Breakaway - Sadie Jacks Page 0,29

could access it here. If it was a little unstable.

Matt scrabbled for the words. Those precious invocations that would save him. “Transorpus Interenta.”

My brow furrowed. That wasn’t even Latin. How did he think the spells would work? “Silentium,” I said it softly. So quietly, I could barely hear it myself. But his voice cut off as his body began to eat away at itself. Like watching a superspeed version of mummification, his body desiccated right before my eyes.

As he fell to the floor, the barrier that had held back Thane and Tove evaporated. They toppled forward, crashed to the floor. As if they really were replicas of each other, they crawled forward and reached for Tagan.

“No, stop.” I held out a bloody hand. “Not yet. I need to finish fixing him.” I didn’t bother to wait for the reprimands. The shouted accusations. I turned back to Tagan’s prone body. “Stella vulnere remedium.” I covered his wound with my hands again. Prayed I had enough power to make the spell work.

Thane and Tove were speaking, but I couldn’t understand their words. I shook my head, said the spell again. Closing my eyes, I pictured Tagan’s wound in my mind. Saw the light of the spell as it cauterized the wound before it began melting the edges of his flesh back together.

Just as the last section of his tissue was mending, my brain dipped and swirled. Here it comes. The poison had finally gotten to me. One single thought burned in the black: I’d finally saved someone with magic.

Momma would have been so proud.

Finally.

Chapter 17 – Thane

“What the fuck is happening, Hollyn?” I shouted at her as her body swayed. Tagan’s body was a bloody broken mess on our living room floor. The woman who’d crashed into my life had her hands lit up like spotlights against his wound.

And neither of them fucking said an eternal damned word. I was about to go insane. The heat and rage of seeing one of my brothers wounded right in front of my eyes was scorching through my body, consuming everything in its path. Belly-weakening fear rolled over my mind. I couldn’t lose him. Not either of them. I’d already lost too much. We all had.

I reached out, touched Hollyn’s shoulder. Her eyes were closed, her lips were moving, but I couldn’t make out anything that sounded close to English. As soon as I touched her, she toppled over to the side.

“Fuck, Thane,” Tove said as he pulled her head into his lap. He wiped at the cut over her right eyebrow. Smeared his fingers under her nose where more blood was slowly oozing down to her mouth. “What the fuck are we supposed to do now?”

Tagan twitched. A full-body shiver that looked more like a seizure than a cold chill. He did it again. This time, it was accompanied with a groan that sounded ripped from his soul.

I shivered at the pain in that low noise.

His body bucked and heaved as his limbs crashed into the floor with heavy thumps. His back arched like a scared cat until he was up on all fours. His body continued to thrash.

Tove pulled Hollyn closer to his body. Tried to curl around her as our brother went insane. Tove’s eyes were huge with shock and pain as we watched Tagan in what looked like violent death throes.

With a tortured scream, Tagan’s body collapsed back to the floor. The cessation of noise was eerily quiet after the loud vocalizations.

I held my breath. Prayed to anyone who would listen. Offered my soul in exchange for his. Anything.

Hollyn began bucking in Tove’s arms as we waited to see what would happen to Tagan.

“No no no no no no,” Tove chanted as he gathered her into his arms. He stretched out on the floor next to her. He wrapped his arms and legs around her quaking body.

Tag’s body rose up, almost as if he were a puppet instead of a man. He clumsily made his way to Hollyn and Tove. He laid down on the other side of Hollyn.

Tag buried his head in the curve of her neck.

“Tag! Fuck! Thane, he bit her,” Tove cried as he tried to push our brother’s head from the helpless woman’s neck.

I scrambled over the dehydrated body of my assistant. The sound of his dry bones like sticks knocking against each other.

I got behind Tag, put my fingers under his mouth and tried to unlatch his teeth.

With a groan he pulled her body closer to