The Bend-Bite-Shift Box Set Read online

  Kent didn’t speak. He just watched her. He was learning enough about her to see the wheels turning in her head. Of course now he had the added assistance of reading her powers to help him along as well. Her aura was flecked with gray, the flames of yellow bright but held tight against her body.

  “So, maybe I am free. At least I’m self-sustaining. I derive enough income to live comfortably even while pursuing a way to ruin my father’s business.”

  In long strides he approached her, his t-shirt dangling loosely in one hand. When he was in front of her, she opened her legs so he could stand between them and he draped the shirt across her shoulders to clench her and bring her close to him.

  “I don’t think you’re free yet, Dev. But we’ll get you there. We’ll break you from your demons soon, I promise.” Her ear was against his stomach when she heard a loud rumble from within. They both chuckled. He glanced down at her upturned face and chucked her on the chin. “I think maybe you’d better fix me one of those fluff thingies again.”

  Palms flat against his hard stomach, she pushed him back. “You do, huh? I’d think you’d want something more substantial than that. We haven’t eaten since last night and–” She looked over at the clock and frowned. “Wow, it’s eight o’clock.” Then she turned to look at the window and saw that the sun was brightly shining. “That clock must have conked out. It’s still daylight out.”

  Kent turned back towards the bathroom. “I don’t care what time it is, woman. I’m just hungry. A fluff thingy, a bologna sandwich, or a t-bone steak, I don’t care which, but I need some sustenance.”

  Her boisterous laughter echoed around the room as she headed for the door. “Well, sir, do I have to cook your t-bone in my jammies or can I put on some real clothing?”

  The way her voice trailed off signaled to him that something wasn’t right, and Kent looked around the bathroom door towards her. She was standing just beyond the bedroom in the cabin’s living area, her hand braced behind her against the entryway as if for strength. He rushed to her side urgently.

  “Hello, little one,” Langston said, standing from his seated position on the couch. His face had been fraught with lines of worry and concern. The lines melted away when he saw the two of them and he smiled with relief. “And hello to you as well, my friend. It is good to see you both.”

  “Devan!” Jill screeched, bouncing up from the loveseat and rushing towards them.

  “What the hell?” Kent muttered, pushing past Devan into the room. All the windows and shades were tightly covered with blankets to keep even the merest sliver of direct sunlight from inching into the room.

  “You two must be hungry,” Langston said in the soothing manner that was so often his way of disarming an emotional reaction. “I have been warming some soup. Come, let us eat.”

  “We are hungry,” Devan explained, her head cocked to the side as she took a tentative step farther into the room. “I don’t understand. I thought you weren’t coming yet. Are Nicky and Gerry all right?”

  He didn’t respond. He just retrieved bowls and spoons from the cabinets and moved to the stove to run a ladle through the steaming soup several times.

  “Andre said you’d be out soon. He just said we had to wait,” Jill said as she nudged her friend’s shoulder. “He tried to pretend he wasn’t worried, but he was.”

  “Andre?” Devan asked

  Jill’s smile was beaming. “Isn’t it wild? He looks just like Fezzik from The Princess Bride. Get it? Fezzik. Andre? Andre the Giant?”

  Devan rolled her eyes and stepped away from her friend to follow Kent towards the kitchen. In her opinion the man looked nothing like Fezzik except that his size and breadth were similar.

  Langston was just pouring out a third bowl of soup when Kent reached the breakfast bar and placed his hands flat on the tabletop. “You both need to eat,” the bigger man advised his friends. “You should be famished.”

  Kent made no move to eat and just continued looking at Langston with hard, demanding eyes. Despite her stomach’s angry growls, Devan too refused to eat and instead waited.

  Jill plopped onto the couch and waved her hand towards them. “You might as well tell ‘em, big guy. That one,” she added, looking pointedly at Kent, “doesn’t give up easily.”

  “Last night you said you would wait until Gerry was well to leave them,” Kent told him, all but ignoring the cheeky blonde.

  “Not last night, my friend. That was several days ago that we spoke. When I did not hear from you the morning after, I called and received no answer. I spent that entire morning phoning and…nothing. I was concerned and returned as quickly as I could. I arrived at about ten the night before last.”

  Whereas she’d been standing solid next to Kent just a moment ago, Devan found herself sinking and reached for a stool. She sat down quickly before her legs gave out. “You’re saying we’ve been in that room…for over two days?”

  “That’s impossible,” Kent argued, shaking his head.

  “I found Jill pacing in front of your bedroom door when I arrived. She had been knocking, she said, for hours. I entered the room and found neither of you there. Still, I sensed you, felt both of you. Like a residue.”

  “So–” Kent paused, licking his lips. “So what exactly do you make of this?”

  Langston smiled. “That you should both eat.” Then he seated himself at the bar and began blowing on a steaming spoon of soup before bringing it to his mouth.

  “Langston, I want an explanation to–” He stopped when Devan touched his arm. He glanced down at her. She smiled and squeezed his wrist. He could see the yellow-golds flickering wildly around her.

  “I’m hungry, Kent. We should eat. I think this talk will be better had on a full stomach.”

  He stared at her a few moments, tempted to argue, but finally nodded his head. “Fine. But a bowl of soup isn’t going to cut it after two days with no food.” He huffed away and began riffling through the refrigerator.

  Devan sighed deeply as she glanced over at Jill, then down at her soup, and back to Jill again. Her friend was smiling a very knowing smile. “He’s hot,” she mouthed before she tucked her legs up to her chest and winked. All Devan could think to do was nod affirmatively and wink back.

  Having finally sated Devan’s and Kent’s appetites, the foursome found seats in various positions around the living area. Langston took on his usual stiff-backed posture, his hands resting on his knees as if needing to bolster his extreme weight. He turned to Kent first, realizing his friend was nearly desperate for answers at this point.

  “Jill and I had much time in which to speak while we waited. She explained to me the theories about Devan. It would be fascinating. A witch-faery combination.”

  “But it’s impossible. If either a faery or a witch crossed over, they’d lose their powers. The one crossing over couldn’t pass on their magic to their offspring.”

  “Just because it has never been known to happen does not mean that it cannot. A witch with acquired or learned power would likely not pass on magic, but a witch with hereditary powers–it may be possible. After all, if a person one day loses his eyesight, does that mean that his children will also be born blind?”

  Kent pursed his lips and sat back straight.

  “Okay, okay, all that is fine and good, but how can that be me? Langston, you said I’m a blood-witch, but my mother couldn’t have been. Father would never have married a witch,” Devan argued.

  “I do not have all of the answers, little one, and my supposition that you are blood-witch is just that: a hypothesis really.” He returned his gaze to Kent. “I would presume that you did not, shall we say, tread as lightly as I had suggested regarding your feelings for Devan.”

  It might have been comical to witness the uncomfortable blush that crept into Kent’s cheeks but for Devan’s realization of what Langston had said. She shifted accusing eyes back and forth from one man to the other. “Are you telling me that Langston’s the reason you were avoiding me
like the plague? Why?”

  Calmly and succinctly, Langston explained the stunning interaction he had witnessed boiling inside Devan those several times the two had been intimate and also the forewarning he’d given to Kent. He went a step further and described to all of them the way he’d witnessed the couple’s auras interacting, Devan’s consuming Kent’s and yet Kent deflecting hers.

  “Wow,” Jill murmured. “If I weren’t a vamp I’d wanna be a witch.”

  Devan pursed her lips and gave her friend a narrow-eyed look before speaking again. “Well obviously I didn’t spontaneously combust or anything when Kent and I…” She trailed off, suddenly embarrassed by what she’d been about to say, then doubly so by the fact that she knew Langston and Jill could clearly finish the sentence for her.

  Kent stood and approached her, leaning down close to her ear. “I’ll have to try harder to make you combust next time,” he whispered and kissed her cheek, giving Langston a daring glance before trudging into the kitchen for a bottle of water.

  Shaking off the sizzle his words and kiss sent across her senses, Devan turned back to the giant. She opened her mouth to try to speak, closed it, opened it again, and finally gave up, dropping back against the couch in resignation. Her mind was so jumbled she couldn’t seem to come up with a coherent question to ask.

  “How long would you say you were in that room?” Langston asked them.

  Kent gulped down half the bottle of cool water, his mind working as he replaced the plastic cap. “I first looked at the clock at about eight or so the morning after we spoke on the phone. Later, I know we saw the sun moving across the sky because Devan had to close the blinds.” He peered at her and winked. “We showered and saw the clock again and it said eight o’clock, which couldn’t have been right because, in my mind’s eye, I believed we were in that room for the better part of a single day. My best guess when Dev left the room would have been to say four or five in the afternoon.”

  “And you now can see her? Read her?” he probed further.

  Nodding and turning to look affectionately at her, Kent answered. “Yes, I definitely read her. Her aura’s a lemon-yellow now, smooth and rolling around her. –Beautiful,” he smiled warmly.

  “And undertones of green? Right on the surface?”

  Kent cocked his head and focused harder. “Yes, you’re right. Green. The yellow is so strong, so bright you almost miss it.”

  “The green is your aura, my friend. And if you could see your own you would realize that her yellows are there with you in the much the same way. You two have in some way bonded, connected. I would say that during your…coupling, you probably unknowingly engaged an element of your power, bent time around just the two of you to prolong the day. For the rest of us, things progressed as usual, but in that room, it was almost as if you were in a bubble of your own making. Hence why Jill and I couldn’t see you.”

  “So now what?” Devan asked.

  Langston looked towards Kent, unspeaking. A silence filled the room, thick and heavy.

  “They’ll come for her?” Kent finally asked.

  Langston gave a somber nod.

  “She needs to train,” Jill said thoughtfully from her perch on the couch. Then she looked uncomfortable when the other three stared at her. “She can use a gun and all. We took a handgun class when we were in college, but…but she’s not good with her hands. You shoulda took those Krav Maga classes with me. They really helped me learn to fight, especially after I was changed.”

  For the first time, Kent looked at Jill, not with the snarling knowledge that she was a vampire, but with a touch of respect. “Can you teach her?”

  Jill rolled her eyes. “Of course I can teach her.” She nodded at Devan and rubbed her hands together. “This’ll be fun.”

  Langston nodded, a strong, definitive motion. “You should start tonight. Something tells me we have not much time to waste.”

  Kent finished off his bottled water. “Yeah, and it’s daytime now so you should rest. Devan and I would probably do well to get a nap soon too, but before that I’d like the three of us, Dev, Langston and me, to see what we can figure out about our magic.”

  Jill grumbled something under her breath, but she didn’t seem inclined to put up much of an argument. Instead, she trudged off towards her bathroom. When she opened the door, Devan peeked inside to see she had arranged herself a makeshift bed complete with blankets and pillows.

  “Do vampires get cold?”

  Her friend shrugged. “We’re always cold. No body heat. I just like things to be as much the way they were before as possible. Ya know?”

  Devan swallowed, a pained expression on her face. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

  “Hey, sweetie, no apologies. Remember, I still have quite a story to tell ya and it includes a lot of good. ‘Kay?”

  “Gotcha.”

  Several hours later, Devan and Kent were exhausted following round after round of tests and experiments and then consultations with the Grimoire. She was elated when she was allowed to scribble her own notes into the ancient book. Langston advised that she too must now become a part of its heritage.

  During their trials, it was clear that Devan’s abilities had grown. She could propel objects—not just move them. She was able to produce and toss balls of crystalline, icy energy, though once or twice those balls collapsed into pure water instead of striking with force. The giant then urged the couple to try to marry their powers in the process of bending.

  “I can see a reaction,” he pondered. “But still, nothing happens. Perhaps you are trying too hard?”

  “I hate that expression,” Devan pouted, puckering her lips to the side in a frown. “How can one try too hard?”

  “So do we know any more than we did before?” Kent asked, equally pessimistic as he sat cross-legged on the grassy ground behind the cabin. He reached up a hand to pull Devan beside him and she fell willingly back against his chest. It seemed now that the dam had been broken on their affections. He wasn’t willing to exercise much restraint. Throughout the day he’d frequently pecked her cheek or caressed her arm, winked or even blown kisses to her. Devan didn’t know how to react or behave with such easy intimacy.

  Langston cocked his head. “I believe we have learned a great deal. First and foremost, lack of sleep makes the two of you very irritable.” He smiled at his own joke. “In all seriousness, although some of our experiments haven’t born fruit, the connection between the two of you is clear. Both of your powers are strengthened by it. It is curious that Devan’s hair continues to change and to grow. Clearly the strongest portion of her power is connected therein. Did your hair never grow this way before?”

  Devan shook her head. “It probably grew fast, not fast like this, but Roon always teased me to keep it short, that I looked like a pixie that way. I always felt a need to do so. It infuriated Jill because she wanted it ‘long and luxurious’ as she put it, but even after he was gone, Roon seemed to have influenced me.”

  Drawing back a bit, Kent wrapped an arm around and gently nudged her head to face him. “Have you spoken to him lately? It seems to me he should know a good deal more than he’s telling you.”

  She suddenly felt a sick shudder in her belly. Rooney. She’d no sooner dashed some sort of hope he’d had about the two of them than she’d practically jumped into bed with Kent. Had he seen them, known what she was doing all that time? Guilt caught in her throat and she had the need to retreat for a moment, so she placed her hands on Kent’s knees to propel herself from the grass.

  “I talked to Roon the other night. He told me he’s a faery. A sheo–a sheo something.”

  Langston’s eyebrows shot up. “A sheoque? How do you know this sheoque?”

  “He’s her imaginary friend,” Kent piped in, a smile on his lips. “She’s heard his voice since she was a child.”

  “Do the two of you know what a sheoque is?” They both gave him blank stares. “A sheoque is known as a stealer of children. Not to harm t
he child. Sometimes as a prank, the child may become sort of a pet. But sometimes the sheoque’s purpose is to save the child from a worse fate. Are you certain your companion is a sheoque?”

  Devan’s nod was strong and definitive. “He told me himself. There’s something else. I…I was able to concentrate and…I brought him to me.” She admitted briefly what had happened, including Roon’s explanation that he wasn’t truly there in the physical sense. She intentionally neglected to mention the kiss between them.

  “Can you call him?” Kent asked.

  “Yes, little one. It seems to me he would know a great deal. Can you summon him forth?”

  She shook her head, and both Kent and Langston could clearly see both by her expression and her flaming aura that she was distressed. “We–he and I need to talk first.” Then she hurried past them and rushed inside. Kent was tempted to follow her, but Langston shook his head.

  “There must be a reason a sheoque would know she was in need and go to the trouble to companion her, but yet not physically steal her away. Her friend Roon may hold a very critical key to all of this. But she cares for him and we should allow her the space to be with him.”

  “Cares for him?” Kent nearly shouted, cutting his eyes towards the closed door. “You don’t mean she’s in love—”

  “I mean no such thing. I mean only what I said. That she cares for him. What are your feelings for her?

  Kent’s said nothing., He just walked away from his friend to approach the Grimoire.

  * * *

  Roon? Rooney? Are you there, Rooney?

  Devan fiddled with the heavy braid of her hair that rested across her shoulder as she waited anxiously for him to respond.

  Please, Roon. Aren’t you there?

  Devvie, I’m here. What’s up?

  She sighed in relief. I need to know what’s going on, Roon. You know, I know you do. Kent and Langston want to see you. Now that Kent can read me he wants to–