Burned » Kai Parker

32

Kai had done it.

He severed the cord to the Geminis, hopefully triggering a resounding vibration down the coven's living lineage. The brutally palpable absence of their connection to the leader boldly would serve as a burst from a flare gun, emerging through the dome of the 1903 prison world. Only the fast-approaching full moon would tell whether his unconventional SOS would be answered.

Despite how much faith I had put into this Plan C, I couldn't muster an ounce of relief upon its conclusion. Because the spell's skilled caster had passed out seconds after his last, determined chant.

"Kai," I called out urgently, scrambling to him in a panic.

Hastily motus-ing the burnt candles out of my way, I knelt beside the unconscious witch and instinctively cocooned him in my magic. I turned his face to me, checking to see if perhaps he'd be stirring and this fainting spell was the fleeting kind, but he was unmoving.

No no no–

I stopped, sucking in a breath, and tried to concentrate. His aura was pulsing with life–fainter than usual, but still something. But in this moment, I needed a certainty beyond magic. I pressed my ear to his chest and closed my eyes with relief when I heard his heart thumping.

If the spell I'd persuaded him to try would've killed–

I flinched at the thought, dismissing it entirely. He was alive, thank God. I wouldn't even entertain the painful idea of an alternate outcome.

Still, it would be a lot easier to dissuade the panic if I could actually see his blue eyes right now.

I shook him by the shoulders. "Please, Kai. Wake up." When he didn't, I frowned. "You know, being in this house alone is creepy as it is. But without you talking my ear off, it's–" It's terrifying, I thought, feeling pathetically lightheaded. "It sucks. So...so, try to open your eyes. Soon. Preferably now. Okay?"

When he didn't answer in the affirmative–or rather, when he didn't answer at all–I had to miserably concede to the fact that there was nothing I could do but wait.

I sat there for a while, tracing the planes of his face with worry etched into my brows.

Eventually, I decided to at least make sure he was comfortable in his impromptu nap. Relying on my magic for additional strength, I lifted him slightly from behind and hooked my arms under his shoulders. I was kinda proud of myself for being able to lug the muscular witch all the way to the bed. 

"Psh," I muttered to myself, while lowering him onto the mattress as gently as possible. "Totally could've done that without magic."

I adjusted his legs, shifted his arms, fluffed the damn pillow beneath his head, until he looked less like a witch that underwent a dangerously taxing spell and more like a guy who had simply decided to sleep in on a stormy morning.

Rounding to the other side of the bed, I curled up beside him and rested a hand over his heart. The steady beat of his life force was both a comfort and necessary distraction from the disturbing auras of the frozen beings downstairs.

I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out the image of this lonely, cursed boarding house and the infinite snowstorm that ravaged the empty world beyond the frosty bedroom windows. Without the cruel intrusions, I could latch onto the soothing touch of Gemini magic, the soft cotton of Kai's shirt beneath my palm.