Page 26 of Ozma

Could I sound more like a sap? But, damn me, it’s fucking true.

Jack’s gaze locked on the ripples widening along the surface of the water as he willed away his pain. He missed everything about Tip. The way he hummed while they worked the field and how he tugged on his ear when he was nervous. When his jealousy tinged his cheeks pink. The softness of his hair, the tingling sensation Tip’s touch put in Jack’s chest, and the silly faces he would carve into pumpkins.

“It must’ve taken you a long time to get over him,” Ozma said with a question in her tone.

Jack huffed. “I’ve never gotten over him. Believe me, it would be better if I could.”

She watched him carefully. “But the other day—”

“A prostitute from town,” Jack said quickly, and winced.Great thinking, asshole. Dig yourself a deeper hole, why don’t you?Not that Ozma should care.“That doesn’t sound good, I know, and the next part is even worse. But I… Well, I fuck whores that look like Tip to bury my pain. And, before you ask, no, it doesn’t make me feel better. It makes me feel worse, in fact.”

“Then why keep doing it?” she asked, her eyes like saucers.

“Why?” He took a deep breath and searched his mind for the answer. “I don’t know. Maybe I hope that, if I keep trying, one day itwillwork. That some of my pain will lessen for longer than it takes for pleasure to come and go.”

Ozma swam forward slowly, as if she were afraid he would flee, and smoothed a lock of wet hair from his face. “You’re wrong.”

Fucking hell—her eyes werejustlike Tip’s.He wanted to lose himself in her gaze. Lose himself in other parts of her too. It had been ages since he’d felt the warmth of a female, and he couldn’t help feeling drawn to her. But she was Tip’s sister. If he were going to screw his way through Loland to forget Tip, he certainly couldn’t entertain the idea of adding Tip’s sister to the mix. And yet…

“Wrong about what?” he croaked.

“I can tell how much you still love Tip after all this time. If that doesn’t prove your devotion, nothing would.”

“I never claimed otherwise, so what am I wrong about?”

Ozma swam backward toward the shore. “You deserved him.”

Jack felt frozen in the water as she reached the edge of the lake and walked, naked, into the tall grass. The twitch in his cock told himshewas wrong. Lusting after Tip’s sister made him extremely unworthy, but the pang in his chest was harder. A crack formed and tears stung Jack’s eyes. He quickly ducked beneath the surface again to wash them away.

Chapter Eleven

Ozma

Ozma squeezed the water from her hair as she walked back toward the farm with a happy—albeit confused—heart. Jack still loved her... Or no, it wasTipthat he still loved. It didn’t matter, because it was her either way. And there had been a reason he’d had the male in his hut—a prostitute—who had looked like Tip. Ozma hadn’t taken the time to study the male’s face, or similarities, since she’d been too focused on Jack, sweat-slicked and thrusting inside another. Perhaps that was why there’d been so many clients at the brothel where she’d stopped with Reva when they journeyed.Loneliness. She could understand Jack feeling that way, even if she hated what he was doing to fill a void.

It didn’t mean anything that Ozma was Tip because she’d changed so much over the last two years that she was hardly the same fae inside. She hadn’t even confessed to Jack who her parents really were, whoshewas. NotonlyOzma. Notonlya female who had responsibilities. All she’d been focused on before was her love for Jack, not the pressure that her royal status would put on him.

Fisting her hands, Ozma walked inside Mombi’s hut. Jack’s magic was beautiful, the way he could get things to grow, make the grass appear like it was dancing, even when going in for a kill. How could Mombi have done this to him? To her? She wanted to stab the witch in the heart over and over again.

Now that Jack was no longer in and out of sleep, Ozma needed to formulate a plan and gather any spells she could from Mombi’s so she could head to Orkland for the Wizard. Blowing out a breath, she went into Mombi’s room and started collecting the spell books. Piling as many tomes as she could in her arms, Ozma took them across the patch and loaded the books into the wagon. After all the books were out of the hut, Ozma grabbed the jars of ingredients, until she was certain she’d plucked away everything she could possibly use.

Once she returned to the sitting room, she gathered candles, created from goblin skin, and lit one, then another and another. She put a flame to the remaining candles in Mombi’s room before knocking them, one by one, to the bed, then to the floor with a thump. Black and orange fire spread its way across the blankets, the filthy walls. As it engulfed the room, Ozma set flames to the curtains in the sitting room, watching as they crawled throughout, going past the spot where she’d discovered her true self.

Ozma remained in the middle of the sitting room, studying herself in the mirror, the bright orange, black, and gray around her, until the heat became too much against her skin, the smoke too heavy for her lungs. As she turned to leave, the door swung open with acrack.

“What in the ever-loving fuck are you doing?” Jack shouted. He motioned his hand back and forth through the smoke as he hurried toward her. Before she could say anything, he lifted her from the floor and cradled her against his chest, then rushed outside.

Ozma couldn’t contain her emotions anymore. The tears came, her sobs echoed throughout the patch. “Put me down! Stop trying to save me when I can save my own damn self! For once.”

“Okay,” he breathed, setting Ozma down and cradling her face, his gaze latching onto hers. “Okay. But what am I supposed to think when you’re standing in the middle of the hut, watching it burn around you?”

“Ask me if I need help before swooping in,” she whispered, not being able to shift her eyes from his hazel irises.

“Doyou need help?” he asked, lifting a brow.

She did. Jack had magic, and she didn’t. Even if he hadn’t had any magic at all, she still needed him on this journey.

“Will you come with me to kill the Wizard in Orkland?” she asked softly, as his hands released her face. “It wasn’t only Mombi who sent me away to the dark place. It was him, and if he doesn’t die, then Reva and everyone else will be in danger.” Ozma paused, taking in a deep breath. “I do have magic, but I learned from Mombi’s spell books that the Wizard’s been absorbing it with the silver slippers. He must have somehow gotten them from Thelia when she left Oz.”

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