Five
Five
HER
After breakfast, I start to clean up, and Sau joins me in the kitchen.
“Are you sure you should be up?” I ask her. She looks just as flawless as always – her long black hair beautifully shiny and lush, her green eyes highlighted by dark eyeliner, but there’s a heaviness on her shoulders that seems to bow her inwards despite the strict posture of her back.
“I’m a single mother of eight boys. It’s going to take more than a curse to keep me down.” She gives me a look that reinforces that statement, and I smile at her.
“I don’t know how you did it,” I say, shaking my head as I stack the dishes in the dishwasher. “I know there’s over a decade between them all, but how did you ever survive their teenage years? Especially Maddox’s?” I shudder.
She laughs as she grabs a dishcloth to start wiping down the table. “With a lot of weed.”
I glance at her in shock.
“I used to ‘hide’ a stash in my room. The boys would find it, do it, and then I’d get a blissful few hours of peace as they zonked out. Though once, Rudy and Talon watched a snail for three hours as it tried to climb a wall. They were torn between rooting for it every time it went higher and being sad that it was going further away from any food source. The next morning, I find out they spent the night attaching shelves to the outside of the house, then stacking them with all our fruit and vegetables. I was livid as Varius was hosting his first meeting here, and all the shops were closed so I couldn’t restock. Thank gods, none of the capos were vegetarian then.”
I laugh. She comes over to the sink and shakes out the crumbs she collected on her cloth.
“You weren’t worried about weed leading to the harder stuff?” I ask as I turn on the dishwasher.
She gives me a look. “We run a drug empire, Micha. If they wanted to try something, all they had to do was throw their last name around. Everyone wanted their favor.”
I incline my head.
Hanging the dishcloth over the sink to dry, she turns to me. “We’re making healing potions today. The boys used a good amount of them last night, and they will need more by the time this war ends.”
“Can Varius use them?” I ask as I follow her out of the kitchen.
“Of course.”
“So it’s just premades he can’t use?” I press. I know she traded all his magic to save his life when he was a baby, but there’s just something about that story that is bothering me. I don’t know what, so I’m just fishing for information.
Premades are wands created for non-magic users to use. They work by pulling on the dormant talent of the person wielding it though, so not everyone can use them. Humans from Earth (rather than the collective ‘humans’ that cover anyone who’s been created in the image of a god) can’t use them. Nor can any sup who hasn’t passed their ascension – a sort of magical evolution that hits during puberty, as they don’t have any magic in them before then to activate the wand. Unless that sup is a witch; we are born with magic. It is a part of us, entwined with our blood, our souls.
So if Varius was a vampire who’d never hit his ascension or a werewolf or a dragon or one of the thousands of other humans out there (those who have a humanoid form gifted to them by the gods), then it’d make sense why he couldn’t use a premade.
But he is a witch.
Sau might have traded his magic to save his life, offering it up as payment in some dark spell, but she couldn’t have ripped it from him without killing him. And in evidence of that, Varius’ brothers are able to use him as a sort of battery from time to time, topping up their supply with his.
So I know he still has enough magic inside him to be able to use a wand, and the puzzle is driving me insane.
“It seems to be so,” she says.
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you cast the spell.” I try not to make the words come out accusatory, like I think she’s hiding something. But a part of me wonders if she is.
She glances at me as she takes that first step down the stairs, heading for the basement. “Have you ever used dark magic, Micha?” she asks.
I shake my head. I’ve heard stories though; every witch has. The amount of power you can gain with it is legendary. Witches use it to extend their lives, to sink entire cities into the ground. To create plagues that can wipe out a third of the population, to change into great beasts much bigger than themselves.
With regular magic, you need physical access to the extra mass or the ingredients needed for the spell, but with dark magic, you can take it from anywhere. There are cases of large groups of people going missing – the crew of the Mary Celeste, the settlers of the Roanoke Colony, the fifty-thousand soldiers of the Army of Cambyses. These mass disappearances can normally all be linked back to a witch playing around with something they shouldn’t.
Such cases draw the attention of the archangels though, and no amount of magic will save you from their wrath.
“When we cast a spell,” Sau says as we descend into the basement, “we control it. We shape it how we want it to act. We limit it in its entirety so it can’t run free. But with dark magic, it controls you. You can give it an idea of what you want, but the outcome is never guaranteed. There’s also a good chance it kills you instead of doing whatever it is you want.”
“You must have acted quickly then, to stop it from going wild.”
She smiles tightly as we reach the door to the spellroom. “I guess so.”
“You guess?”
Opening the door, she steps inside. “Honestly, I do not remember much. One moment I was focused on Caden as he screamed in his nightmare. The next…” She trails off. Her lips draw tight, a haunted memory beating inside her skull. “Caden was a strong telekinetic,” she says softly. “He ripped Varius into so many pieces, I’m not sure how I found them all to even cast the spell.”
I shudder, my stomach knotting at the idea of him being in so much pain. Or perhaps there was no pain then, death having taken him quickly.
“Did you have to bring him back from Purgatory?” I ask as I follow her to the cabinets where we keep the potions and their ingredients. Necromancy is a hard-learned skill, taking two to three decades to master. As far as I know, Sau doesn’t know the first thing about it – just like most people don’t. It’s one of the rarest skills out there.
“I guess so.”
I frown. I know Sau loves her children, and I can’t think of a single reason for her to lie about what happened to Varius’ magic, but you don’t just get lucky at necromancy. You bring back a twisted mess – if you manage not to die in the process in the first place.
“Or maybe I kept him alive long enough with my healing magic,” she says. “His head and torso was still together – at least, it was above the heart.”
My stomach churns at the thought of a baby looking like that, but it’s the only thing that could be possible. Sau is a damn strong healer. If she reacted within seconds, she could have made sure he didn’t bleed out or die of shock while she reattached his other parts with dark magic.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t panic then,” I say. “Seeing that, I don’t know many who wouldn’t have.”
She looks at me sadly. “I panicked the previous times.”
The words are a sucker punch to my chest. Varius might be her firstborn, but that is a moving title in the Shadow Domain, passing down to the oldest survivor. There were fourteen other kids before him. I do not know the details of their deaths, but I can see the pain in her eyes. They did not go gently into the night.
Feeling like shit for bringing all this up for no reason other than my own curiosity, I turn to the shelf of unused vials. “So how many healing potions do you think we should make?” I ask.
“As much as we can,” she says as she picks up a box of them. “Before the treaty, Antonio targeted our healers first, the rest of the women second. You kill a man, you kill one soldier. You kill a healer –”
“You kill everyone they can fix.”
She nods. “And if you kill a breedmare –”
“You kill the next generation.”
“Exactly. So we shall make enough not just for my boys but for as many women as are in our Family.” She picks up an entire box of empty vials, then pauses. “I killed Antonio’s pups and his mate all in one day. Even when he signed the treaty, I knew his desire for revenge had not been sated. He will not stop until all my sons are dead.” She swallows, then looks into my eyes. “I half hope you don’t get pregnant until this war is over.”
My blood chills as my fingers itch to press over my belly. My period is normally irregular, but I just had it a couple weeks ago, although it was lighter and shorter than usual, so I know I’m not carrying, but I feel an instinctive need to protect my womb.
“Though with the way Varius is going…” Sau says with a sudden smirk, “we better kill the Death Hunt quickly.”
My cheeks on fire, all I can do is nod.
In the last three hours, I have made more potions than I have in my entire life. Before I was purchased by Varius, I was an assassin who went out on missions with my best friend. He was my spotter, the plan maker, and healer, so I only carried healing potions for the jobs where we had to split up. Mine aren’t great for fixing major damage, but they held me over until I could get back to him. Dayne isn’t as advanced in his healing magic as Sau (no one is), but he knows his shit way better than I know how to make healing potions. He’s done well over the years, patching me up whenever I got stabbed, shot, or hit with a particularly nasty spell.
“Don’t be stingy with the sideritis,” Sau says as I very, very carefully add pinches of the ground perennial to the pot of glacier blue liquid. Fog rises off it, smelling strongly of mint and ice.
“You literally just said it could blow up in my face if I get it wrong.” Which really makes me think this healing potion recipe is a farce. Dying while making one should not be a possibility in my book unless you really fucked it up. But then, this recipe is Sau’s own. Not only is she the best healer in all of North America, but she also survived a bloody war and has crafted her technique over decades.
“I can heal you,” she says simply.
“Khalid will kill me if you use your magic.” He told me so. Very, very clearly on the first day I got here.I might be engaged to his brother, and Khalid might be his bodyguard whenever Varius is out, but Khalid is also the reaper. And I am absolutely terrified of him.
“Khalid will do no such thing. He –”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not risking it. I’m just going to add this in very, very slowly… It’ll just take an extra two, three seconds and –”
“Stop,” Sau demands, and I jerk my hand away from the pot, careful not to drop any more of the sideritis into it. My heart hammering, I wait for the thing to explode.
It does not.
Thank the fucking gods.
“Good. Now add your magic to it.”
“While thinking about happy, funny things,” I murmur. Magic feeds on emotions. Stress-free treatment is better for one’s recovery, and laughter is the best medicine. The brain releases an increase of endorphins, natural painkillers, and neuropeptides when you laugh, and all those things help with the healing process.
Ducking my head, trying to pretend Sau isn’t standing right beside me, I place a hand into the pot. As my magic pulses out of my fingers, I think about what Varius did the first time I got my period.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” Varius growls as I exit my ensuite, wrapped in a towel and fresh from my shower.
My brain glitches out at the sight of him naked on my bed, his cock hard and in his hand. He’s stroking it, and I can’t breathe. He’s fucked me for hours every night for the past few weeks. I should be able to see it without losing the ability to think by now. But dear fucking gods, it just does something to me, seeing it in his hand. Seeing him take the pleasure he wants.
I try to think of something sexy to say, but of course my mouth decides to go in the complete opposite direction.
“Because the monthly hillbilly has come to town,” I blurt, “and it’s murdering all the – actually, no, that doesn’t work, does it?” I laugh awkwardly and high-pitched. “Because it’s normally the bimbos going into his hometown in horror movies. So the monthly girls are getting slaughtered…” I cringe. Oh my gods, why isn’t he telling me to shut up? “My period,” I croak. “I’m on my period.”
He stares at me without blinking. His hand doesn”t stop stroking his thick cock. “And what do hillbillies slaughtering bimbos,” Varius deadpans, “have to do with why you’re not riding my cock right now?”
I blow out a breath on a nervous giggle even as heat flares through me. “Okay, one, that sentence should never exist. You can’t start off with a horrible analogy for one’s period and then transition into something that hot. And two…um...it’s messy?”
He stands up, then walks towards me, herding me back into the ensuite. The intensity of his eyes never waver. “Get in the shower, Micha. I’m going to fuck that hillbilly right out of his own damn town.”
I giggle, both in my memory and now in the kitchen. The neon blue liquid starts to froth, churning back and forth as if it’s laughing too. But I didn’t laugh for long once he got me in the shower. I didn’t do much other than scream and –
“That’s good,” Sau says, and I blush hard. Yanking my head out of those ‘happy thoughts,’ I pull my hand out of the pot. My magic fades from my fingertips, and I grab the hand towel on the counter to dry my hand. Feeling slightly dizzy, the continuous use of magic starting to drain me, I make my way to the refrigerator and pour myself a cup of juice as she fills up the next set of vials with a pipette, then seals them with a cork. Making a single batch of potions doesn’t use much magic, barely any at all, but we’ve been at this for hours, and I have been fueling the bulk of our creations.
“This batch will go to the soldiers of the Family,” she says as I rejoin her. That’s a polite way of telling me I didn’t do that great of a job. The ones she made will stay here with her sons, those potions being stronger. Although I have been following her instructions to the letter, magic is often fickle.
“Think of funnier things,” she says as she finishes up. “Thoughts of sex might send out dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin, but laughter really is the best medicine.”
A strained noise escapes me as my face full on explodes in a blush. “Noted,” I squeak. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how open this family is when it comes to discussing sex.
“But other than that, you did a great job.”
“Thanks. These are much stronger than anything I have ever made.”
“They’re still not as good as a mediocre healer for most things.” Using a healing potion is like shopping for clothes at a department store when you’re a foot above average or between sizes. Yeah, you can find things that cover you, but the chances of an off-the-shelf dress hugging your specific curves just right or a long-sleeve shirt actually stopping at your wrists rather than half-way up your arms is pretty low. The magic is too generic. It doesn’t have the proper focus needed to fix bones and reseal wounds to the point that no other recovery is needed.
“Better than most human treatment though,” I say.
She inclines her head as she corks the last vial.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I dig it out to see a text from Varius. “He’s calling everyone back for a meeting at lunch,” I say. I glance at the clock in the kitchen. Twelve fifteen. He likes to eat at one. My eyes narrowing, I text back.
Micha: You couldn’t have given a better head’s up?
Cooking for eleven (the eight Shadow brothers, me, Sau, and Leno’s dog, who absolutely does not get dog food given Leno can taste everything he eats) takes fucking ages. At least at breakfast, only half of them ever show up. Maddox is rarely awake at that time. Rudy and Enoch like cereal. Ezriel only drinks coffee, and Talon usually isn’t here at all.
He doesn’t reply, and I roll my eyes as I shove my phone back into my pocket. “Lunch meeting,” I tell Sau.
She doesn’t react with the same annoyance I did. She just nods gracefully, ever the polite fucking lady – the one I am supposed to be learning how to be.
Biting back a muttered curse for a certain neanderthal, I start to pull out the ingredients needed for a stir fry.