8. Aggressive Magic Sucking Kisses

Chapter eight

Aggressive Magic Sucking Kisses

SHASTA

I hang up the phone after Jessa calls and look at Joaquin. I’m a hundred percent sure he just heard with his vamp hearing. “Well, this isn’t going to be a fun time, is it?”

“Nope,” he says, popping the p.

I stand and dust the crumbs from my breakfast off me and the chair. Waving a hand, they instantly disappear. The banana and bagel aren’t going to last long if I have to do any major magic, so I walk over to the counter and pull out a few protein granola bars from my stash.

Joaquin grabs my jacket and hands it to me. “I’ll go get the bike ready.”

“Sounds good to me, I’m just gonna leave Emmett a note just in case he comes in for something,” I say, grabbing a post-it and a pen.

Em,

Gone to bring Ethan back to life at Supe Gen.

Yay. Good times. :(

Don’t know when I’ll be back.

Love you, boo,

Shas

Locking up, I follow Joaquin out the door and he hands me a helmet. I really am going to have to get my own bike. I don’t want to keep backpacking with everyone. I climb on and finish fixing my strap and pat Joaquin on the shoulder to let him know I’m ready.

I’m not sure where to put my hands. I don’t want to wrap them around him like I did with Kadi last night, so I settle for resting them on his shoulders. He nods his helmet and off we go.

It’s a short ride to the healing center and they have Ethan on the first floor, so it doesn’t take me long to make my way to his room. Kadi looks up in surprise when I walk through the door. Though he smirks and says, “I had a feeling.”

I kiss him and then look down at Ethan. He just looks like he’s sleeping. Grabbing the chair next to the bed I scoot it closer to Ethan and sit down. Closing my eyes, I reach out with my magic. Checking over his whole body.

I don’t see anything.

So, I look again.

And again.

And again.

The fourth time, I finally ‘see’ something. It’s very small. It looks like a black spider attached to his sternum. No wonder the healer couldn’t figure it out. Hell, I almost didn’t figure it out.

Opening my eyes, I look at Kadi. “Black magic.”

He curses and stands, running his hands through his messy hair that has come loose from his bun. “Can you fix him?” he asks.

“I can, but it’s going to require me sucking it out of him. So, I’ll have to kiss him, and he’s probably going to wake up while I’m doing it,” I say, wincing.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” he says, slumping back down into his chair. “He’s going to kill us both.”

“Kadi, what happened?” I knew he was going back to tell Ethan about us. Walking over, I climb onto his lap. Reaching up to play with his hair I softly scratch his scalp while he talks. In the time it takes him to tell me what happened, I have very subtly put calming magic into him, and he isn’t as riled up as he was.

“Did…did you do something to make me calm?” he asks.

I nod. “Just a little soothing magic. No big deal. I need you as clear-headed as possible if I’m going to do this because you may have to pull him off me.”

I stand and walk back over to Ethan’s bed and look down at him. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to him. I thought about him last night when I was with Kadi and now here I am lusting after him again.

I’m a horrible mate.

He is very handsome though. With his long blond hair lying all about him, he looks like the lion he is. Too bad when he wakes up, he’s going to lose his shit. I sit beside him, taking his head in my hands, I press my lips against his and start sucking.

As soon as I press my lips against his, I feel the mate bond.

Well shit. That explains a lot. But no time for all that. Time to suck out the black magic.

I keep working at it, pulling at the spider thing. I shiver. I really don’t want this thing inside of my mouth, but I have to get it out of Ethan. He starts to struggle, and I know I’m making some headway. It’s coming out of his sternum, but it still won’t pull out of his body all the way.

Too late.

Very strong arms push me up and away. I find myself flying out the door into the hallway and crashing back first into the nurse’s station, shattering the whole thing into pieces. Damn shifter strength. I slowly get to my feet, brushing pieces of wood and debris off me.

Dammit, that hurt. Fucker. Kadi comes running out to help me stand and I limp back into Ethan’s room. “Are you okay? Dammit Ethan. You just threw my mate across the fucking room!” he roars.

“Um, about that,” I try to say but Ethan interrupts me and points to the door.

“Get the fuck out of my room, witch. What were you even doing to me anyway? Why were you kissing me? What’s happening?” he says, looking at Kadi suspiciously as if we were involved in some plot to murder him. I roll my eyes.

“Ethan, you’ve got black magic inside of you. You wouldn’t wake up after the wreck and the healer called a witch she knew to come help. It just happened to be Shasta. She checked you over and told me what she’d have to do, and I told her to do it. You’re my best friend and she’s my mate. What was I going to do? Tell her no?”

I cough and clear my throat. Damn my back is hurting. “Kadi, we need to talk privately in the hallway please.”

Ethan glares at me and motions for me to get the hell out. Yeah, yeah, I’m going buddy, keep your pants on. For now.

Kadi follows me to the hallway. I wring my hands and look up at him.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Little Lioness?”

“Just a little sore, but I can heal myself or get Jessa to do it. I’m fine. We have a bigger problem. Ethan is my mate too,” I whisper.

He looks at me in shock.

“Oh fuck,” he says. “This is the worst thing that could happen. But it does explain some things.”

He says that last part quietly, almost as if it’s just to himself. Weird.

“You’re not upset or jealous?”

He waves a hand at me in dismissal. “Look, we all know something like this could always be a possibility. Having the same mate as my brother, my best friend, is amazing. But the fact that it’s you? I don’t know, Shas. I don’t know how he’s going to react. I’d love to say the mate bond will suddenly change things, but I don’t think it will. Joaquin and I thought there may be something more to his attitude. This may be what it was. He must have suspected something. Have Joaquin get you out of here, please. We’ll have to figure something else out as far as the dark magic goes. I’m not going to risk you getting hurt again.”

I nod and lean up to give him a kiss. He grabs the back of my head gently and I wince a little. Okay, I guess I should go find Jessa.

He waves Joaquin over and gives him instructions while I head off to find her.

She’s back in her office, now that the desk in the hallway is shattered, writing up a report on what happened with Ethan when I knock on the door frame. “Hey girl,” she says. “Come here and let me check you over. That was some toss into the hallway. I’m assuming he woke up part of the way through?”

“Yeah, and hey, surprise, he’s also my mate,” I say, giving her the jazz hands.

I sit down in the chair and Jessa waves her hands over me and I feel the pain leave my body. That’s much better.

“Geez Shas, you have the worst luck sometimes. You want to talk about it?” she asks.

“Well, let's just say it's been an interesting couple of days, and Ethan hates witches,” I say and then fill her in on the events of the last couple days.

“So, I guess it’s going to take a while to get him to come around. But first you gotta get that…thing…out of him,” she gags. “It’s going to corrupt the mate bond if you don’t and it’s already pretty tenuous on its own with his hang ups. Are you going to take him to Winnie?”

“I think Grams is the only option we have. He won’t let me anywhere near him again like that. She might know of a different way. I just did what I could in the moment. At least it isn’t keeping him knocked out anymore. I just worry because he already has so much anger and hurt right now. It's just going to keep feeding that thing until we get it out of him,” I say with a long sigh.

Jessa nods and then looks out toward the hallway. “Who’s the vamp?” She tries to act nonchalant, but I see the blush on her cheeks. Hmmmm, maybe I can do a little match making.

Thank you for the subject change.

“Joaquin? Oh, he’s a friend of the guys and part of the Club,” I tell her.

“Wait, what club?” she asks.

“The guy you just worked on? President of the Boys of Wrath, and Kadi is VP. So yeah, there’s that.”

She raises her hand to her mouth in shock. “What the hell, Shas? Pretty convenient of you to leave that part out when you were telling your story. I mean, I saw they were in riding gear, but I wasn’t paying much attention past that because Ethan was in pretty bad shape.”

That’s not all I left out. I didn’t tell her about the death threat either. Wincing, I shake my head. “Like I said, it's been a crazy couple of days. But Joaquin is a great guy. I didn’t know he was part of the Club until yesterday, but he’s been coming to the shop for a long time now. Want me to introduce you?”

“Nope. Not yet. I’ll just watch from afar for a while,” she says. “Let things calm down a bit first since it seems you are taking up a good chunk of his time right now. I’m not that good at sharing.” She laughs and stands. “I have a couple more patients to check in on so I’ll see you later at Winnie’s?”

“Yep, I’m going to try to talk Ethan into going to see her. Should be fun.”

She laughs, hugs me, and then walks me out, waving a little at Joaquin as she pushes past him and down the hall.

He swivels his head around to watch her go with a predatory gaze in his eyes. Well at least the matchmaking won’t be too hard, I don’t think. I laugh a little, nod towards Jessa, and say, “She's part of my Coven. Her name is Jessa.”

Joaquin looks back at me, eyes glowing red just a bit. “Do you know her pretty well?”

“She is probably one of my closest friends next to Emmett. So don't eat her.”

“Oh, eating her is definitely what I’m going to do, but not the kind you’re thinking about,” he growls, still staring at her.

My eyebrows touch my hairline. Well, damn, I wasn’t expecting that reaction. Look out, Jessa.

I snicker and pat him on the shoulder as I head down the hall. He finally shakes it off and follows me. Ethan’s door is closed and I’m assuming he and Kadi are having a conversation, so I don’t stop. Based on the shouting coming from within, it isn’t a conversation I want to walk in on. I do not envy Kadi right now, though I do feel his frustration through the bond. I send a wave of comfort down it and go out the doors with Joaquin to head home.

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