Page 100 of Son of a Witch

Tor snorted. “You sound as positive as me.”

Fuck. We all had our own shit to deal with. Tor, his body. Pascal, his guilt. Me, my failures. Astra, her regret for staying with us schmucks and not leaving when she had the chance. Loco for having fifteen years of his life stolen. Selena for abandoning her child when he was six.

“I don’t know where my place is anymore.” Regret rotted me from the inside out. I’d been going about this the wrong way the last two years. “Bad decisions got us to this point. Myshittydecisions.”

I paused and Tor backtracked to stand beside me. He put a palm on my shoulder and squeezed, drawing the words out of me.

“I should have listened to you.” Disappointment cast a dark, shameful shadow over me. “I’ve been blinded by my rage to avenge Jaz. Missing what was important. The friends and brothers I still had. It’s time to let my grudge with Styx go.”

Tor drew in a breath that said he was about to give me the kind of advice that would sucker punch me. The kind of blow Astra delivered when she gave it to me straight.

“If Supergal were here,” he began, “she’d say something wise and smart, like we can’t change the past, but we can change the future.”

I scraped my jaw. “Fuck. Ain’t that the truth?”

“We all did what we did to get by.” Tor’s grip on my shoulders tensed and something told me what he was about to say next didn’t just apply to me. “I sold contraband to support my family. You went all drill sergeant from hell to get us out of here. We don’t have to change our goals. We just have to change the way we achieve them. No more fucking lies. No more secrets.”

End goal: get my team and me out of this prison. Get us back to the Shadows, where it was safe. Eliminate any threats like Devon and his family who wanted us or our families dead. The last goal became even more imperative with those assholes on the run and shadowing our loved ones.

Tor was right. No more secrets and lies. That was what got me demoted and the team on the warden’s radar. From now on, we were going to stay clean.

I coughed a laugh. “That sounds awfully wise of you.”

He nudged me with his elbow again and I grunted. “I might be a fuck up, but I can be wise.Sometimes.”

We both laughed and continued down the corridor.

It was good to have this chat. Reassure myself I wasn’t the only asshole feeling sorry for myself. For years, my motto wasshow no fear. No weakness. Yet the cracks were showing for everyone to see. Remaining strong for everybody was fucking exhausting. I was tired of it. Tired of all the shit in this place. Freedom teased me with her lure like a siren leading me to death in the water.

I smacked the back of my hand on his abdomen. “By the way, good fucking find locating James, man.”

Tor tried to blow it off. “It was just routine stuff. Nothing special.”

I thumped him harder on the shoulder, summoning the mentor in me who roused my team’s spirits when low, even though I felt deflated and defeated. “Routine stuff that caught James. It was your magick that got us a lead with the cell phone and the amulet they’re using to portal everywhere. Plus, we know for sure now that they’re working with the vamps.”

Tor’s lips curved into a slight smile. “That’s something.”

He worried about being ineffective for the team. About not being in the thick of it to play the role of a superhero. Fuck that shit.Hewas a hero in my eyes. I just wasn’t ready to talk nerd speak and confirm it… not yet, anyway.

“It’s fucking huge.” I clamped both hands on his shoulder and shook the sentiment into him. “We’re getting closer to our end goal.”

Why did I have the feeling our next step was going to go off with a bang like it always did?

CHAPTER33

Astra

Downtimewith my men in between missions. Rare these days. Vancor worked us like damn dogs. We barely got any breaks. Heads down, buried in samples, possible clues, last known sightings, and investigating the weather anomalies.

I reclined between Knoxe’s legs, leaning on his chest, getting some much-needed sun, rolling up the sleeves of my prison shirt and legs to absorb Vitamin D. Time outside became a commodity since the new warden assumed leadership. Enough about that. I soaked into my man’s warmth, his strength, the arm around my middle pressing me to him.

I picked at the sardines from the jar Tor bought for our little picnic and leaned back to feed Knoxe. He sucked it into his mouth, then tongued the oil from my fingers, licking up every last drop. My core clenched and fired up the way it did when near my men.

All the attention fell on me, and I lapped it up under their warm, loving gazes. Mid-afternoon, we sat in a row, out on the grass of the prison yard, Knoxe and me in the middle, with Tor and Pascal flanking us. Luckily it was winter, otherwise we’d be as brown and dry as roasted chickens by now.

“Hypothetical question. What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when we get out?” I sucked on the fish and made eyebrows at Tor. He was next in line to be fed.

“That’s easy,” Tor jumped in, always the first to steal the limelight. “Get some Cold Rock ice cream.” His confidence was slowly restored and the man I fell in love with returned to me.

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