“A favor?”
“Yes. A big one.”
“Okay. I’m going to go and see him, but I’m also going to cash in that favor right now.”
“Oh?”
“I need you to go home and pack. We’re leaving Raven’s Glen tonight.”
CHAPTER 24
“You can’t protect a person, but you can protect a place.”
That’s what Frank had told me back at the bookstore before I went to talk to Aaron. He had corrected himself by telling me that a person could be put under protection, but it would take far more time and resources than what I had available. Placing a ward around Aaron’s home by consecrating its portals would have to be enough.
Aaron watched on, perplexed, as I moved from window to window making strange gestures with my hands. I was using my left hand to feel the vibration of the portal until the very wood tingling beneath my fingers sang to my skin. Then, with my right index finger, I drew a five point star into the portal in midair and consecrated it with a silent prayer. Aaron couldn’t see the wards, nor could he feel the Magick in the room, so I must have looked like a mad woman.
I said a final prayer of protection to the Goddess of the Moon and the Horned God of the Sun when the sigils were in place, then went to Aaron.
“Give me your hands,” I said, and though he was a little weirded out, he complied.
Our eyes locked. He was sitting down on the sofa and I was standing before him, in the space between his legs. My heart started to race. I didn’t have to tilt my head far for my lips to reach his forehead.
“Gods, keep this man safe till my return,” I whispered against Aaron’s skin.
I went to pull away but Aaron held my shoulders and kept me close to him. “You can’t leave,” he said.
“I… I have to.”
“Not if my house is safe.”
His breath was hot against the side of my face. My heart sped up, zero to sixty in three seconds flat.
“You don’t understand. There are things I need to do… one last thing I have to take care of.”
“And I’m supposed to sit here and wait? You know I can’t do that. You should wait here… with me.”
I pulled away just enough so that we could see each other’s eyes. Blood had flushed to his cheeks giving his skin a healthy red glow. “Aaron,” I said, “I promise I’ll only be gone a short time. An hour. Tops.”
Aaron’s strong lips pressed together into a thin line. Color was returning to him, as was his strength. “Fine,” he said. “An hour.”
I swallowed. My heart was still racing. Aaron released me from his grip but I still didn’t move. I couldn’t. There was something about him, the way he had just been with me… it reminded me of the man I used to know.
When I couldn’t wait any longer I nodded and stood. “An hour,” I said, “Pack a bag.”
Aaron stood and watched me leave, and with Aaron’s protections in place I shot off to see Damien.
Frank and I had spoken about forcing Damien to join the Coven, reminding him of his responsibilities, but a Witch couldn’t be forced to do anything she didn’t want to do. And while there were spells one could use to force someone against their will, the Rule of Three would ensure such dark Magick practitioners would get what they deserved after.
No.
Damien couldn’t be forced.
But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether I even wanted him around at all. Frank had said it would make Damien suffer, that he would have to see me every day and feel the stab of guilt in his heart. But did I want that? I couldn’t care less about Damien’s feelings, what worried me were my own. Could I handle seeing Damien day after day knowing I had been… the other woman?
Not the girlfriend, but the other woman!
After all those long talks, after everything we had been through, to find out I had been a mistress... stupid, stupid, stupid! I shouldn’t have gotten involved with him. I wondered at times if maybe I had a sign on my forehead saying ‘Please cheat on me?’ I had opened myself up again only to be caught up in someone else’s infidelity a second time.
And who said that lightning didn’t strike twice?
At about four o’clock evening was starting to unfurl like the wings of a giant, dark beast. Christmas was close, so the streets were lined in festive decorations and folks were scampering to collect last minute gifts before stores closed for the season or ran out of stock. It was always the same, like some kind of global phenomenon.
People threw themselves at shops in droves, desperate to try and catch those last minute gifts while in parking lots and street corners, sharks waited. They could taste the desperation like blood in the water and their hunger knew no bounds. They weren’t responsible for the shops being out of stock, but if they saw someone struggling to find the right gift, well, these people were only happy to jump in and throw a lifeline. Although those unfortunate souls could expect to pay, in some cases, triple what they would have if they had had their shit together and bought early.
Like I did.
Early November was around the time when I would buy gifts for Yule. Yule was still a time of gift giving—hell, Yule where the whole gift-giving tradition came from—and I never enjoyed being unprepared or caught unawares. I had already bought a gift for Damien; an expensive replica of Jon Snow’s Longclaw blade, from Game of Thrones.
I always imagined how he would react to seeing it. His face would light up, I guessed, and the dimples in his cheeks would come out to play. They weren’t always there—only when he smiled—but I lived for those moments. They were such kissable things, his dimples. And his eyes, the cutest lines would spring from the corner of his eyes whenever he beamed with glee.
Why did he have to be such an asshole? Why’d he have to go and fuck everything up?
As I stood at his door—deciding whether to knock or blow it open in an angry rage—I wondered what the store’s return policy on replica swords worth hundreds of dollars was. I would have to return the blade, right? Or, you know what? Screw him, I thought. I would keep the blade for myself. I bought it, so it was mine.
Finally, I knocked. Then again, and again.
I expected the door to open to Natalie, but it was Damien. He was wearing a long-sleeved black tee that covered the tops of his hands and a pair of black jeans. His face was ash white against his clothes and his aura tasted like a raw potato, bitter and tough. I hated how involuntary this seventh sense was and I never enjoyed using it on people—to me it felt like an intrusion—but I couldn’t control it sometimes.
“Hey,” he said.
My hands went to my hips as if pulled by magnets. “Hey? You do what you did to me and all I get a lousy ‘hey’?”
“I didn’t know what I was supposed to say.”
“You can start by telling me what the fuck is going on.”
A door opened down the hall and a woman peered out. She was easily in her thirties. A baby was crying in the background.
“Can we go inside?” Damien asked.
“Will I run into her?”
Damien shook his head and so I wasted no time in entering his apartment, barging into his shoulder as I went past him. I could smell perfume in the air. Her perfume. Sweet and fruity. It wasn’t cheap perfume either, Gods-dammit.
“Where is she?” I asked. Not that I cared.
I did care.
“She’s out,” Damien said. He had a face like a scolded child staring at the floor.
“Just out? So she’s coming back?”
Damien nodded.
“Why, Damien?” I asked. “Why is she coming back? I don’t understand any of this. I thought you said you had taken care of it back in September. That you would break up with her so we could be together.”
“I know.”
“But you lied! How could you lie to me?” My voice was a cobra’s bite, my words laced with venom.
“I’m sorry, Amber.”
“I’m sorry? I’m sorry doesn’t cut it
! You didn’t just hurt me, Damien. You wasted my time, you humiliated me and you lied to me. You had me believe you were this totally good guy—that you were different.”
“And I am different, Amber. I swear that I am.”
“Then why did you lie? Give me a good reason for trying to have us both.”
Damien stood perfectly still. I got the impression he maybe thought the slightest of movements would cause him to shatter like a glass statue. But he must have known this day would come, so where was his defense?
“Amber, all I can tell you is that I’m sorry for… all of this,” he said, “I know you won’t forgive me. I know I fucked everything up, but I just want you to know how sorry I am.”
I tried not to let him see it, but my chest felt like it was under a vice-grip. I couldn’t breathe, and my vision was starting to get a little murky. Anger or pain? Both, perhaps. “That isn’t an answer, Damien. Why can’t you just answer the question?”
“Because you won’t accept the answer.”
“Maybe not, but you still need to tell me the truth.”
Damien considered, for a moment, his predicament. I wished, then, that I could read minds. The closest I could get to that was the bitter lick of his aura. Hardly mind reading.
“I... Natalie and I… we’re…”
Engaged.
Married!
Oh God, no… family?
The conveyer belt kicked in to high gear and shot the questions out at me like a machine gun spits bullets. I couldn’t get my brain to shut up!
“We’re bound,” he finally said.
“You’re… wait, what?” I cocked my head and for a moment my guard evaporated. “Bound?”
“In Magick.”
CHAPTER 25
Bound in Magick? What the fuck was he talking about? I had never heard of this concept since I learned about my heritage. Nothing in the books Damien had given me, or in the books my mom had left behind in the attic, had introduced me to something like this before. I had heard about binding—the process of Magickally preventing a Witch from doing something—but I was sure this kind of binding was different.
“What… so she’s a Witch?” I asked.
“No. I mean yes, she is, but—”
“Is she or isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is.”
“And how how exactly are you bound? Don’t make me ask questions, Damien. Just take a moment to explain yourself.”
Damien took a deep breath. His muscles relaxed when he noticed my posture change. I was still a Cobra, but the siren song of curiosity was keeping me docile and attentive. For now, at least, I had been charmed by interest.
“Natalie is my charge,” Damien said. “A long time ago I made a promise to protect her. We became a couple because of our closeness, because it was convenient.” Surprise, surprise. “But I was never in love with her.”
“Bullshit,” I said. I may have been spying on him the day I caught him talking with Natalie over the internet, but I never forgot the way he smiled when he saw her. “Start over.”
“Start over?”
“I’m going to ignore that lie and let you try again, but next time I won’t be so easy on you.”
“It wasn’t a lie, Amber. She was my charge; she is my charge. When you and I hooked up I didn’t know how to tell her without sending her away; and I can’t do that. I won’t.”
Frank was right. You shouldn’t shit where you eat, and Damien had made a real mess of things with Natalie. And now with me. Still, my breaths were starting to get short. A strange, dizzying heat was coming and I couldn’t stop it. This feeling was alien to me. The word anger wouldn’t have done it justice.
“Not even for me?” I asked.
“Don’t make me say it,” Damien said.
I was grinding my teeth. The Power had started to come to me, unbidden. The sofa jerked of its own accord, wood grinding on wood, as if it had been yanked across the floor a couple of inches. The noise caught Damien’s attention.
“Say it,” I said, “That’s why I came here, Damien. I need you to tell me that you would do things for her that you wouldn’t do for me.”
“Why is that what you want?”
“Because it will make it easier for me to hate you and move on from this whole fucking thing.”
“Hate me?” Something happened inside of Damien. His aura flared vibrantly before turning pale and dull. Defeat. I knew, before he spoke, what the reason for this sudden shift was.
“You thought… there was still hope,” I said. My voice had gone soft. “You thought, maybe, if you explained, that I might forgive you for keeping the charade up with her. That’s what you told Frank, isn’t it?”
“Frank told you?”
“No, Damien. Mysterious as you might be, I’m a clever girl. I figured it out on my own. Did you think an explanation would be enough?”
Damien didn’t respond.
“Did you think I would just… understand and accept it? That you had some kind of obligation to this girl so you decided to omit the fact that you’d gotten a new girlfriend? What if she would have found out?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know what, Damien?” I said, advancing like the coiled Cobra I was embodying. “I’m going to give you one chance. One question. Answer me truthfully, and if I like the answer, you’re off the hook.”
“Just like that?”
“Maybe not just like that, but it will be a step forward.”
Damien paused and then asked, “What’s your question?”
My heart was racing, my body trembling. I felt like I was on a ledge about to jump. “Did, at any point during our relationship… you sleep with her?”
They had been sleeping together way before I ever came into the picture, and I was only too familiar with the longing that came with a long-distance relationship. Damien and I had been together for a few months, and in those months we had spent many weekends apart. Not for any reason other than we liked space. I never suspected that, on any one of those weekends, he could’ve been sneaking off to see his real girlfriend back in San Francisco. Although, he had gone once or twice to visit old friends…
Ha! I’m such a fucking idiot. Way to give him a ticket, Amber.
When Damien nodded in answer to my question, the specter of a thought forming in my mind took solid form and I lost all semblance of civility. I turned around to look away from him but saw him in the reflection of the window all the same. As I stared at the darkened image, brow furled, pulse pumping against my temples, the glass cracked.
“Amber,” he said.
I snapped around and the force of my rage made manifest slapped him hard across the face for the second time in as many days. Damien soothed his stinging cheek and stared at me. I wanted to hurt him but he was defenseless, so I made for the door instead.
He tried to stop me, but invisible hands grabbed him and pulled him away before he could get close. I opened the door to his apartment and gave him my eyes so that he could see the damage he had done and live with it for the rest of his life. Maybe I should have said something, given him one last shot to the groin, but what was it all for?
I left in silence and without any further magical outburst. My spirit was tired, my body exhausted. I had lost… everything.
Everything.
I couldn’t understand how someone’s life could change so drastically, and so negatively, in such a short span of time.
In my mind I was already fantasizing about putting Raven’s Glen in the rear-view mirror with Aaron and Frank at my side. The thought of leaving town had never made more sense. All three of us were damaged in some way. We had common ground, and a common reason to get out of town. If Damien was smart he would do the same all on his own. I doubted he would stay now that I was out of the picture anyway.
At least it was done.
Over.
Damien could keep his… whatever the hell she was… and I would be able to get on with my life away from Raven’s Glen.
Maybe we could go to San Francisco? Or San Diego? Or, screw it, why not Barcelona? Something about Europe always called to me anyway. The churches, the people… the policies.
The phone ringing in my bag stole my attention away from the European future I was planning in my mind.
The display read Aaron.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Amber!” It was Aaron, and he was groaning.
“Aaron! What’s happening?” I said.
He wasn’t saying anything I could understand. The sounds coming through the other end of the line were… strange. It sounded like he was having a fight with someone! But as the moments passed the noise seemed to transform into something animal and not quite human; similar to what I had heard moments before the professor hung up on me the other day.
“Amber, you have to come!” he said, and I knew; my wards had failed.
CHAPTER 26
I dashed breathless down the final two blocks before reaching Aaron’s apartment building. All eyes were on me; the crazy ginger girl running like a woman pursued. And I felt like I was, too. Being pursued that is. A presence was near me and drawing closer, always at the edge of my perception. I wondered if it would catch me if I stopped.
But I wouldn’t stop.
Though I was exhausted and out of breath, I dug deep. Through the door. Up the stairs. Down the hall. Open the door. But my palm sizzled as I touched the door knob and I had to pull away as the pain shook me. The metal was white hot!
“Fuck!” I said.
I closed my palms into fists and allowed the surge of adrenaline to flow through me as I channeled the Power. Then I took a step back, aimed for the weak spot just beneath the lock, and threw my boot into it—focusing a burst of telekinetic power into the heel of my foot and releasing it into the door.
The door swung wide open, splintering in places, but an inhuman growl accompanied the motion of the opening door, as if I had pissed something off. Something that wanted to keep the door closed; something evil and invisible.
“Aaron!” I said, speeding into his apartment as if the building were on fire. The light fixtures were flickering wildly and the curtains were swaying even though the windows had been closed again. I spotted Aaron in the fetal position on the kitchen floor, shaking, trembling, and with a face that was growing redder by the second.