I shudder and scoop Sophie closer, coveting the woman I’m lucky enough to call mine. I know Cary’s shaken up, so when he spoons her, I make an effort to reach over her body and grip his shoulder. I don’t understand his friendship with Jonas, but fighting with a friend over a woman is just about the last thing a guy wants to do. He closes his eyes, and I see pain surface that he’s been tucking away so Sophie doesn’t carry around the angst of possibly breaking up a friendship that’s older than she is. When he reaches over Sophie and holds my shoulder in return, I feel the spark of something. Hope, maybe? Solidarity? Whatever it is, it ties us together, and I don’t question it. We hedge in our girl, who drifted off to sleep a few minutes ago. As if she can sense our brotherhood strengthening, she sighs contentedly in her sleep. She’s given us so very much peace; I’m glad she’s finally taking some from us, even if she has to be asleep when she does it.
I’m usually wearing her cleavage like an oxygen mask, but tonight, she’s the one who needs comforting. She won’t admit it, but I saw the tear tracks on her cheeks when she came back from her hiatus.
I’m sleeping in just my boxers and I freaking love it. My whole body feels more open since our threesome last night. I’m a little chilly, but I know my woman prefers skin-to-skin contact when she sleeps. She’s too upset by the fighting to get naked again, but her cheek on my chest is one of the best feelings in the world.
I don’t remove my arm from Carrigan’s shoulder until his grip slackens on mine, his anxiety giving way to sleep. When Sophie shifts, my body accommodates her movements, molding to whatever it is she needs. My monster never sleeps when she’s around, but when she slides her bottom knee between mine, he seeks out her heat without apology. I can’t move away from her, so my stiff cock just rests against her pussy, nestled where he knows he belongs, even if he can never venture there. He wants friction but she needs sleep, so her needs win out.
Mate, mate, mate, my bear begs me. I do my best to ignore his pathetic whimpers. Even if I can’t mate with her because of all the complications it would send our way, she’s mine in every sense of the word.
My eyes are just drifting shut when Jonas, of all people, breaks into my consciousness with a shout.
Before I can assess anything, I’m up and out of the sleeping bag, knees bent and hands poised to tear apart whatever it is that might come near Sophie.
Jonas is gritting his teeth, barely visible under the light of the moon and the dying embers of the fire, but the tension rolls off him in seismic waves. I’m not sure how long he’s been holding back his agony, but it’s reached the point where his stubbornness looks like it just might kill him.
Fine by me.
Carrigan jolts awake and stumbles over to his friend. He reaches out to scoop up Jonas’ hand, but pulls back when Jonas howls at the simple touch.
Sophie crawls out of the sleeping bag, her eyes lidded but her brain firing enough to grab her small go-bag filled with all her witchery stuff. She slumps next to Cary, and even though half of us have seen her naked, the other half have not. I itch to fetch her bra so her pert nipples aren’t visible through her shirt. Jonas doesn’t deserve to see something so heavenly.
Valor rubs his eyes but asks how he can help. “We can’t help at all unless Jonas wants it.” Sophie’s voice is firm, and as much as I want her to find a way to shut Jonas up, I respect that she’s got a hard and fast system of rules that she follows to the letter. “Jonas, do you want me to help you?”
Jonas grits his teeth, and I see pure venom brewing in his eyes. It’s obvious he wants to tell her to fuck off but his pain is so great, he can’t bring himself to push her away. He finally manages a tight nod, and that’s all my woman needs to spring into action. In the next breath, she’s got her bag open and a mixture of leaves sorted. Without looking, she raises her hand and shoots a fireball from her palm straight onto the smoky embers, reviving our heat source. It always spooks me when she does that, I’m not gonna lie.
She’s in complete control of herself, even down to ironing out any nerves in her voice. “Baby doll, could you start heating some water on the coals? We need it hot but not boiling.”
Valor jumps to his pack, ripping out a tin mug and pouring water into it from the canteen. Once the mug is perched near the flames, he asks again how he can help while the water heats.
“I can do the rest.” Her brows pull together to study the herbs, picking out two and putting the rest back into her pack. I’m fascinated by her precise movements. She’s a perfectionist with her craft, and I respect that about her. She scrutinizes every bit that’s to be added to the mug, sniffing a few leaves to decide which is the superior ingredient. I start to wonder if this is something she can teach me, but when she begins to murmur over the concoction, I guess there’s slightly more to the whole being-a-witch thing than just following a recipe.
She grinds a few dried flowers into a fine powder she keeps in the well of her hand. Sophie ignores Jonas’ cries, which he doesn’t bother holding back any longer.
“My hands! I can’t feel them anymore, Cary! My arms are shaking but I can’t feel my hands!”
Carrigan is kind when I would’ve thrown in a surly, “Well, maybe you should’ve listened to Sophie Mae and taken her up on the offer of help yesterday, dummy.” Jonas’ whole body is tensed, and he’s dripping with sweat.
Sophie doesn’t tear her eyes from her tincture. “Do what you can to calm him down. The more his heart races, the quicker the damage is going to spread through his whole body.” Then she raises her voice to reach across the fire pit. “How are we doing on that water, Valor?”
“It might still be a few more minutes.”
Jonas wails into the night, and I’m almost convinced to feel bad for him. Almost. Part of me is glad he’s getting what his stubborn ass deserves.
Carrigan places his hand on Jonas’ chest, since that seems to be a safe place to touch him without inflicting more pain. “Easy, man. Help is on the way. We’ve got you, alright? Look at me. Say, ‘I trust you, Cary.’”
Jonas works out the mantra through gritted teeth, but it doesn’t do a whole lot to calm him down.
When Valor deems the water hot enough, he takes it to Sophie, careful not to spill a drop. We all watch as she pours half of the herbs into the cup, but our wary shouts sound around the camp when she takes a sip, opens her mouth, and a puff of purple smoke emanates from her lips. “Is it supposed to do that?” Carrigan asks—the only one brave enough to question her.
She nods once, keeping the rest of the fistful of herbs tucked in her palm. “Alright, Cary, can you help him sit up? He’s got to drink this whole thing down.” Valor kneels on Jonas’ other side, and I can see Jonas’ anger at being babied flaring his nostrils. But as he literally can’t sit up on his own, he accepts the help with pure disgust curling his upper lip.
Instead of handing over the mug, Sophie motions for Carrigan to scoot behind Jonas so she can take the place at his other side. True maternal tenderness radiates from her as she tips the mug to his lips and watches as he chokes down gulp after gulp. “Good. Slowly, now. It gets harder to drink when you get about halfway through it, so pace yourself. It’s going to want to come back up, so let me know if that’s about to happen. We can’t afford for you to puke up any of this. Is your stomach curdling yet?”
He moves his chin back to draw in a full breath. “No. You ever take this before, or did you just read about it in a book somewhere? How much do you know about what you’re doing?” Jonas is able to talk in full sentences, so I can see the tea is already working.
Sophie’s been the picture of professionalism before this, but something dark flickers across her eyes at his question. “It’s not enough to study the potions we’re taught. That’s what most witches do. They read about the symptoms and memorize the remedies. You can forget things that way, but mistakes can be fatal in our line of work. My lessons were a bit more high-stakes than book reading.”
Though her words are
matter-of-fact, something in them runs a chill up my spine. Her gaze flickers to the light marks on the backs of her fingers but quickly refocuses on the patient. She tips the mug to his lips, and sure enough, after a few more swallows, Jonas is wincing, belching purple smoke in her face and struggling to keep the drink down. “Something’s wrong. This feels bad.” He shakes his head, but Sophie mutes his protest with more of the hot liquid.
Carrigan is one live wire of tension, but he doesn’t question our girl. In fact, when Jonas starts to struggle, he holds Jonas’ head still so Sophie can dump the dregs into his mouth. When he puckers up to spew it in her face, she clamps his mouth shut and plugs his nose, forcing him to swallow. It’s… well, it’s a little meaner than I ever thought she’d be. She’s so clinical about it. I don’t protest because I trust her. Plus, I don’t actually care all that much about Jonas’ comfort, since he’s such an antagonistic tool.
Jonas’ eyes bulge, but he swallows before cussing up a storm. She doesn’t point out that he wouldn’t be able to chew her out at all if she hadn’t intervened, but continues on with her task, which I’m beginning to realize is only half-done.
She fishes in her bag and pulls out a serrated dagger that makes Jonas’ eyes go wide. “What’s that for?” He gulps and burps purple smoke again, bracing himself for the flood of puke that never comes.
“I have to put the rest of the mixture under your skin so it can dissipate slowly.”
“What? No, you just made me drink that stuff and nearly killed me with it. People need to breathe, you know. I don’t want you to cut me open.”
“You don’t say,” she says, her eyes wide with feigned shock. “They didn’t go over that in my witchery school. We mostly learned about flying around on broomsticks!”
To her credit, it’s the first time she’s ever lashed out at Jonas. She probably owes him twenty more tantrums at this point.
Instead, as if catching herself being cross, she leans in and quiets her tone. “Look, I know you’re afraid of me. It’s okay. But you waited too long for the tea to cure everything. You fractured your magic, breaking through my abilities when you used telekinesis so close to me. If you ever want to use your hands again, you’ll let me help you.”
Carrigan’s chin jerks in her direction. “He could lose the use of his hands? Why didn’t you say anything?”
She shrugs. “I did. I said exactly that, but he still chose not to ask for help.”
Carrigan’s eyes blaze. “You should have forced him to take the tea!”
Sophie levels her gaze at Carrigan, and I can see the calm she tries to fake well enough to cover over her dread so she can put Cary in his place. “I’m not in the business of forcing people to be better. You have to want it, even when it requires the effort of swallowing one’s pride. He said no, Cary. As much as you might want me to disrespect your friend because I’m right and he’s an ass, that’s not my way. He’ll get better once he’s ready.”
At this, Carrigan lets out a cry of frustration. “Do you hear that, you jackass? You won’t be able to use your hands if you don’t let her help you! Say it! Say it, Jonas. I swear to you, if you don’t, I’ll never forgive you for being this stubborn. Do it for me. Let her help you because I want this. It crushed you when I was in pain before Sophie came along. Now I’m going through the same thing you were—wanting a cure, but I can’t make it happen!”
Jonas’ internal fight is clear on his face, but after a beat, he sighs. “Fine! If you have to cut me open, do it. But I swear, little witch, if you break me the way those witches broke Cary, I’ll… I’ll…”
My bear roars at the vague menace directed at my mate, but the man in me responds by getting in Jonas’ eyeline and pointing to my eyes and then to his to let him know that I’m watching his every move. “Threaten her again and see what happens. Cary can’t keep you safe from yourself forever.”
A strangled noise catches in Cary’s throat. “Please, Sophie! I can’t let anything bad happen to him. I need Jonas to be okay.”
Sophie nods, keeping her voice quiet and setting the tone for everyone to calm the fuck down. “Alright, I need to cut a small slit across the backs of your hands. That won’t be so bad because I always keep my knife sharp. It’s the herbs that are going to sting when I stuff them inside, so don’t be spooked when it hurts. That only makes it worse. The pain lasts for a few minutes, but then you’ll be able to feel again. After a day or two, your hands will be totally fine. Like it never happened, except for two scars where I make the incision.”
“Scars?”
Cary mutters his frustration. “You could’ve had this all be over with a cup of tea, you idiot.”
Compassion radiates off of Sophie, though I can’t imagine where she gets such vast reserves of the stuff. I’m ready to tie Jonas to a tree and leave him to rot. But my woman is special. She leans in and holds up her hands to show him the scored backs. A flicker of agony crosses her features, but she erases it so quick, it breaks me a little bit. “I wouldn’t do anything to you I haven’t done to myself.”
Valor’s brow creases in time with my bear yowling like a wounded baby. Scars on her feel like marks on my own skin. Valor finds a way to put words to all the angry things I want to shout. “You broke your magic before? When?”
Her face composed, she answers him in a cold tone that makes me recoil. My woman is all warmth and sweetness. Whoever did this to her is straight evil, I know that much. “That’s how I learned. Mother used to infect me with whatever it was that she needed to teach me that day. If I found a way to cure myself, I lived. She set traps that made me use more magic than I thought possible. After that, I went through symptoms just like yours, Jonas. It sucked, but I survived, and I have full use of my hands. I won’t hurt you any more than I have to.” Before any of us can register just how messed up that whole scenario is, she leans him forward until he’s on all fours. Then she takes him by the wrists and presses his palms into the grass, giving him a look that warns him to buck up.
Carrigan hisses louder than Jonas when she makes a clean slice along the backs of both his hands, fileting just below the row of knuckles. His scars will be similar to some of hers, and I sincerely hope that’s the only thing they ever have in common.
Blood seeps from his skin, and she glances up at me for help. “Can you keep Jonas still? He’s going to freak out when I put the herbs in there, and I have to be able to do both hands.”
“Of course.” Again, whatever she needs.
“Carrigan,” she coos, “you need to take a breather. Jonas doesn’t want you to see him in pain. Go stand over there and wait it out.”
Carrigan holds his ground. “I’m fine, Sophie. I don’t want to leave him.”
She points to a spot behind us and orders him away. After a moment, he obeys—but not without sending a look of pure anxiety toward his best friend. Sophie swirls the herbs in her palm, loosening and sifting them. “Valor, Hagan, each of you take one of his hands and keep it plastered to the ground. Ready?”
The second Valor and I get situated, she pinches the skin on the top of his hand and pushes herbs into the gap. Jonas grits his teeth through a shout, but she doesn’t let up. More and more go in until there’s a dime-sized bubble. Then she turns to the other hand and does the same. Jonas is struggling to get away, shouting a mix of curses and pleas. I can’t imagine Sophie doing this to herself. I loathe the sadistic bitch that put her through a trial like that when book learning seems like it works just fine for other witches.
The minutes of battling with Jonas’ body feel like hours. No matter how hard we hold him, he seems bent on rearing and trying to throw us off. Valor is sweating and swearing, but when I sweep Jonas’ knees out so he falls flat on his face, he has far less leverage to attempt an escape.
Sophie reaches out and runs her fingers over Jonas’ short, black hair. She trills them over his face to soothe him as best she can. “If you can survive, you will. Can you survive?” The words come out in a roboti
c drone that turns my stomach. It sounds like a mantra she’s repeated too many times.
Jonas responds with a stream of curses, but I can tell the pain is starting to come down by degrees. His shoulders loosen, and finally he slumps in defeat. “Yeah,” he breathes. “I can survive.”
Chapter Seventeen
Valor
None of us sleeps all that well. Carrigan offers to trade places with me so he can keep an eye on Jonas throughout the night. Though the asshole passed out half an hour ago, Carrigan still watches him like a hawk. Cary sheds a few tears on Sophie’s shoulder and she holds him together, as is her way. I’m fascinated by Carrigan’s tears. He’s not embarrassed by them, but offers them to Sophie freely. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a lifelong best mate like Jonas. I want to chuck him into the ocean and have done with it. Though I don’t begrudge Carrigan his sadness over the whole sorry story, and neither does my young one.
When Cary surrenders her, I kiss her cheek, reminding her that she’s not alone. “I think it’s time for bed, love.” My arm snakes around her waist. My whole body sings when she cocoons herself into me. “I think all the monsters have left us tonight.”
When she keeps her face tilted downward, I’m certain she’s going somewhere bad in her head.
“Do you see the North star up there?” I point above us, and finally she lifts her gaze skyward. She blinks at the indigo expanse that’s so much purer than it is in the city. That’s one of the few things I miss about living with Elowen. The stars are far brighter out here. It’s quieter in the woods. Nothing but your thoughts to break the silence, which can be a good thing on nights that are nothing like this one.
Savage Possessed: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy Adventure (Twin Rivers Possession Book 2) Page 10