Page 89 of Tethered Souls
No, Mother will save him.
She’s the strongest healer on this side of the Atlantic, and she’ll trade her life for his. And if Aleric did drink from my brother, then it was in order to save him. Mother wouldn’t have traded that lightly.
So Khalid will be there. Alive and stable. Then I’ll have a fucking long chat with Mother.
xxx
Khalid is alive and stable, but fucking hel does he look like shit as he lies in bed, still unconscious. Mother told me he was stabbed sixty-nine times. Both his hands were nearly hacked off. To most witches, the loss of one hand is a death sentence in a fight. We need them to control our magic, and without both, the energy becomes wild and unstable, much more likely to kill us rather than to do what we want. With the loss of both, Khalid would’ve been forced to rely on his speech as a conduit – a skill most witches do not have due to even trying it once will normally end up with them dead. Or worse – alive, locked in a twisted form of their body that is crippled by constant pain.
Thank the fucking gods Khalid’s a stubborn idiot, though, who’s practiced speech magic in secret. It’s a skill we have kept from everyone – including Uncle Myers and all the brothers now sitting around us, crowded in his bedroom alongside Mother as we wait for him to wake up. Khalid hasn’t mastered speech magic, not by a long shot, but it’s probably what allowed him to win the fight. Even still, he wouldn’t have survived if Aleric hadn’t saved him.
If Mother hadn’t made whatever deal she had with the Boss of the Blood Fangs.“...lotion every night.”My eyes flick to her, kneeling beside Khalid’s bed, both her hands clasped over one of his. What the hel does that mean?
“I can’t believe Uncle Myers did this,” Talon whispers in the quiet of Khalid’s bedroom. There’s no furniture other than the bed; prison cells are more decorated than this. So everyone but Mother is standing; some of us are leaning against the walls, others are pacing.
Talon runs his hand through his hair. “He raised us,” he says. His voice catches.Breaks. “And Vinny…”
A brother in all but blood.
“He was really willing to kill every single one of us?” He looks over at Maddox, a subtle, subconscious sign that he doesn’t trust me to answer truthfully. Doesn’t trust that I’m innocent in all this. He needs confirmation from someone else.
Maddox nods. “They want –wantedto resurrect the Red Devils.”
“Is it ‘wanted?’” Rudy signs.
Normally we would all talk with our hands in respect to his presence, but no one seems to have the energy. “How could it not be?” Enoch asks. “Khalid ripped out his throat before he left.” He looks at me. “Right?”
I nod.
“Did you just suck him into your shadows, T?” Rudy asks hopefully. It is an honor given only to those who are family. Had Vinny died any other way, he would have been ‘buried’ like that without question.
“Two assassins were killed,” I sign as Talon shakes his head. He wanted to though. I can see it in the pain of his eyes.
“Myers knows how Khalid kills,” Leno says as he squats down beside Krypto and scratches him between his large pointy ears, taking comfort in his canine friend. “He could have easily put a spell on Vinny before he went upstairs to kill Varius and frame Micha.” He swallows, taking a small break before he pushes on. “As a shapeshifter, he’d know how to rearrange a body so a knife to the throat doesn’t kill him.”
“A shapeshifter can’t change someone else though,” Rudy signs.
“But Lincoln can,” Leno says. “Krypto saw him talking to the two of them earlier. I didn’t think anything of it at the time…” He trails off. His fingers stop moving. His dog turns to him, pushing his head into his hand, and Leno smiles as he starts scratching him again. “He could’ve helped them.”
A dry laugh escapes my lips as I realize just how well they played us. “They framed Lincoln,” I sign when heads turn to me. “So even if I’d seen them talking to each other, I wouldn’t have expected they were working together. There was no way you could have known.” The last part is directed at Leno.
He nods at me, but his guilt still lingers.
“Fuck,” Talon says, rubbing his head again.
It’s a word that resonates through all of us, and as we fall into silence, waiting for Khalid to wake up, I can’t help but wish Micha was up here with us. Beside me. The back of her hand brushing against mine.
But I sent her to her room. Louise said she needed rest, and it is inching towards midnight.
Mother lifts her head to Khalid’s face, the first movement she’s made since she’s knelt by his side, and we all tense, knowing she’s sensing his return to consciousness. His eyes open a second later. They flicker around the room, seeing all of us.
“You must be losing your game,” Maddox teases, “losing to an old man like Uncle Myers.”
“What did he do?” Rudy signs. “Shift into a woman with big tits?”
“Nah, Khalid’s too focused for tits.” Enoch laughs. “He’d have to shift into a shiny new blade. Oooh, look at the edge on this thing.”
“Feel its balance!”
