It guttered inside me and dissolved. I gasped and grabbed onto a bannister as the whole world pitched sideways, the house jerking, more lightning and thunder crashing all around. The smell of smoke wound it’s way to me, and I could just barely hear my sister screaming something at our father, and-
Greenery exploded around me, fat, healthy, thick vines turning to brown as they arched over me, winding around and around until I could see nothing and hear nothing. The world shook again, somewhere, out there, the living tree sheltering me, the tree I knew my sister had grown just for me.
And I could do nothing. I had nothing left.
I curled up, tucked my head into my knees, and shivered.
Twenty
The silence was oppressive, the darkness frightening, and I huddled there for I couldn’t tell how long.
And then, a movement made me jerk to my knees as the sheltering branches that had encircled me started to bow. My equilibrium was thrown off, my whole body tipping forward. The trees were falling, the rough bark biting into my fingers as I cried out. We hit the ground, me and the tree together, and my head felt like stones were rattling around inside it, sparks setting off in my darkness blinded vision.
A grunt from beyond the rough bark made me go still. A cracking thud, and then, light speared into my cocoon. I backed up as I saw it; the axe that had made it’s way through the wood to me came hurtling down again.
“She’s alive,” someone’s voice, Eli, rang out, like praise. “Fuck. Darcy, you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I said, not able to keep the warble out of my voice. Holy shit, had I fucked up. If the guys were out there and didn’t sound like they were fighting, they were safe from my parents.
Which meant my parents were… and my sister… that was the big question looming in my mind. The wood splintered again, and I turned my head to shield my eyes. Light flooded over me, and then the rain seconds after it. I blinked, groggy into the opening in the wood.
“You’re here,” I breathed as the sight of them crowded around the entrance to my shelter.
“Did you think we wouldn’t come for you?” Finn asked, hurt in his voice as Charlie lifted me up and out. The branches and bark dug at my skin as he freed me, Ace still hacking away at the tendrils of greens that were left behind, watching them wither as he did so. My whole body felt numb at the extremities, the cold of the storm soaking through my clothes and leaving me feeling pins and needles.
“You’re freezing,” Charlie murmured, rubbing my hands over and over. I winced in pain.
“What beats me is how you’re not dead,” Wolfe commented, as Levi picked over the rubble in the far corner. I shook my head slowly.
I should’ve been dead, and I would have deserved it.
As Charlie set me on my feet, a blur of movement barreled up to me, and Daria stopped for a hot second before slapping me right across the face. Charlie snarled and shoved himself between us. She ignored him.
“Fuck you, Darcy,” Daria’s voice was tight and pained as she pushed around him to get back into my face. “Fuck you, and thinking that you’re the only one that matters, and only your pain matters, and-” Her words crumbled into sobs. “I hate you! I had a chance to get him back for what he did to Luka, and we could have done it together, but instead, you went running off, thinking you’re the one person that matters in all of this! You aren’t the only one who’s lost and alone, okay?” Frank emerged from the shadows, through a broken doorway, to wrap her up in his arms. It was then I realized the house was in absolute ruins all around us; the tree that had grown around me, and it’s viney tendrils, had erupted from the floor of the old hallway. Why my sister had saved me from my father was a mystery. Where she was now was the even bigger question.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said to her gently, meeting my gaze for a moment, his eyes hard and angry before he looked back down at her with a deep love that seemed unshakable. Guilt bit at my heart. It wasn’t that I thought I was the only one who mattered…
A shift of movement to my left was Finn, who stared at me, his gaze accusing and heavy. I fought the urge to suck my lip into my mouth and chew on it. Charlie dusted me off, ignoring the drama around us.
“All limbs attached looks like,” he said lightly like the world wasn’t falling apart in front of us. I didn’t know how to answer that without growling, so I kept quiet because he didn’t deserve to have me yelling at him.
This was all my fault.
I’d taken a gamble and lost, and not just lost to my father but lost the trust of my guys and the respect of my best friend. I hated that things had turned out this way too. If I had been stronger, better, braver, then maybe I would have been able to come back to everyone with my father’s severed head in my hand.
Instead….
“My sister saved my life,” I said to Charlie, my own voice sounding wooden and as foreign to my ears as what had happened. Because it shouldn’t have. Her vines, growing strong for the first time I’d seen them like that since she’d married Kenton, her powers were strong, strong enough to save me from a collapsing ceiling that should have crushed me.
And it wasn’t just that she shouldn’t have had the power to save me; she shouldn’t have wanted to in the first place.
The memory of her shadowed face, her babe, curled against her chest in one arm, watching down from above filtered in my mind. What had it been like for my father to see her defy him, as the vines started to creep toward me? The image of his ashen face filled my vision, and I blinked it away with a shiver.
“Well, I’ll have to thank that bitch later when we’re done murdering your father and choking him on his own blood,” Charlie said casually, but when I looked at him, his eyes were dark and angry. “And we need to have a serious talk about you running away like that,” he murmured, low so only I would hear. I swallowed.
“I mean… the only thing I have to say is that I was wrong, and I’m sorry,” I replied, because yeah, I’d screwed the pooch. There was no pretending even to myself that I hadn’t made the completely most wrong decision and it had nearly cost me my life. “I thought I was over doing stupid things,” I said, trying not to let the tears in my eyes make my words watery.
“Oh, we have a lifetime of repeating our bad choices,” Charlie laughed weakly and glanced away. I followed where he was looking. Finn, his face a mask of quiet anger, was walking toward us. I had to fight the urge to take a step back. He looked furious and had every right to be.
I closed my eyes for a moment as he reached us both.
“Say it,” I whispered, “I deserve it.”
… Silence.
I opened my eyes. Finn stared down at me, his lips tight and bloodless. Then he looked away.
“So they’re all gone?” He asked Charlie, and my heart dropped. Finn wasn’t even going to say he told me so.
“Looks like it,” Cash said, coming up to us from the fragmented doorway that had used to lead to the dining room. “Everything’s soaked and smashed.” He ran a finger along the back of my hand and smiled when I glanced up at him. “You too.” He picked up one of my lank, soaked curls and let it fall back against my shoulder.
“Magic’s still here though,” Daria spoke up, after several long minutes of being quietly comforted by Frank. “Vail isn’t an idiot. He may have destroyed most of his house, but the heartbeat, the power, is still here. It’s weak, but it’s here.”
“Can you feel it?” Charlie asked me, and I frowned. Could I? I swallowed and closed my eyes tight, searching with my dulled and muted powers, the beaten-down ragged magic of my soul that was so… so very tired…
… ….. thhhhh-ump…
“There you are,” I whispered, and my eyes opened wide as the sudden feeling of someone else’s grief, the utter sadness of the magic soul that had been Llewellyn’s family house, washed over me. I staggered to the side, and Charlie had to grab me to keep me upright. Daria, across from me, was doing the same thing, bending over as Frank grabbed her.
&
nbsp; And I couldn’t stop it. Now that the floodgates had been opened, the house poured out all of its grief, its broken body aching like shattered bones, and beyond it all, a quiet rage that rose like a swelling wave, at my father, and what he had done to our family.
I stared at Daria as she met my gaze, wonder and confusion in her expression.
“It’s angry,” she murmured, “it feels.”
“I’m not really following, but are you saying the house is sentient?” Cash asked, looking ill. “And… when Daddy Llewellyn was ripping it to pieces to kill his daughter, the house could feel it?”
“Everything,” I murmured, my voice sounding croaky and not my own. I shuddered, then bent over and retched, my stomach turning inside out. Charlie went with me, holding me as hot fiery acid rose up my throat, and I vomited all over the broken floor under me. “Let go,” I begged, and he did so I could sink to my knees, my hands splayed out in front of me over the shattered granite.
The house's heartbeat was low, slow, and shivery like it was taking everything it had just to keep going. It was dying, I could tell that much, and it was so very, very angry.
Daria’s hand brushed my shoulder, pulling my hair away from my face as she bent close to me.
“I think it’s mad that your father tried to kill you,” her voice was hushed. “You’re still a daughter of the house, even if you ran away.”
“It’s not exactly the first time he’s tried that shit; why does it care now,” I said, eyes wet with feeling that wasn’t my own. It was like so much emotion had been shoved inside of my heart that my chest felt like it would burst. Like an anxiety attack, but none of those feelings belonged to me. They were foreign, and someone else’.
Daria wiped away my tears.
“Sorry I slapped you,” she sniffled. I laughed, hollow and broken.
“I deserved it. Fuck, I’m just…” I didn’t even know what to say. Our family home was dying underneath me as I sat there in the middle of its’ corpse, and I could feel all of its anger and suffering the entire time. Something dribbled down my face to my lip, and I wiped it away, red staining my fingertips when I glanced at it.
“What happens when a witch house dies?” Charlie asked like he was more curious than horrified, but I could see the revulsion on his face when I looked at him.
Well, witches were revolting. We did horrible, horrific things. We enslaved other creatures to do our bidding by using our magic to manipulate them.
I hated myself a little more. And I was almost grateful my father had drained me of my magic. I wanted nothing of him in my soul, no piece of him, nothing that resembled him in the slightest. It was childish and stupid, but that’s how I felt.
“I don’t know,” Daria said slowly.
“I would not want to be here when it does,” Wolfe commented quietly.
“So do we,” Finn glanced around as he paused, “do we set it on fire, put it out of its misery?”
“We can’t let them come back and drain it of magic; it’s probably what’s keeping the old bastard alive,” Levi said with a snort as he came over, crouching down next to me. He put his hand on the ground, brushing away dirt and rubble, to get to a fragile piece of marble, his only palm resting on it.
I glanced at him. This close up, I could see how tired he was, the lines carved deep into his face around his eyes. He hadn’t looked that old before losing half his arm… maybe the pain of everything was ageing him.
I know I felt about a few decades older than I was.
“You could try it,” he said, glancing at me.
“Try what?” I asked, my mouth going dry.
“Drain the house, take what’s left, use it to spark up your powers again.” He cocked his head. “You know how to do that, right?”
“My father took everything,” I explained, looking over at Wolfe. He was facing away from me, not meeting my gaze.
Levi snorted.
“Here,” he said, grabbing my wrist and shoving my hand down on the tile. “Take it. It wants you to have it. You’re a daughter of this house, and that power has been sitting there for centuries, waiting to be siphoned off by the blood-line. It won’t fix you, no, but it’ll give you something more than being an earth goddess.”
I gasped as soon as my fingers, my palm, hit the cold, wet tile. My whole body lit up, electricityfilling me from top to toes, and it hummed through me.
I could feel it, the house pouring itself into me until my fingers shook, my arm trembling, and it hurt to stay connected.
Whatever Levi had done, it was working, and deep inside, there it was.
That tiny spark.
It lit a flame and then roared to life, spreading through my chest.
I could breathe again.
My heartbeat thudded in my ears, and I glanced at Wolfe again, wondering if he’d known this could happen if this was all I’d needed to get my powers back-
But bitter metallic bile rose in the back of my throat, and I coughed, just once, then again, spattering the tile in blood.
“The fuck,” Finn snarled and grabbed me, pulling me away, just as I vomited, a spray of red showering the torn up flooring in front of me.
Twenty-One
I hadn’t even realized I’d passed out. I woke up, stretched out on a thin sleeping pad, a fire burning and filling the air with wood smoke. Across from me, Finn sat, his legs folded against his chest as he watched me.
His lips thinned, and he did not smile, although he reached over and pushed back the hair from my eyes.
“You’ve taken a few decades off my life,” he muttered, “and I still can’t be fucking mad at you.” My whole body ached, my joints throbbing.
“Wah ‘appen,” my tongue was swollen and wouldn’t work right.
“That’s a whole lot of who the fuck knows,” he said, “but let’s just say, either your daddy dearest left a trap in the house’s soul to murder anyone who came around to sip off the magic stores, or whatever Levi was getting you to do was harder on a human body than it would be on a demon’s.” His fingers were tender as they trailed along with my temple, stroking through my hair. I closed my eyes.
“Where?” I asked because forming more words than that was too hard.
“Outside Wolfe’s carriage house,” he said, “we didn’t wanna bring you inside… incase…” He glanced over his shoulder. “They don’t want me telling you this, and I might be pissed at you for always doing the wrong goddamn thing, but you deserve to know. We don’t know what the house did to you, or what your father did to you, or what this ‘soul magic’ has done to you, but as far as Wolfe’s concerned, your powers are corrupted in some way, and they might just try to murder us all by bringing more buildings down.”
That reality collapsed on my chest like a load of bricks, and I gave a weak cough, trying to sit up.
“Hell no, stay still,” Finn ordered, voice sharp, before his gaze softened, just a slight bit. “Do as you’re told, please, for once.” He shifted toward me and put a gentle arm under my shoulders, lifting me to lean against him.
I tried to mull through what he was saying.
Deep inside me, I could feel something… different. The lightning that was there, humming away, felt off, uncomfortable, almost… itchy. If that’s the right word. My head was foggy, and I could still taste bitter pennies in the back of it.
“You ever wish you weren’t a shifter,” I whispered, leaning into him. “Cause I’ve probably wished I wasn’t a witch a thousand times or more.”
He lifted a hand to run it through my snarled and lank curls.
“You’re fine as you are,” he said, although I could just tell he wasn’t happy with me still, not in the slightest.
I didn’t know how to explain to him the drive that was inside of me. This was all my fault. I’d been born into a family of murderers. Finn and the pack, they were innocent victims in all of this. There was nothing that they should have had to do to fix it. It was on me, and I wore that weight on my shoulders like a cape.
It dragged me down to the ground over and over, but I needed to fix it all.
“I want to say I’m sorry,” I murmured, “But I don’t think I am. I had to try. I had to give it one more shot-”
Finn took my hand in his, turning it skyward and tracing his fingers along my palm.
“If I were you,” he replied, voice soft, “I would do the same.” His gaze met mine, and the pain there made my heart stagger in my chest. “But you’re gonna get yourself killed. And everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve almost died for, will get killed right along with you.” He pulled something out of his pocket, and it glinted in the light. The heartstone, dangling on its chain. He reached up and fastened it around my neck. “This world is nothing without you, and I’m less than nothing with you too. I don’t want to tell you what to do, Darcy; I’ve pushed you around enough, and thrown my weight around, and put my own desires first…”
He swallowed, throat tight and bobbing with emotion.
“I want to be selfish with you,” he whispered, pulling me in close and pressing his lips to my temple. “I want you to know that we’ll fight along with you, even if it means laying down in the dirt and dying because as much as we want to end this with you, we don’t want to continue without you.”
There was a shiver in his arms that made my chest constrict, and I hugged him back, trying to bury myself inside of him.
“You tell me, right now, if you can, what you want, and I’ll help make it happen,” he said, words thick and hoarse. “If that means… helping you to go face that old undead bastard down again, alone, then, fine… if… that’s what you want.”
I knew he hated making that promise. He’d already told me he wanted me to do this with them or not at all.
And now he was giving me a choice even though he was terrified I’d pick the one that was going to mean the end of me.
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