Page 94 of Hallowed Bones

Reyes touches my back. Smoothing up and down in a repetitive motion much like how he used to pet me when we were children. The scars on his face, his arms and hands … in learning to control the wolf, I’d been the one to give them to him. He should fear me. Yet he doesn’t. And the wolf—the wolf shudders under his gentle stroking, trusting him in a way that we’ve never trusted anyone. This man that I’ve harmed. The one that has never made me feel bad for it.

When I’m done being sick, he leaves his hand there—against my spine.

“You need to run,” he murmurs.

I nod, a sharp motion of my head.

“Go.”

It’s all the encouragement I need. I flee the side of the Hummer like it’s on fire. As soon as I hit the tree line, I don’t even bother to undress. Instead, I walk forward, disappearing into the woods as I let the shift take me over. Bones snap and break. Skin recedes as fur sprouts. My face elongates. My back bows.

I accept the pain as my due, as my penitence. For hurting Reyes all those years ago. For being unable to save people now. For not realizing just how dangerous this creature actually is.

It’s easier to let the wolf take control as the emotions overwhelm my human side. The wolf is a survivalist. The wolf knows only that I need him to save me from myself.

The dead woman’s image still sticks in my mind. Her face and limbs turned a charred and blackened mess. Her chest carved open, blood splattered around the body where whatever fire had taken place still smoldered. Smoke curling into the sky. Her belly … the baby—not yet wholly formed—in her arms, only half burned, but just as dead. Just as cruelly slaughtered.

The wolf makes a mournful sound, a half howl that dies in its throat. It shakes all over, trembling as its fur stands on end.

Paws digging into the dirt, I take off. I run until the pounding beat of strong and powerful legs hitting the ground over and over again is all that I hear.

A darkness has invaded our home, and we were fools to not realize that the first death wasn’t just a warning. It’s a reckoning.

CHAPTER 33HAVEN

Magic taken must be magic given. Nature must be balanced, and nothing created through means of blood, flesh, and magic shall ever be destroyed by the same.

—EXCERPT FROM A HISTORIC RECORD OF COVEN LAWS, DATE UNKNOWN

There is something primal hidden in the forest surrounding Bishop Manor. Maybe that’s why it’s where Cameron brings me to start my next magic lesson. Thus far, I’ve not actually used it myself. I’ve only witnessed their abilities.

Secretly, I worry that they’re wrong. That I’m not one of them and it’s all been a horrible mistake.

When Cameron asks me to take off my shoes and stand in the middle of a clearing and close my eyes, I’m sure today is the day that I prove it. I’m either going to walk out of these woods as an outcast or a witch.

Still, unyielding, I close my eyes and follow Cameron’s commands. For several long seconds, nothing happens. I grit my teeth, straining with my bones into the air, hoping against hope that something will happen.

Finally, I hear Cameron sigh and shift on his feet. My eyes pop open as he moves in front of me. “No,” he murmurs, reaching up and brushing his fingertips over my eyes again. “Keep them closed.”

“It’s not—”

Those fingers find my lips, pausing over them and halting my words.

He hushes me. “Don’t try to force it,” he tells me. “Let the forest speak to you. Don’t struggle or strain yourself. Just … be.”

Just be? That’s easier said than done.

As if he can hear my thoughts, Cameron’s soft chuckle flows over my ears like a silken caress. I shiver as he takes his fingers away from my mouth.

“Listen,” he urges. “To the birdsong in the branches. To the wind whistling through the leaves. Your body is connected to the earth, to nature, in a way that humans aren’t. Don’t demand an answer, just breathe and wait for it. She will speak when she’s ready.”

“This doesn’t feel like a magic lesson,” I say stiffly. “It feels like a bunch of woo-woo bullshit.”

The sound of his indelicate snort makes my lips twitch. I may be a bad witch, but at least I’m funny. The crunch of footsteps over fallen leaves echoes away from me as I assume he marches off, leaving me alone in the center of the clearing.

All right, fine. I can connect with nature. No problem. What’s so hard about just standing here and listening?

Seconds tick by. Minutes. Hours. Days. Eons.