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I sighed again. “It’s silly. I mean, I just thought that after all we’ve been through, people would stop stomping on me as if I were a cockroach, you know?”
“I know and I’m sorry,” she said.
Lavinia was a pretty vampire-slash-witch with long dark hair and red dyed tips. And unlike all other witches I had met before, she didn’t wear the long, fancy gowns. No, she dressed normally, in skinny jeans, a fitted tee or sweater, and boots.
“Sorry. I’m here drowning in self-pity, while I know Serge hasn’t been easy on you either.” Serge had been a real prick about the vampires, who were there to help. If they were all gone, then his work would increase tenfold and he would still find a way to blame me for all of that.
She rested the side of her hip on one of the sinks. “I don’t really care what he thinks.” She put a hand to the side of her mouth and whispered, “But that’s something new. Before, I would have cared.”
I chuckled. “You? You’re like badass incarnate.”
“Oh, lord, I’m not. What you see, it’s mostly a big shift in mindset, and also practice. Before … I was insecure, and jerks like Serge would have gotten the best of me fast. Besides, I was witch before I was a vampire. Prejudice against witches is a real thing. And I can’t even say it’s unjust because there are plenty of dark witches out there who tarnish our name.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “We all do the best we can, right?”
“Truer words have never been said.”
Her brows knotted. “Raika … actually, I came in here to check on you, but also, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
I tensed. “What is it?”
“I saw the shadows.” She stared into my eyes, a gleam of concern in them, and I stood still like a statue, barely breathing. “Right before you hid your hands. I don’t think anyone else saw them, not even Serge, who was right there. He was too focused on himself for that, but … yeah, I saw them. You know about them, don’t you?”
I started to deny it, but what was the point? “I don’t know what is happening.”
“I can sense something in you. I have since we first met.” She narrowed her eyes. “Something dark inside you, something different. I can’t pinpoint what it is, but it is there.”
That wasn’t good. “Lorie and Keeva said the same thing a couple of weeks ago. They said only powerful witches would be able to sense it, but it had always been there. They had noticed before when they had seen me around the pack.”
“I know of three kinds of magic that show the same quality,” she said. “Dark witches’ magic, which manifests in dark color and shadows. Demon magic, which is also like shadows. And shadow fae magic. All of those are similar, but different.”
I frowned. “So, you’re saying that I have witch, demon, or shadow fae blood in my veins?”
“That, or somehow you tapped into their magics and stole it.”
“I’ve never heard of that before.”
“I have, but again, that takes a different species to do that.” She pressed a finger to her chin. “If you’re curious, what we can do is research. We can start with the library here. I bet there will be books on dark witches, demons, and shadow fae magics. We can see if any of those match yours exactly.”
I inhaled sharply. Research it? Find out more? Only if it was on how to keep it hidden. “Hm, no, I don’t want to find out more.” I walked around her, but paused at the door. “Lavinia, please, don’t tell Shane.”
She shook her head once, but said, “Okay. This is your secret to tell. I won’t say anything.”
“Thank you.”
I stepped out of the restroom and headed home as if I could leave this entire afternoon inside.
5
RAIKA
When Shane textedme saying it was time for our run, I hesitated.
Looking back, I felt bad for ditching Lavinia, but I wasn’t ready to face this. There were so many other things going on. I couldn’t wrap my mind around them, let alone something else, something that I had an increasing, sinking feeling wouldn’t be a good thing.
I would try to keep this under control until we found the crystals, fixed the barrier, put the town back together, broke Shane’s curse. Then, only then, I would tell him about this and figure it out.
