AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Eleven
Rowan
“Are you okay?” Ven asks when I tumble through the door. “Goddess, you’re shaking!”
She runs over and throws an arm around me as my legs give out entirely. I’m hyperventilating, and also definitely going into shock. My body feels numb and tingly, and Ven’s voice wavers in and out. Or maybe that’s just my consciousness. We collapse onto the velvet loveseat in the sitting room.
“I’m going to get you some water,” she says. “Don’t move!”
“No worries there,” I mumble. I couldn’t have moved another muscle even if my life depended on it. Because it had for a few minutes there, and that’s the only thing that had kept me going, at breakneck pace, back to the house. And now that I’m here, I realize that I have absolutely nothing left.
Ven returns a few moments later with a glass of cool water and helps me lift it to my lips. I take slow sips. Gradually, my breathing returns to normal. Ven rubs my back and lifts my thick hair off my neck.
“What happened?” she finally asks when it seems I’ve calmed.
I tell her everything. About the horned beast and the dragon and the feel of their different magic. Her eyes grow wider and wider as I talk. When I’m finished, she’s silent for several long moments.
“You don’t think that thing can get us here, do you?” I whisper.
She shakes her head firmly. “Not the demon. The house is warded against those.”
“Demon?” Ven had said all the myths were true. But encountering that campfire story face-to-face? A wave of black terror moves through me, tightens around my ribcage.
Ven nods. “I think that’s what the horned thing is. At least from how you described its magic.”
“And what about the dragon?” My voice trembles as I say it.
“Well…there’s not necessarily a ward against flesh and blood, if that’s what it is. But it sounds like it saved you.” She bites her lower lip and looks at me with her bright eyes.
“I thought so at first, but then it growled… and the look in its eyes. It was like it wanted to devour me.” I shiver. Nothing feels safe anymore.
“I’ve heard of dragon sightings, but I’ve never seen one before,” Ven says. “Maybe it was a dragon shifter.”
“Shifter?”
“You know, like a werewolf but not a wolf. And not tied to shifting only on the full moon.”
“I’m never leaving the house again,” I groan, leaning my face into Ven’s shoulder. It’s all too much. I’m not ready for this much magic in my life. Talk about a crash course in otherworldliness.
“That sounds like it was really scary.” Ven pats me on the back again. “We’ll have to teach you some defensive spells so you don’t feel so vulnerable.”
I blink. It had never occurred to me that magic could be used in such a way. “Like what?”
“Well, forcefields. Invisibility. I can even teach you some battle magic, so you can go on the offensive.”
I look at petite, spritely, yoga instructor Ven and I laugh. “You’re a badass, you know that?”
She tosses her head. “I do, in fact.”
We both laugh. A few minutes ago, I wouldn’t have thought it possible to find something funny so soon after nearly dying, but my life has become one giant ball of crazy. Might as well go with it.
“Tell you what. I’ll go make dinner while you shower and relax,” Ven says. “Then we do some spell work. And after that I’ll take you to the wine bar. I think you deserve a glass of wine. Or five.”
“That sounds like a good plan. You’re the best, Ven.” Wine and witchcraft. Totally and absolutely normal.
She smiles and heads into the kitchen.
I peel myself up off the loveseat and make my way up to the third floor. I’m still a little shaky, but I manage to get up both flights of stairs without keeling over. My clothes are soon on the floor, and the shower over the clawfoot tub is pumping gloriously hot water and steam into my bathroom. I get in and let the water rinse away the horror of what happened.
