© 2014 Gem Sivad LLC. All rights reserved.

Blood Stoned, A Jinx story

Chapter Four

 

I drifted in an in-between place where there was no measure of time. Maybe I’d finally found my qi. The thought cheered me up.

I was alive but not really aware of much for a while after Hunter brought me to his camp. He held me and, from time to time, stroked my neck and licked my cheek. It would have been funny if I hadn’t been swaddled in a coarse woolen blanket that made me itch all over.  Cat-like, he couldn’t resist rubbing his skin against mine and petting me.

I could feel his worry. Even through my haze of pain it pleased me that I was the object of Hunter’s concern. I pretended to be totally oblivious so I could rest. Well, actually, I was totally oblivious for a time.

And there was that jaguar padding across my mind again… Jade eyes… I knew those eyes… Hunter has amber eyes. The jaguar batted me with a paw. Wake up. Huh, I blinked, trying to remember—anything. I’d been dreaming about a jaguar that wasn’t Hunter.

“Cold,” I mumbled. Hunter’s arms tightened around me and became bands of steel. My head weighed too much for my neck and moving my lips had triggered an ache in my jaw I’d been unaware of before.

“So, is she awake now?”

I wasn’t ready for conversation. Every part of me hurt. Groggily, I looked at Hawk and Lynx. They were sitting across the camp fire staring at me.

But it had been Dire Wolf who’d growled the question. I could see he was agitated. He’d sprouted fur as he paced behind  the log the other two sat on.

“You are better?” Hunter turned me in his embrace and I squinted at him trying to fumble an answer through stiff lips. Inside of me, the aftermath of today’s healing, bubbled, fermented and bloomed, promising a giant conflagration when I loosed it.

“Not dead,” I tried to joke, but the words emerged as a feeble croak.

“What happened?” I murmured, and then wished I hadn’t.

“She can’t heal Langdon Mars, again.”

Since the she being spoken of was me, I tried to turn my head to see which one of Hunter’s friends had offered this ill-advised opinion. Moving though, proved to be the wrong thing to do. Suddenly, cold turned to heat and an inferno roared through my body.

“Hunter, let me go,” I panted, squirming desperately as I tried to free myself. It seemed certain that any moment I would burst into flames; it was likely he would too, if I didn’t get away from him. I sat up and shoved at the cloth binding me.

Seeing my struggle, he grabbed the outer fold, and in one motion, unfurled the blanket, rolling me free of it.

My hands burned from within and I struggled to breathe from lungs that already felt charred. As soon as I hit the ground, I staggered to my feet. Hunter wrapped his big frame around me and I leaned against him, stumbling toward the back of the camp where I’d do the least damage.

Power continued to grow inside of me until I couldn’t contain anymore. Gasping for breath, I looked for a spot to direct all that magic. A boulder the size of a small horse stood in my path and for want of anything better to focus on, I slammed my hands on the slab of rock.

“Don’t touch me,” I warned, shrugging away from Hunter’s support. Leaning in with all my weight, I pressed my palms against the cool stone and attempted to cast out of me the malevolent power I’d harvested earlier.

“From me to thee,” I chanted in a hoarse whisper over and over again.

From me to thee… from me to thee… from me to thee… Like a tea kettle pouring boiling liquid, the vessel that was me, shaped the excess power and forced dark magic out and into the stone. Time was of no consequence. Had I been alone, I might have remained fixed to the rock long enough to lose my essence in it, leaving me no more than a pebble in the New Mexico landscape.

But—I wasn’t alone.

“Maggie. Enough.” It took Hunter’s harsh command to jar me back into this world. I found myself kneeling on the ground where the boulder had been.

My arms trembled from strain. I tried to open my fist but my muscles were too cramped. Cupping my hand in his, Hunter gently straightened my fingers until we could see what I clutched.

On my palm lay a green rock marbled with streaks of dark red. I’d reduced the boulder to a bloodstone roughly the size of a silver dollar. Even after I slipped it into my pocket, the rock continued to pulse and radiate heat.

*

Hunter had always known if he found his mate, whatever or whoever she was, he’d be content. He had never expected happy. But in one day’s time, the little witch had shown him joy greater than anything he’d ever conceived of; and fear bigger than he ever wanted to feel again.

He’d almost lost her. Dire was right. Although Hunter wanted to rip out the other man’s throat for trying to boss his mate, nevertheless, Maggie couldn’t be allowed to heal Langdon Mars again. She’d explained to him at least once during her long talks,  how she had no control over who she tended. Hunter knew how to fix that. From now on, he’d be the chooser.

“I’m hungry. Is their food?”

Lynx lunged for a plate, but Wolf intercepted him and growled, “Hunter feeds his mate.”

“Well someone feed me,” Maggie said, sounding exasperated. “I’m always hungry after a healing.”

Hunter slapped a steak on her plate and remembering that she ate vegetables, added one of Hawk’s potatoes.

“Thank you, Hunter,” she said when he gave it to her.

He didn’t understand why it bothered her when the others watched her eat; but he followed her from the campfire to the row of canvas shelters when she carried her plate there.

“Do you sleep in one of these tents when you’re here?”

I prefer your tree or a place in the wild. But he did use one of the tents and when he showed her which one, she ducked inside.

“I’ll get a lantern for you,” he offered when he followed her.

But it was unnecessary. A white light bobbed in the air making it easy for him to see her expression.

“What?” He asked because she looked both amazed and pleased.

“That’s a mage light,” she announced, pointing at the bobbing point of illumination. “I think this,” she held up the bloodstone she’d just made, “acts as a focus. I can feel the power in it. Here.”

He accepted the stone, but other than the streaks of red running through it, saw nothing remarkable. He smelled it and it still seemed nothing more than a lump of rock. Of course, he’d seen its original size, so that did make it special. Maggie reached for it at the same time he offered it back.

He felt the slightest pulse of heat and then, moving itself, the rock slid from his palm and into her hand.

“Magic,” she told him and grinned. “As my familiar, you’ll have to get used to it.”