by Cate Corvin
The acid had become a full-fledged outpouring of anger now, a poisonous snake lying curled beneath my words. It wanted to strike out at him and bite him where it hurt. “You’ve been hot and cold, but you never tell me why. You tell me something one day and change it the next. Sometimes I think that you might feel something for me, in spite of everything that happened… and then I feel crazy for thinking it at all. I don’t know what you want, what you think, what you feel, and yet you want to spend every day with me forever?”
I cut myself off, the anger in me building to an inferno. This was the younger, impetuous, short-sighted Morena speaking. This was her anger channeling through me, and I had no room for her anymore. I closed my eyes, biting back more words.
A soft tap sounded on the exterior shell of the van, prying fingers searching for a way in.
If I had expected Eric to withdraw in the face of my anger as he usually did, shutting his emotions down like a trap, I had been wrong. He clenched his fists as he glared at me, eyes glittering ominously.
“Of course, Morena,” he whispered, his voice flat. “That’s the point. That’s why you have a servitor. To serve you. To protect you. To point you in the most advantageous direction even if I despise the thought of it, because the health of the coven isn’t about my feelings. It’s about preserving my home and family. When I bound my life to Bellhallow, I accepted that my feelings would always come second. When I was young, that was an easy enough task. And later… it was painful to shove everything I felt and thought into a box and lock it away, but it was necessary, because I bound myself to you and accepted that every move I made needed to be in your best interest.”
I pulled back under the silent quiver of rage in his voice, wishing I could shrink into nothingness and vanish. He was right. I was once again hot-headed and in the wrong. It wasn’t my place to force my servitor to share his feelings with me.
“So yes, I’m going to point out that a marriage to Thorne would be a powerful move for you. Even if you want to rub my face in it, and my promises to stay with you, and make me realize how miserable my life would become if I had to watch you with him every day, and I never got-”
He drew a hissing breath and stopped himself short. I wrapped my arms around myself, angry tears pricking my eyes.
“What do you mean?” I breathed. The stone fortress within me was crumbling, falling away into a dark sea. I wanted to go outside and run as far away into the darkness as I could, caught somewhere between numbness and burning rage. The snake unfurled, curling around my heart, its venom coursing through me slowly and steadily. “Watch me with him? What does it matter to you? You turned me down, Eric.”
He was silent, his expression shielded. I couldn’t read him at all now. “We’re done talking about this,” he said.
The thing on the outside of the van pried just a tiniest bit at the back door of the van and anger flared in me in a white-hot explosion.
“The hell we are,” I snarled, leaning forward. Suddenly the walls of the past were meaningless, blown away like so much smoke. What did it matter if I said it? We’d both known it plain as day. “I loved you, Eric. You turned me aside and now here we are, still stuck together, and despite that I managed to put aside my hurt. I’m finally moving on with my life, and now you want to make me feel terrible for doing what’s right? You want to make me feel like shit for following your advice?”
I grabbed my sickle from its resting place in the center console and ripped the lid off the plastic bin full of railroad spikes, grabbing a heavy sliver of iron.
“I told you before,” I breathed, leaning in close to Eric as scrabbling nails tried to pry the seam of the van doors open. “I don’t hold you to this. Dad is dead and his promises are so much dust along with his body- but I still want you, Eric. And I don’t want you to be miserable and feeling like you’re stuck with me.”
I kicked the doors open, right into the face of the vampire that had been interrupting our conversation.
It was starving, its skin wrinkled and eyes blind and milky, which was how I managed to get the drop on it. It flew backwards, light as a feather and yet still solid, as I leaped down and cut its head from its body with one sure stroke, made precise as a laser by my focused rage.
The vampire had been drawn not only by the scent of our quickening blood, but our emotions had likely been lighting the area around us like a neon sign. Human hormones were powerful magnets for its kind.
I knelt and slammed the spike into its chest, driving it right through the desiccated heart and into the ground. Eric lit a match at my side, tossing it onto the staked corpse, and soon the vampire was crackling away merrily, a macabre bonfire lighting up the night. By morning it would become the ashes and dust from which it had risen.
I stood slowly, looking down at my kill. “Fucking voyeur.”
My blood still ran fast and hot; if there were more, a feral hive of its kind starving out here in the wilderness, they would either smell their scout’s death or my own blood, and they would come with vengeance and hunger in mind.
Eric started the van, on the same exact page that I was. I sheathed my sword and climbed into the passenger’s seat, focusing straight ahead. “Morena…” he said softly. “I would do anything to see you happy. But I won’t destroy your reputation.”
Once upon a time I might have used that to my advantage to win this argument, but now only I held up a hand.
“I don’t want to hear it.” I was so tired. At least fighting had accomplished one thing- I finally wanted to sleep. “Let’s just go back. I’m attending the Circle celebration tomorrow, and I’ll try my hardest to consider your good advice.” I hissed the last word, hoping he felt it, that the malice struck him to the marrow.
Anger rippled from him in waves, but we cocooned ourselves away from each other in silence as we hurtled through the dark.
15
We arrived in Ashville shortly after dawn. My head ached from gritting my teeth together, having spent all night resisting the urge to blurt more vitriol at Eric, to make him feel as miserable as he had made me.
I’d given him free reign to leave if he felt like it. I wouldn’t hold his oath in perpetuity if he wanted to move on. He had no right to bind himself to my side and tell me how to live, and then force me to fester in his own resentment when I took his advice.
It hurt to think that he might have feelings for me that he buried, but I understood his sentiment.
A witch falling for her servitor was unheard of, and none of the covensteads would take me seriously if I chose to return. And tonight of all nights, I needed to become a witch to be reckoned with, not just a twenty-two-year-old exorcist living in a dump, or the other covenheads would steamroll me when they sensed my weakness.
But Joss would be in Blacksea with me. I wouldn’t be alone or unsupported when I finally returned to the world of my own kind.
I would never have led him on just to spite my servitor, but it might be nice to actually have fun for once. Real fun, not just hanging out in a van waiting for spirits to show up and harass people. And if I allowed them to, my tentative new feelings for Joss might spark and bloom into something much more.
Eric pulled into the driveway and the van wheezed in relief as we parked. For a moment we sat in silence, staring at the garage door.
The silence stretched thin between us and I turned to look at Eric, his sculpted face tighter than ever, the lines in the corners of his eyes more pronounced. His dark irises were stormy, anger and regret roiling into one emotion.
“Morena Bell,” he said, as though tasting the name. I fought the shiver that ran down my spine, the way his lips curved when they said my name… and the way the words almost sounded like he was memorizing them, preparing to say goodbye.
I couldn’t let that happen. “We need to make sure Cecily hasn’t gone mad in there.” I pushed aside my irritation just long enough to give him a quick smile, like everything was fine again. I didn’t know if I could bear Eric saying g
oodbye, this time for good, even if I’d given him permission to do it. “What if she’s actually decorated the place? Oh, the horror.”
I shut the van door behind me, unlocked the front door, and walked inside, but nothing pushed back at me, and no hostile threads clouded the air. It felt clean and empty, just as it always had.
Cecily sat on the couch, staring at the wall, shredding a tissue in her hands. Okay… that was super creepy. She didn’t even look up.
“Cecily?” I asked, kneeling in front of her. She looked at me slowly, purple circles carved under her eyes. They seemed to slow as they looked at me, and then recognition bloomed there. My burgeoning alarm abated as she smiled a little.
“Hello, Morena. Did you find what you were looking for?” She set aside the shredded tissue, casting a shy glance at Eric, who’d followed me in, as she stood up.
“I did,” I said, rising and retreating from her. I couldn’t just take Cecily back to her house, no matter how weird she was. I was also on the hook for being at the Circle meeting tonight. There was no better time than a formal occasion to make announcements like the reformations of covens, as well as sending a message by arriving with Joss. Edgar Black would be able to take a hint, even if I had no intention of marrying anyone.
I found Eric throwing his clothes back into his closet with more force than was strictly necessary. I leaned against the door frame as I watched, debating how to best pose my question, but he beat me to the punch as he tossed the backpack in the closet as well and wheeled around to face me.
“Leave her here,” he said, glaring at me with those jet-black eyes shining like jewels. I recoiled from the intensity of it, the sheer force of his anger. “She’s safer in my house than anywhere else. I’ll be here when you need me again.”
I wanted to reach out and touch him and run away at the same time. We’d had fights before, but never at this level, never with such venom between us. A painful lump grew in my throat as I gazed at him, trying to maintain my composure.
“Are you sure? I can find her a hotel room, or…”
He shook his head, running a hand through his dark hair. Five o’ clock shadow stood out on his skin in stark relief. It almost sickened me that I wanted to run my fingers along his jaw while wanting to scream terrible things at him. Or true things. Maybe both.
“Just leave.”
It was like an icy dagger plunging into my chest. I swallowed hard and turned, walking back down the stairs with as much composure as I could muster with fresh anger building in me. I paused before walking back into the living room, taking a fortifying breath and pasting a smile on my face for Cecily’s sake.
“You’ll be staying with Eric a little longer,” I told her. “Another day or so, and that’s it. Hopefully we’ll have this figured out by then.”
She only nodded, her eyes glassy. I cast a confused glance at her, but walked out, my backpack still slung over my shoulders. I couldn’t stay near Eric when he was actually pissed at me; it wasn’t an emotional climate I’d really dealt with from him before. I needed space to figure it out.
But I paused halfway down the drive. I was supposed to be staying with Eric. All of my meaningful belongings had been left upstairs in the guest room. He hadn’t even offered me a ride back to my apartment before telling me to go. Did he even care?
Tears made the world shiver around me, splintering into hundreds of points of light, but I wiped them away. This was fucking pathetic.
I had my backpack and my sickle, and that was really all I needed for now. If I was really visiting Blacksea tonight, I needed to clean myself up, pull my shit together. I wouldn’t make for an impressive force if I showed up puffy and tear-stained, with purple circles drooping under my eyes from a sleepless night.
I needed a dress. Fuck.
I was halfway down the sidewalk when Eric shoved his front door open and called, “Wait!”
My heart fluttered in my chest, a painful contraction of hope squeezing me. He strode towards me, his gaze fixed on me, and for a moment it felt like time had slowed, that everything was mended between us and he’d ask to come with me and guard my back-
“You have the Treatise. Leave it here and I’ll look it over.”
My hope withered and died, the warmth in my limbs becoming a cold numbness. Of course. I had been foolish to hope, as always. “Oh. Sure.”
I woodenly dug in my backpack until I found the cloth-wrapped package, cold and biting under my fingers. Everything about the book felt unfriendly, like it was watching me and knew exactly who I was and why I held it. Where had my father found such a thing?
I held the book out, looking up into Eric’s face, but he was as remote as ever.
I saw nothing there as he took the book from me and turned away without another word.
I made it all the way to the threshold of my door before tears began to fall in earnest, running down my cheeks in a steady stream.
The taste of night-blooming flowers filled my mouth, fading quickly as I looked around for the only person to whom that signature belonged.
There was no sign of Adrian Wolfe… at least, not in his human form.
Enormous paws tread the second-floor balcony of the balcony as the huge therianthrope loped towards me, his head slung low and tail swishing. I sat down and leaned against my apartment door.
The mountain lion stopped only a foot away, the tips of his ivory canines flashing.
“Why don’t you ever just stay human so you can wear clothes?” I asked, trying to wipe the tears away, but they continued in an unbroken stream. Why had Adrian come here now, when I was an emotional mess? “You and Joss are a seriously strange tag-team- and I’m sorry I called you Good Kitty.”
The mountain lion chuffed and pressed against me, his creamy fur warm and velvet. The taste of velvet darkness was just barely perceptible in my mind as he made contact with me, but I couldn’t sense him at all when we weren’t touching.
“Will you be in Blacksea tonight?” I asked, twining my fingers into his ruff. “I promise I won’t be an emotional wreck. I’d like to talk to you for real, not just pet you. This relationship is turning out a little strange, if we’re being honest with each other.”
Adrian flicked an ear, and licked my cheek with his rough tongue, his indigo eyes focused on the apartment next door.
Mrs. Flanagan, my rude human neighbor, was watching us with astonishment. “That’s a mountain lion,” she exclaimed, as though I hadn’t deduced that for myself. “I’m calling animal control!”
She tottered back into her apartment and I sighed. “Any chance you’ll become human and talk to me like a normal person if you’re going?” I asked with a sniffle.
The mountain lion- Adrian, I reminded myself- shook his head in a decidedly human gesture and placed one enormous paw over my hand. His claws slid out and pricked my skin before he padded off.
When he had gone, I finally unlocked my doors, and the wards unwound for me as I stumbled inside, the smell of dust over the last few days overtaking my own scent.
I shut the door behind me and sank to the floor to sob, drawing my knees up to my chest. My heart felt like it was fissured wide open and crammed full of burned-out coals.
It took an hour, but finally I cried myself dry and sat still for a moment. The last time I had cried like this over Eric, I had been sixteen, an untried witch, naïve in the ways of the world. I promised myself this would be the last time. He wouldn’t break my heart for a third, because I wouldn’t give him the chance.
I was the witch, and he the servitor. He’d chosen that path even when I’d asked him to break tradition. And tonight I would be re-entering society among my own kind. I needed to man up already.
I picked myself up from the floor and dusted myself off as I walked to the kitchen. I had a plastic bin full of tiny glass jars, both common spices and slightly more unusual varieties of herbs. It was the work of nearly two hours of standing at the stove, an iron pot bubbling away as I painstakingly measured and
brewed.
A pinch of rosemary here, a sprig of peppermint there. A golden coin. A single strand of my own hair. A few things that might get me arrested if Warden Stone searched my apartment.
I stirred carefully, plopping in a stick of cinnamon when it seemed appropriate, and finally the concoction was ready: a full night’s sleep, brewed in two hours and bottled in an old recycled spaghetti jar. It was quick and dirty, but it beat actually having to sleep all day when I had things to attend to.
I popped my potion in the ancient refrigerator, which was empty except for a few water bottles, and splashed my face with cold water before I moved on to the next part of my plans.
In the back of my wallet, hiding in the last fold of the accordion, was a shiny black credit card, which looked brand-new and totally unused. It was linked directly to Bell coven coffers; while I had steadfastly refused to use them while trying to manage on my own, now seemed as good an occasion as any. I couldn’t pay rent and outfit myself for Circle meeting- and a handfasting celebration, which meant I had to get fancy, ugh- in the same month without dipping into my inheritance just a tiny bit.
I waited for the bus a block away, regretting my inability to drive and my lack of a useful servitor at the moment. At Bellhallow I could have just created myself a portal to the nearest city, but setting up a circle of power in my small and shabby apartment would take time, energy, and materials I didn’t have.
I ended up alone in the middle of the bus, the humans clustering in both the back and the front, but nowhere near me if they could help it. A smirk played over my lips as they walked by, tripping over themselves to avoid my general vicinity. A small and spiteful part of me delighted in someone else’s discomfort right now.
And I was finally leaving it behind. I saw clearly now how ludicrous I had been in trying to fit in among them. It just wasn’t possible.
I found myself at the mall, staring up at the signs for a variety of department stores. The credit card felt like a red-hot brand in my wallet, begging to be used.