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“Fucking hell,” Belle muttered. “He smells like rotting meat.”
He certainly did. And there was a part of me—a big part of me—that thought it might be better to walk away now rather than discover why.
I ignored that bit of wisdom and kept on going.
And almost immediately wished I hadn’t.
The vampire wasn’t only dead, but fast-time rotting. His skin and muscles sloughed away from his bones in oozing, meaty chunks that splashed wetly around his feet…
My stomach rose, and I lurched away, losing everything I’d eaten during the day in the nearby bushes. When the heaving stopped, Belle handed me a small bottle of water but continued to study the disintegrating figure.
“How is something like this even possible?” Her voice held a weird mix of horror and fascination. “Vampires mighttechnicallybe dead, but surely if meltdowns like this were frequent occurrences whentrulykilled, it’d be common knowledge.”
“I doubt this has anything to do with them being dead, and more to do with who they’re connected to.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, then opened the bottle and rinsed out my mouth. Then, warily, I turned around. Nothing remained of the vampire now except a small mound of clothes that oozed bloody liquid… my stomach started to churn again, but at least this time it stayed put. “We’d better get to the others, before it’s too late.”
I spun and ran, as fast as I was physically able, through the trees. By the time we reached the second vampire—a woman, if the shoes were anything to go by—she too was little more than an oozing pile of human remnants. I continued on, mentally crossing all things that we found the third vampire alive.
We didn’t.
I swore and thrust a hand through my matted hair. “Marie really doesn’t give a shit about her people, does she?”
“Which is at least one thing that can’t be said about Maelle.” Belle stopped beside me. Though the night wasn’t cold, goose bumps prickled across her skin. “I just don’t get why she went to this extreme. Why not just take their lives rather than melting them?”
“Perhaps because she could. Or perhaps she simply wanted to freak us out.”
“Or perhaps it’s a warning of what she intends for us.”
“We’re not connected to her magically or mentally,” I said. “It’s doubtful she could. Unless, of course, dark magic is involved, and I wasn’t sensing any sort of dark spell around those vamps.”
“Would you, if Marie spelled from a distance and it hit these vamps through whatever connection they have with her, be it a blood oath or something else?”
“I don’t know.”
Belle rubbed her arms, her expression uneasy. “At least you have the wild magic to protect you. I don’t.”
“It automatically protected you at Maelle’s, remember, so that may no longer be true.” I hesitated, then added, “Besides, my ability to call on the wild magic might now be… curtailed.”
She glanced at me sharply. “Meaning what? What happened in that wellspring?”
“I met the Fenna, Belle. My daughter was accepted. I was not.”
She blinked. “Why the hell not?”
“Because while Mom’s linediddescend from the Fenna, there’s no direct werewolf link.”
“So why is your own wild magic giving you wolf-like characteristics?”
“It’s enhancing the DNA ‘leftovers’ I’ve inherited via our distant Fenna heritage. The changes won’t continue—I’ll never be any more than I already am. But our daughter—she’ll not only be Fenna, but a full wolf.”
“Meaning she will be able to shift shape?”
When I nodded, Belle smiled and touched my arm. “That’s brilliant news.”
It certainly was, because it meant, unlike me, she would not be considered an outcast or an oddity within the pack. She’d be one of them—could run with them—from the very start, while having all the power of the wellspring at her disposal. Not to mention the wisdom of the Fenna to tap into.
“Her own private spirit guide army,” Belle murmured. “But does your rejection mean you no longer have any access to the wellspring’s power?”
“No, it means the Fenna will sit in judgement of my needs. I suspect the only time I’ll bypass that is when my life is on the line.”
