Eleri Stone - Witch Bound

“Five more feet,” she said as much to Kamis as to herself. “You can do this.”

But his legs were barely moving. He couldn’t support his own weight and the demons, even the singed ones, were drawing closer. The Vanir’s cold, thin arms wrapped around her waist and his breath touched her ear. But when he spoke, his voice was inside her head. “Am I worth this, little girl?”

“Shut up,” she snapped and turned them toward the portal.

She directed another bolt at the closest demon, but defending herself in this way required both an enormous amount of energy and concentration. She heard Fen howl in rage or pain and turned her head. Mistake.

A demon leaped down on them from a boulder and hit her shoulder hard. She heard a ripping noise and felt the warmth of the blood before the pain hit. She wouldn’t look. Struggling to her feet, it was now Kamis trying to pull her toward the portal. With a last heroic effort, she managed to get her feet under her and lunged forward. They hit the portal just as the injured demon rolled to its feet. White light exploded in her head. Behind her eyes. For an instant there was nothing except her and Kamis and that cursed silver amulet binding them. Then there was pain.

And darkness.

They passed through and for a second she thought she’d made a mistake. That the geis hadn’t worked or they’d accidentally exited through another portal. Everything looked strange and unnatural, a white hazy wash of light that hurt her eyes, which had adjusted to the darkness of Asgard. But then she realized...

It was snowing.

She looked down. Blood stained the snow red where her hand pressed to the ground. She still had a hand though, two of them, so that was something. A shout came from the left followed by the clean whistling slice of a Skimstrok blade. Hard hands dragged her away from the portal, but she could barely open her eyes. She didn’t know who lifted her onto a horse. Someone cradled her on his lap, but she couldn’t drag her attention away from the portal. They would make it out. They had to.

Snow drifted down so sweet and soft and gentle.

The open portal shimmered in the air like heat from a hot sidewalk on a summer’s day but didn’t melt the snow. The heaped body of the demon stupid enough to chase them directly into the waiting hunt lay beside the portal. She stared until her eyes burned. And then Christian emerged, followed by a bloody Aiden hunched over his horse’s neck. And finally, after a brief pause, there was Fen. She closed her eyes.

“Ouch, Alan.” Raquel tried to pull her arm back, but Alan had a firm hold on her wrist and the pain that accompanied her attempt made her vision go gray at the edges.

He clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and cut through what was left of her shirt. With one last snip, he clipped her bra strap and grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m a doctor and happily married and attached to my head. I don’t know if Christian or Fen would rip it off faster.”

“Ha.” He wasn’t interested in her body aside from the great gaping slash on her shoulder and she knew it. There were actually three gashes at the top of her shoulder that sort of blended into one tear ending beneath her armpit. It was still weeping blood, and she’d been dizzy and a little nauseous before she got a good look at it.

He whistled softly. “That is a beauty. Here, you can lie down. It stops before it reaches your back. Okay, now you have to let me in.”

He placed his hand directly over the wound, not touching her skin but close enough to breach her personal shields. She closed her eyes and set aside her protective blocks. Normally, she didn’t bother with them though some witches kept them up all the time. She’d placed them before the crossing and held them because they added an extra barrier of protection between her and Kamis. Now, as she dropped her shields, her awareness of the Vanir witch increased. He was sleeping, thank the gods.

“Did you look at the witch’s legs yet?” she asked and then hissed as Alan began to repair the deeper wound in the muscle.

“Briefly. Whatever Surtr did, it didn’t affect blood flow so there’s no permanent damage. Mostly muscle atrophy. A burn where the chain was wrapped. He needs rest...if Aiden decides you can keep him.”

“He’s not mine.”

Alan gave a huff of laughter. “Says the woman who ensorcelled him. I think it’s something like ‘you brought him home now you have to take care of him.’”

“He’s not a stray dog.”

“No.” The smile left his face. “He’s a Vanir witch exiled to Asgard for reasons we don’t understand, and you’re the only one who can control him.”

She winced and he patted her leg before sitting back to reach for the washbasin. “Make sure you do that, Raquel.”

She dropped her head onto the pillow and closed her eyes as he started to wipe the blood off. “I...”

“Didn’t think it through? Yeah. That’s what they’re arguing about downstairs. Decide now because if you decide to keep him, you’ll have to convince the town he’s safe. His life is now officially in your hands. Can you raise your arm for me?”

He put a hand behind her back to help her up and then tested the range of motion in her shoulder. There was a dull ache in the area he’d healed, but that sharp, slicing pain was gone. “It should feel completely normal by morning. Let me know if it doesn’t. I’ll tell them you need to rest. That’ll buy you a few hours.”

“Thanks, Alan.”

He nodded, blond hair falling across his forehead. He looked rumpled although they hadn’t had to rouse him from bed. He’d kept a vigil with Grace last night, along with the other family members of the people who’d crossed.

“Fen’s okay? Really?” she asked for the third time. She’d have sworn she heard bone breaking when the demon slammed him into the rock. “Christian and Aiden too?”

“You were the worst.” He switched the light off before opening the door. “Get some sleep.”

Sleep was an impossibility, but she closed her eyes as she began to restore the shields that walled off her awareness of the Vanir witch. Her responsibility. On some level she’d known it would come to that. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought it through but...what choice did she have really? Even now, occasionally brushing up against his mind like two people trapped in an elevator, he didn’t really seem evil. She could sympathize with Grace’s reluctance to kill him outright...and Aiden’s.

She had no idea how to convince the town of that. But then she didn’t really need to convince the town that he meant them no harm, she had to convince the town that she could keep them safe from the threat of him. And she wasn’t sure it was the truth. He was powerful and while she didn’t think that he could break the geis without killing her, he might be powerful enough to kill her even while he was bound.

“Don’t fear, little girl. I won’t harm you...or your town. I’ve no desire to return to Asgard and no way to survive here without you. Killing you would mean my death as well.”

Tentatively, she reached out with her mind. “It’s not safe then.”

“Safety is as much an illusion as certainty. That’s as true in this world as any other, I imagine.” She felt his amusement, touched by a big, fat load of condescension.

“I want you out of my head.”

A pause. “We’ll rework the amulet in the morning so that we both have our privacy.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“Nor should you.”

He was gone, proving that he could withdraw as easily as she could. The magical chain formed by the geis was loose enough to provide that much space. She needed to place a barrier there. Kathy would know how to do it. If she—