Authors: Evangeline Anderson
“It was Sanchez,” Grant says. “He told me he’d been sent once
before to get you, back when your power first started manifesting, early on
when you were a child. The vampires wanted your blood to mend the spell, which
was already in bad shape, even fourteen years ago.”
“Sanchez…” So that’s why when I see him I always smell burning and
hear weeping. I shiver. “That bastard.” I ball my hands into fists. “I’ll kill
him! Is he the one who set fire to my house?”
Grant frowns. “No—at least he says he wasn’t. According to him he
went to your house but your mother intercepted him. They had words and
fought—she managed to drive him away, back into the yard. He claims the fire
started on the second story—he saw witch-flames shooting up the curtains in one
of the bedrooms and then suddenly the whole place was ablaze.”
“Witch-flames?” I feel sick and dizzy. I look down at my fingers
and see the crackle of blue sparks shooting from their tips. The Dream peels
away like a piece of protective film that’s been covering my mind. Suddenly I
realize that its safe fuzziness has been protecting me, keeping me from
knowing, from understanding what really happened that night.
“Emma—” Aiden puts a hand out to me but I shake him off.
“Me,” I whisper, balling my crackling, dangerous hands into fists
and stuffing them under my arms. “
I’m
the one who started the fire. I
heard them arguing and I thought he wanted to hurt my mom—I didn’t know he was
after me. So I called the flames. I…I wanted to throw them at him but somehow they
got out of control. Oh Goddess…” I put my head in my hands, no longer caring if
I set my hair on fire, as sobs rise to choke me. “I killed her—she sacrificed
herself for me because she knew the fire had to be satisfied. The fire
I
called.”
“Oh, Emma, hon…” Lexy puts her arms around me. At first I resist
but then I wrap my arms around her neck and bawl.
It all makes sense now. The way I couldn’t find my magic and
thought I was a dud. It was because I’d buried it, hidden it along with the
horrible memory of the night my mother died. Because I didn’t want to know.
Didn’t want to admit to myself what I had done, that I had killed the one
person who meant more to me than anything else in the world.
“I’m so sorry.” Aiden’s voice sounds far away and oddly formal. I
force myself to pull away from Lexy and look up at him. He is standing there,
in the circle, a look of grim despair on his white features. “I never wanted
you to know that, Emma,” he says softly. “I fear that I’ve brought nothing but
pain to you, just as I brought nothing but pain to Katherine.”
“Aiden…” I whisper but he shakes his head, a look of determination
crossing his face.
“I release you from your servitude. I am no longer your master.”
He stoops down and I think he’s going to kiss me one last time. Instead, he
reaches behind my neck and unfastens the leather collar. Then he rises swiftly,
regret filling his eyes. “I’m sorry, Emma. I hope you’ll live a full and
fulfilling life.”
Before I can say another word he’s gone—flashing out the door in a
white blur—showing the supernatural speed and grace vampires are known for.
For a moment I’m stunned. I feel like I’ve lost my mother all over
again and now I have just lost the man I cared for, the man I…what?
The man
you love,
whispers a little voice in my head.
Only now he’s gone and
he’s never coming back.
Chapter Twenty-four
Lexy takes me home with her and runs me a hot bath because I keep
complaining that I’m cold, so cold I feel like I’ll never be warm again.
“You’re just in shock,” she tells me, hugging me tightly as she
sits me on the bed in her spare room. “A lot has changed for you tonight. I’m
going to get a bath ready and you can wash away all the bad things that
happened.”
If only it was that easy. I sit on the bed feeling tired and cold
and horrible. Over and over in my head, two different lines are playing and
neither one of them is pleasant.
I killed her,
whispers one.
Me, I’m the one who did it. I killed her. I
killed her.
He’s gone,
hisses
the other, sounding very much like the vampire with the snake voice.
He’s
gone and he’s never coming back. You’ve lost him. He’s gone.
“Bath’s almost ready,” Lexy calls from the other room.
Guess I’d better get undressed.
I’m still wearing Aiden’s charcoal suit jacket but also my other
clothes too, which Lexy helped me find and put back on. I drag myself up from
the bed mechanically and start to strip even though I don’t want to. I cuddle
the jacket close before I take it off. It still smells like him—like cedar and
dark, masculine spice. I’m never going to smell that scent again because he’s
not my master anymore. He let me go, released me from his service. He—
Suddenly I catch sight of a complete stranger right across the room
from me. She’s tall and has long black hair and vivid purple eyes. For some
reason, she too, is clutching a dark gray jacket to her chest. What the hell is
she doing in Lexy’s house? And who the hell is she? Her face looks familiar but
those eyes…
I turn to face her more fully and realize that I’m not looking at
another person at all. Lexy has a full length mirror on the back of the closet
door and it’s reflecting…me.
“But that’s not me,” I whisper aloud, daring to get closer to the
mirror. “It can’t be. It
can’t.”
I feel a strangled scream rising in my
throat. What’s happening to me? What am I becoming?
“What…what is it?” Lexy rushes into the room so fast she almost
runs into me. “Emma, honey,” she cries. “What’s wrong?”
“That…that girl…her…” I point to the mirror, unable to say
anything else. To acknowledge that the girl in the glass is me.
“Oh, that.” Lexy shakes her head. “I thought you knew—couldn’t you
feel it when your magic was coming in?”
I remember the strange tingling in my scalp, the burning in my
eyes, the aching in my bones. But still… “I didn’t know,” I say in a shaking
voice. “Lexy, you should have told me. I thought there was a stranger in the
room.”
“Oh, hon, I’m so sorry!” She hugs me but her arms around me feel
different somehow. Looking in the mirror again, I realize why—we’re the same
height now!
“Lexy…” I gasp, pulling away. “I…I’ve grown. I can’t believe…I
don’t understand…”
“It’s just what happens when your magic comes in,” she says. “Like
a second puberty. Remember how I used to be short and pudgy and have stringy
dishwater blonde hair before I got my powers?”
I do vaguely remember that. But my cousin has spent so many years
being tall and slim with her gorgeous waterfall of long auburn hair that I can
barely recall the way she looked when we were both kids. Of course, everyone
knows that a witch gets her true eye and hair color when her magic fully
manifests for the first time. I just never expected it to ever happen to me.
Apparently, tonight, it did.
“You’re a late bloomer,” Lexy says gently. “But you’ve got some of
the strongest magic I’ve ever felt, cuz. That’s why it made such a dramatic
difference when it finally came.”
“But…” I look at my new reflection, frowning. I don’t mind the
hair—it’s actually the exact same shade as my mother’s hair. Just thinking of
her makes me wince so I hurry on, trying to catalog the other changes. I’ve
never heard of anyone really having purple eyes but mine are now—a deep
jewel-like amethyst fringed with thick, black lashes. They’re
startling—arresting in a way my old muddy hazel never was.
Despite the more obvious changes to my hair and eyes, what’s
hardest to get used to is my new height. My body feels strange—stretched
out—taller. But I can’t help noticing that even though I’ve grown a couple
inches, I still have a fuller figure than my slender cousin. Which is so not
fair. If I’d been able to change anything about myself, I would have wished to
change my weight. I want to be skinny and sylph-like instead of hourglass
shaped. Why did the magic change everything but that?
Then I realize what I’m thinking. Who cares what I look like now?
Not when I just found out that I’m responsible for my mother’s death and Aiden
has left me. Who cares about anything? I might as well lie down on the bed and
just
die
.
“You stop that right now.” Lexy shakes me.
I look at her, startled. “Stop what?”
“I can hear every word you’re thinking and I don’t like it one
bit!” she snaps. “Your mother loved you—she knew what happened wasn’t your
fault. Kids make mistakes—you were only eight.”
“But I
killed
her, Lexy,” I protest. “That’s more than just
a mistake.”
“For the Goddess’s sake, Emma, you’re acting like you went after
her with a gun!” Lexy sounds exasperated. “You were precocious—you had a huge
power crammed into your little body and it was leaking out like crazy. Remember
how I told you what I overheard your mom telling my mom about you being the
most powerful witch in a generation? And besides, you were trying to
protect
her when you started that fire.”
“I know that, Lexy,” I whisper. “I know it in my head. But in my
heart I can’t help feeling…feeling that I’m to blame. I loved her so much…”
“And she loved you too, honey.” Lexy hugs me again, enfolding me
in a fierce embrace, pressing her cheek to mine. “She knew you started the fire
but she forgave you for it. What were her last words to you?”
“She said…” I close my eyes, the memory of my mother wreathed in
flames pressing down on me like a weight. “She said she loved me.”
“Of course she did.” Lexy strokes my hair. “She never stopped
loving you, no matter what. She forgave you and in time, you’re going to have
to forgive yourself.”
I know she’s probably right but it’s hard to think about now. So
hard when all I want to do is just curl up in a ball and stop breathing.
“There you go again.” Lexy pulls back and shakes me. “Stop it with
the suicidal thoughts already, Emma!”
“How…” I clear my throat. “How can you even hear me?”
“It’s your witch-whisper, of course,” Lexy says. “Now that you’ve
learned it, you don’t seem to know how to shut it down.”
“It’s the magic.” I feel stricken. “There’s too much of it and I can’t
control it—any more than I could back when I was eight. God, Lexy, I’m a
walking time bomb!”
“No, you’re not,” she says fiercely. “You’re just a very powerful
witch who hasn’t been trained to control her powers. But don’t worry, we’re
going to fix that. I’ll work with you every day until you get it under
control.”
“But…what about tonight?” I look at my hands apprehensively,
expecting to see blue sparks shooting from my fingertips again at any moment.
“What if I accidentally light your house on fire, like I did back when I was
eight?”
“You won’t,” my cousin says calmly.
“How can you be sure?” I start to move away from her. I should go
sleep out in the yard. Or better yet, in the middle of a swimming pool or
anyplace that’s not flammable…
“I put some magic dampers in the bath,” Lexy says. “You’ll be safe
for tonight and the dampers will have worn off in the morning so we can work on
getting your magic under control.”
Hearing this makes me feel a little better. I’m so glad I have a
best friend like Lexy. She might seem ditzy at times but when the going gets
tough, she does too and I know she won’t let me down.
Lexy makes a face. “I’m glad to have you as a best friend too,
Emma. And I’m going to let the ditzy part go…this time.”
“Oh!” I put a hand to my mouth, aware that I was projecting again.
“I guess I’d better go get that bath.”
“Guess so.” Lexy smiles and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. “I
know everything seems horribly overwhelming right now but you’re going to get
through it, Emma. I promise.”
I kiss her back. “Thanks, cuz. I hope…I really hope you’re right.”
But inside I doubt it. I doubt it very much.
Chapter Twenty-five
I spend the next several weeks at Lexy’s house, working on my
magic. Surprisingly, learning to control it is not as hard as I feared it would
be. I’ve already been through all the lessons, back when I was twelve and
thirteen and still waiting for my powers to manifest. And I’ve watched my
cousins and my aunt practice all my life. So it’s just a matter of putting what
I already know into action.
I also try to make peace with the past. I go to visit my mom’s
grave and tell her how sorry I am. Sometimes I can almost feel her presence and
when I look in the mirror, I see her staring back at me. I know what Lexy says
is right—she loved me and forgave me. The question is, will I ever be able to
forgive myself?
But the thing that hurts me the most, even more than learning the
traumatic truth about my mom, is Aiden’s abandonment. I thought he cared for
me, that he wanted to keep me by his side. I guess I was wrong. But then…what
about the way he claimed me? The way he insisted I was his and only his? Did he
only say those things in the heat of the moment, because we were having such
passionate, intense sex? Lexy assures me that’s what guys do—they make all
kinds of promises, swear eternal love and devotion, say whatever it is they
think you want to hear—but none of it means anything.