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I stare at him through my black eyes and twist so he can see the wing bones at the base of my shoulder blades. Then I turn back around and hold out my feathered hands. Since he's in his wolf form, he can't speak. He bristles like he's about to shift, but I hold out my hands to stop him.
"Don't shift," I say. "I feel more comfortable with you in wolf form right now."
Lucian lowers his head and sits back down, wrapping his thick tail around his hindquarters. I walk over to sit beside him, and as soon as I do, he wraps his tail around me too. It's warm, and soft, and so comforting.
He nuzzles his snout into my side, as if he is trying to show me without words that he still loves me, regardless of these new changes.
I saved his life, and in doing so, sacrificed a part of myself. But he accepts me. If only I could just feel comfortable in my new skin.
I sit with him well into the night, until I fall asleep against him. Just before dawn, I get up to go inside and lie in my bed again. When I look out the window, Lucian is gone.
For the next few days, I stay in my apartment. My garden needs some serious attention since I was away for so long.
Lucian comes and visits me every night after dark and in his wolf form. I spend hours talking to him about how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking, and he listens.
Most nights, I curl up with him and the two of us fall asleep wrapped around each other beneath the moonlight. If this is how things will be from now on, I suppose I'm happy with that, for the most part.
18
LUCIAN
Idon't care that Elspeth's eyes, hands, and back have changed. I love her, and I still think she is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I love everything about her, and I wish that she could love herself now as much as I do. I wish she could see herself through my eyes. I'm just happy that she finally shared with me what happened and is willing to sit next to me and talk. Granted, I haven't talked back because I've been in my wolf form, but I hope she'll let me soon. For now, I'm happy to simply spend time with her in the garden without saying much. I want to show her that I am here for her, and if that means being only in the silence and dark for now, then so be it. Eventually, she will come around and see that nothing of importance has changed.
Blair told her that the vampires are appointing a new clan leader—a younger, more temperate vampire who wants to keep the peace between his clan and my pack. I'm glad there will be peace again. But I wish Elspeth could find some as well.
She tells me in our late-night chats that she wants things to go back to the way they were between us, and I want to assure her that nothing has changed. But she still doesn't want me to talk, and I can't say my piece.
I notice Elspeth is becoming more drawn to the darker side of her magical practice. The spells I see her cast are different—harsher, more volatile. Even her garden is different. I'm no expert in witchcraft, but I can tell something is off. When I finally shift back into human form to ask her about it, she doesn't seem to notice what she's doing.
"I don't know what you mean. My craft is the same as it has always been. I don't see anything different exceptme."
But how can she not notice the way her garden has changed? It's filled with noxious, poisonous plants, that either look or smell like they'll harm anyone who touches or tastes them.
And it's not just the garden that is changing.
When she finally starts to leave her window unlocked for me again, and I spend time in her apartment, I start to notice other things as well.
"What's this?" I ask one morning while she's making coffee. I stare at the open book on the table and look at the frightening drawings in the margins. There are scribbles of demonic faces, and what looks like smudges of dead insects that have been smashed into the page and then traced around.
Elspeth finishes making the coffee and walks over to see what I am looking at. She hasn't left her apartment since my first visit, not even to go back to the coven building or walk through the city with me to get some fresh air.
She sits down at the table beside me, grabs the book and slams the cover closed.
"It's nothing," she says casually. Her dark eyes are twitching. "It's just one of my grandmother's old grimoires."
"The same grimoire that you used to save me?"
"Yes."
"Why are you reading through it again? Did you make the drawings in the book or was that your grandmother?" I ask.
"Why do you care?" she snaps at me.
"It's just that it all seems a bitdark, and I didn't think you'd need to use that spell book again."
"I don't," she says, getting up from the table to put the book back on its shelf. "I was just curious about something."
"Oh? Did you find anything else in there about what happened to you?" I ask, thinking that would be a logical explanation for keeping it out.
