Eleri Stone - Witch Bound

Power flowed from the portal like blood from a freshly opened wound, and she gathered it, absorbing the overflow as she wrestled the ragged edges of the split closer and closer together. The runes on her leg burned and she could feel her body trembling, shaking as it had earlier when the magic overwhelmed her. It was theoretically possible to poison yourself this way. She’d learned that from the old scrolls Kathy had forced her to translate and study. The ones locked with the prophecies and artifacts in the clan vaults.

No one in recent memory possessed enough power to make it even a remote likelihood. She didn’t possess that kind of power, not of herself. But she was an open circuit now, connected to the fault. If she didn’t maintain absolute control, she would burn out, destroy not only her mind but her body as well.

But that wouldn’t matter. If the portal failed, everyone standing here would die. Fen...all of the hounds and huntsmen. She wondered how the humans would explain that. There would be a crater. Would they call it a meteorite even though their astronomical instruments wouldn’t have registered a thing?

She walked a delicate edge, pulling power from the fault, feeding it back into the weave, rebuilding the wall between their worlds, willing the rift to heal itself. She had no idea how long she stood there, didn’t even realize that it was done, that the power she was pulling from the fault had slowed to a trickle, until Kathy slapped her from the trance.

“Stop.” Her tone of voice made Raquel think that she’d said it several times already.

The fault was stable, or as stable as it would be until the wards were replaced. The remaining demons were dead. Alan was tending to an injured hound. Fen crouched naked at his side, arguing with him. She jerked her gaze from that sight and her knees buckled.

“We’re done here?” Christian scooped her into his arms and waited for Kathy’s nod. “Alan, I’m bringing her back to the house. Come as soon as you’re able.”

“Stupid girl,” Kathy muttered. “She shouldn’t have attempted it herself. I had no idea it was so far gone. Your witch shouldn’t have left hundred-year-old wards in place.”

“They were holding,” Aiden said. He and Kathy walked a step behind Christian. Raquel couldn’t muster the strength to open her eyes, let alone enter the conversation. “I won’t be able to discipline Lois formally, not when your apprentice blew the portal open with that stunt.”

“It wasn’t a stunt. Did you see what she did? There’s been no one with that kind of power for centuries. It might have been years before she matured into it naturally. It was your need that pushed her to this. She did it for you—and for him.”

A noise rumbled from Christian’s chest that sounded like denial. Warm and deep, fiercely protective. She was safe. As much as Aiden might want to wring her neck, Christian wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Not yet. She wrapped that security around her like a blanket and tumbled headlong into sleep.

Ben was going to make it. He’d tucked his chin when he tackled the demon and had driven his head directly into the bony plate of armor that covered the demon’s chest above the heart. It had knocked Ben out cold, fractured his skull and sliced open his scalp. All Fen had known at the time was that Ben wasn’t getting up. But they’d held the demons off for over an hour, exhausted, bleeding and—yeah, maybe with a little bit of help from the huntsmen—but they’d done it.

“He should be fine by morning,” Alan said. “But I’ll stop by all the same. Will you bring him to your house or are you staying with him tonight?”

Alan knew Fen wouldn’t leave an injured member of his pack alone for the night. Casualties were frequent. Deaths, thankfully, were rare. The demons weren’t well adapted to this world and were especially disoriented during the first minutes after having crossed over. So long as they were caught right out of the portal, it wasn’t all that difficult to take them down. But accidents happened. When Fen saw Ben lying on top of that demon, he’d thought for sure...

But he’s fine . No point in worrying over might-have-beens.

Fen looked up to see Christian lift Raquel into his arms and felt another pang of fear. Christian looked grim but not frantic. Aiden and the Colorado witch were arguing about something, but Fen could tell from their body language that Rocky wasn’t desperately injured. Christian wouldn’t have told Alan to come to the house at his convenience if there was anything seriously wrong with her. Fen knew that— he knew it —but all he wanted to do was follow her. He wanted to be the man holding her now.

When he’d seen her standing there covered in blood, trembling with exhaustion and the force of the magic she wielded, he’d been terrified for her. Ripped apart by his need to guard her and a conflicting need to stay with his pack. He’d left Ben sandwiched between Hagan and Brian and moved to stand in front of Raquel. Pure instinct. He’d have to answer to the pack for that.

Nothing should challenge his loyalty to the pack. He couldn’t deny it anymore—what he felt for her went beyond friendship and simple attraction. Part of him already claimed her as his, but she wasn’t his. She was Christian’s. And he had to find a way to break that connection.

“I’ll stay at Aiden’s tonight.” Fen picked up Ben, supporting his head as carefully as he would a newborn baby. “We’ll make it easy on you and keep all your patients in one spot tonight.”

Alan nodded, relief easing his features. He had a wife and baby at home. It had to suck being called out at all hours of the night on top of his regular job. “I’ll patch up the rest here then and send them home.”

Ben stirred and began to struggle until Fen spoke his name.

His eyes opened to slits, but he didn’t seem to have any trouble focusing on Fen’s face. “Did we win?”

“We did. Killed them all.”

This time.

“The wards—”

“Are holding for now.” Ben couldn’t even open his eyes all the way. His head dropped onto his chest, and Fen adjusted his arm to support him better. Ben was a good kid and as close to a child as he’d ever have. “No more questions. You rest, I’ve got you.”

Raquel turned her head away from the light. It seared through her closed eyelids and seemed to throb in time with the drum beating inside of her head. Her mouth was dry, and she hurt everywhere—her head, her shoulder where she’d been stabbed, her thigh where those runes were now permanently scarred into her skin. Memories from the night before flooded her consciousness along with a hefty dose of guilt and self-recrimination.

It was the morning after from hell. Her stupid mistake hadn’t only affected her, it affected everyone in the clan. She wanted to pull the covers over her head, but she couldn’t hide in bed forever. She had to check the portal, the fault and the wards. They’d held last night, but that didn’t mean that they’d continue to do so. She had to go see how bad it was and if there was any way for her to repair the damage.

Fen. An image flashed in her mind of the horrified expression on his face when she’d made her confession. The way he’d literally run away from her. Her one friend in the whole damn town. Gods, was there anything she hadn’t fucked up last night? Pressing the heels of her hands to her sockets, she groaned and rubbed her eyes before trying to open them.

“Fuck,” she shouted, drawing back. Fen was there, watching her. She waited for her shout to stop echoing around inside her skull. “What the hell are you doing?”