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“What was he doing?” Marita braced me when I swayed. “Unlocking your magic?”
“He can’t do that.” Derry yawned. “The Hunk would take her over, remember?”
“I meant unlocking the Hunk from her magic, obviously.”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t decide what the tingles in my limbs meant, and without magic to call on, I couldn’t check the threads for answers either. “He figured out how to remove it.” I rubbed my chest. “Or loosen it anyway.” I winced at a faint twinge. “Time will tell.”
“You sounded like someone was ripping your soul out of your body.” Marita helped me onto my feet. “Are you sure you want to keep going?”
“The alternative is going my whole life without magic.” I grimaced as she helped me walk toward where Dad must have gone. “Even if he does nothing but lessen its hold, I’ll get a reprieve.”
On the other hand, with magic already eroding the bindings, if we didn’t act, the Hunk might kill me first.
“Are you sure it would be safe to use magic then?” Derry kept pace with us. “It sounds dangerous.”
“Dad won’t lift the binding unless he thinks I can handle it.” A smile crept up on me. “Mom would throttle him otherwise.”
A slow burn spread down my arms and into my hands, but I wasn’t calling magic.
“You okay?” Marita quit walking to check me. “You look pale.”
“I’ve got that same feeling like when I knew we had to go to Charlotte.”
“I can guess why.” Head tipped back, Derry scented the air. “We’ve got company.”
“Please don’t tell me Asa caved and brought Colby out here.”
“You ask people not to tell you things—alot—but you don’t leave us much wiggle room, and I’m too hungry to get creative.” He rubbed his stomach. “Yes, it’s Asa. And yes, Colby is with him.”
Five minutes later, Asa prowled into our midst, and Colby glided to the top of the nearest tree.
“If you were anyone else,” he said, warm eyes locked on mine after checking Colby was out of hearing range. “I would question finding you laid out in a clearing with a naked married couple.”
Oops.
Guess he saw that part.
And here I had been hoping he only spotted us after I got my legs working again.
“We would have waited until you arrived if we had known you were coming.” Marita batted her lashes. “You guys ready for round two?”
Derry turned his back on us, hunched his shoulders, and cupped his junk.
“Not sure if he’s turned on at the idea of swinging with you guys, or if he’s that afraid Asa might break off his pee-pee if he so much as pretends to go along with the gag.” She let Asa take over supporting me. “To be on the safe side, we’ll begin our changes. He always feels safer freeballing it when he’s got fangs.”
Happy to lean into Asa, I raised an eyebrow at Marita. “I’m starting to think you just like saying pee-pee.”
“We have a nephew who’s potty training,” Derry explained. “Marita has become a littletooinvested in his success.”
“There’s a betting pool,” she countered. “Picking up potty training lingo is a small sacrifice when the prize is all you can eat ribs from Merle’s Meat Shack.”
“I found Saint.” Colby landed on top of my head. “He’s to the right, about half a mile out.”
“Marita mentioned a black car?” I smiled when she leaned over my forehead to see me. “Before you ask me, I’m fine. I have some good news even. Dad has figured out how to free me from the Hunk. Probably. We’re taking it slow, but it’s the most progress anyone has made since this started.”
No one had been willing to hurt me enough to try, though plenty of folks had suggested death as a solution. It wasn’t fair this unsavory task fell to Dad, but he was the equivalent of a surgeon when it came to his precision with black magic. If anyone had a shot at removing this tumorous growth, it was him.
“That is good news.” She sniffed then coughed. “You smell like burnt hair.”
