Page 40 of Wicche Hunt

“I don’t need tea. Can you go into my backpack for the honey bottle? Maybe that can help.”

He jogged down the stairs and returned a minute later, pouring water onto his hands, rubbing them together, and then gently caressing my forehead, the back of my neck. Almost immediately, I began to feel a lessening of the pain.

“Thank you.” I burst into tears and couldn’t stop. I was mortified but had no control over it.

He crouched down, brushing my hair out of the way. His big, warm hand was on my face, wiping away tears. “Tell me what I can do?” He held my hand and waited.

“It’s not that,” I finally choked out. I held up our joined hands. “It’s this.” I pulled my sleeve with my free hand, so I could mop my stupid sobbing face. “No one touches me. Ever. Not until you.”

He rubbed his thumb over my fingers.

“Do you know that study they did on orphanages in the early 1900s?”

He shook his head.

“They were looking into why the death rate for infants in some orphanages was one hundred percent. I’m sure there were too many babies and not enough nurses. Whatever the case, the nurses were told not to touch the babies. Change them, but then leave them in their cribs. What they found is that babies die without love and affection, without touch. They attributed their deaths in the official paperwork to being hopeless.”

He squeezed my hand.

“Hopeless. I used to think that Cassandra wicches died young because of all the horrible things we see and experience, but maybe it’s isolation and hopelessness. You’ll never understand what a gift it is for me to experience your touch.” More tears slipped over my eyelashes.

He kissed my hand and then leaned in and kissed my lips. When he drew back, he stared down at our joined hands. “I don’t understand what it is about me that allows me to do this.” He kissed my fingers again. “But I’ll thank your Goddess until my dying days for it.”

Smiling, vision blurry, I said, “She can be your Goddess too.”

“I’ll take it under advisement.”

Blinking away the tears, I looked into his gorgeous, bearded face, his warm brown eyes, and thanked Her for the both of us.

“Oh,” I said, suddenly remembering. “Can you grab my phone out of my overalls?”

He kicked off his shoes, found my phone, and handed it to me before moving to the opposite side of the bed and big spooning me.

I pulled his hand under the covers and rested it on my stomach; the cramping began to ease up. “My own personal hot water bottle.”

Kissing my shoulder, he slid his other arm under my head. “Was it a bad vision?”

I thought about that. “Yes and no.” I woke up my phone. “I need to make this call and then I’ll explain.”

“Arwyn?” Detective Hernández said.

“Yeah. Listen, I just had a vision. Most of it I understand, but there were two parts that were a repeat of before. I’m worried the deaths are imminent. They felt…more like Pearl and the teacher in the morgue. I could totally be wrong about the connection, but I don’t think so.”

I heard paper shuffling and then Hernández said, “Go ahead.”

I’d already told her some of this after the first vision, but I filled in the details I saw this time. After giving her as much info as I could, I disconnected, placing my phone on the nightstand and curling around Declan’s hand again.

“You think those deaths are connected to your cousin?”

I nodded. “There’s something about the energy. It felt familiar. Not exact, which bothers me, but really similar.” I blew out a breath. “I’m not positive.”

I told him about Calliope’s curse that was no doubt making me sick right now and then about my mother. When I got to the dream daughter taking her own life, he pulled me in closer, trying to protect both the me that could have been and the me that was.

“Your mother isn’t an easy woman, but knowing that would happen unless she found a father strong enough to keep her child alive…” He shook his head.

“Knowing what’s expected of you for the benefit of the family, but fearing it,” I said.

“And your family basically trying to breed her with the strongest magical man they could find.”

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