We all knew that.
If I was infected, then I was fucked.
I should feel worse. I should be terrified, but instead I was pissed.
This wasn’t the way to exit. Fuck that.
“It’s a deep enough scratch to cause infection,” she confirmed. “See this black residue? It’s a sign she’s infected.”
No. “I feel fine.”
In fact, the wound didn’t even hurt any longer.
“It can take a few hours to take effect,” Pippa said softly.
Her kind eyes delivered a death sentence.
No. Hell no. “I’m fine,” I bit out again. “We need to focus on finding the kidnapped shifter females.”
Sloane had filled us in on the varga’s innocence when it came to the kidnapping. They were looking for their women too.
I had to focus on that. “We need to start thinking outside the box.”
Leif made a strangled sound and walked off into the kitchen.
I should have gone, Rune muttered. I should have gone.
“You saved me,” Sloane said. “That scratch was meant for me.”
No. I didn’t need this. These looks of pity and the sorrow, as if I were already dead. It wasn’t over until I stopped breathing, and I had no plans to do that.
None.
I stood abruptly, clutching my shirt to my chest to cover my boobs and forcing Tor to move back and give me space.
“Stop it. The lot of you. I’m fucking fine. I’m fine until I’m not, and there’s nothing you guys can do either way. So, let’s focus on what we can do. On finding the shifters.”
The door burst open and Conah strode in, chest heaving, golden hair windswept, sapphire eyes bright as they locked onto me.
“Cora, Jessie told me what happened. I want to help.”
“Then find a fucking cure.” Tor’s words were delivered in a vicious growl. “Can you do that?”
The light in Conah’s eyes dimmed and his throat bobbed. “No. There is no known cure, but I can… I can make it painless.”
My pulse sped up. Conah never admitted defeat. If there was even the slimmest possibility of a cure, he would be holed up in the library searching for it. The fact he was here…
My terror, held at bay by my anger, surged up to choke me.
“I’m going to die.” The words were flat.
“Yes,” Conah said at the same time Tor growled, “No.”
Leif barreled back into the room, bridged the distance between us, and tugged me into his arms. He squeezed me tight, pressing his lips to my temple.
“I feel it,” Leif said. “Cora, I can feel it.”
He could feel the infection through our bond.
No doubt now. No doubt at all.
My eyes pricked and I squeezed them shut.
No. I would not cry. No fucking way.
Then Tor’s chest was pressed to my side, and his arms were around us. Rune’s head nudged my thigh.
Cora…
No. Stop it.
I locked gazes with Jasper over Leif’s shoulder. His mouth was turned down and his face blurred through a haze of tears.
I blinked, dislodging the moisture.
“No,” Jasper said. He shook his head and walked toward us. “I don’t feel it at all.”
Leif pulled back. “What?”
Jasper stepped closer. “Move. Now.”
I expected the guys to fight him, but they surprised me by releasing me and stepping away.
Jasper cupped my face, his hands cool against my feverish skin.
Tor’s chest rumbled but he didn’t move to stop him.
Jasper’s emerald eyes bore into mine like all-knowing lasers, and for the first time since donning the amulet, his soul brushed mine in the briefest of contacts.
“Yes. Okay, I see it now.” He canted his head, thumbs sweeping across my cheeks soothingly. “It’s growing slowly.” His lips curved in a smirk. “But it’s no match for us, is it, Cora?” One of his hands slid down to hug my throat. My pulse sped up beneath his fingers. “No match at all.”
A pressure swelled at my solar plexus, cold like ice. My breath hitched. “What are you doing?”
“Speeding things along.”
And then my blood caught fire and a scream tore a path up my throat, but it was never given voice because darkness swallowed me whole.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Leif
Cora’s eyes roll back in her head and she slumps. I grab her just as Tor bellows and lunges at Jasper.
The spirit winks out and appears by the kitchen.
Tor’s like a bull seeing red as he crashes across the room, desperate to get his claws into Jasper.
Jasper flicks his wrist and Tor’s thrown off his feet and sent flying across the room.
“Stop!” Jasper orders. “You attack me and you’re attacking her. It takes power to fend you off, and where the fuck do you think I get that from?”
Tor pulls himself to his feet. “Nice try. But the amulet stops you from drawing from her fully.”
“The fucking amulet’s been glitching for a week now, forcing power into me. I resisted the siphon,” Jasper says. “Still, so many pathways in if I want.” He smirks.
But I see behind the evil monster façade, because if the amulet’s been glitching, he could have taken advantage at any time. But by his own admission he resisted. He didn’t take advantage and he won’t now. If Tor attacks him again, Jasper will take the hit.
Tor must come to the same conclusion because his rage ebbs. “What did you do to her?”
“Gave her the push she needs to fight this thing. She’s no ordinary witch. She’s no wolf and she isn’t human. Cora is an anomaly. A tulpa. And this infection has no idea what it’s dealing with, but if she’s going to fight it, she needs to focus entirely on it.”
“What do you mean?” Conah says. “She can fight this?”
Jasper’s mouth turns down. “She’s the only one who can.”
“There must be something we can do to help,” Sloane says.
She’s pale, eyes red-rimmed. Fuck, I’ve never seen her look so shaken.
“No,” Jasper says. “All we can do is wait.”
I look down at the woman in my arms, the woman who’s stolen my thoughts and found her way into my heart. I can’t lose her.
“Then we wait.” I swing her up into my arms and stride toward the stairs. “But I’m not fucking leaving her side.”
CORA
The world was gray, barren, and ashy. The sky low and heavy with clouds. What the fuck, Jasper? What had he done to me?
Where the fuck was I?
A rumble like thunder filled the air, and then the ground in front of me cracked and a slender gray form covered in black veins rose out of the aperture. It looked like a fucked-up tree person. Twig-like arms hung from its trunk-like body. The form was too smooth to be wood and too fractured to be stone. Its face was featureless, but slender inky veins formed a network across the surface. Malice and hunger emanated from it in waves that beat at my skin.
I took a step back.
Become one with us. The voice was like nails on a chalkboard.
“Um…no thanks.”
Join us.
Feed the hunger.
Be sated.
The voice echoed around me, which was fucked up because there was nothing for the sound to bounce off and create an echo.
I took another step back, not sure where the fuck I’d run to, but the thing moved in a blur and stopped inches from me, its featureless face peering down at me, eerie as fuck.
You belong to us now.
Gray tentacles shot out of its cheeks and latched onto me so fast there was no time to evade, and then I was falling.
TOR
“She’s burning up.” I smooth sweat-soaked tendrils off her forehead.
We’ve laid her on her bed, and while I sit, my hip at her thigh, Leif kneels on the floor by Cora’s side, her hand clasped in his.
Conah is gone, back to
the mansion to search for information on the infection. There are boxes of old texts, unshelved and unlogged. He won’t find answers, but I understand he needs to be doing something, and there’s no role for him here.
Jasper stands in the corner of the room like a watchful shadow. His expression is closed, unreadable. Rune stands by the window with Sloane, his golden body tense and alert. Out of all of us, he feels this the most. This thing is inside him too. Has been for a decade, dormant and waiting. To see it active in someone he cares for, to see her fighting, to feel it through the bond we share is a different kind of torture.
The infection is a dark throb tugging at the threads that bind us to Cora. Testing the links, wanting to sever them.
We can’t let it.
Leif makes a sound of assent as if I’ve spoken and he’s heard me.
Cora moans softly, mouth parting, brow furrowing.
“Strip her,” Pippa orders as she enters the room carrying a bowl. “Open the window a little.”
Sloane tries. “It’s stuck.”
Fuck. “I nailed it shut.”
She waves her hand over the wood, muttering under her breath, then the window is sliding open and cool air fills the room.
I glance at Leif and he nods. We begin to take off Cora’s clothes. I didn’t expect the first time I undressed my mate to be like this. I didn’t expect my stomach to be tied in knots of fear.
I’m not afraid of death. Never have been. But right now, with Cora balancing on the precipice between life and death, fear is a relentless band around my throat.
Creamy smooth skin is exposed as I peel her T-shirt from her chest. I look away, not wanting to stare at her nakedness. Not like this.
Leif does the same, his gaze averted as he unbuckles her trousers and tugs them down.
“For fucksake,” Jasper says. “Get out of the way and let me. I’ve seen it all before.”
I want to throttle him, but he has a point, so I back up and let him finish up.
He makes quick work of stripping my mate, which calls forth all kinds of thoughts, thoughts that make me want to smash his face in. But then he covers her so tenderly with a sheet that my ire melts.
Pippa takes over and begins wiping Cora down with a washcloth dipped in tepid water.
“We need to keep her fever down. Help control it,” she explains.
Jasper returns to his spot in the corner of the room. He’s fading and it hits me that he’s no longer feeding off Cora. He’s letting her go so she can fight this infection.
I hate that I’m beginning to like the fucker.
Fight, Cora. Fight it, Rune says softly, for us all.
CORA
Ours.
Like he is.
Bring him to us.
He belongs.
No more fighting.
No more running.
You can be together here. Together if you join us.
I was falling, like Alice down the rabbit hole. I needed to stop but there was nothing to grab hold of. Nothing to halt my progress. A conviction bloomed in my chest that if I hit the bottom I was lost.
This thing would have me. “What are you?”
It speaks to us, still speaks. They never speak.
Should we answer?
Puppets, nothing more.
Not this one.
Not the other one.
Connected maybe?
This one is connected to more than one. Do you feel it?
Can we have them?
Not easily…not unless she takes them for us.
They were talking about my guys and Jasper. This infection, this multitude of voices, it wanted them, and it wanted to claim me and make me infect them.
Rage flared in my chest. “Fuck you!”
My descent slowed.
What is it doing?
I needed to find a nook or a foothold in the walls of this hole. “You can’t have me.”
My body jerked upward slightly, fighting the descent, and I lunged for the wall, fingers scrabbling for purchase.
How is it doing this?
It must not do this.
Join us. Be one with us.
The voice was now a croon, no longer nails on a chalkboard, more a lullaby. It stroked the back of my mind, and my grip on the nook relaxed slightly.
Fight, Cora. Rune’s voice filled my mind. For us all.
I shook off the effects of the crooning voice and slammed my body into the wall.
Go down. Down…
“You wish. You’ve got to buy me dinner, take me on a few dates, and get me wet before I even consider going down.”
I began to climb.
No.
No, this can’t be happening.
Heat swelled in my chest—the power of the cosmos and something else, my own personal darkness winding up to wrap around me like a protective cocoon. “Oh, it’s happening all right.”
Pressure on my head, trying to push me down. Arms wrapping around my waist, desperate to peel me off the wall.
Fuck.
Ice trickled through my veins and morphed into cold fire. The phantom grip on me vanished, then I was shooting toward the circle of light above, propelled by a new force I didn’t understand.
NO!
The infection, the entity, the fucked-up thing trying to infest me, screamed a wretched, ragey sound.
But I was out, cradled in blinding light, wrapped in tendrils of darkness. I was out but I wasn’t. The chasm yawned below me and the screams of the infection battered against the walls of this light-filled sanctuary.
For a moment I was a child in the womb, protected and cherished, but danger was a hairbreadth away and my gut knew this wasn’t over, not yet.
There is a price, child. A sacrifice. This voice was soft and feminine. You must agree to pay it before I can help.
“Sacrifice? What kind of sacrifice.”
I will claim it when the time is right. Agree to pay it. It’s the only way I can save you.
“The only way to save me from the infection?”
Yes.
There was no other option. I wanted to live. “Then do it.”
You will burn with cold fire for a while, but when the burn stops you will be free from the draugar.
Draugar? What the—
Fire filled my veins and this time my scream made it out of my throat.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The light shattered as I exhaled, ready to let loose another scream.
“It’s okay, Cora. You’re okay.”
Pippa?
The room came into focus. My room.
I was home.
I was back.
“She’s shaking,” Leif said. “Blankets now!”
“I don’t know what’s happening,” Pippa said.
“Fighting it. It’s working and—” My teeth chattered so hard they cut off my words. “Fuuuck.”
Leif threw a duvet over me and tucked it in, but my body continued to be wracked with tremors. This wouldn’t work. I needed more.
I looked from Tor to Leif. “Take…off…your…clothes.” The words spilled out between chatters.
Tor stared at me in confusion.
“Body heat,” Leif said, catching on.
He peeled off his shirt, revealing cobbled abs and taut pecs that flexed when he moved. My pulse jumped in my throat before settling into an eager flutter.
“Yes!” Pippa said. “Do it.”
Tor stripped quickly until his epic bronzed body, encased only in snug boxers, was on display. A spiral of warmth licked at my lower belly despite the cold fire burning through my veins.
The guys climbed into bed with me, bracketing me with their powerful bodies, velvety skin kissing my frozen flesh and lending me their heat. God, they were like twin furnaces. Mine. Oh yes, please. The chattering eased a little.
I looked down the bed and into Rune’s hazel eyes that swam with golden flecks. “Rune…”
He bounded onto the bed and laid his golden form across my
legs.
“God yes.” I snuggled down as my trembling body fed off their heat.
“Fuck, you’re like ice,” Leif said.
“Cora’s, what’s happening?” Tor asked.
I filled them in on what the voice in the light had said. “She’s helping me. Burning it out of me.”
“You made a deal with an invisible entity?” Sloane pointed out. “What’s the cost?”
“Does it matter?” Jasper snapped. “She’s going to live.”
My gaze flew across the room to a corner where Jasper was a misty form, barely hanging on. He’d believed in me. He’d known I could fight this. I couldn’t let him fade away now.
“Jasper, take what you need.”
He locked gazes with me, and a small, wistful smile lifted his lips. “Not today, Cora.” Then he melted away.
Sloane tucked in her chin. “I best report to Anna, let her know we can pause on the red alert for now. Then I’ll find Conah. We need to figure out what the fuck is going on here.”
“I’ll come back with you,” Pippa said. “There’s nothing more I can do here.” She smiled at the guys. “You need to keep her warm until this cold burn passes.”
They closed the door behind them, and I was alone with my mates. In bed. Naked. And all I could think about was curling up to stay warm.
God, my life was twisted.
The chill abated a little as the guys’ body heat seeped into me, but the cold burn was a steady ache in my blood that wouldn’t let up. I curled up against Tor’s wide chest with Leif pressed to my back, making sure to avoid the gauze-covered claw marks.
They held me silently for long minutes as my body shook, but even through the tremors, I was acutely aware of their velvet, taut skin against mine, the warmth of Leif’s breath on my nape, the brush of his silken hair on my shoulder, and the steady thud of their heartbeats.
I wriggled a little, and the steady tempo sped up. Fingers flexed against my skin, digging in slightly at my hip and waist.
We weren’t meant to be this close, and yet we were. It was new, but it was a natural progression.
Inevitable.
How could I have fought this even for one moment?
Witch Undecided: The Thirteenth Sign Book 2 Page 21
