“MARA,” he says, and it almost comes out like a growl. The sound makes my tail fall flat, my lion cowering inside me.
Whatever is about to happen, it’s on me and not on her.
“If I come, you talk to me,” I demand.
He steps forward and wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me back to him. “Whatever you want to know, Mara. But no more running from me. Cut that shit out before I lose it.”
I nod nervously. He gently kisses my lips.
I let him take me back to our suite, but in the back of my mind I’m still thinking about Tiana’s words.
The Witching Glen is still a bad place, filled with souls who defied Mother Fate’s natural order.
Eric wants out of the Glen. I’ve picked up on that much of it. But he needs Aaron to do it.
13
Aaron
It took everything I had to get Mara to calm down.
She doesn’t trust Eric. She’s right not to. But there’s something pulling at me, this thread I can’t quite name, and I don’t know what it is. For two years, he’s been trying to build a relationship with me. How could that be a scam?
But Mara sees danger where I see... possibility. And that terrifies me more than I want to admit, the conflict between my heart and gut twisting inside me.
She shifts in my arms, moving her head off me to rest on her belly against the pillow. Her tail comes around and brushes against my chest, then settles there. I smile, placing my hand over it, a wave of tenderness washing through me. Mara’s a belly sleeper. I try to keep her against me for as long as I can, but she always ends up like this. Sprawled out, peaceful, her body taking up the whole damn bed.
I close my eyes and try to rest.
I start to drift, the weight of exhaustion pulling me under, and it’s like a blink. One breath, and?—
When I open my eyes again, it’s still nightfall.
I’m outside.
Standing in my pajamas, looking around in confusion. There’s no way I’m dreaming. The grass is cold and damp beneath my bare feet, the blades slick with dew, pressing against my soles.
I turn around slowly, taking in my surroundings.
The Academy.
What the fuck? Did my magic make me sleepwalk?
My breathing quickens, confusion and fear mingling inside me. Something feels wrong. Deeply, instinctively wrong. Not just the strange sleepwalking. I shiver in the night air.
I can feel everything. The coolness of the air against my skin. The moon shines bright, lighting everything in silver-blue tones. Lights are starting to turn out in the dorms for the night, windows going dark one by one across the campus. I scratch the back of my head, then shrug, trying to calm my racing thoughts.
“Well,” I mutter to myself, chuckling nervously, “didn’t know I was a sleepwalker until now.”
I start to walk back toward the faculty building, but I pause when I feel a surge of magic.
I slowly turn around. A bright yellow light is rising above the trees in the distance, glowing steady through the branches. It pulls at me.
“Huh?” My mouth goes dry. “What’s going on in the Market?”
Blue-gold light sparks at my fingertips, crackling against my skin without my asking it to. I look down at my hands. The magic is dancing across my palms like it’s heard something I haven’t.
“The Witching Glen?” I question, and my throat closes around the second word.
