by Lisa Medley
He was so screwed.
Chapter Sixteen
Maeve sat in the bath Rosemary had run for her, the hot steamy water lapping around her throat as she sank down and breathed in the luxurious vapors of the myriad of oils and bath salts Rosemary had sprinkled into the tub. Eucalyptus, peppermint and something hot and spicy wafted up through the steam. Rosemary had said it was a cleansing bath, but more for the aura and spirit than for the body.
Either way, Maeve was onboard. It was Heavenly.
Her anger had receded to a simmer from a full boil and she felt slightly less murderous. A stab of guilt settled into her heart about cutting Nate open earlier. He did seem intent on helping her, but why was it that men always insisted on smothering you with their “help”?
So far, she’d made it just fine on her own, thank you very much. Right up until she was possessed, and that hadn’t even been her fault. What reaper wouldn’t have made the same call? Every one of them would have done the same and that was a freakin’ fact.
The oils and salts were obviously doing their job because Maeve was so relaxed she was about three seconds from sliding beneath the surface and taking a nap. She tilted her neck from side to side until she heard the familiar cracks and pops. A deep sigh escaped her. Hell, she might even be able to get a full night’s sleep…actually at night for a change.
And here, cocooned within the hum of a magic even stronger than she’d experienced at the Authority compound…she felt safe. A warning sounded deep in her subconscious, reminding her she could never be truly safe.
She’d planned to fight Nate tooth and nail until he relented and released her from his childish magical leash, but Rosemary had thrown a kink into that plan. Maeve liked the woman. A lot. If the healer could somehow help her unscramble her eggs, she was willing to at least give her the chance. Nate hadn’t warned Rosemary about her poisoned energy, but Maeve would tell her before things progressed. The last thing she wanted to do was kill Nate’s mom.
Although the value of Nate’s life was still negotiable.
“I think you’ve had enough, dear. You look like you’re about ready to fall asleep.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rosemary held up a fluffy white robe the likes of which Maeve had never encountered. Her first reaction was Hell No, but on reconsideration, it looked warm and soft. She toweled off and slid into the robe.
Good God, it feels wonderful.
Warm and soft and homey. She was so going to get her one of these to bring home with her. Then she remembered where she was supposedly living, a thirty-foot camping trailer with Nate, and the appeal evaporated. No sense getting spoiled by too much luxury. Of course, after spending most of her nights the past few months in Hell or used crypts, everything was a luxury.
As she tied the robe around her snuggly, she realized that she didn’t have a headache for the first time since regaining consciousness.
That had to be a good sign, right?
Less murderous and no headache? Hell, she was practically cured already.
“Come along, dear.”
“Maeve. You can call me Maeve.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Stubborn, just like her son.
Rosemary led her to a large padded table she’d set up in the workroom. Although she’d never had one before, Maeve recognized it as a portable massage table. Flipping a sheet over the table, Rosemary covered it with a fluffy fleece blanket. After adding a pillow, she indicated that Maeve should lie down.
Still feeling unsure, she climbed up onto the table and smoothed out her robe to make sure it still covered her. She’d never been comfortable with putting herself at another’s mercy. Even though she was naked beneath the fluffy, girly robe, something about Rosemary inspired her trust. The warmth of the crackling fireplace, the light of its flames flickering across the walls in hypnotic patterns, and the lingering scent of the oils in her hair were all enough to draw her heavy eyelids closed as the older woman fussed around her.
“Maeve, before you fall asleep, I need to ask you a few questions. How are your memories?”
Maeve’s eyes flew open and she turned to look at the woman. “Messed up. Like things are out of order. Most of my memories from the past few months, especially during the possession, are…missing. I have a few random memories of that time, but the most important things are gone. Something terrible is going to happen, but I don’t know what.”
“That’s typical with a trauma, but I think yours is more than that. I think your chi is blocked and one or more of your chakras was damaged in the possession and subsequent exorcism.”
“Have you repaired something like that before?”
“Not in cases as extensive as yours. But I’m confident it can be done.”
“Will it restore my memories?”
“I would hope so, eventually.”
Maeve struggled against her overwhelming fatigue. “Would we exchange energy during this process?”
“No. Not really. I’ll use a crystal chakra wand to clear each of your energy gates. Why do you ask?”
“My energy is poisonous.”
“Do you know this as a result of your possession?”
“No…before. I killed my brother by trying to heal him. The only other person who I’ve ever had an exchange with is—”
“Nate.”
“Yes. How do you know that?”
“Because you and Nate are connected now. Your energies mark you like fingerprints. I knew the second I touched you both that you were bound and not just by magic. You have a bond beyond the magical or physical. Something spiritual. Yin and yang. Your very souls are entwined.”
Maeve shuddered. She’d felt it, too, but refused to accept it. To be bound to a man was as good as being a prisoner.
“Can you break it? The bond?”
“I can clear your chakras, but a bond like yours can only be broken by death, however, you two are so connected now that the death of one will mean the death of the other. You, my dear, only have a partial soul remaining. I suggest you guard it well. While it cannot be fully restored, we can seat what remains more firmly into place. But I’m afraid, love it or hate it, you’ll always be drawn to the missing piece.” Rosemary lit candles around the room, adding to the pleasant blend of aromas, and returned with a beautiful crystal wand.
“To Nate?”
“Yes.” Rosemary presented the wand before her across her open hand. “What shall it be, Maeve? Shall we restore you to fight another day?”
“Yes.”
Rosemary smiled down at her, looking almost angelic with the firelight framing her hair. “Relax, my dear.”
Maeve settled into the table, trying to prepare herself for whatever was to come. The crystal wand was just enough of a distraction to hold her interest. The ten-inch wand of solid crystal was bejeweled with sixteen polished stones and wrapped in copper wire. It was a work of art, crafted with care and skill, and it gleamed in the glowing light. Maeve had never seen anything like it.
“This is a powerful tool. It will amplify your energy, clear your chakras and remove any negative trace energy from your experience. The negative energy will travel through the wand and out into the universe to be absorbed. Once it’s out of your body, you should begin to feel better.”
Fear crept along the edges of Maeve’s mind. What if her energy somehow did injure Rosemary? She wouldn’t be able to live with herself.
“We’ll start at your root chakra and work our way up.” Rosemary held the wand horizontally above Maeve’s toes and slowly passed over her legs, drawing the wand up her body to hover just across her hips. She repeated the motion six times. “Open your robe so that I may touch your skin with the wand.”
Hesitantly, Maeve obeyed, unwrapping the sash and letting the fabric fall open, exposing her body in the firelight. She wasn’t embarrassed in front of Rosemary, but the vulnerability was disconcerting. Like exposing your soft belly to the world.
Rosemary returned the wand to
her toes and drew it back to her hips a final time, touching the end of the wand to her skin an inch below her belly button. A flood of warmth gathered, growing in intensity until it became a slow burn that coursed through her to the point of contact before dissipating. The relief was physical and immediate.
“I felt that,” Maeve said, amazed that an inanimate object could elicit such a response.
“Of course, you did. But it’s only the beginning.” She repeated the entire process three more times. Each time she pressed the golden stone against Maeve’s skin, drawing energy through her and out, the feeling was less intense, but still noticeable.
“What is that stone?”
“Citrine. It combats negative energy, breaking it up so that it can be absorbed by the universe.”
“And the others?”
“Jaspar, amber, mookite, Tibetan quartz, aragonite, yellow calcite and sulphur. The copper wire conducts the energy where I direct it with the wand. It’s very powerful for healing energy work. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.” Rosemary smiled down at her.
“How did you know it would work on me if you’ve never used it before?”
“Have a little faith.”
Faith was something Maeve was fresh out of these days. She had faith in only what she could see and feel, but right now, she could definitely feel something happening.
Rosemary rested the wand horizontally over her hips, right at her belly button and drew the wand up slightly toward her lower rib cage. At the end of the seventh pass, she placed the golden citrine against her skin and the negative energy fled her body.
“The sacral chakra is clear.”
Next she moved a hands width above Maeve’s belly button and began again. This time her breathing became more difficult, escaping her in quick, short pants.
“Breath slowly. Concentrate on your air coming in and going out, or you’ll hyperventilate.” Maeve tried to follow her directions, though it was difficult to fend off her panic.
“The solar plexus chakra is clear.”
Moving through the chakras, Rosemary repeated the process over and over, working her way across Maeve’s exposed body, inch by inch, explaining as she went: heart chakra, throat chakra, brow chakra. Each chakra elicited its own uncomfortable sensation before giving her relief, until only one remained.
“The last is your crown chakra, the largest. First I’m going to stimulate it with massage, then we’ll clear it.” Rosemary stood behind Maeve and placed her hands on her head. Working her fingers through her hair, she gently massaged her scalp and Maeve resisted the urge to purr.
How could such a simple thing feel so good?
Several minutes later, Rosemary stopped and left Maeve’s scalp a quivering and tingling mess. Her vision blurred and for a moment she worried she might pass out. Rosemary walked to the end of the massage table and held the wand above her feet once again.
“I’ll do several complete passes, ending at the crown chakra to ensure we’ve cleared all your negative energy. A clear crown chakra should allow your thoughts and memories to reorganize over time. Don’t expect it to be immediate. You’ll have to be patient. It will take time.”
“Something tells me we don’t have much time, Doc, but let’s get on with it.”
Rosemary drew the wand horizontally across her body, gathering the last residual negative energy toward the top of Maeve’s head. The purge was an internal stretch and contraction as the energy wrenched upward in a long, slow burn, leaving a tingly residue in its wake.
As Rosemary passed the last cleared chakra with the wand, Maeve watched her. The wand started to shake so much that the healer was forced to grasp it with both hands. Pressure built throughout Maeve’s body and she began to shake as well. The wand ignited with a brilliant violet light and she could hear the hum of growing power. Maeve’s body tensed, her skin suddenly shrunken and tight. Pain sliced through her head with an intensity that threatened to blow her scalp off. Gripping the edges of the table, Maeve held on and willed the pain to subside as she pulled her legs up as close to her chest as she could against the agony, trying not to scream. The table shook beneath her and she watched as bottles danced their way toward the edge of their shelves against the back wall.
“Almost there!” Rosemary spread her legs for balance and held onto the wand for dear life as she muscled it the final three inches behind Maeve’s head. An incantation accompanied Rosemary’s efforts, but it was in a language Maeve didn’t understand. As her recitation increased, so did the pressure building inside Maeve’s body. Certain her insides were about to be torn from her body, she wrenched her neck around like a puppet on a string, helpless to look away from Rosemary’s efforts.
The wand shattered in Rosemary’s hands and the quartz fragmented to powder, the stones clinking to the floor then rolling away. Maeve lay panting on the table as Rosemary collapsed to the floor.
Chapter Seventeen
Nate stacked logs onto the Yule bonfire in preparation for the upcoming ceremony. As he walked back for yet another bundle of wood from one of the nine pickup trucks parked in a line along Samhain Street, the tattoos encircling his biceps flamed to life. All of them. A powerful magic had been unleashed within the coven, and he had a pretty good idea who was responsible for it.
“Dad—”
“Go. I’m right behind you.”
He dropped the wood and they raced down Beltrane to the healing center. Certain that they wouldn’t be the only ones to sense the echoes of the magical release, Nate needed to make sure Maeve was out of sight before the lookey-lous arrived. Magic strong enough to leave a wake required pre-approval by the Coven Board, which, of course, Rosemary hadn’t requested.
Lucky for them that Garrett, Nate’s father, was a board member.
Nate burst through the arched doorway first, immediately catching sight of Maeve splayed across a massage table, semi-naked once again. She moaned softly, clutching at her head.
“Shit,” Nate cursed.
Rosemary lay on the floor unconscious beneath the table, covered in a fine white dust. He pulled Maeve’s robe closed over her, tied the sash in a hasty knot, then bent to exam his mother.
Alive.
Thank God.
“Rosemary!” Garrett rushed to Rosemary’s side and scooped his wife into his arms. He looked at Nate. “Go. I’ll help your mother. Get the girl out of sight before the others arrive with their questions.”
Nate lifted Maeve from the table and clutched her to his chest. Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing, her face twisted in a tight grimace of pain. Without resistance, he carried her to the staircase and down into the basement to his old room. Tapping the light on with his elbow, he made his way down and into his past.
Nothing had changed down here. Rosemary had left it just as he had…a teenage nightmare. Posters of Megadeath, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, Judas Priest and more adorned every square inch of one wall, while his charcoal pencil drawings lined another.
Damn, he’d been in a dark place back then. Looking at his drawings now, Nate marveled that his mother hadn’t at least taken them down and stuck them in the bottom of a drawer somewhere. Of course, she was most likely the only one who ever came down here anymore. The one intrusion was the treadmill she used when the weather was too bad to walk outside.
Nate eased Maeve down onto the bed, her eyes still closed. Her expression was no longer pained, but she laid still as the dead. He clicked on the small bedside lamp and flicked off the harsh overhead bulb, casting the room in a warm glow. Arranging her on the full-sized bed, he brushed her damp hair off her face and a turquoise trickle of energy arced between them. He disengaged quickly, fearful of drawing further attention to them from upstairs. He pulled her robe over her long pale legs.
He sat stroking her hair, wondering who he would find when she opened her eyes once more. Upstairs, he heard the first raised voices. Passionate inquiries sounded through his ceiling as the hum of power finally dissipated from the build
ing.
The sound of his mother’s voice reassured him, and after nearly an hour of heated discussion, the energy shifted and he knew his parents were alone in the living quarters upstairs.
A soft knock on the door brought him to his feet.
“Nate?” Garrett opened the door and peeked down the stairs.
“Dad. Is Mother okay?”
“She’ll be fine. She’s resting. Probably will be for the rest of the night. She wanted me to tell you to keep Maeve hydrated and stay with her. She’ll talk to both of you more in the morning.”
“Dad…I’m sorry.”
“Nonsense. She didn’t do anything she didn’t want to do. We’ll deal with the Coven Board. Take care of your girl. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Nate didn’t bother correcting his father that Maeve was his partner, not his girl.
Definitely not his girl.
They’d missed dinner. Food would help revive them both and she did need to stay hydrated, but a few hours of sleep at this point seemed like the best course of action. Besides, Rosemary would be up and cooking before sunrise. He was sure of it.
The basement was colder than he’d remembered. He rummaged through the top of his closet, pulling down a fleece and a wool blanket. Maeve had pulled her body into a tight little ball against the cold and rolled against the wall, leaving just enough room for him to lie beside her. Debating the merits of sharing a bed with her again, his exhaustion overtook his honor. He reached for his scabbard and slid it under his bed, well out of her reach, just in case she woke before him. If she wanted the weapon, she’d have to retrieve it over his live body. A task, even in her misguided fury, he didn’t think she was up to just yet.
Lying on top of the wool blanket, he pulled the fleece over both of them and struggled to find a comfortable position next to her without actually touching her on his small sliver of mattress space.
Impossible.