by Elena Lawson
“Water? Food?” Cal said, some of the glow in his iris’ dimming as he took in that I was alright. Adrian’s hard breaths shallowed, and he shoved Draven off of him, leaving the vamp to straighten his jacket and right the dagger belt across his chest beneath.
“We’ll bring it to you upstairs if you need anything,” Draven added, and he and my familiars shared a look.
“What?” I hedged, wondering what the look was about—they were clearly not telling me something.
Fuck, what now?
Elias glanced behind me and I watched his jaw harden. The other’s followed his gaze. I turned to see what they were all looking at and my mouth went dry.
Cal and Adrian hadn’t gotten around to re-covering the windows up here since Granger left. Two thin white curtains billowed in the evening breeze coming in from the window I demanded they open when Cal had carried me upstairs earlier. I’d needed to feel the cool air against my warmed skin. Needed to feel the moonlight on my skin.
I squinted at the bright orb in the sky over the hills in the distance. The moon hung low in the sky tonight, heavy with its own fullness. It shone with a ferocity that seared my corneas and had me jerking back around to blink away the light spots it’s created in my vision. My heart pounded in my chest and blood rushed loudly in my ears.
“Great,” I hissed between gritted teeth, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes to rid them of the light-blindness. “Any sign of the shifter?”
“No.” It was Adrian who answered.
“But we’d rather it if you stayed upstairs,” Draven’s rich baritone added.
“Cal and Adrian are going to be outside until dawn. I’ll stay with you in here.”
“I’ll stay with you, too,” Draven said, and as a tree somewhere outside creaked under the press of the wind, he reflexively drew a blade. In a blur of movement too fast for my eyes to catch one of his daggers was removed from his belt and loosely in his hands, ready to be thrown. But he halted at the last second—having misjudged the sound as a threat.
I flinched.
With a spin of his fingers the dagger was re-sheathed, and he stalked toward the window. “On second thought,” Draven said and stepped onto the sill of the window. “I’ll keep an eye from up here.” He hooked a hand into some unseen crevice above the top of the window outside and lifted himself up until he was entirely out of sight—only the tinkling of his light feet on the clay tiles above told us he was still there at all—watching from a perch of his own making on the roof.
“The shifter might be long gone,” I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes at the remaining three in the room with me. “We should be working on deciphering more of the journal and that parchment. I should be going back to the chamber to see if—”
“Not right now,” Elias interrupted. “We can’t have your…migraine getting out of control. You should sleep. It’s getting late.”
It became increasingly difficult not to pull my hands out of his. I hated being told what was good for me. What I should be doing. And even thought it was Elias and I knew he was only trying to help—to take care of me—the way he said it still irked me.
I closed my mouth firmly and nodded.
I seriously doubted I’d be able to sleep—between a potential threat out in the woods, a possible Manifesto meeting that I was probably missing, and everything we had yet to uncover plus the dulled aching in my skull, the idea of laying down at all wasn’t an enticing one.
“Fine,” I said. “Could you just—could you get me some water?” I asked Cal and Adrian. “And bring up our notes and all that before you go outside?”
They didn’t seem overly happy about my second request, but they both left the room and returned a few minutes later with a large glass of cool water and a stack of papers and books that they’d hidden from view earlier.
“Thank you.”
“Stay inside, okay?” Cal said, needing to remind me one last time.
“And you two stay safe,” I replied. I really didn’t think a young shifter would pose any threat to my very experienced ones—hell, I’d made it clear I didn’t even thing this mysterious shifter would be around here anymore—but I still hated the idea of seeing them hurt. “Check in every once in a while?”
“We will,” Adrian said, and slapped a hand on Cal’s bare shoulder. “C’mon man—we should get out there. The moon will be at its highest soon.”
Cal’s green eyes bored into me for a hot second before he tore his gaze away and followed Adrian from the room.
25
Turned out Elias was right, and I hated to admit it. The more I looked over our notes and tried to skim over sections in the books we were referencing from my father’s library, the more my head throbbed.
“It’s no use anyway,” I groused, shoving the bits of parchment away, uncaring when several pieces fell to the floor and I rumpled a couple others. “We don’t have all the pieces. We are never going to figure this out.” Pain exploded behind my eyelids and I gritted my teeth. “Maybe all those people were right—maybe my father was crazy to think this could be undone…”
“Hey,” Elias said, his brows knitted together as he regarded me from his cross-legged post opposite me on the bed. “Don’t do that. Don’t give up just because you’re frustrated. We’ll find—”
“They said that he was close to reconstructing it, Elias,” I bit out. I hadn’t said as much, but it was all I could think about the last few nights. The nightmares about Martin and Donovan and Sterling’s head sailing through the air had stopped. They’d been replaced with even worse terrors—as if that were even possible.
I dreamed that the person who worked against my father succeeded. That they reconstructed the original curse—finished it. And that Cal and Adrian and Draven…and every single other shifter and vampire died.
How would it even work? Would it be painful? Or would they all just drop? Their hearts stopping in their chests instantly? Would it be a plague like the plague that claimed the lands of Emeris? Would they grow ill and die slow?
I hunched over, my stomach uneasy at the thought.
It didn’t matter who was behind it—we had to find out for sure and we had to stop them. Manifesto seemed to want to do the same thing. At least that was comforting. They were all likely older, more experienced than I was. But I knew it was likely that none of them were stronger than I was—none of them would be willing to go to the lengths that I would to stop him.
They talked about wanting to free the Enduran and Vocari people from their curses—but did they have as personal of a stake in that as I did?
I didn’t think anyone was willing to do the things I was to make sure no hard ever came to my familiars. Or to Draven. Or anyone they knew and loved.
But how could I save them? How could I reverse the curses if I had no fucking idea what I was doing?
For the first time I allowed myself to breathe life into the thought that’d been creeping around the edges of my subconscious for weeks now; I’m way out of my fucking league…
“We will figure it out first,” Elias said, and I couldn’t help but flinch when his cool hand brushed against my knee. “Harper, you’re burning up.” He scooted forward and raised his hand higher, brushing it against my cheek first, and then my forehead. “You have a fever…”
I shook off his hand. A fever was hardly a damned priority right now. “I need to go back to the chamber,” I implored Elias. “I just have this—this gut feeling that they’ll be meeting tonight. I need to check. I have to see if they’ve learned anything else about—”
“Harper,” Elias’ voice was hard, and I was taken aback by his tone. When I managed to focus my gaze on him, I saw his jaw was set in stone and his eyes were dark.
“Not. Tonight. I can see the pain in your eyes. And you have a fever. I’ll try to heal you again, but there’s no way you’re going anywhere tonight. Least of all a fucking a chamber filled with Manifesto rebels in the middle of the night. A chamber that may I remin
d you is completely laced with bindstone. Just…” he sighed. “Please, Harper. Try to relax for right now.”
Ugh.
“How am I supposed to relax?”
I couldn’t help the surging of magic as it rose in my body, drawn of its own accord as my temper rose. I squandered it—pushing it deeper, but my magic walked hand in hand with my pain—with my fury—and if I wasn’t careful, I knew it would consume me and I would be utterly powerless to stop it.
Hard breaths sawed in and out through my clenched teeth and I bit out a yelp as another lance of pain ran over my skull in a perfect line from forehead to neck.
“Harper—here, let me—” Elias started, and I saw the beginnings of the golden glow of a healing sigil forming over his palm.
“No. I’ll do it myself,” I interrupted. I needed to let some of my power out before it bottle-necked and exploded out all by itself. I released the magic, letting it pour out of my palm and I willed it into the symbol for healing, the glowing circle and line sigil pulsating extra bright. I released it over my head, and I shivered as the tiny magical particles rained down over my head.
It was a strong spell, but only a modicum of the pain subsided. But as it seeped out, some of the anger and frustration bled out with it and I sighed, wanting to cry in the aftermath of it. All the pain and worry and raucous emotions were running rampant in my body and mind—filling me with too much everything.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and bit the inside of my cheek to stabilize myself. “I—I’m sorry, Elias.”
He cupped my cheek again and I when I looked up, I found deep lines carved into his forehead and sadness in his denim blues. “Don’t be. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“It’s just…” I trailed off, unable to finish for the sob building in my chest. My chin quavered. “I can’t—I can’t lose them, you know?”
The thought of a life without my familiars, and even Draven, was not once I wanted to contemplate. I couldn’t stand the possibility of it. It made my blood chill in my veins and gripping fear twist my heart in agonizing torture.
“Come here,” he said, and pulled me into him as the hot, frustrated tear came. He stroked my hair as my body wracked in great angry, terrified sobs against him. “I—I’m so sorry. I wish…Harper, I wish I could tell you everything’ll be alright, but I can’t know that. What I do know is that none of us will give up. We won’t ever stop fighting until…”
He didn’t say it, but I knew what he was thinking. Until there’s nothing left to fight for…
I shuddered, and someplace deep within me I felt a pull. At first I thought it was my heart aching, but then it happened again. A distinct tug. And then my mind grew foggy and I realized what was happening. I pulled away.
“It’s Cal and Adrian,” I said, trying to concentrate. “I think they are trying to communicate with me.” My brows furrowed as I tried to nail down the feeling and open the bond to them.
Elias mirrored my expression and his gaze went to the window. He rose and rushed to look outside. “Drav?” he called. “You see anything out there?”
Draven’s voice drifted back to us, muffled by the breeze. “No, nothing. They’re too far out for me to see.”
I focused like Elias taught me and found the connection in my chest that tied me to my familiars. My body was already so pumped full of power I didn’t need to fuse magic to the bond to strengthen it, I only needed to focus hard enough to open the connection.
It was easier when they were already receptive to it and I didn’t have to shove my way in. I visualized making the call and before I could even fully finish the visualization I was planted firmly in the mind of Adrian.
Dark forest streaked past me in a blur of dark branches and blue-tinted moonlight. My paws struck the earth below my body like thunder. Beside me, my brother wolf ran, spitting up dirt in the wake of his hard footfalls.
We’re close, Adrian spoke in my mind. We’re on her tail but she’s turned around—she’s headed back towards the villa.
Shocked, I hardly knew what to say. They’d actually found her. Maybe that meant they could help her after all?
Is Draven ready? Cal spoke in both Adrian’s and my mind.
“Warn Draven,” I spoke aloud, hoping Elias would hear me on the outside. “She’s coming this way.”
She’s really fast. Adrian growled in my mind.
I was surprised. I didn’t think any shifter could possibly be faster than my familiars. They were like the wind in their wolf forms. Even now as they ran, looking out from their eyes, there was no jarring to their canter, it was smooth and level. I could have been looking out the window of a bus or a car driving over even ground.
Can you reach her mind? I asked. Do you know what she wants?
No, Adrian replied. We were right—she must be newly changed. She’s not there. It’s only her wolf.
Don’t worry, Cal grunted, and I was thrown from Adrian’s mind into his—watching as he pumped his legs faster through the trees—faster than I’d ever seen him go. I won’t let her get onto the property.
Don’t hurt her, I implored them. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.
A shifter without control is a dangerous thing, Harper, Adrian said, the thought somehow dark and mellow.
I don’t think you understand what one of our kind can do when the beast within hasn’t been tamed. We aren’t ourselves…
Don’t hurt her, I hissed into both their minds again. No one’s lived or visited here in years. The shifter had probably come out here to make sure she wasn’t near anyone she could hurt. In my mind, this was her territory now and we were encroaching on it.
We may not have a choice.
Ugh.
I shoved myself out of their minds and steadied myself with palms flat against the mattress for a moment until the dizziness subsided. Elias was still at the window, talking animatedly with Draven—the both of them looking out onto the property—into the night. Searching for any signs of a rogue wolf.
Neither seemed to notice as I slid from the bed and padded quietly to the door. Neither chased me as I made my way down the stairs and to the front door. Or when I opened it and stepped outside, going over the spell to stun an enemy in my head over and over again. If I could stun her before Cal and Adrian got to her, I might just save this innocent woman’s life. If she was alone out here, it likely meant she was bitten and left for dead, forced to figure shit out all alone.
This wasn’t her fault.
She didn’t deserve to die just because my familiars felt the need to protect me above all else. No matter the cost to their our souls.
They wouldn’t be able to live with themselves if they killed one of their own kind, would they? I knew them well enough to know that though they may rationalize it to themselves, but deep down it would eat at them.
I wasn’t willing to let that happen.
I exited the door and fled from the villa and across the open drive, into the gardens. I got about six feet before the ground shook beneath me and I jerked my head up to find Draven standing three feet in front of me, one brow raised, a stare that could curdle dairy penetrating me. “What are you doing?”
I ground my teeth. “They’re going to kill her,” I spat, trying to get past him, using the pull of my witch-familiar bond with Cal and Adrian to show me the way. “I can’t let them do that.”
Draven circled my arm, stopping me. “And I can’t let you put yourself at risk.”
Just then Elias crashed out of the house, the wooden door banging loudly against the stucco wall as he barreled through it, his chest heaving. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice a dangerous hiss.
“Help me if you want to, but don’t try to stop me,” I shouted right back. “They are going to kill her if she gets too close to here. I can’t let them do that. I’ll just stun the shifter and then they can get her chained up—or lock her in the wine cellar—or something that’s not fucking killing her.”
“Harper—” Eli
as warned.
“No.”
“Harper,” Draven tried.
“No. Help me or get out of my way,” I growled. “We need to stop her before she gets too close. I don’t want Dee in danger.”
Remembering the slight housekeeper, I lowered my voice, realizing a little belatedly that we were speaking rather loudly, and I didn’t want to risk waking her and having to corral her back into the little cabana where she lived out behind the main house.
Elias set his jaw and Draven drew a dagger, his jaw moving as he ground his teeth and glared at me. “Stubborn as a damned ox…” he muttered under his breath.
“You stay behind us,” Elias said, and the hurt in his gaze made my breath catch and my heart squeeze. I knew he didn’t like I wasn’t giving them another choice, but he would just have to sack up and deal with it.
I already had enough blood on my hands. I wasn’t about to allow another death to happen when there was something I could do to stop it.
Shifters fixed their issues with brute force and claws and powerful jaws. I could fix it with a perfectly times flick of my finger—I just needed to get to the shifter first.
Elias readied his hand for spellcasting, and I could feel my own riotous magic rising to meet the surge of his as he drew on his power in a great and mighty pull from the earth. “Let’s move.”
26
We moved through the night as a single unit. The three of us forming an inverted arrow—with Elias and Draven walking three paces ahead of me, one a little to the right and the other a little to the left, leaving a small gap between them so I could see where I was going. We moved quickly but didn’t run.
I thought Draven and Elias were being a little overly cautious. What could a single newly changed shifter do against two powerful witches and a hundred of years old vampire? I mean, really? They were all tensed up for nothing, weren’t they?
My head had begun to pound again, and the brightness of the full moon only seemed to make it worse. But even more disconcerting was the strange feeling I’d had earlier that there would be a meeting in the chamber tonight had returned.
