Healed

by Samantha Stone

  She’d never had a cell phone before, and she found she really liked it.

  “Who run the world? Girls!”

  Vale tried to pull his hand away, but Katarina took a risk and held on, shaking her head briefly as she pressed the green button on her smartphone.

  “Hello?” To her immense relief, he squeezed her hand.

  “Where are you?” Christabel obviously had her on speakerphone. Some sort of liquid was being poured in the background, and a female who wasn’t Christabel laughed. It was probably Seraphina, Christabel’s friend who had a stare that could freeze water—no special abilities needed.

  “I’m in New Orleans with Vale.” There was no point in lying to Christabel. She knew far too much as it was, and Katarina didn’t want to do anything to cause the faery to track her more closely than she already did.

  “Get that embarrassingly small ass of yours back to Canada. We’re making mulled wine, and I have some things for you to do before I forget what I want you to do.”

  Beside her, Vale snorted.

  “I’ll be back in a second,” Katarina promised. The line went dead.

  They stopped directly between two lamps, where the darkness of a winter night pressed down upon them. They were close to the Mardi Gras festivities happening a little farther toward downtown, but far enough away that they easily forgot the partying going on around them.

  “Why is it you serve Christabel the way you do?” Vale asked in a quiet voice that was very typical for him. He’d never raised his voice in her presence, or frowned more than slightly.

  Not much ruffled his feathers, from what Katarina could tell.

  It was for her own pride that she partially evaded his question. Lying by omission isn’t really a thing, anyway. “She took me in when no one else wanted me.”

  It was the truth, but not the complete truth. She’d really been given to Christabel like an object when the faery had asked for a warlock fledgling. Christabel had picked Katarina out and taken her that moment months ago, not bothering to ask what she thought on the matter.

  Now she knew her current situation was an improvement, but having a choice would’ve been nice.

  Vale didn’t ask if she had a family, about the warlocks, or even a past coven. He simply regarded her silently for a few moments, his mouth a straight line. His green eyes looked almost black in the shadows, as did his usually ash-colored hair.

  Katarina didn’t want to break the silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable, not with the man standing next to her, still holding her hand as if he didn’t want to let go.

  “You don’t have to be a servant to her or anyone else,” he said roughly.

  Before she could blink, he’d taken her back to Christabel’s flat. She wasn’t convinced his feet hit her shining hardwood floor before he left, disappearing to, well, whatever location on Earth he wished to.

  “All right, tiny almost-human.” Christabel’s speech wasn’t nearly as slurred as it should have been, considering the three empty bottles of wine on the counter. “Here’s your list of chores. Go on, now.”

  Taking the slip of paper, Katarina almost didn’t cringe from the label her boss slapped on her. It wasn’t new, of course, but it still stung. Because in truth, she was almost human. She was too young to become immortal, and she was so ignorant of the ways of witches that she could hardly use her powers.

  It wasn’t her fault she’d been raised among humans, completely unaware of what she was. Only she had no Hagrid to come rescue her on her eleventh birthday, and there was no school that magically sought out all of the witches in the general vicinity.

  The only reason she’d known she was a witch in the first place was because, when she was eighteen, she’d gotten really sick and been hospitalized. It was nothing new to her. Like every other time, doctors hardly paid her any attention, knowing she had no money or insurance to pay for their services anyway.

  She was there for a week, her fever so high she’d hardly been able to remember what her name was, when a woman who looked to be around thirty walked into her shared room with a basket of herbs and glass bottles filled with unappetizing-looking juices.

  The woman didn’t introduce herself, but watched her closely for over an hour before she left, placing a card with an address on her bedside table before she went. Full of hope despite the lingering effects of “a really bad case of the flu,” as the doctors put it, she’d taken the streetcar to the address within a day of being released from the hospital.

  There, a woman with a severe haircut and a pointed, downturned nose, greeted her. She said, on no uncertain terms, that they were a witches’ coven, not a charity, before she ripped up the card Katarina held out.

  Katarina had been too shocked by the casual use of the term “witches’ coven” that she only stood there, her jaw slack. The woman, the witch, had sighed, as if she taxed herself greatly merely by speaking to her.

  “If you hang around Jackson Square, I’m sure someone kinder than I am might notice you.”

  One month later, the witch’s words came true, and she’d been invited to join the float of warlocks, where she’d been treated as the lowest of them all.

  What a mistake.

  Glancing down at the list of things Christabel wished for her to do—like buy more mulled wine and a few herbs, feed the man Christabel kept chained in a secured room, and find an object called a распятие,—she considered Vale’s parting statement.

  She didn’t have to do Christabel’s bidding, just as she didn’t have to join the warlocks when she did. But where else could she go? From the time she was fourteen, she learned she got sick too often to keep a stable job, and when she went to work sick, strange things happened.

  Like every dairy product in the coffee shop where she used to work curdling at once, reflecting her fever, or all the cakes in the vegan bakery on Oak Street sinking. She’d been fired both times, the latter event hurting her the most. She’d loved that job, uncaring that she made less than minimum wage paid in cash.

  She’d only ever worked in food businesses, but maybe she could expand that. What, and get fired after frying every computer in an office building? No thanks.

  Borrowing Christabel’s massive tablet, she Google searched the распятие, imagining it to be some sort of bomb she’d go to jail simply for researching in the first place.

  It was the Russian term for crucifix. That would be easy enough to find. Grabbing a wad of cash from the table—it was probably left for her—she hoped a church or religious store would be near the herb shop down the street. Absently, she wondered why Christabel wanted thistle and juniper. Then she remembered the man who screamed less and less every day and realized she probably didn’t want to know.

  Katarina slipped the list into her pocket. This, she could do. This, she wouldn’t screw up.

  If she got sick again—when she got sick again—the worst she could do was piss off Christabel, and something told her the faery would be more amused than anything about the side-effects of Katarina’s fevers.

  She sighed. For now, she was exactly where she needed to be.

  Chapter 3

  AIYANNA glanced around her temporary quarters and wondered why Emmanuel was being so kind. He’d opened his home, and now he spooned red beans and rice into a bowl for her.

  Over the years, she’d come to find when something seemed too good to be true, it usually was. What was this kelpie’s catch?

  Surreptitiously, she sent a pin of her location to Sophia, Charlotte, and Raj, a werewolf and two shapeshifters who would come immediately if Emmanuel tried anything less than gentlemanly.

  Only…he didn’t seem interested in anything other than seeing her fed and providing a place for her to sleep until she figured what in the hell she was doing.

  “So you’re in a fight with that werewolf, Cael,” Emmanuel began conversationally. He fixed himself a bowl from the Crock-pot and sat across from her at his small kitchen table. />
  His house was immaculate. The walls in each room were a shade of blue or green, reminding her of the water his kind was so fond of. The decorations were tasteful, if minimalistic. Obviously he’d either hired an interior designer or had a talented friend to set up his home.

  Either that, or she seriously underestimated the male ability to make spaces pretty.

  Around every corner she’d expected to discover something sinister, only to come across a large jar of seashells or a fish tank filled with exotic pets.

  She didn’t want to answer his question. Telling him it was none of his damned business was on the tip of her tongue, but there was an understanding in his dark eyes and the softening of his jaw that told her, this one time, she could trust him.

  “I left a man I wasn’t even dating,” she started.

  He raised an eyebrow, his eyes glittering with amusement.

  Aiyanna growled low in her throat. “He’s my mate, but he doesn’t want a mate—”

  “So Cael’s only a spectacularly overprotective friend,” Emmanuel finished for her.

  “How’d you know it was Cael?”

  He laughed. “It would take oh, less than five minutes for anyone in that firehouse to see something bizarre between you two.”

  Scowling, Aiyanna applied herself to her dinner. It was damn good, with the appropriate amounts of the holy trinity of red beans and rice: onions, peppers and celery.

  When she finished, she looked up to see Emmanuel smiling at her near-empty bowl. To her immense relief, he’d eaten just as heartily.

  “How long are you going to hide from him?” he asked, his smile fading.

  “I’m not hiding.” That’s exactly what I’m doing. She suppressed a groan. “Okay, I am hiding, but not because I think Cael would hurt me. If he finds me now, my resolve will shatter and we’ll be right back where we were.”

  “And where were you?”

  She answered immediately. “Stuck. I wanted him, he wanted to protect me without any romantic strings, and neither of us were willing to bend.”

  Nodding, Emmanuel took her dishes and his to the sink. Aiyanna rose, too, and turned for the guest room he’d shown her before dinner. It was a safe enough distance away from his room; although, she had an inkling he would head for the river instead of a bed tonight.

  She had no problem with having his house to herself.

  Emmanuel caught her arm on her way down the hall from the kitchen. “He’s full of shit,” he told her seriously.

  Having expected him to call Cael an idiot, similar to what Sophia had said for months, his words made her mouth fall open. She may have made a squeaking sound, but that was probably the result of an old floorboard. Certainly she hadn’t made such an undignified noise.

  He grinned. “He wants you as his mate.”

  With that, he ripped off his shirt and made for his back door, sending her a wink over his shoulder before he locked it and closed it behind him.

  Only a kelpie would walk into a frigid river in early February.

  Suddenly weary, Aiyanna ransacked his kitchen to find the ingredients to make hot chocolate. He had a few packets of Swiss Miss in a drawer, but she took a small chocolate bar from the same drawer and melted it in a mug of milk in the microwave.

  Steaming cup in hand, she brought it to her room, sat on the bed and cried into her drink.

  Had she overreacted? Should she keep taking what little Cael gave her without complaint?

  No. By refusing his own powers and putting his pack in danger, he’d gone too far. Those semi-comforting thoughts did nothing to calm her down. She’d ripped out her own heart, even though Cael had steered completely clear of it.

  He was such a huge part of her life, as was his pack. They were her true family; she’d never been accepted by the shapeshifters in the city, namely because she was a healer and shifters were not known for healing.

  They were known for brute-force violence, and luckily most of them channeled that into working for the New Orleans Police Department, helping make the officers in the city some of the best in the country.

  It was against half of her nature to heal, but it was against the other half of her to cause harm, leaving her with no real community she fit with until she met the clan prohibitum.

  Of course, she couldn’t be an honorary packmate anymore. That would be too painful for her and Cael, and no matter how angry she was at him, she had no wish to hurt him further.

  After she finished her hot chocolate, she brushed her teeth, locked the door to her bedroom and tucked herself into bed. She’d had to leave Cael. She couldn’t keep living like this, letting a dead woman determine so much of her life.

  That didn’t stop her last thoughts before she fell into sleep.

  What have I done?

  * * * *

  The next morning, she woke to a hard knock on the door.

  “You know I’ll burn this door down if you don’t open up,” Sophia warned from the other side.

  Aiyanna groaned. Was the sun even out yet? Who wakes up this early?

  Terrified Sophia would make good on her threat—which she was more than capable of doing—she pulled on the first shirt and jeans she could find in her suitcase and threw the door open.

  “What the hell?”

  It was all she could say to the too-awake red-head in front of her.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Sophia said with a frown. “You dump Cael and just leave without telling any of us? Not cool.”

  There was a note of genuine hurt in Sophia’s voice, and it was the first instance since her argument with Cael that she really considered the rest of his pack. Sure, she planned to help them as much as she could in their impending war against the warlocks, but things wouldn’t be the same.

  The changes would hurt them too. Her absence wouldn’t only affect Cael.

  “I’m sorry.” Aiyanna tried to run a hand through her long hair, only for it to get stuck at her scalp. The corner of Sophia’s mouth twitched.

  “I should have texted Heath and not Vale to pick me up from the firehouse, but I hadn’t wanted to drive a wedge between packmates.” Really, an even bigger wedge than was already present. Heath and Sophia were the head soldiers for the pack, and something told Aiyanna they had an even bigger problem with Cael’s refusal to take his powers back than she did.

  Still, she’d never tried to set Cael’s own pack against him, not for any reason. What they had was sacred, something to be cherished. No other creatures had something as cooperative and beneficial as packs. Even witches with their covens were much more independent. The coven itself was more comparable to a small college, rather than a true family like most packs were.

  Sophia played with the Zippo she constantly kept in her hand or pocket. “What you should have done was tell Heath and me before you stormed out on Cael. Now he’s rampaging, destroying so much of the firehouse that Gris-Gris has to pick up after him.”

  Gris-Gris was Briony’s familiar, a creature in the form of a cat that was really a compilation of conduit spirits, or the spirits of people who had so much power inside them, warlocks kidnapped them and used them until their very lives were taken.

  Luckily for the conduits, Sebastian freed them from the warlocks, after which they pledged loyalty to both him and Briony.

  Having a powerful conduit around didn’t suck. It meant much less cleanup and serious security, but since there were many personalities in that small cat—some younger than others—it also meant juvenile pranks happened from time to time.

  For almost a week, Gris-Gris made it so Aiyanna’s normally raven-black fur in her panther form was a glittering bubblegum pink. She hadn’t been amused.

  “How badly has he hurt himself?” She hadn’t missed his injuries yesterday, but she’d been painfully aware her choices were to either heal him and put up with his shit, or walk away.

  It would have been a little strange to leave him after healing him,
or to stomp off only to come back, heal him and stomp off again. She’d considered both scenarios strongly, but in the end reasoned he hadn’t hurt himself too much. The scrapes from last night should be almost healed already, thanks to his immortality.

  Even convicted werewolves with bound powers had a few perks to make them stronger than humans.

  Still, not healing someone who was in any sort of pain went against her nature. The only times she didn’t heal purposefully was in situations where there were so many injuries she had to choose what to heal. Those were the worst, as it sometimes came down to, Who should I let sit in pain for longer?

  “He’s pretty torn up, not that he seems to have noticed. Heath is dealing with him now—he just dropped me off here after having a quick word with Emmanuel.”

  Aiyanna moved past Sophia to peek down the hall into the living room, but she didn’t see any sign of her host.

  “He’s probably gone back to bed,” Sophia said on a laugh. “Heath may have woken him…and by that I mean when he brought us here, we landed in bed with Emmanuel.”

  Apparently it wasn’t impossible to laugh and moan at the same time. Emmanuel was definitely going to kick her out before Ash Wednesday, especially given her friends had barged into his bedroom while he was sleeping.

  Like Vale, Heath had the ability to travel through air particles, allowing himself to go virtually anywhere in the world in less than a moment. Before his powers were bound, he’d been a water elemental, so this added ability had been a shock when he got his powers back almost four months ago. From what Aiyanna knew, he practiced daily, but sometimes the places he ended up were less than ideal.

  Heath was constantly landing on furniture, steep rooftops or in parts of buildings where he was unwelcome. The sole reason he hadn’t impaled himself or Sophia on some sort sharp object was because he traveled through the air itself, which didn’t allow him to land with, say, a mailbox sticking out from his chest.