Marianna
Misty’s house looks homey and warm in the light of midmorning. Coffee scents the air as she moves around her kitchen, opening and shutting cabinets. I rest on one of the stools at the kitchen island, nursing a mug of coffee with cream and vanilla syrup she makes herself, while scanning the family pictures on the walls. Blake rushes back into the kitchen, dressed in sleek navy trousers and a light blue button down, a matching navy blue suit jacket completing the ensemble. He presses the quickest kiss to my temple before darting to the garage, his phone already pressed to his ear.
Misty watches him go, smirking to herself, before she continues rummaging through her cupboards again.
Blake drove me over here about twenty minutes ago. He changed his mind about me tagging along while he talked to his parents, and I can’t say I mind. I sigh deeply into my coffee, my stomach in knots for him and what the next day, next week, and next year might look like.
“I have a friend coming over to see you today. She studied healing in Moonrise back in the day and now has a practice here,” Misty says over the sound of Blake’s car backing out of the driveway. “She studied the dark arts, too.”
I watch her dig through a basket of tea packets, noticing the way her eyes seem to be locked on nothing at all, like she’s trapped in her mind.
“I’m afraid I’ve already met with countless witches who studied the dark arts, and they’re all under the same consensus–I can’t be saved. I’m cursed.”
“What I felt when I let my healing powers drift through you didn’t feel like a curse, and I know curses–trust me,” she says, her eyes finally lifting from the counter to meet mine. “When I was young, a college student, I broke multiple curses. I had to. I didn’t have a choice. But what’s happening to you doesn’t feel the same. It’s like… something is there, blocking your access to your wolf powers. It’s just… a shield, almost. It’s rather hard to explain, but it doesn’t feel like a curse. I’d know.”
Her confidence makes the knots in my stomach start to untangle. I take a breath–the first full breath I think I’ve inhaled since waking up in the clinic a week ago–and let it out slowly.
The click of the electric kettle brings me back to reality. Misty says with a slight hitch in her voice, “I understand Kenna’s frustrations and her reservations about this–your treatment.” She pours boiling water into a large basin before dropping several pouches of tea into the bowl. Steam billows around her, but she continues, “Curses are so incredibly rare. It’s not natural magic by any means. It’s manipulated, meant to cause harm, and in your case, your wolf was tied to your ex… mate.”
“He was never my mate,” I whisper, closing my eyes.
“He did this to hurt you, to take something from you that couldn’t be replaced in the event of his death. He wanted you to hurt forever, not die alongside him. He wanted you to suffer, and I think that’s on our side, however terrible that sounds. We need to get your wolf back, and if we do that, I don’t think the curse is going to be a problem anymore.”
“Maeve mentioned the only reason I’m still alive is because my mate is out there somewhere, waiting for me. I have a connection somewhere, holding on.” I curl my hands around my coffee mug at the thought of Blake. I desperately want that connection to be him.
“I doubt you’d be able to feel the bond as it stands if he were right in front of you,” she says, her eyes meeting mine, and she gives me a look that conveys she’s thinking about Blake, too. “I believe that was the point of this–to stop you from ever feeling a mate bond–and that goes against everything our Goddess stands for. It’s against Her magic, and using potions to rid someone of their fated mate bond is… dark. The darkest kind of magic of all.”
“So you don’t think I’m cursed?”
“I don’t,” she says, matter-of-factly, and gives me a tight smile. “But I agree with Kenna when it comes to how weak you are. You can’t carry on like this without a wolf. We need to fix this now, before that weakness progresses.”
A resounding knock on the front door steals her attention. Her rapid footsteps in the foyer echo through the otherwise silent house, and then a new, soft female voice drifts through the house, and before I know it, there’s a witch standing before me, her dark hair flowing in glossy waves down her back and shoulders.
Dark brown eyes crinkle when she greets me, introducing herself as Katie, one of Cole’s colleagues at his children’s clinic within Shadowcrest. She’s gorgeous and peppy, totally unperturbed by the notion she’s here to try to break a curse alongside Misty, and within a minute of rushed introductions, I’m being encouraged to chug as much tea as I can to try to calm my nerves.
“Will it hurt?” I ask as Katie unpacks a strange bowl with symbols etched in its depths from a large leather bag she brought with her.
“Just a bit. I need a little bit of blood, but not much, I promise.” Her dark skin seems to glow from within as the sun fully rises, casting the kitchen in a bright, golden haze.
“What can I do?” Misty asks as Katie arranges several packets of herbs on the kitchen table.
“Grind these up for me, if you can? I brought a mortar, but honestly, your coffee grinder would work better and take less time. I swear it won’t leave an aftertaste the next time you grind beans,” she says with a sunny laugh that immediately calms my nerves.
Still, as the minutes creep by, I feel a sense of dread lingering, covering me like a wet, weighted blanket. I try to keep my mind focused on seeing Blake again, asking how it went with his parents, telling him how I really feel, and how I want to see him use his powers again but…
A pin-pricking sensation travels through my fingers as Katie takes my hand. She pricks each of my fingers, squeezing them, then rests my hand in the bowl.
“Just give it a few minutes,” she says, then rises to check on Misty’s progress with the herbs, which are now stinking up the kitchen at an alarming rate.
My stomach turns as blood drips from my fingers. I feel suddenly lightheaded. I close my eyes, drifting, letting a memory pop up and spread through my subconscious.
I’m standing in front of Blake in my mom’s shitty little apartment. He steps inside, dripping with rain, his eyes narrowed and his expression etched from shadow. “Why didn’t you tell me? Marianna, you should have told me you were pregnant from the moment you knew.”
“You need to leave, Blake. Please–I can’t talk to you right now.”
“Your mom had to find me and tell me,” he continues through gritted teeth, his eyes so dark I can’t see the violet swirling around his pupils. All I can think about as he steps closer is… how bright his eyes shone that night when everything changed. “We’re having a girl,” he says, almost painfully. “You should have–”
“Should have what? Called you? Like you would have answered?”
His lips press shut as the storm rages outside, water already pooling in the stairwell leading down to our front door. “I would have been here the second you needed me.”
“But that’s just it, Blake. You didn’t want this. You broke up with me. You told me you needed space so I gave it to you. You told me I couldn’t handle it, and maybe you were right. I’m scared of you. You lied to me. This whole time, the past… two years? It was all a lie.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Did you actually like me, or was I just an easy target? A plaything?” Even I don’t believe it. Blake isn’t that kind of person. But the words taste good on my tongue, especially when his expression pinches into a pain so deep I feel it in my chest, like I’ve stabbed him in the heart.
Good. I want him to feel the same way I’ve felt for six months. Empty. Hurting. Alone.
“I love you,” he says. “I loved you then, and I love you now, and I will make this right–”
“I don’t want you here. You tossed me to the side like trash. It was easy for you, wasn’t it? Leaving me after I found out your little secret? Don’t act like anything can come from this, Blake. You’re… not only a prince but some kind of… magical being? What am I? Nothing but a wolf. You made that perfectly fucking clear–”
“What are you trying to say?” he growls, losing his grip on that mask of iron and indifference.
“I was just someone to hunt and fuck until you met someone on your level, right?”
“Marianna–”
I let my fear of him, my confusing, all consuming agony over losing him, turn to vicious, uncontrollable anger, “I don’t want you in her life. I want you out of mine. Leave.”
He stands there in the doorway, totally still. His eyes search mine. “What can I do to fix this?”
“You’re a liar. There’s nothing left to fix.”
“I should have told you–”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. Just leave. Leave, and don’t come back. I’m doing this on my own.”
“No.”
“Yes!” I step toward him but halt abruptly when his eyes begin to shine in the darkness all around us. Terror creeps over my skin. I hug myself, stepping back again. “Get out of my house and don’t return. I don’t want you here.”
“I never meant to hurt you or scare you–”
“Go find a witch or something, Blake. Someone who can handle what you are. Someone who can give you–give you powerful babies for your fucking bloodline–”
“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” he thunders in a tone I’ve never heard him use before. “I love you, Marianna. You’re the one I want. That will never change–”
“Let it change,” I shout, each word tight and clear. “You ended this, Blake. You told me to stay away from you, and I have. And so will she. It’s safer that way. I wouldn’t want you hurting her–”
I snap back to reality with a sob that catches Misty off guard, but Katie looks relieved. I realize with a start that my mouth feels numb, and I look down at the well-loved kitchen table where Misty’s children have eaten every meal over the course of their lives until they left for college, but instead of a plate catching the light of the sun, and empty teacup rests in front of me, the remnants of an inky black liquid tremble at the bottom.
“One more cup, I think. How do you feel?” Katie asks, lowering herself into the chair next to mine.
“What’s happening to me?” I ask as my mind reels over memories I’ve buried for years… at least, I thought I had. I can’t remember why I tucked them away, but now pieces of my youth are sprinting back in startling clarity.
“You’re about to feel really sick,” Katie warns, glancing at Misty, who looks pale, her eyes shining with her powers at the ready. “But just gut through it, okay? Don’t throw up–”
I’m back in my memories, Misty’s kitchen replaced by a hospital room in the inner city. I feel the pain like it’s fresh, happening in real time. Mom argues with a doctor while I scream in sheets stained with blood. The baby is too big. It’s been hours of this. I’m terrified.
“Enough. Give her a minute. She’s in pain, so something needs to be done about that.”
Blake’s voice tears my attention to the doorway as he stalks into the room looking murderous. He shrugs out of a cloak, lets it fall to the floor, and is at my side in an instant, my tear-stained face clasped between his large, warm hands.
I haven’t seen him for almost four months. Everything since then was paperwork, lawyers and mediators while he set up trust funds and accounts I, of course, refused. He didn’t try to talk to me again after our fight, and I just… crumbled. Spun out of control and let the darkness in while shoving him as far away as possible even if he was the only thing I wanted.
I was scared.
I thought I was scared of him.
Maybe I still am, but now?
I clasp his hand, whimpering through another contraction, and he presses his forehead against mine–silent, but here. Here when I needed him the most.
“I’m sorry for what I said to you. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean any of it,” I cry out, but he just shakes his head, and together, with my mom by our side, we guide Skye into the world.
“I don’t want–I don’t want to do this,” I grind out as my body trembles with pain. Katie and Misty fill my vision once more, but the memory of Skye’s birth is still within sight, like I’m trapped between the past and the present.
“It’s working, isn’t it?” Misty breathes excitedly, a phone pressed to her ear.
“Just a little longer, okay? You’re doing great,” Katie urges, but pain rips through my head like my brain is being torn wide open, my memories flooding out.
I see Blake looking down at Skye for the first time. She’s a bundle in his arms, and he looks so… peaceful. So shocked but proud. But then he pauses, tilting his head as his eyes flare with power and… he gives her to my mom, and that’s the last time I saw him until… until the concert, years later.
“No more,” I beg, but Katie tips another sip of the sticky, slimy concoction into my mouth. I choke on it, but the effects are immediate, and I slip back into my memories again.
“Kenna says to keep going until she finds the barrier–” Misty's voice fades and is replaced by a rowdy bar and a man I just met, who smiles down at me, handsome and tall.
He buys me a drink. It tastes funny. I feel my… my mind loosening, and it feels…
Good.