The Responsible Witch (The Ward Witches) (6 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Gage, however, wasn't sleepy. It was still early afternoon, after all, and while the healing process took some of his energy, he still had plenty left. He looked down affectionately at the woman who had bared her soul and her fears before him. He knew that wasn't easy for her. She had a hard shell for a reason, but she let him in. Then, with less of a fight than he had expected, she let him claim her as his own. They were bonded now, and he felt her in his magic
already
.

Fiona could do her spell now and save his life from the blood magic's pull. But he knew with a good amount of confidence that he was going to need Dymphna to give his new life meaning. He had seen into her soul, and he had already begun the slide towards falling in love with her. And Gage knew that the inevitable end to that would be falling irrevocably in love with Dymphna. But he wasn't afraid, at least not for himself. If anything, he was afraid for her because he wasn't sure he could be everything she needed him to be.

Without waking her, he slid out from behind her and covered her up with her blankets. In his boxers, he called Fiona's cell from the bathroom.

“
Fiona Ward.”

“
Fiona, it's Gage.”

“
Am I right in assuming you have good news?”

“
The bond is in place. She's sleeping it off now.” Fiona heaved a sigh of relief. “But I still am not sure it's what's best for her. If I'm what's best for her.”

“
Don't get too worked up about it. If you take her brothers as an example, your magic and whatever makes it so aligned is a good indicator that you're good for each other. I love Dymphna, but I can tell she's been lonely. She hasn't even fully realized it yet, but she was getting there. Hopefully before she does you'll be ingrained into her life and she won't have to worry about it anymore.”

“
I'm starting to feel it already, Fiona. Not the bond, I mean. The blood lust. It's not strong, but I can feel a nagging sense of it in the back of my mind,” he confessed.

“
I understand,” she said, serious. “I'll be over in the morning with all the runes for my spell. If it's possible to overcome the blood lust, we'll do it.”

“
Thank you.”

“
It's no problem. After all, you're family now through your new bond with Dymphna.”

“
Speaking of, I'd better get back to her. She's sleeping, but I wouldn't want her to wake up without me there.”

“
Good idea. See you tomorrow.”

“
Alright.” He hung up and returned to the bedroom.

Back holding onto Dymphna, he fell asleep fairly quickly, despite the early hour. But he had dreams all night of blood. He saw the runes etched in blood that would do a particular spell, then another spell. He tried to fight it, to shake off the nightmares. But it didn't work. He couldn't even wake up to get rid of the constant pressure.

Dymphna woke up before sunrise. She usually didn't wake up this early, especially if it wasn't a workday. Then she remembered the bond, right about the time she became aware of Gage. He was asleep next to her, but he was tossing and turning violently. It was like he was trying to throw something off of him, though he had already gotten rid of the covers. Not knowing what else to do, she shook him by the shoulder.

“
Gage! Wake up; it's just a nightmare!”

It took a few shakes, but he woke up. And when he looked at her, his eyes were unfocused and raw with an emotion she couldn't place. Then he realized who she was and where he was, and he sighed, closing his eyes again.

“
I'm sorry,” he said, eyes still closed.

“
For what? The bond? The nightmare?”

“
Both, I suppose.”

“
Well don't be. What was the nightmare about, if you don't mind me asking?”

“
Not at all. I'll try to describe it as best I can. It was a kind of pressure to use blood magic, as if it were reminding me what kind of power would be at my fingertips if I ever chose to use it.”

“
No wonder you were distressed. When can we do this spell to get the taint of it out of you?”

“
I called Fiona yesterday while you were sleeping. She said she'd come by this morning with her gear.”

“
Good. If it can be done, Fiona is the one to do it. Her sheer force of will can make a weak man break.”

He laughed. “Good that she's on our side.”

“
That's for sure. Let me go see if Skylar's awake and if I can get you some fresh clothes. Then we'll see what Fiona's plan is.” Dymphna got dressed, trying to hide a little from his scrutinizing gaze. She may have just had sex with him, but she wasn't entirely comfortable being naked around him yet.

Skylar had left clothes beside the door, and Dymphna passed them to him before going down. Despite the early hour, Skylar and Leo were eating breakfast in the kitchen.

“
Morning, guys,” Dymphna said, trying to be light.

“
Good morning,” Leo responded. “I see you took advantage of your alone time last night.”
After bonding with someone, both people had a change in their magic to indicate it as such. Leo would have no trouble seeing the difference in her as soon as she walked into the room.

Dymphna blushed bright red. She stammered. “Yeah, I did.”

“
Good for you. Congratulations,” Skylar exclaimed. “You deserve to have someone in your life. He seems like a good person.”

“
Come on. We don't really know him since he doesn't really even know himself.”

“
He may not have his memories, but he still has the same characteristics. His magic is compatible with yours, which means he is compatible with you. Since you're a good person, he must be as well. Besides, he's shown that even under torture, he still refused to use blood magic.”

Dymphna looked for a flaw in Skylar's logic, but was having a hard time finding it. Then Gage came down, and her mouth watered as she watched him. Apparently the physical attraction hadn't really eased after sating the bond.

“
Welcome to the family,” Leo said, calmly eating his breakfast.

“
You're not even going to threaten him? Like, take care of my sister or else?” Dymphna asked, horrified. She had waited on having sex for years for fear of her brothers' retaliation on her boyfriend.
Now he wasn't even going to threaten him?

“
No. I'm not. We've established that he's a good person, and his magic is tied to yours. Besides, I shouldn't have to state it explicitly for him to know that if he ever hurts you, he will want to flee to the ends of the earth to avoid retribution.”

That was more like it, though Leo's voice was still calm and nearly uninterested. But Gage didn't even seem worried. He took the plates out of the oven, where they were staying warm, and passed one to Dymphna before sitting down next to Leo.

“
I'm not worried. I'd rather hurt myself than hurt her. As I told her, I would have gone through the blood magic withdrawal rather than force her into a bond with me. Luckily, that wasn't necessary. Aren't you going to eat, Dymphna?”

She was still staring at her family, aghast. They just accepted him, no muss, no fuss. They had an easy attitude around him, as if they had known him for years. She closed her mouth and ate her breakfast in silence. She just watched while Gage thanked Leo for the clothes. Leo made some kind of joke, and they all laughed. Then it was just easy conversation. What a weird turn of events.

Fiona rang the bell shortly after Dymphna finished cleaning up the dishes. If Skylar cooked, the least she could do was clean up. Skylar let her in, and they all convened in the living room. Fiona spread papers across the floor and put her considerably larger than usual bag right in the middle.

“
I'll need to draw these out with my
enchanted
powder. We should do it outside or somewhere that will be easier to clean up.”

“
Sure,” Skylar said, and she and Leo went to clean up the back porch for that purpose.

Fiona rounded on Dymphna. “Now that you're bonded to him, you'll need to take an active role in this. I'll start the spell, and I'll feed it with my magic. Seb gave me some of his earlier, so I'm on a little bit of a high. I'll take care of the cleansing myself, but that will take most of my magic. So you'll be doing the recovery. I've got the runes set up so I can guide you into his mind. From there, you'll need to find his spirit yourself. I'll leave a kind of trail of breadcrumbs, and you'll follow them back. Now, I don't know how it'll all go down. But there's a chance that when you look for his spirit that you can find where his memories are hidden as well. If you do, you can forcibly bring them back. It'll work a lot like your healing magic. If you don't find the memories, we'll search for them again later.”

“
Alright.”

“
Are you ready?”

“
Yes,” Dymphna said. She wasn't totally sure, but she had to do it. For Gage, and for any possibility of a future between them.

“
Yes,” Gage echoed.

“
And you know that there's a strong chance your coloring will end up like my own?” Fiona asked, indicating her brightly white hair and purple eyes.

“
I'll take the chance.”

“
Good. Let's see if Skylar and Leo are ready for us.”

They had completely cleared the porch. The four of them watched on as Fiona drew her runes in some kind of powder, chanting something. She sprinkled a mix of herbs in a circle around the whole thing. Then she spritzed the whole area with some kind of liquid in a spray bottle. All the while, she never stopped her chanting.

“
I'm ready. Gage, sit there in the middle. Right on top of that rune. Dymphna, on that rune. Be careful to disturb them as little as possible.”

“
What can we do?” Leo asked.

“
Skylar's job is to make sure no one interrupts us. I don't care if it's Seb himself, no one but Leo can stop the ceremony. Leo, you need to use your air magic to monitor our magic usage. If we get into dangerous levels of magic left, you need to stop it. Use whatever means you can, from magic to physically moving us out of the circle. Understand?”

“
Yes,” they both said.

“
Good.” Fiona settled herself, then joined hands with Gage and Dymphna to make a triangle. “Let's get started. Remember, this probably will hurt Gage because it's going to strip him down to his soul and perhaps farther. Don't stop if it hurts or if he makes a noise.”

Everyone went silent, and Fiona began. Dymphna wasn't involved in this, but through the link, she could feel the edges of the spell through her bond with Gage. She was ready for it to be time for her part. Dymphna wasn't used to sitting in the passenger seat, and she didn't much like it. Especially not when it came to her own bond-mate. Even in the early days of that relationship, she felt it strongly.

The spell built and built until it became nearly palpable.
She felt it moving around between Fiona and Gage for what seemed like a very long time but was probably only a few minutes in real time.
Then it exploded, shattering like glass that dealt hundreds of little cuts as the explosion rocked the world. Gage screamed. Fiona had warned them that he would, but when it came time that Dymphna heard it, she was still surprised. It sounded like a keening wail of agony. She didn't like that at all.

Gage collapsed onto his side, and the two women made sure not to break physical contact. Then Fiona's voice spoke in Dymphna's mind. “Come with me.”

Dymphna closed her eyes and let her magic follow where Fiona led. Then, Fiona withdrew. “Call me when you need me.”

In a skewed version of her healer's trance, Dymphna could see around her. It looked like she was in a warped bank vault, drawers all over of different sizes. She imagined that Gage's spirit must be in one of those drawers. So she started pulling them out, starting with the largest and going to the smallest. Nothing happened. They were all empty. Then Dymphna thought of Fiona's words about forcing change through her magic.

She stepped back and treated the wall of empty open drawers as if it were a door. Then she used her magic to blast it open. As much as that didn't seem to make sense on the surface of it, it worked. She moved into the next room, revealed when she blasted away the wall.

This room was like a cave, complete with slimy dripping walls. In the center, resting on a bed of algae, was a chest that looked like it could have come off a pirate boat. It seemed to sing in a low melodious voice. Somehow, and again she couldn't explain really how, she knew that was where Gage's memories were locked. Dymphna had given up trying to explain how magic worked long ago,
and this spell was far away from her normal range of understanding as it was
. She tried forcing the lock to make it open.