Broken Bond - Callie Rose Page 0,11
kiss, then reaches past me to turn off the water. The sudden silence is deafening. “I’ll get us towels. Can you stand on your own for a minute?”
I nod and press my palm to the smooth shower wall for balance. My knees are still weak, but it’s for an entirely different reason now. This time, the wobbliness has more to do with spending time naked in the shower with a hot guy.
As he steps out of the tub and tugs the curtain closed behind him, I notice a ripple of blackness coloring the scars on my hands and arms. It happens so quickly that I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t looking right at my skin.
Fear washes over me. Even though Archer, Ridge, and Trystan stayed with me despite the witch transition, maybe they shouldn’t have. Maybe Dare had the right idea by leaving. The black magic churning inside me means I’m a danger to them all. I’m a witch—not a wolf. No matter what the shifters think or what Elder Jihoon’s magic sticks said or even what my soul wants to be true. I’m a witch, and I’m terrified of what that means.
I close my eyes and focus on taking a few deep breaths of humid air, the way Archer has coached me to do when the panic gets to be too much. After a moment, my fear lessens, and I open my eyes to see the black marks fading away. And I did it all on my own. I grin and flex my fingers a few times, silently congratulating myself on a job well done.
Unfortunately, even as the magic becomes invisible again, I’m entirely too aware of it sitting just below the surface of my skin. It’s there, and it’s there to stay. Some of my victorious feeling fades.
The thunk of the bathroom cabinet closing jars me from my thoughts. I hear a soft brushing sound—Archer drying off before he comes back for me.
My scars may be back to normal for now, but the black marks are emblazoned in my memory. Black and thick, they remind me of the dark cloud that whispered awful things to me. Now that I’m fully awake and out of the transition, I have no clue what was real and what wasn’t during those unsettled days. Could the black cloud have been a manifestation of the witch inside me? Was it a real cloud that hung over my bed and clung to me while I slept? Or was it yet another nightmare?
Just thinking of the witch inside me causes a lump to rise in my throat. What if she becomes stronger than the real me? I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt any of these men, whether it’s by accident or not.
The shower curtain slides open again with the scrape of plastic rings on metal. Cold air and light spills into the dim space, but before I can get too cold or feel too exposed, Archer wraps a large towel around my shoulders. He’s still somewhat wet, droplets glistening on his skin in the light from the fixture overhead, but he’s wrapped a towel around his waist. Probably for both his modesty and my own at this point.
Once I’m in a burrito of plush fabric, he wraps his arms around me and lifts me carefully from the tub as if I weigh no more than a doll.
His embrace is strong and protective as he deposits me on the soft rug. As soon as he’s sure I have my balance, he rubs the towel over me, looking at me with a mixture of worry and tenderness that makes my chest tight.
“You need soft, warm clothes and a good breakfast,” he murmurs, brushing an edge of the towel down the side of my face. “You’ll feel better in no time.”
“Both of those sound great.” I return his smile and focus on the soft touch of the towel on my skin. “But I already feel better, thanks to you.”
Archer pauses in his drying, then lifts one hand to touch my face. “I think you’re just stronger than you know.”
He kisses me. It’s short and sweet but laced with some of the heat we shared inside the shower. My cheeks are flaming when he finally pulls away and goes back to drying me off.
After a lifetime of horror, I finally escaped my uncle’s captivity and discovered true friendship. I found four men I care about who seem to care about me in return—even Dare, wherever he