Page 10 of My Hexed Honeymoon (The Bridgewater Pack #2)

CHAPTER TEN

At my feet, the water babbles away cheerily, unaware we’re standing on the precipice of war.

“It’s hard to explain to someone else,” I say to Diego, attempting not to focus on the feel of his hard muscles against my back or the fingers loosely wrapped around my hip. “Did you ever see those pictures that’d pop out at you if you relaxed your eyes just right?”

“I hated those,” he says, and I bite back a grin. Of course he did. They required patience, and he so clearly doesn’t have any.

“Okay, think of it like a 3D movie—every dude loves those.”

“You don’t like 3D movies?” His surprise rings through the question, as if I’ve said something crazy like I hate chocolate or something.

“It’s the glasses, and then I get headaches and a little motion sickness, and that’s not the point.

The point is, I have to sort of find the edges of the universe and pull them apart.

In the exact, right place” Even the explanation was complicated.

“Before I could sort out the threads, it was more like infrared goggles. See the fish in the stream?”

Brook trout dart between stones, silvery flashes just beneath the surface. Some kind of mayfly hovers in a flittering dance above the spring. Wildflowers in every hue bloom defiantly around us. “Yeah.”

“I can sense their lifeforce, along with the grass and the trees and the insects and every crawly and creepy creature in the forest, each of them like little glowing heartbeats.”

“I can do that with my heightened sense of sight and sound.”

I hope he sees and hears my irritation. “Well then, it sounds like you can find your own way into the Hollow.”

I begin to pull away, and he tightens his grip on my hip.

That huffing and puffing he likes to pretend he doesn’t do happens, warming the nape of my neck, “I was trying to be relatable.”

“You were mansplaining,” I retort, because I’ve been the one to give in and backtrack and apologize all my life. And on this, the day after my wedding to a werewolf I’m beginning to truly despise, I just don’t feel like doing it anymore.

Guess that means the honeymoon’s over.

At his low grumble of complaint, I glance over my shoulder and pin him with a glare. “Help or get out of my way.”

“I’m fucking helping, okay? You claimed we were going to get started, and I’m still waiting.”

Okay, now I’m going to straight-up murder him—that’s how this honeymoon officially ends. I’ll be the lady grinning and singing country songs about killing dudes who deserved it while rotting away in my cell.

It’d be one in Mother’s basement, I remind myself with a shudder as I quickly recompose myself.

From now on, I’ll just ignore the giant werewolf pressed against my back, firm fingers digging into my skin, heated breath, and masculine cologne doing funny things to my tummy.

Without bothering to explain what I’m doing, I close my eyes, shutting out the sense of sight I relied on far too much—according to Andromeda, anyway.

Probably Diego, too, the obnoxious jackass.

I reach out again, but now it’s like every creature, every tree, every blade of grass wants attention and is clamoring at me. Cracking open an eye, I see if that helps quiet some of the noise, but golden threads shimmer and surround us, immediately overwhelming me.

My breath comes out in shallow gasps, leaving me dizzy.

Diego’s fingers seem to twitch reflexively. “Are you okay?”

That punishing headache that throbbed to life last night renews its angry pounding. Why is it that the one thing I used to be able to do is betraying and punishing me?

“It’s too loud,” I say, wincing and bringing my fingertips to massage my temples.

Diego’s hand remains firm at my waist, all my blood rushing there and getting totally carried away.

I try again, closing my eyes and inhaling deeply, but the scent of damp pine and a fat frog sunning on a rock, amplifying his croak through his vocal sac, takes center stage.

“Focus,” Diego says, his low voice vibrating from his chest to my back.

“Really, that’s it?” I mutter. “You’re really bad at pep talks.”

“Yeah, well. I’m not here to coddle you. I’m here to keep you safe.”

I can’t find any stillness, and if I’m going to be tugging apart the fabric of the universe,

I need stillness. “Do you seriously think I’m not trying? We came to the most untamed part of the forest, where everything’s teeming with life, and there are a thousand things pulling at me.”

“Oh, so you think you’d focus better in the middle of town, with all the hustle and bustle of people and cars? A dozen or so strangers insisting on introducing themselves to you?”

“I don’t know why I bother speaking to you at all, as it’s clearly not helping.” But if I did, I’d say strangers introducing themselves sounds nice.

“Much like you, I’m trying.”

Anger is now the only thread I can grab hold of, and I’d like to wind it up and use it to strangle the cantankerous werewolf behind me.

I feel the hot breath he blows from his nostrils, his frustration as apparent as mine. “How do I help?”

Damn it, now I’d rather he go back to being mean, because I don’t know and that makes me feel inadequate.

“I’m struggling to stay grounded in my body.

I start sensing all the life forces, and my self-preservation instinct starts squawking, and just everything .

To the point I no longer feel able to access the magic inside of me. ”

Diego’s quiet for a moment, a blank space in a sea of overstimulation. Given my mother would’ve used the minutes to berate me and point out how much control she had of her magic, I find it preferable, ineffectual or not.

“Okay, so if you’re in your head,” he says next to my ear in a contemplative tone, “we’ve got to figure out how to get you to come back to your body.”

Ever so slowly, he drags the callused pads of his fingertips down my arm. “To stop thinking so much.”

The other noises of the forest fade, every ounce of my concentration switching to the tingly trail he’s now swiping up my inner arm. The beats of my heart come faster and faster, not waiting for one to finish before the other begins, until they’re right on top of each other.

That constant hum of magic twines with the mating bond and crackles through the air, evolving into a lively but steady frequency I can set my inhales and exhales to.

Another gentle pass with the pads of his fingers, this time from my elbow to the inside of my wrist, where he lingers. Using his thumb, he swipes over my pulse point again and again.

His touch shouldn’t help. If anything, I’d expect it to distract me.

But it doesn’t. Diego centers and grounds me, just like the vampires claimed he would.

A hint of irritation attempts to rise—I didn’t want them to be right—but then the hand Diego had planted on my hip skirts around, my heated desire pooling low in my belly.

From there he gets a little bolder, fingertips grazing the waistband of my shorts, a few inches higher than where I desperately need them.

Because now all I can concentrate on is the intensifying throb between my thighs.

It’s not even like he’s trying to seduce me, but my body didn’t get the memo, and it’s about to get carried away.

Let’s start ripping at the seam of reality. It’s not like anything could go wrong.

I do what I explained to Diego earlier, letting my vision go hazy so I can pry apart the effervescent framework that’s its own living, breathing thing.

The threads respond instantly, each fiber suddenly coming into sharp focus, their lifeforce glow amplified.

This time when I reach out, the threads don’t shy away or disappear. They start unraveling one by one, unzipping a hole in this world to reveal another.

An extra fine strand in the middle floats toward me and beckons, as if it’s been waiting and can’t take it anymore.

My center of gravity shifts as Diego lowers his mouth to the pulse point at the base of my throat, right where it connects to my shoulder.

Then he gives the spot a languid lick.

Heat spirals through me, my magic rushing up in a way I’ve never experienced before, and suddenly the entire forest fades to the background.

I’m no longer standing next to a stream; my feet are planted on dusty gray ground, instead.

“You’re doing it,” Diego murmurs, low in my ear, his voice so close and yet so echoey and far at the same time.

I draw in a trembling breath and glance around, but it’s as if someone’s blotted out the sun. Shadowy tree branches reach toward a starless midnight sky, and I tell myself the figures that seem to melt in and out of relief are merely a trick of the light.

Except there doesn’t seem to be any light.

“No arrows to point my way? A smoking caterpillar, perhaps?” I ask, my voice muffled and not entirely sounding like mine. “Absolem?”

Weird.

I swear the void hushes me, hissing in anger.

Something moves.

Not fast, not slow. Just there and then somewhere else.

Slithering through the dark. Watching and waiting.

I hear the scream before I feel it being ripped from my throat, as if discovering fear’s come for me before I even know I’m afraid.

Wait, what?

My thoughts don’t make sense, and my body’s not reacting like usual.

Eyes blink at me, two analyzing slits of white. Then a mouthful of teeth opens wide as the shadow with eyes charges.

I go to scream, but I’m already screaming.

And just like that, I’m yanked out of the darkness and returned to a forest in eastern Massachusetts.

Diego’s arms are already around me, lowering me gently to the ground. He crouches beside me, his eyes searching mine. “What did you see?”

My heart thunders in my chest like I’ve run miles. Sweat slicks my skin. “Trees. Shadows. Eyes watching. Darkness for miles and miles.”

“Any signs of the Blood Loom?”

I shake my head as my lungs continue to heave with ragged breaths—I can’t catch up on oxygen, no matter how much I inhale. “There’s something else,” I manage, and panic digs in its icy claws. “Old magic.”

A few more seconds of blinking and rubbing at my eyes, and the darkness eclipsing my vision finally gives way to daylight. The darkness that remains clinging to my soul, however, isn’t fazed by the sunlight in the slightest.

Now I know why they call it the Hollow.

Wrapping my arms around myself fails to repress my shiver, and my eyes seek out Diego’s, only to find his so steady on me already.

“Whatever it is, it wants me to know it’s watching me,” I rasp, my internal temperature dropping even lower, the hot and cold fluctuations hell on my nervous system. “Kicking me out like that was a warning. It’s telling me that whatever I’m trying to take, it’s not going to let go without a fight.”