That left Tanner, Kaz, and Wes. And me. And Christoph, who was nowhere in sight.
“I want to go with you three,” I said. “I feel like there’s not much I can do here.” I patted my chest and spoke to Tanner. “I can keep wearing the pouch. Or leave it here or…”
He blanched a bit and shook his head. “Keep it on you. Hide it under your clothes. Please.”
“You could leave it with me.” Christoph’s sudden appearance unnerved me. I held tight to my T-shirt and the pouch with one hand. “I won’t leave the property, and if that pouch contains what I think it does, I would prefer my granddaughter be kept out of whatever is going on between you”—he glared at Tanner—“and this Apple Witch.”
Wow. This is what it was like to have an adult family member at your back. Literally. Christoph’s hand was on my shoulder, and his feathers pressed against the bared skin of my arm.
Tanner made to respond.
Kaz coughed into his fist. “I understand your hesitancy, Tanner, and though I can vouch for Christoph, I think it best the pouch stays with either you or Calliope or is placed somewhere secure.”
Slipping a couple fingers under the braided leather, I lifted the pouch and bounced it in my palm. The two halves were stitched together with crossing leather laces and polished to a high sheen. The cords were embedded in opposite corners. I’d spent a lot of time wondering about its contents.
Now that I knew seeds to the Apples of Immortality waited inside, the modest leather carrier seemed almost too simple a container for the weight of its great task.
“Thanks for the offer, Christoph. I’ve got an idea where I can stash this.” I repositioned the pouch under my T-shirt, glanced at Tanner, and tilted my head away toward the hall. He followed me toward my bedroom and grabbed my wrist.
“Calli,” he said, his voice cracking. He winced when the backs of his shoulders touched the wall. “Can we talk?”
I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to kiss. I really, really wanted to kiss. I wanted our kisses to wipe away our first mini-fight. Yet, after everything that had gone down in the past twelve hours, especially between him and Jessamyne, I didn’t think I could.
Tanner’s role in all of this was beginning to feel far bigger than I would ever know. Either that, or what we were all getting into was more far-reaching than I first believed.
My throat was dry as I tried to swallow.
“Sure,” I said, the words coming out more croaky than sultry.
“I want you to…” he said then stopped. He still wore Thatch’s cut-off sweatpants and almost too small T-shirt. His hair threatened to come unbound, his forearms and shins were raw in places, and his eyes broadcast confusion. Lust-tinged, desperate, confusion. “I need you to touch me, Calliope.”
“But your skin,” I said, pointing to the obvious. “It hasn’t healed.”
“What needs healing is inside me. I need you, and I need to be outdoors to start that process.”
“Then let’s go.” I tugged the hem of his T-shirt and gestured the way we’d come, thinking we’d go out the front door.
Tanner put up both hands for me to stop and looked over his shoulder. “Let me cloak us first.”
“How—”
But he put one finger to his lips then said, “I need to get something from your bedroom.”
He ducked away and came out with two purplish-green leaves in his hand.
“Tulsi?” I was confused. Tulsi was one of my favorite healing plants. I rotated small pots of herbs between my bedroom and front porch. Usually, I harvested the leaves for tea, not for whatever the druid had in mind.
Tanner placed both leaves in my open palm, cupped my hands in his, and whispered words over the surfaces. The warmth of his breath brought out the tulsi plant’s distinct clove and pepper scent. Straightening, he pinched one short stem, placed the leaf on my head, and did the same with the other, placing that one over his head.
The little leaf turned up its nose at settling on Tanner’s hair.
“It’s floating,” I said.
He nodded. “I spelled it to cloak us, but tulsi leaves are too tiny to last very long.”
“Cloak, as in no one will be able to see us?”
He nodded again, touched my elbow lightly, and led the way down the hall, out the front door, and down the steps. At the bottom, he turned right instead of toward the heavily trafficked left side of the house and yard.
We stepped into the shadow cast by the long slope of my A-frame’s roof. The grass here wasn’t as dry and crunchy as the patches receiving the full brunt of summer’s sun. At any given point, only three to five feet separated the foundation from the woods, and one branch of an old arbutus tree looked like it was ready to kiss my bedroom’s window.
“Calliope, I need to be naked for this.” Tanner peeled off the ratty T-shirt, his pectorals and abdominals flexing as he lifted, turned, and dropped the shirt to the ground. He slid his thumbs into the waistband of the sweats and folded forward as he drew the cloth over his buttocks and down his legs, wincing twice.
Tanner Marechal stood before me, all six-feet-something of him naked. I followed his lead, partially, tugged my cargo pants over my hips, and left them beside the sweatpants. I wasn’t going to read his tumescence as anything other than a male thing.
“Now what?” I asked. My tulsi leaf floated in front of my eyes, in that swoopy way leaves do when there’s very light breeze. The leaf that had floated above Tanner’s head was tangled behind one ear. I pulled it away and let it go.
“I lie down.” He went to his hands and knees, patting the grass and ground for rocks. Everywhere his hands landed, the grass went a little greener, a little fuller, until he had prepared an area roughly seven feet long,
