Page 3 of The Witch and The Blood Oath (The Witch and The Cowboy #2)

Walker

T hree months passed.

Three months, and Dad still laid in that damn bed. His breaths were steady and even, as was his heartbeat. The witches assured me his spirit still lingered, yet he didn’t wake up.

I had become familiar with the four olive green walls of his room and the steady beep, beep, beep, of his heart monitor. A single photo of Mom, Dad, Cadence, and me sat on the glass table beside his bed. Cadence had brought it to make him feel at home.

“She’s sick of looking at her dad laying in a bed,” I told Clyde. “C’mon, man. A girl needs her father.”

Especially when she’s already gone years without him.

I didn’t admit the words boiling under my skin. A son needed his dad too. Dad wouldn’t hear them anyway, and it would only make things more depressing. I was sick of feeling so damn sad over a man who’d let me down for most of my life.

“You’re a real asshole,” I muttered. “You couldn’t have gotten stuck like this drinking yourself almost to death. No, you had to go and do something noble for once so everyone would cry over your absence.”

As my anguish grew, magic heated my veins, and the lights in the room flickered. Humming vibrated my ears. Thea poked her head around the doorway. Her silky brown hair shifted over her shoulders, and her dark, upturned eyes were wide with concern.

“He’s going to wake up,” she assured me.

“You keep saying that,” I argued, “and it keeps not happening.”

I was being a jerk. I could feel it, but I couldn’t find it in myself to stop. My magic pulsed in my ears, and light danced around the edges of my vision.

“Walker,” she said. “You need to leave. You’ll mess up the equipment again—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered and rushed past her. “I know.”

As I walked down the glimmering hall of the witches’ healing unit, lights flickered. Magic roiled in hot waves inside me. I tried to distract myself by listing things I could see. It was a tactic Thea had taught me after I’d broken the second heart monitor.

Painting of Hecate in all her three-bodied glory.

My dad, bleeding and breathless on the ground, flashed in my mind.

Perfectly polished white tiles.

He’d told me to leave him there, and I had no choice but to obey him.

Simple, gray walls interrupted by doorways.

Thea and the others’ magic had roared in the small room he now lay in just to keep him on the brink of life.

A photo of the sunset—the single splash of red in the narrow hall.

As I burst out of the exit at the end of the hall, I couldn’t keep the memories at bay. Blinding red light eclipsed my vision. My blood boiled from its power. Dimly, like I was watching myself from above, my own magic rose to meet it. Something sputtered above me.

A hand gripped mine.

“Cowboy.” The hand squeezed tighter. “Come back.”

I wanted to. Her voice lulled me back to my senses, as did the strange tug in my chest. Every time we touched, the heat of her skin and the pulse of her power was like a beacon in foggy darkness. She appeared before me in hazy red. Her pale skin glowed like the moon had that night.

“So bossy,” I quipped. Still, my heart raced. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Just give me a second.”

Freya rolled her eyes at the endearment I refused to quit using, but her expression quickly sobered.

“Come with me,” she instructed.

She pulled on my hand, and I followed her along the cobblestone-paved path. As I focused on the warmth of her hand in mine and the night’s cool air, the red light slowly faded. As it receded, my own magic settled back into my body. I hated the way it simmered beneath my skin, but I’d learned it was best to ignore it. After all, there was no way to get rid of it.

I tried not to dwell on that.

Freya led me away from the towering apartment buildings and toward the dense forest. Crickets chirped and animals skittered. We walked along a path almost reclaimed by the wildlife. It was so narrowly carved into the woods, I’d never noticed it before. No lights lined the path, but the moon was nearly full and provided enough light, even after filtering through the towering trees.

“I really am fine,” I said. “Thea shouldn’t have called. You’re too busy to come running every time I can’t keep my shit together.”

“Honestly, I should be thanking you,” Freya argued. “One more smart remark about how I should be steering the coven, and I would’ve sent Lyra through a window.”

“I don’t know,” I said and smiled because I knew she wasn’t entirely kidding. “She seems wily. She probably would’ve taken you out with her.”

Freya locked eyes with me. “Are you doubting me, cowboy?”

Damn, she’s beautiful.

She grinned. “So, I take it my seduction is working?”

My stomach dropped, and my veins heated for an entirely different reason. I didn’t have it in me to be embarrassed I’d said that out loud. Freya pulled on my hand again, and I hurried to follow her. I was so focused on her hips sashaying in her black tights, I almost didn’t notice the gazebo that came into view as we rounded a corner.

It was nestled in a tiny meadow, surrounded by dancing flowers and grasses. Constructed of swirling black metal, a glass dome stretched over a black bench. Freya led me to it and gently pushed me to a seat. She didn’t have to try hard. I was clay in her hands.

Anyone would be.

Though neither of us had talked about what was said the night of the Bloodblade or the fact we’d both been willing to die for the other, we’d gotten good at this. And this was much easier than telling a witch who didn’t believe in love what I felt for her.

Not that I felt love.

Keep lying to yourself, I thought. Very healthy.

“You’re thinking too much,” she whispered and straddled my lap.

I grabbed her waist and pulled her closer. Our lips crashed in a tangle of tongues and teeth. She gripped my hair in a way she knew drove me crazy, and I was officially done thinking.

Moving with speed I never would’ve been able to manage as a human, I lifted Freya and pressed her against one of the gazebo’s pillars. She gasped into my mouth. Electricity danced over my skin, and thunder cracked. The air around us grew hotter and hotter. It lifted the curls off Freya’s shoulders.

She pulled away and fought to catch her breath. I couldn’t hide my smug grin. No one had ever made Freya lose control over her magic. Certainly not Ryder.

Yeah, I had asked.

“We need to talk,” she said.

I groaned, but it was half-bravado. “What happened to seduction?”

Freya rolled her eyes, and I released her. I didn’t, however, give her an inch of breathing room. She gave me hard look, and, with a sigh, I led her back to the bench. Freya knew I wasn’t actually put off. I was so obsessed with her, I was convinced kissing her had to be better than sex with most people.

She pulled her hand from mine and kneaded her knuckles.

“Sweetheart.” I laid my hand over hers. “What is it?”

Freya took a steadying breath. When she spoke, it was with the voice of the Coven Mother. “Your magic. We’ve got to figure out how to control it.”

Heartburn and responding magic heated my chest. I rubbed it and pulled away from Freya.

“I know,” I said in a rough voice. “I just…”

I just don’t know how the hell to do it.

I hated myself for it. Every time I slipped up, I put Cadence, Freya—hell, the whole coven who’d saved me—at risk.

You’ve always been a protector, Dad had told me. Now, I couldn’t protect anyone. Not even from myself.

“Distracting you works,” Freya said with an almost shy smile, “and it’s fun, but the Elders want to see a more concrete solution put into place.”

“I could go back in the cuffs,” I suggested even though my stomach rolled at the thought.

That had been the first answer to keeping my magic under restraint. The damned things, however, didn’t just soothe your magic like I’d thought. It still heated your veins, but it had nowhere to go.

I’d sweated through two shirts and my pants, until Freya finally said enough.

“No,” Freya said. “We need something more permanent. We need a way to get through to you. It shouldn’t be this hard for me to figure out. It’s witch magic inside you.”

“Yeah,” I clipped. “This is definitely all on you.”

“It’s on us,” she emphasized. “You’re coven now, cowboy.”

I ran a hand through my hair. My hatless hair. I searched the ground in a panic, and Freya laughed. She pointed her finger at my hat, on the ground outside the gazebo, and carried it to me on a light breeze.

“I was wondering how long it would take you,” she said, “to realize it’s gone.”

I snatched it out of the air and rolled my eyes. “If only I could carry it back to me on a nice, controlled wind. No, I couldn’t do something like that, but I probably could’ve struck it with lightning. Well, if that lightning took out the rest of the forest too.”

Freya crossed her arms. “Are you done?”

I mimicked her pose. “Done with what?”

“Feeling sorry for yourself,” she replied. “Walker, you have incredible magic. More than anyone could’ve expected. We just have to figure out how to control it. I have some theories.”

I sighed and relaxed in my seat. “Let’s hear them.”

“Your magic is obviously tied to your emotions,” she explained.

I nodded.

“Everyone’s is," Freya continued, "but yours seems particularly linked. Well, I think it’s because of who you are. Your heart—goddessdamn me, I hate clichés—but it’s always been on your sleeve.”

I smiled. Freya didn’t know how to deliver a compliment unless it involved cussing.

“So I need to become less emotional?” I asked. One thing about hanging with Freya, you had to be really confident in your manhood.

“No, cowboy .” She said cowboy like one would say dumbass. “We simply need to separate your magic from your heart. Think of it like muscle isolation. Both exist inside you, but they can’t be allowed to have a domino effect.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “Like being aware that you’re on an unbroke horse but not letting your body show your awareness.”

“Negative emotions obviously impact you worse,” she said and gave me that look. The one that made me wake up in the night covered in sweat and aching in ways I never had before. “But we could always practice with more pleasurable ones. What do you think?”

“Judging by the look on your face,” I said, “the answer is yes.”

Freya swung her legs over me, until she straddled my lap. Her body was so strong but so soft. Pliant. As heat traveled to where her hips met mine, magic danced on my skin and crackled in the air.

“Control, cowboy,” she purred.

“You can’t even keep control around me,” I reminded her.

She rolled her eyes. “I should’ve never said that. Your ego has gotten out of hand.”

With a hand cradling her neck, I pulled her in for a kiss. Freya didn’t resist, but the gentle touch quickly turned desperate. I tried to imagine keeping my magic calm, but it was impossible. Freya—her delicate, strong body, her hushed gasps—eclipsed everything.

Electricity crackled in the air, and wind swirled around us. I barely registered it. All I felt was Freya’s tongue dancing with mine, and our hips locked in a rhythm entirely our own.

“I see the training went well,” an old, familiar voice said.

Freya leaped out of my arms, and I scrambled to cover the evidence of what we’d doing that was very prominent in my lap. It didn’t matter that we were two consenting adults or that the old witch had already caught us. Gloria had that effect. I was certain she could shame a priest.

“You’re following me now?” Freya snapped.

“I sensed magic and came to investigate,” Gloria drawled and crossed her arms.

Instead of her usual Elder robes, she wore a simple gray dress. Most the witches looked prepared to fight at all times, except for the older ones. Freya had told me it was because their magic was seasoned enough, if the Elders were caught unawares in a physical battle, shit had already hit the fan.

She didn’t quite say it like that but that was the gist.

“I suggest you go home to your sister,” Gloria said with a pointed look in my direction. “Her training is wrapping up, and I need a moment with our Coven Mother-to-be.”

I hesitated. I did need to get to my sister, but I wouldn’t throw Freya to the wolves. Hell, Gloria was scarier than the actual wolves we knew.

Freya nodded at me, and I rose to my feet.

“I’ll see you later,” I told her but her attention was already back on Gloria.

As I walked out of the gazebo and back to the apartments, guilt gnawed at me. Freya barely spoke about it but becoming Coven Mother weighed on her. I regularly saw dark circles under her copper eyes. When she didn’t want to think about something, she always clenched her jaw and lately she’d been doing that more often than not.

I hated being her biggest problem. Though her coven no longer treated me like a lepper, most of them eyed me with distrust. Thea was the exception and Gloria too, though the old crone certainly didn’t like me. She just wasn’t as eager to put me down as the others. I couldn’t, however, blame any of them for their wariness. Every time I lost control of my magic, I flamed their fears. I had to get it under control.

I just wasn’t sure how.

As I emerged from the woodland trail and approached Hecate’s fountain, I wondered if she had something to do with it. Her three faces were immortalized in stone, and each one was as judgmental as the other. Maybe the Goddess of Magic didn’t see fit for a cowboy from a dynasty of witch-hunters to wield even a drop of her power.

I didn’t have time to ask her. Cadence would be out of training any minute. I hurried across the white cobblestones and past the shiny, black apartments. No one had gotten around to renovating Josephine’s designs, though I’d heard whispers about it.

Beyond the apartments were the witches’ training grounds. The mowed fields sprawled up the mountain and curved around the western side of the western apartment building. The fields were shaped to be hidden completely by the buildings from the road’s viewpoint.

Young witches, from six to eighteen, launched various spells at each other. Weapons were strewn about the groomed grass. At least ten witches practiced across the field. As per usual, I spotted Cadence in the patch of plowed dirt that operated as the garden. Some days, it flourished with various plants, trees, and vegetables. Some days, it was vacant. Today, a giant sunflower towered over my sister.

Good. She’ll be in a good mood today.

Cady sat with her knees pressed into the dirt, and her tiny hands squeezed the rich soil. She’d grown again because her once too-long bodysuit now reached above her ankles. Her back was to me, but I knew her eyes glowed with unnatural radiance.

Just like mine did when I used my magic. Well, when my magic used me.

Still weird.

“I don’t know, Cady-Cat,” I said as I approached. “I think it could be bigger.”

“Spoken like a true man,” someone behind me purred.

I jolted, and Azula, Cady’s instructor, laughed. My sweet sister joined in her amusement but rushed out of the dirt to give me a hug. Despite the mess, I hugged her back and eyed Azula warily.

The witch wore her usual black bodysuit, and her dark hair was swept into a tight bun. Her face was perpetually pinched, like something left a bad taste in her mouth, and it never dissipated.

Maybe that’s just how she looks talking to me.

“Your sister is making progress in leaps and bounds,” Azula said. “You could learn something from her.”

I smiled tightly and gripped Cady’s hand. As we walked back to the apartments, my sister waved goodbye to her many friends, and I tried to shake off Azula’s words. It wasn’t like I could actually train with the other witches. Not only would it be creepy for an almost-twenty-year-old guy to train with them, but the young witches’ mothers would have fits over their daughters being exposed to the anomaly that was me .

I couldn’t blame them. Every time I tried to summon my magic, it didn’t come, and every time I stifled it, it fought me tooth and nail.

“Walker?” Cady said.

I snapped out of my reverie. “Sorry. What was that?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said, “I just learned a new trick today. That’s all.”

Of course, you did. “Really? What?”

Cadence grinned and freed her hand from mine. She closed her eyes, and magic tunneled toward and radiated from her. Cady communicated with magic like an old friend. She whispered a spell under her breath. The next second, a pink swirl of light appeared before her. She jumped into it and was gone.

As panic surged in my heart, my magic flooded my system, but Cady reappeared twenty feet ahead of me, next to the damn fountain. She leaped into existence but fell in a heap. I rushed to her side.

“Cady?” Her body shook on the ground. “Where are you hurt?”

As she rolled over, I realized it was laughter that she shook with, not sobs. I sighed in relief and ran a hand over my tired face. My sister reached out, and I helped her to her feet, not that she needed my help.

She rarely did these days.

“So, you can portal now?” I asked.

Cady nodded and couldn’t contain her smile. It was incredible to see her so happy. She didn’t complain about her witch history, math, or language classes. She’d made at least a dozen friends. Every time she used her magic, her face lit up like someone seeing the sun for the first time.

Never before had she been this content. She certainly hadn’t been when her whole world was just her hapless brother and her drunkard father.

Now, Dad and I were just two stones weighing her down.

As my sister skipped down the cobblestones, I vowed not to completely sink her joy. I would do whatever it took to keep that from happening.