Mangled

by Kaye Draper

  “Ugh,” I rolled my eyes. Too much fucking information. Now I had so many question that I didn’t want to have—like how did erections work when you were dead? Was he cold? Did he have supernatural stamina? Oh. My. God. “Barf.”

  Tommy chuckled.

  Dad eyed us from the front seat. “You two are like brother and sister. I always wished you had a sibling, Tess.”

  I glared at him. I had spent my childhood completely and utterly alone after my mom died. Thanks to his retreat into his alcoholic pity-party. I opened my mouth to give him a scathing reply, but Tommy beat me to it.

  “A wendigo can’t be worse than my real siblings.”

  I met his eyes and shrugged. Cal didn’t seem too bad. I hadn’t spent enough time around the rest to form opinions, but the girls had seemed open and friendly. Certainly not prone to eating people. But who knows?

  Flow hushed us. “Listen,” she hissed. “Feel.”

  I sat up and Tommy slipped his phone away into his pocket. Was he sexting? Oh God, shut up brain!

  Then I was too distracted to think about it anymore. Because I felt what Flo had felt.

  Magic.

  There was a glow on the horizon that wasn’t the sun. I felt small flares of power and saw a couple of brief flares of light, like small gouts of flame. “What--”

  The ground shook and Flo pulled over on the side of the road. “I don’t think we should get any closer. They’ve been going at it in this area for a while now, but it’s slowly moving north.” She looked at me as we got out of the car. “They’re trying to escape. But the hunters just keep chasing.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the glow in the night as I got out of the car. “Wildfire?”

  Tommy cursed under his breath as he slid around my side of the car. I didn’t bother to tell him to shut it. He was right.

  Some distant battle on the other side of the country was scary enough. But this shit was right in my backyard. And if Flo was right, it was moving closer.

  And that magic. I sensed hunters, but also something else. They had changed their magic somehow. It felt both familiar and foreign all at once. And so at odds with the energy of the forest creatures.

  “Okay,” I said, sensing something else. “Road trip officially fucking over. Everyone in the car.”

  I dashed around the front of the car, grabbed Ed and threw him back inside the passenger side of the car, where he had only just exited. “Tess!”

  I slammed the door in his face and looked at Flo’s grim expression.

  “Hunters,” she whispered.

  I nodded. “Fuck. Just…fuck.”

  “I’ll drive,” she said hopping inside. “You can catch up?”

  I glanced at Tommy and he nodded. I had a bad feeling about this. I had better control since Cal had put the witch spell on me, but Tommy and I were not at full power. Not even close.

  Flo turned the car around. “I’m sorry,” she paused to say. “I wanted to show you what was going on. I wanted you to feel it.”

  I nodded in understanding. I wouldn’t have believed her otherwise. Another small tremor shook the ground and I did feel it. I knew exactly what she meant. Whatever that was, it had just killed dozens of magical creatures. I felt their terror, right before the sense of them disappeared as if they had never existed. This wasn’t a war, it was slaughter.

  Flo sped away with my dad and I followed Tommy into the woods. We headed away from the glow, but not in the same direction as Flo and Dad, heading more north-west to take our pursuers off track. I ran, Tommy leapt like an over-exuberant Tigger.

  But eventually they caught up to us.

  There were two of them. One hunter and one with that strange magic.

  “Damn it all to fucking hell!” Tommy shouted. “They have goddamned motherfucking witches!”

  I slid to a halt as I found myself blocked by a wall of magic. It didn’t feel as…solid… somehow, as the wall Cal had hit me with before. Maybe this witch wasn’t as strong.

  I seriously hoped so.

  Tommy and I spun in a circle, our backs pressed together. “I got it,” the idiot said, rushing the hunter.

  He got a punch in before the witch turned that magic on him. But that was a mistake. Because apparently, he couldn’t put up enough of a barrier to block us both at the same time.

  I was on him in a heartbeat. Hunger. Rage. Emptiness. So much darkness that it was like falling down a black hole. Warm blood. Power. Magic.

  I was lost.

  Chapter 14

  When we got back to the cabin, the sun was up. And I was in a royally bad fucking mood.

  Tommy dragged me up the steps and into the house, his feet stumbling as much as mine. We had both gotten a big power surge when I fed, but that had worn off after a few hours of struggling on in the daylight, too afraid to shelter somewhere until dark for fear the hunters would find us again.

  They were sure to be just a little more pissy than usual when they found what was left of the two who had come after us the first time.

  I sank down to sit on the kitchen floor, hair dangling over my bare shoulders, crusted in blood, head pounding with icepick stabs that made me shiver. My shirt was long gone, and my bra was about to lose the battle. Only one strap was holding it up. I lay my head on the cool linoleum and closed my eyes. We had made it home to the sanctuary of my buzzard herd and my creature forest. My bed was twenty feet, one door, and a million miles away. The kitchen floor was good enough.

  I woke in my bed. I could only assume Tommy had made the arduous journey to the room carrying my unconscious ass. The night was only just falling, the sky still the purplish color of a new bruise when I peeked out my bedroom window. But I heard voices raised in the living room. Male voices. And here and there a female one.

  I padded to the hallway and leaned against the wall to watch Tommy argue with his family. “You expect me to believe that you didn’t know?” My ghoul shouted into his father’s face.

  His mother tugged at his arm. “Of course we knew, Tommy, but it just didn’t seem relevant.”

  “Didn’t seem fucking relevant?” Now he was rounding on his mom. “The covens are working with the hunters and you didn’t think it was fucking relevant?”

  Cal had been standing silent, watching his brother, probably waiting for Tommy to yell himself out so he could get a word in edgewise. He was the first to notice me and he broke away instantly, coming to stand before me.

  “Are you hurt?” He reached out a hand as if to touch my cheek and I jerked back.

  “My head hurts because it’s not time to be up yet, but all the yelling was getting annoying,” I growled.

  He gave me a tired, lop-sided smile, not seeming to care that I was still caked in filth. “Well, if that’s all.”

  He made a motion with his hand around my head and magic danced over me. I hissed, not trusting witch magic just now. But my headache vanished.

  “Sorry,” he said, giving me the innocent, sweet look. “Let me help you get to the bathroom, hmm?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. I didn’t need help showering and he damned well knew it. I also didn’t think he just wanted to see me naked. I turned and headed toward the bathroom.

  Cal followed me in and shut the door, then did something with his magic before he turned back to me. “They won’t hear us. Are you okay? Really?”

  I shrugged and picked dried blood out from under my nails. Human blood. No biggie.

  He put his hands on my shoulders. “Tess.”

  I looked up into his sharp blue eyes. All the sweetness was gone, and his real face was there, waiting.

  “I ate them,” I said, voice a husky whisper. “All that’s left are scraps of cloth and bits of bone.”

  I shuddered, pushing away the nausea and the clawing feeling of panic that rose through me at the admission.

  Cal took a deep breath. “They were trying to kill you. And Tommy. And probably your dad and his lady friend.”

  I nodded.

  “W
ithout even verifying that you were a threat.”

  I nodded again. “Of course. We are all threats.”

  He let out a long, shaky sigh. “It is unfortunate they thought that way.”

  I slumped. “That’s all you have to say? One of them was a witch.”

  He spun me around and unhooked my bra clasp with a deft flick of his fingers, then tossed the soiled thing away to the corner of the bathroom. “Some of your monsters eat humans,” he reminded me. “Some humans eat humans.”

  I gagged.

  “I didn’t mean you, Tess. I meant actual vanilla human killers.”

  I pondered that while he unbuttoned my jeans and worked them off, the fabric stiff from being soaked in gore and then drying on the trek through the forest.

  When I was naked, he turned on the shower and pushed me inside. “Wash. And while you rinse off, let the guilt go with it.”

  Once I was under the water, he pulled the curtain closed. Cal sighed and sat on the closed toilet lid. “You’ve never killed a person before, have you? Other than my idiot brother?”

  I snorted as I shampooed my nasty, matted hair. “No. Just him and a wendigo. My meals have always been…volunteered. And they lived.” For a while anyway. The words brought Kwan’s handsome face to my memory, and I swore I could still taste him. Tears leaked out and mingled with the hot water, and even though I hadn’t minded at all that Cal saw me naked and covered with filth, I was thankful that he couldn’t see me now.

  I had eaten two human beings.

  “It…you have to find a way to make peace with that part of you,” he said softly. “It is never easy but--"

  He was interrupted by a flurried pounding on the door. “Caldwell?” Tommy snarled from the other side. “Tell me you are not in there.”

  I peeked around the shower curtain to find Cal grinning. “Should I answer him or stay quiet, so as to defend your honor?” He whispered.

  I rolled my eyes. “Piss off Tommy,” I called cheerily.

  There was a snort from the other side of the door. “Fine, Tess. But remember what I told you before.”

  It took me a minute, but I did remember. Eat whoever I want, just don’t trust them. My ghoul was so cynical. I wonder where he got that trait? I thought, drowning in the sarcasm.

  “Coffee, Tommy,” I demanded.

  “And some peace and quiet,” Cal added. He lowered his voice. “I know no one else can hear through this door, Tommy. When did your magic awaken, and how different is it than ours?”

  Silence.

  I ducked back inside the shower for another round of scrubbing, just to be sure I got it all. Tommy the human disappointment had magic?

  My ghoul heaved a sigh. “I’ll make the damned coffee.”

  “Tommy,” Cal said softly. “She needs to talk to me about the people she killed. Okay?”

  More silence.

  I lathered and rinsed. What did he mean by telling Tommy that? I had no patience for all this family drama and dancing around. With my dad, if I had something to say, I just said it. And he usually returned the favor.

  “Yeah, okay,” Tommy said. “I’ll make the girls help me cook dinner.”

  Cal snorted. “Good luck.”

  When Tommy was gone, I reached my hand out and felt around on the counter for my comb, then used the comb and a shit-ton of conditioner to work the knots and tangles out of my hair. “Why do you need to talk to me about killing people, Cal?”

  I failed to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Was anyone what they seemed in my life?

  Cal sighed, and I heard the shift off fabric as he leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees. “Because I’ve been there a time or two,” he said slowly. “I…Tommy told you that my parents took me away because I couldn’t control my magic, right?”

  “Yep. He said you blew up the house and they thought a little help was in order. But other than the fact that you all left him behind, he didn’t really give me any details.”

  I tugged at an especially nasty knot, then hissed in exasperation. Cal slid the shower curtain aside slightly to see what the problem was, then beckoned me to sit on the edge of the tub. Taking the comb, he turned to face me on his toilet seat throne and worked at the knot with deft fingers.

  “They didn’t know what to do with me. I was more powerful than anyone else they knew at the time. But I was a danger to everyone around me who couldn’t perform defensive magic.” He blew out a breath. “So…they enlisted me in a training program with a branch of the government. An organization that studies the less than human elements of the world and tries to combat the worst of the nasties out there.”

  “Like government hunters?”

  He nodded and tugged at my hair a bit. “Sort of. But more regulated. More organized and less focused on simply eradicating everything. I trained with them for four years. And during that time, I was called in to help them from time to time—they could train me and solve crimes, two birds with one stone.”

  He set a pile of bark and some leaves beside me, then started dragging the comb through my waist-length hair in long, rhythmic strokes. “I helped with some human cases. The magical community isn’t the only one that has monsters.”

  I sighed. “No. I think human monsters are even more creepy.” Because they didn’t have animalistic instincts to blame.

  Standing, I rinsed the last of the conditioner out of my now smooth hair and shut off the water. I took the towel Cal handed me and wrapped it around myself, then stepped out. “So, are you going to tell me killing people gets easier, or something like that?” I said, looking down at him.

  Cal shook his head, his dark eyes full of pain. “No. It’s awful. Always. But you learn to wall it off, so it can haunt you later. We have evolved to survive,” he said, standing. “So, we survive. Don’t question the right and wrong of that or you’ll go mad. If someone is a threat to you or the ones you love. You do what you have to do. No matter what it costs you.”

  His hands were on my shoulders now, and his fingers dented my skin, squeezing as he held back the pain and sadness I saw flash in his eyes.

  Hunger washed over me, and I closed my eyes. No. I had just eaten two people last night. There was no way I needed food again so soon. Cal’s magic washed over me, dampening the beast’s instincts as he renewed the spell on me.

  “The dogman was right,” Cal said, loosening his hold a bit. “You need something to ground you to your humanity. Someone, maybe?”

  I shook my head, eyes still closed. “What does that even mean?”

  His hands move from my shoulders to my hips. “I don’t know. Maybe a human connection?”

  His fingers pressed through the damp towel over my hips, suggesting, but not insisting.

  I stepped closer, pressing the front of our bodies together, opening my eyes as I looked up. “What’s in it for you?”

  He laughed then, and his face shuttered. He put on his charming persona. It was like watching someone slip into a new shirt. “Sex with a hot forest creature?”

  I stared at him. I refused to buy it. At all.

  The persona shirt came off and I saw something I thought might be real. Desperation. “Maybe you aren’t the only one who needs and anchor,” he whispered.

  I surged upward on my tiptoes, meeting his lips.

  His mouth opened under the assault and he let me take the lead, pushing him back against the sink as I raked my fingers through his soft blond hair, pulling back to suck his bottom lip into my mouth.

  The beast in me wanted to hurt him. Wanted to devour him. I shuddered and pulled away. Couldn’t I just have this? Without the goddamned blood and gore?

  Cal was there, bringing me back. He bit his own lip, hard, and blood dribbled from his lip to his chin. “You aren’t going to kill me, Tess.” He seemed so certain. I gave in, drinking in his addictive kisses along with his blood, careful not to wound.

  I tried to share passion with him, rather than the terror a wendigo usually pushed into their victim’s m
inds. I had been able to do that for Kwan, but I didn’t know if a witch’s magic or mind worked that way. Were they more or less susceptible to my powers than a hunter?

  Cal moaned against my lips then broke away, panting.

  So, more sensitive then.

  Holy hell that should not have made me so excited. But I loved that I had that power over him.

  I unbuttoned his pants and slid a hand inside while he nuzzled my throat, nipping and sucking and driving me mad. He was beautifully made, and I grasped the solid heft of him and stroked aggressively.

  He growled against my throat, sliding the towel up to slip his hand between my legs as he pushed me back against the wall. I let my head fall back with a thump as tingles of magic spread from those fingers. Shit. How had I never known about witches until now?

  The only other man I had sex with after my husband died was Kwan. And he had been hesitant, respectful of my boundaries and my wounded heart. Cal didn’t know that I was afraid of intimacy. That I didn’t let people touch me because the thought of losing them was too painful. He only saw the me that was before him right now.

  And I realized suddenly that I wasn’t that fearful, wounded person anymore. I was still…broken…I think, but I could feel. I could enjoy the run, the hunt, the heat of my blood pumping in my chest as I ranged through the forest at night. And I could embrace all those things right now as Cal walked right through my barriers and pinned me against the wall.

  He wasn’t hesitant. He didn’t fear I would break. He pushed the towel up further, grasped my ass in his big hands and lifted me off my feet. I obligingly wrapped my legs around his waist, thankful for our increased strength. Pressing me up against the wall, he slid home, filling me with one long, sure push, pausing to moan against my throat. I shivered and raked my claws lightly down his back, knowing he could feel the sharpness of them through the thin layer of his shirt.

  Confident in my strength, he let me hang on while he lifted one hand to my face, pulling me to him in a scorching kiss. I growled impatiently, not able to move the way I wanted to. He gave me a wicked grin, but finally returned his hands to my hips and took me faster and harder, pouring all of himself into me.