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Ivy’s eyes widen in time with mine. “Is that why my left arm was burning? Leo’s my right arm. You’re my left? It stopped hurting when you found me.”
Calvin fixes her with an indulgent smile, the creep. “Then it looks like you’re tethered to this beast and also to me.” His nose brushes across hers, and my vision narrows with rage.
I don’t make the decision to shift; it just happens. I know I don’t give my bear permission to pounce, but that’s exactly what he does.
Calvin is about to find out what this shifter can do to a vampire when a leech puts his hands on my woman.
My woman?Yet another decision I’m not sure I made.
Yet here I go.
9
Ivy
Iscream into the night, but no one comes running. Calvin shoves me away from him, a smile curving his lips at the challenge of fighting a bear as big as Leo.
“Stop it!” I shout at them, but it seems I can only start fights, not stop them.
The bear and the vampire have no shame. They growl and wrestle in the secrecy of the woods like two children who don’t know any better.
But they should.
Calvin is far smaller in stature than the enormous black bear, but when Leo leaps at him, Calvin stands his ground. The two bounce off each other, and then hiss and snarl while they take swipes that look like they could knock a normal person’s head clean off.
Though they are different creatures, they go for the same weapons. When one bares their fangs, the other responds in like manner. No matter who barrels into whom, the other braces themself against the attack. Though their bodies couldn’t be more different, they seem pretty evenly matched.
They also seem pretty evenly stuck in their stubbornness.
“Calvin, no!” I cry out when the vampire wrestling the bear ends up on Leo’s back. “Don’t actually hurt each other!”
After my futile attempts at trying to get them to grow up go largely ignored, I go for the only resource I can think of.
I run. They might have fangs and claws and bulk, but I have running shoes.
If they’re both in pain when they’re away from me, then I will bring these adult children to their knees until they swear they won’t pull this shit again. I don’t have time for this. I want to solve this puzzle and go home.
My lips still sting with the humiliation of Leo’s rejection as my arms pump through the pine-laced air. I can feel the spot on my hip where Calvin’s thumb felt like it belonged. I didn’t have the will to argue with his thumb, so I let it stay on my body, and then tucked myself into his side.
I’m not used to this much male attention in one day. I feel drunk on my hormones that I haven’t heard from in years.
I race until both my arms burn with the sting of being away from the two men to which I am tethered.
Two tethers. Why?
I slow but don’t stop, not wanting to let them off the hook easily. They should feel the sting of it, so they learn to do better. If we want to solve this, we can’t devolve into fist fighting at the first sign of frustration.
I jog through the forest until the pain is so acute that I stumble forward, scraping my hands on a jagged rock. I crawl forward yet again, determined to show them that I am not a toy to be cast aside when their testosterone flares out of control.
Two tethers. The truth keeps slapping me in the face. Why would a witch tether me, of all people, to anyone? And why would they tie me to two someones? For what purpose?
How will this even work? Calvin and Leo are perfect strangers to me. Not to mention the fact that they can’t be near each other without blowing up.
And why me? Ivy Moon, with no magic and a limited understanding of Grayrock society.
My shoulders slump and my arms go out from beneath me. My face collides with the dirt, and I decide this is the place where I will rest. My self-loathing and my burning arms are too heavy to carry much farther.
I hear my name being called, but I don’t get up.
