“No,” Adrian barked.
Clover ignored him and dropped to her side. “Is that what you want? To die? I can use your blood and your body in many spells. If that’s how you will pay your debt, just say the word.”
Crystal stared into the witch’s brilliant green eyes and found herself unable to speak. She clenched her jaw and drew several intense breaths before finding the resolve to pick herself up. She shook her head. “I’m better. It healed.”
Clover nodded and glanced at the others. “Take her outside and bind her. Lash her to the platform.”
Crystal swallowed. Her throat was still sore but it didn’t feel like she’d swallowed glowing charcoal briquettes from a barbecue anymore. Clover was spooning more of the stew into a larger bowl. “I don’t have to drink anymore stew, do I?”
“No,” Clover said.
“Then what—”
“Timing is important,” Clover snapped. She nodded to Ember before turning and walking towards Adrian. He backed out of the doorway and let her through without a word.
Ember reached down gently, but firmly, grabbed Crystal’s arm. Hank was there a heartbeat later to grab her other arm. They helped her stand and then walked her after Clover. Guntar and Gwen stepped out ahead of them and moved to take positions at the end of the deck.
“Be strong,” Hank whispered to her.
“I’m so sorry,” she whimpered back. “I didn’t know it was you. I didn’t even know who I was!”
“This is nothing,” Hank said without even a glance at his injury. “Your first love bite.”
“Second,” Crystal said. “Remember the bike?”
Hank stiffened and smiled. She’d bit his back while riding behind him on his bike last week. It had been playful, before she knew what they were. Instinctive. Even then she’d known she wanted him to be her mate.
Clover was staring at the stars growing brighter in the sky above them. The sun was nearly set in the west. “Bind her,” Clover repeated once they joined her outside.
Crystal looked down at the coffin-sized shelf made out of limbs lashed together with vines. It hadn’t been there when they’d arrived at Clover’s hut, but she couldn’t remember when the witch had taken time to build it. Hank and Ember guided her to it and helped her lie down on it. She winced as knots in the wood bit into her skin.
When she felt the first vine wrap around her wrist and pull tight, she forgot all about the knots and shorn branches. Ember tied her other arm and then both of her pack mates moved to tie her ankles to the wood. She looked back and forth, breathing fast again as she tested the vines and found they wouldn’t let her move. She whimpered and stared up at Hank.
Hank met her gaze with a haunted look in his eyes. He looked away as Clover moved closer and began to place small clay pots beneath the hollow box she was bound to. She turned and went back inside the hut, giving Crystal a long moment to consider her situation. Her eyes went to Hank and she realized there was nothing hidden from him anymore. She was bound, naked, on a table within arm’s reach.
“You’ll be fine,” he said when he saw her looking at him. “Better than fine. I believe in you.”
Crystal’s lip trembled and she had to glance away and suck her bottom lip between her teeth. Her lip felt tender now that it had fully recovered from the witch’s brew. She saw Gwen staring at her from across the dock and earned a smile and a nod from the platinum-haired woman.
“Remember who you are,” Ember said, startling her.
Crystal stared up at the redhead. “Who am I?”
“That’s up to you,” Ember replied. “Figure it out and hold to it, though; don’t lose yourself again like you did in there. We might not be able to bring you back.”
Crystal’s breath caught in her throat. She licked her lips and nodded. “Okay. I’ll try.”
“Don’t just try.” Hank took over the pep talk. “You matter to us. To me.”
“You don’t even know me,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter. We both feel it. Don’t lose what makes you special.”
Crystal blinked back tears. “I’m not special. I’m just a stupid fat girl in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Ember growled but Crystal kept her eyes on Hank. After a long moment, he broke his gaze with hers and let his eyes rake over her body. She burned, from head to toe, with shame. Where was Clover at? She was ready to die and donate her body to the witch.
“I see a beautiful young woman,” Hank said, pulling her back from the edge. “Beautiful. Like the kind of woman I’d pin up on the walls of my room and use as wallpaper on my computer.”
Crystal wasn’t sure what was worse, hearing his compliments or hearing people tell her she was fat. “Stop it. Stop telling me what you think I want to hear.”
“You make it through this and I’ll show you what I mean,” Hank said.
“And if I don’t, you’re off the hook.”
“If I don’t, I’ll—”
Crystal felt the wings of hope that began to lift her up start to falter when he hesitated.
“If you don’t, he’ll spend the rest of his life jerking off to his memories of seeing you naked like this,” Ember said.
Hank’s cheeks flushed red. Crystal stared at him and got him to nod. The wings beat stronger and lifted her heart out of her stomach. She opened her mouth to tell him she loved him when Clover emerged from the doorway with a flaming branch in her hands.
Crystal’s breath caught in her throat again as the witch walked over. She stuck the fiery log beneath her and lit the kindling in the clay pots. The smoke released a potpourri of smells around her. She kept watching, desperately hoping the flames wouldn’t leap into the rickety structure she was tied to.
“This will hurt,” Clover told her as she picked up the large bowl filled with stew.
“What are you doing?”
“First this had to be put into you. Now it will be poured over you.”
“That’s hot! You’ll burn me!”
“You will heal,” Clover promised.
“No, I’ll blister!”
“What comes next will be worse,” Clover promised.
Crystal shook her head. “No, I can’t! Please!”
Clover lowered the bowl a few inches and tilted her head. “The price must be paid. Will you pay it in blood?”
Crystal whimpered and saw Hank out of the corner of her eye. She could tell how tense he was without shifting her focus to him. She shook her head. “Do it, but if I end up turning into something horrible, I’m going to come after you first!”
Clover lowered the bowl a little more and laughed. “You are a fighter. That is why you have a good chance.”
Crystal nodded. “Do it already. I’m tired of waiting.”
Clover nodded and lifted the bowl up. She tipped it forward without hesitation and let the scalding liquid fall. Crystal watched it in slow motion. It hit her on the thigh first, spattering and startling her. The pain came a split second later as her body reacted to the bubbling liquid.
The howl that burst from Crystal’s throat was like nothing man or beast had ever heard.
Chapter 12
Crystal writhed and thrashed as Clover poured the concoction. Her thoughts blanked out, replaced instead by a blinding agony. All she could see were flashes of red and white. She knew, somewhere deep inside, that her body was contorting and trying to find a way to escape. She wasn’t controlling it anymore.
The pressure of falling liquid stopped but the pain didn’t. It spread from her skin deeper into her body. Her muscles cramped and strained, fighting each other to the point they burst and split. A new pressure fell on her, smearing the scalding fluid across her body to cover her from head to toe.
She snapped at the hands when they wiped the soup across her face. It felt like acid that was eating away at her skin and working its way inside to tear her apart one layer of flesh at a time. She was panting, growling, and yipping, pulling the fumes from the soup and her blistered flesh
into her aching lungs.
Clover’s words whispered in the back of what remained of her mind, reminding her that she could give up anytime. She could die, and let the witch have her remains for whatever her sick needs were. She could feel her body fighting and struggling against the catastrophic damage being done to it. All she had to do was stop fighting. Just let go and it would be over. What happened to her body after that wouldn’t matter; she’d be dead.
Crystal hurt too bad to die. She jerked her head back and forth, shaking it. She wouldn’t give up like this. She couldn’t. Sure, death would be one way to beat the pain but it wouldn’t just mean that she couldn’t be hurt anymore: it would mean that it beat her. She’d never run from a confrontation. Never backed down from a problem. She wouldn’t let her first time be her last time.
The stew—or acid, as she thought of it—sank deeper into her body. Her bones ached as the heat began to reach them. Her body was twitching as the cramped and torn muscles fought. Dimly she could hear somebody saying something. People were talking. About her? Probably. Taunting her, probably. Making fun of her. Admitting that they hoped she died so they wouldn’t be stuck with a fat girl hanging out with them.
A vision of Hank’s bright blue eyes floated through her mind. His eyes weren’t laughing; they were deep. Intense. Caring. He wanted her. He felt her and understood that they were meant for each other.
A new searing pain exploded out from her stomach and left her body contorted into a tighter cramp than before. Her arms and legs ached as tendons stretched and started to rip and pull free. Her muscles split, stressed beyond endurance. The thing in her belly continued to writhe, as though it were alive and chewing her guts apart from the inside.
“Let me out!”
Crystal felt the words in her head and she could taste the primal fury behind them. She wasn’t even sure if they were words, or just how she translated the growl. Her body jerked again as the thing inside of her jerked, lending weight to the command.
She wanted to help it. She wanted to claw at her stomach and rip the burnt and ruined flesh aside so it could escape. It didn’t matter if that didn’t make any sense; it was what she wanted to do. Her hands tugged against the vines, straining to break them so she could stop the agony.
She felt more than heard another growl. It sounded different. She couldn’t make sense of it, other than to hear the menace and hate in it. Yet she sensed it wasn’t directed at her. Had it even come from inside her, or was it from somewhere else? Someone—or something—else?
Her back arched, thrusting her belly and hips up towards the stars. She felt the pressure against her skin. There was something inside her. Something struggling to get out. She howled again, her raw throat spraying droplets of blood.
She had no idea how she knew, but the second monster inside her attacked the first. They grappled inside her, fighting without regard for the pain they caused her. She remembered someone saying something about dominant blood, but this was something else. Something impossible. Something beyond anything she’d ever imagined. A quick dip in a bath of molten lava would have hurt less.
Her entire being centered around one purpose. Her entire life had been reduced to needing to get the monster out of her. It didn’t matter if she spilled her guts doing it. She threw herself against her bonds and rubbed the already loose skin until it broke and made them even more slippery. Still they were too tight; she couldn’t pull her hands through them. She grunted and hissed through her teeth, struggling while the battle inside her continued.
“I can give you strength,” the first monster promised. “You’ll never be trapped again!”
An answering growl from the second launched a new round of tremors in her belly that left her struggling for breath. It was a tempting offer, if only for the purpose of getting rid of the things tormenting her.
She jerked her eyes open but saw only blackness. Her eyes had been scalded and ruined by the witch’s soup too. That was a small concern next to the battle for her soul. If the monsters could speak to her, could she speak to them?
She tried to relax her breathing long enough to make a word. Any word. All she could do was pant and hiccup. Tiny noises that didn’t do any good. Her throat was ruined, the muscles torn and strained beyond use.
How, then, did the things inside her speak? Especially since she couldn’t make out the voices around her. Hank and Ember and that swamp bitch who did this to her.
“Get out of my body!” Crystal thought. She put as much strength into the words as she could, but she was met with a mocking bestial laughter.
“You’re a worthless breeder, not a true hunter. It’s not yours to command anymore.”
If she had control over her breathing, she would have gasped at the words. Instead, Crystal fought back the wave of despair that threatened to drown her. She could feel them fighting, feel the blood attacking each other and destroying the battleground, her body, in the process. She jerked her head back and forth again, fighting to deny what she’d heard.
The monster was going to win. The Beast. The creature that had bitten her and tried to rape her. To breed her. His blood was stronger. Dominant. He would take control. And worse, she realized. The Beast wasn’t really dead. His spirit was in her, ready to take control. He’d reshape her body, probably even change her from a girl to a boy. He loathed everything about her, including her femininity.
Hot tears ran down her cheeks and stung the bubbled skin of her face. Beast, wolf, and witch—all a load of shit. She’d never had a choice. She was doomed the moment the Beast claimed her.
A tug in her body distracted her. Then another, as though something was trying to rip her open again. Even the pain was starting to grow distant and muted. Was this it? Was she dying finally? Was she letting go? Or would letting go mean that she beat the Beast? Was that the best she could hope for, to die and take it with her?
It had taken the entire pack to kill the Beast before, and even then she’d had to help them. Now the blood of the wolf in her didn’t stand a chance. It wasn’t strong enough. It couldn’t fight the battle alone.
Crystal jerked her eyes open again, not realizing that she’d closed them. Faint specks of blurry light burst into her brain. She was still healing. Her vision was coming back, although slowly. And if she could heal, she wasn’t dead. And neither was the blood of the wolf. She could help it. Somehow.
“Let me help you,” Crystal thought to the less aggressive monster inside her. “Show me what to do.”
The wolf growled and was attacked. She felt the Beast’s fury and its vengeance. The wolf was losing but she didn’t know what to do or how to help. This wasn’t like before, where she could distract it. It wasn’t a physical fight and even had it been, she was tied up. No, this was a battle inside her. A battle of blood and will.
Crystal squeezed her eyes shut and forced her attention inside. She plunged herself into the pain she’d been trying to ignore and felt it hit her again. She felt the agony of a thousand muscle tears and twice as many bursting blisters. The pain wasn’t her objective. She accepted it and moved on, focusing deeper on the battleground inside her.
Her muscles were still beyond her control but she began to feel how the Beast’s blood moved and attacked. The wolf fought back but had to retreat along organs and veins. It seemed like more of a lesson from her history teacher on a historic map of a battle than something her biology teacher would have taught. She felt the Beast’s blood throughout her body, rebuilding and changing her while the wolf focused on the fight in her abdomen. She studied and reacted, knowing intuitively how to send her own blood into the fight.
As before, she distracted the Beast and gave the wolf a chance to fight back. She pushed against it, coming from behind the hardened clots in her belly. The Beast called on its reserves scattered throughout her body when the wolf counter-attacked. The blood raced through her veins, making her heart beat so fast she feared it would burst from her weakened ribs.
As fast as her he
art hammered and as fierce as the Beast was, it was too spread out and had to retreat. She and the wolf surrounded it and drove it back until it was collected together in a dense mass that would not be denied.
Crystal knew this fight would continue forever. The Beast was too strong; it couldn’t be killed. It couldn’t be reasoned with. It would hide inside her and build up its strength each time until it could rise up and take her. She would fight this battle again and again, but it would be smarter next time. She had to kill it now, or let it win.
“I need your help,” Crystal thought to the wolf. “Become a part of me, or let me become a part of you.”
Her body slumped onto the wooden bars as the barrier between her blood and the wolf’s disappeared. She collapsed, stunned by the release of pressure inside her. Her heart slowed from the frantic hammering it had been doing and left a dull ache behind.
Was that it? The Beast was still there and, she could tell, about to try again. But she felt different. Stronger. More at peace. She remembered her hands and what she had to do. “Please,” she whispered aloud as she pulled against the vines.
Her hands cramped and popped, bones shifting as she jerked on them. Her arms slipped free, pulling through where before she’d been unable to do so. Sparing it no thought, she slammed her right hand into her belly and felt something rough against her healing skin. Sharp pricks pierced her flesh where her fingers should have been. She dug deeper, parting the skin, and pulled across her belly to leave jagged gashes through skin and muscle.
She plunged her other hand into the wound and pushed her fingers between her slippery insides. She found the dense mass and clutched it in her hand. She yanked it out, tearing the connecting tissue that bound it to her and pulled her hand free.
She felt the loss instantly. The Beast was gone. Gone with him was her ability to shrug off the many injuries she’d received over the past week. She sagged against the wooden supports and her arms collapsed to her sides. Her eyelids fluttered open to blind her with the morning sun streaming through the trees. She stared, clinging to the warmth and the light even though the trees and cottage grew blurry until they faded into all colors and none. Her fingers relaxed and fell open, letting the peach-sized clot of blood slip from her grasp.
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