The Bound Witch by Ivy Asher

16

“Wait. But why do demons know about your secret ley line?” I ask, running my fingers through my curls only to snag them on what I’m pretty sure is matted dried blood and a whole nest of tangles.

Distracted, I begin to feel around my skull for an entry and exit wound. With the way my chest is scarred, I know there should be something, and as expected, I find a fingertip-sized circle of smooth healed tissue above the top of my ear, and another at the back of my head about three inches shy of the top. Hopefully, my curls will hide them both.

“We source goods to anyone and everyone,” Riggs declares as though that answers my question.

It doesn’t, but I get he has a business to run, and it seems part of that business is being cagey about it.

I turn to Rogan and shrug, doing my best to hide my hurt over the fact that he’s closed himself off. I tell myself that he probably has a good reason and that reason might not even be me. He just watched his best friend die. Maybe he doesn’t want to overwhelm me with that pain and loss.

Unease settles in my stomach, but I try hard not to focus on it.

He has questions in his eyes, and I hate that I have no answers. I’m starting to wonder if I really know anything at all.

“I have no idea what happened,” I confess aloud, answering the unspoken how floating in his gaze. “I was trying to tap into the line when I died,” I go on, as though listing the events out loud might help me hear the answers to all of our questions. “I was desperate to get us out of there and frantic. Maybe when my brain shut down, it tweaked the resonance my magic was focused on, and it just happened to be the pack’s line,” I provide, not knowing what else to say.

It had to be a fluke. Nothing else makes sense, but I can’t shake the feeling that I did something wrong and now everyone is looking at me like I’m not who they thought I was. My heart twinges a little at that thought, and Rogan reaches for me and pulls me into his lap.

He places a tender kiss against my temple and strokes my back. I lean into him, ignoring the upset I feel over the disconnect between us.

“Whatever happened, I’m grateful it did. You saved us. I don’t know where we’d be right now if you hadn’t,” he reassures me.

I sigh warily, suddenly feeling very lost and small and vulnerable. “You still haven’t told me where we even are?” I remind him, wishing his words made me feel better, but there’s a scratching worry settling just under my skin, and I don’t know what to think about anything.

“We’re in Utah,” Rogan tells me, wrapping his arms around me tighter. “Elon and I have a hidden house here in the mountains that no one knows about.”

I pointedly look over to Riggs and Viv.

“We’re safe,” he assures me, clearly picking up what I’m putting down despite his inability to feel it. “Riggs and Viv have been discreet and loyal since Elon and I moved into the area.”

Riggs chuckles and Viv offers me a friendly smile over her shoulder. “We always knew something was different about the Kendrick boys,” she tells me, wrinkling her nose. “They smell different to us,” she admits. “You smell different now too.”

Surprise flickers through me at that declaration. I never gave much thought to how I smelled before. I fight the urge to lean down and sniff my arm.

“They didn’t seem eager to explain anything to us, so we chalked it up to something that was none of our business. But then one night at an event the brothers both attended, one of our pups very rudely asked them why they smelled different from other witches.”

I smile at that. Nothing worse than getting called out on something by a kid. There’s no getting around the truth they spill no matter how cringy it may be.

“Elon and I knew then that they were aware we were different, but we still didn’t want to bring them into anything that could have put them and their pack in danger. So it just became this unspoken thing between us,” Rogan explains, and I can abruptly sense the until now floating uncomfortably around the interior of the car.

I can only imagine what they thought when Rogan and I showed up using a line no one is supposed to know about, me with a fatal head wound, and him battle weary and confused as to how we ended up there in the first place.

“Anyway,” Riggs barks jovially, breaking the awkward silence that was just building and making me jump. “My brother’s pack here helped these boys build their house up here. So when Viv and I discovered that’s where you were headed, we thought an escort was in order. I don’t get over to Ronan’s pack nearly enough, so the timing was perfect.”

Riggs’s smile is genuine, his kind eyes twinkling with support and care, but there’s more there, more to all of this, more that he’s not saying. I can feel it, but I’m too overloaded to demand he spit it out. So many questions swirl in my mind, and I feel completely bogged down by them. I’m stuck in a world of magic and chaos that’s so utterly confusing that I don’t even know where to start trying to untangle it all.

There’s this whole supernatural world that even the supernaturals don’t talk about. I’ve never heard my Grammy say much about demons, other than to steer clear or salt them if you had to. But now I’m learning that they’re more wrapped up in the fabric of the mancer world—and now even the lycan world—than I ever thought possible.

I shake away my frustrations and try to pull in some calming breaths. Rogan is still stroking soothing passes down my back, but my ire grows anyway. I thought I was getting past my insecurities of not knowing enough about the world I’m now forever a part of, but now I wonder if I’ll ever truly get the many facets, seen and unseen, of this world.

We round a corner, and the darkness all around us changes. Or maybe it’s just that my eyes are finally adjusting. Either way, I can now make out the thick trees bordering each side of us as well as the driveway in front of us that leads up to a huge log cabin.

Log mansion? Are those even a thing?

“Wow, Rogan, this is stunning!” Viv coos as she leans forward to take it all in.

Two massive stories with wraparound porches on each level loom down over us. The massive windows all over show lights on inside, and I’m instantly eager to see Elon and Prek and check over them to make sure they’re okay.

“Ronan and his crew did a beautiful job,” Riggs observes as they pull into the circular drive in front of the massive house.

“You both are more than welcome to stay,” Rogan offers, but Viv waves him off.

“You get settled in. We’ll come visit and get the grand tour in a couple days,” she states warmly.

“That’ll give us some time to make the arrangements that we discussed. We can go over everything then,” Riggs adds, and Rogan nods in understanding, not bothering to fill me in on the details they’re discussing.

They pull up in front of the house, and Riggs hops out and moves to the back to open the door. Rogan helps me slide out, and as he’s climbing out himself, Riggs wraps me up in a tight hug. A squeak of shock escapes me as he does, but after a second, I can’t help but feel like his hug is all that’s holding me together. My eyes sting, but I blink the emotion from them as Riggs sets me down and offers me a dazzling smile.

“It’s all going to be okay,” he tells me, confidence and wisdom ringing in his tone. “Even when you can’t see how, it will all be okay.”

I nod, my chest tight with unexpected emotion, and with that, he jumps back into the driver’s seat and pulls away. Viv rolls down her window and waves at us as they leave. I wave back, all at once cold and bereft and wishing I believed the advice Riggs just offered.

Rogan walks up the stone path to the front door and turns when he realizes I’m not following him. I study him, and he studies me, both of us silent and distant, and I fucking hate it.

“I know a lot has happened,” I start, my voice small amidst the huge house and the dense woods all around us. “We have a lot to figure out, a lot to process.”

Rogan steps away from the house and closer to me as I continue.

“If you need space, time to sort out whatever is going on in your head, fine, but blocking me, shutting me out, that fucking hurts, Rogan,” I tell him, not wanting to pretend everything is okay for even another second.

He opens his mouth to say something, but the front door opens and Elon comes striding out. He wraps Rogan up in a hug, the brothers taking a moment to reunite, the gratitude and relief palpable in the air. I feel like an interloper watching a deep and meaningful moment, so I quietly try to move around them and make my way toward the house. Elon reaches out and hooks me like I’m a fish, and the next thing I know, he’s added me to the hug.

“I was so fucking terrified that you two didn’t make it out. When I woke up and Prek told me…” Elon wipes at his eyes, and his words trail away.

“We wouldn’t have if Lennox hadn’t saved our asses,” Rogan tells his older brother, and Elon’s arms tighten around us both. “I’m sorry I…” Rogan starts and then stops as though he’s trying to figure out how to say what he wants to say. “When Marx fell, I just... All I could see was red. I wanted to kill, to hurt...but I lost sight of what was important,” he goes on, his words tight with emotion as though each and every syllable is a struggle.

Pain and grief spill out between the lines of what he’s saying, and I hurt for him and for the rest of us. Lights beam past us, and I look up to find another SUV pulling up. It stops at the end of the path, and we all watch as a tall man with ash brown hair and beard climbs out of the driver’s seat.

“You got room for one more?” he asks teasingly, and both Elon and Rogan laugh deeply.

The passenger door opens while the driver rounds the front of the sleek carbon gray SUV, and I see Tad climb out with bags in his hands. His brown eyes find mine, and a huge smile breaks across his face.

“I brought wine!”

I practically leap for him, and Tad doesn’t miss a beat when he drops the packages in his grip and catches me. He wraps me up so quickly and fiercely in a mend your soul type of hug that I don’t know who needed it more, me or him. He squeezes the shit out of me, and then I do what I always do when I finally feel safe after something terrible happens, I allow myself to break and then start bawling my eyes out.

* * *

Itip the massive bottle of rosé back and hold my breath as I take several gulps. I lift my eyebrows in contemplation as I swallow them down—maybe this doesn’t taste so bad after all—but then my drunk tastebuds kick in, reminding me we hate wine, and I lower the bottle and cringe back away from it. Tad reaches for it with gimme hands, and I happily pass it over, my body warm and my mind all kinds of light and fuzzy.

I lean back against the large black apothecary-style vanity, once again admiring the beautiful master bathroom from my vantage point on the floor. The walls and ceiling are a rich walnut color, and beams run across the high vaulted ceiling. The floor is a gray stone and so is the back wall, which might be my favorite part.

There is a gargantuan copper bathtub against that wall, with stairs at the head and foot of the tub that lead to an upper stone deck that allows you to climb down into the tub. But the best part is that the deck also houses a gas fireplace with huge windows above it so you can see the stars. It’s a girl’s bathtub wet dream, and I didn’t even know those existed until I saw this one. The whole space is dark and masculine and dreamy, which makes it the perfect location to get thoroughly pissed with my cousin.

A dry shudder moves through my chest, an echo of the sobbing I stopped doing in trade for the drinking I started instead. It’s as though my body is still trying to purge the emotion but my eyes just aren’t on board at the moment.

Tad passes the bottle back to me, and I dutifully drink my share. I swear I’ve never seen a bottle of wine this big with its little feet on the label, but it makes me feel like I shrunk the last time I died and came back to life.

“Can you see my bullet holes?” I ask Tad, brushing hair away from where I felt the scars earlier.

Tad leans closer and squints at me. “Nope, but to be fair, there’s one and a half of you right now, and both of them are a skosh fuzzy,” he confesses, and I shrug and drop my tangled locks back down. “I need more wine if you’re going to talk about head wounds,” Tad declares, and I take a few more gulps before passing the bottle back.

“There’s something wrong with me,” I whine as I throw my head back and bang it on one of the many copper knobs attached to the five hundred drawers the vanity has. I glare at the knob, pissed that it got me again. “We talked about this,” I snap at it, giving it the angry mom finger and a withering glare. The knob doesn’t even flinch.

Hard ass.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with you,” Tad reassures me as he tries to level me with a chastising gaze. Mostly it looks like he’s trying to figure out which me to focus on. “I mean other than the ratty hair, way too big sweat suit, and the bags your eyes are rocking, but you know what I mean,” he adds, and I refocus my withering glare from the knob to Tad.

Rude.

“I don’t mean in the woe is me, existential kind of way,” I correct him, tripping up way more than I should on the word existential. “I mean, there is literally something wrong with me, more specifically my magic, which is basically me because I am an Osteomancer, dammit.”

“Woot woot!” Tad cheers, like I just said let’s do shots instead of my magic is fucked up.

When I don’t join in on the cheer, Tad quiets, stares at the bottle of wine in his hand and then shrugs before slamming more of it down.

“Rogan knows, but he’s pulling a Rogan and keeping it to himself. Either that or he hates me because I killed Marx,” I moan, dropping my head into my hands, only I don’t get my hands up fast enough, so I just chin bump my chest.

Ow.

“Wait, you killed someone?” Tad asks, suddenly serious, minus the swaying his body is doing.

“Like so many someones,” I correct, a flash of cracking bones and screaming Order members flashing in my mind before I blink and it’s gone. A shiver slithers up my spine, and I reach for the wine. “I couldn’t even get his body. I wanted to, but there wasn’t enough time or enough magic. I just left him back there like he didn’t matter, but he mattered, Tad. He really mattered,” I tell him, drowning my words and pain in more gulps of wine.

“Of course he did, Leonardo. You all survived, and that’s what Marx would have wanted. He would have been annoyed if you died or got caught trying to get his body. He would have been the first to tell you that was stupid.”

I nod at his words, knowing he’s right, but it doesn’t lessen the guilt. I don’t know if anything ever will.

“Were they trying to kill you first?” Tad asks, his head tilted thoughtfully, clearly still stuck on my candid admission to being a murderer.

“Mm-hmmm,” I mumble, my mouth full of more wine that I don’t like but can’t seem to stop drinking.

“Doesn’t count then,” he assures me, as though there’s no way he’ll be convinced that I’m a cold-blooded murderer, no matter what I say. “And you didn’t kill Marx, Len, they killed him. You did everything you could.”

“But he died,” I argue, tears welling in my eyes.

“Because of them,” he repeats, his face softening and his unfocused eyes begging the one and a half mes he sees to hear what he’s saying. “I see the way Rogan looks at you, Lennox, and I guarantee you he doesn’t think there’s a thing wrong with you. Ask him what’s up with blocking the tether, give him a chance to explain what’s going on with him before you jump to the worst conclusion.”

“I will, obviously, but it’s not just him. My magic has been weird since I woke up—the first time. Well, and this time. I don’t know what it is, but I hate it. I was just feeling good about my place in all of this, really finding my stride as a witch, you know? And then I had to die and everything is all messed up…again.”

“If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone complain about dying,” Tad teases, cheersing with the now almost empty bottle of rosé. “I’d have three nickels, two for you, and one for Elon,” he goes on, laughing deeply at his own joke. “Do you think there are other immortals out there besides you guys?” he asks contemplatively.

I shrug and then realize that’s a difficult move to maneuver after too much alcohol. “I mean, probably, there’s so much out there in the world that I never knew was there, why not immortals.”

“How do we find them?” Tad demands, like they’re simply lost.

“Fuck if I know. Maybe I should start carrying around a sword and screaming there can be only one. They might stop by for a chat then,” I suggest, trying and failing to shrug again, but only one shoulder cooperates.

“I rode a ley line,” Tad announces, his eyes suddenly wide.

“Oohhh nice!” I reach for the bottle and finish it off.

“Totally passed out, that hot dude Cohen had to carry me. I woke up in his arms all damsel-like, and I gotta say, I get the appeal.”

I crack up, and Tad just nods at me fervently. “You’d totally rock a sword P.S.”

“Right? I was just thinking that,” I agree.

There’s a knock on the door, and both Tad and I turn to stare at it. I realize one of us actually has to say come in, and I start cracking up when neither of us do.

Maybe if Rogan had our tether working, he’d know he can open the door, I think smugly, and then Tad shouts come in, but it sounds more like comenuminum.

Rogan pokes his head in, like he’s unsure of what he might find. His eyes land on my face, and I think there’s a flash of relief that I’m no longer bawling hysterically. I wouldn’t know though because the douche is still blocking me.

“Can I have a word with Lennox?” Rogan asks Tad, opening the door wider and stepping in.

Tad shoots me a look like we just got busted, and Rogan’s vibe definitely has a you’re in trouble feel to it.

“Suuure,” Tad agrees, and then he tries to get up.

Rogan scoops down and helps him get to his feet and then holds him there for a moment until Tad gets his swaying under control. He looks down at me and wags his eyebrows.

“I’m tellin’ ya, these damsels are on to something,” he coos, and I giggle. “I’ll go get more wine, be right back,” he chirps, heading out into the room.

“I’ll bet you five dollars we’ll find him passed out on the stairs in five minutes,” I tell Rogan, laughing at the visual I just conjured of drunk Tad with carpet lines on his face in the morning.

Rogan moves all the way into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him before looking down at me. I fidget under the weight of his stare, not sure what he’s thinking.

“We need to talk,” he starts, and everything inside of me plummets into a pit of despair.

Those four words never mean anything good.