by May Dawson
Yale and I ran upstairs.. For a second, I dared to hope I'd walk in on them and they'd be fine, but Olivia was still on the floor—my mom had slipped a pillow under her head and tucked a fleece blanket in over her shoulders—and my boys were all on the bed.
"Why—" Yale started to ask, and then broke off. "Okay. Gross."
"Maybe focus on saving their lives and not what you think of everyday life in a harem?" I snapped.
"So many questions." Yale knelt, picking up his sister's arm to take her pulse. I went to check on my boys.
I'd been so focused on taking each next step, doing what I had to do, but now the thought flittered across my mind that they might never wake up. Just for a second, my stupid brain flashed the image of their slack faces through my brain, and a lump rose to my throat. I swallowed hard. "Are their lives in danger?"
Yale said, "A hundred years didn't hurt Sleeping Beauty."
"What's the real story?"
He glanced toward me and then wet his lips, stalling. "Let's go check out your witch. I need a book from their library."
"You're not making me feel good right now, Yale."
He half-shrugged as if he didn’t care, but it felt like an act. "I don't even like you," he reminded me.
When I went out the door to head down to the dining room, he followed me. In the dining room, books were stacked at one end of the long table; the other half was clear so we could eat meals here. With Olivia and my mom in the house, we'd outgrown the table in the kitchen. I thought for a second about my four boys gathered around this table, Nimshi included. It had been awkward. But I would do anything to have us all gathered around this table again.
"What book are we looking for?" I stared up at the old leather tomes, the hand-bound books that had been passed down from other generations of Hunters.
Yale reached over my shoulder and plucked down Grimm's Tales. "This one."
"And here I would have saved that for bedtime reading."
"I don't want to think about bedtime in your house, you bunch of weirdos," Yale said. He set the book down on the table and began to flick through the pages. I leaned against the table next to him so I could look over his shoulder. Cryptic long words filled the page.
"Is that German?" I asked.
"We're going to need Nash." He swore.
I swore, too. A house full of Hunters that I didn't much care for.
But the alternative was worse.
Chapter 15
"You might want to let us handle this," Nash said.
"I'll do it myself." I told the condescending prick. I was glad he was here, but that didn’t mean he was in charge.
We were in the kitchen, preparing the spell that would wake the boys.
The only way to break the Sleeping spell definitely did not involve a kiss.
I pulled a knife out of the butcher's block. Yale was already digging out a big glass bowl from one of the cabinets.
"Right, I always forget you know your way around here," I said. "It's so easy to forget you’re the boys' oldest and dearest friends."
Nash's jaw set. "We're here, aren't we?"
"You're going to fight them tomorrow if they're not dead, aren't you?" I asked.
"You came to us looking for help," Nash reminded me.
"I figured as big of assholes are you all are, you'd want to help your sister."
Yale rolled his eyes. "And Ryker and Levi and Jacob. As we covered in the car."
"When you say it, I almost believe it," I told Yale. But when Nash said it—Nash who I remembered in our yard, touching his bleeding face and promising that he'd see Nimshi dead—it just me furious.
Zane looked up from the herbs he’d been sorting out for the spell and cocked an eyebrow at me. “What’s the knife for, Bloodthirsty?”
"How much of her blood do we need?" I asked.
“I’m kind of impressed and kind of terrified of you and kind of turned-on,” Zane said. “But I was going to start an IV.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling suddenly ridiculous. But I would do anything for my boys.
“Get the bowl.” Zane threw the herbs into it, and shouldered his medical kit. Together, the four of us headed down the stairs toward the cell room.
I stopped at the bottom and turned around, crossing my arms over my chest. I had to make sure one thing was clear.
“You’ll going to take care of her,” I said. "We're not leaving her to die."
"Of course not," Yale said. "Man, you say that like we're the ones who hit her with a car."
"Her? Our witch is a her?" Nash said. "Where'd she come from?"
"It's a long story," I said, because I didn't want to tell him.
Nash looked at me like he knew, but I turned my back on his insolent face and crossed to the hidden room where the cell was. We'd left the bookcases standing open, and even from here I could see before I entered the room that Dani was awake. She sat up on the edge of the mattress, her head in her hands.
Despite myself, I felt my stomach heave at the thought of having to take her blood against her will.
"You're awake and my boys are not," I said.
Her head jerked up, her eyes meeting mine wildly. So much for the cool girl who had told me that I should have stayed sleeping.
"I suggest you wake them up," I said.
She jumped to her feet, and her eyes flickered to the hilt of the blade that jutted above my shoulder right now "Or what, Ellis? You're supposed to be one of the good guys."
"Supposed to be." I flashed her a tight smile, one that I hoped looked as dangerous as I felt right now. "I don't want to hurt you, but I'm not passionately opposed to it, either."
She stared at me, her eyes turning cool and calculating now as she took in the IV bag Zane was pulling out. "Well, it looks like you figured out part of it."
"I'll leave you some," I promised her. "It'd sure be easier if you'd just reverse the spell yourself."
"I know," she told me. She crooked her fingers at me, inviting me into her cell.
I glanced over my shoulder at the brothers. For the first time, I felt a thrill of fear that perhaps they were all in this together; maybe I'd brought all my enemies together, and now they were luring me into a trap.
"Let me do it." Nash held his hands out. His tone was brusque, but the gesture itself was kind; for the first time, I realized his hands were battered like my boys' hands, scarred at the knuckles, with a crooked thumb as if it had been broken too many times.
I looked up into his cool eyes. His lips quirked to one side slightly, as if he could read my distrust.
"You don't have to be the one to do this," he said. "We owe you. Don't we?"
"You sure do," I said. I nodded, quickly. “Thank you.”
He jerked his jaw toward my sword. "I'll hold her. Zane will place the IV. Cover us."
I nodded. Yale and I stood by with sword in hand, as Zane waited with the medical bag over his shoulder and Nash disengaged the lock.
Part of me expected Dani to be a step ahead of us. To have some kind of evil plan that kicked into action now.
But she stood when Nash entered the cage. I could see her legs shake.
"Dani," I said. I halted Nash with a raised hand. "Why? What happened?"
"What do you mean, what happened?" Her eyes met mine. "You killed my brother. And now I'm going to kill you all."
"We didn't kill your brother," I said.
"The demon's sister," Nash muttered to Zane.
"Nimshi died protecting us all from Zuriel," I said. "Because he cared about us. Just like he cared about you."
"I saw it myself, Ellis."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, you saw it? Are you new here? Your own brother can make people see anything he wants them to see. I'm pretty sure he isn't the only one."
She shook her head. "You can't lie to me."
"You can talk about this later," Nash said. "I'm just going to bleed her."
"Ellis." She stared over his shoulder at me. "Don't let them do this to me."
"Then reverse the spell!" I said. "You put my men under a spell that will kill them over time. What the hell do you expect from me?"
"If you really loved my brother, you wouldn't hurt me," she said softly.
"If you really loved your brother, you wouldn't hurt me," I said. "Because he loves me."
Her face changed subtly, as if she had heard the present tense. "He didn't get a choice."
"Just listen. Your brother is in the Far. He's being tortured by demons." I glanced at Nash, reluctant to spill details about a plan he would never approve of, but I didn't have time for a private chat with the witch. "We're trying to rescue him, but you're fucking the whole thing up trying to kill us."
She stared at me, and I saw doubt flicker across her face, in the way her brows pulled together and her eyes softened. Then she shook her head, as if she were remembering what she had seen. "No. I saw you, Ellis. You killed my brother."
"Time's a wasting," Yale said.
I bit down on my lip. Once we did this, it was going to be hard to ever convince Dani we were the good guys.
But I didn't have time to convince her. According to the book in the library, the clock was ticking. Every hour that the boys spent under the curse made them harder to wake.
"Nimshi wouldn't like this either," I said softly. "Dani. Just tell us how to release the spell."
"You've got it all figured out," she said, her eyes locked on me. "It's a blood magic. I cut myself to hurt you and you'll have to cut me."
For a second, I flashed back to the demon's case. I’d demanded to be tortured, once I knew that hurting me would hurt Nimshi. Dani wanted to make this hard for me. "Go ahead," I said.
Zane and Nash wrestled her down onto the mattress. Nash pinned her arm down, kneeling on her shoulder. She flailed helplessly as Zane inserted the IV. Red blood began to pump into the clear bag as she struggled.
I would do whatever it took to save my boys.
But as Dani began to scream, I felt that whatever it took might still damn me to Hell.
Chapter 16
Upstairs, Nash soaked the herbs we needed in Dani's blood. The wet herbs were slow to light, but finally they dried deep red, and caught. The lacy edges of the herbs curled as they caught fire.
Ryker groaned from the bed. The four of us looked at him sharply. Zane was already up and checking on each of them; he rolled Ryker onto his side. Ryker’s eyes stayed closed, his lashes resting on his chiseled cheekbones. I chewed on my thumbnail, anxious for them to wake up.
"They might feel sick. Like they have a concussion," Zane warned me. "Don't let them sleep for twenty-four hours."
"Great," I said. "Not like they have anything to be well-rested for."
Guilt crossed Zane's face, but he shrugged it off.
Yale knelt next to Olivia. He touched her face tenderly, but shook his head. "I'm glad you came to us."
"We should go." Nash stood, clapping his hands. "They wouldn't want us to be here."
"Thanks for the help," I said, which seemed flimsy and insubstantial; it would have been hard for me to tease out the spell from that massive library of books and worse, I could never had made sense of that spell in German.
My guys had said, when they were cast out of Hunter circles because of Nimshi, that it didn't matter, that we only needed each other. Now I realized how ridiculous that was. We would always need allies.
Nash nodded. He didn't meet my eyes, but I could see they were troubled. "Glad we could help."
"Take care of them," Yale said, clapping me on the shoulder as he went by to the door.
"So they're in good shape when you try to kill each other?" My voice came out harsher than I’d meant. We needed allies, and yet later today in the ring, the McKennas wouldn’t be our friends.
"Don't remind me." Yale didn't look back as he opened the door.
Zane threw his bag over his shoulder. "Good luck with your witch. If there's any trouble, you can count on us."
"Thanks."
When the three of them had gone, the house felt too quiet and lonely again. I perched on the edge of the bed, watching my boys sleep. The herbs burnt out and fell to ashes in the bowl. When the last wisp of orange flickered out of existence, the boys seemed to wake at the same time, groaning and tossing, as if it were had to swim up from the dark ocean of sleep.
Jacob half sat-up, then squeezed his eyes shut against the light as if he were hungover. He eased himself back down, resting his head in my lap. I ran my fingers idly through his hair. Ryker half sat-up and then began to cough, and he raised his thick bicep to cover his mouth. Levi groaned, and then sat up as if he'd woken abruptly, startled out of his dreams.
"What the hell happened?" Levi asked, his voice low and rough with sleep.
"We were attacked," I said. "Dani. She thinks we killed Nimshi. She used a spell to make you sleep, one that attacks through the runes. That's why it got Olivia too."
“Are you all right?” Levi touched my cheek with the back of his fingers, his brows drawn together over his bright blue eyes. Of course his first thought would be for my safety.
“I’m all right,” I said, cupping my hand over his to hold his hand on my cheek. Now that we were fine, my eyes flooded with tears as I thought about how terrifyingly still the boys had been. Levi’s eyes softened on mine, and I felt the warmth between us curl through my fingers, through my cheek, as my racing heart finally began to slow to normal.
"So it was just you." Olivia sat up, her arm curled around her knees. She held her head in one hand like it was heavy. "All alone against Dani? And we’re alive how?"
"My mom helped," I said, suddenly aware that needing my mom to face down one teenage witch did not make me sound amazing. "It's a long story."
"Where's Dani now?" Ryker asked.
"She's in the cell."
"You took Dani down and locked her in the cell? And then figured out the spell? All on your own?" Jacob finally opened his eyes, rolling over in my lap and turning those beautiful golden eyes up to mine.
"We're not going to take it's a long story at face value?" I asked. "Maybe wait until you guys get some breakfast to recap the whole thing?"
If I knew my mom, she was channeling her concerns for the boys and Olivia into a hot breakfast. "There will probably be biscuits."
My boys were all suckers for biscuits.
Chapter 17
When I walked out of the house, Ryker was already leaning against the side of a long black sedan.
"This time, no Starbucks." Ryker held out silver travel mugs of coffee toward Levi and Jacob.
"Starbucks was never the problem," Levi said.
"I'm never going to stop blaming your love of overpriced coffee for all the ills in the world." Ryker told Levi.
I ran down the steps. "Wait, is this a..."
"Corvette?" Ryker patted the side. "Yeah, I found it at a car dealership online. Jacob and I went and, ah, picked it up last night. While you and Levi were spooning."
"You got me my dream car?" I asked. "Now what are you going to do for my birthday?"
I looped my arm around his neck and kissed his cheek. He caught me with his arm around my waist, and he turned his lips into mine to kiss me for real.
"I'll come up with something," he murmured. "I figured since your last car got all smashed up on mansion gates and witches, you deserved something."
"I did." I nodded. He grinned at my ego—well, I was learning from the best, with these men of mine—and kissed me again.
"I think Levi deserves Starbucks when he's going to be our champion." Jacob took the mug of coffee out of Ryker's hand. "Get that man a unicorn frappucino or whatever it is he likes to drink."
Levi said, "You can never just be nice, can you?"
"I'm being nice." Jacob tossed the keys up in his hand, then tossed them to me. "I'm letting you be the champion. Even though I'm the oldest brother."
"They wouldn't let you do it anyway." Levi snagged the keys from mid-air. "Not with your po
wers. They’d say it's not a fair fight."
"Let's be real here," Jacob said. "There's no way it's ever going to be a fair fight."
I punched Jacob's arm. "Don't put more pressure on him."
Levi took my hand from Ryker's shoulder and drew me toward him, pulling me into his arms. "No pressure," he promised me. "You already saw me kick their asses. It’ll be even easier to take down just one."
"I saw them fight dirty," I said, thinking of how they'd drawn Olivia into the fight, only for Levi to end up hurting her by accident. It was hard to reconcile that version of their old friends, the assholes, with the caring guys who had helped me when my boys were in danger.
"They can try." Levi brushed my hair back from my forehead with his scarred palm, then kissed my forehead. "Where is Olive, anyway?"
"Sorry." Olivia headed down the stairs. She wore leather pants and a black t-shirt, her hair braided back tightly; she'd never looked more like a Hunter, even though her arms were slender and unmarked.
"You okay?" Ryker asked. His voice came out rough, like it did whenever he was worried.
"Yeah," she said, false-bright. She reached the car and swung the rear door open. "It's mediation. It might be bloody, because that's how Hunters seem to like things, but everything is going to be okay after this."
"You’re right," Levi said to Olivia, but he was looking at me as if he were trying to convince me. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
That word, bloody, made me sick to my stomach.
I kissed Levi, cupping his cheek with my hand, and he kissed me back hard. He didn't notice that I was stealing the keys until I suddenly stepped away, the keys in my hand. I grinned at him over my shoulder as I headed toward the car.
As soon as I ducked into the driver's seat, which smelled of leather and was stiff and black, I realized that I didn't want this to be my first drive in my dream car. I didn’t want to remember this day.
Levi leaned into my car door, his big arm braced on the door frame. "You're trouble."
"I am." I dangled the keys in front of him, smiling abashedly. "I don't remember how to get there."
