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I don’t tell her she sounds childish because I very much echo her sentiment. I don’t want to be here, wandering the woods for reasons that constantly escape me. I hold up a hand. “Let’s start over. You stay here, and I’ll wander in different directions and see if there’s any direction in which my arm doesn’t burn. You look around and search for anything a witch might need us to gather for a potion.”
Her lower lip quivers, and I mentally kick myself for putting that fear there. But she nods, if only to get this interaction over. “Okay.”
I turn into my bear form and move away from her until my arm stings. I keep a wide berth, making a circle around the area where she forages.
I shift back onto two legs. “It’s still burning no matter which way I go,” I call to her, though I’m sure she can tell as much by the pain in her own arm.
“Could you come back here, then? It really hurts.”
It’s only when she says those words that an idea clicks into place. I test that theory by asking her to come to me instead. “I’m over here, Ivy.”
Her running shoes crackle on the felled branches as she complies. Just as I suspected, the closer she gets, the more my pain lessens.
I can tell by her wide eyes when she comes into view that she is rapidly reaching the same conclusion I am racing toward.
“The witch didn’t tether us to an item in the woods,” she says, breathless.
I nod with worry attaching itself to my features, finishing the thought aloud. “They tethered us to each other.”
4
Ivy
Idon’t have a plan, though since it is a witch that did this to us, and I am biologically descended from a witch, I suppose the plan should come from me. But I stand haplessly before the nude man who just threatened to claw me to death after holding my hand so sweetly. When he looked deep into my eyes and held my hand, I nearly fell into a trance. Now that it seems we’re narrowing in on the purpose for us being drawn into the woods, I wonder what the end game might be for this witch who did this to us. Leo looks slightly less than pleased now.
“Why would a witch tether us together?” Leo asks me, his brows knitted.
I shrug, I’m sure displaying every bit of my inexperience for his judgment. “I have no idea. I’m not a practicing witch, and I’m sure you’ve got more important things to do than wander around through the woods with me slowing you down. I… I’m a therapist. It’s like, my only marketable skill. What would a witch want with me? They could just book an appointment.”
The corner of his mouth quirks, as if I’ve said something amusing. “You see witches at your practice?”
I harrumph at his teasing. “Not usually, no. But only because magical people tend to stay in Grayrock proper and don’t see much value in the outside world. I’m trying to think, here. The sooner we figure out why the witch wants us in close proximity with each other, the sooner this can all be over, and you can get back to your life.”
“My ignorant life,” he corrects me, throwing my earlier words in my face. “Since shifters, vampires and witches are ignorant people.”
“Fern said that, actually.” I raise my nose, refusing to hem and haw when we could be solving the problem. “Less bickering, more thinking, which I can’t do when you’re so very naked.” I motion to his form, my eyes determined to steer clear of his toned physique. Leo looks to be a good five or more years older than my quaint twenty-five years. He dwarfs me by several inches, and when he stands close like this, my heart begins to race.
I haven’t had sex in a very long time. That’s why I want to stare, and also why I shouldn’t stare.
I catch him crossing his arms over his chest in my periphery. “I don’t have much of a choice in the matter if you actually want my opinion on things.”
“That’s a questionable ‘if’ at this point.”
He chuckles at my sass and then motions toward the area from which he came. “Then we need to head to my place, so I can get some clothes.”
I swallow hard. “And you need me to go with you for that, because of the tether.”
He nods slowly, as if I’ve gone slow. “Unless you prefer your arm feel like it might burn off, yes. We need to go together.”
I gnaw on my lower lip. “Um, I’m not allowed to go into Grayrock City.”
Leo tilts his head at me as if I’ve said something amusing. “You’re not allowed? Fern Moon’s daughter isn’t allowed in Grayrock? Says who?”
“Fern Moon,” I reply without missing a beat. “Our apartment isn’t too far from here. She wanted to be near the magic, but not in it. Said the city is toxic, and I’m not allowed to go there.”
Leo jerks his head toward his hometown. “Well, all due respect to Fern, but if she doesn’t want her daughter around a naked man, her daughter’s going to have to come with me into Grayrock to get some clothes.”
I want to protest further. Actually, if I’m being honest, what I really want to do is hide under my covers and pretend none of this happened. Did the witch use me because I was in the woods and so was Leo? Was it merely proximity that fated our night to be spent so miserably?
