Chapter 38
The Bird Finds The Source
TAURUS
Iappear on a patio that’s been shredded by wind and upended by furious magic, rain driving through the shattered windows in horizontal sheets. The air is thick with ozone and the sharp, coppery tang of blood.
My wife is lying in the hurricane’s eye, naked with her crimson hair a living banner, and her eyes damn near glued shut.
She is beautiful, monstrous, and elemental—a goddess amid creation and collapse.
The shredded cushions from the other chairs whirl around her like the tails of a comet, and the foliage surrounding us shrieks in protest as the wind tries to tear it loose.
Aradia is in the corner with her claws out, ears flat, and tail low as it lashes from side to side.
She’s hunkered down behind the remains of another lounge chair, but her eyes never leave my wife.
I read the calculation in her body, the way she wants to bolt for the door but knows it’d be suicide to move.
I look at my hands, expecting blood or burns or at least a missing limb, but all I see are veins freighted with pulsing under my skin.
Seeing the mess, I realize that my wife’s magic has the power to break and remake the world with one careless gesture.
“Bloody hell,” I breathe. “It worked.”
The words taste like ashes, and I have to laugh because it’s either that or start screaming.
My legs are leaden and refuse to do as I bid them, but I struggle anyway.
When I find my balance, the safety of the stoat pricks at the edge of my consciousness.
I reach for him in the mental space—because physical contact would be a disaster—and find the same shock I found in myself.
His empath shields are so tight and bright I can see them—a slick, hard shell that glimmers like oil on water.
I immediately know he’s even more terrified than me at the condition of the woman in front of him, and it helps me calm a tiny bit.
Whatever happened in the blood-drenched instant before the storm hit, it changed us both.
The stoat is terrified for both of our mates, and he has no idea how to fix this shit.
Of course, I don’t, either, but I’m with the woman the power is coming from, even if she’s not controlling it.
My job is to get her to come out of this trance and take the power back so the storm stops.
The wind is so loud now that it drowns out everything. It’s slamming the ground with hailstones now, and at the center of this shit is me and my wife. She has to stop this before Talia accidentally fries our asses. It’s time to focus on waking her up.
I try to reach her with words first. “Minx! Bloody hell, woman! Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
She’s immobile, her eyes rolled up and lips locked as if she’s seen a horrific vision.
The only response I get is storm gusts condensing into a vortex that pulls every floating thing into orbit around us.
The porch decorations are breaking up in slow motion—first the rest of the tables and chairs fly, then the planters, then the towel bin—all lifting into the cyclone.
There’s very little left on the ground, but I can still see the exact spot where she first let me coax her out of a blanket. I focus on that memory and on her as I call her name again, this time mentally, and push it through the bond that connects us.
~Minx. Minx, love. Please. Come back.~
Still nothing, but then the tiger snarls and the wind momentarily stills. My wife’s head cocks to one side like a marionette whose strings have been gently plucked.
It’s enough to encourage me, so I put my hands on her face. Her skin is cold and blue-veined, as if she’s been underwater for hours. I feel the storm humming through her, electric and terrifying, but I also feel her mind underneath, locked up, screaming for a way out.
I have to help her come out of it; I just don’t know how.
Then I consider what she would do. I pour myself into her, every raw and unfiltered feeling, every memory of laughter and loss, every damn time I fell for her once again.
I tell her silently that she’s not alone, and that she’s more than the storm.
She can take back the reins and make certain that no one does this again.
I tell her she’s the ruler of this world, and no one, not even my primary, can take that from her.
She doesn’t move, but I see her eyes flicker and gasp with happiness.
I don’t know if it’s recognition, surprise, or both, but I think she’s trying to move.
Maybe I’m imagining her cold, wet limbs twitching because I want them to.
But she can’t stop this mess when she’s paralyzed and checked out mentally.
So I have to believe that she’s moving so I can keep encouraging her to come back.
Her eyes move under her lids again—an arrhythmic tic that, to anyone else, would mean next to nothing, but to me is a lifeline.
The movement is subtle, a shudder passed through the iris, or maybe a last-ditch resistance against whatever is using her to splinter this room into a million whirling wood and debris.
I’m desperate for any sign that the woman I married is still in there beneath the ice-white mask and the howling wind, so I cling to hope.
Maybe I am inventing it, but if I stop believing, she’s already lost.
She’s being possessed, and the thought makes my skin crawl.
My minx can raze a city if she wants, but she’d do it with punchlines and firecrackers, not with this wordless, raw chaos.
I know the shape of her magic, the particular way she bends the world, and this isn’t it.
Talia is not the right person to wield this power, and her emotions are causing my minx to burn up as she’s drained by their connection.
~No need…to…shout. I’m…not…deaf… ~
Her voice sears right through the noise—inside my head, battered but still laced with her trademark contempt for fools.
She’s making a joke, dry as gin, even as something tears her apart from within.
That’s my wife—bleeding sarcasm in place of tears, joking when she ought to be screaming.
It must have cost her a mountain of energy to send even that much, but she did it anyway, to show me she’s still got teeth.
I don’t answer right away because the wind is now battering my bones.
The air is so thick with magic it feels like my lungs are packed with live wires.
Instead, I retreat into her mind, finding the place where we normally meet—her inner palace, where every memory and instinct lines the walls in curated containers—is locked down.
All the doors are shut tightly, and the only thing open is the pipeline feeding out of her heart and into the maelstrom overhead.
Even that’s throttled; I can see it’s a pinhole compared to what’s being drawn from her.
I want to scream, but I clamp my teeth and try to keep my hands steady as I hold her face.
~This isn’t you,~ I say, as much for myself as for her. The words taste like defeat, but I have to say them. ~She’s tapped into your magic; maybe by accident when I knocked her, maybe on purpose because she wants things to burn. I just don’t know.~
~I…realize…that…jackass…~
Her laugh comes out as a fractured echo, and my heart squeezes painfully at the sound. She’s still there, and she’s still her. I push deeper, deciding that if I can anchor her for a second, maybe I can pull her out of the vise.
I stroke her cheek as I follow the wormhole through her palace to locate where the magic lives.
There are endless black corridors and locked vaults in there, and I wonder if I’ll ever know what’s in them all.
I know how to pick a lock, but I refuse to breach the places she lets no one else see without an invitation.
After what feels like days of wandering, I catch the scent of gunpowder and rose hips, the smell reminiscent of a woman who is learning not to be afraid again because she can defend herself.
This is where I need to be to help her; I know it.
Something moves in the dark, and I reach for it, but it whips around and slashes me with a coil of power.
It’s pure, weaponized magic, wrapped in barbed wire to keep her most dangerous secrets from being breached.
The force of it throws me out of her mind and bounces me off the wall behind us.
For a second, I think I’m going to black out and I wonder how in the fuck the goddess got past this shit.
When I unscramble my brains, I head back into my wife’s mind.
The outer atrium is even more chaotic than before, but I’m determined to get this done even if she beats the hell out of me with her internal defenses along the way.
Making my way along the same path, I stop when I feel a new presence in the hallway.
I sense it the way you sense a shadow at the door, or the cold shine of a blade before you see it.
Reaching out gingerly, I feel the spirit of my wife telling me I’m in the right place.
~It’s not like I purposely call up gale force storms for no reason.~ She stops speaking as I try to jimmy the locked door inside of her. ~Ow.~
I whisper back to her. ~Minx, you’re connected with Talia. You have to help me push her out of your bond until you have control.~
Confusion filters through our bond. ~I’m always connected with her; she’s my mate.
Wouldn’t she notice this, too? Why isn’t she helping you guys?
~ Her teeth are chattering, and I curse.
When she I blocked her earlier, she was only wearing a long white dress for dancing.
If I’d been in my right mind, I would have commented on how lovely she looked.
~I’m freezing; I didn’t realize it until now. ~
~She’s unconscious, love. I knocked her out. She was feeding me rage, so I’d brawl with her. The stoat told me you got hit with it. ~
I cradle her limp form to my chest. My back is to the worst of the rain and wind so I can keep her from getting bloody frostbite while we figure this out.
~I felt pain, then stabbing anger. I felt sorrow, rage, and remorse. I felt it all. ~
I rock her, trying to reason out how my woman is tapping this darkness with my wife’s shields intact. There’s something hidden—something Talia’s tapping that I don’t know to look for. ~I hoped this was you so I could put you out like I did her. Since you’re not doing it, that won’t work. ~
An indulgent laugh tinkles through my mind, and it makes my heart leap.
~Baby, I love you. It would take something more than a bond nudge to put me out.
Outside of knocking my block off, you would need a mage or witch with power that dwarfs mine.
I only know three in the universe, and they live on the other side. They’d kill you for asking. ~
I blink. “Have you been working with other magick wielders to get control of your skills? Is that why you’re humming along with no major incidents lately?”
She sighs. ~Yes, but that’s a conversation for later.
I’ve discovered much about the otherworldly realms as I travel for work.
I visit people and learn when I can. It’s helped me learn to harness—not limit—and control without suppressing.
It sounds kooky, which is why I haven’t mentioned it.
In theory, this wouldn’t be happening if I was in control. ~
I look at the devastation around me and sigh to myself, murmuring, “How the fuck do we stop it then?” Shaking my head, I speak to my wife through my mind again.
~The only time you’ve been this bad was when her emotions drove you, baby.
I got a glimpse of what’s inside her and this mess out here matches the picture I saw.
When I was inside you, I hit a darkness that smacked me away.
She must be tapping something you thought you had caged.
It’s calling to her darkness, and we have to disconnect it. ~
She goes silent and I worry that I’ve lost her again.
~What set her off? If I know, I can figure out what she's connected to. ~
Gritting my teeth, I snarl. ~Wilde. Oddly enough, it was a little about you. ~
A lightning bolt sizzles not far away and I shrink back, knowing that definitely was her. ~What? ~
~Later. When we’re not in danger of being toasted, I’ll explain.~
~I have a lot of rage and pain surrounding him. More than I share and more than I can discuss. Her empathy is feeding off some very private, very powerful emotions. She shouldn’t be able to do that. That stuff should never be loose. ~
~I’m going to open up to you and bond us.
Then I’ll have Sampson rouse the goddess.
I’ve got my shields—what’s left of them—covering you.
You need to put it back into its cage, wife, and then break the connection.
Once you do, it should cut off her access.
We’re going to discuss what kind of training you’ve been doing if this is the result of you learning to harness your powers.
That door is only open a tiny crack, and with Talia feeding your darkness, she’s got far more power than I would expect from that little opening. ~
~Oh, love. The well is so deep and grows deeper every day. It’s beautiful when it’s calm. I trust you to help me while I fight the demons. ~
~I love every single part of you, my wife, even the demons under your bed. Get ready and I’ll be here when you’re back.~