by Lu J Whitley
Something moved beneath his skin. Dark and deadly. Alive, even though he seemed on the brink of death. She whipped her hand away and shuddered, a cold chill raking its way down her back. “Jami,” she tried again, but nothing. He just got colder. Clammier. Paler. Even the restless dark presence went silent and still, the moonlight casting a deadly pall over his features. “Don’t you dare die on me!” Not here. Not now.
A thread of panic began to spool around her chest, constricting her lungs and making breathing difficult. Think, Greta! Think! Her hands shook as she clasped them together. “You’re fine. You’re gonna be okay.” She repeated the mantra aloud as she placed her interlocked palms below the base of his sternum and pressed down. She didn’t even make a dent, his rigid muscle impeding her momentum. She closed her eyes and cleared her mind. The panic was threatening to take over, shut her down completely. She pressed down again, kneeling over him and putting the full force of her body weight behind the movement. Grunting with the effort, “C’mon!”
Nothing.
She rocked back, digging her toes into the loose gravel and seeking purchase. Threw herself forward again. “Ja. Mi,” she chanted. Breath forced from her lungs with every depression of her hands. Finally, she set a steady rhythm, her body switching to autopilot like it’d done this a million times before. She found comfort in the cadence. Push. Breathe. Push. Breathe.
Inside her head, familiar white light opened to her. Like a door, inviting, welcoming her. It was calm. Serene. “Come,” it said in a soft feminine voice, “We help.” Greta gave herself over to that blinding white as she’d done so many times in the past. Trusting completely, knowing if she went there, everything would be okay. Nothing could harm her inside that warm, welcoming blankness.
The light stretched to a thin line. Threadlike, but infinitely long. Without knowing why, she pictured herself grabbing on to that thread and holding it with all her might. Jami’s body seemed to warm beneath her fingertips, giving her a rush of energy. The warmth flooded up her arms. Through her chest. Slowly washing over her entire body. Words came to her, flowing out from that glowing white in a language she didn’t know. Her mouth formed the rough syllables, working of its own accord and chanting with the rhythm of her thrusting hands. The air grew thick around her, like the building of static before a storm. The hair on her arms stood on end. Wind whipped her clothes, swirling around her. A wave of warmth coalesced in her mouth, mingling with the words she spoke. Building. Power formed in ebbs and flows, like a vast ocean of cascading sounds.
With a rumbling in her ears, the white line in her mind resolved to a pinprick, imploding in on itself. Radiating heat exploded from her, shooting outward and streaking from her lips. Flooding her body with a fiery blaze. Extending until it surged through her palms into Jami’s chest.
★ ★ ★
Jami sucked in a breath, the thick scent of ozone riding the inhale. He felt like he’d been struck by lightning. Which wasn’t fun. He knew that much from experience.
His chest burned. Ached. He opened his eyes. The horizontal position threw him off-kilter for a second, making the whole world tip on its axis. “What the fuck,” he grumbled.
Greta shrieked, the sound piercing straight into his brain. “Jami?!” Then she was on him, throwing her arms around his neck. Flitting hands worried over his head and shoulders. He wanted to lift his arms and wrap them around her. To comfort her, even though he had no idea why she was so upset. But his biceps felt like they were glued to the ground. He was drained. Paralyzed. “You’re okay. You’re okay,” she kept repeating the litany, “You’re okay.”
He tried to get her attention, but he couldn’t find his voice. His throat was raw - charred - as if he’d been in some random fire swallowing accident. “Greta,” he finally managed the word, but his voice was so soft she didn’t hear him.
“You’re okay,” she told him again. Her lips were so close to his skin he could feel her breath fanning out over his cheek. The scent of her connected with his nostrils, that near edible sweetness flooding his system like a jolt of electricity.
Want. The beast inside his head hissed to life and darkness invaded the edges of his consciousness. He knew if she looked down at that moment, his eyes would be changing from blue to red, glowing in their sockets.
Jami slammed his lids closed. No. The word screamed through his mind like an icy wind. He waited for the surge of power that usually came just before the beast surfaced and took control. But it didn’t come. What had she done to him? He honestly didn’t care. For the first time in what seemed like centuries, he felt relaxed. He felt almost… Human.
“You’re o...o...kay,” Greta was still repeating, though the words were broken, caught up in her hitched breathing. Droplets tapped his skin. Fell to his forehead and slid down his nose, landing at the corner of his mouth. He flicked his tongue out - had to taste, and he moaned on contact. The salt of her tears mixed with her saccharine flavor and exploded over his taste buds. She retreated, instantly, rocking back on her heels and severing the connection. He felt chilled without her draping him like a blanket. “Did I hurt you?” The concerned look in her red-rimmed, lavender eyes nearly did him in.
“No. I’m… I’m okay.”
“Good!” She thumped her fist against his chest. “Don’t you EVER scare me like that again!”
“I’m sorry.” He knew he’d frightened her. Lost control. Gods, what he’d almost done. The thought made his stomach turn. “When I lose control… sometimes… I can’t help it…”
“Sometimes, you lose control and have an aneurysm?”
“No. No. Wait, aneurysm?”
“You passed out. Stopped breathing. Got all pale and deathy. Ring a bell?”
He looked at her as if she had three heads. “Passed out?” He’d never passed out in his life unless he was out in the sun too long, not even before he’d been cursed.
“Why the hell else do you think you’re flat ass on the ground?”
“I thought you…” He couldn’t finish the thought. Why was he on the ground? The last thing he knew he was lunging toward her, ready to… He shook his head. No, he was not that monster anymore. “How did you stop me?”
“Stop you,” she chuffed with irritation, all concern lost, “I didn’t stop you. You stopped yourself. Gave yourself a stroke. And then passed out cold on the goddamn ground.”
He raised up on his elbows, glad his body was finally responding again. “Then what?”
“Then what,” she parroted, “Then I gave you CPR. Then you woke up.”
“CPR?” She’d tried CPR on him? His heart hadn’t stopped beating for a single second in more than eight-hundred years. He couldn’t help the slight chuckle that escaped him at the thought. She apparently wasn’t amused.
“What is this? Twenty questions?” Her hands flew to her hips. If she’d have been standing, she would have stomped a foot in frustration. He bit back a smile. “You weren’t breathing. I gave you CPR… Or at least I started to.”
He sat up and clasped her shaking hands in his. “Greta. What did you do?”
“I don’t… I don’t know. It’s crazy.”
“Tell me anyway.” She tried to look away from him, but he reached up, placing his fingers on her cheek and making her maintain eye contact. “Please.”
“I was pressing on your chest - doing CPR, and suddenly there was this warm sensation. Like a strange light. It was flowing out of you into my hands. Then I started chanting. I don’t know where the words came from or what they meant. But it’s like they were taking that light and molding it. And then I somehow sent it back out into you. Then you woke up.”
“Gods,” he breathed, “You’re Wyrd!”
She reeled back as if he’d slapped her and started to scramble to her feet. “Fucking nice! I save your life, and you call me weird!”
“No. Not weird.” He grabbed her hand, trying to pull her back down. “Wyrd, as in someone in tune with fate, destiny, magic.”
“You think I’m a witch?”
“No, witch isn’t the right term for it. Witches cast spells, brew potions. Petty things. The Wyrd. They… It’s hard to explain.”
“Try.”
“The Wyrd are basically the vessels of fate. They don’t do magic, really, though they can be imbued with certain powers. It’s like they can see a line of fate and reroute it. I guess would be the easiest way to say it.”
“So you’re saying, I just took your fate and transferred it to another line. One where you didn’t have an aneurysm and die?”
“I don’t know really.” He shrugged, the motion sending a wave of pain outward from his abused sternum. “The only Wyrd woman I ever met was your ancestor, and she wasn’t exactly a font of information.”
“Well, maybe if you hadn’t been so busy screwing her, you could’ve asked some questions.”
The jealous tone of her voice nearly knocked him back to the ground. “Maybe.” She rocked backward and rose to her feet in a fluid motion, leaving him on his ass in the dirt as she slowly made her way back to the van. He sat and watched her go, black hair sparking like onyx in the moonlight. Not able to keep his attention from the way those new jeans curved right under her ass and left nothing to the imagination. Gods… Wyrd. Who would’ve known? His Greta was strong, beautiful, sexy, and powerful. Everything. Except his.
★ ★ ★
Greta was, under no circumstances, a witch… Or weird… Or whatever it was Jami had gotten into his near-death fevered mind that she was. She just wasn’t. End of story. She would know. Oh yeah. Because everyone in her life had been so forthcoming with information. She had no way to explain what had just happened. What she’d done. But she was sure there was some perfectly logical…
“You okay?” Jami came up to her silently. She didn’t flinch this time. Was it sad she was sort of getting used to the way Mr. Six-foot-Something of hard muscle and badassery had mastered the skill of prancing about without making a sound?
“My mom. Was she weird… Or whatever?”
“Why would you ask that?”
His hand came to rest lightly on her shoulder. She shrugged it off and turned on him. “Would it kill you to answer a goddamn question?”
“No. Your mother was not Wyrd.”
“Oh. Well, I thought…”
“You thought maybe if she had had powers, she would’ve been able to stop what those Takers had done to her? Not the case, I assure you.” He reached out for her again, and this time, she let him. His palm settled into the curve of her waist. “There was nothing she could do. And there was nothing you could do.”
“But it is genetic.” If he saw the tears that were looming in the corners of her eyes, he chivalrously pretended not to notice.
“It could very possibly be genetic. Seems to be. But that still wouldn’t mean your mother would be Wyrd, since that particular connection is on your father’s side of the family.”
“My fa… No, that can’t be right.”
“Why not? It’s not common, but men can also be vessels of the Wyrd.”
“So my dad was a witch?” She couldn’t believe those words had just left her mouth. Actually, it explained a lot.
“That’s… uh… difficult to say.”
“What are you not telling me?” She leaned back against the van, attempting to sever their connection, but he moved right along with her. He stepped into her space, one hand on her waist, the other resting against the cold metal of the van. Caging her in.
He gritted his teeth as he leaned in toward her, those icy eyes locking onto hers. “I can’t…”
“Seriously. You need to tell me what’s going on.” Greta slammed her eyes closed and dropped her head back, the condensation from the van dripping into her hair. “I’m so sick and tired of being the only one in the dark.”
“Fine.” He pushed back, standing upright and walking toward the driver’s side door. “But not here.” He climbed up into the cab without so much as a glance in her direction.
She pushed herself off the side of the van, crossing her arms under her breasts and shivering as her sweater pulled tight across her sensitized nipples, which were standing at attention from the cold… And other things. She made her way to the passenger side with a petulant huff and slid in through the still open door. “Fine,” she grunted as she slammed the door behind her, “But goddamn it, I want a shower and a bed to sleep in. I can’t spend one more night in this fucking van!” She stared at him and met his cold gaze with her own vibrant violet, daring him to welsh on the deal. She figured if he could make conditions, she could make some of her own.
The look he gave her was nothing short of scandalous. No red eyes. No fangs. All unchecked lust. “Agreed.”
★Chapter 9
The resort was quiet, solitary. Caught in the lull between endless summer days and the first thick blanket of winter snow. Autumn leaves crackled under their tires and a dozen shabby exteriors were exposed to the headlights as Jami turned the van onto the narrow gravel drive. Set up in a semi-circle of individual cabins, the place didn’t look like much. White paint chipping and peeling. A thick growth of moss covering almost every surface. He let out a sigh. It'd have to do. He’d promised Greta a bed to sleep in, and a bed she would have. Soon.
She’d been strangely silent on the short drive, fidgeting nervously and pulling invisible threads at the hems of her sleeves. He selfishly wished she was still wearing his T-shirt. He loved the thought of her covered in something that was his, something that smelled like him and marked his territory. But the deep teal sweater she’d bought set off her eyes, making them look more vibrant, like the color of the chicory blossoms that had grown in his mother’s garden when he was young. The plunging V-neck accentuated her curves, now that she’d nixed that awful sports bra in favor of something a little more feminine. Her luscious breasts were lifted, separated, and put on display, a hint of black lace peeking out when she moved. He could think of only one reason for the trade-up. She wanted to be seen, noticed, and admired. And that thought had all the blood rushing from his head, his cock twitching with excitement.
He pulled the van to a slow stop at the curb and cut the engine. She moved for the door handle, but he caught her. “Wait there.”
“Oookay.” She pushed a rogue strand of midnight hair back behind her ear and nibbled her bottom lip. He turned away before he lost his mind and started nibbling it for her.
Climbing out and bringing his satchel along with him, he wasted no time in speeding to the passenger side and pulling open her door. He offered a hand to help her step to the ground and bowed low in a show of respect. His father had drilled him for hours on the proper etiquette for helping a lady out of a carriage. Not much of it still applied, but some things never went out of style.
“Thank you,” she said shakily, taking the extended hand and stepping out of the van. He couldn’t help the wolfish grin that played at the edges of his mouth as he closed his hand on the small of her back, sliding his index finger along the seam between shirt and jeans. The small gasp she exhaled nearly dropped him to his knees.
Never in his long life had he felt so free. It was a heady rush. He had no idea what Wyrd magic she’d used on him or how long it might keep the beast inside his head at bay, but he planned to take full advantage of the situation while it lasted. Greta poked him in the ribs, and he let out an over-dramatic ‘oof’ of pain, wringing a shy smile from her as she twisted open the knob and led them into the hotel.
The inside of the rustic lobby was outdated, but neatly kept. An elderly woman in a floral smock was holding up one end of the counter, as if she’d been planted there for years. Or maybe taxidermied by a mourning husband. She looked him up and down, shock blooming in her wrinkled face. Clearly flustered, the woman wrung her hands together as she glanced back and forth between him and Greta. “We’re full,” she blurted, “No rooms.”
A tingling sense of unease moved slowly down Jami's spine and shivered through his body, making
his hair stand on end. He began to retreat instinctively, but Greta snaked her arm around his waist, holding him to the spot. And he quickly lost the urge to fight. “Let me handle this,” she whispered, flashing a brilliant smile that he couldn’t help but mirror with one of his own. She took a step forward, and rather than be let go of, he moved in tandem with her, step for step. “Miss…”
“Polk,” the woman supplied.
“Yes. Miss Polk. Nice to meet you,” Greta began in a soothing tone, “I’m afraid we have a little bit of confusion on our hands. You see, my husband…” She gestured to Jami, and he was just as caught off guard as the woman behind the counter, though he tried not to show it. “… And I have been traveling for a very long time, and it seems we might be a little lost. We saw your vacancy sign, and if it’s not too much trouble, we’d just like somewhere to stay for the night. It’s late, and I’m sure we’d find our way more easily after a good night’s sleep.” Miss Polk was leaning closer to Greta as she spoke, withered hands pulling at the thin cotton of her blouse. Her face was a mask of concern. “Isn’t there some way you could help us, Miss Polk?” When Greta got no answer, she continued, “I promise we’ll be no trouble. We’ll even pay double the room rate for the inconvenience.”
Jami slid his hand downward, cupping Greta’s ass through her jeans and giving her a little pinch. Not because he was upset about the money, though it would have been a valid excuse. But he wanted to get her attention. If she was going to go around telling strangers she was his wife, she’d better be prepared for the consequences. A shiver passed through her, but she remained in character, swatting his hand away without as much as a blink. Good girl.
“Ooohhh.” Miss Polk threw up her hands in exasperation. “Alright! I’ve got one. ONE. Cabin available. But there better not be any funny business. And I’ll need to see proof that you’re hitched. It might not matter where you folks are from, but up here, we’re loyal God-fearing people. I won’t have any ‘shacking up’ on my property, ya hear?”