The night sky beyond wasn’t as sparkle-filled as the remote provincial park, but it was beautiful. And calming. And right now, I needed to stay calm, because pathways in my brain sizzled at the implication that the tattoo my ex had insisted we get—together, designed by him—was actually a spell.
A fucking mystery of a spell, inked onto my body without my consent.
Tanner’s comforting voice broke into my frustration. “Calliope, we can fix this. Runes are a kind of ancient alphabet and a means of divination.” He gently folded the bottom of my shirt up and away from the affected area. “This particular rune has a few meanings, and depending on how it’s placed, it can impact the bearer positively or negatively. Or the wearer, in your case.”
“Tanner,” I started.
“Yes, Calli?” he answered, his voice gentle as his fingers smoothed aloe vera gel over the reddened patches on my skin.
“Doug has the same tattoo. Except his is the opposite of mine.”
He stopped spreading. His fingers hovered above the mark. “And where on his body is it?”
I pressed my lips together. I was beginning to feel like a fool. And an idiot. A gullible, foolish idiot. “Same place as mine but on his right side. His is a little smaller.”
“I think this is a clear indication your ex-husband has access to magic, and right now, I’m most concerned with how to break whatever connection he may still have to you and your magic.”
I tried to keep my breath steady and not freak out. Or beat myself up. I thought matching tattoos were an indication of…partnership? Of working toward a mutual goal? Love, even?
“Why now?” I mused, more to myself and the sky. My ex’s gesture of bonding had become a modern-day, proprietary branding.
“I think it’s obvious,” Tanner replied. “You’re coming into your powers at last, and that means you’re going to be able to break free of whatever influence he, and this, have had on your life.”
“I feel…” I whispered, again more to myself and the listening trees and stars than to any of the males gathered around me. “I feel violated.”
Chapter 14
Tanner’s touch became gentler. My sons backed away from staring at my belly and sat in the two chairs. I reached out an arm. Thatcher took my hand, held it in both of his, and Harper leaned closer and whispered, “We love you, Mom.”
“I love you too.” Tears formed under my eyelids, and my mouth watered at the same time. Six days of a heightened emphasis on magic, and I was ready to beg for normalcy. As my mind scrabbled for clues about how my new normal might manifest, the pain around the tattoo began to dissipate.
I fluttered my eyes open. Tears glistened along my lashes, and Tanner’s hand hovered above the left side of my abdomen. His eyes were closed, and his lips were moving. As he chanted, the pain returned, gathered under his palm, and surged like a scab being ripped off tender skin. Searing pain hit me hard and fast, and I twisted on the hard cushion.
“Tanner, what are you doing?” I managed to get out the words without screaming.
“Removing the tattoo.” He glanced up at me. “I really think this needs to come off. Now. Is that okay?”
I ground my teeth and nodded.
“Harper,” Tanner said. “Get me a plastic bag, like a sandwich bag, something I can close up tight.” He resumed the chant, his voice getting louder, the words tumbling into one long, desperate sing-song. Harper returned with a Ziploc bag.
“Open it,” Tanner ordered.
I lifted my head, watching in disbelief as Tanner chanted the tattoo off my skin, onto his palm, and into the bag.
He pinched it closed and held it up to the feeble light shining through the screen door. “Gotcha.”
“Guys, I’m bleeding.” It wasn’t a lot of blood, but the skin was raw and stung in the air and I needed something on the bare wound and fast.
“First aid kit?” Tanner asked.
“Cupboard above the fridge,” I hissed between short breaths.
Tanner tucked the bag with the rune-scarred skin into a pocket of his backpack. “Thatcher, stay with your mother. Harper, get the kit. And scrub your hands. Calli, I have to wash up. Then we’ll get you bandaged.”
He stood quickly. Thatch sank to his knees beside the swing and let me squeeze his hand.
“Thanks, sweetie,” I whispered. “It really hurts.” The rest of my body began to react to the multiple layers of pain and betrayal uncovered by the removal of the tattoo. More quick breaths in and out through my mouth helped level the spikes of discomfort and keep more tears at bay. “Did your dad ever make you two get tattoos or anything?”
“No,” Thatcher assured me. “But Harper and I will do body checks tonight as soon as we get you fixed up.”
“Maybe there’s a way Tanner can check,” I said, wincing. I tried to roll up to sitting, only to find the swing had started to spin. “I feel really woozy.”
When I came to, I was lying on the couch in the living room. Thatch had pulled my favorite mid-century chair close and was staring at my face.
“Mom, how d’ya feel?” he asked, one hand resting lightly on my forearm.
I tried the head-lifting thing again. No spinning but a dull ache throbbed across the left side of my belly, into the bones of my pelvis and lower back.
“Better?” I answered. “But do you think I can have a couple ibuprofen or something?”
He nodded. “Be right back.”
I patted the sore area. A wide, Telfa bandage crinkled under the slight pressure.
Calli.
I looked around the room. No one else appeared to have heard the voice. And this one was different from the one I’d heard here and in the orchard.
This one was masculine. And familiar. And this voice wasn’t resonating up through the ground. It was coming from the woods ringing the back of the house.
CALLIOPE.
Heart thumping, I scrabbled off the couch and fumbled with the sliding doors to the back
