by S. L. Morgan
“Who? What?” Vannah said.
Melanie’s cheeks flushed red. “My dad?” she softly questioned.
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “God, he’s going to be the first one this school turns against us. The first reason being that he’s the president of this shithole, and the second, he’s afraid of the Guardians.”
“The people who are out saving humans from the rogue supernaturals?” Vannah asked.
“Yes, the good guys,” I said. “This is just freaking fantastic,” I said sarcastically as I shook my head and glanced up toward the window. “We need Dominic back.”
“You think?” Vannah said dryly.
“My dad isn’t really afraid of anyone. He can help us if the school goes bad.”
“No,” I said. “Fear is a weakness. Last I recall, your dad is worried that Harrison’s going to come kick his ass because of this damn school. So, he’s vulnerable and all but begging to become a servant of the sinister energy here, and he has no idea.”
“Okay,” Vannah interrupted us. “How are you feeling now that you’ve tapped into this new fae power?”
I looked at my skin. “Well, I haven’t gone full-fairy yet. My skin isn’t sparkling.”
“How do you feel?” Vannah repeated, more agitated than usual.
“I feel like I need to see Dominic. I want him back, and you’re right, we’re pushing it by it being a week now.”
“People are already asking questions about when he’s coming back and why he isn’t at IA yet,” Melanie stated.
“Really? People, your fairy peeps?” I asked.
“Yes,” her eyes narrowed, intently looking at mine, “and if you can’t fix your eye color, your secret is out, and you might as well be one of them too.”
“Shit.” I jumped up, turning toward the bathroom. I ran in, and there they were…sparkling, purple fairy eyes.
“Here,” Vannah took my shoulders, “Let me help. You need to harness all the rest of this energy and save it for Dominic. You seem to have tapped into Melanie’s mental block pretty easily, and that’s unheard of with any supe. So, I think you’re good to go with trying your hand safely with Dominic. Hold still, I’ll take care of your eye color.”
Vannah chanted some witchy words and waved her hand over my eyes. I smiled, but it died as soon as Vannah’s brows knit together. “What’s up?” I turned back to the mirror. The bright purple hue of my eyes hadn’t budged.
“Let me try that again.” She glanced back at Melanie’s confused expression, did her chant, waved her hand, and from the look on her face, there was no change. “This is the easiest spell in the book,” she said. “It’s you, Jenna. Your fairy genes must be protecting themselves against a spell.”
“That would be a good thing,” I said.
“Only if you can reverse your eye color,” Melanie chimed in. “Do you want me to give it a shot?”
“I’ve done this before,” I said, not really wanting Melanie to hit me with anything leprechaun-ish. “I can try it again.”
I inhaled, closed my eyes, and my wolf was sniffing, almost snarling at the door that held the potent magic in me. WTF? Seriously, what was behind Jenna’s fairy-magic door number one? I intently focused on ordering my wolf to concentrate on the magic we found that we could actually use.
The wolf didn’t move. She was pawing at the untouchable magic door, and now leaping up as if trying to open it.
“No!” I mentally ordered my wolf, pointing my finger at her. “We have to fix my eyes, and since you and I do this fairy magic crap together, you’re going to get your butt over here and help me, so I don’t screw it up.”
My wolf didn’t budge, and I was brought to by Vannah gripping my arm. “Jenna,” she said as if she’d called my name a few times. “Something’s not right.”
I inwardly imagined my eyes brown—Jenna brown—and just like that, my reflection was reversed back to the shifter everyone knew at IA.
“What’s wrong?” I smiled. “Look. I simply imagined my eyes normal, and voila, they’re back.”
Melanie and Vannah both had grave expressions on their faces. “Jenna,” Vannah said softly, “my magic isn’t working.”
“What are you talking about? It didn’t work on me, but that doesn’t mean that your witchy powers aren’t working at all.”
“No,” Melanie said. “You went into some weird trance, your eyes went white, you started talking to your wolf, and Vannah tried to pull you out of it. She couldn’t.”
“Did you try?” I asked, knowing this was going to royally suck if Vannah was pulled out of the game.
“Yes,” she answered. “I worked on bringing your mind to where we could reach you. You were in that state for like ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes?” I said skeptically. “Seriously?”
“At least,” Vannah said, nervously. “Something’s not right.” She practically sniffed the air like I would. “You were right, something bad is on the brink of happening.”
“Oh, my God,” I rubbed my hand over my face. “I have to get the wolf back here. I have to turn Dominic back. What if he’s in trouble? He and Ethan are out hunting for the source of all of this, and they could have easily been taken out. Ethan hasn’t once checked in since they left.”
“Slow down,” Vannah ordered. “It might just be my magic.”
“It’s not.” I suddenly felt it, and by the look on Melanie’s face, she felt it too. “Something is siphoning the magic out of the students here.”
“That which used to feed off of souls, is weak. It needs supernatural magic from strong witches,” Melanie stated.
“I sense something like that too,” I responded, turning to my closet for my hoodie. “It’s dark. I’m out of here.”
“You don’t even know where you’re going,” Vannah seethed, most likely frustrated because a piece of her was broken.
“I can sense Dominic’s wolf is close, but not too close to the school,” I said, shocked that my instincts picked up on his proximity. “Dang, my magic is coming in pretty damn handy right about now.”
“Well, thank goodness you have it, and sort of know how to use it,” Melanie said.
“What about your untouchable magic?” Vannah asked. “Are you working with that?”
“That’s probably never going to work unless Dom and I merge the wolves.”
“You absolutely cannot do that,” Melanie warned. “The darkness wants it.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I said in annoyance. “Melanie, do you think your fairy talents have been altered? I’m picking up on only witches since they’re easier to take the magic from.”
“I can still sense things. Nothing feels off to me.”
“Thank God.” I covered my face with both my hands when it hit me, “Oh crap!” I looked at Vannah, “This thing is taking out the witches, using that magic to grow powerful, and it’s going to start contaminating the minds of the fae. We’re screwed, man.”
“Stop thinking like that,” Vannah nearly shouted. “We just need to work on new plans. Your job right now is to bring Dominic back as the shifter he was before you changed him and trapped him into wolf form. We don’t know if your magic is too weak and if it will be affected by all of this.”
Vannah doubled over in pain right after she gave me the warning.
I reached for her as she dropped to her knees. “Vannah!” I said. “What’s happening?”
“It’s taking everything from me.”
“Jenna, look!” Melanie said from the window.
I glanced out at the sky. “Oh, my God,” I said softly.
Melanie reached for my hand—most likely as scared shitless as I was—and we watched as green and orange hues, of what could only be witch magic, formed ribbon-like bands across the sky and flowed out of the school buildings and into all of the forests surrounding the school.
“You stay with Vannah,” I ordered Melanie. “I have to go get Ethan and Dominic,” I said and then blasted out of the room and
into wind that should have blown me entirely off the campus and into another realm.
“Stop!” I ordered the element as if I were an actual fairy who could control the wind.
The wind stopped, and without questioning what the hell I’d just pulled off, I took off in a sprint, feeling Dominic’s wolf thundering toward the location I was heading for. The faster I ran, the closer he was. I was making shit happen with the snap of my fingers, but the ribbons of witch magic floating above my head, creating some ominous cloud, told me I had to get to him quickly.
If my magic was going to be taken, or if this thing was going to use the magic it was stealing from the witches to turn me dark, then I had to hit Dominic with an enchantment hard and fast and get our powerful alpha back in the game.
Chapter Thirty
I entered the forest and found myself walking through some unpredictable fairy quest. I held my concentration, seeing each and every trap as if I’d placed it there myself. I was literally going fairy on my own ass, and for the first time, I wasn’t pissed about it. Dom was somewhere on this trail, and I was able to see all the tricky little pieces to the puzzles of this quest without fail.
“What a bullshit move,” I said to myself as I walked over rocks that formed a neatly-paved trail. Specific stones were riddled with a spell that would stick you to the surface of the ground, and as I waved my foot over one of the glistening rocks, a mighty wind swept up with force powerful enough to knock a tree over. These suckers were planted throughout the pavement, and each stone was hardly recognizable. There was no way you were getting through this trap unless you had it memorized, or you could see fairy BS a mile away.
The path seemed to go on forever before it dropped into a ravine, leaving no other option but for me to shift into my wolf and jump it. Alright, no playing games! I ordered my wolf after I shifted. Now in my wolf form, I could now scent that shit was starting to get real. The stolen witch magic seeped through my bones as I walked through the thickness it created in the air. Too bad I couldn’t absorb it, but apparently, mommy dearest could, and that’s why whatever monster my mother had turned into was stealing magic from the students at the school instead of killing them.
I soared through the air after I gathered enough speed to make the jump. I didn’t even have to look at the fairy-trap pathway to determine which stones were which, my wolf had memorized all of that while I was in my fairy mindset going over them. Smartass wolf, but she was a badass, and I should have known not to question the stronger side of my genes.
My thoughts stopped as soon as I trotted through thick shrubs. Wicked energy surrounded my wolf, and it wasn’t the darkness of the school. It was another stupid trap. I strained my eyes to peer through the wolf and offered her the fairy side I had tapped into. The wolf immediately went into a low crawl as I saw the beautiful illusion of lime-green foliage turn into immortal-eating plants…literally. These things had teeth and could swallow an immortal whole. Sick, fairy jerks—this had to be the worst kind of quest-death. I peered up at the razor-sharp teeth that salivated some green, plant fluid out of the vines these suckers were created from.
Once I got through, I saw Dom’s wolf. I sniffed the air around him and saw Ethan’s owl perched high in the tree. His eyes were a brilliant golden hue as the owl’s face turned to follow the continuous trail of magic that was seeping through the forest.
Dom’s wolf met me halfway through the thick bushes off to my left. We met, and the wolves instantly felt each other’s companionship. Dom’s wolf rubbed his head up under my wolf’s chin and his snout over the back of my neck.
The two wolves reunited, licking and nudging the other, everything I would have wanted to happen another time. I had to shift back, and watching Ethan walking up to me—fully dressed after he’d shifted back—I knew I wasn’t really in the right mindset to give the poor kid nightmares by seeing me naked.
Let’s try this new fairy enchantment. The more I test it all out, the better I’ll get, I thought as I imagined myself shifting and being dressed in exactly what I was wearing before turning the wheel over to the wolf to jump that ravine.
I felt the magic explode inside me, and the next thing I knew, Dom’s wolf cowered to the bright pink, blue, and purple lights that emitted once I shifted back.
Hell yes! I was wearing the hoodie and leggings I had on before shifting.
“Impressive,” Ethan said, approaching me and holding some of Dom’s clothes that were hidden all over the place out here. “But you didn’t get the shoes,” he smirked.
“E,” I sighed and leaned in for the side-hug he offered me while handing me some large boots. “It’s so good to see you again.” Dom’s wolf trotted over to me, his eyes still brilliant blue, and he ran his long body against my hip. I let my fingers glide through his fur, missing the soft, velvety way his wolf’s fur felt, and yearning to feel my man in my arms again.
“There’s a new problem,” Ethan said. “It’s the beast that we have nearly found. It’s taking magic from the school.”
“Already caught on to that one, bud,” I smiled at him. “Man, I’ve come a long way in a short amount of time.”
“That’s good. We need your powers. This new situation is not good for the students.”
“Ethan,” I said, rubbing the snout of Dom’s wolf. “How is it happening?”
“In the beginning, we believed that your mother was cursed to darkness as a siren.”
“A siren?” I looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Isn’t that an old myth about sailors and mermaids or some crazy shit like that?”
“No.” Ethan cocked his head to the side, “Sirens take the souls of supernaturals and feed off of them. This siren has been taking souls delivered to it by IA, and it has discreetly fed and grown. That is how the evil is using it to project its energy to possess other supernaturals in the human realm. The evil has transformed your mother into what she was when she was first brought to IA as a sacrifice. She was drowned out here, and she is a dark version of the Rusalka.”
I swallowed in disbelief. “My mom was sacrificed? What the hell really happened to her?”
“All that matters now is that she is reverting back into the spirit of the water.”
“That’s taking magic from the kids at the school,” I said, still in disbelief.
“Yes, but it’s currently being harnessed. We still have time to take her from the water and destroy her. I sense you have your fairy powers, but they aren’t strong enough.”
“No shit,” I said, looking down at Dom’s wolf. “What are we dealing with, having some spirit woman on our hands? How do we stop all of this?”
“We need Dominic to be fixed. The Rusalka is trying to bring herself back to life, but this will not be a good, living creature. The more foreign magic this cursed woman takes, the more dangerous she becomes.” Ethan eyed me, “If she keeps gathering this magic, she will come for you first. Being that her genetic codes have been altered entirely to feed the dark seeds of those the sinister energy wants, she will destroy you before all others.”
“Because she knows I’ll smoke her ass,” I said, not giving a shit that this mashed-up Siren turned freaking Rusalka was formerly known as my mother. She certainly wasn’t anything to me now. “Hopefully, when I take—”
“Jenna,” Ethan said, stopping me from rattling on and on about how pissed I was to learn that the person who gave birth to me was some spirit-corpse that the energy was using as a host. “You must first give Dominic his ability to shift back. Can you trust yourself with this power?”
“I managed to waltz my ass up here as if I created that sick and twisted fairy quest back there myself.”
“Good, I must go, and Dominic has to get back to school as himself. The oracles are serving to create a plan should you fail in this.”
“Don’t even get me started. I’m not going to go there with you right now, Ethan.”
“You cannot go with me,” Ethan stated. “Only oracles can enter the realm I must
report to.”
I smiled at him and his inability to not take every word literally. “I’ve missed you.”
“We both have missed all of you. Dominic is in pain, Jenna. He needs to be able to turn back. He needs to help you, and his wolf has him trapped.”
“I’ll handle Dom,” I said. “Go handle the fallout plan in case I screw it all up and we’re set for death.”
“You will not fail. We must have a contingency plan, though.”
“No need to explain.” I smiled. “Go, E. I’ll see you in the morning, right?”
“Yes. I have to be at school tomorrow, and so does Dominic. Questions are being raised about where we are.”
“You said you were close to finding the creature. Any idea where it is out here?”
“Yes, but it moves location constantly. It’s not easy for us to stay on top of it, and we can’t be out here anymore. It wants Dominic for itself.”
“To do what?”
“To merge the powers that it is absorbing with the blood of an alpha. It will kill him.”
“Why the hell not?” I said in annoyance.
“Come on, Dom,” I said as I knelt next to my wolf’s mate. “Go, E, we’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll get Dominic out of here.”
I placed my forehead against Dominic’s and chanted out for him to have full control of his body again. I begged for him to shift back into the clothes he wore the night I managed to force him to remain the wolf. I felt my power hit a wall and saw my wolf when everything went black around me. She looked at me as if to tell me that something was onto us and coming for us. As I felt magic explode from my fingertips, and I looked to hope that it was entering the massive frame of Dom’s black wolf, he yelped and jumped over where I knelt.
When I turned to call for the wolf, I saw it chasing a white, misty figure of a woman with long, stringy hair. The woman flashed like light, and when I focused my eyes, I saw the black and very evil eyes of the woman who I believed was my mom. I shifted at that moment, needing the speed of my wolf to catch up with Dom and chase the woman down to end this right here and now.
