Collective Soul
Chapter 20 — The Necklace
The pewter medicine woman lay against his chest like a kept secret, her hands raised in eternal gesture, her mouth carved into the faintest parting—as if she were about to speak, or about to kiss. The reviser hex oil had seeped into every crevice, deepening her shadows, bringing out a faint gleam in her eyes. Rosemary and scorched pine clung to her, but beneath that, something brighter, sharper: lime’s green heat, slicing through the senses, and the slow, wine-dark sweetness of cranberry.
She was not cursed. She was not blessed. She was witness.
And she remembered.
In 1467, she had pressed between the warm skin of a healer’s breast and the heat of another’s mouth, catching the sigh between them. She had felt lips slide against her cool metal face, had been kissed accidentally and intentionally, had been brushed by tongues tasting salt and berry-wine in the same breath. She had heard the low sound people make when they are caught between surrender and survival.
Now, centuries later, the air around her trembled with Collective Soul’s basslines, a stadium’s worth of heartbeats in sync. But she knew these rhythms—had felt them in the rise and fall of lovers’ chests, in the drum of blood under a jaw, in the throb against her metal when someone’s pulse raced from touch alone.
He wore her over his sternum, security badge clipped just inches away, boots planted in cooling grass. The crowd swayed beyond the gates, their bodies moving like a slow tide. The smells mixed thick in the air—spilled beer, damp soil, the faint tang of hot metal from the stage lights—and threaded through it, the memory of his drink from earlier: vodka, cranberry, lime. The cranberry was a deep, red ache; the lime, a green blade; the vodka, a clean burn that left room for the other two to bloom.
The necklace warmed, not from his skin, but from something in her own memory sparking awake. She remembered mouths like this taste—berry-sweet and blade-sharp—centuries apart, always the same hunger. She remembered being between two people as their faces drew closer, remembered the first brush of lips, the breath that caught, the way one exhaled into the other as if giving up the right to keep air for themselves.
He scanned the crowd. And then—there. A pair of eyes met his, pale in the wash of stage glare, their gaze caught like a moth in the heat of a flame. The noise faded. The distance between them thinned until it was almost nothing. He imagined crossing it. He imagined her—the pewter woman—pressing against the hollow between their chests as they leaned in, catching their heat, their voices, their breath, their berry-and-lime.
The necklace would keep it. She always did. Every kiss, every taste, every surrender and every theft—it all lived in her metal body, layered like the lines in old wood. And when she was worn again, in another time, another century, she would feed those memories back in fragments—just enough to make the skin flush and the pulse stutter.
Danger didn’t always bare its teeth. Sometimes it just leaned forward, smelled of lime and rosemary, and kissed you until you forgot your own name.
Chapter 20 — The Necklace
The night was heavy like blood in the throat—thick with the slow buzz of crickets and the sharp bite of pine resin burnt low in the hearth. Outside, the moon hung like a bleeding wound, pale and ruthless, spilling cold light that cut through the dark like a razor. Inside, the air tasted of smoke and something darker, something fierce and ancient that refused to be named aloud.
She sat with her hands trembling only slightly, the jar of reviser hex oil cool against her palm. Rosemary and scorched pine steeped in the thick, bitter liquid, and beneath that, the sharp edge of lime and the bruised sweetness of cranberry—her fingers smelled of the forest’s own hunger. She wasn’t anointing a child, not really. She was anointing a goddamn warrior, a beast walking a razor’s edge between salvation and ruin.
Her breath was low, rough as gravel in her chest, and her eyes burned with a ferocity that no mother should carry. “This,” she whispered to the shadows, “is the oil that bends fate. The oil that makes the road crack open beneath your feet, so you can walk the pieces without cutting your goddamn throat.”
She twisted the pewter medicine woman between her fingers—the figure was small but heavy, cold and rough like the earth after frost. Her hands were raised in silent invocation, her mouth parted as if caught between a scream and a kiss. The figure was not just metal. She was memory and hunger and blood wrapped tight in cold fire.
It was the weight of centuries pressed into the curve of the metal, a relic forged in a time when the world still burned with witchfire and whispered secrets no one dared repeat. She had hung from the neck of a healer in 1467—a woman who drank nights heavy with berry wine and lime, who kissed fever from lovers’ mouths while the world fell apart around them.
The oil was rubbed deep into the pewter’s folds, darkening her robe and awakening her—awakening her—the part that never slept. This was not a blessing or a curse. This was something fiercer. Something that wanted.
Outside, the crickets thrummed like a heartbeat, a slow war drum in the night. The pine trees whispered warnings no one else could hear.
She held the necklace up, and the light caught it just right—glinting like a secret blade. Soon, it would be hanging around a neck that had already tasted blood and lime, hunger and loss.
She closed her eyes and let the world fall away. Tonight, she was not a mother. Tonight, she was the last guardian of a legacy too sharp to speak aloud.
Jennifer’s fingers lingered on the pewter woman as she hung the necklace around Levi’s neck. Her voice was low, fierce.
Jennifer: “You think this is protection? No. It’s a goddamn warhorse. It carries every scar, every betrayal, every hunger you’ll ever have.”
Levi’s eyes flicked to hers, dark and raw.
Levi: “Then why give it to me?”
Jennifer: (her voice cracking) “Because no one else will. Because the world will try to tear you apart, and this…” (she taps the necklace) “…will be the only thing that keeps you whole. But it’ll cost you. It always does.”
Levi’s lover stepped closer, his voice soft but steady.
Lover: “We’ll pay that cost together. You’re not alone.”
Levi’s laugh was bitter, almost a growl.
Levi: “Together? That’s the joke. I’m already damned, and this thing”—he fingers the pewter charm—“just rubs salt in the wound.”
Jennifer’s eyes burned with a fierce love.
Jennifer: “Then let it burn, Levi. Let it set fire to the darkness inside you. You’re not just carrying history. You’re making it. And when the hunger comes…”
She paused, voice dropping to a whisper.
Jennifer: “…you’ll remember who hung this around your neck. Who loved you enough to give you fire and fury.”
The room held its breath as Levi’s lover leaned in, pressing a kiss to his temple.
Lover: “And I’ll be here, through every bite and every thirst.”
Levi’s fingers closed around the necklace, the pewter warm against his skin.
Levi: “Then let’s burn.”
Chapter 20 — The Necklace (continued)
The night had folded itself tight around Levi like a noose, the forest beyond the flicker of firelight a black sea of whispering pines and ancient secrets. His breath came ragged, each inhale sharp and biting like the lime pressed between his teeth, the cranberry’s sweetness lingering thick on his tongue.
Jennifer’s voice was distant but clear, a tether in the chaos. “Hold onto the necklace. Let it carry you.”
The first bite tore into him—a savage, brutal slash of teeth ripping flesh, drawing hot, coppery blood that tasted of bitter earth and something darker, something raw and ancient. Pain exploded through his veins, a firestorm that threatened to consume him whole.
But the pewter medicine woman was there, pressed tight against his chest, the reviser hex oil burning into his skin like liquid fire. The necklace pulsed with power, an anchor in the storm, a blade cutting through the darkness that sought to drag him under.
He tasted everything—the sharp tang of lime, the deep red ache of cranberry-stained blood, the cold bite of vodka fire—and it all burned and bled into his soul, setting loose a hunger that would never be sated.
Levi’s lover was there, hands trembling as they pressed against his back, grounding him as the world tilted and shattered. Lips brushed his neck, a fierce promise that he was not alone in this wild, ravenous night.
Jennifer’s eyes burned with fierce pride and heartbreak. “You’re not just surviving, Levi. You’re becoming. And this”—her hand brushed the necklace’s cold metal against his skin—“this will carry the weight when you can’t.”
The world held its breath, the stars flickering like distant flames as Levi stood, bloodied but unbroken, the ravenous fire in his veins roaring awake.
The firelight flickered low as Levi’s mother’s voice faded into the night, her words burning deep into him like the heat of the pewter medicine woman pressed against his skin. The crimson and lime—the hunger and the fire—wove into his blood, an eternal brand.
But now, in the chill of the present, the world was different.
Roberto was perched naked in the limbs of a gnarled old tree, skin flushed and slick with sweat. The night air clung to him, cool and sharp, contrasting the heat simmering between them. His eyes met Levi’s from above, fierce and raw, the vulnerability of exposure wrapped tight with something wild and dangerous.
The moon spilled silver across his bare skin, painting him a ghost of shadow and light.
Levi’s fingers brushed the pewter woman beneath his shirt, a silent promise pulsing against his ribs as he climbed toward Roberto, hunger and history threading through every breath.
They were both caught—two flames on a tinder-dry night—burning bright and reckless beneath the watchful stars.
Chapter 21 — Under Diablo’s Eye
Roberto slid down the rough bark, muscles taut and lithe, landing silent beside Levi. The night air wrapped around them, cool but charged, humming with a pulse that thrummed deep in their bones.
Levi’s fingers never left the pewter necklace, tracing its edges as if pulling strength from the cold metal. His eyes flicked to Roberto’s, sharp and fierce.
“Diablo’s out here tonight,” Levi murmured, voice thick with something fierce and hungry. “He’s the shadow behind the hunger, the fire in the veins.”
Roberto smiled, a dark, knowing curl of lips. “Then we’re already marked. No turning back now.”
Their bodies moved closer, drawn by that savage gravity. Every touch was a spark, every breath a promise edged with danger. Levi’s mouth found Roberto’s, teeth grazing, tasting—the sharp snap of lime on his tongue, the wild sweetness of cranberry blood lingering like a secret between them.
The world around them slipped away—leaving only heat and hunger, the pulsing weight of the necklace against Levi’s heart, and the fierce, unbreakable bond of two wolves running beneath Diablo’s watchful eye.