I pulled a box of charm supplies off the lower shelf of my workstation and pawed through the glass pieces. When I found the right ones, I plugged in my soldering iron and extracted a spool of solder. Then I picked up a palm-sized, recently sharpened harvesting sickle.
“Yeah. Calvin said everyone was helping. I thought they’d just close up the place.”
“That’s not how small-town people do things, Ronan. We help each other.” I cut a measure of lavender from my favorite plant, along with a little lemon balm, St. John’s wort, and gotu kola. Fromthe supply I’d purchased, I took pinches of turmeric and cinnamon, which were two things I didn’t grow.
This wasn’t a charm to take the place of my magic—it wasn’t meant as a stand-in for a weak soil connection. This was charm magic the way an earth witch was supposed to use it. As a complement to my elemental power.
I set the leaves, crushed and powdered herbs on one glass charm, arranging them like a card spread, freshest herb to least. Before I pressed the other glass against it, sealing the spell, I held up my arm, where the soil I’d kept there, waiting for my command, trembled against my flesh.
“Go,” I said.
A patch, no larger than a dime, fell onto the herbs, dusting over them like a sort of earthy glitter. The mingled scents—spicy, fruity—wafted up to my nose in a magical rush. I sealed the spell, soldering carefully to ensure nothing seeped out.
When it was finished, I set it aside to fully cool. It wouldn’t take long and should counteract the effects of the blade.
“Betty, are you still here?” Ronan rolled onto his side, again hissing in pain. Whatever was going on with his hip was not good.
“Right here. Working on a charm to help you.”
“When my mom and Abel left, I was all alone,” he murmured.
They hadn’t exactly left. His stepfather Abel had been murdered, and his mother had died of cancer.
“I’m not leaving, Ronan.”
“Good. Don’t threaten that anymore.”
“To be fair, it wasn’t a threat when I said it. Now that I’ve started to better understand the situation, I’m more inclined to forgive you.”
He stared unblinking at the ceiling. A few seconds ticked by. I was about to ask him if he was all right when he spoke again.
“I’m glad Rory is far away from all this.”
“Yeah.” Not that it mattered. No matter how far away Ronan’s sister was, Floyd was going to find a way to use her against him.
Although I believed I’d made the right decision when I’d allowedthe bastard to live, I ninety-nine percent wished I could go back in time and shove his head underground for a minute longer.
I picked up the now cool charm and fastened it around his neck, taking care to set the charm itself against his chest.
“What’s this?”
“The charm I told you about.” I frowned. Was he getting worse? “It should help mitigate the confusion. Give your wolf enough of a foothold to really heal you. Now let me get a look at that hip. I’ve got a poultice that should give you some relief.”
“That’s okay.” He fake-smiled. “I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt that bad.”
“Do notfight me on this. I am a woman on the edge.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He unfastened the snap on his jeans, and I tugged them down past his hips. Pain rode roughshod over the planes of his handsome face as I stripped them down his legs.
“What did they do to you?”
A ragged-edged wound the length of my forearm lay over the blades of his hip bones and upper portion of thigh. It was open and weeping but not bleeding. His wolf had been working hard to heal him, but the blade had gone too deep.
He let out a hissing whimper when I prodded the skin around it, and I jerked my hand back, not wanting to hurt him anymore than necessary.
“Ronan, how many wounds like this do you have?”
