Throwing up is the most disgusting thing I can think of. I flushed the toilet after the first time, but then I vomited again and again, my stomach muscled heaving. I felt the little blood vessels around my eyes burst and I wanted to cry but couldn't yet.
The only thing worse than barfing your guts up is doing it in front of someone you love desperately and are no longer with. I didn't hear him follow me, but my face crumpled with sobs when I felt Hunter's strong, gentle hands carefully lifting back my long hair. He twisted it away from my face while I was sick, and then when I sagged against the porcelain, he stepped away long enough to wet a washcloth with cold water. He stroked it over my face as I sat mortified, humiliated tears filling my eyes.
"Oh, God," I muttered in misery.
"Can you stand up?" His anger had dissipated. I nodded, and Hunter helped me over to the sink, where I brushed my teeth three times, feeling shaky and hollow. He wet the washcloth again, gently pressing it against my face and the back of my neck under my hair. It felt incredible.
Feeling completely defeated and beyond any hope of redeeming myself, I shuffled back to my room and collapsed on my bed. That was when I realized I was wearing only the Wonder Woman undies Bree had given me month ago as a joke and my dads threadbare MIT sweatshirt. Hunter was rooting through my dresser and finally found a long sleeved rugby shirt, that had seen too many washes. Businesslike, he came over, stripped off my sweatshirt, then popped the rugby shirt over my head, helping my arms find the sleeves.
Then he left my bedroom, and I slid sideways in my cool comfortable bed, knowing my humiliation was now complete. Hunter and I had made out seriously before, and we'd put our hands under each other's shirts, but he'd never seen me in nothing but my Wonder Woman undies.
Hunter came back into my room, holding a cold can of ginger ale. He poured it into a glass and helped me sit up again so I could sip it. It was nirvana. "Thank you." My voice sounded harsh, scraped.
"So you've been drinking a bit," he said unnecessarily, taking the glass from me and putting it on my bedside table.
I moaned pathetically, burying my face in my pillow. I still felt wretched but much, much better since my stomach had gotten rid of the poison in my system. The spins were gone, and the awful queasiness.
"Liquor dulls your senses," Hunter said mildly, stroking his hand down my hair, across my shoulder, down my side. I pulled the covers up past my waist. "It makes your magick go awry if you don't compensate for it. That's why most witches just have a little ceremonial wine, at most…"
I started weeping, and he shut up. He didn't have to tell he this—I didn't have to tell me this—I didn't want to drink again in my whole life. "I was with Killian tonight. He told me why Ciaran inherited his mother's coven and not her, but didn't get anything else. But I did ask him to ask Ciaran to come here." Then I burst into tears, holding my pillow, feeling like I was releasing days' worth of tension, fear, and worry. Hunter sat close to me, his hand on my neck, smoothing my hair. He didn't say shhh or anything to make me stop crying but just waited while I got it out.
Finally I slowed down to shudders and hiccups. I gazed up at him through tear-blurred eyes, thinking how incredible he looked, how attractive and appealing and sexy and magickal, thinking about how wonderful and caring and thoughtful he had been tonight. My heart was breaking all over again. And here I was, having just been horribly sick in front of him, having him see me in my joke underwear and nothing else, and knowing that I looked like a total bowser when I cried. It was too much to bear, and I closed my eyes against the onslaught of emotional anguish that rushed over me.
"Tell me more about tonight, love," he said gently, leaning over me.
Slowly I reported everything that Killian and I had talked about it. It seemed extremely thin. I was a failure. I talked going to the bar tonight, and everyone drinking, and Ethan falling of the wagon. I confessed to Killian's working weather magick, but not that I had done it also.
"Then right before he left me, I asked him to call Ciaran. He said he's think about it."
"You did well," Hunter said. He looked at me and seemed to say something but then decided against it. Instead he stroked my hair down my back. I realized I was completely exhausted, hollowed out, wrung out, numb.
"Go to sleep," Hunter whispered.
"Mmm-hmm," I muttered, my eyes already closing.
"By the way," he said from the door, "nice knickers."
The he was gone, and despite how horrible I felt at the moment, I was smiling because I had seen his face, just for a little while.
The next afternoon Killian was waiting for me, the faithful spaniel, on his usual stone bench. It was odd—my heart was glad to see him smile. I was really glad to see his smile. I was really beginning to like Killian. He was completely irresponsible and a bad influence, but nice. I immediately wanted to ask him about Ciaran—I was down to ten days now and Ciaran was nowhere in sight—but then I remembered Eoife's pep talk from the Starlocket circle. How pushy could I be without turning him off or making him suspicious? I decided to play it by ear.
He rubbed his hands together when he saw me walking toward him, Robbie and Bree in back of me. "What's up for tonight?"
"Anything that doesn't involve alcohol," I said. I thought briefly about my vow to study tonight but then figured that saving Starlocket mattered more than memorizing a lists of presidents.
Anyway, there would be plenty of time to study after Imbolic.
Killian threw back his head and laughed. "We have to get you up to speed," he said.
Even in our hung-over state, we all gravitated toward the good time Killian seemed to promise, and half an hour later we were sprawled in Bree's family room. I tried to sit next to Killian, determined to find out if he had passed my message on to Ciaran.
We were all making fun of Bree's awful CD of French pop music when the doorbell rang. When Bree came back to the family room she was followed by Sky Eventide, Alisa Soto, and Simon Bakehouse, who was also in Kithic. Jenna and Simon had recently started going out. Sky looked at Raven, who was leaning toward Killian, offering him a bite of a mini powdered doughnut.
Killian looked up at the newcomers and gave them a welcoming smile, licking powdered sugar off his lips. Bree, the good hostess, introduced him. Simon smiled politely.
"I remember Sky," Killian said in a silky voice, smiling into her eyes. Sky narrowed hers at him so they looked like slits of obsidian. She was dressed in formfitting black clothes, which made her moonlight-pale hair stand out in stark contrast. She turned to look at Raven, who had a bored expression on her face.
Simon sat next to Jenna, putting his hands on her knee as she smiled up at him. Across the room Matt looked like he'd just bitten a lemon. Alisa seemed uncomfortable and awkward and very young. She perched on the edge of the couch, and I wondered why she had come. This wasn't an official circle, after all.
"Well!" said Bree, artificially brightly. "Who needs something to drink? I have seltzer, juice, sodas, of I could make coffee or tea.
"How about a drop of whiskey?" Killian asked.
Only someone who knew Bree as well as I did could tell she was disconcerted by his open request. "Sorry," she said. "The liquor cabinet is locked."
Killian laughed. "Lock or no lock—it doesn't matter to a witch."
Bree wasn't so easy to influence. "Sorry," she said again, with a touch more warning in her voice.
My glance flicked to Ethan, who looked relieved. Sharon reached up and rubbed the back of his neck under his long curls. He have her a little smile, and she kissed him. I felt a renewed sense of warmth for both of them.
Only Bree was so irrevocably cool that she could say she didn't want to drink and not look like a Girl Scout. For the millionth time in my life, I admired her easy self-confidence.