Chapter 8
8
JOSEPHINE
M y heart is racing. It hasn’t calmed down since I dragged Roman Blackthorn upstairs into my family’s library. Now I’m watching his back as he walks away. After I just let him go down on me until I came all over his face.
I slap a hand over my eyes and drag it down my face with a groan. Make-up be damned. I’m sure it’s a mess at this point anyway. Piper slips out of Ambrose Roth’s arms and is by my side in a second. Her hand hovers over my shoulder like she wants to touch me, but knows better.
“Jo. Are you okay? Was all that…” Her gaze jerks toward the door and back. “Consensual?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, blinking like I’m in a blurry dream and can’t see straight. How drunk am I? Not so drunk that I didn’t fully consent to what just happened. Maiden, help me. “He could… It didn’t hurt when he touched me.”
Piper gasps, her jaw hanging open. “Is your curse broken? How?”
I shake my head, wondering those very same questions myself. “I don’t know.” I hesitate, but I have to test this. “Can you touch me?”
Piper sucks in her bottom lip. She rarely looks anyone in the eye these days, but she holds my gaze for a few seconds before dropping her head. I didn’t miss the hope there. My chest swells and I try not to cry. I used to pray to the Maiden to break my curse. To free me from the pain of a simple touch, but I gave up that dream years ago. It almost hurts to hope that maybe it’s over. I want to believe something good might finally be happening to me, but I’m so damn scared.
Piper has her own curse, and I recognize that very same hope in her eyes. If mine is broken, then maybe hers could be too.
“Are you sure?”
I thrust out my hand. “Yes. Do it.”
I hold my breath as Piper gently touches the back of my hand. Pain lashes over my body. It’s not like it’s any worse than normal, but tears well in my eyes. The optimism that already built a home inside me collapses. I look away from my friend before I choke out the words, “It’s still there.”
“Jo.” Piper’s voice is so soft and kind it’s almost too much.
I swallow back tears and straighten my shoulders. “I didn’t think it was gone anyway.”
“But…it is. With Roman.” Piper’s delicate brows lift and she looks out the door where Roman just ran off. Without a thanks or proper goodbye or anything. That was probably just a standard Saturday night for him.
“Yeah, well…” That’s all I can say because I honestly don’t know how to explain what just happened.
“It’s like, hello, we’re a bunch of twelve-year-olds. Do you really expect us to sit for an hour straight without moving or getting bored?” Penelope, my youngest sister, is complaining about one of her teachers at school.
She looks just like I did at her age. Long black hair and bright green eyes. She’s taller than most of her classmates, which she hates. The biggest difference between us is her confidence. I’ve never been outgoing, and I’m horrible at standing up for myself. Pen doesn’t back down. Not like me.
Mystic Hollows has enough magical families that there are schools just for witches. One each for the Lumen and Tenebris covens. They’re passed off to the humans as elite private schools with extremely difficult entrance requirements. They teach a mixture of typical classes, along with practical magical studies that train students on the different types of magic witches possess. Of course, our coven’s school would never dream of educating students on anything even remotely related to dark magic. Except that it’s evil and any witch who possesses that type of magic is awful.
The curriculum leaves a lot to be desired.
Penelope and I are at the Mystic Hollows Hospital. We do our best to visit at least once a month, but it’s hit or miss. Sometimes, I’m so worn out from my job that I can barely get out of bed on the weekends. I haven’t seen Pen in over two weeks, though, so I shoved aside any fatigue and set up a date. Although I'm surprisingly refreshed. After all the alcohol I consumed last night, I should be puking my guts out. When I woke up this morning, I felt the best I have in a long time.
My mother only approves of these outings because we leave cards for the spa with the hospital staff, and she sees this as practice for Penelope’s healing magic. There’s also Selene, the leader of our coven, who praises our family for their generosity to the community.
I hate to admit that my mother is right about anything, but this is good training for Pen. And it allows me to ensure it’s not my mother’s form of instruction that my sister has to endure. When I was younger, Francesca would have me heal people until I passed out, claiming it would strengthen my magic. Then she’d leave me blacked out on the floor where I fell. When I was older, I learned that there’s no way to build your magic like a muscle. You either have a certain level of power or you don’t. My mother knew that too, which made her training all the more cruel.
Helping at the hospital has more than one reward. Not only do I enjoy spending time with my sister, but I finally feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to. Helping people in need instead of those with the fattest wallets.
“Mrs. Steubens was mean back when I had her too.”
“Why doesn’t she retire? She’s got to be, like, fifty or something.” Pen waves to one of the nurses on duty. She’s part of the coven and helps keep our visits off the record.
I chuckle. “Wow, she’s practically got one foot in the grave.”
We visit the children’s unit first. Healing illness is a slow process. Neither Pen nor I can touch someone and take away their cancer or fix a crushed bone in an instant. But we can speed the mending along. Make their bodies stronger and heal the cancer incrementally. Cuts and bruises I can fix almost instantly, but some things are so invasive and awful that it takes a lot of time and energy. I do my best.
After an hour of healing, I’m too tired to do more. Penelope’s magic is tapped out, but my problem is the pain. It’s left me with a throbbing headache and a bone-deep chill. Pen and I sit in a couple of chairs in an empty waiting room, eating snacks she grabbed from the vending machine.
“How’s everything at home?” I always tread lightly with this question. I want to know what’s going on, but Pen hates talking about our family. It always puts her in a bad mood.
She shoves a Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup into her mouth and looks everywhere in the room but at me. I wait patiently, knowing she’ll tell me, eventually. After washing down the chocolate with a long gulp of water, she sighs and slumps back into her chair.
“She brought someone to the house last week.”
I sit up, my flight response immediately washing away the fatigue. “What for?”
“She said I need to practice my magic.”
“What did she have you do?” My pulse throbs in my throat. My heartbeat whooshes in my ears. My fucking mother.
“It was Mr. Masters. She said he’d been under the weather and needed some energy.”
Fucking hell. That’s a bunch of bullshit. Philip Masters is plenty healthy. He sits on the coven council. Even if he was under the weather, he could take a magical tonic for his sniffles.
“What did she have you do?” I think I’ve kept my tone calm until my sister lifts one brow in my direction.
“Jo.”
“Pen,” I deadpan right back at her.
Her head falls to the back of her seat with a sigh. “She had me use my healing magic until I nearly passed out. Mr. Masters looked like a dewy newborn baby by the time I was done.”
“Call me next time. Okay?” My jaw is so tense it makes my headache throb.
My sister folds her wrapper into a tiny square. She cocks her head and gives me a look that is way too astute for a preteen. “What can you do, Jo? There’s nothing we can do.”
“I don’t know,” I tell her truthfully, hating that I don’t have a better answer. “But I’ll figure it out.” I hesitate, my thoughts jumping to Roman.
“Why are you blushing?” Pen cocks her head, her eyes narrowing as she studies my face.
“I’m not.” I’m not going to say a word to her about Roman. And definitely nothing about how I could touch him without pain. She would be so excited, and it would crush her when nothing comes of it. I probably won’t see Roman for another five years.
“Fine. Keep your secrets. Are we going to binge some reality TV and eat junk food now?” Pen asks brightly, reminding me why I love her so much. She’ll let it go for now, but I know she’ll try to pry the information out of me later.
“I’ve already got the snacks.”