Hagan’s sigh of frustration falls on deaf ears. Valor entertains the group with stories about when he first learned how to fish, but Sophie’s irritatingly quiet while she munches. I try not to care what she’s doing, but picking out her little sighs or inhales is the only thing that distracts me from the fact that my hands hurt, and it’s only getting worse. My forearms are taut like rubber bands, steadying the subtle shaking as best they can. I know that no good can come from letting a witch help me, so I run through all the reasons I’m glad I told Sophie to beat it.
When we set back to the trek, she keeps angling her chin over her shoulder to check on my hands. She doesn’t say anything more about it, but her creased brow tells me she’s genuinely worried, which causes me no uncertain amount of distress. I’m hyper aware that as the hours pass, my fingers won’t curl without extreme effort. When we stop to set up camp for the night, they’re frozen, and I’m sweating.
Hagan goes off to hunt us up some game, and I sit on the dirt like someone who doesn’t own the most successful hotel chain in the state. I want a shower, my own bed, and a legit doctor. When Cary tosses a golf ball-sized rock to me in a lighthearted game of catch, the rock bounces off my open palm, sending a ricochet through my body that sets my teeth on edge.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Cary says, and I shoot him a deadly look, my eyes narrowed. “You need to let Sophie look at your hands.”
“The little witch tattled, did she?”
Cary tosses a second rock to me, and without thinking I try to catch it. The stupid thing smacks on my palm, and this time I almost cry out. Almost.
“Stop being stubborn. You obviously need help.”
“Knock it off, Cary. The only hands you should be worried about are your new boyfriend’s. Make sure he jerks you off just right.” I cringe at my own venom. I never lash out at Cary, no matter the circumstance. He can do no wrong in my book. Yet here I am, acting like his concern for me is offensive. I lower my chin, ashamed at my behavior.
Cary rises and slowly moves to stand in front of me. Valor and Sophie are so still, I feel like I would be able to feel the air move if they turned to gape at us. Cary crouches to get in my eye line. He doesn’t bother trying to make me apologize. Instead, he hits me with a full blast of sadness from his green eyes. I hate when he does that; it gets me every time. “You’re in pain,” he observes, which guts me even more. He never cares about himself—only me. And now, the little witch. “You wouldn’t say something like that if you weren’t on the verge of breaking down.”
Damn his kindness. He deserves more than having me as a best friend.
I clear my throat. “I don’t need a witch. I need a doctor.”
Cary nods for Sophie to come on over, but she remains on the felled tree trunk beside Valor. “I’m sorry, Cary, but no. I’m not going to force anything on Jonas. He has to ask for help, and then I’ll do what I can so he doesn’t lose the use of his hands. But until he wants help, it’s not right for me to fix him. He’s a person, and deserves a say in his own treatment.”
Valor stands beside where she’s sitting and, as if sensing her sadness, he reaches down and hugs her head to his thigh. She closes her eyes and exhales into his slacks, and for a second, a pang of jealousy strangles me around the throat. He’s relaxing her, comforting her, and she’s letting him.
I don’t understand any of it.
As if he can read my thoughts, Cary fixes me with a hard stare. “Do you need me to tell you how much of an ass you’re being? Do you need me to remind you that I’m the one who brought Melanie soup when she had a cold? I’m the one who picked her up when she had a flat tire and you couldn’t be pulled away. Back when you were dating Jackie and she got that DUI, who drove her around town for weeks? Do you have any idea how selfish Jackie’s thoughts were? I had to listen to that the entire time and I said nothing because I respect you enough to be good to the girl you choose.” He stands, and I can feel my heartbeat in my cheeks. Cary never calls me out like this, and I can feel the shift in our perfect connection as we both hold on for
dear life. He smacks his chest. “Well, I choose Sophie, and I need you to respect me enough to let me do something you don’t like. Hagan doesn’t deserve you making cracks about him when he’s doing his best to be a decent guy in a pretty confusing situation. And if he ever did give me a hand job, that should be just fine with my best friend, because you love me. Not my choices. Me.”
I lower my chin and bob my head. I hope he takes that as confirmation that I heard him, but in my heart, I know my effort is pitiful. There’s a gravity at work prying us apart, and I know that if I don’t fight harder for us, Cary will be gone. He’ll trade me in for Sophie and Hagan, who don’t know the first thing about how to take care of him when he’s down and out. Panic strikes when it dawns on me that I don’t have the upper hand anymore. Cary doesn’t need me at all. He needs Sophie.
Before the night is over, I just might need the little witch too, and it’s slowly killing me. It’s like a countdown my body knows is coming, but I’m fighting with everything I’ve got.
Cary walks away from me to sit back down next to the little witch, making a clear statement that he’s not going to be through with her just because it makes me uncomfortable. But she doesn’t sink into his body in that way that makes my chest ache. She bands her arms around her stomach and stares at the fire Valor’s trying to coax to life. She doesn’t even blink when her palm shoots out and blasts a legit fireball onto the pyre of sticks. Cary jerks with surprise, but she’s somewhere else entirely in her mind. She stares into the flames as they catch on the twigs and bramble, as if hypnotizing herself away from my presence. She wants to be far, far away from me; I can feel it. I just don’t want her to take Cary with her.
Chapter Fourteen
Sophie
It’s all I can do not to sink into the warmth of Cary’s body. I can tell he wants to hold me—to fuse us together. But whatever I do, it’ll be the wrong thing. Carrigan and Jonas love each other, and me being this close to Cary is tearing them apart. I’m taking something important away from Carrigan, and that’s the last thing I want to do. Dad warned me that I was better off alone, and while I often wished things could’ve been different, he was right. I’m a constant curse to everyone around me. If I’m not taking away people’s magic, I’m ripping apart lifelong friends.
Savage Possessed: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy Adventure (Twin Rivers Possession Book 2) Page 8