Flamebound A Lone Star Witch No(78)

“Thank the goddess you’re here!” my mother says as she all but throws herself into my arms.

I return her hug warily, looking around the room for anything that could be a trap. I know I sound heartless and overly suspicious, but my mother has a way of turning any situation to her advantage. And if she thinks my father’s illness can somehow be used to make me a better witch, I have no doubt that she’ll try to use it. That’s just how she’s wired.

But the pale, shaky woman currently holding on to me as if I’m the only thing keeping her from drowning doesn’t feel like she has a mercenary bone in her body. She feels fragile and on the edge of collapse.

I glance over at Rachael who hasn’t moved from where she’s standing by Dad’s bed, her hand resting over his heart as she pours into him as much healing energy as she can manage. I can feel it crackling in the air, the charge that always infuses with the world around her when she uses her gift.

She meets my eyes for a second and answers my unasked question with a small shake of her head. Damn. No improvement. But hopefully the head shake also means he’s not getting worse. I’ll take bad but stable over bad and worsening any day of the week.

Wrapping an arm around my mother’s waist, I guide her back to her chair at the head of my father’s bed. Once she’s seated, I lean in and give Rachael a one-armed hug. Then immediately wish I hadn’t.

She’s burning up, her attempt at healing our father taking every ounce of energy she has and then some. It’s a normal by-product of extreme magic usage and normally wouldn’t upset me at all. But the last person I was around whose body ran hot like that was Kyle. And even though I tell myself I’m being ridiculous, that I’m safe at home with Declan and my family, for a moment I’m thrust right back into those endless minutes when I was completely at his mercy.

I take a few deep breaths and do my best to ignore the part of me that wants to curl into a ball until the memories fade away. Lily swears that the only way I’ll learn to deal with them is to get to the point where I accept them, refuse to let them hurt me anymore. But I don’t have the time to deal with them right now and this isn’t the place anyway. It’s never been the place to deal with any of my problems.

“Have we figured out what’s wrong?” I finally ask, my throat husky with fear and pain and unshed tears.

“His body’s shutting down, one system at a time.” My mother’s voice breaks and she leans over until her head rests on my father’s leg.

“Why isn’t he in the hospital then?” I demand as visions rip through me of my father’s heart and lungs and kidneys failing. “He needs to be monitored, needs—”

“It’s magical, not biological.” Rachael speaks for the first time. “I am doing the same thing for him that the human machines could. Doing it better, actually.”

“Where is Aunt Tsura?” I ask. “I thought she’d be here by now.”

“She’s due in any minute,” my mother says. “Once she’s here, she’ll figure out what’s going on. She’ll find a way to stop it.”

I hope so. Because seeing my powerful, dynamic father like this—so still and gray and silent—has my stomach tying itself into knots.

Settling myself into the chair next to my mother’s, I reach for my father’s hand, squeeze it tightly. I feel a little like Alice down the rabbit hole, like everything I know, everything I understand about the world, has turned upside down overnight.

I’d planned to take my mother to task for her ridiculous decree about Declan—the sooner she understands that we’re together, really together, the better—but I can’t say a word to this silent, shaken woman sitting beside me. My indomitable mother looks as if one more thing, no matter how small, will break her into a million pieces.

I’m not sure how long I sit there, holding my father’s hand and praying to the goddess to make him better. It seems like both an eternity and the blink of an eye, though I know the truth falls somewhere in between.

Suddenly, my mother stiffens beside me. “She’s here,” she says, and there’s so much hope in those two words that it almost breaks my heart. Seconds later, my aunt comes striding into the room, exuding strength and power.

Tsura is identical to my mother—long black hair, golden skin, green eyes, tall, slender build. And yet they look nothing alike. Where my mother wears tailored clothes befitting a queen and always has her hair twisted into a neat chignon at the nape of her neck, my aunt looks like every Hollywood movie’s idea of the quintessential sexy witch. Her hair tumbles wildly down her back, her nails are long and painted the same bright red as her lips and she’s dressed all in black. Tight black skirt, sexy, low-cut black shirt, fancy black cowboy boots. Even her jewelry—of which there is a lot—is embedded with black stones. Obsidian, onyx and black sapphires sparkle in the light whenever she moves.