My bear roared inside me, his instinct to let nothing step between his woman and himself making him angry and possessive. But I knew better, and I gently reassured my bear of the truth. No matter what this man said, Emma cared for me. She wanted to be with me. Vance could puff out his chest and strut around all he wanted, it wouldn’t affect our relationship.
No, I wouldn't forbid Emma from going, couldn't, but I could count the seconds until she was back. Then remind her, very thoroughly, that I had far more to offer her than this vampire.
TEN
Emma
It'd been a reallylong day and not as satisfying as most. Usually when I was this tired and this beat up, I'd had a successful mission. But not today. I'd done my best, yet it wasn't good enough. The nice thing about working in a partnership with Beth though was that we got to share our defeats just as much as our successes, and after a little while even hard days felt easier.
Staring down at the contents of our small first aid kit, I glanced at my injuries. "I don't think this will be enough."
Beth gave a little nod. "I'll grab the bigger kit." As she went upstairs, I again was thankful for our more comfortable office/house situation.
A knock at the door made me groan as I climbed to my sore feet and dragged myself to the front door, but when I threw it open and spotted Deva with bags of food from her restaurant, I almost moaned in happiness. "You are a sight for sore eyes!"
"You mean the food is?" She said, with a grin.
My stomach growled, loudly and embarrassingly, in response. "It has been a while since I ate, and I definitely worked off my breakfast and lunch."
Standing back, I let Deva in, and she hurried to the kitchen. I closed and locked the door behind her, then watched as she started setting things out on plates and moving them to our little table. Deva had personally filled our kitchen with things she felt she would need. I'd barely looked in the cupboards, but Deva seemed to know exactly where everything was.
"Need any help?" I finally managed.
Her gaze ran over me, and she laughed. "Just sit at the table."
"I'm still cleaning my wounds," I told her, feeling bad about my medical stuff sitting next to her perfectly made dishes.
She grinned. "I wouldn't have expected anything different."
"Have I told you that I love you lately? Because I do."
She threw back her head and laughed as I returned to the table, crumbled into my chair, and grabbed a cotton ball and dosed it in disinfectant. As miserable as it is to be hurt, having friends who you know love you no matter what is amazing. I can't even imagine living the way I did with Rick. Always having to tidy up my home for hours before having the spouses of my husband's friends over. Plastering on a fake smile. Serving food I knew half of them wouldn't like. Seeing the way they not-so-subtly inspected my clothes. It was all just... a lot of work to still feel alone and miserable.
I dabbed a little disinfectant on the worst of my scratches and winced when it stung. “It’s too bad one of us isn’t good at healing,” I grumbled.
Deva chuckled, dropped the rest of the food on the table, then pulled up a chair next to me and dabbed the liquid on my other arm. “I’ll work on some candy that speeds healing. I think I can do that. Who was this woman again?”
“The woman we tried to help? Her name is Callie.” I peered down at the deepest scratch and tried to apply a butterfly bandage, but it just didn’t want to go. “She’s got a curse on her that means she shifts into a cat at random, and has no control over it.”
She'd gotten our name from somewhere, and we'd taken off to wrangle her in cat form. It didnotgo over well. But we'd had to at least try to help the poor woman.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Deva said as she took the bandage from me. “Can we not just remove the curse?”
“I’ve already tried,” Beth said, walking into the room with the second first aid kit for her own arms. “I’ve tried to help this girl several times.”
Before I'd come back to Mystic Hollow, I guess Beth had made several attempts to help her. But Beth had explained this was powerful magic, more powerful than almost any she'd seen before. She was hoping my special skills might be the answer. The thing was all just very weird though. When I touched the cat, I got the deep sense that it wasn't my place to intervene. I'd still tried to, but it was as if my magic was being stubborn.
Yet another reminder that I might be Karma, but my powers were different from those of my friends. Whereas they could control their powers, I feel more like a tool my powers used to create a karmic balance in the world. Sometimes I even felt like my magic worked when I didn’t know it was working, but I wasn’t sure.
“Well, did it work this time?” Deva asked as she finished caring for my cuts and moved to Beth’s.
Beth's weren't nearly as bad as my own, although there were a couple of deep ones. She apparently knew how to handle an angry cat better than I did. No surprise though since her witchy powers involved communicating with animals. The thing was, this cat didn't seem to want to do a lot of talking, at least according to Beth.
I pursed my lips. “No, unfortunately, Callie is still the occasional firehouse cat for Blackwater Falls.”
“Will you try again?” Deva asked, finishing dabbing Beth's wounds, then reaching for the bandages.
I looked at Beth, and she shook her head, her voice filled with regret. "We just can't. Not any time soon."
