Wildfire Witch (The Cursed Coven of Spells Hollow)

10. Nix

NIX

I looked around to be sure no one else heard the big, growling man’s claim. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said dryly.

His eyes shifted back to normal, a rich hazel color, as he looked me up and down with a growing frown. “My dragon knows that you’re the one. But who are you?”

“Someone you should release outside, right now,” I suggested.

He shook his head, gently steering me down a hallway with a hand around my arm. Well, it was worth a try. “You are obviously an enemy to the gang, to be in such a…condition and on your way to a cell,” he said. He grew extra rumbly as he added, “I want your name so my dragon can hoard it.”

Unlike with my wolf guard, he was in no hurry to get to our destination. We walked at a pace my aching body could keep up with, and I considered the situation for several paces. This guy was a recruit. He’d do what he was told. The ink on his fire bro tattoo wasn’t even dry yet. But he was also a dragon shifter, clearly about to be somebody around here. Maybe he would make for a solid Plan B if the boss experimented on me instead of accepting the offer for Aodhnait.

I decided to play nice. “It’s Nix. And you’re Ruston?”

He rolled his eyes. “Only if you’re my mother. Call me Rusty,” he invited with a smile that changed his entire face. It wasn’t toothpaste perfect like Seth’s, but he looked open, friendly even. “I’m going to take care of you, Nix.”

Considering he was about to put me back in a jail cell, I doubted that very much. That self-assured look on his face became one of concern as he looked me over again. “I’m going to start by getting you something to eat. I’ll slip a potion into some water for this…”

His fingertip sank into my swollen right arm, and I inhaled a gasp of pain. “Sorry. It should fix you right up,” he said.

“And I should trust you, why?” I asked more snappishly than I should have. So much for playing nice; I was never any good at it anyway. I just wanted things to stop. To stop moving, stop hurting, stop thinking so hard about what I’d done wrong to land here.

The last thing I wanted was for a fire bro to think we were fated in some way. Goddess, no. I’d dreaded shifters wearing the red tattoo of a fist and flames for longer than any ordinary person knew to fear something. There was no way I could accept one on a more intimate level.

“Even if he can represent the earth element?” Aodhnait asked.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I grumbled.

Rusty dropped his voice to the barest of murmurs. “I’ll leave you a note, but I need you to destroy it once you read it. Can you do that for me, Nix?” He turned my name into a caress as he said it, putting a soft draconic hiss at the end.

“Hard to with my hands behind my back,” I pointed out. I wouldn’t even be able to drink down the potion and eat the food he was offering unless he wanted to care for me by hand. A little extra heat rose to my cheeks as I pictured him feeding me morsels tenderly. He might be stacked with muscle, but he struck me as a gentle giant.

What am I even thinking? Who cares how gentle he is! Maybe I’d cooked my brain between the apartment fight and now. That would explain why I thought Rusty would hand feed me anything.

“I’ll take them off,” was all he said.

“Not worried about my fire magic? That wolf didn’t even give you the oven mitts.” I chuckled to myself. He was probably still wearing the stupid things.

“Fire,” he repeated, eyes widening with realization. “Oh…”

“Yeah, you might want to go get them.”

“ You’re the cursed witch, with the phoenix,” he said. He drew his free hand through his hair. “Shit. Fuck .”

“Uh huh?” I replied, wondering what that reaction was for. He shook his head, jaw set.

We slowed before a row of cells. He steered me to the right one and stepped inside of it with me, turning so I was facing the bars. He did something behind my back, and the cuffs opened with a soft click. As soon as my arms were free, I was hit by a mixture of relief and pain to move my shoulders again.

Rusty rubbed my wrists and leaned down, breathing in my ear, “Remember, phoenix girl, destroy my note.”

Rusty locked me in the cell, only returning to slide me a tray of food and a thermos an hour later. I took a big swallow of water and nearly gagged at the bitter taste. He’d dumped a potion in here, all right. It was foul on my tongue, but it forced me to sip to rehydrate safely and imbibe the healing tonic slowly. Within minutes, I could feel a tingling deep in the tissues from the shoulder to the palm of my wounded arm as the magic got to work.

There wasn’t a whisker nor scale of a shifter in sight after the food delivery. I savored the meal for as long as I could, even though it was a cold grilled cheese, a fruit cup, and a square of cornbread dusted with powdered sugar. If this was what they were feeding an entire compound of tough shifter men and women, they absolutely needed to fire the dude who’d dreamed up this meal.

Seth could do better in his sleep. I sighed wistfully after forcing down another sip of medicine water. With nothing else to do, and Rusty’s note hiding under the tray unread, my thoughts slipped to the men I’d left behind.

There was no conceivable way they knew who attacked the apartment or where I was now. I was on my own again, doomed to be separated from Ceridor. Goddess, Ceridor. He had to be a wreck. To spend so long looking for someone, just to have them disappear again a day later…

It wasn’t fair that Ceridor was still bound to me by his wedding day vows. When I closed my eyes, I could remember the cool caress of his palms on my cheeks and the magic that wove around me as he spoke in an unknowable tongue.

Fae didn’t make promises in their universal language lightly. I hadn’t asked him to do so, only told him of the tradition that accompanied handfasting. There was an expectation of an ending. A till death do we part or an unto my final breath .

I ran my thumb over a burn scar on my right hand, tracing the warped skin between the webbing of the thumb and first finger. There should have been a mark next to this scar, the symbol of air. I should still be bound to him, too. Heat rose in my chest as my eyes stung. If Ceridor and I still had the bond forged of a proper handfasting, I could save myself now. I wouldn’t have to bargain away Aodhnait and sentence her short, last life to be one in a cage.

She was silent as my thoughts shifted to her. To what she’d said.

“The curse is your fault in the first place. If your failures with the fire element weren’t so well known, Morfran wouldn’t have thought to punish us both with your curse.”

I had seen myself as a victim for so long, as the broken shell of a witch Morfran had intended for me to become. Dying, starting over, bickering with Aodhnait as we chased hope to the wrong side of the States, until we did it all over again. And again. And again.

Morfran had sealed my curse by saying, “ You’ve poured poison in Melisande’s ear, and for that, I hope you remember one thing: what happens next to those who live here is blood on your hands.”

I had not asked for this fate. But neither had Aodhnait.

Maybe this all was my fault. Maybe I had gotten us both cursed by misjudging the wrath of a man over three centuries ago and spoken to him too caustically. If I had not embraced the freedom being a spinster gave me, I wouldn’t have been so bold in my criticisms of Morfran’s magic to the high priestess, nor would I have had the time to pursue the secrets of the prima magicae with a husband and children at my hips.

If I had stopped trying to change myself and the balance of the elements inside of me, Morfran would’ve cursed me differently. Aodhnait would be free. I would’ve died like I was supposed to, freeing her and Ceridor both from spiraling further into this mess.

How many people had burned to death because of the setting of my curse? How many of them would’ve lived free of Spells Hollow’s corruption if it weren’t for me?

“Your actions dragged us both into hell. Take some responsibility for what you’ve done.”

“I’m sorry, Aodhnait,” I whispered to the silent, fiery presence in my chest. “I never meant for you to suffer this long. If I could do it over again…”

I released a tearful scoff. That was entirely the problem. I was a witch, human blood coursing through my veins. Meant to live out a firefly’s existence and then return to the earth, so someone else had a chance to flourish. Instead, my improperly balanced magic spelled the end for countless people who happened to be in the wrong place with me.

I was the blight all along. The cursed terror, not the victim anymore. Not after everyone I’d brought down with me.

The lights overhead dimmed. It had to be nighttime across the fire bro’s compound. All these murderous shifters were getting cuddled up in their beds, while I pressed my back to a corner of my cell and curled my knees to my chest.

I held Rusty’s note crumpled in my fist. I needed to read and get rid of it before someone came to check on me. If anyone even would. Had Rusty not given me a meal and plenty of water, I’d probably be a forgotten raisin in this cell. I could at least look at what he’d gone out of his way to tell me privately.

I unfolded the paper and read through bleary eyes:

I know you have no reason to trust me, but I am not a member of the Fire Brotherhood. I am a special agent going undercover to cripple the gang from within, but you coming here and being my mate has changed everything.

Lance and Benedict were laughing about whatever you said to them earlier. You’re in a lot of danger and I plan to extract you tomorrow, cover or not. Otherwise, Lance will probably pull your heart out of your chest. Do not underestimate how much he wants your phoenix.

Get rid of this note.

I lifted a skeptical brow. He would want me to believe all this. What if it was some creative ploy by the leader of the fire bros—that had to be “Lance” since he hadn’t told me his name, while “Benedict” was his son. He wanted to mess with me. This note was way too convenient, and too perfectly worded to deliver false hope.

Tomorrow, Rusty would deliver me to Lance with a cruel remark, and then he’d kill me while failing to end the curse. We’d die burning to ash once more and start the process all over again.

Maybe I’d forget just how much Aodhnait hated me. I called on my magic to produce a little flame to destroy the note, when she yelled, “No! Wait!”

My fingers stilled in surprise. “Wait,” she repeated. “Don’t do it. Nix, I’m sorry. I lied.”

“You lied,” I echoed. Those fingers curled into a fist. “About what?”

“I don’t hate you or blame you for anything. You are a victim, same as me.”

“A little late to change your mind about that, isn’t it?” I asked tartly.

“I thought I could be bad for the right reasons, but listening to you has already been torture ? —”

I sneered and made to light the note again.

“Stop! Just listen to me for a minute,” she exclaimed.

The skin over the tip of my index finger, where I was going to summon a candle’s flame, was cherry red. The uncomfortable feeling sweltering under my skin broke through the haze of my emotions. Aodhnait was calling me back from a literal edge. If I pulled even a bit of fire from her, we would die. My eyes narrowed, but I was listening.

“I thought if we told the leader he could have me, he would set you free. The one thing we’ve never tried is working with the shifters that’ve hunted us. But I knew you’d never tell the leader anything about us or consider giving me over unless I pissed you off. You’re only impulsive when you’re mad. I…I used that.” At least she sounded ashamed.

“We’ve been partners in every life I’ve lived,” I said, trembling with restraint. I couldn’t shake her like I wanted to, though my furious twitches likely rattled her cage. “You didn’t think to tell me what your plan was?”

“You wouldn’t have convinced Lance of anything. Nor would you ever surrender me if you knew how I truly felt about the matter.”

“Clearly, I haven’t convinced him of anything, anyway.” I clenched my fist around Rusty’s note. Goddess, I was so angry, it was a shock that fire wasn’t spilling out of my every pore. I was sweating profusely, soaking through my clothes, while Aodhnait desperately tried to vent some of the heat building before we burned up. “If this fire bro is to be believed.”

“I believe him. I felt his energy.”

“Let me guess…you like him.”

“You haven’t kissed him yet. However, he will make for an excellent Plan B if they really are planning on extracting your still-beating heart tomorrow.”

“There is no Plan A!” I yelled, then regretted it from the bloom of a headache behind my temples. “I will not be giving you to the likes of the Fire Brotherhood, you manipulative fire chicken.”

“Hey, now,” she said, offended.

“Red winged rat,” I muttered. Closing my eyes, I passed my fist to my mouth and placed the crumpled note on my tongue. “Scraggly crimson crow.”

Aodhnait settled in my chest, subdued. We’d sweat a bit more, but we’d live through the night. I was calming down as reality sank in.

I made a more modern reference as I struggled through chewing and swallowing the wet paper in my mouth. “The discount phoenix at home when your mom says, ‘we have a majestic magical creature at home.’”

“Your literal other half,” she said in a small voice.

“Never lie to me like that again. Eternity is a long time for us to be stuck together as enemies,” I muttered. I attempted to get comfortable on the bare floor to catch some rest.

“I won’t,” she promised. Her warm presence spread down my ribs, the closest thing she could make to an apology hug. The floor may’ve been unforgiving stone, but at least I could say I wasn’t cold that night.