“I’m okay,” I yell up at him. “Don’t pull me up! I’m down here, might as well see what we have.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a stubborn ass?” Ben calls back down.
“Nearly everyone!”
“Good!”
I can’t help but smile a little at that. Ben sounds downright protective, which makes me feel . . . things. Things I absolutely do not want to feel, given the situation. I’m just working for him to help out Dru. That’s all. But his cuff feels heavy and good on my wrist, and I can’t help but think about how Gwen blatantly hit on him and how it made me feel.
I didn’t like it. Not one bit. And if I’m determined not to get involved with Ben Magnus, I shouldn’t care. Let him fuck Gwen (again). Let him help her with her moon ceremony and all the damn fluids. I’m sure they’d be very happy together and make cute little immortal warlock babies. It’s just, the thought of that makes me grit my teeth.
I finally meet a guy that’s everything I want, and he’s a centuries-old evil warlock. Except the evil part doesn’t fit so well. He looked at me earlier in the car with such sympathy—like he knew what it was like to have parents that were absolute dickbags. There’s more to that story. I trust Ben, even though the world keeps giving me reasons not to trust him. But here I am, dangling down a well in a witch’s field, my fate solely in Ben’s hands, and the biggest thing I’m worried about is if there are snakes down here.
There had better not be snakes down here, damn it.
Ben lowers me a little more, and then my feet hit bottom. “It’s not very deep,” I call back. “Just a foot or two.” I stand upright and wriggle my toes in the mud, trying to focus on the task at hand and not Gwen’s beautiful hair and her big glorious braless boobs. I mean, if my boobs looked that good, I’d probably show them off, too. I can’t hate her for being sexy.
I decide I can hate her for hitting on Ben, though.
A shadow moves above—probably Ben, trying to see me down here. “Any tablets?”
“Give me a moment to look around.”
“I can’t see you down there, Reggie.” There’s a worried tone in his voice. “Be careful.”
For a murderous warlock, he sure is a mother hen. It’s completely dark down here, which is unnerving, but the circle of light up above is comforting. If I stand still, I don’t hear anything at all, which is good. No slithering or well-monster noises or whatever else might be down here. I’m pretty sure it’s just me. I shuffle my feet in the muck, feeling around with my toes, but all it feels like is more mud. There are no tablets, no rock, no anything. “Would they be hidden?” I call back up to Ben. “In addition to being down a well?”
“It’s possible?” he yells back. “This is my aunt we’re talking about.”
Excellent point. Dru’s mind is twisty at best. She might look like a Rose on the outside, but she’s definitely got a Sophia soul. I touch the wall of the well, and it’s cold and slick. Stone? Brick? Who the hell knows. I feel around, looking for gaps in the rock. To my surprise, I find one about waist high. Excited, I kneel in the water and probe the crack with my fingers. It’s about the size of a tablet, now that I think about it, if the tablet was on its side. “I think I found something!”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know yet!” My voice echoes loudly at the bottom of the well, making me wince, and I push my fingers in a little farther. I don’t feel anything yet, but I also can’t quite reach far enough. My wrist keeps getting in the way. I think for a moment, then pull my hand out, grease my wrist up with the mud from the bottom of the well, and then try the secret chamber again. I still can’t reach quite far enough, so I push harder, until it feels as if my bones are going to crack. Something pops, and then my hand pushes through to the other side—
To encounter nothing at all. It’s just a crack in the rock that I’ve jammed my hand into.
With a frustrated sigh, I try to pull my hand back out . . . and I can’t.
Frantic, I jerk on my wrist. It’s like I’m held fast now, and no matter how much I twist and turn and writhe, I can’t get my wrist free. The more I struggle, the more it hurts, and it feels like my wrist is swelling after minutes of terrified jerking on it. I’m . . . stuck.
I’m stuck, and there’s not even a curse tablet in this hole. It’s just a hole.
“Reggie?” Ben calls out above. “I hear splashing. What’s going on?”
“Um. Small problem?” I give my hand another yank, and my eyes nearly cross at the pain that shoots up my arm. “I think I’m stuck.”
“What do you mean, you’re stuck?”
“I mean I’m fucking stuck!”
“Explain to me how you get stuck at the bottom of a well?” He’s shouting. I can tell he’s shouting. He’s mad.
“I might have shoved my hand into a spot that it didn’t fit? And now I can’t get it back out.”
Silence. Then “I’m coming down after you.”
“Well, I’d love to come up to you,” I bellow, “but I can’t!”
Honestly, he acts like this is my fault.
28
REGGIE
I continue to jerk on my hand, but it’s stuck fast. No matter how I twist and turn, my wrist isn’t coming free. It just shoots with pain the more I try, to the point that I give up and crouch in the waist-high water, panting in frustration.
I can’t stay here forever, so I need to think.
Maybe Ben could toss down a crowbar. Or something to grease my hand, maybe, since the mud isn’t doing it any longer. “Hey, Ben?” I call up to the shadows that are moving around frantically at the top of the well. “You got any butter on you? Or lube?”
“Why the fuck would I carry those with me?”
“I don’t know! You’re the warlock that plays with entrails and candles. Maybe you’ve got a butter fetish.” I give my hand another half-hearted yank. “Maybe go and run down Gwen and see if she has some lube? She’s definitely the type that would have lube. Like, gallons of it.”
“Reggie,” Ben calls out from above. “I am about to lose my shit, so do me a favor and stop talking.”
I scowl up at him. Is it me, or does his shadow look closer? I glare at the blinding circle of light and tug on my hand again, then look around at the bottom of the well, searching. I can’t see anything—not only is the sunlight above rather blinding, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing down here except . . . well, me.
This is my new home, apparently. Maybe I’ll be here for the rest of my days, just like Gollum, screaming about my precious and rocking some seriously lank hair. With a frustrated whimper, I tug on my hand again. And again.
I’m so busy tugging that I don’t notice Ben until he swears directly above and then crashes into the water next to me. I bite back a small scream of terror and surprise as he sits up, wiping muddy water from his face. There’s a necklace under his long tunic shirt that’s glowing, providing just enough light for me to see the murderous expression on his face.
“What the fuck, Ben! You can’t come down here! Who’s going to pull me up?”
He sits in the water, his black hair plastered to his face, and scowls at me. “No one, since you’ve gotten stuck somehow.”
I splash at him, furious. “I’m trying to find the tablets, idiot. Now we’re both stuck down here! Why didn’t you go get Gwen?”
“Why’d you shove your hand someplace it doesn’t belong?” he retorts, glaring at me. “Why’d you insist on jumping down here? Are you trying to get killed, Reggie?”
“Of course not.”
“You don’t listen,” he rages as he gets to his feet, sopping wet. Between the shadows and the water dripping down him, it only emphasizes how big he is as I crouch in the water nearby. With the light under his chin, Ben should look ghoulish and menacing, but his eyes are blazing with anger over my safety, and I find that . . .
Hot.