Page 83 of Jagged Souls

“Lou,” Dayne says, stepping forward and opening his arms. She throws herself at him, crying and shaking, and a tear slips down my cheek.

“Pull Leno out,” I tell Khalid, needing to say it now before I lose the ability to speak, the lump in my throat growing too thick. I look at Louise. “Heal Aleric first.”

I need him and Mother to go into the Plane of Monsters with me. They know the place the best, and as soon as Leno is buried, we’re going.

“Let’s do it outside,” Maddox says as Lou starts to wail. Her father joins her and Dayne in a hug, although he looks stiff and uncertain. They are my wife’s family – a family I’m not a part of.

“He’d want to be with his flowers one last time,” Maddox adds, his voice cracking. No one mentions most of them are gone, killed by Antonio’s witch. Or perhaps it was Terra’s magic now that we know she’s alive. Aleric saw her briefly when he went off on his own, but a pack of wolves attacked him before he could grab her. Then Eduardo transported her and the pregnant breeding women away while Aleric fought off the guards.

Khalid pulls his girl with him as he nods for us to head outside. As my brothers start to follow him, Aleric steps up to Louise with a slow smile. “When you put your hands all over me, do you want my clothes on or off?”

She clears her throat, struggling to stay professional.

But if I can sense her increased heartbeat, so can he.

“Sau? You want to answer me, love?” the vampire purrs even though he keeps his eyes on Louise.

I grab Mother before she can fry his ass. “No magic for two months,” I growl. “I’m not burying you too.”

After Dayne healed her as best as he could, he told me how bad she was beneath her healthy visage. She’s missing an entire kidney and a few ribs – all eaten by the magical backlash that’s been building up inside her over the last month, and she’s at a high risk of developing loka, a magical disease that’s always lethal to witches.

It’s the same ailment that nearly killed Krypto, but with dogs, you can keep treating them until the magic is fully out of their system. With other sups, as long as they don’t use their special abilities – like, phasing for vampires, shifting for wolves, then they can live a long and healthy life. But for witches, where our magic is ingrained with every part of our body?

You’ll have three to four months to live.

I pull her away, down the hall we barely stepped inside, and out the door and into our yard.

Our brothers stand by the only patch of flowers Leno managed to regrow in the few hours we had between the attack and us leaving to save Micha. By the front porch, lies a row of various flowers, spelled to bloom as we look at them. His idea of therapy.

My eye lands on a daffodil.

It opens up like he’s watching me.

Smiling at me.

Telling me it’s going to be okay.

Krypto whines as he runs around the yard. He starts to streak off down our driveway, searching for the only one he wants.

“Krypto!” Maddox yells as he takes off after him.

“Khalid,” I say softly, but I don’t look at him. Can’t look at him, not with his girl’s arm around his waist.

Without a word, he starts to pull on his shadows. They swirl by the row of flowers. Stormie’s bubble comes out. Enoch holds her hand, squeezing it as he trembles. I don’t think she returns his love, but she holds him now. Comforts him. A friend rather than a fiance.

I look away from them too, my heart feeling like it’s about to burst. I shift in place, my eyes on the shadows, on the portal that leads to my wife. She’s in there somewhere, stuck in a cage and terrified.

We have three, maybe four days to find her before Rudy pulls her out. He might not break in that time, but he won’t risk her dying of dehydration.

Stormie’s bubble rises out of the shadows. As the black falls away, so does the pink, leaving our brother lying on the ground, his arm and leg ‘attached’ by the twins’ telekinesis. Mother takes a step forward to heal him properly before he goes, but I grab her arm.

She looks at me, her eyes dry but so damn sad. She told me once that she could never love any of us fully, not after she watched so many of her kids die. She always keeps a part of herself back so she can survive the pain of a grieving mother, so she can continue living well enough for her other children. How many kids has she lost now?

My eyes sweep around my brothers. Rudy’s absence kills me.How many more will she lose?

Krypto streaks across the yard, barking in excitement as he catches Leno’s scent. Maddox isn’t that far behind him. He’s breathing hard, having run himself ragged, having that burning need to justmove. To try to run away from his grief.

But it chases him just as fast.