Jane The Nymph: The Boxed Set (The Circle Series Book 2)

by Naomi L Scudder

  Jane started feeling more like herself. The self she forgot she was. The self without the nymph and without the juice boost that made her feel lopsided.

  The driver nodded at Jane in the mirror. “I like your hair, did you get it done in town?”

  “No. I got it done back home.” That was almost true. “How about you?”

  When Jane had scraped together enough money one of the first things she did after escaping from Droshin’s conclave was changing the way she looked.

  Droshin had very particular tastes in women, and Jane did her best to cover up all the features Droshin had favored. Jane’s pale blonde hair became a custom multi-hued purple. She wore dark, messy makeup because Droshin liked a clean face. She wore black because, well Jane liked black, but also because Droshin didn’t let them wear clothes.

  Xandrie smoothed her midnight blue locks. “Nope, I do it myself.”

  “Oh, you’ll have to teach me. That’ll save me a fuckload of money.”

  “Sure. Anytime. Here, put your number in my phone.”

  As Jane put her number in the fae woman’s phone she wondered if they could become real friends.

  She hoped so. Jane didn’t have any close female friends and hadn’t since Droshin had captured her.

  “My schedule’s kind of weird right now,” said Jane. “But maybe we could set something up later in the week?”

  “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  Xandrie smiled. Not that Jane could see it, the mirror cut off at the fae’s cupid’s bow. But her smile was so genuine, so real that it reached her eyes and made them sparkle.

  Jane couldn’t help but smile herself.

  Jake gave Jane’s shoulder a playful shove. “What are you grinning about, weirdo.”

  “Shut up, nothing.” Jane pushed Jake back, harder than he’d pushed her.

  “Aw, come on. You can tell us. I’m your new hair-bestie, and he’s your pet wolf.”

  Jake grunted at the diminutive pet name.

  Was that a good or a bad grunt? Jane shrugged.

  “It’s just—it’s been a while since I’ve had friends.”

  Jake grunted again. Xandrie gave her a wink in the mirror and Jane felt something she’d never felt before in her life.

  Stinging needles poked at Jane’s arm in the vague shape of a circle.

  The nymph was awake.

  6

  Freed of Gunnar’s cocktail of neurotoxins, the nymph slithered down Jane’s arm and drew painful, stinging circles around her wrist.

  It had never hurt before. After, yes. But never before.

  The Ouroboros whirled around Jane’s wrist so fast it not only blurred, the colors glowed the same faint purple as the sky.

  “Uh, we need to hurry.” Jane wasn’t sure if it was the juice boost amping up the nymph’s energy or if the nymph was mad at what Gunnar did to her.

  She apologized anyway.

  Please don’t do this. Please, not in the car. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t know he would hurt you.

  “We’re almost there,” Xandrie said.

  “No, we need to be there NOW,” Jake said eyeing Jane’s wrist.

  Xandrie mashed the accelerator. The windy hill leading to Theron’s mansion cut through the deepest part of Warren Forrest. The darkness was so complete the limo’s headlights only penetrated ten feet ahead. Xandrie navigated the narrow wooded road with preternatural ease.

  “Goddamnit,” Jane whispered and handed her wallet and phone to Jake.

  “No. No, no. Don’t do this here.” Jake pushed the item’s back at Jane as if that would keep the nymph from erupting. “Not in the goddamn car, Jane!”

  ***

  Not in the CAR! The shifter thought and pressed his bulk against the door as Jane slid away.

  “Goddamnit!” Jake shouted as the car filled with thin gray tentacles.

  Jane was gone, taken to whatever other-realm by the Nymph bound to her soul.

  “WHY am I in this place? WHY do I have missing time? WHY are you looking at me like a stupid dog, Wolf?!” The lidless, sunken-faced creature hissed the words through a mouth that was too small for her gray-skinned face.

  “Xandrie, pull the goddamn car over!”

  Xandrie screeched to a halt in the woods, still a hundred yards away from Theron’s doorstep. They both scrambled to get out before the Nymph could wrap a deadly tentacle around them.

  The pair ran to Theron’s mansion. “I think being in the car disoriented her. We’ll be OK if we can get inside,” said Jake.

  “Follow me,” said Xandrie. She ran the rest of the way to Theron’s house at a speed the wolf shifter actually had to try to match.

  That didn’t happen often. Not even among the wolves.

  “Theron needs to be ready,” said Jake.

  “Oh, he’s ready alright.”

  As soon as the pair reached the steps to the mansion’s elaborate front door, it flew open. They both ran in and the vampire slammed it shut behind them.

  Jake skidded to a stop just before tumbling up the grand staircase dividing the great room.

  “Are you sure about this?” asked Xandrie.

  “No.” Both Jake and Theron said in unison.

  “But we’ve got to try. Do you have the stuff?” Jake asked Theron.

  Theron conjured an antique wooden box from the ether and gave it to Jake.

  Jake put the ancient apothecary box on the floor by his feet.

  “Double check it, Jake,” said Xandrie.

  Jake humored his fae friend. He knew the contents were undisturbed because he’d had the town’s strongest witch put a sealing spell on it.

  No one was getting in that box but him.

  He whispered the reversal spell over the lock and the lid popped open. Every vial in place and arranged by strength. Thirteen in total; the strongest a thick, black liquid.

  Jake hoped he wouldn’t have to use that one.

  The last time the Nymph ripped through Jane’s body, Jane was out for three days. Jake had used those three days for research and to ask around for help.

  He needed two volunteers. One fae for their magic, and one vampire for their blood. He’d found them. Xandrie and Theron.

  Jake had gotten a pretty good look at the curse holding the Nymph hostage within Jane when they freed the magic in the center of town. He had a theory about how to rid one from the other.

  “We’ve just got to lure her in here,” Theron said.

  “Oh, I don’t think we need a lure. She’s fucking pissed. Gunnar gave us both some injection that blocked our magic. Must have knocked the Nymph out cause she came out howling mad,” said Jake.

  “I don’t see much difference, a nymph always comes out mad.”

  “Trust me, there’s a difference,” Jake said.

  Theron continued with a sigh. “I don’t know why The Garrison gives Gunnar so much leeway. Poking about in people’s genetics. They need to put an end to it.”

  Jake didn’t comment on The Garrison, one because the entity always seemed to know whenever someone spoke poorly of them.

  And two, because the Nymph crashed through the enormous specialty window covering most of the front face of Theron’s mansion.

  Huge chunks of glass crashed down on the hardwood floors, shattering into thousands of pieces, as the Nymph climbed through the framing and lowered herself into the house. All Jake could think was what a shame it was to bust through such a good looking window.

  The Nymph didn’t float like she had before. This time, she used her thin, squid-like tentacles as legs, propelling herself forward on all four of her limbs.

  It was very unsettling.

  Jake blinked to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him.

  Gotcha.

  The Nymph wasn’t loping to them to be creepy, although that was a byproduct. She walked on tentacles so unsteady they bowed beneath her because she couldn’t fly.

  Theron, Jake, and Xandrie shared a look.

  This was their on
ly chance. She was as weak as she would ever be.

  “He really hurt you with that concoction, didn’t he?” asked Jake.

  “Silence!”

  “Hey,” Jake put up his hands as the Nymph drew closer. “We’re on the same team here. We want the same things.”

  “Shut your treacherous little mouth, Silver Wolf.”

  Jake let the insult go, with some effort.

  Xandrie chimed in. “Use up all your energy crashing through that window like a goddamn super-villain, did ya?”

  Jake looked at her, eyes nearly bulging out of his skull. “Maybe don’t antagonize the super-powerful being, Xan.”

  “Yes, Xandrine, Holder of the Pearl - you remember what happened last time, don’t you?” The Nymph’s voice climbed into the upper octaves of her register, cloying, sweet, and evil.

  “Oh, no one calls me that anymore, ya old hag. And quit with the true-naming shtick. It’s getting old.”

  “How dare you speak to me with such insolence!” The Nymphs lidless, cloudy eyes drilled into Xandrie.

  But the blue-haired fae was unmoved by the Nymph’s bravado. Xandrie flicked her wrist, in a “go away” gesture and a thin strand of sparkly pink energy flowed from her ring finger.

  The fairy princess would have pink magic, wouldn’t she? Jake thought to himself.

  Before the Nymph could react Xandrie had her sparkly energy lassoed around all four tentacles. She brought her arm closer, tightening her hold on the Nymph.

  Jake’s whole plan hinged on the Nymph choosing not to hurt him - since he couldn’t shift to protect himself. Jake hoped she wouldn’t simply because the Nymph knew that he was the one who took care of Jane after she was done with her. And whether the Nymph liked it or not, being in Jane’s body was her biggest weakness. If Jane died, so did she.

  But he didn’t want to be completely unprotected. Xandrie’s job was keeping the Nymph under control.

  “RELEASE ME!”

  “Do you want this?” Theron quietly asked the bound, screeching creature and held a large jar to her eye level. The Nymph’s eyes widened at the sight of the dark red liquid.

  Jake had to forcibly hold back a gag. The mason jar Theron offered was filled three-quarters full with stringy, coagulated vampire blood. Theron tilted the vial, letting the thick redness slosh up the sides and coat the glass.

  Vampire blood was extra chunky.

  The Nymph dragged her black, snake-tongue across her thin lips.

  “We’re on the same side,” repeated Jake. “We’ll do our best to unbind you from Jane if you just—”

  “Just don’t eat us, OK?” Xandrie interrupted.

  7

  Vampire blood.

  The key to many things.

  Vamp blood contains extra hemoglobin, Jake had learned, making it clot very easily. It’s why vamps need to feed - to keep their blood from turning to sludge. But, along with the extra hemoglobin comes extra energy, the best, tastiest kind of energy to the Nymph, albeit, not in her preferred delivery system.

  Despite not being her preferred fare, a few swallows of vamp blood, and all the ill effects of Gunnar’s injection would be erased. If she drank the entire jar, she’d be maxed out on energy for at least a month.

  At least, that’s what Jake’s research had led him to believe.

  “You’d give me that?” The Nymph whispered the words. Jake thought she almost sounded hopeful.

  “He will,” Jake said. “But only if you let us try to remove the curse.”

  “Without hurting us,” added Xandrie.

  “It won’t be pleasant,” said Jake.

  “Do you think residing inside this witch is pleasant?”

  Jake hadn’t given much thought to what the Nymph experienced while latent. Jake assumed the Nymph was unconscious when dormant, just as Jane was.

  “Every day, seeing life through this mortal’s eyes. Hearing her thoughts, knowing how much she despises the life she’s forced to live because of me. Yet she never gets discouraged. Not for long. She never feels sorry for herself, or for me. I admire that in her. I’ve spent weeks screaming in my metaphysical prison, unheard, unnoticed until the energy well is low.” The Nymph raised her chin. “Her optimism and strength only serve as a constant reminder of my own weaknesses and frailty. Rid me of her and I’ll be in your debt, Wolf.”

  The Nymph thought of Jane as the strong one.

  Jake couldn’t wrap his mind around that.

  “What magics have you brought?” asked the Nymph.

  “All of them.”

  The Nymph’s lips twisted into a crooked smile, exposing each of her needle-point teeth. “Not as dumb as you look, are you, Wolf?”

  Xandrie tightened her hold on the creature’s tentacles. “Be nice,” she said.

  Jake grabbed the first few vials from the box and stepped closer to the naked, gray Nymph. He wrapped his huge hand around the Nymph’s throat, bringing her face down to his. The cartilage under the Nymph’s paper-thin skin snapped as Jake exerted more force than necessary.

  The creature laughed, a wheezing, screeching sound as Jake poured the contents first vial into her mouth.

  The Nymph smacked her lips as she swallowed the translucent potion. “Fae magic, yes?” She didn’t wait for Jakes response. “It’s too new. The magic binding me to this witch is much older. Try again.”

  Jake stepped back, waiting to see if something happened.

  “I wouldn’t lie, Wolf. Try the next,” she said.

  Again, Jake grabbed the Nymph by the throat. He unstoppered the next vial with his teeth and poured it into the creature’s mouth.

  “Vampire spells. The obvious choice. Don’t you think the witch has already tried every type of vampire magic possible? Try again, and stop wasting time!”

  Xandrie summoned a second thread of magic from her other hand and lassoed the Nymph again. “Be nice, Síbhean.”

  The Nymph twisted her head to look at the fae woman. “You know just as well as I do, that’s not what I am, Aos Sí.”

  Jake did not like the look in the creature’s eyes. “What do you mean? What did you call her, Xan?”

  “I called her Nymph in Gaelic.”

  “She’s not? What is she then?” asked Jake.

  “I don’t know. That’s what my people have always called her.”

  “Try the next potion, Wolf.”

  “No. What aren’t you telling us?”

  “Give me the next potion!”

  “Not until you tell us what’s going on!” Jake said.

  Jake had researched everything thoroughly. He wasn’t taking any chances when it came to Jane. He was certain the spell binding the two together was called The Nymph’s Curse, which made this creature the Nymph. Right?

  “What aren’t you telling us!?”

  “Cooperate or this is off the table.” Theron jostled the jar of blood back and forth.

  Xandrie tightened her hold on the creature’s limbs.

  Jake grabbed her throat and pulled her down to stare directly in her cloudy, yellow eyes. “Tell me,” Jake spat the words in the Nymph’s face.

  The creature smiled, but only for a moment. Then her brow furrowed and a scream ripped loose from her throat.

  Jake stumbled backward, releasing his hold on the creature’s throat as her putrid breath nearly knocked him out.

  For a second time, Jake had to hold back a gag.

  And then he saw it.

  “Holy shit!” Xandrie released the magic holding the creature’s limbs.

  “Interesting,” said Theron.

  “What the fuck? Jane?!”

  The cloudy eyes Jake had been staring at were now large and black.

  Just like Jane’s.

  The creature’s high pitched screaming stopped, cut off by something unseen. The noise gurgled in the creature’s throat, and then the mouth that was too small for her face widened. Slow at first. The lips spread open, splitting at the corners when they’d been stretched beyond their capacit
y.

  Jake, Xandrie, and Theron stepped away from the creature.

  Fingers appeared in the creature’s mouth, prying the orifice wider still, wide enough that its jaw was no longer an angle but a straight line.

  Fingers then hands pushing down on the mouth that no longer looked like a mouth. Then purple hair.

  Jane pushed against the mouth again and climbed out of the Nymph.

  She brushed her hair out of her face and smoothed her shirt. “She’s not a nymph. She’s a motherfucking demon.”

  8

  “It was different this time,” Jane said to the three people gape-mouthed and staring at her. Xandrie pointed at the creature Jane had just crawled out of.

  Jane turned to see it’s papery flesh sloughing away and carried out the broken window on the wind.

  “Put those away.” Jane pointed to the apothecary box still on the floor. “Never use them. Never.”

  “What? I was trying—” Jake started.

  “I know. We got it wrong.”

  Theron smiled, as Jane thought he might, his smoldering violet eyes alive and shining. “Let’s get some food in you, Little One.” Theron knew just how much the creature drained Jane’s metabolism and made it a habit to feed her whenever he could. “Then you can tell us all exactly what is going on.” Theron ushered everyone into the kitchen. “Sit.” He instructed, pointing to the bar stools around the island.

  Theron pulled a platter of sandwiches from the fridge and sat it in the middle of the island.

  Jane took two sandwiches, one for each hand, and took a huge bite out of one.

  “Remind me to thank Gunnar if I see him again,” Jane said, not bothering to swallow.

  Theron leaned against the fridge, waiting for Jane to continue. Xandrie hadn’t taken her eyes off Jane since she’d emerged from the Nymph, or whatever it was. And Jake, well, Jake hadn’t taken a seat. He paced around the island until he got to the fridge where Theron stood, then turned around to pace in the other direction.

  Jane took another bite of her turkey sandwich. “It was his injection that changed everything.” A chunk of turkey fell from Jane’s mouth. “Every other time that thing has taken over my body, it left me unconscious. But this time, I stayed alert and aware of everything that was happening. I’d thought going dark when it took over was just the way it worked, but it’s not. Turns out, it was my own green magic cocooning me, protecting me I guess, from seeing whatever atrocities the being within me committed. But with all my mojo dampened, not only did I remain aware, I had direct access to her thoughts.”