Read Online Hell or High Water (Gemini Book 3) by Hailey Edwards - Free Book Online
Authors: Hailey Edwards
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Graeson two members of his already small and vulnerable pack. Still a part of his six, the two deserters had been strangers to me. Honestly I had half expected Haden to make a break for it when given an out. Or maybe Jensen and Bianca now that they grasped the magnitude of what was at stake for their fledgling family. But the wargs known to me remained in their spots.
“Tonight this gathering becomes more than a sum of individuals,” Graeson continued. “We become pack. We become family.”
The mood in the circle as we scooted closer to banish the empty spaces was both somber with the loss of the men and excited for what was to come.
“Take the knife with your left hand. Score your right palm until blood flows. This symbolizes your willingness to bleed for your pack.” He illustrated making the cut, and my gut quivered. “Mark your neighbor’s left palm, a promise that their hurts are yours to share.” A red line appeared across Jensen’s palm. “Then pass them the knife, clasp hands and let our blood bind us.”
Around the circle the dagger traveled, biting the hands of those who fed it. When my turn came, it was Dell who cut me, and deep. Jaw clenched, I made my own slice across my palm then marked Nathalie. Dell’s hand slipped in mine, our essences mingling. Nathalie finished with the male beside her, and we clasped hands too. The warg blood tingled in my open wounds, feeding magic and excitement into my veins until I was drunk on the sensory overload.
Done wetting its sharp tongue, the blade returned to Graeson. Reverently he placed it inside a carved box then completed the circuit. Power, raw and wild zinged through my arms as he fed a part of himself through us all. This was a kind of earth magic I hadn’t known existed, and I marveled at the rich texture of its caress.
Light flashed behind my lids, blinding me, burning his radiant visage in my mind’s eye. The fierce white glow I associated with Graeson was ten times more brilliant than ever before, and it engulfed me, branded me on a cellular level.
“These are your people too now.” His voice brushed my mind. “Feed your power into the circle. Bind them to you.” A husky plea. “Bind me to you.”
“I don’t know how.” I writhed in the supernova that was an alpha claiming his pack, my old self charring and my ashes scattering. “Gemini magic is self-contained. I can’t affect others with it.”
“Relax your mind. Magic is in the blood, in the mind and in the heart.” A phantom kiss pressed to my forehead. “Picture your magic as a butterfly rising up from your core. Now, will it to fly all the way around the circle and return to you.”
“Here goes nothing.” Running with his analogy, I fixed the image of a butterfly in my head and imagined it rising up from my center, wings caressing my rib cage on its way to freedom. Focusing until sweat popped out on my forehead, I pictured it fluttering over the wargs’ heads, christening each with its pixie-dust residue, until it landed on Graeson. “Is it working?”
“Yes,” he rumbled, voice low and as sensual as a caress. “I can sense you melding with the others. Now finish it.”
Biting my lip, I urged my imaginary ambassador to take wing once more, floating over the other half of the circle until that kiss of energy lit on my shoulder. As its ethereal legs touched down, a jolt shocked my eyes open, the static punch like sticking fork tines in a live outlet.
Incandescence radiated from me and Graeson in a blast that seared my flesh as light pierced my soul. White-gold and intoxicating, it baptized each warg, each link in the chain, and when it swept past me like a tsunami, silvery threads of magic glinted in my mind’s eye, tethers spun from my heart.
“We did it.” We had sewn the small pack together, to us. “I can feel them.”
“You did good, Alpha.” Dell butted in, chuckling in my head. “Now you’ll never be rid of me. I don’t even have to mentally knock. I
“Tonight this gathering becomes more than a sum of individuals,” Graeson continued. “We become pack. We become family.”
The mood in the circle as we scooted closer to banish the empty spaces was both somber with the loss of the men and excited for what was to come.
“Take the knife with your left hand. Score your right palm until blood flows. This symbolizes your willingness to bleed for your pack.” He illustrated making the cut, and my gut quivered. “Mark your neighbor’s left palm, a promise that their hurts are yours to share.” A red line appeared across Jensen’s palm. “Then pass them the knife, clasp hands and let our blood bind us.”
Around the circle the dagger traveled, biting the hands of those who fed it. When my turn came, it was Dell who cut me, and deep. Jaw clenched, I made my own slice across my palm then marked Nathalie. Dell’s hand slipped in mine, our essences mingling. Nathalie finished with the male beside her, and we clasped hands too. The warg blood tingled in my open wounds, feeding magic and excitement into my veins until I was drunk on the sensory overload.
Done wetting its sharp tongue, the blade returned to Graeson. Reverently he placed it inside a carved box then completed the circuit. Power, raw and wild zinged through my arms as he fed a part of himself through us all. This was a kind of earth magic I hadn’t known existed, and I marveled at the rich texture of its caress.
Light flashed behind my lids, blinding me, burning his radiant visage in my mind’s eye. The fierce white glow I associated with Graeson was ten times more brilliant than ever before, and it engulfed me, branded me on a cellular level.
“These are your people too now.” His voice brushed my mind. “Feed your power into the circle. Bind them to you.” A husky plea. “Bind me to you.”
“I don’t know how.” I writhed in the supernova that was an alpha claiming his pack, my old self charring and my ashes scattering. “Gemini magic is self-contained. I can’t affect others with it.”
“Relax your mind. Magic is in the blood, in the mind and in the heart.” A phantom kiss pressed to my forehead. “Picture your magic as a butterfly rising up from your core. Now, will it to fly all the way around the circle and return to you.”
“Here goes nothing.” Running with his analogy, I fixed the image of a butterfly in my head and imagined it rising up from my center, wings caressing my rib cage on its way to freedom. Focusing until sweat popped out on my forehead, I pictured it fluttering over the wargs’ heads, christening each with its pixie-dust residue, until it landed on Graeson. “Is it working?”
“Yes,” he rumbled, voice low and as sensual as a caress. “I can sense you melding with the others. Now finish it.”
Biting my lip, I urged my imaginary ambassador to take wing once more, floating over the other half of the circle until that kiss of energy lit on my shoulder. As its ethereal legs touched down, a jolt shocked my eyes open, the static punch like sticking fork tines in a live outlet.
Incandescence radiated from me and Graeson in a blast that seared my flesh as light pierced my soul. White-gold and intoxicating, it baptized each warg, each link in the chain, and when it swept past me like a tsunami, silvery threads of magic glinted in my mind’s eye, tethers spun from my heart.
“We did it.” We had sewn the small pack together, to us. “I can feel them.”
“You did good, Alpha.” Dell butted in, chuckling in my head. “Now you’ll never be rid of me. I don’t even have to mentally knock. I
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