Page 22 of A Touch Charmed

“The possibilities.” He rubbed his hands together as he paced back and forth. “All right, let’s go with this one. How often have you thought about me since you left?”

My stomach bottomed out. If I told him the truth, it would reveal a lot more than I wanted him to see. But he’d been honest with me… “Every day.”

He stopped short and opened his mouth, then closed it. He flung an arm over his head as he began pacing again. Like he had to gather whatever storm his thoughts had formed. “You thought about me every day? More than once a day?”

“If pressed, I don’t think I could pin down a moment when you weren’t on my mind.”

“Then why…?” He stopped pacing and gripped my hands. The sharp edges of his pain pushed into me through his magic. “Why did you block my number?”

I pulled my fingers out of his grasp as too many emotions threatened to rise up and drown me. “You already asked your one question.”

His expression crumbled, but I couldn’t backtrack and go over all this again. I’d already lived through it once and I had no will to repeat the experience. He knew what happened. Bringing it all to the surface again wouldn’t change anything.

“We should get moving.” I turned away from him and started walking again. “I’d rather meet the curse on flat land than deal with it on all these hills.”

“Sure.” His voice cracked behind me. “The sooner we can get out of here, the better.”

We didn’t do much more talking on the way to the cave. Both of us had pretty much decided we’d said enough for now. This was why I hated playing honesty games. Someone always ended up getting burned.

We stepped through a ring of birch trees into the area that most residents of Zodiac Cove referred to as the dead zone. Nothing lived here. Not the dead brown grass, not the insects that should’ve populated the ground; not even birds would fly overhead. Fires couldn’t be lit within the circle and it didn’t rain or shine. It had nothing resembling life.

The cave stood at the center. Twelve birthstones, once sparkling with light, framed the entrance. They were now cracked and dull. When I set foot on the island three weeks ago for the first time in seven years, the magic within the stones had been released and returned to where it belonged. Within twelve descendants of the zodiac.

“I haven’t seen the cave since I was a teenager.” The urge to sit down and draw flowed through me, but I pushed it away. This wasn’t a safe place for me anymore.

“Don’t touch the diamond,” Finn said.

“I won’t.” Audrey had already given me the warning on how it worked.

The stones didn’t give me any clues as to why the curse would want to be trapped again, but it’s not like I’d been expecting to find the answer written on a blinking neon sign. I had hoped seeing the stones would trigger something, but so far, I was still left with the same question. Why? I couldn’t make it make sense.

Even running my gaze over the diamond had my magic tightening the muscles in my throat. And while the idea of giving up my magic and my memories and drifting away had a massive appeal to me, I wasn’t entirely sure if that was what I wanted anymore.

It wasn’t just about Finn either. Or mostly not, anyway. Zodiac Cove was my home. While it hadn’t felt particularly welcoming at first, there was a lot of good here. A lot of things I had missed.

“How do you want to draw out the curse?” Finn gave me that pirate smile that was half-sexy, half-mocking. “Should we give that ‘fucking like rabbits’ thing a go?”

“Sorry. That offer has expired.”

“Ah, well. Let’s keep it simple then. It doesn’t like magic.” He reached out his hand for mine. “The best way to get its attention is to piss it off.”

The moment our palms began to glow, smoke rose from the cracks in the cave. It rolled in the air, black as night and twice as dense. I tensed, waiting for the snake to lash out from the vapors. The smoke went eerily still. Then sank back into the cave.

The ground crackled around the outer ring, just beyond the tree line. It sounded like a large concrete pipe rolling over dead leaves. Whatever surrounded us was a lot bigger than the snake that had attacked us on the trail near town.

I shot Finn a worried look. “That can’t be a snake, right?”

“I’m not sure.” He pushed more of his energy into me. It flooded my system, making my stomach swoop and my skin sensitive. “Be ready, just in case.”

There wasn’t anything I could do until the curse made an appearance and injured one of us. My magic wasn’t part of the offensive line. I was straight up playing defense, which left me feeling vulnerable. The exact opposite of what I’d hoped for when I decided we should come here and meet the curse before it could sneak up on us again.

We waited for what felt like an eternity. The crackling increased, drumming into our heads, driving us to the point of insanity. Just when I thought the curse was going with a mental attack over a physical one this round, a slight whisk broke through the trees. A black arrow shot through the air and went right through Finn’s heart.

I screamed as he swayed on his feet before dropping to his knees. Not wasting any time, I ripped the arrow out of his chest and pressed my hand over his heart. It didn’t fix him though. His eyes began to roll back in his head. The tip of the arrow must’ve had the same poison as the snake. They came from the same source.

Tugging Finn’s shirt over his head, I pressed my lips to his wound and began to suck out the poison. Just like last time, whatever crawled through his system did a number on mine. My lungs collapsed, then reformed. My heart stopped and started several times. Huge blood-filled blisters covered my lips, bursting open before instantly healing. It was painful and disgusting, but it worked. Within minutes, Finn was fully healed.

He blinked as he came to again, showing zero signs of having ever been injured. “You know your limits. Can we go home now?”

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