Unbound (35 page)

“I’ve wondered that too,” I confessed. “I think it’s why so many people say they don’t believe in ghosts; if they don’t exist, then you can’t be scared of them.” Laney nodded in agreement. “That, and people don’t like things they can’t explain, and ghosts and demons, well, they just can’t be logically explained.” I moved my eyes to the floor. “And mostly, people tend to think you’re blazing crazy when you not only say you believe in that stuff, but when you say you see it. Trust me, I know.”

“You’re right. And I think people will try so hard to convince themselves something weird or creepy was ‘just the wind’.” I laughed; I didn’t know how many times I’d heard that one. “Hey, Annie,” Laney said, sounding a bit excited.

“Yea?”

“Can I look at your spell books?”

“Of course!” I said in a voice that mirrored her excitement. We spent the next hour going through the books. Laney asked a lot of questions and I gladly answered as best as I could. I still had a lot of learning myself to do.

“Wow.” Laney closed the BOS. “This is all so, so…” she searched for a word. “…much. This is amazing.” She looked over at the psychic self defense book I was reading. “Do you think you’re safe for tonight?”

I pushed the book aside. “I don’t know. I’ve been wondering that too. Ethan’s staying, so at least he’ll be able to help defend me, if need be.”

“That’s so romantic,” she swooned.

I raised an eyebrow. “No it’s not. Being kissed under a star studded sky is romantic. Being on demon guard is…just not romantic at all. ”

“Yes it is! He’s like your knight in shining armor.”

“And I’m the defenseless damsel in distress?”

“Of course not, and I say that with certainty after seeing you kick that demon’s ass. But it’s romantic in the way that he wants to protect you. Every girl wants that.”

I smiled and swooned a bit myself. “It is nice.” I dragged the box of weapons out from the back of my closet to show her. Just as I was getting the crossbow out, Hunter sat up from his nap and growled. Laney froze and looked at me in terror. I followed Hunter’s stare to the wall. I didn’t see anything. I closed my eyes and let my guard drop. I felt a disturbance in the energy; it felt like chaos. I opened my eyes and hurried back into the closet.

“What are you doing Annie?” Laney called nervously.

“You’ll see,” I said and emerged with a bundle of white sage leaves.

“What is that?” Laney asked.

“A smudge stick. This one is white sage, so it repels negative energy.” I stuck my hand into Ethan’s jacket pocket and retrieved his lighter and ignited the ends of the smudge stick. Gray smoke wafted quickly from the dried leaves.

“Aren’t your parents going to be able to smell that?” Laney made a face.

I shrugged. “I don’t think so. Do you know how many times Harry’s smoked in his room and they’ve never noticed?” I walked around the room letting the smoke disperse in every crevice. Hunter lay back down. The room had a different feeling now and I could relax. I turned on the TV and went back to the weapons. Not even five minutes later, Mom burst into my room.

“What’s that awful smell?” she demanded. I pulled a blanket over the weapons.

“Incense,” I lied.

“Do not burn incense in my house. It smells terrible and you could burn the place down!”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Ok, and it’s out.”

“No more incense. I don’t know why you even though it would have been ok.”

“I had to. There was negative energy in my room that I had to get rid of.” Honesty is the best policy, right?

“That’s not funny Anora. We’ve been through this before.
 
And hello Laney.”

“Hi Mrs. Benson,” Laney said, suppressing a giggle. “Your mom is going to think you’re nuts,” she said after Mom went back downstairs.

“She already does,” I sighed. It wasn’t even worth trying to explain to her. We moved our attention back to the books. I was reading a particularly interesting page in the BOS about crystals when Ethan and Harrison came back upstairs.

“What were you burning?” Harrison asked.

“White sage, I think,” Ethan answered for me and I nodded to let him know he was right. “The smell is oddly comforting, which can’t be normal, I know.”

“I heard Mom freaking out about it,” Harrison laughed.

“Yea, it’s no fair!” I pouted. “You smoke your stinky pot all the time and no one ever notices. I light a smudge stick for like five minutes and she can smell it!”

Still laughing, Harrison opened a window about two inches. “You have to vent the smoke.”

“Like I would know!” I packed up the weapons and pushed them and the box of magic stuff back into the closet. Yawning, I sank down on my bed next to Ethan. “I’m so tired,” I complained. This morning seemed like yesterday. I just wanted to go to bed.

“Me too,” Laney said as she put her coat on. “Walk me to my car?”

“Of course.” I lazily got out of bed. “Oh, wait!” I dragged the cardboard box of magic supplies out of my closet again. I really needed to get a better storage device for this stuff. “Here.” I handed Laney a necklace with brown and gold stripped stone cut in a teardrop shape. “It’s Tiger’s Eye, and it will help protect you from evil.”

“It’s pretty.” Laney admired the pendent before she put it on. “See you guys later.” Hunter and I led the way. I gave Laney an extra hug goodbye and waited until she drove down the street before I went back inside. Harrison, who was in his own room, called me in.

“I want to tell you that I think Ethan is a good guy for you,” he said seriously.

I couldn’t suppress my smile. “I think so too, and I’m glad you like him.” I sat on the bed and leaned towards my twin. “Did he say anything about me when you guys were watching the game?”

“Maybe,” Harrison said casually. “He really cares about you, I’ll leave it at that.”

I made that stupid squeaking noise I make when I was really excited. I jumped up, said goodnight to Harrison and skipped into my room. Ethan was lying in bed, flipping through TV channels and looking very tired. I plopped down next to him.

“How’s the arm?” I asked.

“Ah, fine.”

“Liar.” I wrinkled my nose at him. Using his right arm, he pulled me on top of him and kissed me.

“You know,” he ran his hands down my back. “Seeing you killing those demons was really hot.”

“It was?”

“Yea.” He kissed me again and ran his hands through my messy hair. I slowly slid a hand down his chest, across his washboard abs and down his thigh. I was just about to press my lips to his when someone knocked at the door.

“Don’t worry, it’s just me,” Harrison said quietly. I jumped off Ethan.

“Come in.”

Harrison slowly edged past the doorway. “Should I sleep with a knife under my pillow?” he asked with a joking smile. I knew he was scared.

“No,” I said with certainty. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” Harrison lied. “I just wanted to know if I should be prepared, that’s all.”

I turned to Ethan for a second opinion. He nodded and said, “I honestly don’t think anything else is going to attack tonight, and if they did, they would definitely go for Anora.”

“Ok,” Harrison cleared his throat. “Well, if anything does attack and you need me…”

“I’ll let you know,” I told him, letting him feel as if he regained his manliness in the situation. “Night Har.”

“Night.” He closed the door and back to his room.

I laid back down next to Ethan. He softly kissed my neck and traced his fingers up and down my back, making me very relaxed. I almost fell asleep; I was so content and comfortable. Ethan was lying on his back, with my head on his chest and his arms around me. All demonic and creepy thoughts were gone temporarily from my head. How much I love Ethan was all I could think about.

It shouldn’t have startled me so much when the image of a bird-demon flashed through my mind. My eyes flew open and I was suddenly very wide awake.
 
I carefully moved out from Ethan’s arms. I pulled the blanket over him and watched him sleep. The three claw marks on his chest were healing already. I know what little good blaming your self does, but I felt so guilty. A terrible thought entered my mind, one so terrible that it made me want to cry. I shook my head and pushed it away.

A glance at the clock told me it was much later than I thought. I quickly brushed my teeth, let Hunter out, fed Romie and showered. I was thinking about crystals while I toweled off my soaking hair. It was a good thing Ethan woke back up because doing this while he was sleeping would have been difficult.

“What are you doing?” he asked sleepily.

“Changing this.” I unwrapped the bandage on his arm. “And helping it heal.”

“Mh,” he said and closed his eyes and lay back down, but kept his arm elevated for me. After I put a clean piece of gauze over the wound (which looked really gross, by the way) I carefully held a quartz crystal over the cut and wrapped another bandage around that, keeping the quartz in place over the gash. Once I was satisfied that the crystal was going to stay in place, I crawled under the covers, making sure to be on Ethan’s right side to avoid touching his hurt arm. I put my head back on his chest and he rewrapped his arms. “Did I tell you I love you?” he mumbled.

“Tell me again.”

“I love you, Anora.”

***

“Did anything else happen last night?” Laney asked as soon as she saw me the next day.

“Nothing demonic.”

“How as sleeping next to Ethan all night?”

“Really nice.” I bit my lip to try to keep from smiling. “I felt safe wrapped in his arms.” And the smile I was holding back broke out across my face.

She squealed and grabbed my arm. “I told you it was romantic!”

“What’s romantic?” We turned to see Marie, who had just arrived at her locker.

“Ethan stayed the night with Annie last night!” Laney exclaimed.

“Oh!” Marie said, sounding impressed. “And did you actually
sleep
with him?”

“Maybe,” I said in a way that meant ‘yes’. She smiled back at me. “Well not last night.” I confessed.

“Well, it’s about time!” Her lips were curved into a smile, but her eyes didn’t convey her happiness for me. The right one twitched. Was she jealous?

“It was so hard getting up and leaving while Ethan was still asleep,” I groaned.

“He was at your house?” Marie was surprised. “How did you manage that with your parents?”

“Oh, they didn’t know he was there or course.”

“They didn’t see his car?”

“He didn’t drive over. They assumed he left.”

 
“Nice. So how was your weekend get away?” She hung her coat up in her locker. Her shirt was tighter than normal and she had on a short skirt (even though it was freezing out) and tall black boots. She turned back towards me. Her eyeliner was different too; it was much thicker today. When did she start dressing like that? Have I seriously been that unaware of the unparanormalness around me?

“It was relaxing.” That was sort of true. “We really didn’t do anything.”

“Except each other!” Laney said and we laughed.
 
The first bell rang so I gathered up my stuff and headed down the hall to mythology.

“What did I miss yesterday?” I asked Josh as I took my seat in mythology the next day. He flipped back a page in his notebook.

“Not too much, we learned about Orthrus and Cerberus, you know, the dog monsters.” The last two words made my eyes widen in fear and an image of Pricolici flash through my brain.
 
Josh cocked his head. “You alright, Anora?”

My nervous smile instantly appeared. “Yea, just really tired, that’s all. Can I, uh, copy your notes?”

“Sure.” He handed me his notebook. It only took a few minutes to copy everything down, and I finished just as the final bell rang. I put Josh’s notebook back on his desk.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” He smiled. “Hey, did Laney ask if you and your boyfriend wanted to go the football game this weekend?”