The Bound Witch

by Ivy Asher

  “You’re okay, Lennox. I’m here. I’ve got you,” Rogan consoles, his large hand brushing hair out of my face, while his other presses against my shoulder, trying to coax me into lying back down.

  Adrenaline hammers through me, and I look around frantically, my brain not processing what it is I’m seeing. Something jostles the mattress I’m lying on, and I bounce up and down as though…

  “Are we in a car?” I ask, bewildered, my voice a dusty croak.

  Before I can even think about a glass of water, a bottle of it is handed to me. I chug it down, my mouth, throat, and body suddenly desperate. It’s gone sooner than I want, but just as a disgruntled whimper starts to sneak out of my mouth, I’m handed another open bottle of water. I drink this one slower, which is to say I drink three quarters of it in two seconds flat and then sip on the last remaining fourth like I’m the model of demure and lady-like behavior at all times.

  I instantly feel better and more alert now that I’m hydrated. I look around to see that we’re in a large Suburban, the back of which is fitted with a mattress and Rogan, and wherever we are, it’s dark as pitch outside. I look up to see who’s driving, hoping it might be Prek or Elon, but to my surprise, it’s Riggs and Viv, the two alphas of the lycan pack near Rogan’s house.

  Riggs meets my eyes in the rearview mirror, his gaze twinkling with merriment, but he doesn’t say anything as Rogan pulls me closer to him, his touch stealing away my focus. I look back at him, puzzled, as I try to piece together how we’re here and why.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, my voice low and careful as I search Rogan’s face for any hint of what’s going on. “How did we get away?”

  Rogan pulls my face to his and rests his forehead against mine, breathing me in for a moment like he needs the touch to ground him just as badly as I do. “You jumped us out of there. I have no idea how you did it. You were dead before we could even hit the ground. One second, I’m feeling you die, and the next we’re in the middle of unfamiliar woods with a couple of angry lycans growling at us.”

  My eyes dart back to Riggs and Viv, and I watch as Riggs reaches over to his mate and threads his fingers with hers, a loving smile stretched wide across his face. I try to shoot Rogan a discreet look, asking if they’re officially in the know about what we can do, but as I do, I realize I’m stupid for even questioning it. I did just wake up in front of them, and Rogan’s not exactly whispering phrases like you were dead and I felt you die, so my superior deductive reasoning skills are telling me they are officially in the loop.

  “Elon and Prek?” I ask, worry percolating in my stomach.

  “We’re on our way to meet them now,” Rogan reassures me.

  “Tad?” I add, hoping Rogan has at least called him so he’s not pacing around the empty house in his finest yoga gear, stressing.

  “My cousin Cohen is picking him up and bringing him here.”

  I tense at those words, terrified of what could happen if Tad and this Cohen dude somehow walk into an Order trap like we just did. Rogan rubs my arms and drops a kiss to my shoulder.

  “They’re safe, I promise. Cohen is a force to be reckoned with, and I doubt the High Council would be looking for either of them. They’ll be here soon, don’t worry.”

  I want to point out that Rogan also thought the smear campaign against the High Council would buy us time to prepare for a fight with them, but I save the I told you so for later when I’m not still reeling over the clusterfuck we barely escaped. I look around again, the darkness outside making it incredibly difficult to get my bearings.

  And here I was thinking waking up in a morgue was difficult.

  “Where is here?” I ask, fixing my disoriented gaze back on Rogan. “How long was I down this time? What’s going on?” I add, looking down at myself and then back over to the lycan alphas.

  I’m not wearing the clothes I left the house in this morning. My blood-soaked jeans and tee are missing, and in their place is a gray oversized hoodie and a matching pair of sweatpants that I’m more or less swimming in. Rogan releases a sigh, the skin around his eyes tightening, and I immediately want to pull him to me and try to soothe the tension radiating out from every inch of him.

  “Did you know there was a ley line that ran up behind Rigg’s pack land?” Rogan asks me, his green eyes astute and careful.

  I’m taken aback by the question. “No. I’ve only been to his pack that one time with you. I never noticed anything.”

  Rogan nods like he expected this answer, but for some reason, it makes him look even more troubled. I search for his emotions, trying to understand the look on his face, but frustratingly, I run up against a wall.

  “The line is apparently unregistered. I didn’t even know it was there. The pack uses it for business purposes,” Rogan starts to explain, and my brow furrows with confusion.

  When I woke up, he said that I had jumped us from the ley line we were being attacked at to somewhere else. Somewhere that happened to have patrolling wolves nearby. My eyes dart around the dark car one more time, seeing our current circumstances in a more concerning light.

  Are we in trouble or something? I wonder but then dismiss it. He said we were meeting the others, and I know for a fact he would never put them in danger for any reason, so that can’t be it.

  “Okay, so I apparated us to a line nobody knows about on pack land,” I recap, trying to understand Rogan’s obvious worry. “I mean, if you’re wondering how I did that, your guess is going to be as good as mine,” I tell him, a frantic chuckle spilling out of my mouth. “I was a little busy dying, so I don’t know if my magic did the thing it does where it just instinctually guides me to take action. It’s been doing a lot of weird things since I woke up, so maybe that’s it,” I tell him, and when his jaw tightens at my casual declaration, my stomach drops.

  He thinks something’s up with my magic.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Rogan?” I ask flatly, and his unsettled gaze snaps to mine.

  “What he’s hesitant to worry you about, Osteomancer,” Riggs cuts in to say, “is that the only people who know about the line you rode in on, is my pack and a clan of demons who pay us generously to keep it that way. We’ve been tossing around all kinds of theories, but I’m dying to know how you did it,” Riggs adds excitedly.

  Well, shit...that makes two of us.

  16

  “Wait. But why do demons know about your secret ley line?” I ask, running my fingers through my curls only to snag them on what I’m pretty sure is matted dried blood and a whole nest of tangles.

  Distracted, I begin to feel around my skull for an entry and exit wound. With the way my chest is scarred, I know there should be something, and as expected, I find a fingertip-sized circle of smooth healed tissue above the top of my ear, and another at the back of my head about three inches shy of the top. Hopefully, my curls will hide them both.

  “We source goods to anyone and everyone,” Riggs declares as though that answers my question.

  It doesn’t, but I get he has a business to run, and it seems part of that business is being cagey about it.

  I turn to Rogan and shrug, doing my best to hide my hurt over the fact that he’s closed himself off. I tell myself that he probably has a good reason and that reason might not even be me. He just watched his best friend die. Maybe he doesn’t want to overwhelm me with that pain and loss.

  Unease settles in my stomach, but I try hard not to focus on it.

  He has questions in his eyes, and I hate that I have no answers. I’m starting to wonder if I really know anything at all.

  “I have no idea what happened,” I confess aloud, answering the unspoken how floating in his gaze. “I was trying to tap into the line when I died,” I go on, as though listing the events out loud might help me hear the answers to all of our questions. “I was desperate to get us out of there and frantic. Maybe when my brain shut down, it tweaked the resonance my magic was focused on, and it just happened to be the pack’s line,” I provi
de, not knowing what else to say.

  It had to be a fluke. Nothing else makes sense, but I can’t shake the feeling that I did something wrong and now everyone is looking at me like I’m not who they thought I was. My heart twinges a little at that thought, and Rogan reaches for me and pulls me into his lap.

  He places a tender kiss against my temple and strokes my back. I lean into him, ignoring the upset I feel over the disconnect between us.

  “Whatever happened, I’m grateful it did. You saved us. I don’t know where we’d be right now if you hadn’t,” he reassures me.

  I sigh warily, suddenly feeling very lost and small and vulnerable. “You still haven’t told me where we even are?” I remind him, wishing his words made me feel better, but there’s a scratching worry settling just under my skin, and I don’t know what to think about anything.

  “We’re in Utah,” Rogan tells me, wrapping his arms around me tighter. “Elon and I have a hidden house here in the mountains that no one knows about.”

  I pointedly look over to Riggs and Viv.

  “We’re safe,” he assures me, clearly picking up what I’m putting down despite his inability to feel it. “Riggs and Viv have been discreet and loyal since Elon and I moved into the area.”

  Riggs chuckles and Viv offers me a friendly smile over her shoulder. “We always knew something was different about the Kendrick boys,” she tells me, wrinkling her nose. “They smell different to us,” she admits. “You smell different now too.”

  Surprise flickers through me at that declaration. I never gave much thought to how I smelled before. I fight the urge to lean down and sniff my arm.

  “They didn’t seem eager to explain anything to us, so we chalked it up to something that was none of our business. But then one night at an event the brothers both attended, one of our pups very rudely asked them why they smelled different from other witches.”

  I smile at that. Nothing worse than getting called out on something by a kid. There’s no getting around the truth they spill no matter how cringy it may be.

  “Elon and I knew then that they were aware we were different, but we still didn’t want to bring them into anything that could have put them and their pack in danger. So it just became this unspoken thing between us,” Rogan explains, and I can abruptly sense the until now floating uncomfortably around the interior of the car.

  I can only imagine what they thought when Rogan and I showed up using a line no one is supposed to know about, me with a fatal head wound, and him battle weary and confused as to how we ended up there in the first place.

  “Anyway,” Riggs barks jovially, breaking the awkward silence that was just building and making me jump. “My brother’s pack here helped these boys build their house up here. So when Viv and I discovered that’s where you were headed, we thought an escort was in order. I don’t get over to Ronan’s pack nearly enough, so the timing was perfect.”

  Riggs’s smile is genuine, his kind eyes twinkling with support and care, but there’s more there, more to all of this, more that he’s not saying. I can feel it, but I’m too overloaded to demand he spit it out. So many questions swirl in my mind, and I feel completely bogged down by them. I’m stuck in a world of magic and chaos that’s so utterly confusing that I don’t even know where to start trying to untangle it all.

  There’s this whole supernatural world that even the supernaturals don’t talk about. I’ve never heard my Grammy say much about demons, other than to steer clear or salt them if you had to. But now I’m learning that they’re more wrapped up in the fabric of the mancer world—and now even the lycan world—than I ever thought possible.

  I shake away my frustrations and try to pull in some calming breaths. Rogan is still stroking soothing passes down my back, but my ire grows anyway. I thought I was getting past my insecurities of not knowing enough about the world I’m now forever a part of, but now I wonder if I’ll ever truly get the many facets, seen and unseen, of this world.

  We round a corner, and the darkness all around us changes. Or maybe it’s just that my eyes are finally adjusting. Either way, I can now make out the thick trees bordering each side of us as well as the driveway in front of us that leads up to a huge log cabin.

  Log mansion? Are those even a thing?

  “Wow, Rogan, this is stunning!” Viv coos as she leans forward to take it all in.

  Two massive stories with wraparound porches on each level loom down over us. The massive windows all over show lights on inside, and I’m instantly eager to see Elon and Prek and check over them to make sure they’re okay.

  “Ronan and his crew did a beautiful job,” Riggs observes as they pull into the circular drive in front of the massive house.

  “You both are more than welcome to stay,” Rogan offers, but Viv waves him off.

  “You get settled in. We’ll come visit and get the grand tour in a couple days,” she states warmly.

  “That’ll give us some time to make the arrangements that we discussed. We can go over everything then,” Riggs adds, and Rogan nods in understanding, not bothering to fill me in on the details they’re discussing.

  They pull up in front of the house, and Riggs hops out and moves to the back to open the door. Rogan helps me slide out, and as he’s climbing out himself, Riggs wraps me up in a tight hug. A squeak of shock escapes me as he does, but after a second, I can’t help but feel like his hug is all that’s holding me together. My eyes sting, but I blink the emotion from them as Riggs sets me down and offers me a dazzling smile.

  “It’s all going to be okay,” he tells me, confidence and wisdom ringing in his tone. “Even when you can’t see how, it will all be okay.”

  I nod, my chest tight with unexpected emotion, and with that, he jumps back into the driver’s seat and pulls away. Viv rolls down her window and waves at us as they leave. I wave back, all at once cold and bereft and wishing I believed the advice Riggs just offered.

  Rogan walks up the stone path to the front door and turns when he realizes I’m not following him. I study him, and he studies me, both of us silent and distant, and I fucking hate it.

  “I know a lot has happened,” I start, my voice small amidst the huge house and the dense woods all around us. “We have a lot to figure out, a lot to process.”

  Rogan steps away from the house and closer to me as I continue.

  “If you need space, time to sort out whatever is going on in your head, fine, but blocking me, shutting me out, that fucking hurts, Rogan,” I tell him, not wanting to pretend everything is okay for even another second.

  He opens his mouth to say something, but the front door opens and Elon comes striding out. He wraps Rogan up in a hug, the brothers taking a moment to reunite, the gratitude and relief palpable in the air. I feel like an interloper watching a deep and meaningful moment, so I quietly try to move around them and make my way toward the house. Elon reaches out and hooks me like I’m a fish, and the next thing I know, he’s added me to the hug.

  “I was so fucking terrified that you two didn’t make it out. When I woke up and Prek told me…” Elon wipes at his eyes, and his words trail away.

  “We wouldn’t have if Lennox hadn’t saved our asses,” Rogan tells his older brother, and Elon’s arms tighten around us both. “I’m sorry I…” Rogan starts and then stops as though he’s trying to figure out how to say what he wants to say. “When Marx fell, I just... All I could see was red. I wanted to kill, to hurt...but I lost sight of what was important,” he goes on, his words tight with emotion as though each and every syllable is a struggle.

  Pain and grief spill out between the lines of what he’s saying, and I hurt for him and for the rest of us. Lights beam past us, and I look up to find another SUV pulling up. It stops at the end of the path, and we all watch as a tall man with ash brown hair and beard climbs out of the driver’s seat.

  “You got room for one more?” he asks teasingly, and both Elon and Rogan laugh deeply.

  The passenger door opens while the dr
iver rounds the front of the sleek carbon gray SUV, and I see Tad climb out with bags in his hands. His brown eyes find mine, and a huge smile breaks across his face.

  “I brought wine!”

  I practically leap for him, and Tad doesn’t miss a beat when he drops the packages in his grip and catches me. He wraps me up so quickly and fiercely in a mend your soul type of hug that I don’t know who needed it more, me or him. He squeezes the shit out of me, and then I do what I always do when I finally feel safe after something terrible happens, I allow myself to break and then start bawling my eyes out.

  I tip the massive bottle of rosé back and hold my breath as I take several gulps. I lift my eyebrows in contemplation as I swallow them down—maybe this doesn’t taste so bad after all—but then my drunk tastebuds kick in, reminding me we hate wine, and I lower the bottle and cringe back away from it. Tad reaches for it with gimme hands, and I happily pass it over, my body warm and my mind all kinds of light and fuzzy.

  I lean back against the large black apothecary-style vanity, once again admiring the beautiful master bathroom from my vantage point on the floor. The walls and ceiling are a rich walnut color, and beams run across the high vaulted ceiling. The floor is a gray stone and so is the back wall, which might be my favorite part.

  There is a gargantuan copper bathtub against that wall, with stairs at the head and foot of the tub that lead to an upper stone deck that allows you to climb down into the tub. But the best part is that the deck also houses a gas fireplace with huge windows above it so you can see the stars. It’s a girl’s bathtub wet dream, and I didn’t even know those existed until I saw this one. The whole space is dark and masculine and dreamy, which makes it the perfect location to get thoroughly pissed with my cousin.

  A dry shudder moves through my chest, an echo of the sobbing I stopped doing in trade for the drinking I started instead. It’s as though my body is still trying to purge the emotion but my eyes just aren’t on board at the moment.