Chapter 2
Chapter Two
I woke up certain I'd died.
But death smelled wrong. Too clean. Too…intentional. As if someone had taken the concept of “cozy” and weaponized it against my will.
Cedar smoke. Fresh bread. Something herbal that made my sinuses tingle with suspicion. Not a single note of sulfur, decay, or the eau de dragon breath I'd been marinating in what felt like mere moments ago.
My eyes cracked open to find exposed wooden beams above me, honey-golden and warm in the morning light.
A quilt that probably had a backstory involving someone's grandmother lay heavy across my chest. The window to my left showed trees.
Just trees. Not the InBetween's gray nothing, the inside of a jail cell, or even the fiery flames of hell.
Still. Too still. Like the kind of awkward quiet that comes right before someone you’ve been avoiding for months finally corners you and tells you exactly how much money you owe them.
I tried to sit up. My ribs had other ideas, lighting up like someone had replaced my bones with hot pokers. The room tilted, sparked white at the edges, then grudgingly settled back into place. My mouth tasted like I'd been chewing on Gary's shell after a three-day bender.
Gary!
“Gary?” My voice came out like gravel in a garbage disposal.
No answer. No judgmental sniff. No theatrical sigh of long-suffering patience.
Panic and adrenaline gave me the energy to roll sideways.
It wasn’t enough to mask the pain, so I bit down on the scream that wanted out as I made it to sitting.
My small success presented the victory of showing me a room that was small and tidy.
There were two doors, currently closed, and a dresser with nothing on it.
A chair in the corner with my jacket folded on it like evidence at a crime scene.
That's when I saw him.
Not Gary. The man.
He sat in a chair he'd pulled just inside a third doorway.
Big. Broad-shouldered. Flannel shirt that had seen better decades.
Jeans with actual dirt on them, not the artful distressing of someone trying to look rustic.
Work boots that could kick through a wall.
Cheap black glasses held together with electrical tape.
And dark hair that looked like he cut it himself, with a rusty hatchet.
And he was reading a book. Not watching me. Not looming. Just…reading. Like bored guards outside hospital rooms do when they're making sure you don't die or escape.
“You're awake.” He didn't look up from his book. His voice was deep, steady, and completely uninflected. Like stating the weather. Cloudy with a chance of hex witch.
“Where's my pet?”
“The snail?” Now he did look up. His eyes were brown.
Just…brown. Not chocolate or coffee or any of those food comparisons romance novels loved.
Brown like bark. Like dirt. Like things that were content to exist without apology.
“Windowsill in the kitchen. Demanded espresso. Wouldn't let me move you far.”
Past tense. Wouldn't let him. Like Gary had been conscious. Like Gary had been making demands while I was passed out in the dirt like magical roadkill.
“Who are you?”
“Baz.” He closed the book with deliberate precision. “You crashed on my land. Three feet from my ward line. The magical explosion you set off killed two trees and set my shed on fire.”
Oh. Oh, shit.
“I can pay for—” I started to say, but he cut me off. His voice was gruff and off-putting.
“With what?” He tilted his head slightly. Not curious. Calculating. “The four dollars in your bra? The potato chip wrapper in your pocket? The dilapidated car that's more rust than metal, currently bleeding oil into my driveway?”
Heat flooded my face. Then my hands. Then the curse in my chest woke up and stretched like a cat made of molten lead. The room's temperature jumped about ten degrees.
“I didn't mean…”
“To trespass? To damage property? To bring whatever's obviously hunting you to my door?” He stood, and Jesus, he was bigger than I'd thought. The chair creaked with relief. “Which one didn't you mean?”
My magic stirred. Not the helpful kind. The messy kind. The kind that happened when I was trapped and embarrassed and running on fumes. The quilt started to smoke. Little wisps curling up like accusatory fingers.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I batted at the smoking fabric, which only made it worse. The smoke turned green. Then purple. Then started spelling out words I hadn’t consciously chosen.
S-O-R-R-Y-D-A-D-D-Y
“Oh my GOD.” I yanked the quilt off and threw it at the floor, where it continued its pornographic smoke signals. “That's not… I didn't… Fuck!”
Baz watched the display with the kind of calm that suggested he'd seen worse. Or was planning something worse. Hard to tell.
“Your magic's unstable.” Again, just stating facts. Sky is blue. Water is wet. Witch is a disaster.
“It's been a rough week.”
“It's Tuesday.”
“Like I said.”
He walked to the quilt, picked it up without flinching at the heat, and shook it once. The smoke stopped. The letters dissolved. The fabric looked pristine again, as if I hadn't just tried to set it on fire with my emotional dysfunction.
“How did you…” I started to ask, but was so flabbergasted, I couldn’t finish my sentence.
“You're not the first magical problem to show up here.” He folded the quilt with military precision. “You're just the loudest.”
That should have been reassuring. It wasn't. Because the way he said problem made it clear that was exactly what I was. Not a guest. Not someone in need of being tended to by an empathetic and generous benefactor. A problem.
The curse pulsed again, harder this time. My skin felt too tight, like something underneath wanted out. Or in. My hair, which had been whatever color exhaustion had previously made it, shifted to a deep, warning red.
The mountain man noticed. Of course he noticed, but instead of commenting on color-changing hair, he busted out and said something I never expected.
“You're cursed.” Not a question.
“Uhhh, yeah.”
“Dragon cursed, specifically.” He set the quilt on the dresser. “I can smell the sulfur under your skin. Old magic. Personal. The kind that doesn't let go.”
My stomach dropped. “You know about dragons?”
“I know about a lot of things.” He moved back to his chair but didn't sit. “Including what they do to people who cross them. Or leave them.”
The way he said leave made me want to run. But my legs were shaking, my magic was basically throwing a toddler tantrum, and I had nowhere to go anyway.
How the hell does he know?
“I need to leave,” I said anyway, because stating the obvious was apparently contagious.
“No.”
Just that. No. Like he had any right to keep me here.
“You can't just…”
“I can do whatever I want. You're on my land. You damaged my property. You brought goddess-knows-what to my door. Until I know what's following you and how much danger you've put me in, you're not going anywhere.”
The curse practically purred, sending waves of heat through my chest that had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with the way his voice got gravelly when he was laying down the law.
No. Absolutely not. I was not getting turned on by the mountain man holding me hostage.
“That's kidnapping.”
“That's consequences.”
“I'll scream.”
“No one will hear you.”
“I'll hex you.”
“Just try it and see what happens.”
“I'll—” I stopped because what I wanted to say was I'll burn everything down, but given that I'd apparently already started that process, it lacked a little punch.
He waited. Patient. Unmoved. Like he had all day to watch me cycle through empty threats.
“I need to see Gary,” I said softly. “He’s my familiar. I have to know he's okay.”
Something shifted in his expression, a barely perceptible softening around his eyes that suggested maybe he wasn't completely made of stone and judgment.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.” Probably a lie, but I'd crawl if I had to.
He stepped back from the doorway. Not helping. Not offering a hand. Just creating space for me to prove I could stand on my own.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and the room cheered me on by doing a little celebratory spin. I gripped the sheet tight and willed my knees to lock. Standing was an adventure in physics I wasn't prepared for, but I made it vertical through spite alone.
“Kitchen’s down the hall,” he said. “Don't touch anything. Don't cast anything. Don't even think too hard about anything magical. My wards are already suspicious of you.” He turned and walked out, clearly expecting me to follow. “Whether they're friendly is entirely up to you.”
I took one shaky step. Then another. The curse seemed happy to be mobile again. Happy to be here. Happy about something I really didn't want to examine.
The hallway was narrow, lined with photos I didn't have time to study. The floor creaked under my weight in a way that sounded like gossip. By the time I reached the kitchen, my magic was doing that thing where it tried to leak out through my pores like flop sweat.
Gary was indeed on the windowsill. Shell gleaming. Absolutely still in that way that meant he was either deeply asleep or plotting my elaborate death.
“Gary?”
One eye stalk emerged. Slowly. Dramatically. Like a middle finger made of mollusk.
“Oh, she lives,” he said, voice dripping with the kind of disdain only a British-accented snail could achieve. “How delightful. I was just getting used to the idea of being adopted by someone competent.”
Relief hit me so hard, I almost collapsed. He was okay. Bitchy meant okay.
“I'm sorry.”
“You're sorry? You teleported us through the InBetween without a proper exit strategy, crashed into some woods that absolutely reeked of territorial pissing, literally exploded with enough magical force to announce our location to anyone within a fifty-mile radius, and then had the audacity to pass out, leaving me to negotiate with…” He swiveled an eye stalk toward Baz. “This.”