Page 59 of Witchbane

Hurts.I told him, like he couldn’t tell.Memories.More than the throbbing pulse of the infection building in my leg.

He seemed to sort through the latest batch of memories, all raw and bitter like a fresh wound.Count,Liam instructed.

I didn’t think all the counting in the world was going to help with the pain. But he began with100.

99…98…97…I worked hard to breathe as I counted, projecting the numbers at him. I was unable to stop my flinch when his muzzle returned to the branch he’d gnawed through. He carefully tugged a thorn free.

I was dropped into a memory vivid enough that I began to fight like I was back there.

Felix hit me. Not a slap but a full punch that sent me flying off the bed and into the wall. I sank to the floor stunned, blinking back stars. Books clattered to the floor around me, knocked off the intricately carved shelves due to the force of the blow.

“You’re mine. Not theirs. No matter what my father says. His tests and trials don’t mean shit.” He reached over and lifted me up by my hair. I must have passed out for a minute because when next I came to, I was nude, lying on my stomach with him on my back.

“Get off!” I screamed at him, panic filling my senses. I couldn’t do this again. “You said you’re marrying another. You don’t need me.”

“You’re mine!” He growled at me, pressing me into the bed with his weight.

I flailed and fought, trying to get him off me. He wasn’t moving. He draped himself over me in a wall of heat. Larger than I remember him ever being. But the attack had stopped. And I was hearing numbers.

28…27…26…

I sucked in air, struggling to breathe and sort through the memories. Liam was holding me down. Not Felix.

He’s dead,Liam reminded me.Forever dead. Can’t hurt you anymore.

I trembled hard. Only Liam’s bulk and heat kept me from falling apart.

More thorns to remove,Liam said softly after my heart began to calm. I could almost feel him petting me, trying to ease the fox’s terror as well as mine, despite the fact that he was still in this new kitsune form, draped over me.I am here.

Would each thorn make me relive bad memories? Why were there so many? I could barely see my leg from this vantage point. And I wasn’t willing to move Liam to look. His weight held me down, grounding, rather than restrictive. As if without him, I’d float away in a balloon of grief and pain.

Do it,I told him. My heart sped up at the thought.

He hesitated, blue gaze meeting mine for a moment. He nipped the back of my neck.Count.

I didn’t think counting was going to help at all.

Count,he demanded.

100…99…98…

He went back to work on the vines, and I fell back into memories. And while they were peppered with breaks of numbers, they dragged me through hell each time. Reliving a lifetime of pain, vivid memory by vivid memory, was beyond brutal. My few short years had saturated me in harsh experiences most people would never see. I didn’t need to remember them to know they had dug in deep, rooting themselves in my soul, ready to inflict renewed damage at the first chance they got. Liam had talked about them enough. Seeing the trauma for what it was, trying to balance our lives around it, and trying to help me heal.

I’d lived through it all. Survived, though it scarred something deep inside. Wounds too easily reopened. Which was the aim of the thorns. Dig in deep, feed on the pain, kill the host. Which was me.

Despite that vicious assault of memories, pain, and fear, I kept returning to my count. Focusing on numbers, even if I had to restart, and letting Liam rip the thorns away.

Chapter 16

It took a long time to realize he’d finished. I lay in the grass, feeling as though my soul had been shredded, memories raw and pulsing with infection inside my head. But Liam had stopped. He was again bathing my fur with his giant kitsune tongue.

If he was speaking, I’d long since lost the voice. And numbers. Had probably counted a couple thousand by then anyway with no idea where or when I’d stopped. Only that it had all become too much.

Not even unconsciousness had come to grant a boon of reprieve. I curled up on my side, cold and exhausted. I couldn’t even raise my head to examine the wounds. Were the thorns gone?

The torn bits of vine lay scattered around us. They rippled and moved like slugs. Living things rather than broken branches. Liam had thrown them a few feet away. They dug into the ground and began to grow dark squiggles of lines. I eyed them warily, but they didn’t come back our way. It reminded me a little of when Underhill and I had fought over the remains of the monsters. It had absorbed the pieces of them into the ground. These vines were like that, only becoming part of it like some tentacles of dark energy to spread more blight through Underhill.

I felt wide open. Like all the barriers had been stripped away, leaving the bonds slack. Why couldn’t I hear Liam?