The Jaguar Star (Tales of the Were: Jaguar Island Book 4), Bianca D'Arc [pdf e book reader .txt] 📗

he was vulnerable and easily subdued. The Merry Men took some of the rope that had been used as a prop and tied T.J. up in a neat bundle while the wolves conferred with Sonia.

A few minutes later, T.J. was carted off by the werewolves, and Sonia’s attention turned to Ren. Finally.

Katrina moved closer, though she hadn’t gone far from Ren’s side throughout this ordeal. Sonia looked at Ren’s wound and frowned.

“Silver and poisoned with magic, as well,” she muttered. “You, my friend, are lucky to still be standing after coming into contact with that blade.”

Katrina gasped, and Ren staggered a bit when Sonia reached out as if to touch him but was repulsed by…something. Greg and Clive caught him and lowered him to a convenient, very large fallen log that wasn’t too far away. Sonia looked up and beckoned to Katrina.

“Give me your hand, child,” Sonia said in a gentle tone. “I dare not touch him, except through you. Your humanity—and your love—will protect us all. And it will save Ren’s life.”

His life? The wound looked bad, but not mortal to Katrina’s eyes. Then again, Sonia had said it was poisoned. Could Ren really be dying? The thought shocked her into action. There was no way she would let him die. Not on her watch.

Katrina reached out to touch Ren and encountered no resistance. Sonia smiled encouragingly.

“Place your palm over the wound,” Sonia instructed her, and Katrina did as she was told. Ren flinched a bit, but his eyes locked with hers.

“Do it, kitten,” he said, his voice husky with pain.

“I will place my hand on top of yours, Katrina,” Sonia continued, moving close. “You may feel a tingle. That is the counter-spell to the magical poison. Just let it flow through you and into Ren. You are the conduit through which I can work. Just don’t let go of him.”

“I will never let go of him,” Katrina said softly, her gaze holding firmly to Ren’s.

She saw the green fire leap in his eyes at her words, and then, she felt Sonia’s hand cover hers. The tingle was hot, then cold, then painful, but Katrina didn’t move a muscle. Her entire focus was on Ren and the blood pulsing out of his wound and onto her hand.

Sonia was doing something. Dimly, Katrina heard chanting or singing…or something. She really couldn’t focus on that. Her raison d’etre was the man in front of her. The man who had jumped in front of a poisoned blade meant for her. The man she loved with all her being.

She felt the love inside her flare outward, encompassing Ren and making whatever Sonia was doing somehow more powerful. She didn’t know how she knew that. She just knew it.

“Good,” Sonia said, her voice very close to Katrina’s ear. “Keep doing what you’re doing,” Sonia encouraged. “We’re almost done. Just a little more to clear the poison and seal the wound.”

At no point did Katrina’s gaze falter or move from Ren’s. He looked at her throughout, his green eyes flaring with pain, at first, then with relief. She could tell the efficacy of Sonia’s magic simply by gazing into Ren’s so-expressive eyes.

“That should do it,” Sonia said quietly, removing her hand from over Katrina’s and moving back, away from the couple.

Franny appeared at Katrina’s side, brandishing a roll of paper towels. “Wipe your hands on this,” Franny said, her gaze still worried as she looked them both over. “Try not to let Ren’s blood touch anything else. We’ll burn the paper towels properly once you’ve used them.”

“Why?” Katrina was intrigued by the lengths they were prepared to go to in removing all trace of blood. She suspected there was a good reason for their caution, but she didn’t know what it was.

“Sonia’s magic removed the poison and the traces of silver from Ren’s body, but there might still be remnants in the blood on your hand. The only way to clear it so that it doesn’t pose a danger to any of us is to burn it in a consecrated fire,” Franny informed Katrina, who was wiping her hand carefully on the dampened paper towels.

Katrina also wiped the remainder of blood away from Ren’s muscular chest. She wasn’t altogether shocked to see that under the blood, the wound was completely gone. Sonia’s magic had not only stopped the poison but healed Ren, as if the slash in his skin had never been made. Now that was impressive.

He was sitting on a fallen log at the edge of the clearing they’d been using for filming. The giant downed tree had made an interesting backdrop for some of the Merry Men to sit or stand on, varying the heights at which they appeared on film, but right now, it was a handy place for Ren to rest. Katrina’s hands were clean—they’d used a bottle of water for her to rinse them completely—and she’d handed off the paper towels to Franny, who’d had Katrina deposit them carefully inside a bag that she handled gingerly.

Katrina watched idly as the remnants were gathered into a spot one of the werewolves was preparing at the edge of the clearing. He had laid out a small circle marked with some good-sized rocks he’d scrounged from the woodland and cleared any dried leaves from the center so that the earth was as bare as possible within the small circle of stones. Sonia and Franny stood on opposite sides of the two-foot-wide circle, and even as Katrina watched, Sonia set fire to the bag of refuse that Franny deposited within the bounds of the circle. It flared with a flame that started out white hot then ran through all the colors of the spectrum, from blue down to red and everything in between. Katrina had never seen anything like it.

Of course, she’d never seen anyone light a fire without a match, either. However Sonia had managed it, that so-called fire had magical origins that didn’t require any sort of mundane fire starter. Katrina put