“You okay Evie?” she asked me with a frown. “You sounded pretty not okay right now.”
“Cramps,” I lied meekly as I left the bathroom. It wasn’t a good enough excuse and Grace gave me a sharp frown. “What’s up?”
“Evelyn,” Grace started sternly.
“Grace,” I cut back. “What’s up?”
She pursed her lips and I wondered if she was going to let me off the hook. I didn’t want to have to explain myself to her—especially in the doorway of the bathroom. Something flashed in her eyes and her posture relaxed. She was letting me off the hook.
“Well, we’re thinking of going to the Falls. Aliyah needs to have a little bit of fun and the weather is just so nice today!” Grace was right; the weather was warm considering we were only in the early stages of spring. “It’ll be fun,” she promised. “I’ve invited Geoff and Lucy. I think Trey is coming too.”
“Alright,” I said softly. “I’ll be right out.”
She shot me a wink and danced off through the house and I slowly backed into the bathroom and closed the door. I looked into the mirror as I waited for that awful feeling to return and the voice that would follow it.
My eyes were flecked with amber and my skin felt tingly, like I had just gotten an electric shock. My mind felt heavy as if something was pushing against it and I squeezed my eyes shut tightly until the pressure went away and I could breathe normally again.
Splashing my face with cold water, I pulled myself together as best as I could. With Grace shouting at me to hurry up, I squared my shoulders and left the bathroom with an awful shadow following me.
∞
“Gah!” Aliyah’s piercing squeal echoed through the space we were in as she swung from the rope and into the water. She came up spluttering and laughing as Trey began to ready himself on the rope. “That was so much fun!”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Trey said cockily. “Grace come here.”
He had climbed even higher than Aliyah had gone, and Grace rolled her eyes at me before she followed after him. We all waited with anticipation as Trey made a show of how high up they both were. Grace jumped on his back and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Ready baby?” he called out and his voice bounced off the rocks from the Falls.
“Yes!” she shrieked.
As he threw all their weight onto the rope, the branch seemed to make a groaning sound and I stood up with a frown. Grace’s shriek drowned out anything else that could be heard in the clearing. They’d hardly even made it to the middle of the lake when a shocking crunch echoed through the forest.
“Fuck!” Trey shouted as he released the rope. The moment he and Grace splashed into the water, the branch broke away from the tree and made a huge splash as it fell hard into the lake.
“No way!” Aiden shouted as Trey came up for air. “Dude! You broke it!”
“I didn’t break shit!” Trey shouted as he came out of the water. “That tree is old!”
“Our parents used to swing off it,” Lucy chimed in as she grinned at Geoff.
“What do we do?” Grace asked with wide eyes. “People are going to freak out, that rope is legendary!”
Aliyah laughed out loud before she moved everyone aside and I watched her with interest. Raising both her hands, she closed her eyes as she began to murmur under her breath, raising the branch from the lake and moving it back to the tree using her magic.
“No way,” Trey murmured with wide eyes.
Envy washed through me at the ease of Aliyah’s magic. She stared proudly at her work and everyone else began to clap at her efforts.
“What time is it?” Lucy asked.
“Probably getting close to three,” Grace sighed. “We’re going to have to head off.”
“Why?” Aliyah pouted.
“We have training,” Aiden said as he kissed the side of my head and I tried not to let my unhappiness show. Sadly, this wasn’t training I would be able to partake in, given that they were training in their wolf form so there really wasn’t much I could do.
Envy, having suddenly become my new best friend, washed through me once more. I wanted a wolf and I wanted to be able to run in wolf form with my friends. It was never going to happen for me, I knew that and that’s what made it so much worse. It was beyond my control and beyond my power. I couldn’t even be a proper witch for crying out loud.
“… Be okay getting home?” Grace asked as I zoned back in.
“Yeah,” Aliyah waved her hand. “We’ll be fine.”
“Okay well, we’ll see you guys at dinner!” Grace took off running and everyone else followed her. I watched on gloomily as they tore through their skin and the wolves came to the surface.
“Hey,” Aiden said softly and I quickly plastered a small smile on my face as I turned to face him, carefully masking my mood. “Are you alright?”
Okay, so maybe not as carefully as I thought.
“Y-yeah,” I said breathlessly as Aliyah looked anywhere but at us. “I’m just not feeling really well; I have a bit of a headache. You better go to training or you’ll be late and your dad will get mad. Aliyah and I will go home together.”
Aiden was watching me with that look he got, the look he wore a lot when we were first getting to know each other. It was weary and he wanted to say something but he wasn’t sure if he should. He needed to be distracted so I pressed my lips to his, gently grazing my nails down his neck and the low growl in the back of his throat told me that I had indeed, distracted him.
“Love you,” I murmured against his lips before I moved away. “Now go.”
With one last lingering look, Aiden took off and I sighed too loudly as his wolf ripped through his body and he took off after the others.
“Alright,” Aliyah said loudly. “What is wrong with you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked innocently.
“Your aura is pulsating with so many different emotions Evelyn,” Aliyah said with narrowed eyes. “Confusion, exhaustion, envy and I’m getting really strong anxious vibes. Are you pregnant or something? You’re like a smorgasbord of feelings.”
I ran my hand down my face and began walking, enjoying the satisfying sound of leaves crunching beneath my feet. “I’m not pregnant,” I told Aliyah. “I don’t know what I am, I am confused. I just—I don’t —” I threw my hands up in the air as I struggled to find my words. “I can’t talk about it.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
“Because I don’t know what my problem is,” I said loudly. “Why should I even have a problem? I live with the most amazing people, I have an amazing mate. I am loved and I have friends, I shouldn’t have a problem.”
“But you do.”
“I can’t even handle my magic!” I blurted out the first thing I could think of.
“You’re still getting the hang of it,” Aliyah said with a frown. “There’s no way you’re going to be a master of it so quickly, you’ve only embraced it within the last few months. Seriously Evelyn, your magic is so different and so powerful, you literally cannot expect yourself to have a handle on it already.”
I couldn’t answer her truthfully because if I did then I would tell her everything and she would tell my dad and then he would tell everyone else and I would once again become to basket case that everyone needed to look after. My heart felt like it was swollen with so many emotions that I could just scream or hit something. I didn’t even feel like crying—crying felt stupid. I didn’t need to cry, I needed to release these feelings that fizzed up inside of me.
“I want to use my magic,” I huffed out the first bit of honesty I had managed in the last month.
“So use it,” Aliyah told me simply. “Seriously, it’s your magic. You haven’t used it in weeks; I would be going absolutely insane. Just release some of that energy. Make a sand storm, knock some trees over or, I don’t know, crush some stuff. You might feel better or you might not. You won’t know until you use it. I don’t agree with dad’s theories of s
topping our magic. It’s not right; our magic is who we are. It’s like telling a wolf not to shift—who does that?”
“Apparently, it’s agony,” I said absentmindedly as I felt my body start to hum at the idea of using my powers.
“So is trapping your power,” Aliyah said in a ‘duh’ voice. “Just because you don’t have a furry alter-ego in your mind, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t another entity inside of you. It just comes out however you express it.”
Do it, The Shadow hissed.
I licked my dry lips and tried to gather my thoughts as that unwelcoming feeling slithered its way back into my body. “Not using my magic proves I do have control over it. If I crack and use it on every bad day that I have, then I’ll become dependent on it…”
“It’s your magic,” Aliyah waved her hands. “You should depend on it.”
“What if it went away?” I asked softly as my skin tingled.
“Why would it go away?” Aliyah asked.
I ran a hand down my face and breathed out heavily. My magic was unreliable and had the power to control me—my behavior when we came home from our trip proved that. Everyone could try and put it down to the stress of having to go back and meet with the High Alpha’s and helping the Luna of Alaska but at the end of the day, how much control did I even have over it? Not using it was the only way I could win with it these days.
“If I use it now I’ll be cheating myself,” I said quietly. “I’ll be taking the—the easy way out.”
“So, don’t use it?” Aliyah said.
“You just told me to use it!” I looked at her and felt the smallest amount of annoyance rush through me. Was she trying to mess with me?
“Evelyn, you need to be able to make your own decisions. Stop being so worried about what everyone is going to think of you or how they’re going to react. Use your magic or don’t use your magic—that’s your choice and not anyone else’s, including dad.”
“Deciding things on a whim is dangerous Aliyah. You weren’t here when I blew up The Luna’s dining room out of nowhere.”
The memory shook me and the look of fear on everyone’s faces at the table was still etched into my mind. I had just arrived home from our trip to South Dakota and I had been feeling off the entire time. Something hadn’t been right, and it still didn’t feel right.
While eating that night, my thoughts had been focused on how the High Alpha’s had talked down to me and treated me like a murderer, warning me about how if I used my powers out of turn I’d face trial just like any other wolf.
They were afraid of me and what I could do, I knew that. I’d come home filled with so much resentment and anger that just thinking about it at the table raised the energy in the room and I had shattered pretty much any available bit of glass. Explaining why I had accidently broken the Luna’s fine china had ended up in a very long phone call with my father and people tip toeing around me, lest they say something to set me off again.
My lying and acting over the last few weeks had started to calm everyone down and I was finally getting some normalcy from people. I was scared to use my magic because if I did, I think people would start to be nervous around me again and I couldn’t handle that. I needed my friends and my family. It made that cold voice in my mind a little bit less scary and a little less real.
“Evelyn,” Aliyah’s yelled and I came back to our conversation. “Evelyn, are those rogues?”
Instantly I snapped out of my thoughts and looked in the direction she was staring in. I felt my breathing quicken at the sight of a woman dragging a man by his arm behind her. She was covered in blood and dirt and her clothes were ratty and torn. Her hair was matted and her face was stained with tears.
“You have to help me!” she pleaded. “Please help me. I know who you are and I know what you can do. Save my mate—please, save him. Bring him back to life. I can’t live without him, he needs your help!”
Aliyah gripped my arm with wide eyes.
The man the she-wolf was dragging was clearly dead and by the way the woman trembled and whimpered, I knew that he was her mate. She was starting her phase into a half-life.
“Please!” she cried again.
“I’m so—I—we can’t help you,” I gasped out as the woman dropped to her knees, roaming her hands over her mate’s battered face. How had she managed to cross into the Oregon border with him looking like that? Surely their scent and the blood would have attracted a patroller.
“Oh Anthony!” she cried out in anguish. “Oh Goddess, please. Please don’t let her take him. I need him—I can’t live without him. Save him now!”
“I-I c-can’t,” my voice broke as helplessness washed over me.
“You did it before,” she said quickly. “Yes, you saved your mate and you can save mine, do it! Bring him back to me, now!”
“She can’t do that!” Aliyah shouted at the woman. “She cannot help you or your mate.”
The frantic woman lunged at Aliyah who quickly flew back and stood in front of me protectively, ready to defend us both.
“Please,” she whispered hoarsely. “It hurts—oh Goddess, this hurts so much! I can’t lose him, I can’t be without him.”
“I’m so sorry,” I croaked out as my hands trembled. “I c-can’t do it.”
“Yes, you can!” the woman screamed as she shoved Aliyah to the floor and pulled me over the man, dragging me down beside him and holding my hands over him. “Bring him back, so help me Goddess, I will kill you if you don’t!”
“Evelyn!” a voice in the distance shouted my name and I whipped my head around to see who it came from. Aliyah shouted out something in return and I quickly looked back to the wolf and her dead mate only to find they were nowhere in sight. They had completely vanished!
“Where did they go?” I demanded to Aliyah as I stumbled to my feet. My head was spinning and my body was shaking as I span around in circles, trying to find the wolf. “Aliyah, where did they go?”
“I don’t know!” she shouted. “They just disappeared!”
My heart was pounding and my mouth was dry. I looked for any trace of them. A piece of clothing, a shoe or blood from the injured wolf—anything to prove that what just happened did not take place inside my mind and that whole thing was real.
“Evelyn!” Aiden’s voice was close now and he tore into the clearing with his patrol wolves on his tail. “Evelyn, are you okay?” he grabbed and pulled me into his arms and looked into my eyes, but I couldn’t focus on him. I started pulling away, I needed to find them.
“Aiden! It was crazy! This she-wolf came out of nowhere with her dead mate and told Evelyn to bring him back to life,” Aliyah’s voice was panicked. “Then they just disappeared.”
Aiden wasn’t even listening to her; his sole focus was on me. My breaths were sharp and fast as I tried to stop myself from feeling. I knew what pain that she-wolf would be going through. It reminded me of when Aiden had been killed and I had started a half-life. It was excruciating and dark and there had to be something I could do for her.
“I can help her,” I said assuredly as my eyes welled up. “I can.”
“Evelyn, you can’t!” Aiden told me firmly. “That’s way too dangerous.”
You have the power, The Shadow whispered into my ear. Don’t be so selfish, help that wolf Evelyn. Don’t hog your power.
The voice made my head ache and my chest tightened as I leaned over, resting my hands on my legs. Breathing was becoming difficult and the flurry of voices around me combined with the constant shouting of my name was making it hard to focus.
Remember that pain you went through Evelyn, The Shadow hissed at me. Feel it and remind yourself of it. You know you can’t let someone else go through that…
The pain was easy to remember—there was hardly a day that went by where I didn’t think about it. It was as if you were being ripped in two, this cold darkness sweeps through your body and sets every part of you on fire. It’s earth shattering agony that takes over every thought a
nd every feeling. Just the memory made me feel like it was happening all over again.
“Evelyn!” Aiden shouted as I dropped to my knees crying. “Goddess—fuck—someone help! Get dad—get Cornelius—I don’t know what to do. Hurry up!” I couldn’t pull myself out of this. Aiden gripped my face between his hands. “Evelyn listen,” he ordered. “I know that was awful but you need to breathe, you’re having a panic attack. Breathe Evelyn.”
“I c-can’t breathe,” I gasped out as I balled my hands into fists on his chest.
“Evelyn baby look at me,” Aiden said quickly and I flicked my eyes to his. “Keep looking into my eyes. Don’t look away.”
Don’t look away, look at Aiden.
Don’t look away.
Look away.
Look at your mate; he’s here to help you.
Both voices at once were enough to send me over the edge. Taking my hands, I raised them to my head and allowed my magic to flow as I proceeded to knock myself out.
∞
“…Will only happen more often. Word of her magic is spreading—we all know that. If she is not watched, someone will slip through and get to her again. She can’t risk her life like that. There’s something off about her.”
“We’ve noticed a change in her behavior since she stopped using her magic,” The Luna whispered gently. “She’s been a little up and down. Honestly, after what she’s been through the last few months…”
I lay facing the wall in mine and Aiden’s room. I could hear Aiden’s steady breaths beside me, but it surprised me to hear the conversation going on between The Luna and my father. I didn’t have the ability to hear that far… they couldn’t be that close. I lifted my head and looked over at Aiden who was sleeping beside me in our dimly lit room. The final rays of the day’s sun were streaming through the open curtains, lighting up the room in a burnt orange color. The bedroom door was open a crack and I saw the shadows of my father and The Luna outside and I shook my head as I rested back into the pillows.
It felt like for the first time in days my mind was noiseless. I was hearing nothing but the sound of my own thoughts and the concern of two people who loved me. My mind went back to what had happened out in the woods and my heart ached for the poor woman. I wondered where she had gone and what had become of her. It wasn’t unheard of for some wolves to take their own life when they lost their mate. The pain that she-wolf had been in…I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.
Wolfsbane: The Wolf Within Page 3
