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Chapter 10
Work went well the following morning. I’d even woken up rested and ready for the day in a way I couldn’t remember ever being before. Maybe it was because I finally felt safe. Whatever evil Mrak might have done, whatever he’d been in his world, he was good here. He’d only done violence to protect me. What would happen after I helped him and we returned to his world together, I didn’t know. But at least now I felt better for knowing Mrak’s story.
Within hours, I’d gotten through a decent chunk of the commission for Brianna. So when the bell dinged over the door to my workshop, it snapped me out of my focus and I jumped. Willa strode through, with deep purple bags beneath her eyes and the dagger I’d made her clenched in one palm.
“Willa!” I slowly set down what I was working on. I met her halfway, and she threw herself into my arms.
“Aisling,” she breathed against my ear before pulling back. Her wide eyes set me on edge.
I glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was following her into my workshop. “What happened?”
Willa held up the blood-stained dagger between us. “Thank the gods you made this when you did. They weren’t expecting me to be armed, I bet. I barely managed to get away. I’ve been running all night.” She certainly looked it, too. Her disheveled hair. Her day-old makeup. Messy clothes.
I held her shoulders, trying to reassure her that whatever had happened was over now. “You’re safe here, Willa. Who came after you?”
Willa made a show of pulling up the sleeves of her long, blue shirt to reveal the bite scars underneath. The scars we shared in common. “Them, Aisling. I told you they were watching me. Some escaped. Hunter, at least. Why they didn’t just kill me, I’ll never know.”
Her words came faster with every syllable until I was afraid she’d never breathe again.
“Take it slow,” I said as I drew my hand down between us. “Breathe, Willa. My shop is a safe space.”
Was it, though? I didn’t have wards. And while Mrak seemed perfectly happy to take over my body to defend me, I doubted that same guardianship would extend to Willa, regardless of the fact that she was my friend. Willa wasn’t his anchor to this world.
“It’sHunter, Aisling.”
My blood ran cold. My gut ached as though it’d be hit, and all breath left my lungs. I staggered back a step as I felt the blood drain from my face.
Willa nodded at my reaction. “I didn’t believe it, either. I thought maybe the people following me were some angry customers at first, or maybe some of the other higher-ups. But not Hunter.”
“Aisling, what’s wrong?”
Mrak’s presence slammed into me so suddenly and with so much force that it nearly toppled me over. I grabbed the edge of a heavy wooden table to stay standing.
“Aisling?” Willa asked.
“I’m fine,” I drawled to both of them. “Are you hurt, Willa?”
She glanced down at her wrinkled but not torn clothes. “No, not really. I’m just terrified.”
I gestured toward the blood-stained dagger. “Did you cut him, then?”
Willa nodded. “And one of the vampires with him. Aisling, he was looking for you.”
I swallowed hard. A few days ago, I might’ve wondered why. Why go looking for me over every other blood slave that’d been in Lazarus’s community?
But only one of those blood slaves had burnt the community to the ground after using a book from Lazarus’s library.
Me.
A few days ago, I would have thought I’d gotten away with it. That anyone who would have seen I was to blame was dead. But now—
Heavy knocks sounded on the front door. Willa jumped and quickly circled the table to stand closer to me.
“I assume, then, you didn’t cut him enough to stop him?” I asked Willa as I lifted my hand. Fire churned a hot sphere in my palm. I wouldn’t let anyone take Willa or me back into a feeding community.
Willa nodded. “I didn’t get a chance. I ran as soon as I could and disappeared.”
I steadied my breathing and readied to attack. I wanted to call out for Mrak, but he’d been silent since his initial question. My worry as to why died out the second the workshop door opened. Just as I threw my palm and a ball of fire forward, Leif crossed the threshold. His eyes went wide and he sidestepped out of the way. The fireball slammed into the wall to his left.
