Cole’s eyes darkened and his hostility built so fast, it had me amped up as well. “So what are we going to do about it?” he demanded.
Micah actually laughed a short bark devoid of any amusement. “So far, the plan has been simply to get Amelia to a place where she has a remote chance of surviving whatever it is my mother has planned. Based on what I saw last night, my mother isn’t up to her normal mind games, which is worrisome. If I can’t anticipate her next move, I can’t help either of you. Our only saving grace is she believes I am not worthy of worrying about, which gives me access and freedom to try to figure out her game.”
Micah was pacing, stopping every few steps like he was going to say something, but then shaking his head and continuing on. Cole stood, clenching and unclenching his fists, looking back and forth between Micah and me. I should have been coming up with a plan or brainstorming in some way, but my mind could only focus on one thing. For the first time since I had walked away from Aidan, I couldn’t put him out of my mind. His face was all I could see. His declarations of love all I could hear. Had anyone explained what had happened to him? Was he okay? Had he found the other AniMages? I was scared to consider whether he missed me or had moved on. I wanted him to move on, didn’t I?
Lost in my own thoughts, I barely caught Cole in my peripheral vision. He stumbled backward into the maze wall, gripping his throat. His mouth was open wide and I could see him trying desperately to pull in air. As both Micah and I ran the few steps to him, he dropped to the ground and began convulsing. His eyes rolled back into his head and I found myself screaming his name.
“What’s happening? Micah, what the hell is happening?” I had no idea what to do or how to help him. “Cole? Cole! Stay with me, Cole!”
We were losing precious seconds and Micah was frozen in place. He suddenly looked up and swore violently. My eyes followed his and found Rhi standing in the window, a gloating smile on his face. You will watch him die.
Rhi’s lips didn’t move, but I heard the words as if he had stood next to me, whispering them in my ear.
“The hell I will!” I screamed the words up at him as I yanked my sleeve up, not even hesitating before I tore the cuff from my arm and grabbed my brother’s face with both hands.
I vaguely heard Micah yell, “NO! Don’t!” but she wouldn’t be stopped. Cole couldn’t die. We wouldn’t allow it.
No sooner than the cuff hit the ground, I felt and heard the explosion in my mind. I screamed as the pain of the Keeper merging back together and the sudden infiltration of her power rocked my system. Everything I had done to break the five parts of the Keeper apart and keep them calm was undone in seconds. The darkness of the untethered Keeper filled me, layering on top of my own power, creating a bonfire roaring from my center outward. My cells were alive, dancing with electricity, while my mind spun in a hundred directions at once. I looked up at the window and the smile was gone from Rhi’s face. His hands were pressed against the glass as he stared down at me intently. His face held no expression, but I could see the shock in his eyes. My head was filled with her and her pride at his reaction. I cocked my head slightly and smiled my own gloating smile. I started to stand, but I was still holding Cole’s head.
That realization sliced through her domination of my mind and I shook my head, trying to regain control and direct the situation. I didn’t have time for this. He didn’t have time. I smashed my eyelids together and screamed inside my own head.
Cole. We have to help Cole! You have to stop the Hunter.
I felt her joy at being given a purpose and a fight. All of her focus switched to Cole. The pressure in my head rose, my body filling and my hands shaking as I tried to keep them on Cole. I was swaying back and forth as the violet smoke not only appeared around my hands, but surrounded me and Cole entirely. She had encased us and I could feel her explaining the need to attack from all sides, to prepare myself for our best work yet. Micah was moving around the barrier she’d erected, yelling at me, but I could hear him and I didn’t care.
I barely managed to stay on my knees as our combined power flowed through my fingers and into my brother. My vision was filled with the inner workings of his body. I saw his damaged cells—the orange layered over his green magic—and wound my way through his system, unsure of what to do, but allowing her to guide me. She had to know. I trusted her to know how to save him. We zipped along his bloodstream from area to area, his body wrecked by the orange power attacking every piece of him. In his heart, though, is where we found the worst of the damage.
Orange electricity wrapped its way around his heart—a rope squeezing tighter and tighter, minimizing his blood flow and killing him. I was watching my brother die from the inside out.
Help him! Help me help him!
I could feel her confusion and frustration. She had brought me to the right place, but there was something I wasn’t doing. Something only I could do. I had never stopped to think she would need me for anything. But, she was there, telling me she had given me the power to do what needed to be done. I heard her words inside my head—Get to the rope.
I opened my eyes and stared down at my hands, gripping each of Cole’s cheeks. His face was tinged blue and I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t stop staring at my hands and I was screaming out loud when everything changed. My hands weren’t surrounded by violet smoke, they were made of it. Cole’s body wasn’t skin and clothes, I could see inside him. My hands disappeared inside his head and I yanked them back them out—finally understanding what we had to do. Fear filled me, but she was in the back of my mind yelling for me to go, to act now. He was dying.
Tears filled my eyes as I prayed I was making the right decision. I plunged my hands into his chest, dug my fingers between Rhi’s bind and Cole’s heart, and wrapped the cord inside my grip. I took a breath, simultaneously calling for as much power as possible. Tears streamed down my face as I screamed, pushing all of the power available to me at the orange glowing cord and then pulling it apart.
Power ricocheted through me as the cord snapped and somewhere above me, I heard a bellowing roar. Cole’s heart started beating and I could see the blood pushing through his veins and arteries. But it wasn’t enough. Rhi’s binds were everywhere. I was exhausted, lightheaded…barely able to stay upright. But I couldn’t stop. I gently wrapped my hands around my brother’s heart and slowly pushed my power into his bloodstream. I watched the violet smoke fill him, spreading outward to the tips of his toes and his fingers with each beat from his heart. As each area was overtaken, I watched the orange layer peel away and disappear. I felt the pain, but his own power came back and tamped it down. Then, his breaths deepened and evened out. It could have been minutes or hours, but I didn’t stop until I couldn’t find another shred of orange light inside Cole.
When I finally pulled my hands away, I opened my eyes to find both my body and his back in their normal state. The smoke around us had dissipated and the Keeper was elated. She filled my body with strength I shouldn’t have and cooed words of excitement to be back and promises of what we could accomplish in my head. I looked up to the window where Rhi had stood to find him gone.
Hatred filled me along with the need to hurt Rhi, to grab his heart with my own hands and squeeze it until it exploded in my palm. I struggled to my feet, my legs filled with pins and needles from being on my knees for so long. But I forced them to move, sending my own power through me to stop the pain. She goaded me, whispering all the ways we could make him pay into my ear. I stumbled forward and was about to shove my hand into the hedge, looking for the door out so I get to him, when arms came around me and something pinched around my forearm.
I vaguely comprehended the words “I’m sorry” as her shrill screams filled my head. And then, I heard nothing.
Chapter 17
Twenty minutes after everyone left, I found myself lying in a four-post bed. Except this bed had a frame made of a black metal-like material I’d never seen with leather restraints coming from each pos
t—restraints currently being strapped to my extremities. I wanted to make a joke about the setup, but I couldn’t even string together the words, suddenly overwhelmed.
“Wait. Wait!” I yanked myself up, pulling my one free arm out of Elias’s hands. Will was buckling the restraint around my left ankle and looked at me, eyebrows raised, silently questioning my outburst. I was holding my arm to my body, as if controlling one piece of me somehow made a difference.
“What the hell am I doing?” I asked, looking back and forth between Elias and Will. “We’ve got to talk about this. I don’t even understand what Will is about to do to me. And, Elias, you just want me to believe this guy is going to help me? This whole thing has been built on lies and betrayals. How do I know you aren’t going to kill me? I’m supposed to just allow myself to be tortured? And for what? Who is this guy?” I looked down at Will, who had sat back on his heels and was looking at me with barely-restrained hostility. “Who are you?”
Will looked over at Elias and again, something was exchanged. Elias nodded and Will came to my bedside. He reached a hand toward me and I recoiled a bit. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to show you what you want to know.” I wasn’t sure what he meant, but then he touched his fingertips to my temple and I was staring at the inside of a dark room.
I was standing to the side, watching a scene play out, as I had done with Charlie, except this time, I was myself and Will was screaming. I’ve never heard those sounds come from a person. He was hanging in the center of a room, chains falling from the ceiling, holding his wrists apart. Every few seconds, he screamed as his body lurched from one side to the other, looking as if he was trying to get away from an invisible attacker. The cuffs holding his wrists glowed bright red and the smell of burnt flesh filled my nostrils, making my stomach convulse. His screams turned into screeching howls as I watched him partially change. His eyes grew round and filled with yellow, short pointed ears sprouted from his head, and his arms were covered in the striped fur of a tiger. When the change hit the cuffs, the howls intensified, mixing with his human screams.
A low chuckle came from the dark corner of the room as a man walked toward Will. He flicked his hand right and then left and Will’s body instantly reacted. I could barely register the slashing welts across his naked chest before they were scars. “Half-breed, when will you stop this nonsense and just tell me what I need to know?” he asked. His voice was achingly familiar and I recognized him from Charlie’s memories. Was this the infamous Rhi?
Will’s breath heaved in an out as he slowly swayed in the air. Finally, he looked up and met Rhi’s gaze. “I don’t have the information you seek, Rhi. And even if I did, there is anything you could do to force me to give it to you.”
“Is that so?” Rhi spoke slowly as he raised both of his arms from his sides, his palms up. Orange fire burned brightly in his palms and his face twisted into a satisfied, terrifying smile. With the flick of his fingers, the screams started again. Will’s legs reshaped and tucked into his body, his feet becoming paws and his barrel chest growing fur, but as soon as the shift made its way to the cuffs, the process instantly reversed. His screams became bellowing roars mixed with the high-pitched yowls of a big cat as bones lengthened, muscles reknit, and his cells fought to maintain one form or another. Tears streamed down Will’s face as Rhi repeated the process, over and over, adding slashing welts to his back and legs as he forced the shift again and again. Will’s body was broken, bruised, and confused, yet he kept healing. It had to be part of his abilities.
I knew I couldn’t do anything to help him, this was only a memory, but my own beast was barely contained as I watched minute after long minute of the scene playing out in front of me. Rhi approached Will, his hand stretched in front of him. “You have one last chance, half-breed. We will wipe each and every one of you from this planet one way or another. That is a guarantee. You can either tell me where to find Zendrick or I will take the thing you hold most dear.”
Will simply hung there for a moment, his head dangling and his breathing ragged. With his chest heaving in and out and tears still dropping on their own accord, he slowly looked up. As his eyes connected with Rhi’s, he spit blood at his feet. “He is gone. That is all I know. And I have nothing left. Your men burned my home to the ground with my wife and children in it.”
“Indeed, they did. We are one step closer to cleansing our world of your mixed magic and evil breed.” Rhi took the last step toward Will and cupped the back of his head in his large hand. As he neared Will, I barely caught his whispered words. “And now, animal, I will take your freedom and you will truly have nothing left.”
As I came to, I knew those last screams would be ones I never forgot. Will had stepped away from me and stood, his arms crossed. “That is who I am, Aidan. I survived him and went on to find a way to remove the binds allowing Rhi access to my mind. He wanted to use me as a spy and assumed I couldn’t find him inside me. But I did. He tried to wipe my memories, but he couldn’t. I isolated myself until I found the way to remove every speck of his magic from me. I removed similar binds from Nathaniel, but I am the only one who has survived him, and you are the only one who can give me the revenge I desire.”
“Revenge?” I couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to go a second round with that guy.
Will smiled for the first time, a slow grin developing over seconds, sending a shiver down my spine. “Oh, yes. I will find him and I will kill him. I will take him apart piece by piece because I know how. I know exactly how. But you are the key. Without you to lead us and unite our people, I will never have that day. And I must.”
I nodded slowly, my stomach lurching at the gravity of his words. How many other people had been waiting for me? How many others had stories to share and would expect me to help them? All I really wanted was to get to Amelia, but it was clear this was so much more than I’d imagined. Elias stood next to the bed, holding the last cuff, waiting for my reaction. I took a breath and extended my arm.
As Elias leaned in, he held my stare. “Focus on her. Not the rest of it. Just her. You’ll get through this.”
Will sat at the head of the bed in an old kitchen table chair. He leaned over me and touched his forehead to mine, placing his hands on my temples. I closed my eyes, needing to forget the awkwardness of his closeness. “Elias is here to help control you. Don’t worry about how much you move or scream. We will make sure you don’t hurt yourself. And the restraints are reinforced with my power, so they will help.”
I kept my eyes closed and tried to block out his words. I couldn’t hear them tell me again how much I was going to hurt or scream. My beast was strangely silent, as if he knew we were where we needed to be. Hopefully Dillon was right. Hopefully this is where I would meet my wolf. I tried to relax against the mattress and did as Elias had instructed—I focused on Amelia.
I brought her image into my mind. Her smile. The way her eyes gave away everything she was thinking. The purple dress she was wearing the night she told me she wanted to give us a try. I thought of all the time we spent on her couch playing twenty questions, just trying to get to know each other and realizing though we were so different, we had lived similar lives. We had just never known exactly how similar until it was too late.
Since I had started figuring out what I was, I spent a lot of time trying to put myself in her shoes. I tried to understand what it had to be like to hide yourself from the world, to try to live two lives and be two people in the same body. And the more I learned about the Queen and the history of her—our—people, I respected Amelia even more for the choices she made. Bethany had been right. I couldn’t judge anything Amelia had done until I understood it. Now, I did. And the only thing that mattered was getting her back. I’d get her away from the Queen and I’d protect her. I’d be whatever she needed because I wanted to be the choice she made. So much in both of our lives hadn’t been a choice, and I wanted the time they took from us. She would choose me this time. I knew she would. I had to
believe that.
I knew the second Will entered my mind. The pressure in my head increased and my wolf reacted to the perceived threat. My senses sharpened and I wondered how I could stop myself from attacking him, but he simply sat in the back of my head, waiting it out. Slowly, my wolf calmed and Will started to move. He probed around, looking for something. I spent minutes feeling him making his way through me, a warmth spreading to each cell and extremity as he passed through. I braced myself, expecting pain, but so far, it had felt like a warm blanket, soothing my system and dulling my senses to a twilight feeling where I wasn’t sure whether I was awake or asleep.
Then hands pressed down on my chest and the first shot of pain ripped through me. I struggled to breathe and tried to sit up only to be shoved back down. It felt like my heart was exploding. My body seized and I ripped at the restraints. I couldn’t form words as my skin felt like it was being ripped from my muscles one centimeter at a time—a razor scraping between the two layers, leaving raw, open wounds in its place.
Will’s hands gripped my head like a vise. His forehead pressed into mine, the connection point between our skin burning. I bucked and tossed on the bed while Elias straddled my hips, trying to keep me still. I could hear them yelling back and forth as I pulled at the restraints and roared wordless promises of retribution. My screams were short bursts of sound as each bone in my body was broken and reset. As each fingernail was removed and replaced. I would swear he ripped out each hair on my body individually and replaced it with new. I couldn’t think of anything but the pain—never-ending, all-consuming pain. It could have been minutes, or hours, or days, I had no idea. I screamed until my voice gave out and my throat was raw from the attempts.
Time stretched on, until finally, something inside me snapped and broke open. Relief flooded my system and euphoria drowned out the pain. The wolf’s memories assaulted me, a barrage of images, sounds, and words hitting my mind all at once, like a family video showing every scene simultaneously as his mind merged with mine. I saw the world from his eyes. I saw Amelia. I saw her apartment building, her sitting on the couch at Cole’s with Charlie, and the gym. They weren’t my memories, yet they were. I must have been watching her. Her arms were wrapped around my wolf form and I heard her words as she cried into my coat. I saw her laughing as she lay with her head on my chest, her fingers twirling in my fur. Somehow, she and I had been together while I was shifted and I had no memory of it until now.
Bound by Spells (Bound Series Book 2) Page 15