Chapter Three
Going home that afternoon had not been the easiest thing to do.
But she did it.
With a satisfied groan, Callie flopped onto her couch, proud of herself. It might’ve been worth noting that her apartment was directly above her shop, just one flight of stairs away, but climbing those stairs with legs made of emotionally instable Jell-o deserved self-celebration.
After Mr. Fraser had left her with that piece of paper that might—hopefully, finally—change her entire future, she’d called her mom and cried.
Then she’d called Owen’s sister. Cried with her too.
She didn’t cry when she called Rex, the pack’s Alpha, but then she called her mom again to report on those calls and, yes, cried some more.
Oh well.
She had her reasons.
She closed her eyes and reached inward, seeking the only thing she still had of him: their soul bond. It was just a shadow now, a whisper of what it had once been when he’d stood beside her in the flesh. But it was there. She found it pulsing, alive. Distant, yes, but steady. A lot like their love.
It didn’t matter how faint it was. She could still feel him. His love. His spirit. It was the only thing that had kept her from shattering, especially in those first brutal months, when a truth soaked in betrayal, jealousy, and ancient magic came out.
She’d known Corwin Vexley, another werewolf from the Mystic Hollow pack, had been in love with her.
He hadn’t exactly kept it a secret. But her choice had always been clear.
It was always Owen, even before the bond revealed itself.
It would always be Owen. And when the bond did manifest and they announced it to the pack, Corwin snapped.
He hired a demon to curse Owen because if he couldn’t have her, no one would.
That dumbass. As if turning Owen into a ghost would make her forget him.
Corwin had been tried by the pack and sued by Callie, Owen’s sister, and the Pack. He’d done time, and had been rejected from any pack whose territory was in Washington State when he got out.
Justice. Yay.
But she’d remained as she was: bonded to a ghost. In love with a man who existed one night a year.
If he was cursed into spirit, she was cursed into almost.
To have him, but not hold him.
To ache for him, but never be fulfilled.
To chase her dream of becoming a seamstress and building a life out of threads and laces without the man who first told her she could do it.
That she was strong enough to do anything.
It was because of him she’d made it despite her broken heart.
So that one day, when she brought him home, she could show him.
Thank him. For believing in her. For loving her.
I’m doing it, she thought, wiping a tear from her cheek. I’m bringing you home this time, my love.
Comfort pulsed through the bond, soft and warm, as if wherever he was, he’d heard her. And he was trying, just like always, to hold her up.
I just have to stitch you back into existence, she thought on a shaky breath. What could possibly go wrong?
The sensation of his chuckle came back to her, made her smile–right before making her free-falling into another fit of the ugliest cry ever reported because she missed him so much, and she’d been trying so hard all those years only to end up with nothing and now she had a chance that was possibly the best one and what if it didn’t work like all the other times and he would remain forever locked into–
The shiver of his love run on her skin, chasing off the worst of the fear. He’d tell her it would be okay. That she was strong. That she’d find a way out.
She still wanted him out of ghost form and back in her arms but okay, yes. She appreciated the feeling.
Callie wiped her eyes with her sleeve, then fished around in her jeans pocket for a tissue. Found one. It was old, bare, vaguely crunchy, and a whole lot disgusting but it did the job. Sort of. She blew her nose and felt like she’d detonated a bomb inside her head.
She collapsed back on the couch and closed her eyes.
So.
She had one week to get ready.
Under normal circumstances, she could make a shirt in a day. Easy. But this wasn’t normal. This shirt would be sewn with her own blood. A decade of heartbreak wasn’t enough, obviously, and freaking magic needed a little physical pain and sacrifice to seal the deal.
Because of her deeply personal and mostly faint-y relationship with blood, that alone would delay things. All the things. Which meant she had to make some adjustments.
She picked up her phone and texted Derek. He was expecting a custom-tailored vest for the Halloween Ball. He would get it, only a day later than what he’d expected.
Then Yvonne, her anxious and very sweet bride with a mild tendency to hyperventilate. Hey! Just a heads-up that I’ll need to push fittings back a few days. Everything’s on track! Just doing some design recalibration. Promise your dress will be breathtaking.
She wasn’t completely lying.
She’d never tell Yvonne she was taking a few days off her wedding dress to stitch her undead boyfriend back into reality. She wasn’t dumb. Yvonne would freak out for the dress and on her behalf, too. She had enough of a head start that the whole truth wasn’t needed.
Callie rolled into a more comfortable position, pulled a pillow under her head, and let her job fall away from her thoughts. She focused on the bond.
And fell asleep with him in her dreams.
She could totally do it.
Could totally cut herself and get some blood.
Callie stepped into the center of her workspace filled with pins, threads, chalks and stared at what waited for her on her desk–the silver blade and the shallow glass dish filled with the thread.
She bounced once. Shook out her arms and rolled her neck with a low exhale. Two light slaps on her cheeks were added to wake up her courage. She inhaled deep.
“Okay, Callie. You’ve got this. You freaking got this.”
Then went through another checklist. Not to procrastinate. Definitely not. She always ran checklists. Most of the times. But this time was too important, for real, so she would do another checklist. “Measurements? Check.”
She swallowed a rush of pain. It didn’t matter it had been a year since the last time she’d touched him.
She knew the breath of his shoulders, the span of his chest. How he towered over her in protection not as a cage but as a shield.
She breathed in, long and slow. “Soon,” she vowed. “So very soon.”
Callie shook off the melancholy and forced herself back to the task.
“Design? Finalized. Pattern? Custom cut. Seam plan? French, of course. Fabric? Blessed and pressed.” She ran the tip of her fingers on the deep-green linen, the color and fabric he favored, already prepped and cut.
“He’s gonna be the best-dressed un-ghosted werewolf ever. “
Because no one was more paranoid than a human who’d tried her hand at magic only to fail spectacularly for ten darned years, she’d cut every piece of the linen with the silver blade Mr. Fraser gave her–which, by the way, in no way was simply a silver blade.
It was way too sharp and made the process incredibly easy.
Cutting linen with a knife would have been a pain in her butt with any other knife.
And she would have done it anyway because hey, if the magic wanted silver, she’d give the bish silver.
There was even a custom-made silver needle waiting in her sewing machine.
Everything was ready.
So, okay.
She cracked her knuckles, rolled her neck like a boxer about to enter the ring.
Okay.
Okay. Okay. Okay.
She cleared her voice just to add some sound to the entirely too quiet room.
Searched for the number of Melisandre, the town doctor, and ready it in case she needed to call her. The doctor and witch told her to let her draw the blood in her office, but she’d refused. Again, if the magic wanted sacrifice, she’d give it all to it.
To be more specific, she was about to withdraw two tablespoons of her blood and soak all the 250 yards of threads she’d need to sew the shirt. She had to mix her blood with the one of the demon who cursed Owen, thankfully, or it would have been almost twice as much. Lucky girl that she was.
She grabbed the knife–then remembered she’d left the post-bloodletting seamstress kit in the bathroom.
Callie was not about to bleed out on her ironing board over this.
She got stitches to do and a werewolf boyfriend to bring back, so she’d do what was needed, patch herself up, and do the man-retrieving.
Back at the chair, she put the kit close to her and took the blade again. “Just a little slice. Nothing major,” she murmured.
Melisandre told her she’d only need a 1.5 to 2 inch long, shallow cut, just deep enough to break the skin and reach the capillaries. The doctor said all she needed was, basically, a deep papercut with purpose, 1/16 inch deep. She had no clue how she’d measure that so she’d just... cut.
Alright.
Okay.
She braced herself, jaw tight, fingers clenched white around the silver blade’s handle.
Her skin was already slick with sweat even though the room was cold.
Her nerves snapped and sparked beneath her skin, like her body couldn’t decide if it was terrified or electrified.
Possibly both because this sucked, but it might also work.
“You might not have magic,” she muttered to herself.
“But you’ve got a needle, extremely good linen, and enough love to power a small country. It will beeping work.”
Her hand trembled and she had to reposition the blade against the inside of her left forearm—the non-dominant, because obviously—and took one final breath.
This sucks so hard. But he wouldn’t flinch, this is exactly what he would do for me so shut up, Callista, and cut.
Her heart pounded like it was trying to escape. Maybe it was. Her stomach twisted. Her vision swam with a cocktail of fear, adrenaline, and the memory of his laugh. She blinked, hard. “Please,” she whispered, voice cracking. “Let this work. Let this be the time it works.”
She sucked a strained breath in. Then dragged the blade on her arm.
She had no idea how deep she’d gone, but pain bloomed under her skin. Stinging, biting, then burning like fire. As she moved the blade, a metallic tang filled her mouth. She hissed through her teeth, whole body tensing as blood surged up in a fast, dark line.
“Oh my god,” she choked, her voice tight as she dropped the blade and clutched her arm. “Why does this hurt so much?”
Sweat rolled down her temples. Pure adrenaline blurred her vision as her entire body clenched in a cramp, the pain ricocheting down to her fingertips.
“I am one hundred percent too human for this,” she gasped, looking, looking, looking at the blood fill the container. “I don’t even have healing powers. I have the magical equivalent of Neosporin, courtesy of Melisandre. And regret. No, no regrets, actually. Because–fludge this hurts.”
She angled her arm over the glass dish, watching as thick drops of blood kept soaking the waiting thread.
The linen strands absorbed it quickly, greedily, like they’d been waiting.
She had no spell to speak, no sacred words.
Just her blood, her hope, and the throb of desperation pounding behind her eyes.
A wave of nausea hit. She blinked hard, breathing through it. “Do not pass out. Do not faint. You are stronger than this. You can survive this stupid-butt thread-soak.”
She wiped her forehead on her shoulder and groaned softly. The cut burned like hell. She was starting to shake.
“This thread better stitch itself into a goddarn miracle. I am bleeding for you, Owen. This is peak girlfriend behavior.”
Another drop of sweat slid into her eye. She winced, pulled her arm back once the thread was fully soaked, and slapped a scrap of clean cloth over the cut. Pressed hard. The cloth turned red almost instantly.
She swayed a little, breath hitching.
And still, when she saw the thread gleaming red in the bowl below, her heart grew two sizes with happiness.
She did it.
“Oh my god I did it!” She would totally jump around but her head was still a little high so she fist-bumped the air.
She texted Melisandre that she was done and still alive, then started the patch up-part.
The antiseptic Melisandre gave her, spiked with something magical, burned almost as much as Mr. Fraser’s whisky when she dabbed the cut with it.
She should have asked him to leave her some of the spirit.
She kept the pressure for a few minutes until the bleeding stopped–definitely a magical antiseptic.
Then she wrapped a sterile gauze around her arm, closed it with a sewing pin.
She’d rub some balm Melisandre had given her later.
The she let go heavily on the back of the chair.
“Fluck me,” she said, more cheerful than she’d been in days. “It’s done!”
Almost done. The demon’s blood must be added to the thread, which she’d do as soon as the vertigo stopped. She’d let it soak for an hour or so, then she’ll move it to a piece of parchment paper to dry, and then make a bobbin and the spool of thread.
But those were details. The main thing was, by the end of the day she would have what was needed to finish his shirt.
And in three days, she’d be ready to bring Owen home.