grab Callum, but it fell back to my side. The place over my heart stung and tears burned in my eyes.
Callum placed his hand over the spot. His eyes flashed purple as he spoke louder, repeating the same few phrases over and over. Just when the pain was beginning to be too much, it faded. My skin tingled, and that strange feeling of something moving inside my veins was nowhere to be found.
The chanting came to a sudden stop.
I gasped and jerked my head up, meeting his purple eyed gaze. The purple then faded as his eyes returned to their normal shade of blue.
“You did well,” he said in a shaky voice. He wobbled a little before bracing himself on the table. My strength was gradually returning, but now he was the one who looked as if he’d topple over any minute.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I will be.” He grabbed a cloth and wrapped it around his bloody hand. “Blood magic isn’t to be taken lightly. I’m useless for a while after I use it.”
“Isn’t blood magic supposed to be evil?”
“Forgive my rudeness, Carter, but I haven’t the strength to answer your million questions right now.” He stepped to the side and started to fall.
I jumped off the chair and caught him before he hit the floor. He was a lot heavier than he looked. Or maybe I was just a weakling. His eyelids fluttered as he fought the exhaustion taking him over.
“Come on.” I put an arm around him and helped him back to his feet. “I’ll help you get to the couch. Do you want me to make some tea?”
“That would be excellent,” Callum said, leaning against me as we walked from the room. “How do you feel?”
“Better,” I answered, relieved that I no longer felt like someone else was poking around in my skull. My headache had completely gone away as well. “All thanks to you.”
After I placed him on the couch, I went back into the room for my shirt and hoodie. That’s when I glanced down at the mark on my chest. It looked like a tattoo. A half circle had two lines slashing through it, reminding me of a shield. I ran my fingers over it, surprised that it felt so smooth.
I put my clothes back on and left the room, closing the door on my way out. A gut feeling told me to do so. There was a lot of magic in that room. Best to keep it contained.
“Do you know how to make tea?” Callum asked, lying on the couch with an arm across his eyes.
“Yep. My granny taught me.” I filled the kettle with water and placed it on the stove. “We used to sit and talk as we drank tea and ate cookies. I know that might sound girly or childish or whatever, but it’s a time with her I’ll always cherish. She was a great woman.”
“She’s proud of you, you know.”
I flipped around, confused.
Callum moved his arm from his face and looked over at me. “I can speak with spirits. Sometimes I can only reach them through a séance or Ouija board, but when they want me to speak for them, they come directly to me.”
“Has she said anything else?” I asked, walking into the living room and sitting in the high back chair beside the couch.
“She wants me to tell you she’s not in pain anymore and that she’s happy.” Callum sat up a little and shoved a few pillows behind him. He then chuckled. “She also says to, and I quote, ‘Remove my goddamn yarn from the living room.’ I didn’t know she had a mouth on her.”
I choked on a laugh. “That’s my grandma for you.”
Even from beyond the grave, she was giving me her life lessons. I needed to let go of a lot of things. It wasn’t healthy to hold on to them and pretend everything was as it used to be because it wasn’t.
“Do you have anything to clean your wound with?” I asked, standing from the chair. “It doesn’t need to get infected.”
“The bottom shelf in the bathroom,” he answered, looking at the wrapping on his hand. Blood had started to seep through the cloth. “You really don’t have to. I can do it later.”
“After what you did for me, I owe you big time.”
Once getting the stuff from the bathroom, I doctored his hand and put a fresh cloth around it before taking the kettle off the burner and steeping some