Misty
The room is dark but clean. In fact, the curtains are drawn against the sun, and Orion has to turn on a lamp, which barely floods the room in muted light.
There’s a single bed in the corner, the blankets bunched around a… woman.
Chains rustle as she sits up, turning sightless green eyes in my direction, and I…
I turn away, bracing my hands on the wall as nausea drags me under.
Cole’s behind me, leaning down as his hand rests on my lower belly, splayed wide. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Why is she wearing a muzzle?” I bite out, my eyes watering from the effort of trying to stop myself from throwing up out of rage.
The chains rattle as the woman begins to keen.
“Lacey, it’s all right. I’ve brought a friend to see you. She might make you feel better.” Orion’s footsteps sound somewhere behind us. Lacey cries out in a mutated voice that sounds like talons being dragged across a chalkboard. My body lurches with nausea again, my healing powers already buzzing over my skin, sensing something is very, very wrong.
Cole remains behind me, his head lowered, his voice in my ear, “You don’t have to do this,” he repeats. “She doesn’t have much longer. I’m not sure it’s even worth it to try.”
“Is she… aware?”
“Not anymore, no.”
He keeps his hand on my belly. It’s comforting–warm and… it grounds me. I’m not in this alone. He’s here, supportive of whatever I choose to do.
I slowly turn around. Cole’s hand drops as he steps to the side, giving me a view of Orion gripping his mate’s shoulder and trying to ease her back onto the pillow, but she’s thrashing, her eyes a wild, solid green.
Her nightgown is clean like she’s taken care of regularly, but the smell of blood is so thick in the air I can’t breathe past it. Symbols of all sizes and depth cover her entire body from what I can tell. Her face, her arms, her fingers…
Patches of hair are gone completely. Open symbols cover her scalp.
Thank the Goddess she doesn’t know who she is anymore. Thank the Goddess… she isn’t aware of the pain she must be feeling.
“How long exactly?” I gulp, my hands trembling as I try to will my legs to move.
“A little over a year.”
“How long was your dad sick?”
“Two.”
I look up at Cole, noticing the way he struggles to swallow against the words. His dad was like this? He saw his own father like this?
I want to ask why he didn’t reach out to my family for help, but I’m starting to understand. Richard has the Book of Whispers. He has, at his fingertips, unlimited power.
He could have done this to my family. I’m not sure our powers are enough to stop him.
He’s goingto do this to my family, using the war to bait them in….
I find the nerve to step up to the bed, deciding to push the image of the woman, so hurt and sick she’s nearly falling to pieces under Orion’s hold, into the recesses of my mind and just focus on one thing.
Making her better. Taking the pain away.
I kneel, gripping her hand, feeling the symbols between us. Orion holds her down as she thrashes and screams like she’s been taken over by some kind of demon, tears in her eyes.
Can he still feel their bond? Can he speak to whoever, or whatever, she is now, through that same bond?
Is she gone? Or are there pieces still there, begging for help?
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her then close my eyes and let my powers flow.
All of the hair on my head stands on end as my powers thrum to life. I send them forward, through our clasped hands. My heartbeat sounds in my ears, drowning out Orion’s shocked gasp and hurried questions toward Cole.
But I can feel Cole walking up behind me, laying his hand on my shoulder and squeezing.
‘You’re doing it,’ he says into my mind.
I open my eyes, watching the symbols on her arm knit together, the ghastly gray color of the unbroken skin turning a soft peach.
She shakes with pain, but I don’t stop. I can’t. My powers hone in on her body, locked on their purpose. They know what to do.
I reach to lay my other hand on the side of her head.
Orion nearly grabs my arm before Cole grabs him.
“She bites, remember?” Orion hisses, terror in his eyes. “You know what happens when they bite!”
“Let her work.” Cole edges away from the bed, herding an increasingly agitated Orion back.
When Lacey’s keening shrieks turn to human-like whimpers, Orion thrashes in Cole’s arms. “Lacey? Lacey!”
“Help–” Lacey’s voice, rattling from lack of use, echoes through the room.
I can’t stop now. It’s working. It’s really working.
My powers are only growing stronger instead of fading. I don’t understand? Normally, at this point, like when I healed Cole’s back for the first time, they’d fizzle… growing weak until they go out….
Cole’s by my side again, his eyes wide in disbelief as I rise on shaking legs and pull my hands away, but my powers keep flowing, connected to Lacey by unending beams of light.
“What is this, Misty?” Cole asks breathlessly, shocked.
“I don’t know,” I rasp, looking past the light to the woman still lying in the bed, her skin… clearing of the symbols, completely. They’re fading completely.
“Oh, my Goddess,” Orion gasps, stumbling toward the bed. “Oh, Goddess–”
“Misty,” Cole pants, his hand on the small of my back. “You–you ignited the curse in my body. How did you do it?”
“I don’t know–”
“You unlocked it with your powers,” he rushes out, watching as Lacey’s back arches off the bed, her trembling growing so extreme the entire room starts to shake. The green magic in her eyes flickers. “Misty, I want you to try something for me. I want you to draw out the curse.”
“I can’t,” I gasp as my powers reach a peak–so strong I can barely handle it.
“You can. I want you to try.”
“I don’t know how—”
‘Focus,’ he says into my head. ‘Breathe, and focus.’
I close my eyes, sending every power I have funneling into the woman at once.
Two white wolves in a clearing. Two white wolves face the sunrise. Two white wolves look out over scorched earth. A great war. A war… won.
A swiftly moving chill sweeps through my body. I gasp in pain as the cold bites into me like needles.
My eyes open to silts. The room spins. Cole’s holding me upright, shouting in my ear not to stop, that I can do this.
The green magic in Lacey’s eyes fades completely. Her eyes are a soft hazel. She’s lovely. She looks like she’s my mom’s age. She’s here–with us. Her eyes meet mine, pleading. Help me. Help me, help me.
My light turns… green.
“Misty!” Cole shouts.
I know what I did wrong last time. I had the curse by the fucking balls, but I quit–I quit before I pulled it out and destroyed it.
I won’t quit this time, even though I’m being screamed at by two men, and the woman on the bed is shrieking in pain.
I scream. My voice carries, bouncing from wall to wall as my powers burst forward, drawing out the curse until its… its….
Here. In the room with us.
I stumble back into Cole’s arms as green light flares right in front of my eyes. I lift my hands as the magic barrels toward me, reaching for me like a hand with gnarled, twisted fingers.
But suddenly there’s a blade in my hand. A blade of pure, blue…mist?
I wield it, slicing through the curse at the very last second. The magic shatters.
The results are immediate. The room pretty much explodes. The green magic erupts like splintering glass, showering over us as Cole and I hit the ground with a crunch.
The lamp explodes, sending sparks whizzing through the air.
Then it goes totally, utterly still.
I can’t breathe. My lungs collapse as I curl into myself, shaking in pain and the bitter cold sensation of completely exhausting my powers.
I’m so, so cold.
“Misty? Misty?” Cole rolls over, rising on top of me, my face clutched between his hands.
Somewhere behind us, Orion is coughing, gasping for breath as he fumbles for his mate through the ash hanging heavy in the air. I hear an unfamiliar female voice raised in alarm, and then I start to pass out.
“Misty? What’s wrong? Look at me!”
“I just need a little nap,” I gasp, choking on ash and smoke. “Just for a minute–I’ll close my eyes for a–for a minute. A short minute….”
I’m scooped up like an infant. The dark room is replaced by vivid sunlight. Cole’s voice fades in and out as he shouts at Orion, but I have no idea what they’re saying to each other. Cole’s sprinting, and the castle around us is a total blur.
“Where’s my knife?” I rasp, fighting the growing darkness clogging my vision. I know what this is. I’ve been taught how to handle this–exhausting my powers, and the hangover that happens afterward.
“The knife you made?” Cole rasps, his voice low and stern.
Made?
I hear a door splinter like he’s kicking it open, and then we’re back in our room.
“Bath,” I croak, shivering so violently my teeth click together. My skin feels like it’s freezing over. I can taste frost on my tongue.
Cole is breathless as he slides into the bathroom with me in his arms. I hear the water, I feel the hot steam rising as he lowers me to the ground and rips off my dress. “What is this? What’s wrong with you? The curse–”
“No,” I breathe, gritting my teeth against the cold and the black nothingness blinding me. “I’m–my powers are gone. I need–warmth–and sleep–” I moan in pain, my bones aching so badly I want to scream, but I fight it.
I remember being told about Ella and Sarah’s experiences with this phenomenon. Sarah had been out for days. Ella was mum about how Ryatt brought her back to life, though. They just spoke about being so cold and empty it was painful–worse than giving birth, in their shared opinion.
My dress rips. Cole tosses the fabric away and jumps into the tub with me pressed to his chest. Water soaks my thin, lacy bra and matching panties. He hisses at the temperature, but to me it’s bliss.
I decide I’m going to be the one to get through this… depletion… without passing out. I’ll brag about it when I see my family again. I won’t shut up about it, honestly, rubbing it in everyone's faces.
“You did it,” he says, over and over. “You broke the curse.”
My head lolls as I fight the feeling of being dragged into unconsciousness. I refuse, straight up. I’ll rest when I’m dead. I’ll rest when the man holding me to his chest and pressing desperate kisses into my hair is cured, when I’ve broken his curse.
Because he’s mine.
I’m not giving him up.
“Cole,” I say shakily. “Cole–”
“I’m here.”
“I think I’m pregnant.”
He’s quiet for the space of a heartbeat.
“You’re not,” he whispers.
“I could be, couldn’t I?”
“You’re delirious.” His voice shakes with disappointment–grief.
“Probably,” I mouth, then lay my head back but keep my eyes open. It takes all of my strength.
But now he’s standing with me still clutched to his chest–sopping wet, his clothes leaving puddles of hot water on the bathroom floor as he leaves the room, covering me with a towel.
“Get her in bed, now,” he says to someone I can’t see.
Lavender stutters over whatever she’s trying to say.
Cole repeats himself, “I need your help getting her dressed and in bed–”
“He’s here. The Umbra Mortis is here,” Lavender chokes out, desperation heavy in each word.