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A brow rose over her emerald eyes. “You don’t want to know where I got it?”
My eyes stayed on the syringe in her hand and the ink black blood it contained. The blood was like fire in my veins. The first time I took it, I screamed and cried for hours. I bashed my head against the floor and had to be treated for a concussion.
And then I worked my first spell and realized it was worth the pain.
“I figure it’s either Al’s or more likely that idiot Eddie’s,” I replied, still mesmerized. I had to wonder if Eddie’s blood would hit me differently since he was kind of a freaky demon. Eddie was a satan, a specialized demon class. They’re capable of judging contracts, but they aren’t the strongest at magic.
It would do in a pinch, though.
“Eddie is a kind being, but I did have to lie to him and tell him it’s for Puff. Feeding a hellhound demon blood bonds him to his house,” Evan explained, pushing her braid over her shoulder. Her hair had once been a brilliant auburn, matching her mother’s, but now there were streaks of pure black, and I kind of thought there were more of them than I’d seen before. “Eddie was thrilled I asked him instead of Albert. Al would have had questions.”
Of the two demon butlers, the queen’s Al was definitely the sharper one. Twelve years on the run hadn’t toughened Eddie up a bit.
“So what do you want?” It hit me hard. It had only been a couple of days since I’d thought she was going to bleed out on the floor while I battled with my bestie. When I thought about it, it was truly Evan’s fault I was here. If Evan hadn’t primed that damn sword by shoving it through her torso, Kelsey wouldn’t have been able to tap into Myrddin’s power through Gladys. The Sword of Light. Not Gladys. Except she did kind of look like a Gladys. I knew that a primal had saved Evan. I also knew what primal blood could do to anyone who wasn’t a primal. “You want to know if I can stop what’s happening to you.”
Her whole body went tight, and she wouldn’t look me in the eyes. “Yes. I want to stop it. I can feel myself changing. My body aches in places.”
“Because you’re fighting it. If you would submit, it would simply happen and you could get it over with and move on with your happy-ass self. I suspect your hair will likely go full-on obsidian and your eyes will be pitch black. There are sunglasses in your future, baby girl. You might get some nice fangs, but they probably won’t function because you’re not a real primal. Does it help that I think you’ll keep your hair? Primals usually lose it and get all Nosferatu-like, but that would have happened overnight. This is going to be a more subtle change.”
She was so pale now I could see the veins in her neck. “It doesn’t feel subtle. I don’t want this. Whatever it is, I want to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
I didn’t know what made me say what I did next, but it was out of my mouth before I could think to stop it.
“He’ll still love you. Fenrir, that is. He’ll love you no matter what. You’re his mate. He sees you differently than you see yourself.”
Like Casey had.
She wiped at her eyes, but that Donovan-Quinn stubbornness was plain on her face. “Can you teach me how to fix it?”
That word.Teach. It got me every time. See, one of the things I liked about all that demon blood was the clarity of thought I got. When I’m on the blood, I didn’t care about the past. I cared about my goals. I cared about my spells.
I’d been a teacher. I’d had werewolf kids and teen shifters and a couple of halflings over the years. So many teen witches had come through my door.
I’m so sorry, Olivia. They did it to themselves, when you think about it.
I shoved the memory away, not letting that awful day take hold. They didn’t matter. All that mattered was the syringe in Evan’s hand. “Sure, kid. I can teach you a couple of spells to keep it at bay, but I don’t know how long they’ll work. If you go all monstrous, there’s always glamours.”
I’d never had Evan in my class. Any of the kids. They were too young for high school English, and by the time they were old enough, I only taught death.
“Give me a list of what I’ll need and I’ll give this to you. I can keep it up with Eddie for a few weeks, but by then my father will have decided what to do with you and it won’t matter,” Evan said with a practicality I’d come to appreciate her for.
I agreed with her. This would all be over in a couple of days, one way or another. I quickly told her what she’d need to make the spell work and promised to teach her. I would have promised her the world. The whole fucking world just to get that blood in my veins.
I might have given up Myrddin for that blood.
Had he intended that affect? Or had he simply always meant to be the one supplying it?
I was the last of the Profane—his most powerful witches—and it struck me in that moment that the only strong thing about us was an appetite for that blood.
When she tossed it my way, that syringe was in my vein so fast I couldn’t breathe.
And then I could as it raced through my system. Maybe it was the amount. So little, but it didn’t hit me the same way. For a moment I thought Evan might have poisoned me. Oddly, it felt cool this time. It didn’t give me that hideous rush of pain I’d come to associate with the blood. But the power was absolutely there. That blood calmed my shakes, and I felt more settled than I had in forever.
It would pass, I told myself. I was just relieved.
I didn’t know that the blood I’d put in my veins was the beginning of the end for me.
“Hey, babe. Whatcha doing?” a familiar voice said. “Hope it’s a friendly visit and not one where we kill prisoners because we were told by the ’rents we shouldn’t do that.”
