Page 26 of Wildfire Witch

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 dothat 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’rethe 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 lockedme 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. Atill death do we partor anunto 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 usbothwith 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.

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