Page 37 of A Witch Out of Time
If overhearing Vasi fuck Tan and Ace was a special kind of torture, then listening to her cry was some next level purgatory. When she burst into tears in the bath, I hadn't thought twice about interrupting, but as the four of us stood at the forest’s edge over the gravesite of her unborn child, I hesitated to approach her.
Even though I can feel her pain like it’s my own.
“I’m sorry…” Vasi sniffled, roughly swiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “I’ve barely cried in years but lately, I can’t seem to stop.”
“Oh, sweetness,” Asa soothed, pulling her closer, careful not to jostle the tiny body in her arms. “Remember when you told me I didn’t need to apologize for my grief? The same applies to you.”
She nodded weakly as she leaned against him, and I felt my shoulders uncoil in relief. Ace always had a naturally calming effect on others, so between him and Tan cheering her up with his ridiculousness, Vasi would be well taken care of.
Because I don’t know how much longer I’ll be allowed to have her.
It was a cruel fucking joke that the one woman who had any hope of locking me down had led me to the one place I should never have gone. Veles told me the day I came back to the Nav was when our bargain would be due, but I still didn’t know what that entailed. Ever since we’d arrived, that horned fucker had simply let his promise hang in the air like an unclaimed fart, more than happy to let me sweat about it.
“Something changed inside me the day I buried my daughter.” Vasi’s voice was shaky, although her tears had dried. “I no longer felt...human.I soon identified more with the supernatural beings in the forest than the people I’d left behind. And when the last Yagabetrayedme, after I’d lived with her for seven years as her loyal apprentice…” She trailed off, refusing to meet our gazes as color stained her cheeks and a surprising emotion rang through our bond.
Shame?
“Go on, doll,” Tan urged, absently brushing his hand over the three marks of her tattoo, one for each of us. “Nothing you say will make us think any less of you.”
Vasi cautiously glanced up at him before looking at Asa and me. She must have liked what she saw as she hesitantly continued, “I killed...so many humans my first few years as Yaga. It didn’t matter if they were coming to me with ill intent or not. I murdered them indiscriminately, and I enjoyed it. I directed all my hate toward them because they were so helpless and easy for me to prey on. It wasn’t until I met Anthia that I was able to care about someone else again.”
She swallowed hard, probably still worrying over the swan. Anthia had been near-comatose when we left her with her clan, obviously too traumatized by whatever happened to her at the Facility to even talk about. With a sinking feeling in my gut, I wondered if Vasi had behaved similarly after Koschei raped her and the Tsar threw her out. While the bear shifter, Misha, had temporarily taken her in after she buried her daughter, I suspected it was a long time before Vasi felt like herself again, if ever.
My thoughts were interrupted by Tan loudly clearing his throat. Looking up, I saw him shooting me a meaningful look, canting his head in Vasi’s direction, clearly implying that I needed to weigh in and offer her some comfort.
What the fuck amIsupposed to say?
“Um…” I eloquently began. “It’s all right, Vasi. You’re just...you’re like...moss.”
Tan snorted as Vasi and Ace both stared at me in confusion. I sighed, realizing not for the first time I was about as nurturing as a mother bear eating her young. “You’re like moss because even though you’re a tough little thing, you’re easily damaged and slow to heal and should be treated with the respect you deserve.”
Ace and Vasi continued to gape, but Tan cackled. “Oh, that was fucking adorable! You know, Noxy, if I hadn’t seen Vasi stretched over you like a sausage casing while you banged her like a screen door in a hurricane, I would think you’d gone soft.”
Vasi rolled her eyes but untangled herself from the others to walk over and level me with a stare the best she could, given our size difference. “That was very sweet, Nox. I suppose youdolisten to me now and then, hmm?”
I smirked down at her, still amazed at how this little demon had wormed her way into my cold, dead heart. “Don’t get too used to it, witch. I’ll still continue to give you a hard time any chance I get.”
“Yes, I certainly hope so,” she hummed. “It’s oddly thrilling when you do, and truly the only reason I didn’t kill you when we first met.” I laughed in response, although part of me wondered if she was kidding at all.
Which I also find oddly thrilling.
“And you shouldn’t be worried about us judging you simply because you’ve stabbed out a few humans’ eyeballs,” I continued. “The three of us have so much blood on our collective hands it makes you look like a sweet little kitten in comparison.” She narrowed those gorgeous eyes of hers at me and I quickly added, “A very ferocious, stabby little kitten.”
“It’s true,” Tan wrapped himself around Vasi from behind, nuzzling against her neck as if trying to combine their scents. “Why do you think we’re in London so often, eh? We go there on business, not only to accidentally find ourselves tattooed. Matthew often sent small teams of us to different cities to ‘take care of problems’ for him.” He sounded nonchalant, although regret flashed across his features as he met my gaze. “It always paid well and the people we killed seemed worse than Matthew, if that were possible.”
Because she was perfect for us, Vasi purred in satisfaction at Tan’s confession, making me wonder when I could get her alone. Or alone with the guys. Her smile turned sad, however, as she looked down at the bundle in her arms. “I suppose it’s time to say goodbye. Again.”
We solemnly walked to the gravesite, and Vasi kneeled to gingerly lay her daughter down in the freshly turned soil. I joined her on the ground and reached for the pile of dirt to shovel it in, but she stopped me with a shake of her head.
Our witch silently stared down into the open grave for a long time before she spoke again. “I always thought it best to bury my humanity along with my daughter, that my path forward should be as the monster I am now. But now that I’ve met you, my Riders, I realize how important it is to hold on to whatever shred of humanness I still possess. That it’snota weakness to feel things or to make myself vulnerable by caring about another being...or three.”
Her words hit me like a fucking freight train. I also wasn’t always the monster I’d become. None of us were. The Facility’s rigorous hazing ensured we felt nothing when needed, so we could eliminate any threat without remorse. And since I was placed in my father’s hands at such a young age, this expectation to eliminate my emotions had been drilled into me since before I sprouted my first chest hair.
And just look at where it got me.
I shifted closer, determined to soothe, when a low rumbling began deep in the earth below. Before I could register what was happening, the grave suddenly opened up to form a bottomless pit and a howling wind swept up to pull Vasi into its depths. Ace yelled something, but I was already jumping in after her, blindly plummeting downward as I followed her screams into the dark.
Chapter 31
