Claimed by the Beast Bundle (20 page)

Chapter 8

“Put me down,” Crystal asked.

Hank hesitated and asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

He lowered her slowly to the ground but kept his hands on her in case she stumbled. Crystal pulled her pants back up over her hips and refastened them. “I think I’m okay,” she said before taking a step forward. She was wrong.

Her legs trembled, making her stagger to the side off the ridge of solid ground they’d been walking on. Hank caught her, but not before her left arm and leg were soaked by swamp water and mud. He scooped her back up into his arms.

“I got this,” he told her.

Crystal closed her eyes, squeezing out fresh tears. “I’m so useless. I’m sorry.”

“Hush,” he told her. He turned and glanced around. There was nothing but water between them and Clover’s cottage. “Red, stay close in case I fall.”

Ember trotted up, her muddy paws squelching through the mud. She stretched her head up and licked Crystal’s hanging hand. Not thinking, Crystal moved her hand to try to pet Ember’s head. A snarl and light chomp on her hand reminded her she wasn’t dealing with a loving dog, but a real person who happened to look like a dog.

Hank started forward and stepped into the water. He sank in to his knees while Ember half swam, half waded through the water beside them. Gwen swam a half-dozen feet away on the other side. Hank sank deeper into the water and hoisted Crystal higher. She glanced at the sticky remains of her mess clinging to his chest and grimaced. She turned away to look at the witch watching them and felt the first touch of water against her bottom.

“Getting deep,” she observed.

“We’re halfway there. I’ll swim if I have to,” he vowed.

Four more steps in and the water was up to Crystal’s shoulders. She was about to suggest climbing onto his back when he started rising back up out of the water. She turned to look at him and smiled. “We made it!”

He smiled but kept his eyes ahead. She turned back to look at Adrian and Guntar scrambling out of the water and up onto the overgrown decking. They both shook the water off and sat down, waiting and looking back and forth between her and Clover. The witch stood so still she might as well have been part of the swamp itself.

The water was still up to Hank’s hips when he reached the edge of the deck. He frowned and looked back and forth for an easier way on to it. Crystal reached out and touched the wet wood. It was spongy but didn’t feel rotten.

“Set me down, then climb up,” she said.

“You sure?”

“I’ll be all right,” she insisted.

Hank grunted and leaned forward to let her rest on the deck. He let go slowly and then turned to climb up beside her. By the time he was dripping beside her, she’d climbed to her feet and was staring at the witch.

“Um, hi,” Crystal said. “I’m Crystal. This is—”

Crystal was distracted by the wolves around her shifting back into their human forms. They rose to their feet, standing nude and careless. She jerked her head back to Clover but her focus was blown by the naked men.

“Come in,” Clover said to her. She turned to the two men and glanced down at what they had on display and raised an appreciative eyebrow. She turned and walked back inside her structure. The loincloth in back fell past the bottom of her cheeks. Barely.

Crystal glanced at her friends, this time ignoring their nudity. Guntar nodded and Hank gave her a smile. She nodded for her own benefit and followed Clover into the hut.

The inside looked like the outside, with vines and moss covering the walls and floors. Bunches of flowers grew in places that looked both organic and natural as well as decorative. Other than branches, vines, and even one tree that grew through the middle of the hut, it was an open single-room floor plan. In one corner, a collection of moss and long weeds served as a bed. In other places, tables were constructed out of wood and held together by vines twisting around the wood and holding it together.

Her eyes went to a large and shallow metal bowl that sat on metal feet beneath a large iron cauldron. Flames flickered from red coals glowing in the fire pit. Crystal stopped and stared for a long moment. The hut was everything she’d expected. A witch in the swamp, a cauldron. The only thing missing was bats, frogs, snakes, and a big wart on Clover’s nose.

“Why have you come?”

Crystal gasped and turned her head to see Clover standing next to a table, watching her. She spun back and saw the others entering behind her and fanning out to either side. She clamped her mouth shut, grateful that Adrian or Guntar could explain things.

“We need your help,” Guntar said.

She smiled. “My help? Why would a pack of blooded hunters want my help?”

“This girl—”

“Crystal?” Clover interrupted.

Guntar nodded.

“Then use her name,” Clover snapped. She turned to Crystal and looked her up and down. “You haven’t changed yet. You aren’t of their pack.”

“No, I—”

“Yes, she is,” Guntar growled, reclaiming his right to speak. “We saved her from a Beast that marked her. He meant to claim her and breed her, but she helped us kill him.”

Clover looked Crystal up and down again. “No easy task. You have no need of me then.”

“Didn’t you hear me? She’s been marked by him. His bite and his poison!”

Clover shrugged. “You should know as well as I what must happen. Breed her or let her die.”

Crystal gasped and turned to look at Hank. She saw him stiffen and his fists clench.

“It’s not that simple,” Guntar growled.

Clover disagreed. “It is.”

“She’s been blooded, too,” Guntar said. “By us and by the Beast.”

Clover tilted her head and smiled at Crystal. “That must be interesting.”

Crystal grimaced.

“Speak, child.”

Crystal’s brow rose in surprise. Clover looked like she was only a few years older than her. A far cry from the wrinkled and nasty crone she’d expected her to be. And she called her a child. Did being a witch meant she aged slower than normal people did too? Or were the crazy stories she’d heard about sacrificing babies to stay young true?

“I’m sick,” Crystal answered. “Hot and cold flashes, and I couldn’t even stand on my own a few minutes ago. I’m getting hot again now. It starts in my stomach and makes me feel like I’m burning up. Then I throw up and it’s nothing but blood.”

“Show me.”

“Show you? Gross! I don’t want to do it again!”

“There’s still some on my jacket,” Hank offered. He slipped it off and remained standing in a clinging gray t-shirt that was stained from the swamp and her vomit. He stepped past Crystal and laid it on the table beside Clover.

The witch looked down at it, squinting one eye as she did so. She dragged a finger through the sticky remains and picked it up to touch it against her tongue. Crystal felt her stomach flip at the sight and was worried she might have a fresh sample ready to go. At least Clover’s fingernails weren’t long, curly messes like the image in her head had featured.

“The blood is fighting,” Clover said. She shrugged. “What loses is cast aside.”

“What?” Crystal gasped. Her stomach clenched and she shuddered. She whimpered through clenched teeth. “Please, not again.”

“What, not again?”

“I’m going to be sick,” she hissed and looked around for something to throw up in.

Clover moved across the floor and pulled out a large wooden bowl from a shelf behind her. She thrust it towards Crystal and said, “In here.”

Crystal took it, miserable enough to be beyond embarrassed. Her stomach twisted again and her face felt like it was on fire. She gagged and squeezed her eyes shut to stop the room from spinning. It didn’t work.

She bent forward and retched, her stomach and throat erupting in agony as the muscles contracted hard enough to tear tissue and force the bloody soup in her stomach up and out of her mouth and nose. It splattered back against her from the force. Crystal gasped and fell forward, colors spotting her vision as she hit the floor and spilled some of the contents of the bowl.

Hank was there holding her and keeping her steady while she sputtered and coughed. The gags turned to sobs before she found the strength to pick her head up. “Please,” she breathed. “Help me.”

Clover took the bowl and stared into it. Her nose twitched and she turned to fetch some powders and vials that were hidden among the vegetation growing on another shelf. She returned to the table and sprinkled some of the components in before she took a narrow stick and stirred it in. She nodded after a moment and turned back to Crystal, who hadn’t found the strength to rise from the floor.

“How long, three weeks?”

“Closer to one,” Guntar said.

Clover’s eyes widened for a brief moment and then relaxed. “Tell me more,” she said.

“More? What more is there?”

“This doesn’t happen in a week,” Clover said. “Someone is lying or there is more to it.”

Crystal shook her head. “No, before the Beast I was just a normal girl trying to get out of school and away to college.”

Ember moved up beside her and leaned her naked leg against Crystal’s shoulder. The flesh on flesh contact made Crystal glance at her and then look back as Ember said, “Tell her about Stephanie.”

Crystal frowned. “What, that she used to make fun of me?”

“No, what you did to her.”

Crystal’s face burned almost as hot as it did when she’d thrown up. “I just kissed her. It was to shut her up.”

Clover tilted her head. “Did it?”

“Ha!” Ember barked. Her hand went to her lips and she mumbled, “Sorry.”

Crystal sighed and wiped a fresh bit of bloody drool from her nose. “God, this is so gross. No, it didn’t. I mean it did, but now she’s being super nice to me.”

“Super nice?” Clover asked. The witch turned to Ember. “What does she mean?”

“Stephanie has the hots for her. She’s in love with her, and I’m trying to keep her distracted because she doesn’t realize it. I think it’s because the Beast put her in heat.”

Clover’s nose twitched again as she considered Ember’s words. She beckoned for Crystal to rise and, with Hank on one side and Ember on the other, she made her way to her feet. “How did you feel?”

“What?”

“When you kissed Stephanie.”

“Oh my God.” Crystal groaned.

Clover turned and stepped to the cauldron. She reached out and cupped her hands into the steam rising out of it and raised them out. A swirling globe of smoke and mist circled in her palms as she turned back and then raised her hands up so she could blow it into Crystal’s face. “Now tell me, how did you feel?”

Crystal gasped as the wet heat burst against her lips and cheeks. The smell of jasmine and burnt metal overwhelmed her sinuses and cleared out the stink of blood and bile. She gasped and looked up at Clover. “I was hot. Not at first, just angry and determined. It made me want to convince her that she was playing with fire. That I was not someone to make fun of. That she should like me and want me. Desire me. As I kissed her, I felt that and I wanted her. It made me ache and feel like—like there was nothing more important in the world.”

Clover tilted her head to the right, lifting her hair on her left high enough to nearly expose her breast. “This is the first time you have dabbled in magic?”

“Magic?” Crystal blinked and shook her head. “Oh my God,” she mumbled. “What did I just say?”

“You said—” Hank started to say but Crystal ignored him.

“I didn’t even know I felt that way,” she said. “I mean, it was true and it explained it perfect. I just didn’t put that much thought into it.”

“The heart knows,” Clover explained.

“I don’t love her! I don’t even like her!”

Clover smiled for the first time. “The heart knows the truth. It knows emotion too, but it knows when the mind does not.”

“Oh, um, okay.”

“Does that tell you something?” Guntar asked.

Adrian stepped forward. “You mentioned magic. She’s not a witch; she’s a girl tainted with the blood of the Beast and the hunter.”

“Legend tells that the hunter came from the beast,” the witch explained. Adrian nodded and caught Crystal’s eye. “The dominant blood wins, but for you it is different. Both came at the same time?”

Crystal nodded. “Um, I think so. It was a big fight.”

“You could be a witch too,” Clover said.

“A—what?” Crystal gasped.

“A strong one. To cast a spell without training is a sign of talent.”

“What spell?” Crystal asked. “I didn’t—I don’t—”

“The love spell.”

“Oh my God!”

Ember chuckled.

“I don’t want to be a witch,” Crystal said. “I didn’t want any of this. And I don’t want Stephanie being in love with me!”

“You don’t have a choice,” Adrian snapped at her. “Unless you want to die.”

“She still might,” Clover offered.

Crystal groaned and clutched at her belly. She could feel it filling with heat again. “Whatever it is, hurry up,” she whimpered.