Will It Hurt?

LILY X

A wytchy tale with hot sapphic vamps

and a strong South Asian lead

Also available from Lily X

Published by Carina Press 

New World Series

Stay with Me

Made for Me

Own Me

Breathe with Me

Safe with Me

Seventh Star Series (F/F Omegaverse)

Let Me Be Yours

Never Yours

I’m Yours

Forever Yours

Truly Yours

Yours To Remember

Yours To Keep

Bonus:

Wrath of a King

Copyright © 2025 Lily X

Cover Design: MC Damon

Interior artwork: m.ieoi

Character artwork: teoctobart

Inspiration for p299: sapphic_bookworms

All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission by the author, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

To all the sapphic South Asian baddies who’ve dreamt of being the heroine… or the villain.

This. Is. Your. Sign.

Aisla Laxmi

Pronounced eye-la

Jeanette ‘Jinn’ Waters

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Epilogue

Book Club Questions

Content Warnings

While Will It Hurt?  is primarily a romance novel, it deals with several difficult topics, including blood, blood drinking, grief, loss, mental health, mercy killing, vampyric euthanasia, complicated mother-daughter dynamics, violence (mild), and casual modern-day racism from my own lived experience.

I hope I have handled these sensitive topics with care.

Notes

This novel is set in Edinburgh, Scotland, a place I am lucky to call my chosen home. I have taken some creative liberties with the portrayal of it here. After all, this is a fantasy novel. For example, the constant snow is an anomaly for the city. The bridges are also never empty, except in the scene where Jinn is hunting Aisla.

To reiterate, this is a work of fiction and any references to places or people are used fictitiously.

Shortcuts

Chapter Eight: Jinn & Aisla’s meet-cute

Chapter Twenty-Two: First kiss

Chapter Thirty: First everything else

Chapter One

Aisla

C-A-C-T-I.

Clue: Desert flora.

I tapped each letter into the crossword, watching the column light up in blue. Perhaps it was my age, but these puzzles had become the best part of my daily routine—second only to a freshly poured espresso.

The barista set a tiny cup next to my tablet, the crema trembling along its rim. I waited for the remark—the pleasant quip every person in hospitality was trained to utter. We had a weekly rotation of football games, the weather, politics, or local news.

“Miserable, isn’t it?”

I met their gaze for a second, noting how their hair was tied into two golden space buns no thicker than a bottlecap.

“Absolute shite,” I said with an obligatory sniffle.

“Might get better tomorrow, though.”

A glance at the thick snowfall on the ground indicated that it was unlikely, but I smiled and nodded until they returned to their assigned position behind the counter.

P-O-N-Y

Clue: Pay (up).

The café I frequented served the residents in the area. Many of us were tired of the “must visit” tourist spots in Edinburgh and preferred smaller hole-in-the-wall establishments for a cuppa.

The Daily Grind was queer-friendly, served decent coffee, and didn’t look aesthetic enough to attract tourists. All in all, the perfect choice.

From the outside, the café looked like a privately-owned cottage with its dark brown brick and low roof. Inside, however, someone had taken great care to maintain the old-world charm of the place.

An older establishment like this wouldn’t be most people’s cup of tea, but over the years, I’d begun to adore the crack in the low-hanging wooden beam and the stale smell of coffee lingering in the brick walls.

I picked up the small espresso cup, feeling warmth creep back into my fingers after the ten-minute trudge through the snow and ice to get to the café after dark.

“What do you think?” the barista asked from across the room. “It’s a new roastery from South Queensferry. They’ve won a few international awards.”

I let the bitter notes spread over my tongue.

“I’m tasting hazelnut,” I said agreeably. “A hint of caramel. Maybe a little summer peach?”

They laughed, shaking their head as they saw through my charade. “You don’t taste anything different, do you?”

“Not one bit.”

“I like regulars like you—you’ll drink whatever I suggest without complaint.”

True. I was easily pleased in the caffeine department.

As they turned away to clean the coffee machine, I studied the abysmal view out the window.

The first snow of the season was always the most painful one—I’d become used to the gentle chill of autumn, and, like many others, thought we had some time left before temperatures dipped to negative.

Unfortunately not.

The door to the cafe parted with an icy breeze and a chill curled its way into the narrow gap between my jeans and socks, cold fingers stroking across my calves.

Irritation flared in my chest, but it made little sense. I had chosen a seat by the door because it also offered a view of the street, but as the wind eradicated the warmth of the café, I cursed under my breath. A woman stood in the doorway, trying unsuccessfully to turn the latch as the wind pushed against it.

Edinburgh winds were notorious for fighting back—in the depths of winter, I swore the wind grew teeth and fangs, sinking into skin wherever it touched.

The barista hurried over to help, throwing their weight against the wooden doorframe until we heard a loud click.

“Thank you so much!” the newcomer uttered, the four words converging into one. “That was crazy!”

Tourist.

If nothing else, her accent alone gave it away.

Her orange-red curls had been pulled into a swoony eighties style updo with curated ringlets falling across her forehead.

Pretty, I thought. In a Natasha Lyonne type of way.

“Wind’s normal for this time of the year,” the barista replied with a tip-worthy smile. “What can I get ya?”

She wasn’t dressed for the weather. No hat or gloves. No boots. Only a pair of white sneakers that weren’t suited to the cold.

Her coat was woefully not windproof. It was a baby blue fashionable piece that fell to her knees and tied around her waist with a belt. The fastening left the upper part of her chest bare save for the knitted jumper beneath.

I scoffed.

Easy pickings for the wind.

Perhaps my stare had invited hers. Our gazes met for a brief second, the bright blue of her iris striking against the puff of red curls and the embarrassment that still flared on her cheeks.

She hesitated for a moment as though trying to decide if I was worth smiling for. In the end, she cinched her belt tighter around her waist and followed the barista to the counter.

P-R-E-Y

Clue: Not predator, but

I wondered if she had been tugged into the warmth by the threat of the wind, or if she had meant to set foot in The Daily Grind. She seemed antsy as she bypassed her face ID to input her pin before tapping her phone to the card machine.

Her fingers ghosted over the pre-packaged snacks on the counter, touching each one and raising them to eye-level as she scanned the ingredients on the back of the packet. Her fingers were elegant, tipped with a shade of crimson that complemented blue-toned outfit she’d chosen.

None of the snack selections seemed to meet her requirements because she didn’t buy anything other than a latte.

The barista chatted idly as she moved to the noticeboard in the corner, reading the local news: lost pets, retirement parties, little miss beauty pageants.

Nothing on that board would be of interest to her, yet she perused it from top to bottom.

“Your latte, Annabel.”

The barista’s smile indicated that Annabel had likely left a generous tip, far better than the assortment of mixed change I’d dropped into the jar together with some lint from my pockets.

Annabel took a booth across the room, the peeling chestnut leather of the seats bringing out the red undertones of her skin.

T-W-I-S-T-E-D

Clue: Grotesque, like a 60s dance (+ed)

The delicate curve of her cheekbones held a surprising allure. Fine, fragile. Breakable.

She reached into her bag—a drab black affair that was still wet from the melted snow—and pulled out a phone, staring at the messages as the screen light reflected on her face.

What do you see?

Her nails tapped quickly, lips pursed into a frown.

The latte sat on the table, untouched, steam rising in the air.

As I studied her, it soon became clear that she had no intention of drinking it. The coffee cooled rapidly, nudged into a lukewarm state by the chill that lingered in the café.

When the little cuckoo clock chimed ten, she jumped visibly, fingers clenching over the handles of her bag.

H-A-R-P-E-R

Clue: First name. Author of coming-of-age novel To Kill a Mockingbird

I watched her chest rise, rapid and erratic, although she tried to hide it under the coat. She bit her lip, eyes darting outside as though looking for someone.

When she stood abruptly, the edge of her fingers tipped the cup over. Milky liquid splattered across the table and down the leather seat.

Her curse echoed in the small space, and the barista hurried over with a handful of blue roll to clean up the mess.

Instead of staying to help, Annabel grabbed her bag and headed for the door. As she passed, her gaze met mine. Worried, panicked.

This time, she didn’t have any trouble turning the latch.

S-A-N-S-K-R-I-T

Clue: Ancient language of Indian origins

She hurried past the window, flecks of snow already settling on the strands of her hair.

I stood, tugging my jacket on and sliding the tablet into its assigned place in an inner breast pocket. The barista offered a friendly wave goodbye.

Snow crunched under my boot as I left the café.

Steeling myself against the chill, I glanced at the moon. Pale and silvery-blue, she hung in a waxing gibbous state, her edges still kissed by shadows. Wisps of clouds drifted past in front of her, carried by insistent winds.

Her pull was still subtle—a gentle tug rather than an insistent jerk, like a soft current running through my veins.

Waxing. Growing. Not yet full, not yet at its peak, but filled with promise for the oncoming solstice.

Annabel’s trainers had left distinct prints in several inches of snow. I followed them, placing my feet where hers had been just seconds before. She walked around the tenement, slipping slightly as she turned the corner. In a hurry, perhaps.

The prints continued until she stopped in front of a gate.

She had hesitated here. Was she rethinking her decision?

I nudged the gate aside and secured it with a latch.

Annabel stood in the middle of an overgrown garden, a vision in blue and red and white against the bleary, mottled green of winter-struck flora. Snow had caked onto her coat, and I had no doubt that it would seep into the wool any second now.

Her shoulders tightened visibly. But she didn’t move.

“Would you like to leave?” I asked, my voice rough from the lingering remnants of the espresso.

She took fucking forever to respond. But when she did, it was soft. Quiet.

Yielding.

“No,” she said, turning to face me. “This is the end. It has to be.”

Her lips quivered, bitten red by the wind.

“Will—” She stuttered, her eyes filling with crimson tears along the waterline. “Will it hurt?”

Saying nothing was the kindest answer.

In the long decade I’d spent doing this job, I’d come to understand that nothing I said could make things better. Pain had already settled inside Annabel like a permanent guest.

I could have lied. I could have told her it would be peaceful, like slipping into a dream. Or reassured her that it would be quick—just a moment’s discomfort and then nothing at all.

But I knew that wasn’t what she was asking. She wasn’t afraid of the pain of leaving this earth—she had likely endured worse in the very moment she had been created. Rather, she wanted to know if, at the very end, the world would be cruel to her one last time. If it would punish her for this act of rebellion, or if it would finally show mercy and grant her peace on the other side.

Even as the thoughts sifted through my mind, I said nothing aloud. Because I had no answers.

Annabel’s porcelain skin creased as she glanced away from me.

“Stupid question,” she muttered under her breath. “Sorry. Do people ask you this a lot?”

It was my duty to remain quiet.

Instead, I repeated: “Do you wish to leave?”

Her lips tightened, pulling into a cold dip.

“No,” she confirmed, her voice stronger this time. “Just…”

Red streaked down her cheeks, heavy and viscous like the stolen lifeblood that it was.

A foreign ache settled in my belly as I fought a frown. I had done this more times than I cared to count, but why did the idea of vanquishing this woman make strange feelings bubble inside me?

“Make it quick.” She paused. “Please.”

Stepping forward was my error. I could’ve done this from three feet away, but I chose to move so close that my heavy boots touched her sodden trainers.

The bloody tears had dried instantly on her cheeks, whipped into spidery red veins by the wind. Beneath the dried tracks, sharp brown freckles dotted her skin, each one more beautiful than the last.

A silver spray can with a spray coming out of it AI-generated content may be incorrect.I let my gaze linger over every coiled red curl and each wet eyelash.

Her eyelids slipped closed.

I withdrew the small silver canister from my pocket, feeling for the nozzle, and aimed it true.

“Shanthi.”

Peace.

For the first time in a long time, I wished it were true for Annabel… For the fear I saw clearly in every angle of her body.

Chapter Two

Aisla

The process was deceptively simple—if mercy killing vampyres could ever be considered simple. My superiors at the High Coven of Wytches received a request for voluntary neutralization and interviewed the candidate to assess their suitability. Once complete, they sent the finalized paperwork to me.

I was merely a hammer in their toolbox, or a sharp screwdriver—whatever could inflict the most damage.

This wasn’t a job one could find advertised on Indeed. No, it was a role one needed to be born into, like my mother had, and my grandmother before her. The Laxmis were a proud line of neutralizers—or ‘executioners’ as we were called before the job title was changed in the 80s to suit the times.

There was a difference between a mercy killer and a serial killer—at least, in my books. I had no doubt that whenever a human thought about mercy killers, they pictured a nurse in pink scrubs with a fat euthanasia needle in their hand waiting to poke their next victim to save them from pain.

My job wasn’t even close.

Yes, most of the neutralizations were acts of mercy, but I didn’t get to decide who to off or when to off them.

Rather, I was just a tool for creatures of the night to use to vanquish themselves into the unknown.

That was the problem of being virtually indestructible—it could be too daunting to do it yourself, and taboo to ask your peers.

Despite the gravity of the situation—arranging one’s own death—it was a peaceful process. A slight scoosh of silver up their nose and their brain dies almost instantly. The rest of their body follows, disintegrating into ash swept away by the wind. 

Assignment complete.

That was how I referred to them: assignments. They were a job, nothing more.

Kneeling in the snow, I gathered what was left of Annabel—fragments of her blue coat, her bag, her shoes—and bundled it up tight. At one point in my life, it had saddened me to know that these people eventually amounted to nothing more than pieces of debris on the ground.

There were no ashes left to mourn. The silver worked too well to disintegrate every last bit of flesh. 

The thought brought no joy.

A heaviness settled in my chest, and try as hard as I did, I couldn’t push it away. It was forced to remain inside me, bubbling, festering, as I made the short walk back to the covenstead.

I tried to distract myself by reading over the final clue to the daily crossword.

J-O-Y-E-U-X-N-O-E-L

Clue: Merry Christmas to a Frenchman

Confetti burst over the screen in shades of green and red.

Complete. Finito.

Just like Annabel.

I was what the High Coven kindly dubbed an Eclectic Wytch—averagely good at any type of magick but gifted in none. It was our ancestral curse. All the women in the Laxmi line were born into our role as neutralizers and stuck as Eclectic Wytches.

We had records dating back two-hundred years that only served to prove that we’d never shown an affinity for any type of magick.

Not that we hadn’t tried. Each generation of women went through the trials just like everyone else—a course of consecutive tests to see what our magick responded to. And mine had responded to all in varying degrees of tepidity.

Surprise, surprise—our ancestral blood ran strong. It would have made global coven news if my power hadn’t matched my mother’s.

Either way, living in picturesque Edinburgh with its long history of wytch trials made our lives interesting.

Stories of wytches being drowned in the loch were now repeated to tourists in a heavily rehearsed script meant to draw oohs and aahs, but little did these people know that none of the women that had given their lives to the folly of men had possessed any power.

No, they’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong suspicious-looking beauty mark.

Only one of us had ever fallen victim to a wytch hunt, and her ashes now sat in a spellbound urn above our cauldron. The coven had kept Magdalene’s ashes as a warning to all others never to trust anyone outside the coven, even if they professed love and undying devotion.

Love wasn’t worth dying for. Sisterhood, on the other hand, was a different story.

Coven Layng had originated in the Isle of Skye, an island up north known for inhospitable winds and dramatic landscape. It was also a place only accessible by boat, and so, my ancestors had found themselves very much at home in its shadows.

The Great Migration, ordered by the High Coven, had brought most of the wytches to Edinburgh in the 1600s to allow for greater access to coven routes across Europe. But the dispersion hadn’t been to our advantage. Wytches integrated wherever they went, mixing thoroughly with the locals until they became one of them.

Now, only five of us remained in the north. Three here in Edinburgh, and two in the old castle in Skye.

I wished I could say there was hope for more little wytches in the future, but I was woefully inept at navigating spaces outside of my own coven culture. And my companions, Brodie and Maia, were a little…

Strange. Not in a quirky-fun way as most people might assume, but in a sheltered, socially-inept sense.

I stepped into the townhouse we called home, stomping out my snow-covered boots on the mat. Anaia glanced up from her perch on the windowsill, frowning at me with her little tufted eyebrows before curling into another impossible shape for a cat that was three kilos overweightA black cat sitting on a white background AI-generated content may be incorrect..

“How was it?” Maia shouted down from her loft as I divested myself of the winter armor.

Her dark head appeared at the top of the banister, short curls hanging over her forehead as she stared down at me. 

“Did you feed the cauldron this morning?” I asked instead.

“Aye, I did. But you didn’t answer my question.”

Irritation flared in my chest as I felt a familiar brush of soft energy against my forehead, seeking entrance past the permanent shield around my thoughts.

I cast Maia out with a hard mental shove.

“Oi!” she yelled.

“Boundaries, Maia,” I snapped, tilting my head up to glare at her. “You know I hate it when you try to read my mind.”

She sighed dramatically.

“I wasn’t going to read your mind, I was just trying to see how you’re feeling.”

That was what I didn’t want her to do.

I turned away to hang my coat next to Brodie’s empty hook. The brick above the hearth had started to crumble—likely from a combination of damp, heat and mold—but that wasn’t today’s problem.

“You want a cuppa?” I asked as I slipped my boots off.

“Sure. Bring it up.”

The covenstead existed in a state of organized chaos, but I often thought it wasn’t our fault. This was the home we’d inherited from our mothers and their mothers before. Every generation of Layng wytches had at one time or another lived in these walls, and each of them had left a jar or a hat or a dress or a bauble to remain in our sacred space.

The result was a jumbled mess, but a mess where I knew where to find things I needed.

Tea strainer? Top shelf behind the poison.

Sugar? In a tin marked ‘cat treats’.

Kettle? Boiling away on the heated bricks next to our well-fed cauldron.

It was hard to believe that our sisterhood had once been so large that not everyone could find a bed for the night. In its heyday at the turn of the twentieth century, our coven had been blessed with thirty-two powered wytches, all of whom had been registered with the High Coven. It was strange to think that just over a hundred years later, only three of us remained.

Brodie, Maia and I lived in a sprawling three-story home with the eerie echoes of good times past and the tangible burden of carrying on our coven’s legacy. The latter was going to be a hard task, given that the sperm I made was lackluster on account of my lesbianism. And Brodie was still finding himself after three years of confusing transition.

That left Maia—the chaotic pansexual wytch who might make an odd but fun parent.

I shuddered to think that in a hundred years, the Layng coven would be wiped out entirely because none of us could find the urge to procreate.

For the past ten years, ever since my mother’s death and Elder Mariana’s assignment to the High Coven’s council, it had only been us three holding down the covenstead.

I stepped into the pantry, pushing aside the overgrown money plants that hung from the ceiling and brushed against my curls. More than once, the pesky plants had tangled themselves into my hair. Trying to wrangle myself free of them was a pain in the arse, but despite the inconvenience, none of us ever really thought about pruning them. We loved the little touch of green they brought to the small, cramped space with only a single window.

On the other side, snow fell in lazy little wisps.

Typical, I thought. The weather would certainly ease up after I got home.

I took a deep breath, letting the smell of the pantry settle over me. Bundles of herbs hung from the rafters, tied with twine, their fragrant leaves drying in the dim light—rosemary, sage, thyme, and sprigs of wild chamomile. Those were Maia’s, placed there so she could dry them out for her potions.

Turning a corner, I studied the shelf that had been built into a narrow gap, standing sideways as though it was waiting for someone to pass it in a doorway. The covenstead had strange and odd angles that no one could explain, and it seemed as though our elders had simply decided to build furniture to fit the house.

But this little corner of the pantry was solely my own.

Some people collected Pokémon cards, others had a nasty drawerful of stolen thongs from one night stands… I hoarded tea.

It was a rather tame hobby, in the grand scheme of things, but one that brought me immense joy. Maybe it was the wytch in me that adored throwing things into a pot and stirring with infinite patience.

Rows of mismatched tins and jars stared back at me, foraged from charity shops or acquired through hand-me-downs from elders who had once lived in the house. Loose leaves, dried petals, curled roots, and fragrant spices… All waiting to be steeped into something that soothed my soul.

I’d spent countless hours arranging the teas into an order that made sense to me. Each shelf was divvied into the strength of the teas as my tongue registered it.

The top shelf held the softest, most delicate flavors—wispy leaves in shades of green twisted into tight spirals. Or white tea buds still covered in their silvery down with crisp flowery blossoms that would unfurl like little faeries in hot water.

There was a bag of hand-sifted pu erh that one of the elders had brought back from a trip to China. Its scent was a perfect mix of light roasted warmth and honeyed fruit, and I’d rationed the leaves out so that it would last the longest.

The middle shelf was for everyday teas—easy to drink herbal concoctions. Several personal blends filled squat jars in shades of incongruous colors—deep red berries, golden calendula petals, sharp green peppermint leaves, and the comforting earthiness of dried nettle.

Tiny tea bags made of muslin hung from hooks above, washed and dried, ready to be filled with a custom mix, tied with twine, and dropped into a waiting teapot.

Cinnamon sticks, cracked into little shards, sat haphazardly in a small wooden bowl beside curls of orange peel and star anise. I’d been reaching for this concoction more and more lately—the flavors were perfect for winter.

The lowest shelf was filled with darker, richer teas. And if I were honest with myself, these were the least used in my collection. Black tea leaves, bold and smoky, lay next to blends infused with vanilla, clove, and bergamot. A small wooden chest held pressed tea cakes I’d purchased from a dodgy Instagram advert, waiting to be chipped and steeped in clay pots.

At the very edge of the shelf sat a dark honey jar with its dipper, the surface crystallized just slightly at the edges.

I pulled a muslin bag from its hook and popped open the earl grey tin. Just a smidge went into the bag, along with bergamot, a cracked cinnamon stick and just a dash of peppermint.

The kettle whistled softly from the hearth, and I tied the little bag together with a string, just tightly enough that the bag wouldn’t unravel, but not too tightly that the string would snap beneath my fingers.

Anaia remained curled in a croissant shape on the windowsill, undisturbed by the shrill noise of the kettle. I slid my fingers into an oven mitt and retrieved the heavy iron contraption from the hearth, pouring boiling water into two waiting mugs and dropping the tea bags into them. Wispy brown tendrils dispersed into the water, infusing it with one of the oldest remedies known to man.

The winding stairs to the loft was a tricky contraption. The person who created this wrought iron deathtrap probably didn’t have feet bigger than a size five. Only the tips of my toes fit on each step, and I balanced precariously as I carried the steaming teas in my hands.

Maia met me on the top step and relieved me of a mug. She was dressed curiously today in a pair of flared jeans that were several sizes too big. The only reason they stayed up was because of a thick belt around her waist. She looked like a child playing dress up in her mother’s clothes, and not a twenty-eight year old Elemental Wytch and potioneer.

“You’re sad.”

My fingers tightened on the mug as I folded myself onto the sofa in the corner of Maia’s lab.

“I told you to stay out of my head.”

She curled up on the empty space next to me, looking like a contented cat in a warm blanket.

“I don’t need to read your mind to know that, Aisla.” Her knee pressed against my thigh. “What happened? Did they run? Did they give you any trouble?”

I shook my head, staring into the darkly fragrant tea. My quivering reflection on the surface was an accurate depiction of how I felt inside.

Murky.

Off center.

“Then what’s the problem?” Maia asked, curiosity furrowing her brows.

I shrugged “Maybe it would’ve been better if she had run.”

“I don’t get it.”

The tea scalded my tongue as I took a sip, but I welcomed the searing pain.

“Neither do I.”

Maia’s fingers combed through the curls at my forehead, her nails gently scraping my scalp.

“The job’s taking a toll on you. I knew it would.”

I pushed her fingers away.

“It’s not.”

Maia sat back against the overstuffed armrest. “Aisla… It’s okay to say you need a break. We can speak to the High Coven and tell them—”

“Tell them what?” I demanded, not event trying to fight the irrational burst of irritation. “That I can’t do a simple job I was born to do? Something my mother did, and her mother before, and endless generations of women before us?”

That I’m a fucking failure at the job I was destined for?

Maia’s lips flattened into a thin line.

“You know the predicament that we’re in,” I said, tapping my foot on the carpet in a quick, nervy rhythm. “Our numbers have dwindled across the continent, and Layng is the smallest of all covens. There’s only three of us here, for fuck’s sake.”

“And?” Maia prodded. “That doesn’t mean we’re not entitled to a break. The High Coven can send a replacement—someone from down south, maybe.”

I bit out between clenched teeth: “I don’t want anyone else doing my job. And besides, there’s enough unrest down there to keep them occupied without us adding to the stress.”

Maia opened her mouth to start her lecture, but I beat her to it.

“You don’t see me walking into your lab and telling you how to do your job,” I reminded her.

“Well.” She leaned against the back of the sofa. “My job doesn’t involve killing people.”

“They’re not people. They’re undead.”

Her dark eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “You know what I mean. Ending someone’s existence is a burden not many of us can bear without breaking, ancestral calling or not.”

Calling was a bit of a stretch. It was a job I tolerated, but also something that had become intertwined my identity.

A funny little smile twisted Maia’s lips.

“You’re like that dog, you know,” she said, shaking her head. “The one that stands in the doorway desperate to inspect what’s going on outside but also refusing to leave the comfort of a warm home. In the meantime, you’re letting all the heat out and inconveniencing people in the house.”

“How am I a dog in this scenario?”

“Because you’re stubborn!” She shook her head, placing a hand on my thigh so I would stop tapping the floor with my foot. “You’re too pig-headed to see just how much you need a break.”

I glanced at the tea again, taking in the way my fingers curled around the rim a little too tightly.

Maia’s voice faded, so did the crackle of the hearth. And all too quickly, I felt the weight of the canister in my hands, the scrape of the nozzle against the pad of my thumb.

I heard Annabel’s last unnecessary breath, saw the crimson tracks of her tears, the bright blue eyes that brimmed with so much grief and pain and fucking misery…

Maia waved a hand in front of my face and I jerked away, sloshing tea over the crotch of my trousers.

“Shit!”

Streamers of hot tea burned down my arm and dripped off my elbow as I hurried to put the mug on the floor.

“Wait, stop!”

All at once, waves of heat rose from Maia’s fingers, flowing over the patch of scalding water that soaked my jeans. Her magick swept across my skin, leaving a tangible tingle in its wake.

The too-hot water turned cold instantly.

I looked down at myself in dismay.

“Great, now I’m just sitting here in a pair of cold, wet jeans. It’s fifty years too soon to be okay with wetting my trousers.”

“Um, excuse me? Have you heard of gratitude, Aisla?”

“I have,” I retorted. “And I’m grateful when it suits me.”

“You do realize I have the power to scald you again?”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Thank you for your service.”

“Here,” she said, handing me a thick multi-colored throw. “Wrap this around you.”

I wiggled out of my sodden jeans and cuddled into the comfort of her throw. It smelled like Maia—the oil she used for her hair and the minty scent of her homemade bodywash.

“I saw a woman,” she said almost hesitantly. “Earlier.”

I didn’t meet her gaze.

“What woman?”

“When you spilled, your mind guard slipped for a brief second, and I saw a woman. A redhead. Blue coat.”

“Annabel.” I picked at a fray in the throw. “She’s the one I…”

“Neutralized?”

I was beginning to resent the word.

There was nothing neutral about what I did. My ancestors had once used silver daggers to get the deed done, and I was grateful that we had evolved to finer technology.

The idea of having to look into someone’s pain-filled eyes as I slit their throat or plunged a blade into their heart was more than I could stomach.

Sometimes I believed their pain was never exorcized. Instead, it looked for its next victim and slammed right into me.

Perhaps I harbored the pain of everyone I’d neutralized. It seemed fitting that I’d be burdened with it. After all, I’d taken their infinite lives with no more than a word and a spray of silver vapor.

“You were attracted to her,” Maia said, reading my silence incorrectly.

“Only in passing. And that wasn’t the issue.”

“I don’t know, Aisla. Having to kill someone I’m attracted to would put me in a shitty mood.”

“She was attract-tive. I wasn’t attract-ted.”

Maia’s bleached brows rose. “So, what’s the problem?”

“This didn’t feel routine,” I said, glancing at my fingers and grimacing at the numerous red marks where I’d nibbled on hangnails. “Usually, I’m in and out quickly because I know this is what they want. I’m sure of it.”

“But you weren’t sure this time?”

“She did want to end her existence,” I said aloud, wondering if that was true.

“She signed the waiver sent by the High Coven. I saw it on your desk.”

So… what’s the problem? I felt Maia’s question envelope me, squeezing me tight.

“Maybe I’m just tired. I’m overthinking it.”

“Aye,” she said, draining her mug. “Get the paperwork sent off and then rest. No back talk.”

Sometimes, I wondered if Maia knew she was younger than me. She often had the bossy aura of an older sister and the chatter of a wise old aunt.

After giving me a no-nonsense look, she slipped off the sofa and padded back to her workstation. A little label printer whirred in the background as she got back to her potions.

Unlike me, Maia’s role wasn’t ‘customer facing’. But it was just as important to keep the coven running smoothly.

Her mother—now part of the High Coven’s council—was lauded as a master potioneer, and Maia had trained under Elder Mariana ever since she could safely fit into her goggles. Being one of two potioneers left in the UK meant that she was constantly inundated with orders from our coven sisters down south and around the continent.

Maia didn’t mind it—she was more than happy with her desk job. She’d often said she would’ve left the coven if she’d been given my duties.

I didn’t blame her.

As I watched her work, I felt my eyelids slide closed, lulled by the heat of the hearth and the rhythmic tapping of the pestle and mortar.

Just five minutes, I told myself as I pulled the throw tighter over my body.

When I awakened, the sun was rising outside.

Chapter Three

Jinn

I was rudely awakened from a lackluster slumber by a loud thought—not mine, never mine. My assistant, Nathaniel, hovered just outside the door to my bedroom, tapping his foot nervously against the hardwood floor.

I’d warned him many times not to sully my existence with his anxiety, but dhampirs always assumed they had more control over their thoughts and actions than they actually did.

A smattering of irritation slithered through my veins, awakening the shadows that had lain dormant as I rested. They detached from my skin, rising and stretching lazily as they sought the source of the exasperating noise.

Easy, I soothed, trying to allay their bloodthirsty nature. They twisted in the confines of the silk-lined coffin like little toddlers waiting to throw a tantrum. But as I reached for the latch on the underside of the lid, they settled disagreeably, melding into my skin. Once, long ago, I used to feel the pinch and stretch as they leeched my borrowed lifeblood to take shape, but now… Pain and I had parted ways a long time ago.

As the lid of the coffin rose with a smooth upward glide, grey-blue light flooded my safe space, forcing my teeth into a tight grind.

Dusk had clearly not fallen. Why was I being disturbed?

Bloody Nathaniel. I should’ve known better than to give a dhampir a chance.

My fingers instinctively crept to my chest, tracing the outline where my heart used to beat. It was a peculiar habit I’d developed over the course of a few days, ever since Belle left.

We’d hardly spent a day apart since I’d turned her. I relished the years of feeling her every emotion and hearing her every thought. With the distance between us, this new silence was… Unsettling.

I missed the faint lub-dub of her still beating heart, and the way her lips moved when she read. We’d spent decades together with me guiding her gently into vampyrehood in a way no one had bothered to show me.

But she’d said she needed some time to herself—that she’d be home in a few days.

I had to respect that, even though in my unbeating heart, I knew other creators would do what they pleased with the children they turned. They’d command and coerce and compel.

But Belle and I were different.   

“What is it, Nathaniel?” I called out, pushing strands of clinging hair out of my face. The ventilation system in the coffin wasn’t the best, but after a century and a half of forcing myself to get used to its narrow confines, I didn’t relish the idea of a brand new one.

Anyone who’d spent a night in a new coffin would know that it isn’t pleasant—between the swallow-you-whole softness of the satin lining and the lemon-burst smell of the wood polish, the experience was a sensorial nightmare.

But after endless years spent in this particular silken cocoon, I had grown somewhat attached to its shortcomings. I wondered what that said about my personality.

My assistant entered the room in a flurry, his fingers clasped over a laptop like a schoolgirl running around campus with a handful of books. Warm with sweat, his fingers left marks on the dark grey metal.

“What’s the matter?” I asked when he hovered at the foot of my coffin with a bead of sweat trembling on his brow. The rigid inflexion in my voice made his heartbeat double.

“I, um, you asked me to, um—”

I should have picked a better assistant than this bumbling fool. When was the last time he got through a sentence without stuttering? Certainly never in front of me. He’d been in my employ for a little over a year, and each day with him was only a practice in tedium.

The only thing that prevented me from cutting him loose was the knowledge that he would probably be ripped apart by another employer who couldn’t stand his weaseliness.

See? Despite what everyone believed, I did know what kindness was.

I stepped out of the coffin and said as calmly as I could: “Out with it, Nat.”

My silk pajamas settled into a black cloud on the floor. I was undeniably a creature of comfort—it was hard not to be when I’d had little to call my own before I was turned. I’d recently learned from Nat that calling someone a sick Victorian child had become a much-used insult among chronically online humans, but as someone who had actually lived that life, I wouldn’t wish the suffering and disease upon anyone.

As I walked across the room in search of my ironed ensemble, I felt Nathaniel shift slightly. Without turning to face him, I knew he had angled himself away quickly, too skittish to look at me when I didn’t have a stitch of clothing on.

That was the problem with fledglings—they still retained too much of their human sensibilities. Nat, for example, had been turned accidentally-on-purpose five years ago by an old lover who thought consent was a mere suggestion. No attention had been paid to logic and reason when deciding if Nat would make a good vampyre. My assistant, stupid as he was, had fought the change, leaving him in an eternal in-between state.

Not human, not vamp—just a walking pity party.

As I dressed, I picked at his mind, burrowing through the familiar pathways with ease. Nat had a simple mind with no locked rooms and no pitfalls. Instead, he spoke his thoughts more often than not.

The ability to read minds was different from compelling someone—a distinction that most got wrong. Compulsion was a skill that every vamp was born with, but mind reading was a muscle we needed time and effort to build.

Some vampyres could do one or the other, but only older creatures could ever master both. It took skill and finesse to raid someone’s mind without them noticing, and the same technique could be applied to compelling someone to do or feel certain things when they didn’t want to.

I thought about it from the perspective of art. If two people were handed the same set of colors, they wouldn’t create the same painting. One might draw a simple stick figure but the other could rival Degas.

Some vamps, like me, put in the time and effort to make mind reading a pleasant experience, while others didn’t care about the mess they made of their canvas. I’d heard stories, now and again, of my counterparts tearing through minds with a mental cleaver and leaving their victims emaciated like a limp noodle.

I couldn’t say that the idea hadn’t crossed my mind ever so often—especially when Nat hummed and hawed like he had a mouthful of treacle. But I couldn’t imagine being responsible for the aftermath. I didn’t like the idea of a half-conscious dhampir on my handwoven Kurdish carpet.

So I forced myself to traipse lightly across the shallow expanse of Nat’s mind, casting aside the useless anxious ponderings until I arrived at the crux of his nerves.

“Belle?” Still naked from the waist up, I turned to face him with crossed brows. His eyes were on the ceiling as he attempted not to stare at my nudity.

“What have you found?” I demanded.

“Please don’t kill me,” he babbled, trying to hand me the laptop.

“Don’t be silly.” I took the device from him gingerly, holding it with the tips of my fingers. “If I wanted your blood, you’d have been an empty bag of flesh a long time ago.”

I stared at the laptop. Technology was not my best friend. Something about flashing screens and tiny keypads didn’t come naturally to me. I had a tendency to flinch at bright light and struggled to hit a single key on most keyboards, which meant that I often avoided all technology except for my iPhone—that was easy enough to navigate if I was forced to make a call.

I set the grey brick on my vanity and pried the device apart.

Nat padded closer and draped something soft against my shoulders.

A robe to cover my breasts.

Fine, I thought, shrugging it on. If my nakedness bothers him so much...

The laptop lit up. From my limited experience with these things, I was aware that I needed to give them time to turn on. But the screen was already filled with a message.

TRAIN JOURNEY BOOKING CONFIRMATION

LDN > EDI

16:00 - 20:30

It was dated five days ago.

“So, Belle’s up north?” I asked, turning to glance at Nat. “That’s where she’s been hiding?”

“I…”

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

Nat’s inner cursing was driving me up the wall.

He leaned forward and tapped something into the keyboard. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead and landed on my robe.

Another notification popped up.

This time, the message made me freeze.

“It can’t be.”

Nat stood back abruptly, his heartbeat thundering with a wild rhythm.

“I’m worried that she may have done something drastic.” He swallowed loudly. “After what happened with the boy…”

I watched my nails lengthen and sharpen, turning into deadly points as frustration curled through me. The polished oak of the vanity suffered beneath my claws.

Curse it all!

The chair scraped backward, screeching loudly against the hardwood. Nathaniel grimaced, but didn’t back away.

I studied the screen again, tracing each word with my gaze.

ACCEPTED: APPLICATION FOR VOLUNTARY NEUTRALIZATION

It was inconceivable. No, preposterous.

Belle wouldn’t have taken such drastic measures. Not without consulting me first...

“Where is Indira?” I asked, only belatedly realizing that shards of wood had come off the vanity and embedded themselves under my nails. The sting was nothing compared to the worry that gathered between my ribs.

“In her chambers,” Nat said. “Awake.”

Chapter Four

Jinn

I had no doubt that we presented an odd image. Me, taking long-limbed strides across the courtyard in a silken robe and bare feet. Nat, hefting the laptop and scurrying behind me as quickly as his short legs could carry him. I heard the rasp of his breathing—a habit he had yet to break from his human days—and the anxious tumbling of his thoughts as we crossed the labyrinthian halls of the Mészáros Estate.

It was a curious place that had once filled me with terror. I remembered the chill of the rain and the spark of thunder as I’d walked to the estate’s iron gates over a hundred and fifty years ago, soaked to the bone. My sodden loafers had squelched in the gravel as I’d dragged myself up the steep slope to confront whatever awaited me beyond the imposing marblesque columns.

Now, I called it home.

The layout of the estate was an anomaly. Visitors often commented on the wide open courtyard and the wrought iron railings with a mixture of awe and confusion. The truth was that a Hungarian Count had modelled this freestanding building after his home in Budapest. He’d wanted all the comforts of home within the debauchery of London, or so the tale went.

The stone walls had once been a stark white, but they had long since turned a deep, foreboding grey, seasoned by centuries of wind, rain, and snow. Ivy crawled along the walls, twisting in forked tendrils that seemed alive—some days, I quipped to myself that they were the only things alive in this house.

The darkened courtyard was quiet, the cobblestones beneath my feet smooth. A heavy mist had drifted from the city, the smell of petrol fumes and the general stink of humans descending over the open space. A cherub-centered fountain pulsed in staccato jets as we rushed past.

Above, arched windows were barely lit from within. One or two rooms glowed a deep orange, but most were still silent.

In the many years I’d spent within Mészáros, the estate had been several things. A headquarter for the Night Council of Vampyres, a refuge for lost souls, a hideaway for undead criminals…

The list was endless.

But through its interminable iterations, there was one constant: Indira Maghendra, overseer of Mészáros Estate, and the person I had the misfortune to call Mother.

Indira didn’t appear the least bit startled as I barged into her room a minute after sundown.

She seemed… poised, almost. No, that wasn’t the right word. It was as though she was posing for me as she lounged in the freestanding copper tub with her toes curled over the edge. Her hair, a hue of inky black I so admired, was piled on top of her head in a style more suited to the century I’d been born into.

“Jinn.” Something about her tone indicated that she’d been expecting me.

“Indira.”

We had long since divested ourselves of formal titles—mother, child, family. It was an unnecessary mimicry of banal human lives. Indira, centuries older than I was, preferred honesty over farce, and under her tutelage, I had divested years of British niceties to access the true animal I was.

Today, however, the sight of her made me pause in the doorway.

Nat came crashing into my back with a muffled oomph. I decided to ignore him.

There was something different about Indira—a kind of softness I hadn’t seen before. She stared back at me with a questioning look as I studied her in the bath, my gaze tracing the plump curve of her cheek and the set of her lips.

There!

As she moved, the corners of her eyes crinkled, the creases more obvious than ever before.

Indira was a Blood Wytch—a powerful cross between a vampyre and a wytch, the only one of her kind… That I was aware of. She had been turned in a vampyre attack on her coven centuries before I’d graced this earth, and the brutality had left her at death’s door. She had crawled back from it, inch by painful inch, only to find herself changed. Not entirely a vamp, but not entirely a wytch either.

We had all assumed that our honorary mother was immortal like the rest of us, but the new creases on her skin was proof that she… wasn’t?

The thought sliced through me uncomfortably.

But that wasn’t my priority right now.

“Is this about Belle?” Indira asked with a relaxed purr as she dragged her perfectly polished nails over the tub.

Rouge was her color palette. Every corner was lined with deep red, from the upholstery to the carpets to the little ornaments of dancing pigs on her side table.

I wondered if someone had once said the color suited her, and she had since made it her life’s ambition to surround herself with it. They weren’t wrong. With her naturally dark skin and black brows, the smattering of rouge on her cheeks and lips made her seem…

Ravishing.

No, that wasn’t right.

Ravished would be a better description.

As Indira lounged in the tub, her handmaid watched us from the shadows, her posture reverent as she waited for a command. A thick black ribbon sat flush across her neck—a sign that she had already been drunk from this evening. The ribbon wouldn’t be removed until twenty-four hours had passed, just in time for Indira’s next drink.

A second handmaid drifted in the background, idly dusting a display cabinet.

Unlike me, Indira tended to switch between donors often.

Why limit yourself to tea at an open bar?

It was a refrain she often uttered in my presence.

What I hesitated to explain to her was that I preferred a meal that would not disappoint. Time and again, I used the same donor. Months, years, decades. The last donor had stayed with me for over twenty years before family commitments had taken her away to the country.

I had wished her farewell with nothing more than a firm handshake and an envelope with crisp notes.

“Rando blood” as Nat would put it, held no interest for me.

Indira snapped her fingers. The handmaid stepped forward to sluice water over her exposed shoulders.

“You know it’s about Belle,” I said as I watched her.

The last few days had descended into a hazy nightmare. I’d spent our waking hours hounding the nest for Belle’s whereabouts, the passing time only escalating my fears.

Everyone, including Indira, was quick to remind me that this wasn’t the first time that Belle had vanished. And while that was true, this was the first time she’d disappeared while upset.

I crossed my arms and met Indira’s dark gaze.

“I have a feeling you’ve known where she was all along.”

“Yes,” she confirmed, sighing in bliss as the handmaid scrubbed her with a scented cloth.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded. “You saw how worried I was…”

“That’s your problem, Jinn,” Indira sighed. “You worry too much.”

“Worry too—” I choked on the words. “Belle is my child, my creation. Imagine if one of your children went missing—”

“Ah, but I’m not stupid enough to turn the unworthy.”

A pounding began between my brows. “Belle is not unworthy.”

Indira speared me with a look. “She is weak, Jinn. She struggles to control her darkness. It takes over her too often.”

“That hardly makes her unworthy.”

“That’s where you and I differ,” she said with a throaty purr as her handmaid began a scalp massage. “You know how I feel—she’s a liability to our nest.”

Alarm bells rioted in my head.

“What,” I began, my throat thick with dread. “Did you do?”

“Me?” Indira had the gall to appear offended—or what passed on her usual serene features as offended. “Why would you think I had anything to do with this?”

“Because you just called Belle a liability,” I reminded her. “And I know she’s booked an appointment to be voluntarily neutralized.”

Her shrug sent ripples of water to the floor. It was a miracle that the wood hadn’t rotted through over the years.

“You can’t be so…” I began, the words sticking in my throat.

“So what?”

Irritation gathered between my ribs.

“Nonchalant,” I spat.

“On the contrary, Jinn, I’m perfectly chalant. I adored the dear girl, but we have to face facts: she was never suited to be one of us.”

Anger roiled inside me as Indira’s palm rose from the heated, soapy water to pause above the lip of the copper tub. This was the second handmaid’s cue. She set her feather duster down and knelt to place her forearm in the cup of Indira’s waiting hand.

The girl was a seasoned giver. She didn’t flinch as the tip of Indira’s nail sliced into the flesh above the twitch of her pulse, calling forth a rapid trickling of blood.

Indira’s gaze met mine, holding my attention as she sipped, the blood making her cheeks flush a deep, youthful red.

This was a ritualistic reminder—a silent marking of territory. Indira wanted me to know, she wanted me to remember where I’d come from, that this had once been my place. All those years ago, she had fed from me because I’d wanted it, because it had felt like freedom and flying—a reprieve from the pain of my existence.

The noises she made were once familiar. I remembered the feel of her skin as she pressed close to me, the purr in her chest as she opened my vein and slurped at the flow of blood. Like a phantom limb, I felt the pull of her lips, the slow, sucking motion of it as she dragged more out of my veins and onto her tongue.

The handmaid uttered a single sigh—the noise of surrender. Between her ribs, her heart thundered loudly, noisily, trying its damndest to distract me.

A scoff traveled up my chest.

I knew the euphoria the handmaid felt, the liberation from all things mortal. I didn’t have to cast my gaze in her direction to know that her eyes were closed and her head was thrown back. She was also trembling, waiting, anticipating the next bite…

There was something possessive about the way Indira fed, the way she held the handmaid’s arm between her thumb and forefinger while feasting on her blood.

Not a single drop was wasted. This was the way Indira had taught me to feed—lips flush against skin, pressed tight to the source so that not an ounce of blood slipped past the seam of our lips. She had regarded others like us in disdain when they let the precious liquid slip down their mouth, their chin, or worse yet, stain their clothing.

Indira hated stained clothing.

She drank lazily, languidly, as though I had all the time in the world to stand in her doorway and watch her feed.

But I knew what she was doing. She wanted me to see, taste, react.

I pushed past her visceral bullying, thwarting the memories that rose to the surface.

When I spoke, my voice was firm: “If I find out that you’ve compelled her to do something she didn’t want to do…”

Indira lingered over one last pull.

“I’m not stupid, Jinn.” She licked the wound clean and sealed it with a touch of her saliva. “I know you’ll never forgive me for meddling when it comes to your… progeny.”

A small smile tugged at her lips—mocking, derisive, as she deliberately paused before describing Belle that way. 

I knew what Indira thought of Annabel, and I resented her for every disdainful sneer. For the last forty years, Indira had done nothing but criticize my child, disparaging her choice of inelegant 80s clothing, her unruly hair, her timid nature…

But now, it seemed as though she was holding her tongue… She was too quiet.

And a quiet mother was one to fear.

“Tell me what you know.”

It was a demand—an outright order. Something inside me tugged painfully at my chest, insisting that I was using the wrong tone. It was blasphemy against my mother.

“It is not my secret to tell, Jinn.”

The handmaid rose with a small smile on her lips and returned to her dusting.

The other handmaid reached for a little pot that sat on the floor and covered every inch of Indira’s cheeks in a sloppy green mask. Smatterings of it dripped onto Indira’s clavicle where it was instantly mopped up

Fuck.

This was going nowhere.

“Nathan—” I yelled, only to be cut off when he appeared at my side in a fraction of a second.

“I bought a ticket on your phone,” he said. “The train leaves in forty-five minutes and reaches Waverley station just before nine.”

Not totally useless after all.

“Jinn.” Indira’s voice made me turn back to face her. Her lashes were caked in green goo. “Don’t cause a fuss, darling. We are all in charge of our own fates.”

Her words made my teeth gnash painfully. Even after a century and a half, a single conversation with Indira made me feel like a newly turned fledgling unable to survive in the world. The way she spoke, with that slight intonation at the end, was how one would speak to a toddler in danger of soiling their nappy.

Refusing to rise to her bait, I turned away and smacked straight into Nat.

“Sorry,” he muttered, stepping aside quickly.

The glare I shot him was probably angrier than it should have been.

“I could come with you—” he began, but I had already left without sparing him a backwards glance.

Chapter Five

Jinn

Why don’t vampyres like train stations?

Too many crossings.

I pondered the lackluster joke as I slid into a hideous leather seat that had seen better days.

Traveling in a metal canister wasn’t my idea of fun, but the other options weren’t viable. I refused to take my shoes off in a security line at the airport, and using superhuman speed to travel over three hundred miles was an exercise in stupidity.

Nat had offered to drive me before, but I couldn’t imagine a more trying scenario than being stuck in a car with a sweating, nervous fledgling for eleven hours.

As much as I hated laptops, I despised cars even more. One would assume that immortality would have proffered enough time to obtain a driving license—or at least hone the skill to operate a vehicle—but the desire had never swayed me. And here I stood, a hundred and fifty years old since my rebirth, and still unable to figure out the mechanics of a moving tin can.

Which left me with the only viable option: the train.

I used to romanticize this journey—once, long ago, before such luxuries were affordable to the masses, I’d adored the idea of a train adventure. Still old enough to sit on my father’s shoulder, I remembered being in a crowd of people outside King’s Cross when the Great Northern Railway launched its first train going up north.

That’s the Flying Scotsman, Jeanie!

I remembered peering into my father’s reddened cheeks.

Those things go at a hundred miles an hour! A marvel of engineering.

Years later, I’d learned that the Flying Scotsman traveled at exactly 126 miles per hour, but by then, my father had been long dead. It saddened me that he had passed without knowing the true speed of the trains he’d loved to watch.

I looked around the abysmal train decor now, taking in the drab silver and blue monstrosity that carried far too many people lodged next to each other like pickled eels in a glass jar.

Nat had booked a single free-standing seat for me at the very front of the train, which meant I wouldn’t have to see or speak to anyone on the journey. Perhaps there were perks to keeping him around after all.

The train pulled into the station at a little past nine. Overeager commuters waited in front of the doors, hoping to shave precious seconds from their commute. I stayed in my seat, waiting for them to clear off so I wouldn’t be plagued with any unnecessary niceties.

As train stations went, Waverley was a particularly beautiful one. While most places had divested themselves of their old-world charm in exchange for something more sleek or modern, Waverley still retained its Victorian roots.

Perhaps it was the old crumbling castle that stood above it, watching little humans scurry across the city from its perch on the hill. Or the stone walls with lattice-shaped shadows strewn across them. I felt more at home here than I did walking along the streets of London.

I weaved between the crowds until I stopped in the central dome with its glass ceiling. The iron framework was a masterpiece, tilting towards the sky like a large eye spying on commuters.

I found an empty space under the clock tower and shut my eyes.

I’d assumed I’d be able to pick up Belle’s scent the moment I stepped off the platform. But at this time of year, with the constant thrum of human life and their general state of filth, her scent had been eradicated.

As moonlight poured through the glass roof of the station, I stood in the middle of rushing bodies, trying to find the thread that tethered Belle to me.

Our connection had once burned brightly, clouding my mind in shades of gold. But as I stretched mental fingers into the dark void, closing over anything I thought may be Belle’s mind mark, nothing materialized.

It was quiet—eerily, frighteningly quiet.

A few days ago, when I’d stopped feeling Belle as keenly as I had before, I’d chalked it up to distance. Surely being apart would lessen the strength of our bond.

But that didn’t explain how my connection to Indira still pulsed strongly when I was hundreds of miles away. At the back of my mind, Indira’s tangled thread glowed red like a weapon soaked in blood. I knew she could use her influence at any time—she could call me back to her side with the power she held over me.

I should be able to do the same with Belle. Except… my mental fingers grasped at nothing.

Not good.

It was as though she’d fallen off the face of the earth.

I fished the blocky phone out of my pocket and dialed Nat’s number.

“There’s no trace of Belle,” I said in-lieu of a hello. “I need you to contact the people who sent her that email.”

“That was the High Coven of Wytches,” Nat said, his stiletto nails tapping out a rhythm on the keyboard. “I’ve been looking at their website and there is no option for an appointment.”

“None?”

“Uh, no, unfortunately not. There’s only one option on the site, but it takes some time for processing…”

“Do it. And while it processes, ask Indira to reach out to her contact at the High Coven. I refuse to believe these wytches are so elusive.”

“Well, yes, I can do that,” he agreed quickly. “I’ll update you in a couple of hours.”

He hung up with a stuttered goodbye.

I stood in the middle of the busy station, staring at people rushing past and tried to summon Belle’s familiar heartbeat back into my chest again.

Chapter Six

Aisla

The next assignment arrived five days after the last.

Maia was right, taking time off between jobs did help a little. Curling up with Anaia, a book in one hand and a cuppa in the other, had become my comfort over the last few days.

When the ancient printer began to whirr in my office in the attic, coughing and sneezing out a piece of paper, I sighed aloud, upsetting Anaia’s gentle sensibilities.

The cat stared up at me with distrust, her black eyes cloudy with sleep. With her dark tortoiseshell coloring, the only thing that stood out on her face was a pink tongue that always caught on the edge of her lips.

Silly girl.

I placed a kiss to her forehead and set her down on her cushion.

The assignment sheet awaited, stark and white against the greasy black heavy-duty printer. After twelve years of working for the High Coven, I’d begun to resent each letter that came through it.

But I still forced myself to retrieve the paper and scan the details. It was fairly straightforward—these cases usually were.

Female vamp, just shy of 150 years old, relinquishing immortality. Voluntary.

We as a community had several strange words for death and murder. Neutralizing, relinquishing, vanquishing. Perhaps this made it easier for us to understand the shitty nature of the things we were forced to do.

“New one?” Maia asked, standing in the doorway. She had been living in the oversized jeans for days, and this afternoon, she’d paired them with a baby tee that said GOOD TITS, BIG HEART.

I nodded, pulling out the heavy binder from the admin shelf and placing it on my desk with a thud. The heft of the binder released a burst of dust into the air.

The last assignment sheet I’d filed stared up at me, the print slightly smudged from the faulty old printer.

Annabel.

Somehow, between the pages of a steamy romance novel, I’d put her out of my mind. But now, she threatened at the fringes of my conscience, demanding to be let in.

I flipped the page quickly and unhooked the binder ring to slide the latest assignment to the back.

“When is it booked for?” Maia asked, running a finger over the printer to carve her name into the layer of dust that was caked there.

“Tomorrow.”

She made a thoughtful noise.

“That’s soon.”

I shrugged. It wasn’t unusual for the undead to want a quick shove into the afterlife. I assumed that after a hundred and fifty years, they’d know themselves well enough to make a decision regarding their mortality. Putting it off would simply mean dragging out the tedium of a life that never ends.

I wasn’t usually inundated by rush orders for neutralization, but every now and again, the request would pop up.

In the early days, I’d fucked up many times by asking myself why these undead had chosen this path. I’d tried to put myself in their shoes, analyzed where they were from, how old they were, and what could’ve led them to me.

That was a mistake.

It would be a steep drop into a hard grave if I humanized these assignments. Maia had once said my heart was too soft, and that I was too prone to ingesting the tragedy of it all. But over the last ten years, I had proven otherwise.

Sure, I sometimes found myself thinking about the way they hesitated at the very end, as if hoping for a reason to stay. Or when they looked at me as though I could make such a decision for them.

I was their executioner, for fuck’s sake. Just because I didn’t wear a thick black mask and hold an axe didn’t mean I could offer them hope in their final moments.

Maia leaned over to pick up the paperback from my desk.

“Camilla’s Sweet Undeath,” she read aloud, nodding as she studied the cover. Her brows rose appreciatively at the barely-clothed vampyre whose head was thrown back in ecstasy, revealing a perfectly smooth and pale throat.

“Questionable,” she murmured, flipping the book around to read the blurb. “Your fascination with vamps is so strange to me.”

Maia had always seen things in black and white—that was a wonderful thing about her, but also the most frustrating. I’d spent countless hours trying to explain that attraction and duty weren’t mutually exclusive, even when duty meant spraying a fatal amount of aerated silver up vampyre nostrils. I was their executioner, but I wasn’t blind to their otherworldly beauty.

That was my biggest problem.

It was a strange thing, really. A contradiction that should’ve unsettled me more than it did. I tried to logic it away by telling myself that the vampyres who came to me weren’t monsters in the way the old stories painted them—not mindless, not cruel, not bloodthirsty beasts lurking in the shadows of human nightmares. They were tired, longing for an end they couldn’t take for themselves. And somehow, they always managed to be fucking beautiful.

They were just so alive in their final moments. It made it hard not to see them—really see them—as more than a job.

And so, my twisted obsession with vampyre smut had thrived, growing from mere curiosity to a full-blown infatuation.

It didn’t help that there was nothing to stop me from indulging in my little fantasies. Vampyres and wytches existed alongside each other. We weren’t enemies like the old days. There were no wars, no blood feuds, no desperate clashes for dominance. That kind of history belonged to another time—a world that had long since shifted.

We had learned that survival was a better fate than destruction.

Now, we simply coexisted. Not friends, not allies, but not foes either. Just two species walking the same streets, haunting the same nights, keeping to our own.

Wytches had our craft, our rituals, our quiet power that tied in with the moon. Vamps had their hunger, their immortality, their ageless patience.

And lay humans—well, they were blissfully unaware of us both.

“You know what?” Maia said, interrupting my stream of thought as she set the book down on the desk. “I might have a lend of that once you’re done with it.”

My brows lifted a fraction.

“You?” I scoffed, unable to keep the surprise out of my words. “You want to read vampyre fiction?”

“I don’t think it’s the vampyre part that draws me in,” she said, tracing a finger over Camilla’s smooth neck. “It’s the sapphic part that intrigues me.”

I shrugged. “Be my guest. There are also other paperbacks in my room if you want to read more.”

“Sapphic?” she questioned.

“Have you seen me read anything else?”

She propped a hip against my desk, staring down with a meaningful expression.

“What?” I asked, maybe a little too abruptly.

“Are you going to take the assignment?”

I couldn’t decide if the look I shot her was wan or hostile. “You know I don’t have a choice.”

“I think you’ve been brainwashed into thinking you don’t have a choice.”

Maia often had a habit of creating conspiracies out of absolutely nothing.

Her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed as she did the poorest impression of me possible: “This is my ancestral job. If I don’t do it, who will? I need to carry on my mother’s legacy.”

Despite the less-than-flattering mimicry, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“First of all, I do not sound like Tinkerbell,” I said, flicking her arm. “And second of all, that is the truth. If I didn’t do this job, I’d be the first in the Laxmi line not to carry on tradition.”

“So?” Maia demanded.

“That’s a bad thing?” I pronounced each word carefully, hoping it would sink in.

Maia shook her head, peering out of the fogged window in front of my desk. “Tradition means little when you’re sacrificing your mental health for it.”

“I’m fine.”

Even to me, the words sounded rehearsed.

“Suit yourself.” Maia shrugged, pointing to the binder. “When you eventually have a breakdown, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She sauntered away, the legs of her baggy jeans schlepping against each other as she hummed to herself.

Her words grated against my nerves, despite being nothing new. I’d heard them before—too many times, in too many variations—but somehow, they still managed to slip through the shields I put up. Maybe it was the way she said them, the tone laced with just enough judgement to make my teeth clench.

Or maybe it was the simple fact that beneath it all, I wondered if Maia was absolutely right.

Chapter Seven

Jinn

My feet moved on their own accord, guiding me through the city as fear and worry tumbled through my chest. Edinburgh had a voice, especially at this time of year, when festive tourists descended like flies. A low hum carried in the wind, curling around chipped buildings and winding through the ribcage of an old arched close.  

My ears were filled with the sound of heavy breathing from the humans that puffed up Cockburn Street, a winding road on a steep incline that was inlaid with more than a handful of tourist traps.

The winter sun had set hours ago, but I had wandered the city aimlessly, hoping to catch a whiff of Belle in the air. Or, better yet—perhaps I would get close enough to hear the soft pulse of her heartbeat in my chest.

Once or twice, I’d caught my fingers trembling on the inside of my coat pocket, clenched around the cell phone as I waited for Nat’s call. But the bloody thing remained silent when it usually never was, and I found myself caught between the liminal space between now and the moment I would know.

I should never have let Belle go. Needing space was one thing, but abandoning the only family she had… Well, that was a cruel move. One I hadn’t thought she was capable of.

Unless… she had been compelled. I wouldn’t put it past Indira. Belle was easy pickings; she still clung to her humanity. It would take nothing at all for Indira to push my daughter into doing something she did not want to do.

The thought made rage boil in my blood.

A shadow of a chapel loomed over me as I turned a corner, its stark red doors no doubt mirroring the blood of Christ. The dark, almost-black stone walls indicated that I was looking at a rare thing that could be older than me. Stained glass stared back, depicting a questionable scene of a broad red cross eclipsing an orange sun.  

The latch gave way under my insistent fingers.

I did not pray—not any longer, and not because I didn’t want to. Prayer had been a habit drummed into me by my birth mother. If she was breathing, she was praying, calling to all the saints she knew to heal us or deliver us or forgive us. It was almost like a song, or a lullaby.

Even though the ritual of prayer brought me no comfort, the rhythm of it, the familiarity of the words settled in my chest like a soothing balm. And tonight, I very much needed to be soothed.

The doors groaned heavily as I shut them behind me, cloaking myself in darkness. Aged wood and melted wax filled my senses as I walked between the pews, letting my fingers trail over the cool, polished surface of the wooden benches.

What If she never comes back?

The disquieting thought was an iron weight pressing against my ribs.

The chapel was small, and before I knew it, I stood before the altar, craning my neck to study the figure of Christ frozen in eternal suffering. It was just me and Him, regarding each other, his carved eyes dripping with red paint.

I’d witnessed a thousand iterations of this biblical scene. The unrelenting sorrow, the weight of holy agony—all of it had lost its edge over a century ago. But now, as I teetered on the edge of losing Belle, I found myself gripping the altar, my knuckles whitening against the cold stone.

Prayer would not solve anything, but prayer was more familiar than hope.

And so, I prayed.

I wondered what Indira would say if she knew the true extent of peace I drew from being in a religious setting. She would no doubt laugh in my face. After all, which sane vamp would feel at home surrounded by intricately carved stakes and barrels of acid?

My phone buzzed just as I began to feel impatience creeping into my limbs. What was the point of praying if nothing actually changed?

“Nat,” I said after pressing accept.

“I promise I tried,” he began, the sound of his harsh breaths indicating how nervous he was. “They refused to speak to me. Refused to reply to my emails.”

My fingers tightened around the phone, and I wondered if I had the willpower not to shatter it.

“But…” he continued, hesitating as he usually did.

“But what?”

Each word was a clipped reprimand.

“I think I’ve found a solution.”

I reacted to the odd note of hope in Nat’s voice.

“And what is your solution?”

His next words almost made me stumble as I rose from the altar.

“I’ve scheduled your neutralization.”

“Excuse me?”

Surely I’d misheard. Nat uttered strange things all the time, and, perhaps, this was one of those Gen Z jokes I couldn’t wrap my mind around. 

“It’s just a ruse, Jinn,” he explained as I frowned. “A way to get in touch with someone who might know what happened to Belle. Maybe she didn’t show up for the appointment. Maybe she’s fled to the Highlands. We don’t know for sure.”

Ah, shit.

His words made a treacherous wave of hope surge in my chest.

“I’ve requested an immediate neutralization,” Nat continued. “We should receive instructions from the High Coven very soon.”

I paused. That was quick thinking for my assistant who usually needed several prompts to remember his own name.

“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve done well.”

Nat paused. I could sense his surprise through the phone.

“You’re welcome,” he said, sounding pleased with himself.

“Nat.” I could almost feel him reacting to the note of uncertainty in my voice.

“Yes?”

“Do you think she did it?”

“Um.” I bet his heartbeat was scampering with the question. “I’m not sure, Jinn. Belle isn’t predictable when it comes to—”

“No.” I cut him off. “Not that. Do you think Indira compelled Belle?”

His sharp inhale carried through the connection. “To kill herself?”

Silence was my answer. Perhaps my bumbling little dhampir assistant wasn’t the best person to ask.

“Well,” he said. “I don’t want to presume…”

Still, I said nothing, waiting for him to get on with it. This had become a familiar routine for us.

“Indira doesn’t like Belle.” His voice dropped several decibels as he whispered into the phone. “She often says she doesn’t belong in the nest. I mean…”

He sighed. “I’m not one to talk ill of our mother, but… I wouldn’t put it past her.”

When he hung up, I glanced at the hanging statue, wondering if He had miraculously instilled some forethought into my assistant. Stranger things had happened, I supposed.

While this wasn’t the news I’d expected to hear, it was something. Nat was right—setting up this appointment gave me the opportunity to speak to someone in person when the High Coven of Wytches had made it so damn hard to get in touch with any of them.

Desperate times, I thought to myself as I offered the bleeding statue a final salute.

***

Nat sent over a text message around noon with the details of the appointment. I read it under an overcast sky as I sat on the corner of a public bench, watching a woman sell flowers out of a small, converted trailer that was attached to an electric bicycle.

It wasn’t a particularly productive way to pass the morning, but I had missed such small indulgences.

It had been a long time since I’d sat in a park—forty-four years to be exact. Not since the night I’d turned Belle in that shoddy playground. Being here without her, without anyone for that matter, felt like…

A skipping record, or a sentence unfinished.

I tried desperately to make sense of it. How could Belle look back at our life and think that eternal death was a better choice?

That thought kept clawing at me. Over and over.

I sat in the pool of disjointed feelings, trying to find just one to focus on, but the only thing that reared to the forefront was anger.

It lived under my skin, and I had no choice but to sit in it. Hell, it felt like a parasite that was too fused with my veins to cut off, infusing my blood.

I sat in silence, in stillness, not because I was calm—but because I felt… Dangerous. Feral. Volatile. Like an unlit match waiting to strike.

Belle had been born to me, made of my blood. I had devoted four decades of my life to her, forgoing lovers and friends to make sure she was a functioning creature.

She was the first being in almost a century who made me feel less alone in this haunted eternity.

And so I gave her everything. My attention. My time. My endless nights. I didn’t want distractions. I didn’t want the clumsy touch of another body, or the tired pull of romantic longing.

I had Belle. She was the great love of my long, cursed life.

Perhaps Belle hadn’t chosen death. Perhaps she had fled to the Highlands, somewhere further away where I couldn’t sense her heartbeat any longer. Yes, the email from the High Coven indicated that she had set up the appointment with the neutralizer, but that didn’t mean she had followed through with it…

Belle had a habit of not following through with many things. Like the time she had tried to take up the harp, or the summer she insisted on learning how to spin clay. She had made a valiant effort… for all of two weeks. Now, the harp lay abandoned and the pottery studio I’d created for her in the garden was used as a storage space.

As I parsed through memories of us, memories of our little family, something inside me calcified.

Anger.

Had Belle really wanted this end? Had she even considered the ramifications? Or had someone planted the idea in her head? Someone who had hated Belle’s shortcomings from the very start?

Had someone spoken softly into her cracked-open mind and wrapped death in silk and honey? Had they leaned in and said: This is dignity. This is peace. This is mercy.

Had someone seen her as a problem to be solved, not a child to be saved?

I knew Indira all too well. And I wouldn’t put it past her to compel my daughter to do what she thought was best. She wouldn’t see anything wrong with nudging Belle toward neutralization as though it wasn’t a permanent, irreversible decision.

And someone out there, an immoral, unethical wytch, had looked at my daughter and thought she was in the perfect mental state to make such a permanent decision?

Hags, the lot of them.

I started to imagine names and faces of the High Coven as they sat around a table, calling their services an act of mercy, of dignity. Telling themselves that they were doing the right thing, the kind thing, because these undead couldn’t live with their pain forever.

I wanted to burn that table and watch the High Coven go up in flames.

My nails sharpened to claws as I pictured what I’d do if I ever got close enough to smell the stink of the cauldron on their clothes, or hear the repulsive cackle in their voice. Perhaps they’d be confused to see me because they assumed they’d done the right thing, the good thing, for a vamp that was suffering. Well, they were wrong.

I didn’t want answers anymore.

I wanted blood.

I didn’t care if it was irrational.

I didn’t care if Belle had asked for it.

I didn’t care what was “legal” or “ethical” or “peaceful.”

If they had helped her die…

If they had taken the only family I had…

I would never forgive them.

Chapter Eight

Aisla

The barista was sullen today—not their usual cheery self. As I hung up my windproof jacket and retrieved my tablet, they acknowledged me with a nod and not much else.

Strange.

Perhaps it was because the snow had kept customers away. The Daily Grind was empty save for me and someone tucked into a corner booth.

“The usual?” the barista asked as I got comfortable in my spot by the window.

I nodded. “Ta.”

The crossword app had already sent me a push notification this evening to remind me to complete it before midnight. I swiped up on the tablet, waiting for the screen to load the comforting grids.

Minutes later, when the page still failed to fill the screen, I felt myself getting antsy.

“Is the wi-fi not working?” I asked as the barista set the espresso in front of me.

“‘Fraid not,” they said with a sigh. “And there’s never any signal in this shitehole.”

Ah, that explained their sullen mood.

The idea of sipping my caffeine with nothing else for company except the inner workings of my mind was daunting, and I cursed myself for not bringing a paperback with me.

My sigh echoed the barista’s as they made their way back to the counter.

With nothing else to do, I squinted at the noticeboard across the room, trying to read the messages written in chalk.

But my eyes fell to the sole occupant of the booth next to it.

Ah, shit.

My fingers stilled as I studied the vamp seated by the window.

Pale, poised and pretty.

A perfect blend of masculine and feminine.

Unlike Annabel, who had likely been little more than a fledgling, this one had been around for much longer. Her age was obvious in the set of her shoulders and the lift of her chin.

I’d studied the undead long enough to know that arrogance only manifested in their demeanor after a century of living. Like a rare steak garnished with fine herbs to bring out its flavor.

I’d crossed paths with my fair share of them. But this one stood out in the little kitschy café like a sore thumb.

There were two camps of undead—those who made it a priority to fit in to the century they lived in, and those who couldn’t give a fuck. This vamp fell under the second category.

She wore a deep brown tweed coat and vest with a matching pair of trousers. A crisp white shirt peeked out at her collar and parted at the throat to reveal the pale column of her neck.

A string of gold ran horizontally across her chest and disappeared into her vest.

A freaking pocket watch? In 2025?

Her gaze, dark as sin, rose to meet mine.

It didn’t waver. There was no hesitation there, no trepidation.

Could it be that, for the first time in a long time, the assignment was earlier than I was?

A small nod answered my question.

I sat back in my chair and sipped at the espresso, needing its bolstering kick as the vamp tried to pick apart my soul with her eyes and nothing more.

The insistent pressure of someone trying and failing to push past my mental barriers made me grit my teeth. Instead of pushing her away, I tightened the barricade, repelling her as she tried different ways to crack the shield.

“Stop,” I whispered under my breath.

She heard it. I knew she would.

That was the problem with the undead. They assumed they had the upper hand with all humans, but they usually forgot to factor in people like me—people that had inherited powers from ancestors, and, despite being mortal, could still hold their own against ancient vampyric influence.

The mental fingers retreated and I drained my espresso in a single sip.

If my breathing had grown shallow with the effort it took to keep her away, I refused to acknowledge it.

It wasn’t the first time an assignment had tried to read my thoughts—they couldn’t help it. It was a reflex, an extension of themselves. After years of getting a glimpse into weak human minds, I had no doubt it was strange to find mine closed tight with several padlocks.

I didn’t hold it against them when they tried to pry apart my mental barriers—reflex and whatnot. But I did hold a grudge if they refused to stop when I demanded it.

The vamp reached into her pocket and pulled out the watch. It was still early. All neutralization appointments were booked for ten in the evening and not a minute sooner. The consistency was an important part of the process, and to date, no assignment had ever rushed me.

But when she slid out of the booth and grabbed her coat from a nearby hook, a sigh tumbled from my lips.

Fine, I thought, rising with a scrape of my chair. If that’s the way she wants it.

I could only hope her death would be a quick one. And then, perhaps, I wouldn’t have to bother with another neutralization for a week—maybe more.

I promised myself a significant feeding to the cauldron if it would grant me a week’s rest.

My fingers fought the cold as I zipped up my jacket, following the prints in the snow. This person, too, wasn’t dressed for the weather. They had on wingtips—I almost scoffed aloud at the impractical choice. The narrow shoes made sharp indents on the icy ground.

I paused as I walked around the tenement, fingers outstretched to pull the gate open.

Something wasn’t quite right.

In spite of everything that was out of the ordinary about this person—showing up at the café before their allotted time, trying to break through my mental shields, forcing me to perform the neutralization without honoring due process—it was the lack of double footprints that set alarms bells off in my mind. She hadn’t hesitated in front of the gates when they all did. 

I took a step back, my boots crunching in the snow.

Under my breath, I said: “Do you wish to leave?”

She would have heard me through the gates. Hell, she could probably hear a mouse crawling up the wall in someone’s flat across the road.

There was no response.

Damn it.

I slipped past the wired gate and shut it behind me, but didn’t latch it. There was something about the silence in the air that made me feel…

Unsettled.

Like I would regret locking that gate.

Something quivered in my chest—a warning, maybe. Or a silent hint to remain wary. Instinct had never sent me down the wrong path.

I paused in front of the walled-in garden, my fingers curling over the silver canister in my pocket.

“You’re allowed to change your mind,” I said, in what Maia would call my radio voice. “Leave if you want to.”

I heard nothing in return but the icy cry of the wind.

Shit.

With a bracing breath that felt only half-forced, I turned the corner, my pulse thudding loudly in my ears.

Her coat was on the ground, a splash of brown against the white and green. The puffy sleeves from a bygone era had been rolled up to her elbows. Veins, blue and thick, rose on her forearms, cajoled to the surface by clenched fists.

The look in her eyes would have killed a weaker human.

Run.

Self-preservation made itself known, whispering into my mind.

Great idea.

I turned, intending to stride out of the gate and onto the street where there might be witnesses walking past.

But I didn’t get a chance.

God damn it all, I’d forgotten how fast these bitches were.

The assignment slammed into me, forcing my back into a high wooden fence. We both heard it splinter under my weight.

Pain exploded up my spine, and for a moment, the fingers around my neck didn’t quite register.

What the fuck?

I scrambled to break her hold, scratching long lines of red down her forearm. My legs flailed where they dangled off the ground, trying to make contact with a spot that might hurt and hurt bad.

But she was strong—a hundred and fifty years of immortality would do that to you.

Spots danced in front of my eyes. Breath was nowhere to be found.

My lungs burned as my limbs lost their fight.

This can’t be it.

It just can’t be.

Panic clawed at my mind as I reached for the spells I knew, the ones I had practiced countless times in the safety of the covenstead. A whisper of the right incantation would do the trick—the power was in my blood, not the words themselves.

I watched my fingers tremble as they dug into her neck, trying and failing to gain any traction. I needed to do something—anything—to slow this down. I needed to buy time, curse it all!

An invisibility spell was my only hope—my one chance to slip away unseen and untracked by a monster like this. But my mental ledger of spells floated like a hazy memory under the weight of fear.

I thrashed beneath her unyielding weight, trying to summon any spell, any magick that would break her hold. Sparks, hot and gold, flickered at my fingertips, but it wasn’t enough, not without the right words.

Ah, fuck. I’m about to die, aren’t I?

Chapter Nine

Jinn

Rage pelted my skin, hard and hot, like heated needles demanding entrance to my flesh.

My vision had long since turned a botched red, obscuring reason and logic. Shadows slithered over my skin, coiling around my arms like restless little vipers, writhing, desperate to be unleashed. But this wasn’t their battle.

As they rose a little too far, tangled in my unbridled anger, I grit my teeth, snapping the shadows back to me as if yanked by invisible strings. They bled back into my skin with an annoyed little hiss.

This kill was mine—mine! I wished with all my undead, non-existent soul to feel my fingers leeching the life out of my child’s murderer.

My grip tightened around her throat, pressing down hard on the carotid artery that pumped so full of her lifeblood. Perhaps if I had been sober enough, I might have realized I was missing a great opportunity here.

Wytch’s blood was rare—no, not just rare, but impossible to acquire. While they were alive, of course. All power was leeched from the mortals once they slipped into death. A more level-headed person would have found a way to harvest the very last drop from her body before leaving her lifeless form to be discovered by her coven. But no, I was already drunk—drunk on grief and anger and the need to tear someone apart with my bare fucking hands.

I felt my nails dig into her flesh, relishing the rivulets of blood that flowed down the back of her neck and disappeared into the thick, padded coat.

So overwhelmed by the need to watch her life leech from her eyes, I didn’t catch the first stirrings of magick in the air. I’d spent enough time around Indira’s spellwork to know that the acrid scent burning my nostrils came from the wytch.

The smell should have given it away—but I was past using any of my remaining humanly traits like logic or rationality. I bore down on her artery, counting the seconds.

Anytime now, her eyes might start to bulge. She would go limp. She might even piss herself. And I would stand over her unbreathing body and…

And what?

The first blow fell on my cheek with a sickening crack. Pain exploded across my skull, but the surprise in my chest snapped me out of the blinding rage.

I stumbled, releasing my grip on her as the saccharine taste of copper flowed across my tongue. My eyeline blurred as I watched her scramble backward on the snow-stricken ground, but try as hard as I might, I couldn’t clear my vision.

I raised a hand to my cheek.

No. No, no, no!

The force of her spell had shifted the alignment of my cheekbone, thrusting it up towards the corner of my eye.

The sharp spike of pain was hardly a deterrent. In fact, it was nothing more than fuel being thrown onto a raging inferno. I lunged for her retreating frame, fighting the wavering vision and the pain pounding in my skull.

With a single hand on her boot, I pulled her towards me, pushing her deeper into the wet earth. Any struggle would only deepen the hole that would eventually become her grave.

“Stop,” she rasped, the words struggling to escape her throat. “I’m protected. Stop.”

The words meant little.

In the face of my rage, nothing could have prevented me from wanting her life in return for Belle’s.

The searing copper scent of blood rose in the air, curling around me as I tried to concentrate on the task of dealing this wytch the same hand she had dealt my only child.

Tit for tat.

But a whiff of sharp iron drifted across my tongue, warm with the tendrils of magick. It was just a hint in the air, but it soon lodged itself in every sparse inch of space between us.

Fuck.

A tremor ran up my forearms.

The call of her blood spread through me with an aching, hungry slowness.

I could end this, end her, with a snap of her fragile little neck. But I froze, staring into shocked, dark eyes that seemed to be bulging from the wytch’s skull.

The distraction was my downfall.

I felt the heated tingle of magick gathering around me, pushing me away as effectively as any wall. But I didn’t hit the ground as I expected. Instead, I watched, weightless, as my fingers fluttered over the wytch’s neck, inches away from their target, yet helpless to do anything but hover.

A paralysis spell.

It wrapped around me like a cobweb, weaving its way across my body until I was tied up tight. I fought with every ounce of strength I could muster, but the spell seemed to be gaining power from my struggles. The more I fought, the deeper I fell into the paralysis like a measly human caught in quicksand.

Every limb felt heavy. Weightless. Unresponsive. No part of me was mine to command.

The wytch was strong—stronger than she looked. With the power to cast spells forceful enough to hold a 150 year-old vampyre, I wondered why she hadn’t simply killed me already.

She had countless murders under her belt. What was one more?

The wytch scrambled out from under me, slipping on the icy ground as she attempted to sprint towards the gate. I tracked her breaths, rapid and uneven as she slipped back onto the street, boots heavy on the pavement.

Yet the magick held strong, keeping me buoyed in the air, inches above the ground, even as her breathing disappeared in the distance.

What the fuck?

Paralyzed. Hanging mid-air. Snow gathering on my back like a blanket and sinking through the thin cotton of my shirt.

Outsmarted by a wytch. I should be ashamed.

Every muscle screamed at me to move, to give chase, but all I could muster was a pathetic half-growl. And what did that accomplish? Nothing but airing my weakness. 

Eons after her footsteps had disappeared from earshot, I felt the cobwebs loosen, the magick strands weakening their grip on my body. I tumbled face first into the ice, and my dislocated cheekbone protested as it pounded against the ground.

Slowly, unsteadily, I pushed myself up, tracing her magick in the air. It was overshadowed by the cloying, stubborn scent of blood, tugging at the part of me that screamed delicious!

I glanced at my left hand, staring at the smear of blood the little wytch had left behind. It was no longer warm, no longer fresh. The ice had done its best to wash away remnants of it, but a splotch still remained, painted onto the pads of my fingers.

I could smell it—sharp, metallic, tense with magick. Power thrummed from a mere leftover smudge.

I flicked my tongue over the surface, teasing out the remnants buried between the folds of my skin. Liquid fire, raw and wild, burst across my senses.

It was heavier than human blood—there was a weight to it, a depth I had never encountered.

My eyes burned hot as her magick swept through me, vibrating like the thrums of a tuning fork in my ear. It moved like a tide, chasing every corner and every nook in my body until all of me knew its power. The faint hum of magick morphed into a roaring pulse.

I had never tasted anything like it—never knew such delights existed.

My heart, lying weak and dormant in my chest cavity, shuddered to life. The world shifted and swayed, golden around the edges, as though I had been…

Drugged.

My vision blurred, but not in the way it usually did when the blood lust took hold—this was sharper, more focused.

Colors were brighter, more vivid, swirling together in hues I had never noticed before. The edges of the world seemed to pulse with a strange glow, like I could see the magick binding itself into the disheveled garden around me.

For long moments in the snow, I forgot who I was tasting, who I was so ardently licking off my own fingers.

When there was nothing left and the high receded, my fangs itched, demanding more, pressing hard against my own flesh. The urge to sink in and pull mouthfuls of blood made my jaw ache fiercely.

I’d opened the door to something uncharted—something dangerous. The entrance stood wide open, dark and cavernous, yet I wanted nothing more than to step inside and explore its depths.

Perhaps strangling the little wytch to death would be a waste of a precious commodity.

I raised my nose to the air, scenting the direction of her escape.

We were natural hunters. Running from us would always be a mistake.

The wytch didn’t stand a chance.

A large part of me—the part I’d trained to process things logically despite my murderous nature—didn’t want to kill her. But the anger and betrayal brewing inside me sloshed around like molten lava, setting every rational thought on fire.

After all these days of unknowing, an e-mail had finally come through as I sat in that dingy café waiting to confront the wytch that showed up.

It was a short note, merely five sentences long. No condolences, no sympathies. Just a sternly written e-mail with instructions on how to collect Belle’s personal items. What irked me the most was an asterisk that explained in a generic footnote that Belle had nominated me to receive her belongings after her neutralization. 

A cursory glance around the execution site only exacerbated the anger curdling in my stomach. This was nothing but a bloody overgrown grave pit without any merit to its name. Bare and abandoned, I couldn’t imagine standing in the middle of it and simply waiting for someone to end my existence in a humane way.

Humane.

The word stuck in my heart like a splinter. We were vampyres—a prerequisite of slipping into our immortal bonds was leaving humanity behind.

Why did our deaths have to be humane? Was it a term that brought comfort to those who thought they could trick the devil into thinking we were good people if we had a humane death?

I scoffed, my shoes sinking into the wet ground. 

How many lives had this back garden taken? What atrocities had it seen? How many of my brethren had met their end here?

After days of searching for Annabel, wishing for her to return home, all I found was…

Nothing.

There was nothing left of her. Not her sweet smile or the snort she made when she laughed. Not the pesky curls that often fell into her eyes.

All because of… This bitch.

Chapter Ten

Aisla

Fucking hell, what now?

She was tracking me. I knew she was.

The paralysis spell wouldn’t hold for long. Maybe a minute. Perhaps two. With a vamp as strong as her, maybe even thirty seconds. A chill slithered through me at the thought that I may be dead in the next minute.

Between the ice and snow, I’d slipped twice. My knees had taken the brunt of the hit, and I knew I’d feel it tomorrow.

Fuck.

My throat throbbed, heavy with the indents of her fingers. She could have killed me in an instant if she’d wanted to—she could’ve snapped my neck like it was nothing more than a cream cracker. But she wanted to watch me suffer. She wanted to see the life drain from my eyes as she squeezed harder with every passing second…

Anger slithered up my spine—righteous and insistent. I was a protected personnel of the High Coven, damn it! A respected, if not talented, wytch. I wasn’t some measly prey for this vamp to play with like a sad little mouse caught in a trap. If she wanted my blood, she was going to have to try a hell of a lot harder.

I’d heard about undead like her—wytch hunters who’d use every means possible to chase a blood high. But I’d never assumed they’d do something like this. This type of deception was far too elaborate. Hunters were getting more pathetic by the day. 

I slid around a corner, craving the safety of a more public space. But the bridge that connected the old and new town was empty save for a homeless man who was cocooned in a sleeping bag. 

In this wide open space, I was a running target. Every step was a gamble, each corner a potential trap.

This would be a perfect time to recall the invisibility spell! The thought was accompanied by a flash of a memory—standing in a fireborn circle with Brodie and Maia as Elder Marianna’s voice guided us through the incantations. I clung to the memory, willing the details to solidify. What were the words? The single fucking incantation that would unlock the spell and make me disappear?

I drew a blank as I leapt over several piles of garbage left behind by the bin strikes.

It would be absolutely valid to be judged for my carelessness. In my defense, however, invisibility was a rudimentary spell that I didn’t use often. Or ever.

For people who hadn’t been touched my magick, an invisibility spell was equivalent to an excel formula they were taught on their first day of work. But after a decade, would anyone really remember such a formula? Could they be blamed for forgetting it?

Granted, excel formulas didn’t save lives, but whatever.

Below the bridge, the Christmas market was still going strong. A flurry of lights flashed in the distance as I slid over the ice, my boots struggling to grip the ground. A scream threatened to tear from my throat as something moved in the corner of my eye, but it was only the Starflyer rising into the misty sky with a few poor souls clinging to the metal for dear life.

My calves burned, the muscles protesting with each step. Curse the moon, why hadn’t I done more cardio?! I’d only been running for five minutes…

The bridge stretched out in long shadows. As I passed the darkened pavement where the street lights didn’t meet, I was convinced it would be my end.

It was a mistake coming up here—fuck, it could cost me my life.

A large black recycling bin stood in my way as I ducked around the edge of the bridge. I collided with it head-first, my nose taking the brunt of the impact. A shelf of gathered snow fell on my head and wriggled its way under my coat. I stifled a scream of pain and shoved away quickly. A recycling bin wouldn’t be my cause of death today.

Nestled at the end of the bridge, the spiral stairs were barely visible, but I knew the shortcut like the back of my hand. As I took the stairs two at a time—who the fuck installed marble steps in a place that was prone to rain?—I wondered if the vamp was even following me. The spell couldn’t have held out that long. I knew my magick wasn’t strong enough for that. And the pounding at the back of my head told me I was leaving a bloody scent trail behind.

Surely, if she was tracking me, she would’ve found me by now…

I wasn’t taking the chance that she might just be a shit hunter. From everything I’d learned about the undead—and that was plenty, fact or fiction—I knew that they were persistent. Perhaps immortality made them believe that giving up was not an option. And where blood was concerned, they were like stubborn hounds.

I did my best to cover my trail, but even with a hood pulled over my head and the laces strapped tight, she would find me.

But would she be able to track me in a large crowd?

The Christmas market beckoned, lit up in golds and reds and greens. From a distance, it looked like nothing more than a tangled mess of lights and bustling crowds.

Tangled was exactly what I needed. Maybe I could weave my scent through hundreds of others in this crowd and lose her. If I couldn’t outrun the monster, I might as well try to outsmart her.

I stumbled into the market, my footsteps faltering as I looked around, trying to figure out the best way to hide in plain sight. The streets were packed, and I weaved through the throng, desperately seeking cover.

My chest tightened with each glance over my shoulder.

Every laugh, every chime of bells, seemed to echo too loudly, making my ears ring when I needed to be on high alert.

A figure darted past me, brushing my arm with the back of their coat. The quick touch made me freeze, and for a moment, I felt my knees buckle.

But no—it wasn’t her.

I wondered why the indents on my throat pulsed like it had been. The mere suggestion of her presence brought the pressure of her fingers rushing back. I swallowed painfully, fighting the bruises along my throat.

I refused to let the reassuring comfort of other people lull me into a state of carelessness. The festive distractions were endless, but I forced myself to study every shadow and listen to every sharp footstep.

I tried to camouflage myself between the scents of deep fried haggis balls and hot toddies. Surely she wouldn’t be able to pick my scent out of all this…

A high shriek cut into the marrow of my bones. Before I could turn, a scented sleeve brushed mine, attached to a gaggle of girls who had wrapped thick scarves around their heads to shield themselves from the snow.

Tourists.

“So sorry!” one of them said, waving an ungloved hand at me. “We were wondering if you could help us with a picture.”

Great.

I could say no and walk away. It would be easy enough to disappear into the crowd. But one of them was already handing me her phone with a smile so wide it took up most of her face.

Fine.

With a tight smile of my own that probably looked like a grimace, I took off my gloves and stuffed them into my pocket. It was easy enough to snap a couple pictures.

“Wait!” she said when I moved to hand the phone back. “Different pose!”

I wondered if they saw my eyes roll from a few feet away. As they shuffled around to get into position, clutching at each other for balance, I continued snapping pictures they’d probably delete seconds after they saw it.

My fingers shook—in my defense, I was running from a hunter who wanted to drain me dry—and most of the photos would be a blurry mess with a gold sheen from the Christmas lights. But as the girls got into position for one last fun snap, I jabbed the button and froze.

There, in the corner of the screen, was a flash of a white face and brown coat that made my heart turn to ice.

I looked up from the screen, certain I would see those rage-filled eyes staring back at me, but she was nowhere to be seen.

I swiveled around, my heartbeat pounding in my ears, searching every dark nook in the market.

“Hey!” The girl waved a hand in front of my face. “Are you okay? Shit, you’re bleeding. Ohmygod!”

Her eyes widened as she stared at my jaw. I touched my fingers to it, and true enough, it came away smeared in red.

This couldn’t be good. No wonder I was now a homing signal for the fucking vamp. 

I thrust the phone back into her hands and took off into the crowd. The girl called after me, but I had more pressing things to worry about than explaining myself to a group of tourists.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Why couldn’t I remember the moon-cursed invisibility spell?! If I died tonight, it would be my own fault for not paying attention to rudimentary schooling. 

A shadow flickered at the corner of my eye and without warning, the vamp slammed into me, forcing the breath from my lungs.

Trapped.

Her lean frame might as well have been weighed down by a thousand bricks. She pinned me against the grimy sandstone behind a ticket booth, leaving no room for movement. Her scent washed over me—-pine and musk and something sweet coating my tongue as I dragged in a breath.

Curse it all!

She could kill me now. Snap my neck. Crush my spine. Rip my head from my body.

Or she could drain me.

Something hard and hot knotted in my belly at the thought. I refused to acknowledge it, trying to push the strange feeling aside, but it spread through my chest, my breasts, my shoulders, my arms, unleashing pinpricks wherever it went.

Fuck.

Was this compulsion? It had to be. It must be.

Because nothing else could explain this strange new sensation running rampant through me. Under her unyielding grip, my toes curled in my boots even as fear made my breaths gust rapidly in the air.

The orange fairground lights at the back of her head and the snow coming down in soft flakes made everything hazy.

Her fangs gleamed in the dim light, serrated and sharp. I wondered what they would feel like against my skin. Were they cold like the rest of her? Would they mimic the edge of a knife as they settled against my neck? Would they burn as they sunk into my veins? Would I feel her thirst as she drank from me, listening to her grunts of pleasure as she drained the life from my body? Would I feel her hands cupping my waist as a lover would, holding me up in the air as she sucked every last drop of blood?

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t fantasized about her kind. For most of my life, I’d been told that the undead were not to be trusted. It had been drummed into me that without a soul, they didn’t have the capacity for true allyship.

But that didn’t stop me from indulging in the smuttiest vampyre bodice rippers available on the internet.

No. This wasn’t a safe encounter between the pages of steamy fiction. This vamp’s fangs condemned her for what she truly was: a killer.

And I’d be damned if I would be her meek prey.

Irritation curled through me when I realized the dent I’d put into her cheekbone had already corrected itself. She was strong—far stronger than I’d realized before.

“Did you really think you could hide from me?” Her voice was low, taunting. “After what you did?”

“What?” I struggled to get the word out under the press of her chest. My ears still rang with the sharp chime of the market games. “I didn’t do anything.”

Her fingers fisted in my curls, the sharp points of her nails digging into my scalp. The sudden pinch brought tears to my eyes.

“You killed her. I know you did.”

“Killed?” I attempted to say through the pain. “I haven’t killed anyone, you loony.”

“You mean to tell me, deceitful little wytch, that you didn’t stand in that disgusting garden and kill my only child?”

“Not unless they requested it,” I wheezed out. “And we call that neutralization, not murder.”

“Does that help you sleep at night?” she hissed, her free hand cupping my jaw. “Hmm? Taking someone’s life is murder, no matter what you choose to call it.”

I found enough strength to attempt to shove her away, but she didn’t budge. Not one inch.

“This is my job. I do what is expected of me by the High Coven. If you have a problem with our services, you should take it up with them.”

Her gaze narrowed darkly. When she spoke, venom dripped from each word.

“So, you’re completely blameless, are you?” Her nail scraped against my skin, sinking into my flesh. I knew without a doubt that she’d cut me. “You behave as though each person you kill is nothing more a soulless job.”

I knew I shouldn’t provoke her. Hell, I was probably a second away from being crushed beneath her fingers. But…

“I thought the undead don’t have souls?”

She stilled, her features frozen as though she were cast in marble.

“Isn’t that what you give up in return for immortality?” If I was going to die tonight, I’d do it fighting. “I can’t possibly take what you’ve willingly given up… Can I?”

“Little bitch,” she whispered under her breath. “I will enjoy killing you.”

“I doubt that.” I spoke with a confidence I didn’t feel. “You’ll be violating several treaties between the Night Council and the High Coven if you do.”

“I don’t care—”

“You’ll care if you don’t want to start a war between our kind,” I said. “I don’t know about the undead, but the murder of a wytch is taken very seriously, considering there are only a few of us left.”

A low growl vibrated from her throat.

“Look.” I placed a hand on her chest, unsurprised when I couldn’t detect a heartbeat. Only younger vamps still mimicked habits from their human days—breathing, eating, sweating. Older vamps like this one had settled into their undead traits.

“Look,” I said again, trying to shake off the nerves. “This is clearly a misunderstanding. I follow orders, all right? This is my job. I’m given assignments and I don’t ask questions. I’ll chalk all of this up to nothing more than a mistake if you’ll kindly remove your fingers from my neck.”

Her canines flashed in the multi-colored Christmas lights, thick and sharp against her bottom lip,

“You plead very prettily for mercy.”

Anger had turned her dark eyes a terrifying shade of red, like embers stoked into a blazing fire. Veins spidered out from the corners, dark and pulsing, as her pupils constricted to a pinpoint. 

The eyes of the heartless, the soulless.

My breath stalled.

“That’s nice,” I said, meeting her gaze without flinching. “Do you flirt with all your victims before you kill them or am I just special?”

“Special?” The scoff was guttural. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, little wytch.”

As the rides flashed green and red, a string of words prodded at my mind like someone insistent seeking entrance.

The spell. The words that had eluded me, locked tight behind a wall of fear, now surged with startling clarity.

The incantation formed before I could think.

“Maraivaendiram.”

The word spilled from me in a hoarse whisper, and the magick responded instantly. I felt it surge from deep within, a pulse of energy radiating outward, crackling beneath my skin.

The vamp’s eyes widened in surprise, the smug confidence faltering as the magick took hold. I felt the shimmer sweep over my body, a soft glow enveloping me for a brief moment before the air around us warped, distorting her view.

Her grip faltered, fingers tightening for a heartbeat longer before they slipped away entirely, grasping at empty air.

I stumbled sideways, my breaths ragged as I tried to fill my lungs. Her hands swiped through the space where I had just been, confusion and frustration etched across her rigid face.

I stayed long enough to watch the flicker of realization dawning in her eyes—the frustration, the rage.

The spell thrummed through my veins, every fiber of my being humming with its power. I stood inches from her, invisible, watching as she cursed under her breath, spinning around in search of me.

I knew I should run and put as much distance as possible between us—after all, I wasn’t sure how long the spell would hold. But the look on the vamp’s face was truly priceless, like a cat that had lost sight of its mouse. It brought forth a chuckle, which was a mistake.

She turned, looking straight at me.

“I know you’re there, little wytch,” she said, her words dipping into a menacing growl. “Enough of your tricks.”

I shook my head, knowing she wouldn’t see it, and turned on my bootheel, legging it out of the market.

Chapter Eleven

Aisla

Minutes later, I rushed into the covenstead, panting up a storm as the front door slammed against the centuries-old wall in the foyer.

“Maia! Brodie!”

No response.

Great. Just fucking great.

The one time I needed their help and they were out gallivanting with their pals. How dare they.

I reached under my jacket for the ward that hung between my breasts and pulled it up into the air.

Empty.

Of course it was.

How could I be so fucking careless?

Soulglass was a multi-purpose ward commonly worn by witches. It had a transparent finish with a sharp tapered edge and a rounded body. The glass itself was reinforced by magick and could withstand heavy hits from an external force intending to harm us.

Our coven used it for personal wards. But I’d heard talk of others using it for more nefarious purposes like binding or love spells.

As I stared into the vial, turning it around, I realized that not a single drop remained of the last warding spell I’d cast…

Wait, when had I cast it? Six months ago?

The job had become so routine, so soulless, that I had allowed myself to slip up. Repetition had dulled my instincts and lulled me into a false sense of security.

Walk in.

Do what needed to be done.

Clean.

Cover.

Disappear.

It had become mechanical. Mindless. And that was the problem.

My late mother—and all the elders, really—had warned me time and again how important it was to keep my wards active. I had listened in the short run. But it was hard to take precautions when nothing crazy ever happened.

And now I paid the price.

A trickle of sweat crept down my nape and slithered into my jumper. At least I thought it was sweat. It could have easily been blood.

Ugh.

Stupidstupidstupid!

Anaia stared unblinkingly from her perch on the windowsill as I hurried into the living room and flicked the step-ladder open with a snap.

The brick wall above the hearth had been converted into a storage space that housed any and every ingredient a wytch could need for a spell. There were hundreds of little drawers here, creeping upwards in little neat rows. Some were filled with tiny glass jars containing the organic herbs we grew in our garden—lavender, rosemary, foxglove and so on—while others were… Let’s say, a little less organic.

These difficult-to-acquire ingredients were marked with dark iron handles, whereas the more common ones had smaller brass knobs.

The drawer to my personal cubby creaked when I opened it, releasing the scent of mugwort and thyme. It was a small space, barely longer than my forearm, but it was enough to stash away the items I needed to access quickly.

By the time my feet hit the ground again, sweat had gathered along my temples. Adrenaline still roared in my veins as I knelt on the carpet in front of the hearth.

Maybe in a past life, the roll of cloth could have been used to hold make-up brushes, but now, several vials of different sizes stared back at me. My fingers trembled as I brushed them across each one, making sure the enchanted potions were still active. As they came into contact with my fingers, the vials hummed, ready and waiting to be used. 

Warding was not simple spellwork, but it was within my meager repertoire.

Intention was key when creating a ward. Well, intention and focus, but I’d have to ask the moon for forgiveness for struggling to focus after almost being murdered. 

I took a deep breath and held it in my lungs, trying to find my center, but the trickling at the back of my neck made it hard to concentrate.

Salt was the first component. It was renowned for keeping out spirits and blocking negative energy. But not just any household salt—these were crystals distilled from the waters in the north of Scotland, close to the old covenstead where the Scottish half of my ancestors were from. These specific crystals were a shade of light grey and they tinkled against the wood as I added them into the bowl. My trembling fingers meant that I accidentally poured way too much.

I bit back a curse not a moment too soon. The elders had warned us to keep our mouth shut while we worked on spells, in case the magick decided to pick up on the wrong words.

Fine, I thought, replacing the now-empty vial into the cloth strap. Just keep going!

Powdered limestone came next, falling on top of the salt with a quick whoosh. I crushed dried rosemary between my palms and followed it with mugwort and bay leaves, making sure I stirred everything with the tip of my index finger.

The last component was moonwater. Our coven tended to use this as a mixer for potions and spells. It was easy to make—Maia left filtered water in large vats under the full moon to be blessed. 

The liquid slipped from the vial and hit the ingredients in the bowl, turning everything into an unpleasant sludge. But it didn’t need to look pleasant, it just needed to work.

I cupped my palms around the bowl and repeated the words five times:

“Let nae scaith come tae me.”

Gently, the mixture began to bubble. Tendrils of steam rose from the bowl, bringing with it a strange scent. It wasn’t unpleasant, but I wasn’t going to be making Eaux de Warding Spell anytime soon.

As I watched the mixture pop and fizz, I reminded myself that a proper ward wasn’t a wall—it was a filter. It wouldn’t stop everything, but it would buy me time. It would confuse, slow, twist anything harmful away from me. And sometimes, that was all that mattered.

It would’ve mattered tonight, I thought with a scoff. If my ward had been active, it could’ve slowed the vamp down enough for me to escape without ever getting hurt.

As the flame burned low, the liquid shifted, morphing from a chunky, salt-laced glob to a thick, viscous, silvery syrup that clung to the bottom of the bowl. Relief withdrew the claws of anxiety from my chest. As with all other spells, there was always a chance it wouldn’t work the way I wanted it to. But the thick silver liquid in the bowl was familiar. Carefully, I tipped it into the soulglass I wore around my neck and popped the stopper to keep it in place.

There, I thought, folding the cloths containing the vials and tying them up. Safe again.

Probably.

***

I was being stalked. There was no doubt about it.

There were eyes on the house, on me.

Was that even possible? The covenstead was warded across its perimeters, and any human would simply walk past it without paying much attention.

A vamp, however…

My throat throbbed fiercely as I stared out the window, trying to get a glimpse of her lean figure in the night.

She was powerful, but she wasn’t strong enough to break an ancient warding. Was she?

Was she?

Anaia had moved from her perch on the window seat, which was an odd change for the creature of habit. Maybe she also felt the insistent pressure of angry energy directed at the house. Cats were perceptive like that.

I had done nothing but pace the length of the hearth after replenishing my warding spell. While going through the familiar motions had brought a measure of comfort, the adrenaline from the altercation refused to fade.  With a late-blooming realization, I was beginning to understand why.

A part of me, the part that had fallen so deeply into a pit of ennui with this soul-sucking job for ten years, was suddenly…

Alive.

Finally, it squealed with joy. Something’s actually happening in this miserable fucking existence!

It was a troubling thought. I wondered if the High Coven would expense my therapy appointments so I could attend more than one session a month.

Even as the thought ran through my mind, I knew it was unlikely. Their employment contract was still very much stuck in the 1800s. Benefits would be out of the question. I doubted they’d even provide medical if the NHS wasn’t an option.

But that didn’t negate the fact that I could probably use a few emergency sessions with my psych to figure out why every nerve ending was tingling after coming this close to dying.

Was this some kind of kink? A part of me that hadn’t manifested over the last thirty years?

I ran my fingers over the base of my scalp, seeking the wound from the altercation. Hours later, it had already begun to heal. A slight crust had formed over the raw tear, and I picked at it, relishing the sharp sting of pain.

When I finally found the strength to pull my fingers away from the wound, they came away coated in a film of red. Unsurprising. But I found I didn’t have the strength to leave the gash alone.

The squeak of our front gate turned my attention. The rusty old iron cried bloody murder as Maia stepped through and shut it behind her.

I pushed myself off the window seat and hurried past the foyer to throw the front door open wide.

Deep in her noise-canceled world, Maia almost jumped a foot in the air when I reached out and hauled her into the safety of our home.

“What the fuck—”

She pulled her headphones off and threw them into her tote bag.

“Why did you—” The sentence cut off abruptly. “I smell blood. Are you bleeding? Did you cut yourself?”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, feeling the gash at the back of my head pound in time with my heartbeat. “We have a situation.”

“What kind of situation?” she asked, her eyes going wide behind her shades. It was typical of her to wear shades in the dead of winter. “Aisla, are your fingers covered in blood?”

I hid the reddened digits behind my back.

“That’s not important right now,” I insisted, pulling her into the safety of our living room and latching the door behind me. “Someone attacked me—someone pretending to be an assignment.”

Maia pushed her sunnies to the top of her head. Her crazy curls wound around the frame in a way that couldn’t be comfortable.

“Have you alerted the High Coven?”

I nodded. “I called and left them a message but I doubt we’ll hear back from them for a few days.”

“Damn paper pushers,” she cursed.

“Watch it—that’s your mother you’re talking about.”

“So I would know better than anyone else how shit she is at answering messages.” She let her bag slide to the ground. “Tell me what happened.”

I recounted the events and Maia listened with appropriate dramatism.

“How could you forget the invisibility spell?” she demanded.

“Do you remember what it is?” I shot back.

She crossed her arms defensively, making her coat bunch up under her chest like the Michelin man.

“I’m not the one dealing with sad vamps for a living,” she said pointedly. “I’m not the one putting my life on the line each time I set out to neutralize an assignment. That was a rookie mistake, Aisla. You could’ve been killed!”

“Okay, mum,” I muttered defensively under my breath, knowing she was right.

She ran a hand through her short curls, frustration wafting off her with every breath.

“Sit.” She pointed to a footstool that was frayed from Anaia’s scratches. “I need to see how badly you’re hurt.”

I obliged, perching stiffly on the edge of the stool.

“She got you good,” Maia said, examining the back of my scalp. “Lift your head.”

She cursed at the sight of my bruises.

“Fuck. She really wanted to kill you.”

Her fingers moved over the black-and-blue skin, magick heating her fingers. I caught her wrist and held it steady.

“Don’t.”

She stared at me, confusion etched in the space between her brows.

“Why not? You’re obviously in pain.”

How could I explain to my sister that despite coming this close to death tonight…

I wanted to hurt.

Maia paused in the fidgety way she often did, waiting for me to explain myself. Her eyes searched mine for an explanation, a reason, but how could I explain something that I barely understood?

“I, um.” I glanced at my palms. The left one had been scraped by the uneven cobblestone as I braced myself after a slip.

“It’s not what you think,” I began, hating the hesitation in my voice. “It’s not about the pain, not exactly.”

I had never seen Maia so concerned.

“Then what is it? You could’ve died, you know.”

I tried to force a laugh, but it emerged from my throat like a rough cough.

“Yeah, I could’ve. But for the first time in years, I… I feel alive.”

She flinched as though the words had hit her.

“That doesn’t make sense since you’ve been alive this whole time.”

I shook my head, brushing the pad of my thumb across the abrasions on my palm.

“I’m saying… Or what I’m trying to say is that for the last ten years, I’ve been going through the motions. Day in, day out. The same routines, the same job, the same people. I’ve been alive, sure, but I haven’t been living.”

The last word came out sharper than I intended, but I didn’t care. She needed to understand. I needed her to understand.

“I didn’t notice it at first,” I continued, my fingers picking at the loose threads in the footstool. “It creeps up on you, you know? The monotony. The dull ache of doing the same thing over and over until you can’t tell one day from the next. It’s like... being wrapped in cotton and everything is muted.”

“And you wanted to… feel?” she asked, her voice soft, cautious. She didn’t understand. I didn’t expect her to. She was a content creature, happy with her potions and her steady stream of satisfied clients.

“Yes,” I said, my voice firm this time. “When I thought I was going to die, when I felt the fear, the pain—it was so sharp, so vivid. I could feel it in my bones, in my chest. It hurt, but it was real. For the first time in years, something was real.” I looked up at her, meeting her eyes. “I didn’t want to die. Don’t get me wrong. But for those moments, I wasn’t some cog in the High Coven machine, clocking in and out. I wasn’t numb. I was alive, fully alive, even if it meant feeling the worst kind of pain.”

She leaned away for a second, her expression unreadable. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner? You don’t need to almost die to feel alive. There are other ways.”

“Maybe,” I said, my voice low. “Maybe I’m not explaining this right. For ten years, it feels like I’ve been asleep and nothing else has woken me up. The pain, the way this vamp held me by my throat… it made me feel more than all my life experiences put together. And I don’t know if I can go back to not feeling again.”

The truth lingered between us as Maia tried—and failed—to grasp what I was trying to say. She reached for my shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze.

“Aisla, don’t take this the wrong way, but—”

“I’m not depressed!”

Maia’s lips thinned to a sharp line.

“It sounds like you’ve been depressed,” she said gently. “You really should have said something sooner.”

I shrugged and regretted the decision as my shoulder throbbed.

“Even if I had said something, there’s nothing you could have done. This is my job. It’s who I am.”

Maia knelt in front of me and took my hands in hers.

“No,” she said. “Being a neutralizer is your job, but it is not who you are. You don’t take joy in eliminating their existence, do you? In fact, I think it’s the opposite. You’ve spent years looking into their eyes as you vanquished into the unknown, absorbing their pain and the grief and the emotional shit they leave behind. You’ve taken it all into yourself and it’s made you so numb.”

I nodded slowly. “Numb. Yes.”

“Aisla.” She pressed a warm palm to my cool cheek. “It’s time to stop.”

“But.” I hated the tear that trembled along my waterline. “All the Laxmi women—”

“Are dead,” she said with brutal honesty. “This is your decision to make for your mental health. The High Coven will find someone else to do the job. They always will.”

A part of me fought her words. How could Maia say such things knowing how deep our roots ran? Being a neutralizer was part of my identity; it was tied with my family name. After centuries of carrying this legacy, I didn’t want to be the one to break it.

“At least let me heal your throat so you don’t sound like a twelve-year-old boy.”

I nodded, lifting my chin so she could work her magick. The soreness eased instantly, and I swallowed without pain. 

When she pulled back, Maia pinned me with a meaningful glare.

“Think about it, okay?” she said. “And know I’ll support you either way.”

She pulled me close into a hug, wrapping her arms tight around my waist. I breathed in the scent of baby powder and homemade soap, letting it calm my humming nerves.

“Now,” she said, releasing me to walk over to our front window. “Where is this vamp and how are we going to deal with her?”

Chapter Twelve

Jinn

I shouldn’t have tasted her blood, but I couldn’t find it within me to regret it.

Her essence lingered on my tongue, a dark sweetness that held a strange power, and I could feel it wrapping around my thoughts and binding me in ways I never anticipated.

Her blood was old, different. I could feel it—the richness, the depth, the power hidden within every drop.

One lick. That was all it took. And now I was attached in ways I couldn’t explain—in ways I was beginning to fear.

Now I understood why there were safeguards in place against wytches sharing their blood with us. It was addictive—a word that wasn’t used lightly among the undead. We were often immune to the effects of alcohol or common drugs. But wytch blood—curse it all, I felt it slither through every part of me, turning everything a hazy, golden hue. 

I should have resisted, walked away before I let myself taste what was never meant for me.

And now it was too late.

At least this tenuous connection would help me trace the little wytch and demand the answers I so desperately needed.

She would be disappointed to know that her invisibility spell did not work in her favor. Every step she took away from me tugged me forward like a leash, and I found myself walking back over the bridge and following the pull of her blood to the crumbling mansion she called home. 

The Victorian-style building seemed out of place in this neighborhood. While the rest of the posh houses were a mixture of glass and reclaimed wood, this one still had its old-world charm. It stood like a memory pulled from centuries past—an aged photo that had become blurry at the edges.

The front garden was lined with outdated latticework and sagging wooden beams. A series of uneven steps led up to a heavy wooden door with a brass knocker shaped like a lion's head. Each window was framed by dark shutters, some slightly askew, others cracked, adding to the sense that the house had long been left without repairs.

A turret stood in the darkness, its pointed roof crowned with a wrought-iron weathervane that groaned in the wind. The tall, narrow windows glistened faintly in the moonlight as though watching, waiting.

Just like I was. The house across the street from hers was undergoing some kind of refurbishment, and it served as adequate shelter as I waited for the wytch to leave her home again.

I dragged in a lungful of chilly air, letting it settle in the depths of my chest. Breathing was an unnecessary chore, but everything smelled of her—every single thing. My fingertips still tingled from the zap I’d received when I’d tried to slink past the wards an hour earlier.

This neutralization service shouldn’t be legal. And even if it was, it should be authorized by the undead’s Night Council rather than a band of wytches who wished for nothing else than to see vampyre numbers dwindle and recharge themselves by absorbing our powers.

Eliminating us one by one was likely a part of their long-term plan. I had no doubt. They were nothing more than sneaky, devious, wily, spell-slinging hags!

And they had crossed a line—one that could never be repaired.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small portrait of Belle and I, hand-painted by a member of our nest. It was the only likeness of her I had left. In it, little coils of her red hair fell over her brows and cheeks—a fiery contrast to the pallor of her skin.

She was my first. My child; my prodigy. I hadn’t turned anyone since 1981, and endeavored never to share my curse with others. Belle’s life was a daunting reminder that not everyone was made for immortality.

I’d spent years trying to teach her the full extent of her powers, but control was not in her repertoire. I assumed she would grow out of her fledgling phase, but forty-four years later, she still lost control at the sight of a tiny spit of blood.

Being a monster and being monstrous are different things, I’d once told her. We’re bred to be monsters, but one chooses to be monstrous.

In my heart, I knew what had prompted her decision to contact the High Coven to request her voluntary neutralization, but knowing her motivations and making peace with it were two very different things.

Two weeks ago, Belle had attacked a child—an eight-year-old playing on the swings past sundown near our local church.

The boy had fallen on his knees and cut himself. His cries had alerted his mother, but the smell of blood had called to something a lot more sinister in Belle.

She’d ripped his neck before I could stop her. Tore it clean off like the animal we were feared to be.

But when she came back to herself…

I’d never heard anyone mourn like that, with high wailing cries that tore my heart into paper-thin shreds.

We all make mistakes, I’d said. It’s okay, Belle.

Her scream still resonated in my soul.

How, Jinn?! I can’t give the boy back his life!

She was right, of course. Nothing she did could ever set things right in her conscience again. 

I had brought her into our world reluctantly. Part of me still believed it may have been kinder to let her die. At least I could’ve convinced myself that she would be going somewhere better.

Now, her damned soul was probably drifting in limbo, if it wasn’t already being torn apart by the master of hell himself.

Just one day, I thought, curling my hands over a half-finished window frame. What would it take to go one day without thinking about heaven and hell and everything in between?

The claws of the church were buried deep in my stained soul, and there was no wiggling free of it.

I reached into my open collar and touched the platinum chain that lay across my chest. My fingers followed its length and grasped the small cross that dangled at the end.

It was yet another habit I couldn’t break from my days as a human—I’d tried not wearing a cross now and again, but something about its weight made me feel incomplete without it.

It was a common misconception that vampyres could be murdered by the power of the cross. The truth was that it wasn’t the cross we feared, only the silver it was carved from.

There were many silly human surrounding our kind. Garlic, for example. There was no denying that it was exceptionally pungent to the undead nose, but it wouldn’t keep me away if I needed sustenance.

The short of it all was that we were difficult to kill, even if we set our mind to it. 

Which is why the neutralizer still had a job.

Failure loomed large, pressing down on me with its suffocating weight.

I had failed in my duty to my child. It was every parent’s responsibility to teach their children how to navigate the world they’d been born into, and the devil knows I’d tried, time and again.

Despite her eagerness to learn, Belle had been inherently unteachable. At the scent of blood, her monster became a savage, lustful being, taking over the sweet soul beneath.

There was no in-between with Belle. No mid-point where she could still access the tiny sliver of reason that still made her human.

I had beat myself up for years, thinking I had blundered her moment of creation—the precious seconds where I’d bled her human body dry and filled her with the blood that ran through my veins. After all, it had been my first attempt at doing anything like it.

The iPhone buzzed in my pocket and I answered it with a huff of irritation.

“Where are you?”

Indira’s voice was clipped and short, but not unwelcome. What did it say about my state of mind that I would welcome the voice a woman who had been so indifferent about Belle’s well-being?

“Up north,” I said, leaning against a wooden window frame that overlooked the wytch’s crumbling mansion. “Why?”

“Did you find her?”

I hesitated, floundering for a response.

“From your silence, I assume you haven’t,” Indira said with impatience rife in her tone.

“On the contrary.” I hated the hard rasp in my voice. “I found her.”

“Oh.” I wondered at the surprise laced through the single word. “Then you’ll have to bring her home, I suppose.”

The icy windowpane was cool against my forehead as I leaned against it, praying it would hold me up.

“I can’t,” I whispered, watching the snow cloud my vision. “She’s gone.”

Silence met my words.

“She’s been neutralized,” I explained, wishing the words weren’t true.

“So she went through with it,” Indira acknowledged quietly. “I didn’t think she had the balls.”

“You knew?”

I wished to say I was surprised or angry or frustrated, but the truth was… Resignation curled sharply through my blood. Indira had disappointed me too many times for me to waste energy on her.             

“You knew,” I said, watching as my reflection grew forlorn in the window. “How could you not tell me?”

I tried to summon the wherewithal to pretend to be hurt.

“She spoke to me in confidence, Jinn.”

“But I’m her creator,” I insisted. “I’m owed the truth.”

“And I’m your mother,” she parlayed quickly. “I’m the mother of this nest and it’s my duty to keep counsel.”

“You knew this would hurt me.”

“I did,” she acknowledged. “But would you rather a fledgling in your nest live an unhappy, never-ending life just so they didn’t need to disappoint someone?”

“You know that’s not the truth,” I hissed into the phone. “Belle was having a hard time adjusting to her darkness.”

I heard the sound of a drink being poured in the background, and I knew without a doubt that it was blood wine—a measured mixture of handmaid blood and a rich-bodied red malbec. Indira often had a glass or two around midnight.

“You see her differently from the rest of the world, Jinn. In your eyes, she’s still the broken little human you found in that wretched junkie-infested playground. You don’t see the many years she’s spent trying to be the vamp you want her to be and failing miserably. This incident with the boy only proves she’s not cut out for it.”

“She’s still a fledgling,” I insisted, the sharp tips of my nails cutting into my palms. The small wounds healed within seconds. “She needs time to grow into herself.”

“She was turned forty-four years ago, my love.” Indira sipped delicately from the crystal. “Time is not what she needs.”

“A fledgling is anyone less than fifty,” I reminded her.

“That’s a generous estimate. I’ve never seen anyone need fifty years to acclimatize to their darkness.”

The judgment in Indira’s tone was rife, and I hesitated before I asked: “Is there a way to get her back?”

Surprise made her next words more shrill than usual.

“What do you mean, Jinn? She’s gone. Neutralized, as you said.”

“Don’t play dumb.” My limited patience was wearing thin. “You know what I’m asking.”

Indira’s sigh was long-suffering. “This is not up for discussion.”

“So it is possible?” I pressed. 

“Not if someone doesn’t want to return to the land of the living.”

“But it is possible?” I asked again.

“Jinn.” Indira’s voice sharpened. “You’re going down a dangerous path.”

“Belle made a mistake, I’ll admit that. But she doesn’t deserve to die for it.”

“She chose to be neutralized, darling.”

“It was a decision born out of guilt and panic!”

“Be that as it may, you need to let the matter rest.”

“How can I? You know more than anyone else what Belle meant to me.”

“I’m going to say something that you may construe as hurtful, but it’s for your own good,” Indira said. “Belle chose her death—it was a decision that had nothing to do with you. Bringing her back won’t change that.” 

“You’re wrong.” I heard a sharp crack in my ear and realized I’d shattered the glass on the back of my phone. “I know my child. This was a spur-of-the-moment mistake.”

“Fine. If that’s what you want to believe.”

“Tell me how to bring her back, Indira.”

Nothing but silence met my question.

“Please,” I whispered.

The line went dead with a double click. When I dialed her number again, the call was sent straight to voicemail. 

Curse it all.

I slipped the cracked phone back into my pocket.

If I’d had a few more moments with Belle, if she had simply consulted me before running away, I could’ve convinced her to stay by my side. Because without her, who was I?

A loner. A failure.

For the first time in over forty years, I was well and truly alone.

Chapter Thirteen

Jinn

Wind whistled through the cracks in the window, ruffling my hair as it settled in the room. The street had been quiet for an hour, ever since someone in an ankle-length coat had strolled up the driveaway to the large house and wandered inside.

No sign of the wytch.

Coward, I thought, pickling in my anger as the lights went off in her home. I shouldn’t have expected anything more from her kind.

I felt the tug of the moon like strands of gossamer thread pulling at my temples. It eased an insistent pressure along my skin—dimming the anger until it was a simmer rather than an overflowing boil. I sighed into the muted darkness, feeling its embrace like a sweet velvet blanket.

What exactly did I hope to gain by lying in wait for the wytch? Answers, for one. I had to understand Belle’s last moments. The things she’d said, how she looked. If she’d had any regrets.

I wondered if the wytch’s words would work like glue to piece my heart back together.

A small part of me screamed that getting answers wouldn’t bring Belle back. Still, I had to try.

Perhaps it was a good thing I hadn’t strangled the wytch this evening.

A familiar weight settled in the crux of my palm—the old matchbox I reached for whenever I found myself navigating the choppy waters of anxiety. The old paper rasped softly against the pads of my fingers. No taller than the length of my thumb, the slim matchbox was the last physical tie I had to the person I had been before the change: the old Jeanette Waters, now long dead and happily so.

The term Matchbox Girl meant little to people now. Our history had been obliterated, erased by men who’d rather forget we existed than acknowledge their capitalist cruelty. But that life was part of my identity.

Many women I’d sat shoulder-to-shoulder with on the production line had found early graves with odd conditions like phossy jaw or necrosis. For many years, I’d watched women try to voice their concerns, only to be replaced by other unsuspecting girls off the street who needed basic wages to survive.

I did not doubt that several more years under the fumes of phosphorus and smog would have put me in the same predicament.

The box I’d pilfered was the prettiest one the Paxton & Smithers company had ever produced—a special edition set of matches for the British India naval company, which had been at its peak in 1880 when I’d started on the line.

On the outside of the box was a bold print of a ship with a cloud of black steam. When the lid was flipped up, the underside was marked with the address of the company’s headquarters.

STEAM NAVIGATION CO.

Est. 1882

SIX ALDGATE

LONDON E.C.3

What I’d truly loved about this box were the matches themselves. Each one was inscribed with a port name that had once sounded distant and magickal—places with glittering waters held out of reach for people like me.

A.I. to India

A.I. to E. Africa.

A.I. to S. Africa

A.I. to Malaya

A.I. to Ceylon

A.I. to Burma

A.I. to Australia

One matchstick had been used, plucked cruelly from its resting place by an old friend who hadn’t thought twice about striking a simple match.

I had lost A.I. to Japan that day.

I still mourned it, over a hundred years later.

The British-India naval company had commissioned these boxes as a method of advertising. I imagined they’d handed it out to potential businessman at uptight networking events or smokey gentleman’s parlors, trying to drum up business.

I ran my nail over the striking strip that had been glued to the bottom of the box, now smooth from a century and a half of idle stroking. None of the matches would work now—they had dampened and dried on my travels, the once-beige sticks now a dull brown.

Many years later, I’d heard that several of the A.I. ships had sunk in the war, and I wondered at the sadness that threatened to take over. After all, my only connection to those ships was the matchbox I’d stolen when I’d been forced to work twenty-hour shifts at the factory.

How had this matchbox become a symbol of my humanity? The frail human I’d once been, struggling to scrape together two ha’pennies to keep a leaking roof over my head.

If Indira hadn’t laid eyes on me that night at the free house, nursing a glass of gin…

I’d always thought being undead had brought me back to life.

A shadow moved in the distance—dark coat, dark boots shifting under the cover of night.

Her.

Wytch.

I stood with a scrape of the chair, sending it tumbling to the ground.

She stood very still under a lamp post, the orange light shining around her shoulders like a halo, as though she was waiting for me.

Time to answer for your sins, wytch.

Chapter Fourteen

Aisla

I felt her in the air—watching, waiting, out of sight. The altercation had dialed up the intimacy between us, not the kind you’d experience with a lover, but something more. This person had controlled my shuddering breaths beneath their fingers and carved bruises into my neck.

The connection we had was far more intimate now. A bond forged in fear and blood.

The breeze on the back of my neck brushed against the gash she’d left behind, and I wondered if the scent of my open wound drew her close. I had studied vampyre anatomy enough to know that the call of the familiar was strong in the undead. She had scented my blood once, drawn it unwilling from my flesh, but it was now cataloged among several other factors she presumed to know about me.

Wytch.

Neutralizer.

Killer.

A flash of movement made my breath freeze, and I almost took a step backward.

Unwise, I told myself. Never show fear. They feed on fear.

The way she materialized in a haze of darkness made my belly tighten. In my jacket pocket, my fingers turned to fists.

“Bold of you to be out here by yourself,” she sneered.

I’d never had anyone study me with such hatred, such loathing. Especially not a stranger.

“I want to agree, but I’m standing on my covenstead with the knowledge that it’s warded. Nothing you do can harm me within its boundaries.”

Her lips lifted in a smirk, the sharp, jagged points of her canines glinting in the lamplight.

“Coward,” she muttered under her breath.

“Why the fuck have you been watching me? Following me?” I asked. “Why did you attack me this evening?”

Her tweed coat ruffled in the wind as her sculpted brow rose, dark against her pale skin.

“Why?” she asked. “Because you took someone very special away from me.”

Confusion creased my skin.

“You’re a killer,” she continued, her fingers tracing the gold chain along her vest. “You kill those like me.”

“Kill is not the word I would use,” I insisted. “This is my job. It is perfectly legal—”

Her scoff was infantilizing. I pushed on.

“I only do what I’m paid to by the High Coven.”

“Does that help you sleep at night?”

The words dipped between my ribs and lanced the soft place that was always filled with doubt.

“What does help me sleep at night is knowing that the undead who show up for their appointments want to be let go. The process is quick and peaceful and—”

“And what?” she demanded. “They’ll find salvation on the other end?”

“I don’t think salvation is possible for your kind, but it’s not up to me to debate the afterlife with someone who tried to kill me with their bare hands.”

A soft noise curled in the air between us—a cross between a harsh breath and a soft growl.

“I should report you,” I said, watching her take a step closer. “You will be sanctioned by the High Coven for violating a number of peace treaties.”

“Do I look like I give a shit?”

“You should.”

The icy wind whistled between us.

“Look,” I said, trying to bring the conversation to a swift end. “I can only assume the person who chose voluntary neutralization was someone you cared about. I appreciate that you’re angry and hurt by their decision, but that does not mean you can take it out on me. You don’t even know me.”

Her cheek twitched in anger. It was the smallest flicker of movement, but I saw it—a brief tremor beneath her carefully controlled mask.

Despite that composure, all that control, I knew—I knew—that beneath the surface, she was seething.

And an angry vamp was a dangerous one.

“Now, if you’ll leave me alone, I won’t report you to the High Coven, but I won’t tolerate any further attacks.” I swallowed as I reached for the lie. “You’re lucky I didn’t neutralize you this evening.”

She took another step closer.

“Is that what brings you joy? Removing people from this earth? Absorbing their powers as your own?”

“Not people,” I said. “Undead. And no, it doesn’t bring me joy. This is my ancestral job—I’m stuck in it, just like you’re tethered to your immortality. Neither of us can escape what we were born into.”

Her dark gaze was unwavering as she stared at me with complete focus only the undead were capable of. No blinking, no moving. Her eyes bore into mine as though she was trying to shred my soul through one look alone.

Curse the moon, it was as though my very existence disgusted her.

“Who are you looking for?” I asked, shifting on my feet.

“Annabel Gibs.”

A pair of bright blue eyes drifted into the haze of my memories.

“I remember her,” I said, glancing at my boots. “I still have her belongings, if that would bring you any comfort.”

For long moments, she stared at me, the muscles in her cheeks twitching as the gears turned in her head.

“The High Coven usually sends someone to pick up these belongings to send them along to next of kin. Or they dispose of them.”

“Dispose of them,” she repeated. “Like you disposed of Belle.”

My patience was wearing thin.

“Do you want her belongings or not?” I asked, unable to keep the sharp note of irritation out of my voice. “Because I have better things to do than stand out in the freezing fucking cold and argue with a vamp. Like tend to my many cuts and bruises, for example.”

A slight flinch along her temple was the only indication that my words had gotten to her.

She nodded once, almost imperceptibly.

I turned and stalked down the sidewalk, following the path of the iron gates.

She trailed behind grudgingly, her wingtips quiet on the asphalt beneath us. I wondered briefly if she felt a lick of frustration at being forced to walk at a mortal’s pace. But I doubted I could move any faster; my over-worked muscles protested each step forward.

“Wait here,” I said, although she didn’t have much choice in the matter. The wards would keep her out if she even placed the tip of her shoes past our gates.

I slipped through a smaller side entrance that led to the corner of our back garden. The door to the storage shed sat ajar.

Annabel’s things were on top of a pile of forgotten clothes, bags, hats, books. I plucked the scrap of blue fabric—all that was left of the coat—and the black bag, pulling the door shut behind me.

The vamp said nothing as I handed her the scant remnants of someone she had once loved.

If she had been capable of breathing, her breath would have hitched as she cradled the items, gently unlatching the bag to peer inside.

“Was she your lover?” I asked, watching as sadness filled each new crease on her face.

No, it was more than sadness. It was grief.

“She was my child.”

My throat tightened, tendrils of her pain snaking into me even as I tried to fight it.

“I’m sorry,” I said, the crack in my voice surprising her and myself. “It’s never easy to lose someone.”

I could still feel the sting of her earlier attack, the bruises blooming beneath my skin, the phantom ache where her hands had tried to end me. But none of that mattered. Not when she stood before me now, limbs taut with the effort of keeping herself together as she looked at what was left of her child.

So I didn’t move. Didn’t speak. I let the silence stretch, let her grief settle between us like a fragile, living thing.

Long minutes later, I said: “I hope this brings you some relief.”

“Unlikely,” she replied, the word clipped, although I could see behind the mask she wore. “The urge to end your existence still rides me hard.”

And just like that, all the soft feelings disappeared.

“Well, too fucking bad,” I said, falling back a step. “That’s not happening today.”

She took yet another step forward, closing the distance between us. A tightness slithered through my limbs—a prey’s natural response. She loomed over me, larger than I remembered, and I wondered how she was manipulating her shadow to look so intimidating.

But vamps didn’t have powers like that, did they? Speed, yes. Mind control, yes. Ethereal beauty, yes.

Most forms of magick came from tangible things: blood, earth, metal. And the vamps’ undead nature forbade them from reaping strength from these elements in any real way.

Certain things might have escaped my notice while I fought for my life: her tall stature, for one. Or the sculpted precision of her features.

In a moment of foolishness, several not-quite-memories came rushing forward. Scenes from books I adored, stills from movies that had haunted me. They were a blur of sensations—fear, shock, terror, and yes, maybe even lust—but the vision of this vamp fit so neatly into those moments. A flash of fangs, a rumble of a growl, the crease of anger on otherwise perfectly smooth features.

“You don’t intimidate me,” I stated, wishing my words were a touch less breathy.

“Your heartbeat says otherwise.”

Prey—that’s what I was to this woman. A tasty little snack wrapped in winter gear.

But she wasn’t getting her hands on my blood. Not today. I had already done her a favor—more than anyone would have done given the fact that she’d tried to end my life.

“Goodbye.”

She didn’t move. When I stepped back into the safety of the covenstead, I didn’t spare her another glance.

Chapter Fifteen

Jinn

The house across the street wasn’t adequate shelter, and so I was forced to contact a local nest. The Conan Doil House had once been located in a quiet part of New Town, but it was now swarmed with tourists and the intermittent buzz of a nearby tram stop.

A pub teemed with drunkards on the street corner, while the nest itself rose high above in a labyrinthine refuge with tinted windows inlaid in the historic townhouse. The Night Council had owned this property for years—it stood at a junction of the street that wasn’t at the mercy of the questionable Scottish sunlight, sandwiched between a crumbling cathedral and a gothic church. Admittedly, it was a strange place for a nest of vampyres to take residence, but hiding in plain sight had always been our modus operandi.

The wrought iron gate was cool beneath my fingers as I unlatched it and stepped into the shaded back entrance. Nat had texted me the security code to the building along with my travel instructions, and I keyed it into the new-fangled digital lock to let myself in.

As the door swung shut, the outside din faded, leaving me in blissful silence. A stairway stretched high above, lit by clam-shaped lights that sat flush against the wall. Beneath my feet, a deep burgundy carpet was pinned neatly in place by brassy rods that ran upwards with each step. The rods had small decorative finials on either end—tiny, understated flourishes that were no longer the norm. But I appreciated them.

A stale scent lingered in the stairway, like wisps of old incense.

At the top of the stairs, a handmaid answered the door, dressed in a long black jumpsuit with an open collar and a dark velvet choker across the base of her neck.

“We’ve been expecting you, Ms. Waters,” she said with a small smile. Her deep Scottish twang indicated that her roots were likely further up north. “Your assistant called ahead.”

I acknowledged her greeting with a nod and stepped into the nest.

“You’ve arrived at the perfect time. The nest has settled in for their supper.”

She held out a hand for the bag I still carried. It was incongruous to my ensemble, but I couldn’t bear to part with it. It was the last part of Belle I could still hold in my hands.

I shook my head and the handmaid turned away with a click of her heel.

Hands deep in my coat pockets, I followed the quick-moving human as she padded across the tiger-print carpet that ran in a thin strip throughout the hallway. As I passed a decorative side table with an eight-pronged candle holder, the scent of wax mingled with something faintly metallic, like diluted blood. Blood wine, perhaps.

We turned a corner, walking across a windowless hallway with walls the color of dark moss. A gallery of portraits hung on both sides with gilded accent lights illuminating each one. They were painted similarly in oil with a dark, inky grey background. I counted twenty portraits exactly—ten on each side, neatly lined such that they were facing each other. The handmaid walked too quickly for me to study them, but I appreciated the details that the artist had etched into each life-like creation.

There was a surprising number of people in attendance for supper. Unlike the formal, performative sessions that Indira hosted at Mészáros, everyone seemed more at ease here, lounging in an armchair, sitting by an easel, or playing with a scaly pet in a large tank.

“Mr. McAllister is visiting a friend,” the handmaid said, her voice blending easily with the notes from the phonograph. “He said to treat his nest like your own.”

The space was certainly vast for a townhouse. Heavy brocade drapes in steel blue fell from the ceiling to the floor, sectioning off corners of the room for a small measure of privacy.

Above me, a chandelier of gold and crystal had been twisted to look like moose antlers, and the light that emanated from it was a beautiful shade of dappled gold.

A few people nodded in greeting, but didn’t seem too inclined to speak. They turned back to their newspaper or easel after offering me a fleeting smile.

Perhaps they received visitors often—too often for them to invest time in each one that walked through the door. Fine by me. I was in no mood for small talk.

I eyed the sprawling chaise lounge to my left, upholstered in burgundy velvet. It dominated one curtained corner, its clawed feet gripping the floor. Across from it, a high-backed chair of rich mahogany sat in commanding solitude, its black leather seat glistening faintly as though it had recently been polished.

Tables carved with intricate gothic designs were laden with peculiar treasures: a crystal glass half-filled with something dark, a clock with hands frozen at midnight, and a bone-handled letter opener resting on a stack of yellowed envelopes.

I had already turned to ask the handmaid to show me to my room when I caught sight of a familiar figure behind a sweeping curtain.

“Willa?”

The vamp glanced up from her age-browned book, blinking as she registered my presence. A smile softened the serious angles of her face.

“Jinn!”

She rose from a little alcove by the window to embrace me, and I wondered how she smelled exactly the same after all these years.

“It’s been too long,” she said, tugging closer. “Far too long.”

She sniffed the air. “You smell unlike yourself.”

It was a not-so-impolite way of asking what I’d been up to with a human.

I deflected the question with one of my own. Willa and I hadn’t seen each other for the better part of a century, and it would be far too forward to admit that I’d ducked behind a black bin to suckle on the lapel of my coat, seeking every drop of blood the wytch had left behind in the market.

While I doubted that Willa would judge me for it—we’d both done far worse in our mortal days—it was an experience I’d rather keep to myself.

“We’re long overdue for a catch up,” I said instead.   

“Indeed. You rarely leave London.”

“The horrors of home are familiar,” I said, my gaze lingering on the familiar lines of her cheekbones.

“Why bother with immortality if you’re not going to explore the world?” she said pointedly.

“I have,” I said curtly.

“After airplanes were invented?” Her brows rose in question.

I kept silent, refusing to start an argument with Willa, although I knew it was one of her favorite things to do.

Neither of us were sure about her ancestry, but her Greenland roots indicated that she might be Inuit. Immortality had many perks—immense strength, speed, and mind control, for starters, but it couldn’t help us dig up our past.

As she stepped close, I noticed a little smear of blood she had missed at the corner of her lips. It would be impolite to point that out to her, akin to humans telling each other that they had food stuck in their teeth. I chose silence instead.

“Come,” she said, gesturing to the chair across from her. “Sit. Talk to me.”

The phonograph skipped and stopped, bleeding silence into the room. The handmaid in the jumpsuit stepped forward to select another record and placed it delicately on the waiting turntable.

More soft jazz hummed in the air, barely discernible from the last tune.

“When was the last time we saw each other?” Willa asked, her grey eyes soft.

We had once been mortal friends bound by poverty in The Devil’s Deuce, a gambling den known for a minimum of two stabbings a week in the east end.

I’d been little more than sixteen then, serving drunk cocks older than my grandfather while dressed in an ensemble that would make a milkmaid blush. Willa had escaped that trap. Instead, her unusual looks had worked in her favor, and she had built up a steady stream of paying clients that she serviced in a room above the Deuce.

It had taken me almost a year to figure out that she wasn’t a dollymop. Her rented room was a stage to hold seances to communicate with the dead.

“You seem… Off,” Willa said, her gaze narrowed meaningfully. “Something has tipped you off balance.”

I glanced out the window, eyeing the frost that had formed on its edges.

Willa had a way about her. People like me—non-believers—would call her perceptive. Or batty. But those who bought into the idea of ghosts and ghouls and spirits and angels tended to think of her as a spiritual guide.

I believed that Willa was simply very good at her craft. She’d never once admitted to this, but I assumed she studied her clients carefully and picked out the most generic things to say—generic enough that they would readily resonate with it and provide more information on their own.

After all, if there were such otherworldly things that existed among us, I would’ve encountered them in my extended time on this earth.

The handmaid appeared at our side with two crystal decanters, both filled with red liquid. One blood, one wine.

“You know how I like it, darling,” Willa told her, a slight inflection in her tone as her lips curved around the endearment.

The handmaid nodded, deftly filling a waiting glass with a generous splash of both.

“And yourself, Ms. Waters?”

I stared at the offered libations, watching the dim light shimmer through the semi-translucent red wine.

It wouldn’t be enough. I knew it with unerring certainty. Even if the blood was sweet from a willing donor and mixed with the headiest vintage red, it would not compare to a single lick of the wytch’s blood.

Curse it all.

Is this how it would be now? Would everything else—blood, wine, conversation—feel like a pale echo of something greater? All because I had ingested a few drops of her blood? It haunted me, the rush of warmth and power, the newfound heartbeat that coursed through me like molten gold.

“Just wine.”

Willa’s sharp look indicated I’d been too abrupt with the handmaid.

“Thank you,” I added.

She handed me a glass and I accepted it by the stem. Two pairs of eyes stared at me expectantly, and I tilted the wine to my lips.

“I hope it’s to your liking,” the handmaid said, expecting a compliment.

The tasteless muck slid into my throat like watered-down regret.

“It’s nice.”

Nice. What a miserable little word.

But it seemed to satisfy the handmaid who walked away to attend to others in the nest.

Willa studied me curiously.

“It isn’t good news, then, whatever brought you up north?”

“No,” I said with a sigh.

Willa slid a bookmark between two pages and let the thick leatherbound tome fall shut.

“I’m happy to listen, Jinn, if you’d like to share.”

Perhaps it was the familiarity of her voice, or the way she gazed at me, but something unfurled in my chest.

The first few words out of my mouth were stiff, broken like an engine trying to turn over for the first time in years. I wasn’t good at this. Talking. I didn’t make a habit of it. But Willa’s eyes were kind, and I could imagine myself as the sixteen-year-old who watched her take patrons upstairs with curiosity. A hundred and fifty years stood between now and that memory, yet, in a strange, twisted way, it felt like nothing at all.

She didn’t say anything—that was what made it worse. The silence. She didn’t push, didn’t fill the air with useless words to make it easier on me. She simply sat in her chair, looking at me like we had all the time in the world—which, I supposed, we did.

“It’s about Belle.” The words sounded harsh, grating. “She chose to be neutralized.”

To her benefit, Willa didn’t seem as surprised as I thought she would be.

“I see,” she said, her voice somber. “Tell me what happened.”

And I did. From the incident with the boy to Belle’s disappearance from the nest, I told her every single detail. She listened quietly without interrupting me, although I could see her taking mental notes as I spoke.

“You believe she made a mistake?” she asked, crossing her legs and arranging her black skirts.

“I think she overreacted, yes.”

“That must be hard for you to deal with. When you turn someone, you feel responsible for them. You want them to thrive.” She paused, her brows furrowing. “And Belle is the only person you ever turned. Right?”

Something tightened in my throat. “Right.”

“You and I have something in common there,” she muttered under her breath. “So then why did you turn her? I know how you feel about it. We used to spend enough time together as fledglings for you to make that abundantly clear.”

“It’s about consent.” I tried to ease the tension in my neck and failed. “Many of us who are turned cannot provide consent to what becomes an endlessly painful existence.”

Willa had heard my opinion before. “While that’s true, there are also people who voluntarily choose this life.”

“Belle didn’t.” My eye sockets began to hurt. “She was near death when I turned her. Maybe just a minute more and she would have died.”

“And why did you turn her? Did you know her before?”

“Only in passing,” I admitted, fixing my gaze on the crumbling cathedral below. A notch of old stone had fallen off the awning above the main doors. “It was happenstance. In a twisted way, I’d always considered coming across Belle’s nearly lifeless body a blessing. I’d been flailing, you see, trying to understand why I was put in this world.”

My fingers rose to the necklace that dangled between my breasts. The edges of the cross were familiar under the pad of my thumb.

“Immortality isn’t for everyone, and for a long time, I thought, perhaps, it wasn’t for me. When I was newly turned, I was overjoyed. I traveled, I explored, and I did everything I couldn’t afford to do on a meager human wage. But all the allure fades quickly. When did it fade for you?”

Willa’s smile held anything but joy. “About fifty years after I was reborn.”

“When the last of your living family passed?”

She nodded once. It was a common enough phenomenon among the undead.

“I didn’t have anyone to mourn,” I said with a shrug. “My parents passed years before I was turned, and I’d distanced myself from any friends I’d made. A century flew by before I felt the loneliness creep in.”

Willa gestured for me to continue.

“I first met Belle when she was five. Her mother ran a BnB two streets over and she’d often take Belle out to the playground at odd hours whenever she could get a break. I thought it was strange to see a child playing on the monkey bars past sundown with no other children for company, but I didn’t dwell on it. I remembered thinking her mother should tie up her hair so it didn’t get caught in the swings, but far be it for me to parent a parent.”

Willa nodded.

“The park was my refuge—especially when I needed to get away from the nest with its politics and games. I often brought a book to a bench past sundown and read into the night. And somehow, over several years, I’d watched Belle grow from a girl who squealed as she flew on the swings to one that cursed like a sailor as she sucked on cigarettes with grotty looking friends on the merry-go-round. And then…”

“And then what?” Willa asked.

“She fell into drugs. It was common back then in the early 80s. I’d watch her red ponytail bob along the park as she went in search of her dealer. Her face grew more and more gaunt by the day. I was never an active participant in her life, merely an onlooker, but it’s strange how fragments of someone’s life can come together to form a large puzzle. Like one of those movie trailers. If anyone saw a trailer of Belle’s life before she was turned, they would easily predict how it ended.”

“She overdosed,” Willa concluded.

“Right there on the playground.” I let my necklace drop back to its assigned place. “She was with a friend at first, but when he couldn’t wake her up, he just left her there with her legs dangling off the slide.”

I shrugged. “I remembered thinking what a waste it would be if she’d died. She didn’t deserve that end, even if she had done it to herself. Humans have potential, and this one had gone down the wrong path. Death would be a permanent punishment. And then I thought about the little girl, the one who would squeal on the swings, and I just… Couldn’t. I couldn’t leave her there, even though it was close to sunrise.”

“When I first approached her, I could barely hear her heartbeat. It was so faint, so weak that I was certain she had already slipped away. But when I knelt close and pressed my ear to her chest, I could just about detect the slightest beat. So I did the thing I vowed I would never do: I turned her. Without her consent. Without her knowledge.”

“But you also saved her,” Willa said, placing her hand on my knee again. “You made sure her life didn’t end on that playground.”

“Yes. Belle said the same. She was grateful.”

“But?”

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to find the right words.

“She was never able to control herself.”

“It takes time to understand your new powers and instincts,” Willa argued.

“That’s what I told her. I swore I’d teach her how to manage her hunger.”

“I sense another but coming…”

“I never could, Willa. I tried everything. It’s been over forty years since I turned her, and she struggles—struggled—to fight every urge. The mere scent of blood made her feral.”

“It’s harder for some people.”

“I know.” I sighed. “I never gave up on her. Never.”

“Of course,” Willa agreed. “But do you mind if I asked you something that may sound too personal?”

“Considering the topic of our conversation, go right ahead.”

“Did you turn Belle to save her or yourself?”

Startled, I sat a little straighter in the armchair.

“What do you mean?”

“You said yourself that loneliness was your burden. I’m wondering if, perhaps, you used Belle to crawl back from it. Maybe you formed an attachment that’s far deeper and far more personal than one a mother has with her child. A kind of co-dependency.”

Even though her words were direct, Willa kept her tone gentle.

But her last question slid deep like a serrated edge of a knife.

“So, did you turn Belle to save her or yourself?”

Chapter Sixteen

Jinn

A borrowed coffin awaited in my assigned room. It was a neutral black with a silken mauve interior. As accommodations went, it was on the plush side.

I knew I wouldn’t get any rest with the oncoming dawn. Not with Willa’s words echoing in my head.

Did you turn Belle to save her or yourself?

I sat in the overstuffed armchair, steeping myself in the pin-drop silence and the self-doubt that rushed to the surface.

I’d been under the impression that Belle had made a hasty decision, or Indira had somehow compelled her into seeking a bitter end. But what if… What if all those thoughts were only white noise for a truth I couldn’t bring myself to face? The idea that Belle had wholeheartedly wanted to end her existence… Despite me. Despite the life we’d had together.

I’d assumed it wasn’t possible simply because I couldn’t bear the thought of it. Even now, it sat awkwardly in my chest like a bookcase with an unbalanced shelf, ready to cast its neatly-lined contents onto the floor.

Could it be? Could I have misread Belle for over forty years simply because I couldn’t see past my own loneliness?

I know she’d struggled. I’d seen it first-hand. The weight in her voice when she said she was tired, the silence that stretched too long when she couldn’t control the beast inside her that wanted more, more, more.

There were moments when her eyes seemed to look straight through me, like she was already halfway gone, already slipping between the cracks of whatever held her together.

But we had been working through it.

That’s what I told myself. That’s what family did.

But now… The self-doubt was like a mental assault. Was I really so selfish? So lonely that I needed Belle by my side to pretend to be okay, just so I wouldn't fall apart?

I’d heard that grief was supposed to come in stages—clean, clinical phases with names like denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance… as though grief could be organized and filed away in tidy folders.

But mine was nothing like that. Mine was wild and tangled. It looped and snarled and dragged me backward. It twisted around my chest like barbed wire, catching on every memory, every half-finished thought, every question that no longer had an answer.

I thought back to our last conversation over and over. Replayed it in my mind until the words blurred and broke. She had sounded tired, yes, but she always sounded tired. I’d convinced myself she was just having a hard day, like all the others.

I hadn’t, for one second, assumed she would make such a decision.

Maybe that was my failure.

It was the abruptness of it, the finality, that made me shudder. Here one minute, gone the next. It was rare in our circles. And I was fully unequipped to deal with it.

I tipped forward, setting my head in my palms as I tried to hold the pain back, but it came rushing forward anyway, cutting deep.

Belle, I whispered under my breath. Why? Just… Why?

***

Hours passed in a hazy blur. Dawn brought the slightest hint of sunlight, which was quickly consumed by grey clouds.

My thoughts were nothing more than a jumble, and I didn’t have the energy to sort them out. Only one emotion stuck in my chest: grief.

A flurry of knocks tore through my musings. I frowned across the room, wondering if I could ignore it. After all, I’d told the handmaid that I didn’t wish to be disturbed.

“Jinn?” Willa’s voice was muffled through the thick wood. I glanced at the clock, wondering why she was awake at midday.

“I’d like you to meet someone,” she continued when I didn’t respond right away.

With a heavy sigh, I pushed up from the armchair and called for her to come in. A temporary distraction from the morbidity of my thoughts was welcome.

She was followed by a mousy little vamp who wore a pair of gold-framed spectacles that were round like little moons. He didn’t need them—none of us did. But some chose to wear the accessories they had grown attached to in their human days.

“This is Eowyn,” Willa said, her heels clicking loudly on the hardwood floor. “I thought the two of you should speak.”

“And why is that?” I asked, eyeing Eowyn’s smaller stature. He was dressed in a black dress shirt and pants, and I wondered if people sometimes mistook him for a waiter.

Willa nodded at Eowyn who cleared his throat—yet another human habit.

“I have some information that may be of use to you,” he said, pushing his spectacles further up his nose. “Willa says you’ve recently experienced a tragedy—”

I turned to shoot Willa a bemused look. We’d spoken in confidence.

“But all is not lost,” Eowyn continued despite my obvious displeasure.

“I need time to mourn,” I said curtly.

“I understand, of course.” Eowyn nodded quickly. “If that’s what you wish, then we can certainly leave you alone—”

“There is a way to get Belle back,” Willa interrupted, cutting off Eowyn’s babbling.

I’d turned away to stare out into the miserably damp day, but Willa’s words made me pause.

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” I replied stiffly. “Belle is gone. She’s been vanquished.”

“Death,” she said, crossing her arms. “Is not permanent. Our kind knows that better than anyone else.”

I tried to wrap my mind around Willa’s words, but… Indira had said this wasn’t possible.

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Well.” Eowyn slid his hands into his pockets. “My partner, Frederick—you probably saw him in front of an easel—he chose the same fate as Belle. Years ago now. But I brought him back.”

That made little sense.

“You brought him back? How?”

“With magick,” Willa said in a tone that implied I should’ve known this already. “You’ll need a wytch to help you, but it’s certainly possible. Find a strong one and you’ll have Belle back tomorrow.”

Willa shrugged as though finding a wytch was easy.

“How exactly does this work?”

“It’s called The Retractare—the retrieval,” Eowyn explained. “The wytch trails the target into the other side and retrieves them.”

I thought of Indira and the price she would demand for such a feat. She had already taken my soul—what else did I have to barter?

Eowyn continued: “We are not like humans. When we go over to the other side, all of us goes. We don’t leave our bodies behind here on earth. So when we come back…”

“We come back in one piece,” I concluded. “Can any wytch do this?”

Willa regarded me curiously. “Anyone strong enough, yes.”

I pressed two fingers against my temples, trying to align my muddled thoughts.

“I’m finding it hard to believe this could be true.”

But Willa had no reason to lie. She had no motive to involve a third party in this other than to corroborate what had happened to Eowyn and his partner.

A thought crept into my mind, uncomfortable but persistent all the same: I needed Indira’s help. I didn’t know a wytch with more power than her. She had worked hard to hone her skills over several centuries. Surely a spell like this would be child’s play for someone like her…

But the question was not if she could, but if she would. Indira had made her feelings about Belle clear. She didn’t consider my child worthy of being part of the nest.

Fuck.

A mad notion crept along the edges of my thoughts.

I could ask the neutralizer for help… It was a crazy idea since I’d tried to murder her only a few hours ago. But it clung to me tenaciously like a thorn pressed into skin.

After all, without the neutralizer’s services, Belle would still be here on this earth. With me.

From somewhere deep in the labyrinthine nest, the clock struck the hour. Noon. Four hours until sunset.

Willa released a deep sigh.

“I thought you’d like to have the information. What you do with it is up to you.”

“Wait,” I said as they turned to leave. “What was the name of the wytch who did the spell?”

Eowyn shook his head. “I’m sorry. She was a friend who passed a long time ago.”

Ugh, mortals.

“Finding a wytch should be the least of your worries,” Willa said. “I’m sure Indira would help if you asked.”

“Yes,” I said to placate her. “I’m sure she will.”

“And one more thing.” Eowyn raised a finger in the air as though trying to recall something important. “There is a time limit to the spell.”

“A time limit?” Willa and I said at once.

Eowyn nodded as though unsure which of us to look at.

“There is a certain period when the spell can take place, after which the soul would be lost to the other side.”

My fingers curled into fists. “Belle was vanquished five days ago. Do you remember the exact time limit, Eowyn?”

“Um,” he floundered. “Maybe ten days? Maybe a week?”

Maybe?

“I’msosorry,” he said in a rush. “That’s all I can remember. This was almost forty years ago.”

Curse it all.

Chapter Seventeen

Jinn

She’s going to make me beg.

My fingers curled around the phone as the screen projected a bright white light into my eyes. I caught myself just before I bent it out of shape.

The view from the guest room was abysmal.

“Hello, darling,” Indira said as she answered the call. “Nat tells me you’ll be on a train home this evening.”

“Yes.”

“Then to what do I owe the honor of this call?”

Pride was a flimsy shield, easily broken.

“I need your help.”

There was a pause I couldn’t interpret.

“How delicious,” she said, her voice teeming with humor. “You, of all people, coming to me in need. I’m sure you hate that.”

“This is not about what I want,” I said, raking a hand through my hair. “You can fix this. I know you can.”

“Fix it?” Indira didn’t sound the least bit confused. “Such a vague term. Be specific, darling. I do so hate when people waste my time.”

I curled my fingers into a fist, holding in the annoyance that bubbled at the surface.

“I asked you before and you deliberately evaded the question. You know you have the power to reverse what Belle did. To make it right.”

My voice faltered for a moment, but I forced myself to continue. “If you do me this favor, you could lord it over my head for all eternity.”

“Mmmm.” She made a thoughtful noise. “A lovely little perk.”

I imagined her deep brown eyes glittering with something cold and calculating.

“This is not a joke, Indira. It’s about Belle’s life.” My forehead fell against the frosted window with a thunk. “You need to bring her back. I know you have the power to do it.”

“Well, yes, of course.”

Surprise straightened my spine. “You’ll do it?”

“No, darling, I meant of course I have the power to do it.” I heard a little scoosh that may have come from a perfume bottle. “But I simply don’t wish to.”

“Indira, please.”

“Jinn.” I hated the hint of laughter in her voice. “Groveling is beneath you.”

My teeth grit painfully. “I will grovel if I have to. Lay out your terms.”

“Terms?” she repeated. “But, darling, I’m your mother. I already have everything I need from you: your obedience.”

“Indira…”

There was a sharp clink in the background, as though she had set down a glass.

“Jinn.” The humor faded from her voice. “This was Belle’s decision to make. Let her go. She clearly didn’t wish to continue this existence.”

“You of all people know how impulsive Belle is. This was yet another impulsive decision.”

“So?” Indira demanded. “Now she has to live with it… Or die with it, as it were.”

The realization settled over me like a slow, creeping frost. She wasn’t going to help me.

My own mother, my creator. I had known she was cruel, but some naive, desperate part of me had clung to the hope that this time would be different. That, despite everything, she wouldn’t abandon me when I desperately needed her help.

But she had.

“Jinn?” she said. “Come home. We’ll talk.”

It was a lie. There would be no talking, no negotiating. Once Indira made her decision, it was final. There was no persuading her. Over the years, I’d seen countless people try to sway her and fail.

Saying we’ll talk was simply her way of placating me until I stepped back into her realm of power. There would be no last-minute reprieve, no flicker of mercy.

“Jinn?” she said again, and I ended the call.

***

The clock chimed through the nest, followed by a crackle of a phonograph. The sun had finally set.

The streets were quiet—too quiet. At this time of year, with seasonal depression edging in, there weren’t many people who dared to brave the outdoors.

I’d watched the city for hours, but each thought only led back to one person: the neutralizer. My last hope. The one whose blood still sang in my veins.

Would she help me? I was leaning towards no.

But she had looked at me last night with something I had not expected. Pity, yes. But there had been more—something I couldn’t name. Compassion? Empathy?

The thought of facing her again twisted something deep inside me—a mix of shame and dread. But I had no choice. I could already feel the walls closing in, the weight of my predicament pushing my ribs into my chest.

I would have to go to her—I had no choice. I would have to face the wytch I had wronged and humble myself, hoping that she could see past what I had done.

Chapter Eighteen

Aisla

“Would you like some company?” Maia asked as she poked her head around the door to my bedroom.

For Anaia’s sake, I usually kept the door slightly ajar to deter the entitled cat from caterwauling all day.

I glanced up from the floor-length mirror, watching a frown touch the space between my brows. I’d spent the better part of an hour cataloging the scrapes and bruises on my body, although the ones at the back of my head still eluded me. Soaking in a hot bath had helped with the soreness.

“Sure,” I said with a shrug.

She stepped into the room, dressed in a large t-shirt that fell to her knees.

“I brought coconut oil,” she said. Her bare feet didn’t make a sound on the thin carpet. “I thought we could do your hair if you feel up to it.”

“Okay.”

As I folded myself onto the ground, Maia knelt behind me and popped the lid on the clear glass jar.

The room filled with the sticky-sweet scent of coconut, like the best part of a Bounty bar, or the inside of my mother’s closet.

Maia reached into the jar to break apart a hard chunk of the oil. She rubbed the shard between her palms and before long, her skin gleamed with a thick layer of coconut.

I breathed it in, feeling the tightness in my chest ease just a little.

Coconut was the smell of my ancestors—the quiet power of women who had come before me, who had escaped persecution and made space for themselves in a new country. They had made magick, even in the simplest of things.

There was a familiarity in it—the sound of palms rasping together to bring the oil to temperature, the slick noise of the viscous liquid turning warm and malleable, and the feeling of familiar fingers as they worked through the strands of my hair. The ritual of it, the repetitiveness, the warmth that clung to my scalp—I felt my ancestors there, steady and strong.

As Maia moved in the mirror, kneeling behind me on her haunches, her fingers worked through my hair in motions that were muscle memory. She parted my hair, baring the scalp, and pressed her oiled fingertips in slow, rhythmic circles—it was the same way my mother did it, the same way Maia’s mother had done it. I imagined them sitting like we were now, bottles of oil resting at their feet, their hands moving with the same quiet patience and sharing some mindless gossip from the 80s.

I thought of my grandmother’s hands, always warm, always steady. The way she used to massage oil into my hair when Amma was on an assignment. I thought of her careful hands—less tuggy than my mother’s—and the way she would carefully braid my hair after and tie a little towel over it.

And now, here we were, carrying on the same ritual. After the events of last night, there was something grounding about this.

Ritual, I thought. Familiar. Constant.

Anaia pressed her warmth against me like a furry little space heater as she settled next to my thighs, staring at her own reflection in the mirror.

Sure, just twenty-four hours ago, I’d almost lost my life. But for now, I was here.

Rooted.

Connected.

Whole.

The mirror and I were old friends—it knew me more intimately than any lover, but never judged my weaknesses. I’d sat in this very spot two decades ago, wondering aloud why I was so different from Maia, Brodie and everyone else.

I touched a hand to my cheek, cool and soft beneath the pads of my fingers. There had been a time when my gaze would narrow on the too-thick brows and the chin that was much too strong for my soft cheeks. Or the skin that was a shade of singed umber even in the height of winter.

It was whiteness I wanted at the time. A blank slate. An existence where the word paki wasn’t slung around like it defined me. I’d wanted to exist like everyone else did behind a mask that fit in seamlessly. Pale skin, straight hair, different nose, different chin. I assumed that the sum of these parts would mean a different life.

Even in my big age, I cringed when I remembered how I would avoid mirrors in school and shied away from my reflection. I had scrubbed my skin raw, hoping it would lighten the brown that made me different. I had slicked a whole tub of gel over my curls so they wouldn’t frizz and fray.

Above all, I’d hated looking like a smudge of ash in a sea of ivory. Different. Always different. An anomaly that had been misplaced.

It had taken years to unravel the lies I had come to believe about myself—social media in the 2010s had helped to shift my perception of brownness in a white-dominated society. And after spending years avoiding my own reflection in public, I’d started seeing my existence as something more than a mistake.

I now thought of my features as a collection of my ancestors—each one a story of escaping persecution in our home country all those years ago. My grandmother’s eyes blinked through mine, my mother’s high cheekbones carved their way into my own. The more I looked, the less of myself I saw and the more of them I became. Each face from the Laxmi line of wytches had merged to form my own.

“What the fuck?” Maia paused, pushing herself onto her feet. “It can’t be.”

I glanced at her reflection as she pressed her face into the window.

“She’s back.” Maia’s voice was laced with shock. “Your stalker.”

I scrambled to my feet. True enough, there she stood, a lone dark figure under the halo of the streetlamp, hands tucked into her pockets and wingtips pointing north. Her position told me that she was aware of exactly where the wards were placed and wished to avoid their taser-like burn while still getting my attention.

Snow fell around her and piled in little white mountains.

How long has she been standing there?

A part of me, the part that was still achy and bruised, wanted to throw open the window and yell go away!

But a much larger part of me, the part that had lain dormant for so long, wanted to bask in the vibrations of her hate, her rage.

Perhaps I should consider upping my therapy sessions. It couldn’t be normal to be drawn to someone’s negative energy. Hate and rage shouldn’t excite me.

“Why is she back?” Maia asked, squeezing into the small space in front of the window until our shoulders brushed against each other. “I thought you said she agreed to leave you alone?”

“I don’t know.”

I gnawed on the edge of my already bitten nails.

“She’s obviously waiting for you.” Up close, I noticed two round indents from the rubber lining of the lab goggles around Maia’s eyes. “But we can’t invite her in.”

I looked down at my pajamas.

“I just got warm,” I muttered. “I don’t want to go back out into the cold.”

“Maybe she’ll leave if we ignore her.”

That was unlikely, given how much snow had already accumulated on her clothing. The undead weren’t deterred by the cold like we were.

“Doubt it.”

With a determined sigh, Maia pried open the brass latch on the window and thrust her head outside.

The vamp glanced up, and I thought I saw her eyes flash even from a distance.

“Oi!” she yelled, shattering the pin drop silence of our neighborhood. “Go away! She doesn’t want to talk to you!”

But the vamp didn’t budge. Not one bit.

It was becoming increasingly obvious that I would need to sacrifice the warmth I’d retained from the bath if I wanted to be rid of my visitor.

As Maia kept watch at the window, I tugged on a pair of thermals and layered them with dark jeans. After a moment’s hesitation, I decided to tuck my pajamas into the jeans and pulled a thick knitted sweater over it. I was erring on the side of comfort—something told me that the conversation with the vamp wasn’t going to be a short one.

“She’s dangerous.” Maia turned to watch me pull on a pair of thick socks. “I don’t think you should go, Aisla.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, tying my hair into a damp bun at the top of my head. “I’m staying within the wards. Like before.”

“I…” Maia paused, biting her lip. “Something feels off. Maybe you shouldn’t go. She can’t possibly stand out there forever.”

“She’s immortal, Maia. Of course she can, especially if dawn doesn’t bring strong sunlight.”

Maia cursed under her breath.

“You need a weapon. I’ll get you a weapon!”

Experience told me it was better for Maia to occupy herself with a task in tense situations. As she stomped upstairs and tore the house apart to look for something I could use as a weapon, I slipped out the front door, zipping my coat up until it bit the skin under my neck.

Maraivaendiram, I reminded myself. Please, god, don’t let me forget again.

“How long have you been standing out here?” I asked, stopping a few meters short of the wards with the iron gates between us.

“A while,” was the terse response. I waited for her to explain her re-appearance, but nothing was forthcoming.

I shoved my fingers into my coat pockets, mourning the fact that I’d forgotten my gloves.

“This is the part where you tell me what you want,” I said with a frown. “It’s really creepy to stand in front of someone’s house, you know.”

“I know.”

“If you’re waiting for an invitation, you might as well just give up now. I have no intention of allowing you inside the protection of our wards.”

When she glanced at me, her gaze held something unreadable. Something dark. Something almost… vulnerable. I felt a tremor rise in my chest, an unspoken question pressing against my ribs.

“Look,” I said. “It’s fucking freezing and I’d rather be in bed than—”

“I need your help.”

My brows rose at that.

“My help?” I echoed. “Help from the person you tried to kill last night?”

Her eerie stillness didn’t waver.

“Yes.”

I scoffed. “And why the fuck should I help you?”

She retorted with a question of her own.

“Aren’t you curious about what I need help with?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I’ll help.” I pried my fingers from my pockets to cross my arms. “What is it?”

“Have you heard about The Retractare?”

I blinked. “Is that the horror movie where those guys go into the Swedish forest and die in the end?”

“That’s The Ritual.”

“Oh.” I paused. “Then what are you talking about?”

“The Retractare is a spell. And the fact that you don’t know that doesn’t bode well for me.”

“Is that Latin?” I asked. “Because most of our spells are written in a mix of old Scots and Tamil, which is a language derived from—”

“Dravidian people. Yes, I know.”

I’d gotten so used to explaining the roots of my culture that her knowledge surprised me.

“Well…” My fingers stole beneath my beanie to scratch my scalp. “Not that I’m offering to help you or anything, but if you explain the concept of this spell, I can find the equivalent in our spellbook.”

I thought I saw her lips tighten under the streetlight.

“It’s a spell used to retrieve the vanquished from the other side.”

I paused. “That’s certainly not something we’ve ever been taught.”

“It’s a forbidden spell.”

“Well, that much is obvious.” I angled my head in question.

“According to a friend, any wytch can perform this spell,” she stated, eyeing me intently. “They just need to be strong enough.”

A single snowflake fell on my forehead. I swept at it irritably.

“You’re really overestimating my powers if you think I can perform a forbidden spell—”

“What if you—

“—and that I would even want to expend my powers for someone like you.”

“I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Money?” I scoffed. “You think you can sway me with money after trying to kill me?”

“Then what do you want?”

There was something in her voice—low, rough like a match dragged across sandpaper. It wasn’t a question, not really. More like a demand wrapped in velvet, sharp enough to draw blood but soft enough to make me rethink saying no.

It wasn’t fair, the way she wielded her stillness and silence. It pressed against me heavily, just like the way her chest had pinned me to the wall in the Christmas market.

“Nothing.” The word emerged as a rasp and I cleared my throat. “I don’t want anything from you, vamp.”

“Jinn,” she said. “My name’s Jinn.”

“Well, Jinn, sorry to disappoint—” I paused, then changed strategies. “Actually, no, I’m not at all sorry to disappoint my would-be murderer, but I don’t have the capacity to help you.”

“You won’t even try.”

There was something about the way she said those words—overcome with grief and sadness and… something deeper. Something much more painful.

Guilt reared its fucking ugly head, eclipsing all logic. Gone was the obvious argument that I was only doing my bloody job. In its place was a sadness for someone who was clearly grieving a loved one.

Motherfucker.

Could I undo what I’d done? The question gnawed at me with teeth sharp enough to shred my skin. All those vamps, all those undead, slipping into oblivion… Could I actually bring one of them back?

The concept was a strange one. Once vanquished, a vamp stayed vanquished. At least that was what the High Coven had preached. Not once had they hinted at the possibility of bringing one of them back into our world. But that could simply be because they prohibited the use of forbidden magick under any circumstances because of past incidences which we weren’t allowed to discuss.

I scratched my scalp again and regretted it when I brushed the open wound.

“Even if I wanted to,” I began hesitantly. “I don’t know if I can. That’s the honest truth.”

“Trying is still better than nothing.”

“This is too much pressure—”

She broke out of her stillness to reach into the underside of her coat. A metal card case appeared between her fingers.

“If you change your mind,” she said, sliding a card from the stack. “You can reach me here.”

I watched her warily as she slid the card into the letterbox that had been built into the brickwork of the front gate, and slowly backed away. There was a tiny clink as the hard edges of the card made contact with the metal.

“Well, I’ll think about—”

When I looked up, she was gone. Only the imprint of her wingtips remained on the ground, outlined in the snow.

I glanced at the letterbox. It hovered on the perimeter of the wards, possibly on the other side of safety. Had she done that on purpose? So I would be forced to abandon the magick that protected me from predators like her?

But what would be the point of asking for my help and then killing me? Or was this all the ploy to draw me out?

But it would only take a second. One tiny second to pull open the mailbox and retrieve the card.

Was that a second too much? I knew better than anyone else how quickly the undead could move…

Fuck it.

I inched forward, my boots crunching in the snow, and wrapped my fingers around the brass handle, pulling it out. The card lay atop a pile of letters none of us had bothered to retrieve.

My fingers curled around it just as a shadow fell over me. A palm encircled my forearm, pinching into the puffed coat. A scream swelled in my throat.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Maia demanded, pulling me back into the safety of our wards. “You promised you’d be safe!”

I glanced at the card. It was thick and stark white with a string of numbers in the middle. I didn’t know my killer well, but I thought the stern lettering suited her.

“Don’t worry,” I said, trying to pry myself loose from Maia’s grip. “She doesn’t want me dead. She can’t have me dead.”

Maia’s gaze narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” I said, turning the card over so that Maia could see the phone number. “She needs my help.”

Chapter Nineteen

Aisla

The unexpected proposal willed away any lingering notion of sleep. I lay in bed, grateful for the softness of the feathery blanket on my sore muscles as I turned the plain white card over in my palm.

I’d memorized the eleven numbers neatly printed on the back. The matte finish on the pad of my thumb was powdery.

Who the hell still kept business cards? Even actual business people would have switched to digital business cards… Right?

The edge of the card rasped across my thumb.

Jinn.

I wondered if she’d chosen that name knowing the meaning behind it.

Jinn were believed to be horned, bearded creatures who existed to frighten the ever-loving crap out of the living. They were prevalent in Arabic and Islamic cultures for being wily little things that tried to harm humans in innovative ways by twisting their words or playing pranks. In simpler terms, they were tricksters from another realm.

But there were good jinn, too. Magnanimous genies, for example. Or a kind of obedient household pet that helped its master keep a tidy dwelling.

If she knew the meaning behind her chosen name—because, of course it had to be a chosen name—what did that say about her? Was it a Jekyll and Hyde situation? A walking contradiction?

Maybe she was like a coin with two sides? I’d witnessed the side that tried to kill me, so perhaps there was a more normal side I could tap into if we were to work together.

Absolutely not!

I heard Maia’s yell in my ear. She’d spent the better part of an hour giving me a lecture on why this was a horrible idea. At the time, I’d thought it was funny how all her reasonings ended with me being dead in a drain, but now I wasn’t so sure.

Money was a surprisingly useful bargaining tactic. I found myself wondering just how much she would offer in return for my services. And if I would get to keep the money even if the spell didn’t work.

The latter was likely, but…

Trying is still better than nothing.

Her words echoed in my head, the hint of desperation coming through clearly. And although I had never been particularly soft for pleading words or a grieving face, I felt something twist inside me.

I had a very real hand in vanquishing Belle, and that asserted a confusing need to set things to rights. Especially if Jinn insisted that it was some kind of impulsive mistake.

And, I supposed, if there was one day a year when I could genuinely trust my magick, it had to be the solstice.

The winter solstice boasted a Cold Moon this year. It wasn’t a rare occurrence—I’d seen it happen a handful of times in my thirty years of existence—but for a few hours past midnight, when the moon was stark and full, wytches all around the world felt magick simmering in their blood. The phenomenon was commonly known as Moonrising, and many used it as an opportunity to cast spells that required more powerful magick than they were usually capable of.

I’d never once made use of the Cold Moon to cast more than warding spells. Brodie, Maia and I would reinforce the wards that our ancestors had put in place around the property.

I had never been tempted to try to do more. After all, as an Eclectic, no one expected me to do anything other than simply exist.

I supposed I could challenge myself to cast this spell to see how far I could stretch my magick…

…and get paid in the process.

But that only left me three days to figure out what this Retractare spell was.

Sleep eventually took over, muting the thoughts that looped endlessly in my head. Whether it was restful or not was debatable, but when I awakened, it was to the feeling of dread.

It wasn’t the most pleasant way to start my day. My pulse quickened, a tightness wrapping around my chest.

The gnarled fingers of the sycamore outside the window shivered in the icy breeze, tapping against the side of the house.

In the distance, the printer in my office whirred and chimed.

An assignment.

That explained the dread. The sound of the printer was enough to force my sleepy mind to race ahead of reason and jump face-first into the reality of neutralizing another undead’s existence.

I sat on the edge of my bed, cradling my head in my palms.

Ah shit.

I forced myself to breathe, to count the seconds up to sixty then backwards to zero. And yet, the dread refused to dissipate.

My limbs were weighed down with lead as I crossed the narrow hallway and trudged up the stairs to the attic. The door stood ajar, the swivel chair turned towards me as though waiting for my weight to press down on it.

I fell into it with a muted oomph and the back of the high-backed chair collided with the desk, rattling several things on the surface.

Whatever, I thought, reaching for the carefully printed papers.

Fifty-five year old vamp from the borders requesting neutralization in a week’s time.

As I read through the bland document that dictated the death of yet another not-so-living being, I came face-to-face with the realization that I hated my job. The repetitive and hollow cycle of neutralization drained me more with each passing day.

My fingers scrunched the corner of the pages, but I couldn’t bring myself to crumple the document altogether. Looking at the neatly typed words felt like yet another nail in the coffin of my dwindling motivation.

Had I ever cared about the job? Did I ever feel a sense of purpose in what I did?

Perhaps. Not that I took any pride in being a neutralizer, but because I carried a legacy built by Laxmi women. I was a part of something more through my job. But even that little spark was gone, suffocated under the relentless grind and watching the pain in the undead’s eyes.

A deep exhaustion settled over me, seeping into my bones.

Why was I giving so much of myself to something that left me empty? Was this how I wanted to spend my days? Looking into people’s eyes as they died, internalizing their pain and pretending like it didn’t affect me?

Motherfucker.

Maia was right.

I needed help. I needed out.

When I picked up the rotary and dialed the numbers I’d memorized, I vowed I would ask for the biggest sum imaginable. Partly to inconvenience the vamp, but also…

To pay for my freedom.

Chapter Twenty

Jinn

The gloom of this city worked in my favor. In the middle of winter, Edinburgh was steeped in a permanent murky grey, and I had no doubt the locals joked that the sun was more myth than memory.

Thick clouds loomed low over the skyline, a smothering curtain that never truly lifted. The tenements, squat and brown, wore the grime of endless rain and snow. Puddles pooled in cracked cobblestone, their surfaces rippling as another drizzle began, soft but unrelenting.

A neon sign for a bar blinked across the street, its cheery cough-syrup pink not bright enough to cut through the gloom. 

Behind the tinted windows of the northern nest, I watched as the pathways teemed with humans hurrying across junctions or rushing for their commute.

Ah, how simple their lives were. Perhaps they worried about a cheating spouse or credit card debt. But they never had to grapple with the debilitating, crushing weight of immortality or the abject loneliness that twined with it.

Our prolonged existence wasn’t a gift. It never was. I thought of it as a slow erosion, a wearing down of the soul until all that was left was longing—for an end, for a release, for something we were never meant to have.

Did Belle have that now? Or was she merely stuck in-between, waiting for rescue?

I had done all I could—laid everything out before the wytch, stripped myself of pride, of pretense.

And now… everything came down to her.  

Would she help me? Or would she turn me away, leaving me to face this alone?

Time was not my friend. I didn’t have days to wait around for an answer. Every fiber of my being wanted to move, to do something instead of stand here and wait. Find another wytch, perhaps, or beg Indira with favors she wouldn’t accept.

Belle would have been gone six days today. Six days in the other world—alone, afraid…

Irritation spurred in my veins as the buzz of a phone call interrupted my thoughts. Although I had warned Nathaniel not to call me during my rest hours, the dhampir was sometimes… Overenthusiastic.

But it wasn’t Nat. It was an unknown number—a landline with the Edinburgh area code.

I pressed accept.

“It’s me.” It was strange how familiar her voice had become. “Aisla. The wytch you tried to kill?”

“I know who you are.”

How could I not? Everything rested in her hands.

A large part of me still couldn’t believe I had asked her for help—after everything. It was ridiculous. Worse than ridiculous. It was desperate.

I had no right to expect anything from her, no right to even hope. And yet, here I was, waiting, tension spinning through my limbs as I waited for any telling noises that might indicate what she was about to say.

I had half-expected her to laugh at me—to tell me to fuck off. Or perhaps I had waited for the reproach to tumble from her lips—any other rational person would take such an opportunity to destroy me as I had once tried to destroy her.

“Great.” I heard a shuffling in the background, as though she was rifling through a sheaf of papers. “I’ve given your proposal some thought.”

“And?”

There was a crackle in the line, and I wondered if she was using a phone as ancient as the large, crumbling house she called home.

“And…” She paused, as though she knew just how badly the silence would twist in my hollow chest.

I’d spent hours convincing myself that if she refused me, I wouldn’t care. That I would find another way because I always did. But I was lying to myself.

The truth was, I needed her. And needing someone—truly needing them—was the most dangerous thing of all.

“How much money are you offering exactly?” she asked, each word more hesitant than the last.

“However much you want.”

“Is that right?”

A beat passed as though she was weighing her options, then she spat out a number. I knew she assumed she was asking for something wild and well beyond my means, but she didn’t know the lengths I’d go to for the only child I’d ever turned.

“I can work with that,” I said. “Half now, and half after I get Belle back.”

“Just like that?” she demanded. “Do you know how long I’d have to work to earn that money?”

“I’m aware of how limited humans are when it comes to accumulating wealth, but trust that this is something I’m willing to invest in.”

“Well,” she began, then quieted for a moment. “Fine. But… if I cast this spell, there is no guarantee that it would work. You need to understand that. And even if it does work, the possibility of finding Belle is…”

“Slim,” I said. “I know. Even for seasoned wytches, this spell is difficult.”

She let out what sounded like a shaky breath.

“So what happens if I’m unsuccessful?”

“You’ll get to keep half the payment for trying.”

“And how would you know that I’ve tried? There is no benchmark for trying.”

“I assume you have to practice this spell?”

There was a brief rustle against the phone, as though her curls had gotten caught on the receiver.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll watch as you do. I’ll make sure you live up to your end of the bargain.”

“Oh.” A rush of breath trembled through the connection. “Great. I love when people test my barely-there abilities.”

The honesty behind people’s words was strange to me. Not too long ago, the term suffer in silence was the motto of the human race. Fear and doubt were swallowed down, hidden behind polite smiles and stiff postures, not blurted out mid-conversation. I wondered how people could stomach spilling their emotions like open wounds, bleeding their anxieties into the world with no thought of who might be listening.

Aisla had essentially revealed how nervous and unqualified she was for a job she had agreed to do. This kind of candor would have once been frowned upon. Nerves and anxiety were better kept to oneself. But I appreciated her honesty, even if it may lead to her downfall.

“We have to act quickly,” I said, changing the subject.

“Yes,” she agreed. “We do. But how did you know that?”

“The person who told me about the spell mentioned that spirits don’t linger in the in-between for long. He retrieved his partner a week after he was vanquished and advises that I don’t wait any longer than that.”

“That makes sense. There are many beliefs about when a soul actually leaves the earth. Growing up, my mother believed in the thirteen-day process. We were raised with a confusing blend of Hinduism and Moon Magick, and she always performed a host of rituals for thirteen days after someone passed away. She believed it helped the soul find peace and transition to the other side. Athma shanthi.”

I cleared my throat. “But Belle doesn’t have a soul.”

“True,” she said, considering her options. “Based on what you’ve said about your acquaintance’s experience, I would assume we’re operating on similar parameters. If that’s the case, then we have some time to perform the spell. And well, this might be your lucky day, because the solstice is three nights away and it coincides with the Cold Moon.”

“The Moonrising will bring your power to its peak.”

“What?” she said quickly. “How do you know about that? The Moonrising?”

“I do know other wytches,” I quipped. “Well, one other wytch.”

“Then…” Confusion seeped through the connection. “Then why didn’t you ask this other wytch for help?”

I watched my murky reflection grow sour in the tinted glass.

“I did. She wasn’t interested.”

There was a long, drawn-out pause.

“I see. So you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel with me.”

“I choose to think of it as making the best out of a bad situation.”

“That makes me feel wonderful. Say more things like that, please. A girl needs to be complimented now and again.”

I could almost see her eyes rolling.

How was it possible that even though my stomach was lined with lead, her comment made my lips curl upward? It wasn’t even that funny—just a dry, sarcastic remark tossed carelessly into the conversation, aimed more at the situation than at me. And yet, something about it cracked through the weight pressing against my ribs.

“Fine, we have a deal,” Aisla confirmed. “And just so we’re clear, I’m not doing this to help you. I’m doing this to help myself.”

I wondered if she knew how hollow her words sounded. Over the many years of existence, I had come to understand people very well—at least, better than the average person. And from my limited interactions with this wytch, I could easily deduce that her motivations could never solely be money-motivated.

Yet I kept that deduction to myself.

“Duly noted.”

She made a little humming noise.

“Meet me tonight at ten at the Hall of Surgeons,” she said. “Don’t be late.”

“Hall of Surgeons,” I repeated. “The tourist trap?”

“It’s not as touristy as you might think,” she quipped. “And dress warmly. It’ll be cold.”

I gave her a minute to think about her words in silence.

“Oh. Right.” She cleared her throat. “You can dress however you want cause you’re always cold… And dead.”

Her throat clicked as she swallowed.

“I’m going to stop talking now. Bye.”

As her voice faded, I slid the phone back into my pocket and continued my perusal of the street. But this time, the fist lodged in my chest eased slightly, the vise-like grip loosening.

Hope.

It was a powerful feeling with roots and claws, sinking into my skin wherever it touched. Because the truth—the one I couldn’t admit even to myself—was that if Aisla had turned me away, if she had decided to let me drown in the consequences of my own actions…

I wasn’t sure I would survive it.

An eternity alone. An eternity without the daughter I had built a life with—the daughter I had saved from a wasteful death…

It was untenable.

Belle, I thought, wondering if she could still hear me from the other side. I’ll save you, sweetheart. Just… Wait for me.

Chapter Twenty-One

Aisla

I’d assumed it would be easy to spot a vampyre on a deserted street, but that was an incorrect assumption on my part. Between the brown coat and the eerie stillness, Jinn camouflaged with the dark brick of the neoclassical building. I looked straight past her as I dug through my coat pocket for the large key.

The Hall of Surgeons had originally been constructed as a surgical college where public dissections often took place. These days, it was little more than a tourist trap with surgical pathology specimens, artifacts, and works of art on display across several floors.

Many unsuspecting tourists visited the museum every day to witness the changing nature of medical teaching and research in Edinburgh. But before all of that, first and foremost, in 1560, this had been the site of our first covenstead.

“Aisla.”

I whirled around, startled by her presence barely a foot away from me. My hand rose instinctively, brandishing the two-pronged end of an old-fashioned key from my clenched fist.

“Don’t do that!”

“Do what?” she asked, her dark brows raised.

“You know what.” I let my fist drop. “Don’t scare me.”

“If I had been an aggressor, you would’ve hardly deterred me with that rusted key and its blunt edges,” she remarked wryly. “At most, I’d need a tetanus jab.”

I decided that I wouldn’t dignify her words with a response. Instead, I turned and walked around the corner of the building into an alleyway that was sandwiched between two high walls.

She followed, her shadow falling over my left shoulder as I looked for the entrance that was fused to the back of the building. Finding the hidden gate was tricky, even when I had the key clutched between my fingers.

I cursed under my breath, letting my fingers wander over sharp corners of the gritty brick until… There.

A tiny divot, barely a couple of centimeters long—a mere slash in the brick. I knelt in front of it, angling the key and pushing it in.

The lock had rusted as much as the key, and it took a full minute of grunting and shoving to force it to turn a full hundred and eighty degrees.

I sat back on my heels, watching as the rocks trembled with a deep, rumbling noise. At first, they shifted only slightly, dust falling onto the sparsely gathered snow—dark grey dust on icy white. But soon enough, they moved as though newly awakened from a long slumber, stone grinding against stone, cracks smoothing out, edges blurring to form one smooth slab. 

Like wax, I thought, watching the display. The first time I’d witnessed my mother unlocking our ancestral covenstead, I’d been mesmerized. At the ripe old age of thirty, I could safely admit that the wonder hadn’t ceased.

A sharp golden light traced the edges of the gate and I pressed my fingers against the smooth brick. It swung open, ushering us in.

“Impressive,” Jinn murmured under her breath.

She followed me through the gate and I sealed it behind me.

“Is this part of the museum?” she asked as the bricks rearranged themselves into their usual formation.

I nodded, stepping between two narrow aisles that were lined with glass jars of various sizes.

“It’s the basement—a storage area.”

“Certainly looks like it,” she said, eyeing the claustrophobically low ceiling. Black iron shelving had been drilled into the wall and covered most of the available space in the room.

Dim, flickering lights buzzed overhead, and the whirr of the heating system sounded somewhat distant. It was cool in here—not cold, but the temperature was low enough to keep the oddities from drying up.

The basement wasn’t meant for a casual visitor. The exhibits upstairs were strange enough—Victorian death masks, antique surgical kits, faded diagrams of impossible medical conditions—but down here, the oddities were different. Darker. The kind of things people whispered about but never truly believed existed.

As a child, the displays had made my skin crawl. As an adult, I couldn’t say any different. There was the faintest smell of formaldehyde in the air, like the echo of long-burnt sulfur, and a spikey note of vinegar.

Glass cases lined the narrow hall, their contents frozen in eerie, artificial light. I wanted to walk past the storage room quickly, but Jinn had other plans.

She disappeared into a different aisle, and I waited patiently as she perused the items stored on the shelves, her wingtips quiet on the stone floor beneath.

I knew what she’d find. Every strange item in this room had been embedded in my brain. At her eye-level, a collection of preserved organs floated in murky fluid, each labeled in neat, clinical handwriting.

A heart, grotesquely enlarged.

Lungs blackened by disease.

A human brain, neatly bisected, one half smooth and pristine, the other riddled with strange holes, as if something had eaten away at it.

I wondered if she could sense my discomfort; maybe it spurred her to test my patience.

Further down, the exhibits became stranger. A human fetus with two heads, their tiny faces eerily serene. A withered hand, fingers fused together by thick, rope-like strands of skin. A single, shriveled eyeball floating in yellowed liquid, its optic nerve curling like a tendril.

When her rings clinked against a jar with a severed hairy limb, I poked my head between two shelves and angled a meaningful stare in her direction.

“Has nobody ever told you not to touch displays at a museum?”

She shrugged, filling the silence with a shuffling noise from her coat. “There’s no one here to tell me off. So why not?”

“Because you could damage them with your undead hands.”

A single dark brow rose. “And if I do, who will know?”

It was never that simple. Nothing ever was. To others, this was a collection of oddities—ugly things stuffed in jars.

But I knew the darkness they contained—the captured monstrosity, the unnatural forces.

It was one of the reasons that the Elders had fought to keep the old covenstead beneath the surgeons’ guild. Sentimental value and a nod to our origins were only secondary considerations.

Power was the primary reason.

The pain that surgery, death, and preservation in jars elicited was perfect kindling for our magick. It was suffering made tangible, pain captured and held still, locked inside glass and fluid. And I could feel it now, like a slow, smoldering fire beneath my skin, waiting for the right breath of air to ignite.

Magick had always been strongest where humanity left its marks—where blood had been spilled, where bodies had been broken and stitched back together. It clung to the remnants of shortened lives, to the instruments that had sawed and mangled flesh, to the dying protests of those who had not gone quietly.

The collection seemed like a museum of horrors, but it was actually a reservoir of power—the forgotten and forsaken gathered in one place. It leeched into the covenstead, spreading its energy into the stones that made up each brick.

I had never felt called to tap into its power before. But if I could find the spell that Jinn was after, I knew I’d need all the extra zhuzh I could get.

“This way,” I called over my shoulder as she lingered too long in front of a glass jar with the perfectly preserved two-headed fetus.

We turned a corner, then another. A flight of winding stairs led us down to a locked pit. Here, the stone was crumbled and damp, untouched for centuries.

I withdrew the key again and laid it flat on the stone, sliding it around until it fit into the grooves that had been designed for it.

Like the gate above, it shuddered alive with a noise that sounded almost like a yawn, and the ground fell away, revealing a gaping, dark circle.

I knelt, feeling around for the ladder and lowered myself into the hole.

Above me, Jinn hesitated briefly before she placed her foot on the first rung. The slight heel of her wingtip thudded hollowly on the old wood.

There was no electricity here—a fact that had once inconvenienced me greatly, but now, I’d come around to the charm of it. Nothing had changed since the old wytches had carved this out of sacred land. They had touched what I touched, smelled what I smelled, their feet tracing the same path mine did.

I breathed deep, taking in the scent of earth and damp. To most people, this mixture of scents would be unpleasant, but for me, this was a childhood memory brought to life—wet stone, crumbling dirt, and the faint metallic tang of rusted pipes somewhere far above. There was a slight undercurrent of rot, too, but I had always chosen to ignore that.

“Agni paayatum, irul maaratum.”

Let fire strike and darkness fade.

My fingertips tingled as the incantations ignited my blood and the smell of ash rose in the air. The torches had rested for too long—after all, it had been years since I’d visited the old covenstead.

The first spark crackled in the darkness, a sharp hiss that echoed through the tunnel. And with a deep whoosh, the first torch came alive. One by one, the flames leapt from torch to torch, igniting each one as the path in front of us grew clear.

“There,” I said, pleased with myself. I wrangled the closest torch out of its bracket and raised it to the ladder. “That’s better. Could you pull the cord over there and latch the entrance? I don’t want anyone following us in.”

I moved forward to shine the torch on the ladder but she waved me away, stepping back up the bottom rungs quickly.

A look of alarm broke the constant coolness of her gaze.

Was she afraid of fire?

It made sense, I supposed. Fire was one of the few things that could vanquish a vamp, and waving a glowing torch so close to her head was probably more of a threat than help. I wished to explain to her that this wasn’t a real flame, but a little bit of fear was a good thing.

As she sealed us into the covenstead, I walked ahead, doing the routine checks to make sure no one else had trespassed in the space.

“I’m surprised this place isn’t warded,” she said, catching up to me with barely any effort.

“It is,” I assured her. “If I hadn’t given you permission, you wouldn’t have been able to see the entrance in the first place.”

I glanced up at her and noticed that the top of her head almost brushed the ceiling. It made me question how small my ancestors had been.

“Did you bring me down here to trap me in an enclosed space with several open flames?”

“Why?” I said over my shoulder. “Scared I’ll try to kill you? Tit for tat?”

“You can try.”

A smile curled at the corners of her lips—a secret little thing that taunted me.

It wasn’t the kind of smile that invited you in; it was the kind that warned you what would happen if you stepped too close.

I dare you, the smile said. Come and get it.

I looked away hastily.

“This is our covenstead,” I explained instead. “The oldest home of the Layng wytches.”

“It’s under a tourist trap.”

“Unfortunately, yes. The Elders owned the land above, but they built the covenstead underground to avoid persecution. When the university bullied us into selling, we did, but we kept the covenstead where it was—protected.”

We reached the edge of the tunnel. A dead end stared back at us.

“Most of my ancestors are buried here,” I said, placing my fingers against the cool stone. “Those who served the Layng coven. The Elders originated from two places—we can trace our heritage back to the Isle of Skye in the mid-sixteenth century, or Tamil Nadu almost a millennium ago.”

“How did they find each other across continents?”

My brow rose as I shot her a meaningful look. “Colonization, of course.”

I ran the torch over the crumbling wall.

“My ancestors bought passage on a ship run by the South India Company, not because they wanted to, but because they were facing persecution in their village. There was a great drought in the farmlands and people were looking for someone to blame. My ancestors were easy scapegoats because they lived in the fringes of the village. Personal recounts and diaries indicate that over half of them were sacrificed by the villagers to appease the gods’ fury before the rest were able to break free.”

“Why Edinburgh?” Jinn asked.

I uttered a spell and the stones shifted beneath my palms, rearranging themselves like blocks of Lego.

“They didn’t know where they were going,” I explained. “They only knew that they had to get away from the village, and the quickest way was through a nearby port. Boarding a ship bound for Glasgow was a mistake, but they managed to survive by finding their way to the Layng coven here in Edinburgh.”

A rush of cool air brushed my curls back over my shoulders.

Beside me, Jinn tensed.

“One of my ancestors, Baanu, was the first to forge a treaty with the Layng coven. She learned their ways and adapted both magick systems into an even stronger spellbook.” I stepped through the entrance and glanced back at her. “I know the wytches down south do things differently. Their covens are older and their spells are in Latin. That’s why we need to comb through the covenstead’s vault to find a spell that is equivalent to The Retractare.”

Jinn nodded, studying the solarium warily. The high ceilings made our conversation echo with an eerie lilt, and somewhere deep in the crevices, the tap tap tap of a leak was highly distracting.

Centuries ago, this space had been used as a meeting point for wytches in the north. It was large enough to accommodate at least a hundred, and when the moon was full, the stones in the ceiling shifted to allow light to enter.

Now, only echoes of better times remained.

“It feels… different in here,” she said, her voice low.

“Different how?” I asked.

Her shrug made the chain of her pocket watch clink against her vest button.

“The air feels heavier. Weighted, maybe.”

I placed my fingers back on the stones again and they clamored back into their original position.

“Now that you’ve entombed us,” Jinn continued. “I can say it feels even heavier.”

“I always thought it could be the presence of the Elders looking down on us.” I slid the key back into the inner pocket of my jacket and zipped it up.

“Don’t you mean looking up?” she asked, following closely behind as I crossed the solarium to yet another entrance concealed in dark red brick.

“Very funny.”

“I’m not being funny,” she quipped. “Do wytches believe in heaven and hell?”

“We believe in a variation of it, yes.” I turned to her. “And what about the undead?”

My gaze lingered on the small, pointed cross between her chest.

“Vampyres believe in the other side, but not heaven and hell.”

I couldn’t claim that my small scoff wasn’t judgmental.

“When you spend your life draining people dry against their will, I imagine the afterlife can be a scary thing.”

I thought she might refute my statement, but she merely raised her fingers to unbutton her coat.

“You may have a point,” she said.

Interesting. A vampyre with a conscience. Or rather, the vampyre who had tried to murder me with her bare hands had a conscience.

Could my life be any more strange?

“The rules are simple,” I said as I led her to the back corner where an iron door halted our progress. “Do not touch anything unless I expressly say otherwise. Do not move anything. Do not take anything with you.”

I paused to see if she was listening to my instructions.

“Aye, aye, captain,” she said, a single brow raised.

“This is serious,” I countered. “You need to respect our hallowed ground.”

“Have I behaved otherwise thus far?”

Fine. She had a point.

“Just keep your hands to yourself.”

I doubted a snort could be counted as acknowledgement, but I let it slide. The pads of my fingers tingled as I placed them against the iron door and a faint glow shimmered over the latch.

The vault opened in front of us, familiar like a strong hug and filled with every little thing my ancestors had cherished. It smelled like them, like home, like the incense they had favored over the centuries. I took in a deep breath and felt their embrace as I stepped into the room, the torch in my hands casting the contents in a golden glow.

Everything was in its assigned place. Nothing had been touched over the years. I took a brief inventory as I looked over the cabinets and lockers, checking that the most important tokens still sat behind their warded glass cases.

From the corner of my eye, I watched Jinn move around with her hands still firmly in her pockets. Perhaps she had chosen to heed my warning after all.

I ducked low beneath the broad oak table that stood in the middle of the room and pulled out a grimoire that had once been a part of the original Layng coven’s most prized possessions. The ink had faded and the edges of the paper were in tatters, but the words were still legible. Old Scots, however, was painfully hard to read.

“What are these?” Jinn asked, her fingers hovering over a glass panel. She wasn’t touching it, and for that, I was grateful.

I set the book down gently on the table and padded across the room.

There were no locks on the cabinets and no keyhole to access the contents inside. The glass was reinforced with a spell that would repel anyone that dared to touch it with malicious intent.

A small part of me wished to see what would happen if Jinn placed her fingers against it. She had been a model of calm—after trying to kill me, of course—and while I personally couldn’t gauge her true intent, magick certainly could.

But that would be cruel. Besides, if she harbored ill intentions against me and was subsequently thrown across the room, I’d have to rethink trying to help her.

And there goes early retirement.

I placed my palm flat against the glass, letting it warm to my heat. There was a moment’s pause before the outline of my fingers turned a deep orange-gold and the glass popped open with a snick.

“These are one of our most prized possessions,” I said, reaching for the stack closest to me. “We call them olaichuvadi or palm leaf manuscripts in English. When my ancestors got off the ship, they had these and little else with them.”

A sketch of a book AI-generated content may be incorrect.Gently, I let the pad of my thumb run over the grooves of the inscriptions. The ink had long since faded, but the traditional way that these were made ensured they lasted a long while. We had old records written in Tamil that described the process for anyone that might need to restore them in the future. As a teenager, I’d spent my afternoon reading every log and diary entry in this room.

The process of creating olaichuvadi was a sacred one. Palm leaves were hand-picked and harvested before being softened in hot water and dried to make them pliable for inscribing. Traditionally, a sharp stylus made of reeds was used to carve the letters into the leaf, creating deep grooves. A natural dye was then applied to fill the grooves with color.

The creation of olaichuvadi had been political, or so Elder Baanu had written in her diary. Only men had the honor of creating these manuscripts—usually used for josiyam or astrology—and they were often from a certain caste.

The act of creating our traditional spellbook had been my elders’ act of rebellion. Not only did they push against the idea that only certain castes could handle sacred manuscripts, but they also asserted that women could do it, too.

Rebellion runs in my blood.

“It does indeed,” Jinn agreed, and I realized I must have been thinking too loudly again.

“These are sacred,” I explained, flipping the page. “The inscriptions are a step-by-step tutorial on how to cast a spell and each sheaf of olaichuvadi was written specifically for different aspects of life. The one I’m holding is for health. We also have wealth, family, sins, harvest, and so many others.”

“I don’t see anything,” Jinn said, squinting in the dim light.

“That’s because you need to have our blood.” The words sent a little shiver through me. “Only members of our coven can see the inscriptions. They would be useless to anyone else.”

I eyed her sharply. “So don’t steal them.”

Her eye roll was decidedly dramatic. “Where would I go? You locked us in, remember? I’ll need your magick to get out.”

True. I had done that. I patted myself on the back for the forethought.

“Is what we’re looking for in here?” she asked, indicating the olaichuvadi.

“No.” I shook my head. “A spell similar to The Retractare would be in one of the main spellbooks.”

“Or…” I said, turning to look at the shelves that spanned across the breadth of a wall. “It could be in one of those.”

Her shoulders tightened with resignation as she murmured: “Of course.”

A companionable silence fell between us as I reached for a detection spell, running my palm over the shelves to draw forth the spellbook that held information on The Retractare.

Only one thick tome reacted to the spell, glowing faintly under the torchlight.

There.

I tipped up onto my toes, trying to reach for it on the top shelf.

While many people talked about having a certain blindness—negative traits about themselves that they couldn’t quite see—I had to admit that I had always been height blind. The scales told me I was little over five feet, but I truly believed that if I acted like I was five foot ten, people around me would buy it.

But as I strained to reach the top shelf, the delusion hit me in the face.

Jinn watched me, her amusement palpable as I teetered on my toes.

“Here, let me.”

Her hands hovered over my waist. There were plenty of reasons for me to say no and back away, but against all logic, I nodded instead.

She gripped my waist and lifted me onto her right shoulder in one fluid motion. The world shifted as I balanced above her, trying to find a comfortable spot on her bony shoulder. Her grip was solid, stable, her fingers curling over my thigh to anchor me.

Oh shit.

Every inch of my skin hummed, alive and singing where she touched me, her grip firm as she held me steady.

My size sixteen arse was too large for most human women to piggyback, much more lift over their shoulders like it was nothing. I glanced down at Jinn, wondering if she was struggling to keep me up, but she seemed almost… Indifferent to my weight.

Well, hell.

“Comfortable?” she asked with a teasing lilt in her voice.

“Actually, yes,” I replied, refusing to be embarrassed, even though I felt a pinch of heat in my cheeks. “Your services are adequate, thank you.”

Her chuckle warmed something inside me.

The height gave me a new perspective; the spellbook was finally within reach.

But… All I could focus on was her—how strong her shoulders felt beneath me, how solid, how close. Even through the fabric between us, I could feel how cool her skin was. It spread through me in waves, making my pulse thrum in places I wanted to ignore.

Oh, fuck. Would she be able to smell it if I got wet?

My hands gripped the shelves for balance, reaching for the book, but my focus was scattered. I was forced to repeat the spell five times before the large leatherbound book dislodged from its resting place.

I clasped it to my chest.

“Done?” she asked. “Need anything else?”

I shook my head.

In a one-two move, she set me down on the ground, her arm clasped around my waist.

Curse the moon. I wanted to pretend like the encounter meant nothing, but the truth was undeniable: I felt her everywhere.

She hadn’t even touched any part of my bare skin, but where her fingers had lingered felt alive, tingling and oh-so-fucking-sensitive.

I knew I should thank her, but I didn’t trust my voice. If I opened my mouth and my voice cracked, I would absolutely die from embarrassment.

Instead, I placed the spellbook on its assigned dais and cupped my palm over the leather bindings.

Concentrateconcentrateconcentrate…

I repeated the word so many times that it lost all meaning. Jinn stood to my right, watching as I tried to unlock the spellbook and failed miserably.

My boots crunched on the unswept floor as I turned to her, deciding that I should tackle the problem head-on.

“Give me some space,” I said, flicking my fingers in the air in a go away motion. “You’re too close.”

Her brows rose to comical heights.

“You’re blaming me for your shortcomings?” she asked with a scoff in her voice.

“Because you’re distracting me.”

“How am I distracting you?”

I felt my nostrils flare. “You know how.”

“Yes, little wytch.” Her mental voice was smooth as velvet in my head. “I can smell it when you get wet.”

My palms shot out, shoving her backward. The element of surprise was on my side and she stumbled into the table, scraping it across the floor.

I slammed the mental barriers down between us, wondering how she had gotten through without me noticing.

“Don’t,” I warned, narrowing my eyes.

“Don’t what?” she challenged.

“Don’t get into my head.”

“I never did. You’re a loud thinker—are you going to blame me for that as well?”

She straightened and I glanced around for something to chuck at her.

“Don’t call me that either. I’m not your little wytch.”

She tilted her chin as she stared at me. “It’s merely a factual statement. You’re little and a wytch.”

“And you’re really starting to piss me off.”

She mirrored my stance, crossing her arms over her chest.

“It’s terribly unhealthy to pick a fight just to mask your obvious desire for me.”

“I’m not masking anything.”

She took a calculated step forward. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” I stated, refusing to acknowledge the click in my throat.

“Denial isn’t healthy.”

“I said I’m sure.”

Even I had to admit that my voice had turned pissy.

“Then prove it.”

She closed the distance between us yet again.

“Prove… what?” I asked, eyeing her warily.

Her smile was altogether predatory.

“Prove that I don’t affect you, of course.”

My gulp was loud in the silence, and I clocked it for the betrayal that it was.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jinn

Something about this wytch stirred things that had long been buried. Years had passed with me none the wiser as I’d survived without a lover’s touch. Thrived, even.

Maybe I’d been waiting for this. Not her, necessarily. But a reminder that I was still made of blood and want. Not just a mother with a flailing daughter, but a person with needs.

Aisla stared up at me with all the defiance in her soft little body, putting up a front that was fooling no one, least of all her.

Something about her prickly nature slid under my skin like a caress. Irritation sharpened the softness of her cheeks, turning her classical features into something fierce and unyielding. The furrow in her brow, the way her lips pressed into a tight, unamused line—it should have made me tread carefully, but instead, it pulled me closer, like the proverbial moth cast upon the pyre.

Curse it all, I couldn’t look away.

I wanted to feel the burn of her ire and the sting of her annoyance. Most of all, I wanted to taste it all on her tongue. 

“Prove it,” I said again, raising my knuckles to her cheek. “Prove I don’t affect you, little wytch.”

She stilled, defiance thrumming the air around her.

I let my fingers wander down along jaw and the little dip below her ears. Down over her neck and under her chin. Down, down, down.

She quivered.

It was unmistakable, but she tried to hide it anyway.

Little liar.

“How am I supposed to prove that?” she asked breathily. “There’s no test to prove anything—not conclusively.”

I brought my thumb back to her lip, tracing the softness of their contours beneath my touch.

She didn’t stop me; she didn’t breathe a single word of protest. In fact, I doubted she was breathing at all.

“Of course there is,” I said, watching the way her pupils expanded like dark ink spilling into water.

“Oh?”

The little breath of air was meant as a question, but it lingered like a lusty sigh.

“If I press my lips right here,” I rasped, feeling the pillowy softness of her lower lip beneath my thumb. “And your pants come away dry, then I’ll admit I don’t affect you.”

Her heartbeat trebled, and I relished the stuttering pulses.

“Open,” I rasped, and she did, taking my thumb between her lips.

The warmth of her tongue pressed against my skin, deliberate and slow, making my fangs itch to descend. She drew back just enough for her teeth to graze the pad of my thumb, soft but suggestive, before pulling me deeper.

Her eyes stayed locked on mine, half-lidded and smoldering, daring me to react as though I was only doing this to call her bluff.

Was I?

It had been a painfully long time since anyone had looked at me like this, as though my touch stroked them just right. If anyone had looked my way, I’d been blind to it behind Belle’s needs.

I couldn’t remember when I’d last felt a lover’s touch. A decade, surely. Perhaps more. The years blended to form one long stretch of time. There was Before Belle and After Belle, and my life had been filled with so much joy that sex simply hadn’t been necessary.

With Indira and the others, sex was a fixed commodity. The noises of it, the fluids, the mixing of blood and pleasure… That had been fun for a decade or so. As a fledgling, I’d indulged to my heart’s content. But the allure had faded quickly.

The tangle of strangers’ limbs had held no temptation. Not to me.

But now…

Aisla’s breath came shuddering out against my thumb as though she’d been holding it all this while.

Maybe it had started as a twisted little game—me trying to prove a point. But with her tongue stroking across my thumb and taking it deep to the back of her throat, I ached to step forward and take her lips with my own.

Underneath it all, I traced the quickening of her heart and the rush of her blood through her veins. I would be deceiving myself if I said her blood didn’t call to me. From the moment she’d turned up the street to the Hall of Surgeons, I’d felt a sudden quickening of blood through my veins.

If only I could say her presence didn’t affect me…

But that would be an outrageous lie.

Especially now, her warmth beneath my touch left me…

Aching.

Needy.

Hungry for a single taste.

Whether it was her lips or her blood or her pussy I wanted, I didn’t know.

I slipped my thumb from her lips and traced a path over her cheek with her saliva. Panting, she stared up at me, challenge still rife in her gaze.

“Had enough?” she asked, her chest rising and falling beneath the several layers of clothes she’d piled on.

“I don’t think sucking my thumb has proved anything, little wytch, except for the fact that you’re good with your tongue.”

The tongue in question stroked across her bottom lip.

“Your heart is beating very quickly for someone who isn’t affected by me,” I said.

“Don’t study my heartbeat,” she retorted.

I shrugged. “I can’t help it. It’s my nature.”

Her nose crinkled. “I tend to forget you’re a predator when you’re all dressed up in tweed.”

My fingers moved into her hair, gathering it in a fist.

She stilled.

“Does that make you my prey?”

Her breaths ghosted against my lips.

Close. Too close. And yet, not close enough.

“I will win this game of yours, you know,” she whispered, and I tasted each word. “I will not give in.”

A smile crept across my lips. “Then I’ll have fun losing.”

It was Aisla who tipped forward with a rasp of breath. It was Aisla who slicked her lips against my own. It was Aisla who sighed into my mouth.

And it was I who quivered under her kiss.

Her fingers delved beneath my vest and clutched my waist.

“We will not be discussing this,” she murmured against my lips. “This never happened.”

I made her quest easier by unbuttoning my vest and letting it fall to the floor. 

“You would be hard to forget, little wytch.”

Something flickered in her eyes, warring with the desire that made her gaze darken.

Her throat worked as she said again: “This. Never. Happened.”

“You mean this?”

Her gasp echoed around us as I placed two palms on her bottom and raised her to the sturdy oak table. Her arms rose to my neck, lingering there even when it became clear that she was in no danger of unbalancing.

“Jinn.”

Soft and deliberate, my name slipped from her lips. The single word slithered between my ribs and untethered something inside me.

My forehead touched hers, warm and familiar.

“Kiss me,” she breathed.

Was there anyone in the world who could ignore a breathy command like that?

I cupped her jaw between my palms and raised her lips to mine, taking it with a deliberate slowness that tested my infinite patience.

She tasted like her blood—a watered-down version of it. Or perhaps I was tasting her knowing that her blood simmered so close within reach. But each taste, each flick of her tongue marked me with the unique something that was all Aisla.

Desire seared my belly, hot and sharp, the unfamiliar sensation taking me by surprise. The past few decades had been full of love and laughter with teaching Belle how to be a vampyre, and I had sorely neglected everything else in my life. Romance was one of those things that had been set on the back burner. And romance with a human had never interested me in the first place.

But this one… This fiery five-foot bundle of irritation and annoyance would be my indulgence. After all these years of unintentional celibacy, I would break my fast with a thorough tasting of her lips.

Her fingers slid into the hair at my nape just as mine crept beneath the hemline of her jumper, digging past several layers to find her skin.

She gasped into my mouth, humming her pleasure.

Someone who tried to kill me shouldn’t taste this good.

She really was a loud thinker. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she stiffened in my arms and released my lips, breathing hard against me.

I tracked the erratic beating of her heart and the rush of her blood as she sat back, lips wet with my saliva.

“Um.” She cleared her throat, her cheeks flushed a deep red.

There was no need to guess what was going through her mind. The crease between her brows said it all.

Nothing about this makes sense!

I wished to say this attraction defied reason—and in many ways, it did—but anger and lust rode a fine line.

She probably wanted to tell herself it had been a game, a moment of recklessness. But the truth was simpler than that: she had kissed me because, for one careless second, she had wanted to.

“We will not talk about this,” she reminded me, tugging her clothes back down primly over her waist. “Not a word.”

And I let her have her way.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Aisla

If anyone were to ask me what it was like to kiss the woman who’d tried to kill me, I’d say it was appalling. Revolting. Absolutely repulsive.

I’d also be a grade A fucking liar.

I’d kissed her. The very woman whose fingers had gripped my neck and squeezed with lethal intent just forty-eight hours ago. Hell, her taste still lingered on my lips.

Stupidstupidstupid

I scolded myself as I hopped off the table and zipped my jacket all the way up to the top of my throat. Damn if she didn’t smile as she watched me erect a flimsy barrier against her wandering fingers.

But that wasn't fair, was it? My fingers had wandered, too, delving into the soft, thick hair at the base of her neck and holding on as though my life depended on it. And the noises I’d made…

So. Fucking. Embarrassing.

I breathed a sigh of relief when she turned away to retrieve her fallen vest.

Without her eyes studying my every move, I stepped up to the spellbook and placed my palm on the cool leather. The magick stirred before my fingers even brushed the surface. A crackling sensation danced along my skin, tiny static shocks prickling at my fingertips. The air smelled different this time, unlike the dark ash that usually emanated from my skin at the first instance of a spell.

I pulled the scent into my lungs, trying to identify it.

Ozone.

Sharp and static like the air before a storm.

Strange—very strange.

As I lifted my fingers from the cover, the front page fell open with a sharp thwack, making me jump. A gust of air burst from its pages, thick with the scent of old that clung to everything in this room. The pages within fluttered wildly, whipping back and forth as though invisible fingers were rifling through them, searching.

It came to an abrupt stop with a muted whoosh.

I stared at the open page, my jaw parted in awe.

Maaya Veli

Jinn stared over my shoulder.

“Has that—” she asked, and I shook my head quickly.

“That’s never happened before. Ever.”

“And the smell—”

“No.” I gulped, looking down at my fingertips. “Never before.”

“It was impressive,” she stated. “Perhaps the spellbook wanted to show us something?”

“It’s not sentient,” I reminded her. “It takes cues from its handler.”

She moved to touch the page then seemed to think twice of it.

“Is this the spell you were looking for?” she asked, eyeing the printed letters.

“Yes.”

My voice had gone whisper-soft.

The ability to control objects—especially one as powerful as our coven’s spellbook—was something we had whispered about as children. A kind of mythical ability that wytches of the past had celebrated but had slowly faded with each new generation.

It had to be a fluke—a one-time thing. Because surely, I would’ve realized I possessed this ability before the ripe old age of thirty.

“Try it again,” Jinn said as though she was reading my thoughts. And perhaps she was. I shot her a bemused look before taking a breath and pressing my fingers onto the page.

A beat passed, then another.

Nothing.

No gust of wind. No flipping pages. The corners barely even lifted.

Disappointment trickled through me.

“Interesting.” Jinn shifted slightly so that her chest brushed my shoulder. “What does it say?”

I tucked my hair behind my ears as I bent low to study the spell.

“I know Mayam means magic,” Jinn said, startling me. “What does the other word mean?”

“How did you know that?”

“I’ve had my brushes with the language over the years,” she said with a shrug. “I’m a lot older than you, in case you need the reminder.”

I eyed her warily before turning back to the spell.

“Veli means gate or barrier. This is a spell to get to the other side,” I explained. It was certainly no coincidence that the spellbook had flipped to this exact page.

“So the spell does exist,” she murmured thoughtfully.

“I never said it didn’t,” I countered. “Just that I didn’t know if it did.”

“Now what?” she asked as I tucked my escaping curls behind my ear again. “Can it be done?”

“It’s not so simple.” I worried the edge of a hangnail as I read the instructions.

“It never is.”

“You don’t understand,” I said, trying to focus on the old language. “It’s not as simple as an online tutorial. Step one, this. Step two, that. I have to decipher it.”

“I see.”

I continued to untangle the words in my mind.

“This is a serious spell,” I murmured.

“I should hope so.”

“No,” I shook my head. “This is forbidden magick… Which is likely why we were never schooled about its existence.”

“What makes it forbidden?”

I winced as I bit a little too deeply into the hangnail.

“Any magick that requires a blood sacrifice is forbidden,” I explained.

“A blood sacrifice like a goat or a virgin?” Jinn asked, amusement curling the corners of her lips. “I thought we’d moved past those centuries.”

“Absolutely not a live sacrifice.” I shook my head. “I’m a vegetarian, for fuck’s sake. I’m not about to kill a goat. I don’t even know where I would get a live goat!”

“I could steal one for you,” Jinn said. “It would be fairly easy.”

“Thanks for the offer,” I quipped with a note of sarcasm. “But the sacrifice they’re talking about is my blood.”

“Yours?” Jinn echoed. “How much of it?”

I read the inscription with a sigh.

“Enough to soak a spirited sickle.”

“I see.”

I glanced over at her. “Do you?”

“Not at all. What does that mean? Hundred mils? Two hundred?”

I tried to imagine two hundred milliliters of my blood creating a dark puddle on the ground. A shudder ran down my spine.

“That’s a lot of blood,” I whispered.

“Thinking of upping your price?”

“No,” I said, pushing her away when she got too close to the spellbook. “But you better leave a bloody huge tip.”

“Anything you wish, little wytch.”

Ugh. She needed to stop calling me that. Each time she said those words, her voice dipped just a little and the endearment landed on my skin like a caress, making my belly tighten.

But Jinn wasn’t the most pressing battle I faced. As I studied the spell, each instruction became more convoluted than the one before.

Except for the diameter of the spellcasting circle—which was supposed to be the breadth of my own span—the rest of the instructions were beyond vague. If I were a cartoon character, little question mark-filled bubbles would have appeared around my head a long time ago.

An unbroken boundary: mark the soil in the breadth of your own span

Feed the blade with your own essence, enough to soak a spirited sickle

Rest under the moon’s silver gift a bowl of still waters, waiting, watching

The sight-givers, the dream-weavers—scatter them to breathe life into the rite

Let the mirror drink of the anointment, then seek the veil where shadows stir

And it all ended with…

Come, come, speak their name to come home

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath, wondering if it was a sin to blaspheme in my sacred covenstead. Probably. But at least there were no elders around to slap my wrist.

“That’s not what I’d like to hear,” Jinn commented.

“Sorry,” I said instinctively and hated myself for the knee-jerk courtesy. There was no need to apologize to her for being unsure of a spell.

“There must be someone you could ask,” she said. “Someone who could help with this.”

My head began to pound. I placed my palm against my forehead, fighting the oncoming headache.

When I spoke, a sigh accompanied the words. “We have an elder here. In town. But…”

“But what?”

“She asked never to be contacted. She wants nothing to do with us.”

“I see.” She met my gaze. “So we should respect her wishes?”

“Mmmm.”

I reached for my phone and began taking a video of the inscriptions.

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” I asked as I tried to capture each detail under the dim light in the room. A part of me was afraid that the old book might turn into dust if I turned the flash on.

“Probably agonizing about getting Belle back. Why?”

I glanced over my shoulder. “Fancy going to the cabaret?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Aisla

When she wasn’t annoying me or turning me on, Jinn was surprisingly good company. She had a droll sense of humor that made my eyes roll more times than not. And she was a quick reader, which helped me run through the elders’ logs in less than half the time it would usually take. We figured that reading up about spells that the elders had cast would help us cover all our bases before we bothered someone who’d explicitly stated she didn’t wish to be associated with the coven anymore.

“Nothing important,” Jinn said, setting the final journal on the table. “And the grammar is… questionable.”

“It’s colloquial Scots,” I explained. “They wrote how they spoke.”

But I was just as disappointed as she was. Not with the grammar, but with our findings, which was a big fat nothing. I’d hoped for a reference to someone having practiced the Maaya Veli spell before, but everything in the browning pages seemed to indicate that my ancestors had been a pillar of virtue when it came to spellcasting. None of them ever dabbled in forbidden magick—or at least, they never documented it.

I wasn’t surprised. The High Coven was strict when it came to “antithetical” behavior, and over the centuries, local wytches had learned many ways to hide their true spellcasting abilities to avoid having their wings clipped.

Jinn picked up a log she’d already read and flipped to a page in the middle.

“Elder Ganga speaks of spellcasting and spellwork as two different things,” she said. “I thought they were one and the same.”

I shook my head.

“Spellwork is something every wytch can do,” I explained. “Like this.”

I brushed my thumb and forefinger together several times in succession before a spark of licky flame rose from my fingertips.

“Touch it,” I urged. A hand holding a fire AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Her brows rose. “You’re asking a vampyre to touch something that could destroy her.”

I brought the flame closer to her chest and internally applauded the fact that she held her ground.

“Trust me.” I couldn’t keep the challenge out of my voice. “Touch it.”

Her open palm hovered over the tip of the flame for a quick second. A frown creased her brow.

“Oh.” She returned for another swipe. “It’s not hot.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not. It’s just a parlor trick. A kind of mirage. Only certain wytches can work with real fire.”

The flame flickered and disappeared.

“Spellwork is foundation-level magick. My elders may have used it for simple tasks like drawing water from the well or stirring a pot on the stove. Little things to make life easier. Casting, on the other hand…”

I glanced at my palms. “It takes a lot more work. A lot more energy. When you hear stories of wytches being persecuted, it’s likely a result of spellcasting. Casting intervenes with divine intention and circumvents events that are supposed to happen. We’re reversing or interfering with fate, and that can be tricky.”

Jinn’s lips flattened into a narrow line.

“A simple example is when a woman comes to us for a love spell or a binding spell to make sure her boyfriend’s eyes don’t wander to other women. But the boyfriend might go from loved-up to obsessive and possessive and violent, which doesn’t align with what the woman initially wanted. This deviation happens because fate didn’t have a happy ending for the couple but the spell twisted their relationship into a forced love that didn’t grow naturally.”

“Round hole, square peg,” Jinn said under her breath.

“Yes, sort of. When a spell is cast, it needs to be in-line with what all parties want. If one person fights it, the spell can go wrong very quickly.”

I crossed my arms over my chest.

“I suppose what I’m asking is… Are you sure Belle wants to return to our world?”

“Yes.” Jinn was quick to respond, mirroring my stance. “And are you up to casting a spell like that?”

“A forbidden spell? With a blood sacrifice?” I asked, hefting the spellbook from its resting place. “I once cut my finger and muttered a spell to stop the bleeding. Does that count?”

Jinn did not look amused.

“Fine,” I muttered under my breath. “Just because I have no experience in pulling people back from the dead doesn’t mean I’m not going to give this spell everything I’ve got.”

She shoved her hands into her coat pockets and sighed.

“That’s all I can ask for, I suppose…”

***

An hour later, I found myself on my knees in the solarium with my jeans scraping uncomfortably against the grotty ground. Beneath me, cracks slithered through the old stone like veins, widening where the earth had shifted over the years. Faded sigils glowed faintly under candlelight. They were stubborn little things that refused to die long after their creators had passed.

Thick white wax from countless burnt-out candles had pooled in hardened puddles, their edges dust-caked and brittle.

I made a mental note to come back during the day for a deep cleaning. Some pink stuff and a scrub daddy would work wonders on this floor.

The grit beneath my knees bit through my jeans, but I forced myself to ignore it. It was hard enough to focus on harnessing the core of my magick without the added discomfort.

When I’d suggested a trial spell, Jinn had quickly agreed. I’d explained that according to the lunar laws, my magick—whatever little I may possess—would not be at its peak until the Cold Moon. But spellcasting was very much like building  muscle. Sure, it might feel strained and achy and sore the first few times, but the more I practiced, the stronger I became… Within my Eclectic abilities, of course.

I’d selected two black and white candles for the occasion. White to represent the living, and black to welcome the dead. Each one had been placed an arm’s width away from me on my left and right. A circle of salt connected each candle, forming a perfect circle with me in the center.

I took a deep breath and considered the next steps.

When it came down to spellcasting, I liked to believe I was decent. After all, Elder Marianna had once said I had potential. Me—potential. But using my abilities for forbidden magick still sat in my belly like a pile of rocks.

An imperfect spell is still better than none at all, I reminded myself.

Right?

Right?

Jinn stared at me from outside the circle, her legs crossed beneath her like a pretzel. That eerie stillness had come over her again as she waited, watching me with an expression that would only be credible for the undead. 

I balanced on my knees, trying to find the little ball of energy that lived in the center of my belly.

“It would be easier to remain patient if you explained what you’re trying to do,” she said, breaking my concentration.

If I were being honest, my concentration had never been spectacular to begin with. Was it my fault that whenever I closed my eyes, all I could see was the softness of Jinn’s lips with those pointed fangs brushing her bottom lip? Absolutely not.

My lack of concentration was entirely her fault.

“I’m trying to access the power in my blood,” I said with a sigh.

As I spoke, I thought of the wytch trials of old and how small, threatened men had claimed all wytches should be eradicated because wytchcraft was a blood-borne disease passed from mother to daughter. I had first heard this story as a teenager, but to this day, it still surprised me that uneducated men from the seventeenth century who knew nothing about science and genetics could have guessed something so very close to the truth.

“Each wytch feels it differently,” I continued. “But for me, it sits in the center of my belly here.”

I curled my fingers into a fist and placed it beneath the center of my breasts.

“The elders use the analogy of a tank. Some say when the tank is full, they feel their magick everywhere in their body. Tingling fingertips, light toes, sometimes even an out-of-body experience.”

“Have you ever felt that?”

I shook my head. “I’m an Eclectic Wytch—jack of all trades, master of none-type situation. I doubt I can amass enough power to fill the tank, but I can get the engine running.”

“Great.”

Did I hear disappointment in her breath?

I speared her with a look. “You’re welcome to seek another wytch for help. I won’t hold it against you.”

Jinn’s cheek twitched. The movement had become familiar now, a telltale sign that I’d hit a nerve.

“Oh wait, the only other wytch you know turned you down, didn’t she?”

The tick grew more insistent, even as the rest of her face remained behind a veil of stillness.

“Just,” she said, her voice little more than an annoyed rumble. “Get on with it.”

The satisfaction of getting under her skin curled through my veins as I adjusted my position and took a deep breath. The scent of damp and old wasn’t particularly pleasant, but I tried to strike it from my mind as I conjured a mental image of both candles at my sides.

“Agni paayattum,” I whispered under my breath.

Let fire strike.

One beat, two.

The first candle ignited with a sudden pop, making me jump. Flames rose in both directions of the circle, cracking and snapping like dry leaves being mashed under a boot. The salt burned with a hiss, tracing a path around me until the circle closed. The black candle came to life with a splutter, its flame thin and reedy, reaching twice as high into the air.

For a moment, the space between us trembled. Jinn’s eyes met mine above the flames.

“This is promising.” To her benefit, she didn’t shy away from the fire.

“Glad you think so.”

With the circle ignited, a soft humming began in my eardrums. I exhaled slowly, brushing a strand of curls back behind my ear.

“Let’s see what else I can do, shall we?”

“It doesn’t bode well that you don’t seem to know your own abilities.”

I shrugged. “My spells work most of the time. It’s enough for me to get by.”

The spellbook still sat open, the vague instructions staring up at me. It glowed lightly under the candlelight, just enough to make out the words.

“Well,” I said, making the decision to thumb through the list of spells. “I can certainly try something simpler.”

I paused on a page that had been slightly dog-eared, reading over the words that were slightly too cursive.

“A healing spell,” I said aloud, tracing my fingers over each loopy letter. “Cast this spell to ease physical and emotional discomfort.”

I glanced over at Jinn, expecting a reaction. Her features hadn’t changed. She continued to watch me, her gaze cool and her legs crossed beneath her in a perfect loop.

“Would you object to me trying this out on you?” I asked, watching as a single brow rose.

“And what could that possibly accomplish?”

“Healing.” I resisted the urge to follow up with a typically American duh. Instead, I said: “Maybe it’ll help ease the grief and pain after… You know.”

“I don’t need that.”

“Of course you don’t.” I wondered if she could see my eyes roll as I studied the instructions. “But what harm could it do?”

“That’s something for you to answer.”

True.

“Just…” I met her gaze. “Sit still and let me work.”

“All right.” Her spine lost a bit of its starch. “I’d appreciate it if you tried not to kill me.”

That was a difficult ask, but I refused to say anything out loud to make her lose her trust in me.

I took a deep breath, feeling the air travel through my lungs in an infinite loop. The spellbook was surprisingly warm as I placed my palm on the open pages, letting it speak to me.

“Create a summoning circle using powdered chalk made from ground human bones—preferably ethically sourced.”

I bit my lip, staring to make sure I’d read the words correctly.

“How would one ethically source ground human bones?” Jinn questioned, rightly so.

A touch of sweat tingled at my brow. “Not possible. In this day and age, chalk and salt will have to do.”

I pulled the spellbook a little closer, reading aloud: “Draw a summoning circle with seven distinct layers. Each layer represents a different kind of healing: flesh, bone, blood, breath, mind, soul, and whatever else feels right at the time.”

Jinn waited patiently as I expanded the circles, the chalk scraping against the ground.

“Sit in the center with a silver coin in your left hand.”

I felt around my pockets, knowing full well that the last time I’d used cash was in 2020.

“Here,” Jinn said, handing me a fifty pence coin. I accepted it gratefully and cupped it in my left hand, shutting my eyes to concentrate.

“Say the afflicted’s name backward seven times while tapping the coin against your teeth.”

I popped open one eye to find Jinn studying me intently.

“I need your full name for the spell.”

She hesitated only a second before saying: “Jeanette Waters.”

Ah, the nickname made sense now. Perhaps it had nothing to do with evil tricksters.

It took us a minute to figure out what that would sound like backwards, but as I pronounced the odd string of letters and tapped the coin against my teeth seven times, nothing happened.

“I guess that it’s not—”

Before I could finish the sentence, a low rumble rolled through the ceiling, deep and menacing like the growl of a beast that was waking up angry. A sharp, splintering sound split the air and a shudder past through the solarium, rattling the walls, the floor, and every bone in my body.

Jinn got to her feet too quickly for me to process.

“What is happening?”

Dust fell in lazy spirals at first, drifting like snowfall until the shaking worsened. As the stones overhead vibrated, the dust poured down—thick, dry, choking. It caught in my hair, dusted my shoulders, slipped into my eyes. A single, ominous fragment of rock dislodged and hit my temple, sharp enough to sting, and I flinched, throwing my arms over my head.

The circle around me flickered and spluttered before fizzling out.

Overhead, the stones grew still again.

When I dared to look up, Jinn’s gaze bore into me, disappointment flecked in their dark depths.

I stood, dusting myself off as casually as I could.

“I meant to do that.”

Which was, of course, a bald-faced lie.

I swallowed against the grit in my throat, staring up at the ceiling, waiting. For more dust. For more shaking. For the whole bloody thing to come crashing down.

Instead, the rocks held still.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t improvise,” Jinn said into the silence, sounding as though her teeth were clenched tight.

“It’s not improvising, it’s adapting,” I corrected her. “Besides, I’m not going to find human bones to grind.”

“Because you’re a vegetarian?” Jinn parroted my earlier rebuttal.

“Because I can’t bring myself to desecrate a dead person like that.”

Jinn scoffed as though she didn’t have the same qualms.

I ran a hand over my jacket, sending dust and debris flying in every direction, but Jinn moved with infuriating grace—a careful brush over each shoulder, a methodical sweep down each sleeve, a single smooth motion through her hair to dislodge the smattering of dust without a single wrinkle to her clothes. I, on the other hand, shook myself like a dog pulling itself out of a lake. Very dignified.

“It would be wise to consult your elder before attempting another spell.”

She didn’t even try to conceal the doubt in her voice as she crossed her arms over her chest with her brows arched skeptically.

Could I blame her? She was paying me to cast a spell—an important one at that—and my first attempt had gone more than awry.

“Wait.” I glanced around the circle. “Where’s the coin?”

“Maybe it’s buried under a pile of dust.”

“No.” I unclenched my fist. “It was in my palm. I know it—I felt it digging into me a minute ago.”

“Maybe you dropped it.”

“A coin clattering against stone? We would have heard it. Right?”

I sifted through the dust on the ground with the edge of my boot, but there was nothing left save salt and grit.

Strange.

“What does that mean?” Jinn asked, watching me warily. “Has someone or… something… accepted the offering?”

“I can’t say for sure, given that the spell didn’t go as planned.”

I dragged a hand through my curls and found it matted with dust. Lovely.

“I should try again.” I bit my lip, tasting the unpleasantness of centuries-old grit. “Maybe a simpler spell.”

“Is that safe—”

“Look,” I interjected. “Spellcasting is like a muscle—something that must be trained and stretched and strengthened. The more I practice, the better I become. Repetition builds control.”

I flexed my fingers, letting the tips rasp against each other to test the magick under my skin. There was still some static there, some friction. Enough to keep going.

If I didn’t test my boundaries or push past what I thought I could do, I’d never know how strong I was. No one had ever given me a reason to test my limits before, but now, with my freedom on the line, I couldn’t think of a better time to flex my magickal muscles.

Before that…

A low pulse of energy spread from my fingertips—slow at first, then sharper, stronger. The dust shivered and stirred, rising from the ground in a layer of murky grey, hovering in the air for long seconds.

Clear.

The word was sharp and steady in my mind, and I pushed the intention forward.

In a swirl that mimicked the core of a tornado, the dust swooped upward, moving towards the ceiling and scattering into oblivion.

“That,” Jinn said, staring at the ceiling. “Was impressive.”

It was a simple spell—the kind we would use to hoover the house instead of doing any actual cleaning, but I enjoyed the surprise in Jinn’s voice.

The solarium was now cleaner than before, although the dried herbs and other forgotten debris still lined the corners.

“I am capable of some things,” I said drily, stepping back into the parameters of the circle and making myself comfortable in the middle. “Spellwork is easy. The intention comes from here.”

I placed a hand on my belly.

“Spellcasting, on the other hand, relies on both innate ability and external forces. That’s why a sacrifice is necessary. The coin is a good example of that.”

“Or blood,” Jinn pointed out.

“Only for forbidden spells.”

She hesitated as I drew the spellbook closer, thumbing through it in search of something simpler.

“What?” I asked without glancing up. “I can feel you wanting to say something.”

“It’s probably unwise of me to ask this of you considering what just happened, but could you try to cast a forbidden spell? Tonight?”

My gaze snapped to hers, caught off guard.

“We don’t have much time before the solstice,” she continued. “If you’d like to practice, I’d rather you chose spells that are similar to The Retractare.”

Fair, I thought, my palms growing slick. It was a valid suggestion, but one that made my heart flutter with a sudden burst of nerves. And without a doubt, I knew that the vamp had picked up on the quickening in my chest.

“Yes,” I said with conviction I didn’t feel. “A similar spell…”

A flicker of doubt stirred in my chest, insidious and sharp, as Jinn’s eyes tracked my every movement. Assessing, waiting. Was she expecting me to fail?

I refused to let her see how doubt had replaced oxygen in my lungs. Instead, I focused on holding my posture steady and my back straight, keeping my expression carefully neutral, even as uncertainty curled tight in my stomach. My hands stilled between the pages of the old book, and I worried that the moment I lifted them, they’d start to tremble.

Jinn said nothing, and somehow, that was worse. No criticism, no reassurance, just a strange disquiet.

Something rough lodged in my throat as I swallowed.

Don’t panic, I told myself, but the words quickly turned into a looping nightmare.

A gold shadow traced an outline around my palm and the pages of the spellbook pressed up against me in a hurry to be tuned. I pulled my hand away and the pages shuffled in a non-existent breeze, landing on a spell that had four short lines.

As forbidden spells went, it was a minor one.

To Summon A Whisperling

Draw a circle using charcoal and salt, ensuring there are no breaks.

Place a mirror in the center of the circle, fog it with your breath, and trace an eye from one end to the other.

Offer a palm-sized cloth stained with your blood.

Light a candle three times to signal to the whisperling that you’re ready.

“Wait here,” I told Jinn, disappearing into the library to gather the materials.

Jinn watched me work when I settled back into the circle, her eyes tracking me as I placed each item carefully on the ground and marked out the perimeter of the summoning circle.

In my right hand, I gripped the charcoal, and in my left was a big handful of salt. Crouching low, I placed the corner of the charcoal pointing true north and let a tiny stream of salt pour from my fingers. Black and white lines marked the ground as I moved, following the lines I had already marked in chalk earlier. My fingertips tingled lightly at first, like the brush of static before a thunderstorm. But as the salt and charcoal lines reached a half-circle and continued toward completion, the sensation deepened into pins and needles prickling just beneath my skin.

When the lines met at the top of the circle, the white candle sputtered to life.

“Is that supposed to happen?” Jinn asked.

I bit my lip, unsure.

“Maybe?” I ventured, forcing myself not to pause and second guess each move.

I placed the chalk and the leftover salt at the top of the circle, ignoring the way the flakes clung uncomfortably to my skin as though unwilling to let go.

The mirror was old, possibly something from the fifties, and it looked a little distorted as I brought it up to my face. It was barely as big as my palm.

I leaned in quickly, parting my lips so that my breath feathered against the glass. The cold swallowed it too quickly, leaving only the faintest whisper of mist. I filled my lungs slower this time and exhaled again, watching as a fragile bloom of fog spread every which way… And held.

Yes!

Without wasting a single second, I traced the outline of an eye with the tip of my finger, surprised to find that the glass had warmed significantly. When I drew the shape of the pupil, the silver edges around the mirror turned to a beaming gold.

Just outside the circle, I thought I saw Jinn’s lips twitch into a smile, but surely that was wishful thinking on my part.

So close, I thought, picking up the old cloth and finding the texture strange and brittle in my hands.

Palm-sized cloth stained with your blood.

Grabbing a frayed edge, I ripped it down to size. The threads barely resisted, coming apart under the slightest provocation.

I tested the size to make sure it fit in my hands.

Perfect.

Now, for a drop of blood…

I pressed my fingertips together, feeling the magick jump against my skin, surprisingly restless and eager. Heat bloomed where my fingers met, and a tiny sharp bite made me flinch.

Dark and glistening, a single drop of blood welled from my thumb. It spread on the threadbare cloth like a network of crimson veins.

Shit.

I glanced up sharply.

How could I have forgotten my very undead, very blood-motivated audience?

I found her eyes trained onto me, to my hands, to the cloth where the blood continued to spread. Her pupils had dilated, black swallowing color, red lining the starkness, and her lips parted just enough to catch a negligible hint of fangs.

Not bared. Not lunging. Not a threat.

Just there, sharp and white against the pink of her lips like a promise. 

She leaned forward slightly, her spine bending in my direction. I watched, unsure, as her nostrils flared with one deep breath, and a look of bliss spread across her features. It was as though she could already taste it… Already taste me.

Her fingers twitched where they lay on her thighs, betraying the effort it took to keep herself in check as the scent of blood rose in the air.

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips—a flicker of motion. A tell.

She was savoring it—the smell of my blood.

Savoring me.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Her lips glistened, pink and wet.

“Just fine, little wytch.” Her voice was deeper than I remembered, with a rasp that curled deep in my belly. “Continue.”

I moved almost mechanically, setting the bloodied cloth next to the mirror. With a flick of my fingers, I lit the candle then snuffed it out, repeating the process three more times, until…

“What do you want?!”

I started visibly as a high voice spoke too close to my ear. The sudden motion forced me to tip forward and lose my balance.

My palm landed on the edge of the charcoal line, my pinky almost breaking the circle.

“Watch yourself!”

Jinn was on her feet at the edge of salt line, although there was nothing she could’ve done to help if I had mistakenly broken it.

We both turned toward the annoyed voice, watching as the whisperling flicked invisible lint off her puffy white skirt with clawed fingers.

Barely two feet tall, she was a perfect copy of the sketch in the spellbook with eyes too large for her face and lips that lent her a bird-like look.

“Oh, hell no,” she cursed in her too-high voice as she glanced around the solarium. “You can’t expect me to put this place to rights. Just scrubbing the floors will take me years!”

She shot me an accusatory glare, moving around the room in quick, unnatural bursts. One moment, she was utterly still, her eyes dark with anger, and the next, she flickered across the solarium like a candle flame caught in a draft.

The slight humming sound made sense when she turned around to reveal a small pair of wings that fluttered with silver magick.

“I don’t expect you to put this place to rights,” I said, parroting her words. “I, uh—”

I glanced at Jinn, hoping for some help.

“We need your help to figure out a spell,” Jinn said, surprising me with her quick thinking.

“That’s not something I do,” the whisperling quipped. “Did you even read about my skills before you summoned me and wasted my time?”

“I was trying out a spell,” I explained. “But since you’re here, could you list the type of things you can do?”

She sighed, glancing at her claws. “I’m a hearth creature. I clean, I cook, I decapitate. Now, do you need any of those services?”

Jinn and I glanced at each other.

“No,” we said in unison.

“Fine, then. Hand me my payment,” she said, holding out a hand. When I didn’t move, she pointed to the ground. “The cloth. Hand me the cloth. Now, please.”

The moment her clawed fingers ripped the cloth from my hands, her lip stretched wide, too wide, splitting up the sides of her face. Rows of needle-thin teeth gleamed wetly as she bit down on the stained cloth, not chewing, not savoring just… Devouring.

She shuddered as she fed, limbs shaking as the cloth disappeared between her lips.

“Not bad at all,” she flicked her tongue along one claw as though mopping up anything that remained of the cloth. Her features relaxed into an innocent smile.

“If you don’t need me, you have to dismiss me,” she said, speaking slowly as though we were children in need of schooling.

“Right,” I said. “Dismissed.”

She disappeared with a pop of silver.

When I looked up at Jinn, there was a strange look on her face.

“What?” I asked, trying to decipher the slight pursing of her lips.

“I’m thinking that you’re far more talented than you give yourself credit for, little wytch.”

Oh.

Was there anything I could have done to prepare myself for unexpected praise? I think not.

I tried to keep my face neutral, tried to ignore the way my pulse fluttered in response, but the warmth of her words only deepened as it settled around my heart. Fuck, this felt dangerously close to joy, and I wanted to hold on to it as though the words could be kept somewhere safe beneath my skin.

Instead, I swallowed hard and pretended to keep myself busy by gathering the items off the ground.

“Thanks,” I murmured under my breath. “I hope that proved to you that I’m capable of casting a forbidden spell.”

“It’s promising.”

The words brought heat to my cheeks.

“Once we speak to Elder Anitha, I’ll do another practice round with you tomorrow.”

I pushed to my feet and walked quickly to the vault, hoping Jinn wasn’t watching as I replaced the spellbook in its assigned slot with a less-than-sophisticated jump.

No other words passed between us until we were back on the street. The snow under our boots had turned to wet, brown-flecked sludge.

“Earlier,” Jinn said, halting me as I turned to walk down the narrow alleyway. “You talked about filling a tank with your magick. Do you know how to fill it?”

I shrugged. “Could be anything, really. As an Eclectic, I don’t draw power from one source like most people do. While I’m in the covenstead, I usually use energy generated by the pain and suffering of the trapped beings in the museum, but power can come from anywhere. Anger and guilt are strong sources, so is joy and love and all things beautiful. And, of course, we can also draw significant power from—”

Sex.

The words fell away abruptly.

I looked at my boots, unable to meet her inky gaze, but something in her stance told me she knew exactly what I was going to say.

I coughed into my palm.

“Anyway.” I took one step back, then another. “I hope Elder Anitha will have more information for us tomorrow.”

“Right. At the cabaret.”

More snow crunched underfoot.

“Yes.” I tucked a strand of curls behind my ears. “Um, see you then.”

I raised my palm in goodbye, but it sat between us awkwardly. Why did it feel so weird to say goodbye?

This wasn’t a date.

But for a non-date situation, we had done a few things that made it feel like a date—a much better date than any I’d been on recently. 

I shoved my hands into my jacket and turned to leave.

“See you tomorrow, little wytch.”

Curse it all, I should really hate those words, but all I could think about was the way she’d whispered them as she’d dragged her tongue against mine.

Ugh.

Stupidstupidstupid.

I could only hope I wouldn’t make the same mistake tomorrow…

…but even as the thought entered my mind, I knew I absolutely would.

Self-control was overrated anyway.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jinn

I was almost back at the Northern Nest when my phone chimed.

“Jinn, sweetling, how are you?”

Indira’s voice curled through the connection, drawing a grimace from my lips.

“Fine.” The word was too gruff. Why was it always a challenge to keep my true feelings bottled around Indira? It was hardly a chore around everyone else.

Perhaps it was because she was one of the few who remembered me for who I was—someone who had witnessed me in my rawest form. Before the powers, before the strength, before vampyrism offered me an exalted life, I had been yet another stain on the streets.

And Indira looked at me as though I still was.

Jeanette Waters, not Jinn. Not the persona I had so carefully carved out of several deep layers of trauma.

Most people only saw me as I was now: powerful, composed, invulnerable. They feared me or admired me, but they never truly saw me. And that was a relief. It was easier to maintain control, to stay above the chaos, when no one could pick apart the cracks.

But Indira? She’d seen them. She’d been there when I was at my weakest, before I’d learned to mask my insecurities, before I knew how to wield my shadows like a shield.

“I thought you’d be home today,” she said, the words far too calm. “Imagine my surprise when your assistant tells me you’re going to be up north for a few more days.”

“Do you need me home for a reason?”

“Do you need to be there for a reason?” she countered. “Surely you’ll feel better if you heal at home.”

“I’m taking my time with it. Healing, I mean.”

“Are you?” There was something in her voice, something that sounded vaguely like suspicion.

I decided to turn the conversation around. “Did you need me for something in particular?”

“I always need you, darling,” she said. “But in this case, I suppose I’m worried about you.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Isn’t there? Belle’s gone, after all.”

There wasn’t a single note of sympathy.

“Yes.”

“And we all know how much you loved her,” she continued. There was the sound of clinking glass in the background. “I’ve said it time and again—your heart is too soft, Jinn, especially for those who weaken our bloodline.”

“Is that all?” I asked, numb to her words. She had said worse about Belle countless times before.

“No,” Indira continued. “We need to speak about standards.”

“Tonight?” I asked, irritation curling through my veins. “What kind of standards?”

“If you wish to turn anyone else, they need to meet a certain criteria.”

“I don’t wish to—”

“Be that as it may, I cannot simply let you turn the unworthy. It’s been over forty years since you turned Belle, and you still can’t grasp the wrongness of what you did, or how you’ve tainted the bloodline.”

“Oh, I understand,” I said, clenching my teeth. “I understand that it’s been over forty years and you’re still lecturing me about it.”

“Because the consequences are not yours to shoulder, but mine,” she said, a slight edge to her voice. “You turned an unworthy vamp. You invited weakness into our bloodline. And for what? A moment of sentiment? A fleeting attachment?"

“She has potential. You simply refuse to see it.”

“Had,” Indira corrected almost gleefully. “You of all people should know exactly how our blood works. The act of turning someone is bigger than you, bigger than me.”

“I wished to save Belle. She was dying, and I wanted to—”

“She was a drug addict,” Indira hissed into the phone, any ounce of pretence vanishing from her voice. “One who didn’t know how to contain her urge for the muted highs humans receive from chemicals. Turning such a creature into one of us was your folly, Jinn. The addictions we battle are far worse.”

I chose to say nothing in return.

“I suppose I should be grateful that Belle never tried to turn anyone before the boy. Could you imagine the chaos? Her tainted blood mingling with someone else’s?” she chuckled.

“If you called to express your sympathy, I think you’ve veered down the wrong path,” I said pointedly.

“You know me too well to mistake any of my words for sympathy.”

And that was the reason I chose to keep the true motive behind staying in Edinburgh a secret from Indira. Because I knew, without a doubt, that if she found out about my interest inThe Retractare, she would do everything in her power to stop me. Her deep-seated, irrational hatred for Belle would force her to intervene, and if she stood in my way, there would be no getting past her.

She was centuries older than me, and far too powerful for her own good.

“Come home,” she said before cutting the call.

I stared at the blank screen, resisting the urge to fling the phone at the nearest wall. Every single conversation with Indira depleted the waning patience I had so carefully amassed.

I shook my head, sliding the phone back into the pocket before it met its end on the pavement.

Just forty-eight hours, I told myself. And Belle would be back with me.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Aisla

The idea of rest was strange.

The last couple of days had been particularly wild. I’d been chased and strangled and threatened and kissed within an inch of my life, but now… I was lying in my own bed as though nothing had happened.

Other than my bruised knees and banged-up head—all very coverable injuries—I looked absolutely…

Normal.

I clutched a towel to my chest, staring at my reflection in the smudgy mirror. Maia had a bad habit of touching the glass when she gave herself a pep talk in it, and the floor-length mirror was constantly covered in her fingerprints. I told myself I didn’t care.

Especially now, when I couldn’t figure out where my head was.

I’d done everything according to my routine—had my supper, brewed a cup of honey tea with a dash of lavender, washed the grime from the covenstead away, but something felt… Off.

I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Maybe it was the change of routine. After all, I was used to the stability and predictability of set hours.

I watched myself sigh in the mirror, the towel lifting and falling along with my chest. The scrap of cloth was threadbare and a little too small for my generous hips, but I’d never gotten around to buying a new one. I often told myself I should, but I’d just as soon forget the moment I set foot into a store.

The bruises were getting worse. I studied them in the mirror as I let the towel drop. They’d been dark red before, the color of a blush under the deep tone of my skin. But now they looked more mottled and purple. Anyone looking at them would be able to tell they were distinct finger marks.

Fuck.

Footsteps down the hall made me reach for the discarded shirt I was using as pajamas. I pulled it over my head as Maia walked through the door.

“Thought you could use this.”

She handed me the smallest gummy bear I’d ever seen. I stared at it in the cup of my palm, its neon green silhouette looking back at me.

“Thanks?” I ventured, unsure about her sudden stinginess. We’d often shared family-sized bags of sweets.

“It’s a gummy,” she said. “To help you sleep. I made it myself in the lab.”

“That’s good use of High Coven property,” I joked, trying to hand it back to her. “But the last thing I need is sugar right now. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

She tilted her head like a little bird, watching as I tried to hand her the gummy.

“Aisla. It’s a CBD gummy. Take it. It’ll help you relax. You said yourself that you barely got any sleep last night.”

Oh. Realization dawned as I blinked down at the unassuming bear. I’d never been one for recreational drugs, but this was promising. And Maia was right—I was too wired to get any true rest.

“It’s only a small dose,” she assured me. “I’ll let you decide if you want to take it. No pressure.”

She let herself out, shutting the door behind her.

“Goodnight!”

My hair was drying at the ends, the warmth from the radiators making them stand up as though called by static.

Ah, fuck it.

I placed the gummy on my tongue and swallowed it quickly.

My muscles protested in tandem with the bedsprings as I lowered myself to the thick quilt. My legs and back were still sore from the day before. Between the running and slipping and being-thrown-up-against-a-fence-and-splintering-it, every part of me screamed for rest.

It took me a while to find a comfortable position, but once I did, my fingers instinctively reached beneath my pillow for a book.

The Vampyre’s Tryst

It was the last instalment in a series of queer bodice rippers from my favorite indie author. Two nights ago, I’d thought nothing of indulging in a little fictional fang play before bed, but now, it all seemed too real.

I flipped the paperback open and glanced at the words on the page.

“Say it, Ari,” Camilla breathed, propping herself up on her elbows. “You let me into your body, but you need to invite me into your heart.”

“But.” Ari’s eyes widened. “I’m not sure if I’m ready for that yet.”

Camilla’s touch drew shivers from the human. “An eternity with me. With us. What can be better than that?”

The words began to swim. I glanced around the room and everything was covered in a hazy sheen.

Lights, I thought, but couldn’t be bothered to get up.

My last thought was that Maia’s CBD gummy better not give me nightmares…

***

When I next opened my eyes, the room was dark and the book was spread open across my bare chest. The clock on my nightstand glowed a little after five in the morning.

As I reached across the bed to turn off the lamp, something shifted in the darkness—a fluid shadow that rippled like smoke. Breath caught in my throat as dark eyes appeared, gleaming like twin pools of midnight, cold and unblinking.

I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.

“How the fuck did you get in here?” I scrambled for my duvet and pulled it up to my neck. “I didn’t invite you in. You can’t be in my house if I didn’t explicitly invite you in!”

“Invite me?” Her voice was different—silken and smooth without a hint of threat. “I don’t need to be invited into your dreams, little wytch.”

That made me pause as I tried to inch back on the bed. “Dream?”

“You’re looking at me as though this is some kind of trick.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You tell me.” She shrugged. “It’s your subconscious.”

I glanced around the room, looking for something that would indicate that this was the fantasy she insisted it was. Perhaps a faerie lounged in the corner or a bookcase floated in mid-air. But everything was as it should be, except for my pajamas, which lay at the edge of the bed.

“Why am I naked?” I blurted, trying to wrap my duvet more securely around my chest.

My question only brought forth another shrug. “It wasn’t my choice for you to be naked.”

“You mean to tell me that I want to sit here without a stitch of clothing on?”

“Don’t you?”

“No!” I insisted. “Especially not around someone like you.”

“Is that right?”

My hands fisted in the covers as she left her perch by the window and sat on the edge of my bed. Thin fingers, pale and lithe, reached in my direction…

…only to pick up the half-read paperback.

“This is an interesting choice of literature.” She studied the artwork, which depicted the two main characters in stages of undress. “For someone who kills vamps for a living.”

“Neutralizes,” I murmured under my breath.

“Use whatever word you want,” she said, draping herself across the foot of the bed. “You’re reading fictitious pornography about the very people you kill.”

I reached forward to snatch the book out of her hands, but she held it steady.

How strange it was to see her here—casual, almost nonchalant—as she lay on my patchwork quilt in her sturdy brown wool vest and crisp white shirt. Her lean frame was devoid of the tension and anger and depravity I’d witnessed firsthand. Now, she looked almost… Soft. Like she had in the covenstead when she kissed me.

Fuck, maybe this was a dream… A life-like sequence meant to mess with my head.

“I don’t have to explain anything to you,” I said, trying to disguise the fact that I was tracing her luminescent skin with my gaze. “You’re not my therapist.”

“I’m surprised you have one,” she quipped, casually turning the pages of the paperback. “What do you think they’ll say about dreaming of the person who wanted to kill you?”

I tried to snatch the book away again, but she moved back too quickly for my average human speed.

“Nothing I don’t already know,” I replied with a sigh.

“Which is?”

“That I likely have PTSD from almost being murdered.”

She set the book on the bed as she studied me.

“I don’t think you understand how PTSD works,” she began, pushing her fringe out of her face. “It generally involves flashbacks or triggers related to the trauma. Watching your attacker lounge in your bed isn’t PTSD.”

“I can process my traumas however I want,” I insisted.

“True.” She glanced back down at the book. “But you’ve chosen to do it naked in my presence.”

A flush of heat crawled up my neck and heated my cheeks. Damn it, why was it that I couldn’t escape a blush even in my dreams?

“Could it be that you wanted to act out a scene from this very interesting book?”

I shook my head, glancing away from the amusement I saw in her gaze.

“Because fang play sounds rather fun,” she teased.

“It’s fiction.”

My protest was lackluster and I knew it.

“Is it?” she countered. “Don’t you think the author was inspired by reality?”

My gaze dropped to her fangs.

“Because it’s fairly common among my kind to want to mark their territory.”

“What do you mean?”

Why the hell had I asked a follow-up question?

“Love bites,” she said with a quirk of her lips. “We like to leave our mark everywhere. From your throat down to the turn of your ankles.”

Her fingers found my calf under the cover and brushed it lightly.

I froze.

“You bite people’s ankles like a dog?” I asked, refusing to give in to the sultry look in her eyes.

“Not quite like a dog,” she replied. “I promise you.”

An image flashed in my brain with Jinn on her knees between my bare thighs, my ankle hiked up to her lips as she sank her fangs into the vein that pulsed there. A quiver gave away the direction of my thoughts.

“Little wytch,” she said, her fingers rising to the buttons on her vest and undoing them with unnerving slowness. “Is it possible that you’re wet for me?”

No.

The protest stuck in my throat.

“Hmm? Are you trembling at the thought of having my fangs in you?”

Stop.

Her vest fell away, leaving her in the puffy white shirt that made it abundantly clear she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Remember our little game from earlier?” she said tugging at the tiny buttons.

“What game?”

I knew exactly what game she spoke of, but I didn’t wish to give her the satisfaction.

Her smile flashed in the lamplight. “The game where you prove to me that you aren’t affected by me.”

“Uh-huh.”

Words failed me as more buttons came undone in rapid succession.

“I think we should continue. Don’t you?”

“I…”

Shit. She was pale everywhere like liquid moonlight and the lightest silk. I heard my gulp echo between us as she tugged the shirt from her shoulders and let it fall away.

Deep pink nipples stood out from her chest, tight and hard as though they were waiting to be suckled. Her breasts hugged her chest as she moved across the bed.

“Now,” she said, rising above me on her knees. “Open your legs and prove to me just how much I don’t affect you.”

“What?” I could barely hear her over the erratic thumping of my heart.

“You heard me, little wytch,” she breathed. “Let go of that quilt and open for me.”

There were so many reasons I shouldn’t.

Reason one: she’d tried to murder me.

Reason two: I didn’t trust her.

Reason three: she was clearly dangerous.

Reason four: letting her see me naked would change everything between us.

And yet…

The look in her eyes was making it difficult to breathe.

Her fingers fisted in the quilt, tugging it away with a slow, deliberate slide.

“Say no,” she said, a challenge in her tone. 

I should say no.

Instead, I watched, biting my bottom lip as the quilt slid down past my neck, my breasts, my belly, my core, my thighs, her eyes following every inch of skin that was revealed. The quilt pooled on the floor with a soft whoosh.

Jinn sat back on her haunches, her gaze lingering on the gold bars through my nipples then dropping to the curly bush between my thighs. I searched her face for cues—did she like the fact that I was unshaved? Did it repulse her? Was she thinking that flossing was important but not like this?

If she had a problem with a little bush—okay, fine, an overgrown bush—then she could go fuck hers—

“Open,” she said, her voice holding the same command that it had earlier this evening in the covenstead. There was something about the lower register that made my belly quiver. The backs of her fingers brushed my knees.

I’d clenched them together, unwilling to lose her game so quickly, but I knew the moment she saw the wetness smeared across my thighs, she’d know exactly how much she affected me.

She was about to win her twisted little game.

I’d argue that she had set me up for failure. Clearly, she knew how her proximity impacted me. Between the almost-choking-me-to-death and kissing-me-until-I-couldn’t-breathe, I was certain she knew how conflicted I was about the desire that churned in my belly.

She was toying with me yet again. I was the mouse to her cat. A deer to her lion. A little weakling human wytch to her undead strength.

A smug smile curled her lips.

“There’s no shame in losing.”

The backs of her knuckles traveled down my thighs, cool and steady.

Under the heat of her gaze, my legs parted. I could only hope the shadows in the room would partially hide how wet I was. But when I dared a glance down, the golden glow of the lamplight flowed like a halo around my sex, illuminating every single detail in painful magnification.

How? What?

I glanced around, looking for the source of light, but couldn’t find any reason why my pussy would be lit up like that.

“Oh.”

Except it wasn’t a simple Oh that escaped her lips. It was a deep exhale, a reverent breath, the kind a churchgoer would utter in a prayer.

“Give me a taste, little wytch,” she rasped. “Stick your fingers in your pussy and slide it against my tongue.”

Fireworks speared through my blood with each filthy word from her lips.

When I hesitated, she added: “Do it. Now.”

And I did.

Under her watchful gaze, my fingers slid down over my belly and my curls, dipping between the wetness that glistened under the light-from-nowhere. How was I already so swollen, so red, so fucking messy?

“Inside,” she reminded me, watching my fingers’ progress.

I found the overflowing opening and pressed a single finger inside, feeling my core clench at the welcome intrusion. Another digit followed quickly and my hips moved in tandem, wanting more. Needing more.

When I finally pulled my fingers free, she dipped low to take them into her mouth. She licked away every last drop with relish, lingering over the final suckle of my fingertips.

“Perfect,” she said. “Now, again.”

Fuck, how had it come down to this? Her palms held my knees open as my fingers slicked over my core, seeking the usual spots that sent me over the edge.

Faster, faster.

Deeper.

The bedsprings creaked beneath me as my hips rose to meet my fingers. Each thrust ended in a wet squelch that might have embarrassed me in other circumstances. But as she watched me, her gaze focused on my core, her fangs lengthening against her bottom lip, I couldn’t bring myself to feel an ounce of self-consciousness.

I wanted this. She wanted this. And besides, it was just a dream, wasn’t it?

Every angle of her body was poised and taut, waiting for my release, demanding my release.

The only thing better would be the touch of her cool fingers in the place I needed her most…

I brought my free hand down to bracket my clit, squeezing the nub as I thrust as deeply as my fingers would go.

Motherfucker.

Sharp and hard, release spiked through me, each shard raking through my limbs and stealing my breath. Through it all, the vision of her hungry gaze swam blearily in front of me, the darkness of her eyes outlined in a devilish red.

I’d consider myself sexually adventurous… within reason. I liked toys and other kinky things. But having someone watch with barely veiled hunger while I touched myself was surely one of the hottest things I’d ever done.

No words.

There were no words.

I was so focused on re-learning how to breathe that I didn’t catch the shadow in the corner of the room, watching us.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Aisla

The remnants of my dream lingered when I meandered downstairs the next day.

“Morning,” I said, stifling a yawn as I stepped into the living room. It was comfortably warm with the smell of fresh woodfire and the tang of the cauldron.

Brodie, finally back home for the weekend, was curled up on the windowsill. Anaia snoozed at his feet as he scribbled something fiercely into a notebook.

“It’s three in the afternoon,” he said without glancing up.

I shrugged.

“Feels like morning to me. What are you working on?”

The carpet was soft as I settled on the floor and picked up Brodie’s mug of black tea. It was still lukewarm. The taste was one-dimensional, but at least he had opted for a loose leaf blend rather than a shitty tea bag.

“I’m outlining the different facets of toxic femininity in wytch culture.”

I stared at him with a mouthful of tea before gulping it down quickly.

“What?”

“You heard me,” he said, shooting me a glance over his notebook. “You just have a hard time digesting the information.”

“Well, aye.” I swallowed quickly. “What do you mean you’re writing about our culture? For your PhD?”

“No, you know I can’t do that.” He sighed. “This is just for… general knowledge.”

I tugged my curls back behind my ears.

“Do you really think it’s toxic?”

He scoffed. “I am a male wytch who has not been given leave to use the term warlock. What do you think?”

“I think the High Council isn’t equipped to handle their wytches transitioning. Remember the look on Mariana’s face when you told her?”

His features twisted to mimic shock, surprise and concern.

“Och, well, if you think that’s best for you…” he imitated in her tone.

“That might be difficult for admin,” I mimicked, although my version of Mariana was much less believable.

“Do you think you could use your pronouns just between us?”

He rolled his eyes as he spoke.

“She wasn’t very supportive, was she?” I grumbled. “None of the Elders have been.”

“Because our covens revolve so staunchly around femininity. Any inclusion of masculine traits is not just frowned upon, it’s—”

He paused, grappling for the right word.

“Taboo?” I supplied. Brodie scribbled the word onto the paper and underlined it three times.

“Everything we do is centered around wytches being female. We’re forced by the High Council to take our mother’s names, even when some have tried to protest this. We consider cis men nothing but donors. Hell, even our spells are sometimes gendered when it simply doesn’t have to be!” He flicked his short curls out of his face. “And we wonder why there are only a few of us left.”

I sipped on the last dregs of tea as I thought, letting the bitterness spread over my tongue.

“While that could be one explanation for our numbers dropping over the years, I think genetics has something to do with it as well,” I said. “Our powers aren’t as strong as they once were, and when the High Council removed the law that it was necessary for each wytch to produce an heir, many simply chose not to. Look at me.” I gestured to myself, hoping that the fluffy robe wouldn’t fall open. “My grandmother was able to lead this coven, and I can barely remember important spells.”

“Only because you keep DNR-ing our spellbooks,” Brodie retorted.

“Excuse me?”

“You lose interest in them and walk away.”

“Did you mean to say I DNF them?”

“Oh.” Brodie’s brows furrowed. “Yes, what did I say before?”

“DNR. I think resuscitating a spellbook is well beyond our capabilities.”

“Ha-ha. Very funny. Brodie’s an idiot.”

“I didn’t say that,” I was quick to remind him. “It was an honest mistake. Definitely a funny one.”

He slid his pen into the spiral binding of the notebook.

“So, what are you up to today?” he asked, changing the subject. “Any assignments?”

I suppressed a shiver. “Thankfully, no. Not for a few days at least. But I…”

Brodie glanced at me. “What?”

“Has Maia ever given you a gummy?” I asked. “One that made you hallucinate?”

Brodie shook his head. “Not really. What did you hallucinate?”

I bit my lip, trying not to recall the intimate details of the spicy dream in front of my sibling. “I actually can’t decide if it was a hallucination or a dream.”

“Good dream? Bad dream?” Brodie asked speculatively.

“I…”

My core clenched at the memory.

“I can’t decide.” I tapped the edge of the coffee table with a blunt nail. “But I should probably speak to Maia about it.”

“So,” Brodie said. “Are you free today, then? Would you like to go to the Cameo? Watch a movie? Have a wee cocktail?”

A cocktail sounded wonderful. But…

“I can’t,” I sighed. “I’m going to the cabaret.”

“The cabaret?” Brodie echoed. “Since when did you become the type of person that goes to the cabaret on a Saturday night?”

“Oi, I can be the type of person to appreciate the fine arts.”

Brodie’s brows rose as I spoke.

“Fine, fine. The truth is that I need to talk to Anitha.”

“Why?” Doubt replaced the surprise in his gaze. “You know she wants nothing to do with us anymore.”

I shrugged. “Yes, well, I need her help.”

“For what?”

Brodie was persistent.

I pushed the curls out of my face with the edge of my palm. “It’s a long story.”

He titled his head as he studied me. “Is it really a long story or do you not want to tell me right now?”

My youngest sibling had always been more perceptive than Maia. It was a character trait that made him uniquely suited to a research-based PhD program.

“The second one.”

“Okay, but…” He reached out to tug one of my curls. “Be prepared for her to say no to whatever you ask of her. She set pretty firm boundaries when she left.”

“I hope she doesn’t,” I sighed. “But you’re right. I should prepare for the worst.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jinn

The cabaret was not what I’d expected.

If there wasn’t a stylishly dressed crowd lingering outside the venue, I would’ve assumed the little wytch had provided the wrong address.

Perhaps my vision of a cabaret was clouded by the years I’d spent in Paris—a smokey den of loud men lusting after half-naked women on stage while their companions watched on in stoic silence. This venue, however, was tenfold more imposing… And far more interesting.

I studied the towering spires that rose towards the foggy sky, cast in crimson from a series of lights embedded in the ground. Above the arched entrance, three incongruous words were carved into the weathered stone, the tip of an O chipped away by the elements over time.

School of Divinity

So, this den of iniquity had once been a place of religious teaching? Curious.

What was even more curious was the fact that I hadn’t thought about Belle all evening. From the moment I’d awakened, slumped in the armchair of the guest room, and arrived at the cabaret, Belle had not crossed my mind even once.

Emotional healing, Aisla’s voice rang in my head. But that couldn’t be it. The spell hadn’t worked… Or had it? If not, where had the coin disappeared to?

I only knew that the constant tightness in my chest had vanished.

In the distance, I heard the click of Aisla’s boots as she walked up The Mound, her gait now a familiar rhythm. The gusty wind slipped her scent under my nose, and my fangs threatened to descend.

Adolescent bollocks.

Why was I behaving like one of the undisciplined heroines in the little wytch’s pornographic books?

I had ingested her blood once—just a fleeting sip, a little dribble of whatever she’d left behind on my fingers. How had it become an unshakable pull in the depths of my being? How was I now waiting, frozen in place, as I listened to her breaths quicken while she trekked up the incline to the venue?

Foolish.

I knew my visceral reaction had more to do with the subconscious scene I’d witnessed last night rather than an outward reaction to the proximity of her blood. Despite what she believed, I hadn’t been an active participant in her kinky dreams, but I had been lured, nonetheless, to watch…

“Do you never change your clothes?” she asked as she fell into step beside me. Her gaze ran along the length of my coat.

I shrugged. “I didn’t bring anything else. Besides, clothes can last a long time if you don’t sweat.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Are you aware that hygiene has come a long way since you were born?”

I shot her a wan look.

“There are loads of children’s books that could teach you the importance of it. Smelly Melly, Why Should I Brush My Teeth, The Bacteria Book…”

She ticked off each title with a flick of her fingers.

“You’re right. I should probably schedule my yearly bath.”

“Maybe make that a monthly one just to be safe.”

She was teasing me. Good-naturedly, I supposed, but the interaction caught me off guard.

Humans were never ones to tease vampyres, especially those who were sworn to silence in our employ. Over the years, I’d seen a thousand nuanced emotions in their eyes—fear, terror, resignation, lust, need, unease, fascination—but never easy amusement like this.

She looked different today. Gone was the practical anorak and matching jeans. In its place, she wore a thick navy wool coat with gold buttons and a matching knitted jumper underneath. A necklace shimmered along her turtleneck, the outline of an evil eye staring back at me.

The crimson lights fell across her cheeks as we waited in line with others in various states of drunkenness.

“So, what do you do for blood?” she asked, tugging her coat closed against the wind.

“I beg your pardon?”

Her smile flashed in the light.

“I haven’t heard someone use that phrase in a long while,” she quipped. “But you’re in a new city and you have to survive somehow. Where are you getting blood from?”

My brows rose higher with each word out of her mouth. “You’re rather straightforward, aren’t you?”

“Is there any other way to be?”

“Yes, you could try being polite,” I replied, stepping aside as two sloshed women in sequin dresses brushed past. “Asking about my drinking habits is akin to me inquiring about your sex life.”

“Sex is one of the most common topics of conversation in the twenty-first century,” she rebutted with a shrug. “People talk about it all the time. Aren’t you on social media?”

“Indeed, I am not.”

“Sad for you.” She moved forward with the line. “But back to my question—how are you getting fed?”

“Why?” I shot back. “Are you offering?”

“Ew, no.”

But I caught the click in her throat before she could hide it.

“Are you sure?” I teased. “I thought you were into fang play?”

The look on her face was priceless. Her eyes widened in surprise before narrowing quickly in suspicion. I relished each emotion as it played across her expressive face. She put up a valiant attempt to maintain her composure, but the slight quiver in her jaw gave away her discomfort. It was tempered only by a subtle edge of defiance.

Her lips parted as though she wanted to say something—scold me, perhaps—but couldn’t quite find the words.

“Aisla!” From the front of the line, someone called her name, turning her attention. It took her a good few seconds to come back to herself.

“Afiyah.” Aisla paused. “Hi.”

Someone in a security uniform and an undercut strode up to us.

So fucking hot. God damn.

Their callous mental voice made me bristle. God, how I hated loud thinkers, especially salacious ones like these.

I studied the unkempt specimen leaning forward to embrace Aisla, taking in the crinkling polyester jacket with the word SECURITY written across the breast pocket. A ghastly pair of sports shoes with thick soles completed the nightmarish attire. I wondered if they’d been attacked on the way to work or if their dark hair always stood at odd angles.

“You work here?” Aisla asked. “Since when?”

“Aye, I do.” They gestured to their badge. “The company moves me around depending on staffing. I’m here today but I could be security detail for Taylor Swift tomorrow.”

I fought a grimace as they winked at Aisla.

“I think Taylor Swift has her own security detail,” Aisla said, stepping back to place some distance between them before turning to me.

“Jinn, this is Afiyah. We, um, she, um,—”

“Dated,” Afiyah supplied needlessly. “We had fun, didn’t we, babe?”

Babe.

What a crude endearment. It sounded more like a cheap afterthought than a genuine compliment. 

Aisla’s face twitched. A brief flicker of discomfort crossed her features before she masked it quickly.

I wondered if she knew that she was more than just a casual babe—a throwaway term that belonged to people who saw each other as disposable. It was shallow and meaningless, just like the person who’d uttered it.

More salacious thoughts ran through Afiyah’s wide open mind, and I tried not to look repulsed as I read them all.

It was obvious that Afiyah saw Aisla as nothing more than a sexual commodity. Her thoughts made a mockery of the little wytch.

“What are you doing later tonight?” Afiyah asked, slinging an arm casually over Aisla’s shoulders. “Fancy a drink?”

Aisla’s uneasiness was clear as she glanced over at me. “Actually, we have plans.”

Afiyah finally ripped her gaze away from Aisla long enough to study me. “Oh shit, sorry. I didn’t realize.”

A string of curses ran through her mind as she held out a hand to me.

“Nice to meet you.”

I glanced at the offered palm with disdain, trying to suppress the irritation that curled through me.

“We’re actually here to see my grandmother,” Aisla said when the silence bordered on awkward. “She said to meet her in her dressing room backstage.”

“Right.” Afiyah let her hand drop back to her side. “What’s her name? I’ll take you.”

I trailed behind like a shadow as they walked in front of me, chatting stiltedly about life. I used the time to parse through Afiyah’s mind, learning more about her as we stepped into the gravel-laid parking lot.

We didn’t have to go far. Another security personnel stood in front of a side door marked Staff and permitted us entrance with Afiyah in tow.

Sweat. Makeup. Perfume.

The scents assaulted me at once. It was a struggle to contain a grimace.

The walls were draped in deep crimson and burgundy while the floor was cluttered with sequined costumes, feathers, and silk garments. Corsets and garter belts were strewn across chairs, and brightly colored boas hung from hooks, ready to be wrapped around the necks of the performers.

Afiyah guided us to a corner where a small private cubicle was tucked away. She rapped her knuckles on the plastic wall.

No answer.

Aisla peered over to find the cubicle empty.

“Oh.” Afiyah’s thick brows bunched together. “I thought she would be…”

Overhead, the lights began to flash.

“Shit.” Afiyah cursed under her breath, glancing up at the ceiling. “You waited too close to call time.”

“We can come back,” Aisla said. “It’s a 90-minute show, right?”

Afiyah nodded. “Aye, just come straight to the back door at midnight to save yourselves some time. I’ll walk you out before I get in trouble for leaving my post.”

Afiyah led the way through the front of the theatre this time, her steps filled with puffed-up purpose from her security uniform. She nodded at her colleagues as she passed them in the hallway—just one curt nod as though she were playacting as a police officer.

People clutching playbills streamed around us, hurrying to their seats before the start of the show.

Afiyah’s mind was rather simple when I slipped in. The threads unraveled quickly beneath my mental fingers. It was easy enough to snip away the last few seconds from her mind, not erasing the memory of us, but making sure she wouldn’t remember that we’d snuck into the cabaret without a ticket.

I paused abruptly on the carpet and Aisla stopped with me. Afiyah continued walking, having forgotten we were even there.

Aisla’s nails pressed into my bicep.

“What did you do?” she hissed. “Did you scramble her brains?”

“Not her brains, although that would’ve been a remarkably easy task,” I quipped. “I merely removed the ten-second memory of us being in this hallway.”

“Why?”

“So we can sneak into the cabaret, of course.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Aisla

I’d been curious about Shades of Red ever since Grams announced that she was leaving the coven to pursue what made her happy. And apparently, what made her happy was getting on stage in a barely-there flapper dress that reflected the light with a thousand sequins.

“As your kinda-sorta employee, I feel it’s my duty to tell you that this is not the best use of our limited time,” I said as we snuck into the back row of the first-floor balcony. The last few rows were blissfully empty and none of the ushers seemed to notice when we brushed past them. More of Jinn’s handiwork, I assumed.

“What else do you think we’d be doing if we were back at the covenstead? More practice spells that will bring the ceiling down on us again?”

“One time,” I protested, flopping into a seat next to her. “That was a one-time mistake. And it was ceiling dust, not the entire ceiling.”

The noise she made was between a scoff and a grunt.

“We should wait to receive proper instructions before trying again,” she said, primly folding her coat into neat squares.

“Is that an OCD thing?” I asked, watching her turn the coat around several times before she deemed it perfectly folded.

“Is what an OCD thing?”

“The folding.” I nodded at her coat. “You did the same thing last night in the covenstead. It was obvious you couldn’t let the coat go until it was folded perfectly.”

“Is it polite to ask someone if they have OCD?”

I shrugged. “Is it polite to sneak into someone’s dreams and manipulate their subconscious?”

She was saved from a response by the rise of the curtains below.

Shades of Red was Edinburgh’s only cabaret night, and while it had begun as a glittering homage to the Moulin Rouge, it had now become somewhat of a tourist trap. I’d often wondered why Grams chose to hitch herself to this wagon. Was it fame? Was it money? Or was it a desperate need to do something different with her life other than working for the High Coven until her dying day?

I pondered this as Jinn crossed her legs on the rickety seat. Each time she moved, the old iron hinges creaked. Something about the age and quality of the seats told me that they would have creaked a hundred years ago when this space used to be a chapel for the School of Divinity.

Was it blasphemy that the once-sacred altar had been turned into a stage for half-naked dancers moving in questionable ways? Although I tried my hardest, I couldn’t hold back the visible cringe when Grams shimmied onto the stage and flashed us her sequined crotch.

I’d wanted to watch her perform for a long time, but not today. Not when I was racing against the Cold Moon.

I forced myself to be still, even though I wanted to fidget to get rid of some nervous energy.

My gaze strayed back to Grams. There was no denying that she was a beautiful woman—not for her age, as some would say. But beautiful regardless. She hadn’t had any enhancements done, but magick could obscure little things she’d consider an imperfection.

Despite what the outside world interpreted as homogenous features, we weren’t related. Not through blood or bone. Grams had married my maternal grandmother, who was twenty years older than she was. Such a vast age gap would have caused a scandal elsewhere, but in our circles, no one batted an eye. It was common to find love amongst a small coven of wytches—the extended lengths of time we spent together was a good catalyst for a relationship.

The brassy wail of a saxophone mingled with the hypnotic thump of a double bass and the heavy crimson curtains shook with each beat. I followed the swaying movement of Grams’ calves as she twirled on stage, my thoughts absently drifting to what Jinn had said earlier as we waited in line.

Fang play.

Those were very specific words used in the Fang Nights trilogy. I’d said them aloud in the dream last night—or at least, I thought I had. I would never use the term in real life.

So how could she know?

I searched her face for an answer, but deep down, I already knew—either the dream had not been a dream, or we had crossed into something else entirely.

And that was not okay.

The opening musical number slowly transitioned into the second and third.

“Are you paying attention?” Jinn asked, one brow raised. She hadn’t turned her gaze away from the stage.

“Of course I’m not.”

“Is the cabaret not to your taste?” she asked drolly, and I had a feeling she had already read my thoughts.

“You know damn well—”

I paused as someone two rows in front of us turned to shoot us an annoyed glare.

“Sorry,” I murmured, snapping my lips shut.

But they didn’t stay shut for long.

“I can’t believe you trespassed on my dreams last night!”

The words sounded as accusatory as they meant to be.

“Trespassed?” Jinn repeated. “That’s an interesting word choice.”

“It’s an appropriate word choice because you wiggled your way into my subconscious when I didn’t specifically invite you.”

Her lips curled in that infuriating way.

“You didn’t need to.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I demanded, earning yet another glare from the woman two rows ahead.

“You dreamed of me, little wytch.”

She said those words as though it was some kind of blanket statement—a universal explanation to something I still didn’t understand.

My fingers tightened on my thighs.

Her lips moved as she mouthed the words. “I don’t have control over your subconscious.”

“And?” I pressed. “People have dreams all the time. It doesn’t mean anything. It certainly isn’t an invitation to invade somebody’s personal space and turn it into a bloody nightmare.”

“Isn’t it?”

I hated the smirk that twisted her lips.

“No,” I declared, the word clipped. “It isn’t.”

“Does that also mean you don’t want me to watch while you slide your fingers into your pretty little—”

My jaw parted in disbelief as the lady in front of us turned again, looking incensed.

Fuck. Had she heard what Jinn almost said?

A flush crept up my neck, slow and insidious as the lady continued to maintain eye contact with me, warning me to shut the fuck up.

But Jinn’s words refused to dissipate.

The unfinished sentence, the teasing edge in her voice—it was worse than if she’d simply said it outright. I exhaled, slow and uneven, willing my body to calm down. But it was useless since I now knew first-hand how her lips tasted.

I shifted, trying to steady myself, but the heat had settled low and insistent, impossible to ignore. My cheeks burned with a helpless mix of mortification and… Wanting.

Shit. How had she so easily turned my attention from the matter at hand? The problem was her and the fact that she had somehow manipulated my dreams.

I needed answers first.

“Not here,” I told Jinn, getting to my feet. “We need to talk about this. Now. Outside.”

The lady’s gaze followed us every step of the way as we left the balcony and headed out the nearest exit.

Chapter Thirty

Jinn

We found ourselves on a narrow parapet that connected two wings of the old building. The little wytch pickled in her suspicion as she glared at me, arms crossed over her chest. There were barely two meters between us, but the look in her eyes made it feel like fifty.

“We need to talk,” she said, her tone barely above a whisper as though we were still in the cabaret. It was a pity to miss most of the performance.

“So you said.”

She did not look happy. “You need to tell me how you wormed your way into my dreams last night.”

I angled my head slightly, deliberately finding the words to provoke her. “So you admit it wasn’t a nightmare, then?”

She pursed her lips, refusing to answer the loaded question.

“Fine.” An icy breeze ruffled my hair. “It wasn’t me in your dream.”

“Uh.” She shifted her stance, cocking her hip as the heel of her boot rang loudly on the stone floor. “Yes, it was.”

I shrugged, knowing it would only stir the flame inside her.

“No, little wytch,” I said. “That sexy little romp was conjured by your own mind. I had nothing to do with it.”

“But you said—”

I shook my head. “Everything that came out of my mouth in that dream was created by you. Everything ‘we’ did was of your own accord, your fantasy from start to finish.”

“And how would you know that if you hadn’t been in the dream?” she asked, unconvinced.

“That’s because I was,” I confessed.

“A-HA!”

“But not in the way you’d expect.”

She ran a hand over her curls, frustration evident in every movement. “What does that mean?”

“It means… I have an affinity for you.”

She paused, trying to understand my explanation and failing.

“That word means nothing to me,” she said. “Explain, please.”

“You call to me, little wytch.” My voice dipped as I spoke. “Even in your dreams.”

“That’s not possible.” She frowned, trying to put the pieces together. “Unless…”

She swallowed. “Unless you ingested my blood.”

A memory flickered through my mind—me, standing in the snow with Aisla’s blood coating my palm.

I nodded once. There was no use lying to her.

“You’re sick!” The words were accusatory. “You licked up my blood after I bled on you?!”

My gaze never wavered. “I’m a vampyre. Did you think I’d waste even the smallest amount of your blood? Do you know how rare it is?”

“Rare?” she echoed. “Do you think flattery is going to get you anywhere?”

“It’s not flattery.” The words were a rasp. “You must know what the magick in your blood does to us.”

She froze, her breaths stuttering to a halt.

“I’ll set the record straight by saying I don’t approve of any of this,” she said breathlessly. Her throat worked as she spoke. “But, um…”

“But what?” I pressed, watching as she drew her tongue over her bottom lip. Even in the darkness, I could see the sheen of wetness she left behind.

“How did it taste?”

I stepped forward. The space between us was vanishing quickly, but she didn’t step back, didn’t move away.

“How did you taste, you mean?”

It was a pleasure to watch her cheeks flush an almost-purple shade of red.

“There is an old law that prevents us from drinking wytch blood. Did you know that?” I asked, wondering what she’d do if I raised my fingers to her lips and forced them to part for me.

“Yes, maybe. Vaguely,” she said, trying and failing to meet my gaze.

“It’s the stuff of myth,” I explained, tracing her features with my eyes. “A kind of warning. We were often cautioned about the things wytch blood can do to us.”

Aisla blinked. “What can it do?”

When I stepped forward yet again, breath whistled from her lips, sending up a cloud of mist between us.

Her pulse leapt at her throat, warm and steady, a study in hypnosis. God, her blood hummed with power, thick with something entirely natural, something that did not belong to creatures like me. But that didn’t mean I could wrangle every drop from her body like I wanted to.

I felt my voice drop an octave.

“I was created with wytch blood,” I said. “I know the taste of it—I remember it with a kind of feverish yearning that accompanied my turning.”

Her fingers tightened around her arms as she kept them crossed over her chest.

“Wytch blood is not like mortal blood,” I said. “It doesn’t just sustain—it changes us.”

My fangs pressed against the back of my upper lip, threatening to descend.

“The small drops of your blood burned through my body like liquid starlight. It set every nerve ablaze with a pleasure so sharp it bordered on agony. And for those few seconds, I turned into something desperate, something insatiable. And then I craved more.”

“More,” Aisla repeated, her lips closing over the word.

“That is the danger,” I continued, wishing I was close enough to taste her words on my tongue. “Wytch blood is addictive. The first sip of yours was barely a sip at all but even then, the ecstasy of it filled every hollow space inside me with unbearable pleasure.”

“My blood,” she began breathlessly. “Did that to you?”

Her gaze searched mine for answers.

“Yes,” I said simply. “Even though it was temporary, it bound us together.”

She stilled, her eyes going wide.

“Bound?” Her voice rose quickly. “I don’t like that word. What do you mean bound?”

“Temporarily,” I reiterated. “You cannot possibly believe that a class A drug for the undead won’t have consequences.”

I watched her soft cheek twitch as she mulled my words.

“And that’s how you were able to sneak into my dreams?” she demanded. “Because of this ‘bond’ I wasn’t aware of?”

“Ah, yes. The dream. Or nightmare, as you so eloquently put it. That was not me, little wytch,” I confessed, watching her gaze narrow in suspicion. “None of that was me.”

Her brows furrowed. “Then how could you possibly know what I was dreaming about?”

“Because I was there.” Confusion marred her features as she tried to make sense of my words. “I simply didn’t participate.”

“I don’t understand.”

The snow crunched beneath her feet as she shifted closer.

“Explain it to me,” she demanded. “Now.”

God, why did I find her bossiness unbelievably endearing?

“When you dreamt about me, I felt a ripple through the bond and followed it… It led me to the little scene you’d set up in your bedroom.”

“But my room is warded,” she began.

I shook my head.

“I never entered your dwelling. It was your subconscious that tugged me in.”

“So.” She paused as she tried to fit the pieces together. “You weren’t the one in my dreams last night?”

I shook my head.

“Really,” she muttered to herself as though processing the implications of that statement.

“I won’t deny watching as your version of me teased you into touching yourself. Brava, by the way, that was a spectacular performance. But I had nothing to do with it. You dreamt about me because you wanted to.”

Aisla groaned under her breath: “Bloody gummy.”

She glanced at me as though trying to shake herself free of the repercussions of her own dreams, but the embarrassment lingered.

“You still haven’t answered me,” she said, crossing her arms again defensively. “How, um, how exactly did it taste?”

“The magick in your blood...” I licked my lips, remembering the feel of it splattered across my palm. “It’s everything sinful. Sex and power and the finest of wines rushing to my head, blotting out logic and pain.”

The pad of my thumb rose to the curve of her cheekbone.

“That’s the danger of it, you see. Just one sip and you forget who you are… With the undead, that can be dangerous. The feral part of us can so easily vie for control. Or worse, take over.”

I watched her throat work in the darkness.

“The common misconception is that we absorb your magick when we drink from you, but that is far from the truth. The real truth is simple: we get high. So high that we become detached from the humanity that grounds us.”

Her breath stuttered to a halt beneath my caress.

“Every time I scent you in the air, I get the barest hint of your taste. Like a drop of your blood that’s been diluted many times over.”

“And?” she whispered. “Do you like it?”

“Why?” I retorted, watching her curls flutter in the breeze. “If I say I did, would you offer me another taste?”

“I’m not enabling your addiction,” she said, although her cheek tilted slightly into my grip.

Ah, how sweet. Did she know how transparent she was? How conspicuous? The way her lips parted just slightly as she savored my touch? Did she realize how much she gave away as her gaze lingered on my lips, my fangs?

“I am not addicted,” I said.

Yet.

The word unsaid thrummed between us.

“That doesn’t mean you won’t be,” she said. “And I’m not about to be sucked on whenever your heart desires.”

Ah, did she think I wouldn’t notice the breathless note in her voice? The catch in her throat?

“Is that so?” I asked, leaning in to inhale the scent of her skin under the soft curve of her ear.

Her fingers rose to my vest, curling into fists. Did she mean to push me away? Or tug me closer?

The little wytch was oh-so-warm against me.

“I… Fuck.” She seemed to be having some trouble collecting her thoughts. “You still had no right to invade my privacy like that.”

I caught the edge of her earlobe between my teeth, biting down to feel her shiver.

“Is it truly an invasion if you invited me into your mind?”

“I—I didn’t.” The words were a shaky whisper.

“Don’t lie to yourself, little wytch.” I dragged my tongue along the shell of her earlobe. “You wanted to look into my eyes while you creamed all over your fingers.”

Even in the dim canopy of moonlight, I could see her cheeks take on a deep flush.

“What was it?” I teased. “What took you over the edge?”

She shook her head, trying to look away. I knew I’d never let her.

“The sound of my voice?” I taunted. “The feel of my teeth against your skin?”

She swallowed hard.

“Or was it the memory of my fingers closing over your pretty little neck?”

Her lips parted, and I caught the mesmerizing shiver that trembled through her shoulders.

“Let’s try that again, shall we?” I suggested, scraping the sharp point of my nail down the side of her neck. “Let me make your dreams come true.” 

Chapter Thirty-One

Aisla

Fucking cheesy line, but my nerves didn’t seem to care. They lit up like they’d been set on fire from the tips of my fingers to the bottom of my soles. Every part of me wanted to know her touch, her tongue.

I needed to remind myself that this wasn’t the safe space of a dream sequence. This was real life with a list of complications longer than my forearm.

But in the cover of darkness, it was just Jinn and me. There were no witnesses.

Her skin was luminescent—pale and still. Only the teasing fire in her gaze betrayed a consciousness beneath.

“Breathe, little wytch,” she coaxed, and I realized just how tight my chest had become with a captured inhale. “Or don’t. I’d love to watch you fall apart on your last breath.”

The tip of her fang grazed my temple, sharp and suggestive. No pain followed, and I knew she hadn’t cut into my skin, but the imprint of her teeth brought a quiver to my belly.

An odd sense of déjà vu descended over me—I had no doubt that I was losing control of the situation, just like I had last night. What was it about this woman that commanded something in me? Made me needy and pathetic like one of those handmaids that wanted nothing more than to serve the vamp they pledged to?

No, I couldn’t. This was wrong. I’d been raised to be cautious of her kind and their trickery. How could I be sure that I wasn’t under some sort of compulsion? Maybe she was making me behave this way. Maybe she was setting my blood on fire because she wanted me under her thumb. After all, she could never have Belle back without my help.

Right. Enough of this nonsense.

“I’m going back inside.”

Shit. Was that a statement or a question?

“Are you now?”

Panic sliced through me as I watched shadows slither from beneath her shoulder blades like ink curling through the night sky. A black tendril peeled away and twitched in the breeze. Another followed. Then another. Half a dozen ink-drenched appendages writhed around her, caressing the air.

They spat and hissed as they moved, each one like a silky muscle with their own free will. They twined around me, pulling my wrists from her vest and flinging them out wide.

The backs of my hands collided with the grimy sandstone, pinned down tight as though they’d been tied there with a rope.

Oh shit.

They were strong, too strong.

“What the fu—” I tugged on the bindings and found them wound tight like malleable steel.

She stepped away, removing the press of her weight against my chest. Curse the fucking moon, why did it feel like it was wrong to breathe without her weight against me? I wanted to feel the pressure of her chest again, crushing me, bruising me. I wanted her to pin me to the balcony instead of her fucking shadows.

But I also wanted to leave.

Make it make sense!

Two feet away, her gaze moved over my thrashing form.

“Looks like you’re trapped, little wytch.”

“I didn’t agree to this,” I hissed, her shadows feeling like chilly iron manacles around my wrists. “I didn’t ask to be restrained—”

“You didn’t,” she agreed. “But tell me this—does it make you wet?”

My gulp of defiance echoed in the small balcony.

“No.”

Her laughter brought forth a hint of fang.

“You’re a terrible liar. I can smell you.”

I stared, flushed, as her coat fell to the stones in a whisper of fabric.

Her fingers moved to the crisp white shirt that sat under her vest, unbuttoning the impossibly small clasps, one by one, until her neck and throat were bare.

When she pulled the first button of her vest apart, the outline of her breasts came into view—just a tiny hint.

Please.

I didn’t dare say the word out loud. It was too pathetic, too painful. I couldn’t have cared less about the swathes of skin I’d witnessed on stage just minutes before. But here, two feet in front of me, I would offer my soul for a view of Jinn’s breasts.

And she knew it.

As her fingers traced the shadowy valley, trailing up to her collarbones and back down again, a smirk curled the corners of her lips.

Bitch.

She was fucking with my head. Trying to blur reality and the fragments of my dreams by mimicking her exact movements from my CBD-infused romp. 

“You’re awfully turned on for someone who doesn’t want this.”

A challenge reverberated in her voice—one I knew I would lose. I pushed my thighs together, trying to quell the quick dampening of my underwear.

“Is this how you get off?” I asked, refusing to give in. “By restraining women so they can’t get away from you?”

Mirth flashed in her gaze. “Contrary to what you believe, I rarely have trouble finding a willing bedmate.”

My belly tightened sharply. “Then go find them. Leave me alone.”

Fire raced along my veins when she fell to her knees before me. “Not without a taste, little wytch.”

I’m not giving in. Not giving in. Not—

Desire burned in her gaze as intensely as it had the night before, but this was a thousand times better. Because this was real. She was here, flashing only a sliver of skin as she knelt in front of me, licking her generous lips as though awaiting a feast.

And, shit. It had been a long while since anyone looked at me that way, as though they were willing to move mountains just to taste my pussy. The feeling got to my head quicker than sip of bubbly, and I tried to sway forward.

The shadows held tight.

I had no choice. There was nothing I could do to fight this. And a large part of me didn’t want to fight this.

Her fingers slipped between the waistband of my flares and… Paused.

I glanced down. Gone was the teasing. Gone was the note of laughter at my expense.

“Little wytch,” she said, gazing up at me, her eyes dark like twin pools of ink. “Tell me no and I will leave you alone.”

She wet her lips. Every muscle in my body grew taut as I waited for her next words.

“But say yes and I will not stop until you come on my tongue.”

Fuck.

Fuuuuuck.

Something about the glimmer in her eyes drove home that she wasn’t messing around. She wanted my pleasure, and she would take it from me with her lips and tongue.

All I had to do was say yes.

I lowered my head, the nod almost imperceptible.

Yes.

Her fingers were impatient as she tugged my waistband down. I didn’t feel the cold—I’d forgotten where we were, who we were,  dissolving into her bubble without thought.

My lungs filled with her scent—the one she’d used to torture me all night. It lingered like frost around us, unsettling, alluring. Amber and midnight flooded my nose, dark and deep in a way that would eternally haunt my waking hours.

When her fingers traced the simple black underwear I wore beneath, I trembled into her hold.

“You’re soaked.” The backs of her knuckles traced the seams along my thighs. “I’m not surprised. You’ve been wet for me all night.”

I scoffed despite the tightness in my belly.

“Are all vampyres this cocky?” I shot back, refusing to shiver under her touch like a little lamb without giving something back in return. “Or are you a terrible example of your kind?”

She dragged a deep breath as though savoring the taste of me in the air. When she smiled that cruel, teasing smile, my heart squeezed tight.

“I’m not arrogant, little wytch,” she purred. “I’m just aware of how much you need my tongue in your pussy.” 

I tried to close my mouth around words—any words—but they vanished as she spoke. Her fingers dipped between the slight straps of my underwear and pulled them down, gently, slowly, as though savoring each inch of skin that was revealed.

Heat burned a line over my cheeks as I caught my own wetness glistening along the tips of my curls.

“Pretty.” The compliment slid through me like a brush of velvet. “But then, I already knew you’d be.”

The startling realization that future me was going to touch myself furiously to the memory of her at my feet set my belly on fire.

She gathered my wetness on the tip of her index finger and tested it with her thumb. Held down, immobile, I watched her slide the finger between her fangs, swirling her tongue around it as she tasted the very essence of me.

“The only thing sweeter is your blood,” she said quietly, almost too soft to hear.

But I caught the words with trepidation.

“No blood,” I stated, wondering if she would respect my boundaries. Would a hundred and fifty year-old vamp know what boundaries were?

“That’s a pity.” But her fangs remained pressed against her bottom lip. “What else do you have to offer?”

With my jeans clinging to my ankles, I spread my thighs as wide as they would go. The temperature had dropped below zero, but under the heat of her gaze, I barely felt the pinch of the cold.

With a flick of her wrist, my jeans landed in a pile beside us. She leaned forward and nudged my trembling thigh onto her shoulder.

Oh, fuck.

I’d never seen anyone look more beautiful than Jinn kneeling on the ground with my dark thigh draped across her pale cheek, her mouth just inches away from my pussy.

I was wide open, exposed, my clit pulsing hard in the open air.

I want this.

I need this.

I fucking deserve to be eaten out by a hot vamp.

The smirk on Jinn’s face told me that I’d broadcasted the last thought a little too loudly, but I was straddling the line between caring and throwing caution to the wind.

The first touch of her tongue was electric. I surged into the barely-there contact, demanding more.

I’d never been able to keep my mouth shut in bed—or the parapet, as it were. It was an impossible feat to keep my moans soft and breathy and sexy and demure. Instead, a loud whimper echoed around us, rising from the depths of my belly and curling into the night air.

“That’s it, little wytch.” Her tongue swept over my curls, gathering every drop of moisture that was caught on the edges. “Let me taste what you teased me with last night.”

I hadn’t meant to tease her, but the idea that she’d construed my CBD-prompted dream as teasing made my heart thump strangely. This was a vamp that empirically had far more sexual exploits than me, yet she thought my subconscious fumbling was a tease?

When her tongue slipped lower between the folds of my pussy, I shivered, bracing for the pleasure she promised.

Curse the moon! I wished my hands were free to dive beneath my jumper and tug at my nipples.

Just as quickly as I’d thought it, the shadows twisted in the air, snaking beneath my clothes to clamp down on the tight peaks.

Mother of god.

They moved exactly how I needed them to, circling and tugging and pinching as I pushed my hips into Jinn’s mouth.

It was a good thing she didn’t need to breathe.

Her fingers pressed at the edge of my opening, slicking themselves in the gathered wetness. As her mouth suckled, drawing unspeakable pleasure from depths I didn’t know existed, her fingers pushed in, thick and slow and so fucking perfect.

“Fuck.”

I wished I was quieter. I wished I could take my pleasure with a soft, sensual surrender. Instead, my cries rang out with a filthy echo, every hitch and pant resounding with painful clarity.

Between my thighs, she slurped like a greedy thing, a possessed thing, pushing me higher and higher and…

I was close, too close—fuck, I could taste the edge of the orgasm as it nipped at my consciousness. My hips moved faster, my breaths quickening as I raced towards…

Nothing.

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…

I cried out as she pulled away, taking the firm pressure of her tongue with her. My pussy spasmed, clenched tight, needing something, anything, to take me over the edge.

“What the fuck?” I demanded, glaring at her as she sat back on her haunches with a self-satisfied smirk. The shadows retreated from my nipples as my lungs heaved, trying to take in as much oxygen as possible and failing miserably.

It wasn’t oxygen I wanted—it was the orgasm she had so fucking cruelly denied me!

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

She slicked her tongue over her bottom lip, tasting the wetness that covered her cheeks, her nose, her chin.

“You taste too good to rush,” she taunted with a devilish gleam in her eyes. “I want to savor you. Savoring takes time.”

The first tendril of dread trickled through me. I pulled against the shadows that held me down, but they didn’t seem particularly inclined to let go.

“You’re toying with me,” I said, accusation rife in my tone.

“Of course,” she admitted easily, using the tip of her finger to gather my wetness from her chin and slide it across her tongue. “But we’ve already established I’m a predator. I like playing with my prey. Now, be good and hold still for me, little wytch.”

In any other moment, with any other person, I would’ve been ashamed to admit that I did exactly as I was told. I feared the consequences if I didn’t.

My clit ached as she slid her tongue over it again, teasing the hard bud in a merciless rhythm. It was as if the first time was just a trial—a little test to see what I liked. Now, she leaned in for real, sipping from my pussy like it was the lifeblood she depended on.

I squirmed, fighting the shadows yet relishing the way they held me still for the mercy of her tongue. Obscene noises lit the air as she slurped at my entrance, dragging the fresh wetness to my clit only to lap at it with infinite patience.

But the pleasure that burgeoned inside me was anything but patient. It was a beast wreaking havoc on my nerves, a monster that obliterated every thought but her.

I shut my eyes, squeezing them tight, as sparks of pleasure threatened to morph into a wave. Her lips wrapped around my clit, the suction fraying every rational thought. She pulled on the nub with a deep throaty hum, and the orgasm rushed close, almost within reach…

I canted my hips, trying to get a little more traction.

There! Just a little more…

She pulled away again. Again.

I was going to kill her. There was no doubt about it. I envisioned sinking a stake into her chest or spraying silver up her nose. Oh, it would be so easy…

Between my legs, she chuckled as though amused.

“No need for violence, little wytch,” she said, her lips shimmering with my wetness. “You’ll have your orgasm soon enough.”

The noise that left my lips was close to a growl.

“Enough teasing!”

She placed a chaste kiss on my belly. “That’s for me to decide, not you.”

The cycle of torture began again, and I told myself I could endure it. That I wouldn’t give up and beg her to end it. Because I knew that was exactly what she wanted—my surrender.

Tears streamed down my cheeks, washing away the make-up I had so carefully applied to impress her. But my ruined mascara was the furthest thing from my mind. Everything inside me was focused on that elusive peak, that tight rush of release, the very same one she held just out of reach…

…until her fingers joined the tugging of her lips. She slid into my pussy, rough and slick and so fucking perfect.

Fear battled pleasure—the terrifying notion that she would pull away at any moment and leave me bereft, waiting, yearning. But it was also fear that pushed me higher than I’d ever thought possible.

She didn’t stop. Her fingers continued their thrusting while her lips suckled at my clit.

Is she really…?

Am I going to…?

Release crashed over me like crackling thunder. My belly quivered, core tightening, breaths ceasing as I gave in to the pleasure she tore from my body.

I felt myself slipping, but her shadows were there, hissing and pliant as they tethered me to the wall.

A strange sensation brushed at my temples, demanding entry. I reached for it tentatively, lowering my mental shield to let it curl its way inside.

Pleasure.

Jinn’s pleasure.

Soft and insistent, it flowed through me, weaving through my thoughts like a current with flaring electricity. A warmth settled in the pit of my stomach.

She was well pleased with herself.

If she were a cat, she’d be purring and licking her chops.

Why couldn’t I find it within myself to be angry? She’d manacled me to the balustrade, for fuck’s sake!

Had she sucked the anger out of me with one sharp, long-overdue release?

“H-how?” I gulped, cobwebs of my orgasm still eclipsing all logic. “How long will this ‘bond’ last?”

“With humans, no more than a few hours.”

I tried—and failed—to catch my breath.

“And me?”

Her gaze met mine, dark and glittering, her chin and cheeks soaked with wetness.

“I wouldn't know—I’ve never had the pleasure of drinking from a wytch before.” She slicked her tongue over her chin. “Other than when I was turned, of course. If I had to hazard a guess, perhaps a few days?”

Guess. Perhaps. They were such inconclusive words for something important! If she had access to my dreams and some of my thoughts, what else would she have access to because of this ‘bond’?

I was spared from the disturbing line of thought by a hoot of laughter and a string of applause from the courtyard. My instinct was to duck low to avoid being seen, but it was far too late for that.

If people had been watching us, I had no doubt they’d already caught glimpses of my bare bum between the balustrade.

“Great job, mate!” A masculine voice shouted up. “Deserves a standing ovation.”

“Aye.” The second voice was heart-stoppingly familiar. “Absolutely stunning vocals. I’d watch that show again.”

Afiyah. Fuck.

As the shadows slithered away back to their mother, I scrambled for my jeans, plucking them off the ground and pulling them up over my thighs. There was no time to look for my underwear—it was a shame, they were my favorite non-stained pair.

Before I could stop her, Jinn leaned over the balustrade to address her audience below. She pressed two fingers to her temple in a mock salute.

“Goodnight, mate.”

My jaw dropped at her callous response. This wasn’t funny! Didn’t she realize she was speaking to my ex?

When she turned, the smirk on her face kickstarted the anger that always seemed to be burning in my belly around her. The mental connection she’d tried to forge withered and died.

“You did that on purpose!”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Jinn

“You did that on purpose!”

Her shields went up reflexively, and the small mental connection between us splintered with a savage snap.

I would argue that there was nothing more satisfying than watching recognition dawn on her old lover’s face as she stared up at me, mid-applause. The O of shock as Afiyah registered my presence on the parapet and understood who had been making such noises was… Priceless.

“Need I remind you that I didn’t choose to be out here? That was your decision.”

“But you knew Afiyah was down there.”

There was no question in her voice. Only accusation.

I shrugged.

A punch landed on my shoulder.

“You’re such an annoying arsehole!” she seethed, her curls delightfully wild around her face. “Did you do this to embarrass me?”

I studied her with a tilt of my head.

“I did this to remind your little human lover that she needs to stop fantasizing about you on the end of her strap-on.”

Aisla’s gasp echoed in the silence.

“She… You, uh, read her mind?”

“Yes. It was not pleasant.”

I’d be lying to myself if I said I hadn’t known that Afiyah was standing just beneath us. I’d heard the crunch of her thick-soled security boots and the rhythm of her breathing from twenty feet above.

I hadn’t planned to slip to my knees for Aisla while her ex was in listening distance, but I could hardly bring myself to regret it, even if it came with Aisla’s ire.

When I’d requested access to the little wytch’s mind, it had been a reflexive move. Something inside me craved the intimacy of a kiss or soft words, but we weren’t quite there yet.

Imagine my surprise when she’d let me in for something deeper than a merging of tongues. She was so much more than the barbs she wore around herself like an armor, and I felt her softness as I’d stroked across her mind.

“Whatever.” She turned away, embarrassment and anger still trailing behind her.

Neither of us said a word as we stepped back into the darkened halls of the School of Divinity. If the way she’d slammed her mental shields down was any indication, she was angry. And after accusing me of making her come with a night-splintering scream only to annoy her ex, she was refusing to speak to me.

She walked several steps ahead, tugging her coat on and buttoning it with enough fanfare to let me know just how angry I’d made her.

How odd. If I’d been tongued to a screaming orgasm, anger would be the last thing I’d feel. Humans—even the wytchy kind—were strange creatures indeed.

Anitha, a lithe woman in her fifties, greeted us with a spider-y fake lash glued to her arm and her blonde wig askew. She seemed in no hurry to correct either as she perched on the edge of her vanity and regarded us curiously.

She still wore the red sequin flapper dress from her stage performance, except her heels had been kicked off somewhere in the cluttered space.

She pulled Aisla into a long hug.

“Thank you for seeing us,” Aisla began, shoving her hands into her coat pockets when she pulled away. “I won’t keep you long, I promise. I just need to know—”

Anitha’s gaze left her granddaughter’s and moved to me warily.

“How do you know each other?” she asked, her gaze raking over my clothes with a kind of curious confusion.

“Jinn tried to kill me and now we’re working together.” Aisla’s explanation wasn’t particularly helpful. I watched suspicion creep into Anitha’s gaze.

“A vamp tried to kill you?” Her fingers clasped over Aisla’s arm, and I saw the protective mask fall over her features. “You know that’s an offense against the Night Council and the High Coven.”

“I’m aware,” Aisla said, offering Anitha a tight smile. “We’ve moved past that. Somewhat.”

“What have you gotten caught up in, Aisla hen?” Anitha’s knuckles touched the high points of Aisla’s cheek. “I told you to stay out of trouble, didn’t I? We promised your grandmother.”

Aisla’s smile was rueful.

“I’m looking for a spell,” Aisla said as the tucked her curls behind her ears. “One that involves forbidden magick.”

“You know we don’t dabble in such things,” Anitha admonished.

Aisla agreed quickly. “Usually, yes. But I was hoping you could help anyway. This is important.”

“Forbidden magick is not something to be messed with, my darling.”

“I know. But I… I think I made a mistake. Someone I neutralized wasn’t…”

“You neutralized someone by mistake?” Anitha’s sculpted brows rose higher on her forehead, threatening to disappear into her hairline.

“Not by High Coven standards, no. But Jinn, she thinks Belle was compelled to make a hasty decision and she shouldn’t have been neutralized. We came across a spell…”

“No.” Anitha shook her head.

“No?” Aisla and I echoed together.

“Leave it alone. This person—Belle—she’s gone. It would be easier to accept that.”

Anitha stood and faced the mirror, plucking the eyelash from her arm and pasting it alongside several others along the edge.

“How can I accept it?” I demanded, irritation curling in my belly. “I know that Belle made a hasty decision, but the consequence of it shouldn’t be eternal death.”

Anitha’s gaze met my quivering, murky reflection in the mirror. “That’s how this works.”

My teeth gnashed together. “If you had a child who was ill and wanted to take their own life, wouldn’t you stop them?”

Anitha slipped the wig from her head, baring a perfectly laid wig cap. “What’s your point?”

“My point is… Have a heart. We need your help. We’ve tried, but we can’t seem to make sense of the spell.”

Anitha’s sigh was long-suffering. “The spell will only work if Belle wants to come back. If she made the decision to leave this earth, then it’s highly unlikely she’ll want to return.”

“But what if she already regrets it?” I asked, knowing in my unbeating heart that Belle had always regretted her emotional decision-making.

“How could you possibly know that?” Anitha frowned, turning to me in a brush of sequin. “How can you guarantee that all the effort going into this spell won’t be wasted?”

“Because I’m her mother.” For the first time in a long time, I felt like I needed a gasp of air in my lungs. “I’ve cared for Belle for over forty years, and I know her like the back of my hand. She does things like this—hasty, stupid things, but at the end of the day, she is mine to protect. Even if I have to rely on the help of strangers.”

“A very moving speech.”

Anitha’s words were devoid of emotion.

“But you ask for far too much,” she continued. “As you said, we’re strangers. Why should I use my powers to bring back someone I don’t even know?”

“I’m not asking you to use your powers,” I corrected her. “I’m asking you to explain what a spell means. The instructions are unclear.”

“They always are.”

Anitha’s gaze lingered between us, sharp and assessing. I fought the urge to move, to break the stillness, but I could feel the weight of her stare settling over us, pressing in to determine the nature of our relationship.

“Grams,” Aisla said, brushing a hand over her grandmother’s shoulder to flick off some glitter. “Maybe we could speak in private?”

With a sigh, Anitha fell back into her chair. I stepped away until they couldn’t see me in the chaos of the dressing room.

It was pointless, though. I could easily hear everything they said, and I didn’t even have to strain myself.

“So what’s really going on, hen?” Anitha asked, her tone dipping a notch as though she knew that I could hear every bit of their conversation.

“She’s paying me,” Aisla explained quickly. “The money is going to help me leave the coven.”

“You’re leaving the coven?!”

“Shhh.” I heard a shuffle. “I’m trying to. And her money will last me a long time.”

“They’ll kick you out of the covenstead if you do,” Anitha warned, concern evident even from afar. “You’ll lose your home.”

“I know. I’ve thought this through, Grams. I’m going to get my own place… Like you did.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“And how do you know that the vamp doesn’t mean you any harm?” Anitha continued. “You just said she tried to kill you.”

“That’s because I neutralized Belle.”

“Isn’t that your job?”

“Well, yes, but she—” Aisla let out a sigh. “It’s complicated. But if it makes you feel any better, she’s already paid me half my fee as a downpayment. So she means business.”

There was yet another long pause.

“Fine,” Anitha said reluctantly. “I know better than anyone else how hard your job is. I don’t blame you one bit for wanting to leave. I wish Amala had done the same. Maybe we wouldn’t have fought so much.”

I thought I heard a hint of humor in Anitha’s voice, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Go on, then,” Anitha sighed. “Since you’ve come all the way here, I might as well try and help.”

The fist that had tightened in my chest loosened a little. I let the wall support me as I listened to Anitha explain how to start a forbidden magick spell.

Yet again, I tried not to let myself think about how easy this would have been if my mother, my own creator, had agreed to help me bring Belle back. But instead, I was at the mercy of stranger.

Well, a stranger and Aisla.

I could only hope I’d placed my trust in the right person.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Aisla

“Okay, I think I have the hang of it now.”

Back in the covenstead, I sat cross-legged in an unbroken circle marked with chalk. Under Jinn’s watchful gaze, I leaned forward to tap ‘play’ on my phone.

Anitha’s voice came to life, echoing in the solarium.

“You need to be careful,” she said. “Really careful, Aisla. You don’t know the type of monsters that linger on the other side. Before you open the veil, you need to be sure you’ve made an adequate sacrifice and that you have something of Belle’s in your hands.”

A silver locket with a chain AI-generated content may be incorrect.I glanced at the hand-painted portrait Jinn had placed in my palm and closed my fingers over it, gripping it tight.

“According to the spell, you’ll first need to draw a circle in chalk, but make sure it’s unbroken. If you’re in the covenstead, sometimes the rocks beneath your feet can be craggy and uneven, so although you’re not meaning to, the circle may not be fully connected.”

I leaned down so that my eyes were level with the ground. My breaths rustled the dirt as I crawled around the circle on my elbows, trying to make sure every inch of the circle was covered in chalk. It was.

“The next part is painful.” Anitha’s voice said from the recorded note. “You need to use a sacred knife to make an incision on your palm. A sacred knife isn’t spelled—it’s just a regular knife forged from a pure metal like silver or gold. There are a few options in the vault.”

The gold dagger on the ground glinted dully under the candlelight.

“Before you do this, make sure you have the right herbs placed around the circle. Sight-givers and dream-weavers are very specific, but I have a feeling they may be mugwort and wormwood. Perhaps some datura. Place these along the circle and ensure they’re touching the line.”

“And finally, you need a bowl of water in a natural element, like wood. Take it outside and place it under the full moon for an hour or so. Let it charge to its full strength before you attempt to use it.”

The wooden bowl filled to the brim with moonlit water stared back at me, its edges humming with a low noise. Tiny arcs of light crackled across the liquid, dancing like restless spirits.

“Make a shallow cut on your palm and let the blood flow across the personal object you’re holding and into the bowl. The knives in the vault are sharp so be mindful of that. Have a piece of cloth ready to mop up any excess blood.”

With a deep breath that did nothing to quell my nerves, I pressed the gold dagger into my palm. The blade bit quickly, parting my flesh with a sharp, burning sting.

I wanted to curse aloud, but I knew that would be a mistake in a spell circle. The last thing I needed was to summon a demon who was intent on fucking me just because I’d uttered a string of f-bombs.

Pain flared up my arm, but I forced myself not to pause. The blood flowed across the locket and dripped into the moonlit water.

All at once, the air in the room vanished.

Chest tight, I spoke:

“I seik thee, Annabel Gibs.”

A fine mist curled from the bowl, the tendrils rising with a soft hissing noise. The air, devoid of oxygen, shimmered in response, whispering against my skin like the touch of unseen hands.

The old sigils carved in the ground and layered with several hundred years of dirt and debris, glowed slightly, pulsing as I tried to breathe and failed.

My fingers glowed strangely with a gold halo—a soft, light thrum I didn’t recognize. When I rubbed them together, sparks rose in the air like little bursts of starlight.

I glanced up again as misty tendrils from the bowl converged at the edge of the circle, swirling in an anti-clockwise rhythm. A glow ignited at the center, weak at first.

Maaya Veli!

I said the words again, louder this time, and the glow expanded, spreading outward in a delicate swoop of gold. A whisper curled around my ears… A voice not yet formed, distant yet familiar.

Belle? I reached forward, fingers outstretched, heart aching with expectation.

Then—a shudder.

The glow faltered. The mist wavered, twisting into itself, thinning and breaking apart. The edges of the unformed veil trembled as though they were gasping for breath, fighting to stay open.

My pulse pounded in my ears. No—this could not happen. I’d done everything right!

Hadn’t I?

Hadn’t I?

The swirling magick sputtered, coiling back like an ebbing tide. A cold wind rushed through the covenstead, whipping my hair into my face. Oxygen returned to the room.

The stones under my feet groaned and shuddered as if protesting the unfinished spell, and I fell to my knees, taking a full breath.

“Mother—”

I bit off the curse just in time.

The spell dissipated, taking half my energy with it. My limbs quivered, the aftershocks of power draining from my palms. The pads of my fingers were numb, and I wondered if the gold halo had anything to do with it.

Each breath felt like an effort. My chest rose and fell unevenly, my lungs straining as if the very act of breathing required more strength than I had left to give.

Sweat slicked my skin despite the chill settling deep in my bones.

“I heard her voice.”

Jinn’s words was quiet in the aftermath.

“Belle’s voice,” she continued, stepping closer to the circle. “I… didn’t believe it was possible until I heard her.”

“I heard it, too,” I said, breathing hard. “Just a whisper.”

“A whisper is enough.”

Hope flickered in her gaze, and I realized just how much I wanted this spell to work. Not for the money, but for the mother that still grieved her child’s mistakes.

“Do you have any idea why the portal disappeared?” she asked.

“No clue.” I placed a hand on my temple, trying to alleviate the pounding that had begun. “But I know the chances of a difficult spell working under the Cold Moon are much higher.”

She nodded. “How confident are you?”

Not at all.

But that was just my anxiety talking.

Before the veil had sputtered, I’d actually felt… capable. As though the magick was in my control and not wreaking havoc on its own.

“I think I can do it,” I said, feeling my shoulders straighten as I spoke. “I really do.”

“Good.”

She held a palm out to me to help me out of the circle. When I placed my hand in hers, magick jumped from my fingers to her skin, zapping her like a series of static shocks.

She pulled away, flinching.

“Sorry,” I said. The power vibrating inside me felt foreign and listless, needing to be used one way or another.

I rose without her help, but her gaze still lingered on my palm. The shallow cut wasn’t actively bleeding, but crimson still coated my skin.

Had she fed recently? I’d heard that older vampyres didn’t need to feed very often, but surely the temptation of blood would test even the most controlled vamp?

“I could heal that for you,” she said, her voice rough. “If you wish.”

Against all logic, I did want it. I wanted to watch as she sampled my blood—I wanted to see the way it made her shudder. She’d compared it to class A drug, and a part of me yearned to see the effect I had on her.

I glanced at my palm, extending it fully to test the wound. Blood had stopped pouring from it, but it was still wet.

That would be safe enough…

Right?

Besides, walking around with an open wound didn’t sound like a great idea.

“Fine.” I held my palm out to her. “But I’m not encouraging you to microdose my blood. We’re not extending this ‘bond’ or whatever more than we have to.”

“Whatever you say, little wytch.”

My pulse pounded as she stepped forward to cradle my palm in both her hands. She examined the shallow cut, her eyes now dark pools edged with red.

Her head dipped as she inhaled, tasting the metallic scent that had never appealed to me.

But to her…

It was a high that sank into her bones, a warmth that bloomed as soon as it hit her lips—at least, according to the novels I read.

The moment her tongue touched my blood, her body gave the smallest, sharpest jolt, as if she were tasting something rare. Something forbidden. She pressed closer, her lips tracing the edges of the wound, gathering every drop with a care so precise it sent a shiver further south.

A sound escaped her—half sigh, half growl, all pleasure. It vibrated against my palm. She licked again, slower this time, as though she was savoring the taste that unfurled on her tongue.

When she gazed up at me, a red ring pulsed around her dark pupils.

Feral, I thought. A feral vamp is a dangerous one.

I should have been afraid. But there was no violence in her gaze, only need. Only hunger, tightly restrained. Her fingers curled around my wrist as though for one dangerous second, she was debating sinking her fangs into my veins, but thought better of it.

A part of me wondered if I would have welcomed her bite. I’d spent an embarrassing number of hours immersed in books and fan fictions that described exactly this moment—the point of no return where a vamp would give in to her blood lust and bite her willing victim.

But Jinn held back. She trembled again, more a shiver this time, something raw and involuntary.

“You taste—”

A pause. A breath. Her fingers tightened just enough to make me gasp.

When she spoke again, each word slithered deep into my core.

“If I could dream, little wytch,” she said, licking her lips. “I would dream of your blood.”

In that moment, I knew I wanted her naked in my bed with my head buried between her thighs. Fuck the consequences.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Aisla

“I’ll walk you home.”

Snow crunched wetly under my boots as I turned to glance over my shoulder at Jinn. Every part of me still tingled pleasantly from the after effects of her tongue.

“You didn’t offer to walk me home last night.”

“Yes, but we didn’t part ways at three in the morning with the unsavories milling about.”

“Unsavories?” I echoed.

“Drunkards.”

Did people still use those words?

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, boomer.”

“I’m much older than a boomer, little wytch.”

I cringed. “That is not a sexy thing to say out loud.”

She fell into step beside me, her footsteps clicking with my own.

“Are you staying at a hotel?” I asked.

I’d never been one to leave silences alone—the need to fill them was always overwhelming.

“No.”

“So you’re just squatting somewhere?”

It wasn’t unusual for vamps to be found in the strangest places.

“There is a nest that’s hosting me,” she said instead.

“The one above the Conan Doil?”

She seemed surprised. “You know about that?”

“Of course,” I scoffed. “They’ve been there a long while. Not as long as us, mind you, but a long time nonetheless.”

“And yet, you’re not…” She paused as though looking for the right words. “Allies?”

“There isn’t a need for us to be allies,” I said. “We both report to different authorities.”

“You live barely a mile apart,” Jinn continued. “The High Coven is in Paris and the Night Council is in London. Surely it would be easier to make decisions directly with your local nest.”

I shrugged. “Our ancestors never thought it was wise to mix with the undead.”

“And you?” she asked. “Do you think it’s unwise?”

I gazed at her with narrowed eyes. “Let’s see. So far, you’ve tried to kill me, you’ve broken into my dreams—”

“Not on purpose,” she interjected.

“It’s not a glowing recommendation for an ally,” I said. “Maybe there’s a reason they kept us apart.”

Jinn was silent for a minute as we trekked up the slight incline towards home. The dark house rose against the almost-full moon, and I felt its pull as we neared.

The iron streetlamp flickered as we walked past, and I wondered if it was my residual magick that couldn’t stay contained.

We paused in front of the towering front gate. Unwittingly, my gaze dropped to her lips. They looked so pink and plump and…

“Okay, goodnight.”

The words were flecked with awkwardness.

This wasn’t a date—definitely not. But I desperately wanted her to kiss me. The memory of her tongue and lips and teeth made my belly quiver and tighten.

She stepped forward.

This close, the ward should have flung her away from our iron gates. But instead, the protective spell remained quiet, as though still in a deep slumber.

“Aren’t you heading inside?” she asked, her gaze pinned to mine.

“In a minute. Could you do me a favor and put your hand on the gates?”

Her brows rose high on her forehead. “I’ve done that once before and it wasn’t pleasant.”

“Yes, but… I have a theory.”

“And what theory might that be?”

“Just do it.”

Her sigh was long-suffering, but she raised a palm tentatively to the iron.

“Interesting.” I watched her fingers slip through the protective barrier without a twitch in sight. “You don’t mean us harm.”

She glanced over at me. “Why would I? I’m relying on you, little wytch. I have no reason to harm you… Not anymore.”

“Interesting,” I found myself saying again.

I wanted to believe her. Needed to believe her. Not long ago, her hands had been around my throat, her fingers digging into my skin, her rage a razor-sharp thing that had turned me into prey.

But now? She stood before me, her presence still unnerving, still too sharp, too otherworldly—but different. The predatory edge remained, but the intent had shifted.

She watched me, inky eyes unreadable, fingers twitching slightly as if she wanted to reach for me but didn’t dare. The streetlight flickered against her pale skin, making her look almost human.

Almost.

“I assume I passed the test.”

Her voice was quiet, steady. The same voice that had drifted up to me while she was on her knees.

I exhaled, my heart thumping a little too hard.

“Big day tomorrow,” I said instead, the words reedy like a flickering flame. “So, uh, goodnight.”

I brushed past her and reached for the latch at the top of the gate. It was open, of course, because both my siblings had no sense of safety and relied on our wards far too much.

Jinn’s fingers closed over my wrist, stopping me before I could step into the walkway. Her grip was cool where she touched me, not harsh. Not forceful. Just firm enough to send a curl of something warm down my spine.

She didn’t pull me closer, didn’t drag me into her… because she didn’t have to.

I was already caught, already moving, already seeking the touch that was becoming unnervingly familiar.

With a muffled oomph, I landed against her chest.

“Little wytch,” she said, her words ghosting against my lips. Heat pooled low in my stomach.

She leaned in, holding herself just out of reach, teasing, testing, waiting. Clouds of my breath puffed between us, the moment stretched too thin, too wide—

She kissed me.

Heat and hunger. Fire and desire.

Soft at first—just a mere whisper of contact. But the moment I tilted into her grip, her lips parted against mine.

With unnerving familiarity, her fingers slid up my jacket and into the little gap of my collar, tracing fire along my skin.

Curse the moon.

The world blurred blissfully in shades of orange and gold from the streetlight as I floated, lost in the taste of her. I knew I’d never get enough of.

And I wasn’t sure I cared.

***

It was happening.

Jinn and I. Me and Jinn. Stumbling up the hedge-lined pathway to the covenstead, lips pressed tight, fingers roaming wild.

The front door slammed against the foyer wall as we pushed into the house. A rush of footsteps should have warned me that we weren’t alone, but I couldn’t bring myself to tear my lips away from Jinn’s. 

“What the—” Maia’s startled shout broke through the hazy web of lust. “Fuck’s sake, Aisla. Do I ask what’s happening here or do I just assume you’ve lost every single one of your bloody brain cells?”

Shit. I pulled away reluctantly, wanting nothing more than to hide from the shock and disappointment in Maia’s gaze.

“Um—”

“I don’t understand,” she cut in before I could get a word out. “This person tried to kill you!”

She spat the word person as though it tasted bitter on her tongue.

Jinn’s touch lingered, the pads of her fingers pressing into my palm as though she was reluctant to let go. 

“In my defense,” Jinn said drolly. “I failed.”

Maia scoffed, the foyer echoing with the sound. “So you’re not just a murderer, you’re also incompetent.”

Jinn shrugged.

My sister blinked, trying to make sense of my would-be killer standing in our warded home.

“Aisla—” My name was a warning on Maia’s lips.

I placed my palms in the air in a universal gesture for peace.

“It was a spur of the moment thing,” I said defensively. “You know how it is.”

My sister’s eyes could not possibly get any wider without popping out of their sockets.

“I literally do not. At no point in my life have I ever thought, ‘Wow, this person who just tried to choke me to death is so fucking hot—what if I sucked on her face?’”

“That’s because no one has ever tried to kill you,” I said simply.

“And that’s bad because…?”

“Maybe you’re not living your life to the fullest?”

Maia choked. “And maybe you need therapy. More therapy than you’ve already had.”

Jinn nodded solemnly. “That is a good suggestion.”

Maia glared daggers at her. “Don’t agree with me. You’re the bad guy. Stick to your role. Be menacing or whatever.”

“I can’t afford to be menacing when I’m at your sister’s mercy.”

“Are you now?” I turned to tug at the lapel of her coat. “And here I thought I was your prey.”

Maia filled the room with a retching noise.

“Please, spare me.” She placed two thumbs on her forehead as she studied us. “This is really a thing? Both of you?”

“Calling this a thing makes it seem like more than it actually is,” I quipped.

“Then…” Maia trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words before her features lit up comically.

“I get it now,” she said, snapping her fingers. “You’ve compelled her! That’s what’s happening. Aisla, I told you to replenish your ward! This is what happens when you forget—”

I plucked the vial from under my jumper and pulled it out for her to see.

“I didn’t forget,” I assured her. “It didn’t react because Jinn’s intention isn’t to hurt me. Not anymore.”

“Besides,” Jinn said, undeterred my Maia’s threats to remain silent. “If I had compelled Aisla, she’d be much less… talky. And a lot more drooly.”

“Ew.” Maia and I chorused together.

“Plus,” I added before Maia could continue berating me for my less-than-desirable decision-making skills. “If I were compelled, I think you of all people would be able to see it plain as day. Do I look like I’ve been compelled?”

Maia’s fingers pressed deeper into her temples.

“I don’t know!” Her eyes moved back and forth between me and Jinn. “To be honest, Aisla, you look a little stupid right now. Which, you know, is not a departure from your usual look, but right now, it’s a little extra stupid.”

Beside me, Jinn stiffened. “That’s rude, human. And a tad insulting.”

“Oh, did I hurt your little feelings?” Maia demanded. “Need I remind you that you’re an undead predator? One that left Aisla bloodied and bruised just three days ago?”

“Yes, but in my defense—”

Maia cut Jinn off. “If you say you failed again, I swear I’ll shave down a tree trunk myself and stake you through the chest with it.”

Jinn’s gaze met mine. She shoved her hands in her coat pockets.

‘Well’ was the only thing that left her lips. 

I stepped forward to take Maia’s shoulders in my palms.

“Maia, really.” I shook her without any real force. “I haven’t been compelled. And I certainly know what I’m doing. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not advisable to sleep with someone who’s paying me to cast a spell, but life’s too short, right?”

Maia’s features scrunched up like I’d stuffed a lime wedge in her mouth.

“I don’t like this,” she said, her voice low, although we both knew that Jinn would be able to hear us. “I don’t like this one bit, Aisla.”

“Think about it this way,” I said with a confidence that was only half-shaken. “She won’t hurt me because she won’t have anyone else to perform the spell for her. She needs me.”

“What if something happens?” Maia demanded. “What if she gets too rough and kills you? What if she drains you dry?”

“I do have something called self-control, human,” Jinn said.

“Do not speak to me or I will commit a crime,” Maia snapped at her before glancing at me. “Do me a favor and think about what you’re doing?”

Think.

To be perfectly honest, that was a hard thing to do when Jinn kissed me. In fact, a small part of me was still imagining the burst of warmth from being pressed against her chest.

“Aisla.” Maia’s fingers waved back and forth in front of my face. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes.” I replied too quickly to make it seem believable. “I mean, yes, I’ll think about it.”

She pulled away with a huff, mumbling under her breath. The words barely reached my ears as she moved through the living room.

“My bloody heart can’t handle all this excitement,” she muttered. “My nerves are shot.”

Jinn’s shadow fell over my right shoulder. “She speaks to herself like an old lady.”

“That’s Maia,” I said with a deep sigh. “Wise beyond her age.”

“Paranoid beyond her age,” Jinn corrected.

I glanced over at her. “Maybe. I suppose only time will tell.”

We winced as Maia dropped something in the pantry and cursed loudly.

I placed a finger to my lips and pointed towards the stairs.

“Are you still up for—”

“Yes.” With one arm across my waist, she lifted me to her chest and held me close. “Yes, please.”

***

I wanted to focus on the vamp that was slowly divesting each layer of clothing and neatly folding it into a stack on my windowsill. But Maia’s words sat in my chest like weighted lead.

Why did it feel like my mother had forbade me from sleeping with someone, and now she was stationed downstairs, listening for any suspicious activity?

“You look worried.” Jinn undid the buttons at her wrists, letting the shirtsleeves hang loose. “Second thoughts?”

“No.” I unzipped my jacket, shaking off the unpleasantness that lingered from Maia’s rebuke. “Never.”

A single brow rose. “Never is a long time, little wytch.”

I shrugged. “If I lived my life according to what Maia deemed appropriate, I may not live at all.”

Jinn made an agreeable noise, her fingers working on the row of buttons between her breasts.

“I have a question.”

The words tumbled out of me.

She paused, her fingers on the hem of her trousers.

“Earlier, on the parapet,” I began, wetting my suddenly dry lips. “The shadows were a part of you, weren’t they?”

Her gaze narrowed as she tried—and failed—to decipher what I was asking.

“Yes,” she said. “They were.”

I pulled my jumper over my head and let it fall to the floor.

“And.” I cleared my throat, glancing everywhere but into her eyes. “Can these shadows be used for… Other things?”

From the corner of my eye, I could just make out the sly smile that creased her lips.

“It depends,” she said with a little vibrato in her voice. “On what other things you have in mind.”

My lips pressed into a tight line before I spoke.

“I’m under no impression that this thing between us would be more than one night,” I said, tugging the cotton undershirt over my shoulders. “After all, you live down south and my covenstead is here. And you won’t need me after the spell. So…”

Her gaze dropped to the simple black bra that cupped my breasts.

“I think I should ask for exactly what I want,” I concluded.

“And what is that, little wytch?”

She closed the distance before I could blink, her bare skin cool against my own, nipples tight and hard as they brushed against me.

“I want you to fuck me with your shadows.”

Something dark swirled in her gaze, and I saw a brief flash of the woman who had tried to choke the life out of me a few days ago.

Except she wasn’t trying to murder me this time.

And if the low vibration in her throat was any indication, the only thing getting murdered tonight would be my pussy.

I would welcome it.

But first…

I brushed my knuckles over her cheek and neck, letting my fingers drift over several smooth inches of skin. Fuck, she was perfect. Not a freckle or a mark in sight. Just an endless expanse of pale moonlight.

A rush of goosepimples followed my touch, racing across the canvas. It was almost endearing, this decidedly human reaction.

When I skimmed the sides of her breasts, she inhaled sharply.

“I thought the undead didn’t need to breathe?” I teased, letting my nails rasp against the tender flesh.

“We don’t.” A smile played at the corners of her lips. “But I like to do it for dramatic effect.”

How had I never realized how funny she was? I caught a nipple between my thumb and forefinger, pressing down until she gasped.

“Don’t say funny things,” I warned her. “This is just one night, remember? You’re not supposed to be endearing.”

“Right.” She nodded once. “I’ll do my best to be a bore.”

“Good.” I reached backwards to unclasp my bra and watched as she stilled, tracking my every move. “After all, I’m not here for your sparkling personality.”

Heat quivered in my belly as she stared at my bare breasts, eyes locked onto the gold barbells that glittered under the orange lamplight. Something sharp flickered in her gaze.

A predator, I thought. Caught between restraint and instinct.

I grabbed her wrist as she reached for me, holding it steady.

“Did I say you could touch me, Jinn?”

She scoffed, a little puff of air that betrayed the current of frustration thrumming around her.

I leaned in just enough to make her think I would close the distance—just enough for her lips to part in quiet anticipation, just enough for her to think her palm would come in contact with my pierced nipples…

But I held back at the last second.

The frustration tightening her shoulders was immediate.

I smirked. Good.

“You’re cruel,” she murmured. Her fingers twitched, aching to touch, to take.

I tilted my head, letting my gaze drag over her, slow and deliberate. “Am I? I don’t think it compares to what you did to me on the parapet.”

“Is that what you want? Revenge?”

I lifted a hand, tracing my fingers just close enough to her skin to make her shiver, but never making contact. Down her arm. Over the curve of her waist. Up over her breasts. Hovering above the dip of her throat.

The look in her eyes shifted.

Hunger, I could handle. Hunger, I expected.

But this?

This was possession.

Like she was already deciding which part of me she’d take first. How she’d savor it. How she’d ruin me.

Surely she could hear my heartbeat—I was certain it betrayed me by hammering against my ribs. Wordlessly, I placed a hand against her middle and pushed. She fell backwards onto the foot of the bed, sprawling on top of my multi-colored quilt.

“Stay,” I ordered, flicking the button of my jeans open with a pop. “Stay very still.”

“You seem to think you’re in charge—”

“Hush.”

I had no idea if it would work, but I caught the flicker of surprise in her eyes—the quick calculation of whether or not she was willing to obey.

I didn’t give her a choice. Instead, I cast my jeans aside and dropped to my knees.

My palms were dark against her bare thighs.

“If you’re very good,” I said, looking up at her. “I just might let you come.”

“Let me?” she began incredulously.

“Hush.” My palm landed on her thigh in a quick, sharp slap, and although her eyes narrowed, she did as I commanded.

I dragged my fingers over her muscles.

“For all your bluster, you’re really soft here, you know,” I said, taking in her subtle musculature. “Just how I imagined you.”

I set my nose along the inside of her thigh, inhaling the scent of her—dark and musky and so fucking perfect. Inch by inch, I moved upward, reveling in her light quiver.

Triumph surged in my veins. I was barely doing anything, yet I was making her tremble. Me. I had the power to make this centuries-old vampyre turn to putty beneath my lips with the promise of pleasure.

I felt her longing, her vulnerability, and… Fuck, it was mine to command.

I hummed against her skin, loving the way every part of her body had stalled as she waited for me to make contact with the weeping slit that needed my attention. Her eyes never left mine as I let my head dip lower.

She was perfectly pink and red and slick. Every inch of me ached to press my mouth to her.

“Open for me,” I breathed, and she let me in without hesitation.

I ran my lips lightly over her wetness, gathering it on the tip of my tongue. She tracked my every move, her fingers clenched hard on the quilt.

My position on the floor offered me an unparalleled view of her torso. Each muscle flowed into the next, the line of her core rippling slightly like a taut wire as I breathed deliberately over her needy little slit.

“If I keep teasing you like this, I wonder if you’ll beg me.”

Her lips flattened into a thin, unhappy line.

“Or will you keep your pleas bottled inside?”

I traced two fingers over her puffy lips and spread them apart to reveal the little treasure I sought. The impatient animal in me wanted to pitch forward and suckle on her clit straight away, but the lover in me wanted to have a little more fun.

I gathered a stream of saliva between my lips and let it dribble down onto her clit. Her skin was cool, but my saliva was warm, and when it made contact, she hissed under her breath.

“You’re so wet,” I said as she stared at me with barely controlled lust. “Tell me—did sucking my pussy on that parapet get you this wet?”

“More than you can imagine, little wytch.” Her voice was a low rumble. The words speared through me like a sharp edge of a blade.

“Good.” I licked my lips in anticipation. “I like knowing you were just as wet as I was.”

She tracked my every move with unerring focus as my head dipped between her legs, seeking more of her. The little button of her clit stood proudly from under the hood, and I flicked my tongue around it, savoring every bit of her wetness and relishing each tremble I wrought from her body.

I brushed my tongue in deliberate circles, once, twice, three times, careful not to give her too much and chuckling into her wetness when she let out an annoyed little groan.

She had tortured me too much for me to let her come without begging for it.

But when her fingers landed in my hair, curling into a fist, pleasure danced behind my eyelids. I gasped into her as she held me still, bucking upwards and slicking herself against my nose, my lips, my chin.

Fuck, was she using me like a human sex toy to get herself off?

God, yes. She was rough with her pleasure, her nails stinging on my scalp.

How was she so hot even on the precipice of release? With her head tilted backward, spine arched in a beautiful bow, biceps straining as she canted her hips into my face, she used me to prolong her ecstasy. And I was only too willing to let her ride my face until she was sated.

Her skin was beautiful as it flushed red with her orgasm.

But as her hips slowed and her head tipped back up to look at me, her shadows came alive, detaching from her body like little tendrils of dark smoke. They hissed and spat as they moved, slowly at first as though getting used to their surroundings, then faster, twining around my waist, my chest, my neck.

“Up,” she said, and for a moment, I thought she was speaking to me. But the tendrils reacted to the command, buoying my weight as they nudged me onto the bed and straight into Jinn’s lap.  

A single shadow snaked between my legs, warm and smooth and… Hard.

I glanced at it, studying the way it lay flush against Jinn’s pelvis like a girthy strap.

“Is this what you wanted, little wytch?” she rasped, her voice low and hoarse as her fingers twined around my neck. Her grip was all too familiar, and I felt a resonant pull low in my belly.

“Yes,” I tried to say, but the word was a rasp in the air.

“You want me to fill your pussy with my shadows?”

Her fingers tightened on my neck and I stilled, feeling my airway narrow. In a heartbeat, I was back at the Christmas market with her weight pushing me into an unyielding stone wall and her eyes promising murder.

But this time, when I glanced at her, I knew I wanted her to fuck me. Fingers, mouth, tongue, shadow—I’d take it all at once if I could.

I tipped forward to grab a fistful of her hair, and her grip on my neck yielded enough to let me.

“You need to stop talking and put that thing inside me. Now.”

Despite the urgency in my voice, her shadows were unnervingly gentle as they slid against my slippery wetness.

Enough foreplay! I wanted to scream, but I feared my impatience would shine through clear as day.

She pressed inside, smooth and warm and heavy and oh my fuck.

This was what I’d wanted from the start—what I’d needed.

The shadow latched onto something that had been dormant inside me for so long.

I gasped, my back arching against the force of it as I flailed, unsure whether to ride or surrender. The very essence of Jinn was like being consumed and filled all at once, invaded and claimed in ways I couldn’t name. And still, her grip on my neck never wavered.

“Take a breath, little wytch,” she breathed. “You’re gripping me so tightly.”

I could barely make out the words over the rush of my own pulse.

I braced my palms on her chest.

“You can feel me?”

“Every exquisite inch.”

The words were bit out through gritted teeth.

Cords stood at attention along her neck as she tensed with each upward thrust. Curse the moon, she looked disheveled, her calm stillness shattered with the coaxing of my tongue, my pussy. Her short hair lay mussed around her temples, her cheeks holding a surprising flush.

I wanted to hear her fall apart again.

Her free hand tightened on my hip, her thick shadow pressing deeper, trying to set me on fire from the inside.

“You ride me so beautifully,” she rasped as though mesmerized by the movement of my body with each thrust.

My fingers reached up to curl around both nipples, toying with the bars and pinching down hard.

The rough pain sent me over the edge.

My breath hitched, sharp and uneven. She didn’t relent. No, instead the tendril shifted and morphed, crooking upward, thickening, prolonging my release and until I was nothing but a trembling, quivering mess.

Motherfucker.

“Again,” I breathed, but it was unnecessary. Her hips moved in tandem with mine, her fingers leaving their anchor on my waist to seek the nub that cried for attention.

She didn’t stroke it, didn’t circle it. Pleasure punched through me as she clamped down on the bundle of nerves, holding it tightly between her fingers as I rode her shadows.

The pressure on my windpipe, the pinch around my clit… god, I was going to come, and come so fucking hard.

And then—nothing. The shadow was gone, the girthy stretch between my legs vanishing just before I hit the peak.

The short edges of my nails clawed into her in protest as my hips continued moving on instinct with nothing to ride.

Empty, aching and pulsing, I stared down in disbelief as her shadows slithered in the air.

“What the fuck—” I began, wishing I had actual claws to rip her apart. “I’m going to fucking kill you, you stupid undead—”

With both hands on my hips, she flipped us over, my weight sinking into the old mattress. She fell on top of me, heavier than expected, but so fucking welcome. With the emptiness still tearing me up inside, I’d take anything to relieve the pain of it.

“Arsehole,” I muttered, barely resisting the urge to punch her.

“Before you start calling me names,” she said, her shadows flowing around her. “Did you ever stop to think I had something better in store for you?”

Better?

I latched onto those words like a lifeline.

The shadows dipped under my legs. My first thought was to resist them on principle, but I grudgingly allowed them to push my thighs up until they touched my belly.

Jinn shifted to her knees, her eyes drifting to the split-open heart of my pussy.

“Look at you,” she breathed. “All red and gushing for me.”

“I’m wet for you to fuck, not just stare at,” I spat, still pissed off.

“Oh, I will.” A single tendril broke free from her shadows, shifting and morphing until it was impossibly thick and wide.

“I want to watch you come on my shadows, little wytch,” she breathed, her eyes pinning mine. “While I suck on your clit.”

And just like that—she was forgiven for any manner of crimes she had committed against me.

My lips parted to say something—anything. Maybe a sharp barb or a witty retort, but the truth was that I needed her mouth on me so desperately that words would only sound like a pathetic plea.

When her head dipped between my spread thighs, her gaze holding mine, I tried to raise my hips to meet her halfway, but the shadows held me down, tougher than any man-made restraints.

“Fuck,” I muttered as she teased me with tickles of breath she didn’t need.

“You have no idea how you look,” she said, the muscles around her shoulders and back tensing as she held the position between my legs. “Trembling, quivering, waiting for me to do anything to you.”

I pressed my lips together, just in case an embarrassing whisper slipped free.

“And here, where my shadow was before…” Her fingers ghosted over my slick opening. “You’re stretched out and waiting for more.”

“Yes.” The word was strained—the best I could manage as I watched my dimpled belly shiver with need.

“Oh, little wytch.” Her lips pulled into a smirk. “You’re a delight.”

This new angle—fuck, it splayed me open for anything she wished. I couldn’t fight, couldn’t move, couldn’t demand she hurry up when she painstakingly lapped up all the wetness that had leaked into the crease of my thighs.

When she finally, finally, turned her attention to the bud of my clit, I was panting, straining, needing just a little more contact to send me over the edge.

Her shadow probed between my legs; my breath vanished in an instant. Jinn’s lips curled around my clit, sucking the nub into the warmth of her mouth as she shadow pushed in with expert ease.

Fuckfuckfuck.

I whined, needing to move with the rhythm of her lips and the slow upward thrust of her shadow, but she continued to hold me down.

I was nothing but a receptacle for her pleasure.

“Look at you,” she whispered, her cheeks wet with my essence. “Stretching so wide for me.”

She moved back slightly and I cast my gaze down to where her shadow split me wide, watching its length pushing deeper and deeper still.

My clit throbbed, waiting for the warmth of her tongue yet again.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” she breathed. “Panting up a storm. Waiting for me to offer you release… wondering if I will. ”

I swallowed the catch in my throat long enough to say: “You will, right?”

Nothing but a secret smile was her response.

Bitch.

The shadow picked up its pace as her tongue returned to my clit. Breathing was forgotten. So was thinking. Every sensation dropped between my thighs, radiating pulses of pain-laced pleasure over my body. Goosepimples followed in their wake.

“Watch me,” Jinn ordered between licks and sucks. “Watch me as you fall apart, little wytch.”

And that was exactly what I did. Between the feeling of the shadow pumping quickly between my legs, testing my limits as it adapted its girth to my moans, and the deliberate pull of Jinn’s lips, I chased the high she had denied me so cruelly earlier.

There was something freeing about this—about being held down and not being in control for once in my life. Jinn was in charge of my pleasure, and there was nothing I could do to speed her up or slow her down. I simply had to take what she gave me.

Each suckle turned pleasure into a tight wire in my belly. Each thrust of her shadows threatened to snap it, but instead, it held me on the edge, forcing me to dangle on the precipice of something I was slowly beginning to fear. Because if she didn’t let me come this time, I would die. Or disintegrate.

She chuckled against me as though she’d heard every single word. Fuck, she really was a bitch.

The cup of her lips around my clit was quickly replaced by her tongue—she lapped slowly with the broad pad, then picked up speed.

“What the—oh my god.”

The smutty novels never talked about this—the way vamps could use their speed for anything, including, apparently, their tongues.

It was the final straw.

The wire in my belly frayed and unraveled, the long-overdue release spreading across my limbs in a rush of heady pulses. The shadows around my thighs tightened as I thrashed, trying to ride out the waves without hurtling towards death. My back arched off the bed; my fingers fisted in the quilt.

Ah fuck. Too good. Endlessly, soul-shatteringly good.

I lay in a pool of sweat and tears, a smile creasing my lips as shivers swept through my limbs.

Even after my breathing returned to normal, I thought I heard the echo of my whines and moans in the room.

When Jinn rose to take my lips, she tasted like devotion, although that was probably wishful thinking on my part.

Her fingers traced the edge of my jaw, tilting my face up to drink in the aftermath written across my features. The shadow still lingered, the weight of it surprisingly comfortable inside me.

“You’ll be the death of me, little wytch,” she breathed, pressing a kiss to my temple.

“Very funny.”

It was the only non-committal reply I could muster to cover up the way my heart twisted at those words.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Jinn

I was being tested.

Now that one need was sated, another reared its ugly head. The base instinct flooded my brain with the urge to bite, to take, to consume.

I could hear it, the steady thrum of her pulse beneath the surface, so close, so tempting. Even now, tangled in the multi-colored quilt with the scent of sweat and sex thick in the air, it was her blood that consumed me.

It wasn’t fair.

I’d just had her—her body, her sighs, the soft gasp of my name on her lips—and yet it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Because the thing inside me, the thing I had spent centuries caging, didn’t crave her touch.

It craved the magick of her blood.

She shifted, pressing against me in that lazy, post-bliss way humans did, her arm draping over my chest.

“When were you born?” the little wytch asked, her fingers tracing the platinum cross I wore at my neck. She was warm and soft and perfectly dimpled as she lay in the nook between my arms, her head tucked comfortably under my chin.

I wondered if she was willfully trying to distract me from the wayward circles of my looping thoughts—away from the saliva that filled my mouth at the memory of how her blood tasted.

“1851.”

“And what was it like in 1851?”

I placed a finger in her curls and was touched when a lock twined around it.

“Noxious,” I admitted, wondering why I felt a residual tug at my heart when her curl wouldn’t release my finger.

“I suppose indoor plumbing wasn’t a thing until much later…” Aisla wrinkled her nose.

“No,” I said, forcing myself to focus on her words and the way her lips moved around them. “Although plumbing was a large part of the problem. No, the real issue was the pollution that made living in London unbearable. Often, I’d wake up to what I’d call stinkers. The thin glass panes our landlord called a window would be covered in soot, thick as mud. You couldn’t see the sky if you tried. The air outside would be several shades of scary—grey, if you were lucky, or black as sin. And all of it was bound to enter your lungs.”

Aisla paused her exploration of my chest and stared up at me.

“And here I was expecting some romantic recollection of the Victorian era.”

“There wasn’t much romantic about it. Unless you consider pollution, sickness and suffering romantic.”

“And what would you do when these stinkers happened?” she asked, slinging a thigh over my hip.

“Most would stay home, I suppose, but we didn’t have much of a choice if we wanted to earn our daily wage.”

“We?” Aisla asked.

“The working class.” I pulled her thigh more firmly into the dip of my waist. “We didn’t have the option to wait out the greasy fog. We just walked into the shroud with a scarf tied around our nose and mouths.”

“Surely that’s not healthy.”

“Health and safety is a fairly recent thing,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

She tutted. “That’s not what I mean. I was thinking more along the lines of your physical health. If you fall ill and can’t work, that would affect your employer, right?”

“Wrong.” She seemed taken aback when I contradicted her. “Workers were easily replaceable back then. I worked at a factory and my job didn’t require any special skills. I had nimble hands and a good pair of eyes and that was pretty much all they needed. If I was ill or died, there was a line of people waiting outside the factory doors for casual work. My chair would’ve been taken in a heartbeat.”

“Oh.”

There was an odd note in her voice.

“Why, little wytch, are you sad for me?”

“No,” she said quickly, then relented with a sigh that landed warmly on my chest. “Okay, maybe. It just seems like such a bleak life.”

I shrugged. “It was… but it also had its moments.”

She raised her face to me. “Tell me one of these moments.”

She was full of commands this evening.

I pulled her closer, craving her warmth.

“The factory was closed on Sundays, and so I would help Mrs. Peats at her bakery. We’d get up at three in the morning to bake bread and sweet treats for the after-church crowds.” If I closed my eyes, I could almost smell the inside of the bakery—cinnamon and vanilla, yeast and flour. “The feel of dough in my hands brought great comfort. I’ve always been a tactile person, much better at working with my hands than any other tool. And the feeling of dough between my fingers—the soft resistance, the yielding, the way it pushed back as I kneaded, warm and alive in my hands, it was incomparable.”

I chuckled at a distant memory. “The smell of yeast always made me sneeze.”

When I glanced down, Aisla was staring at me strangely, as though the sight of my smile was something foreign, something she wasn’t sure how to process.

Her eyes lingered too long, searching my face like she was trying to decipher a puzzle. Her brow creased ever so slightly with quiet kind of confusion—like she was watching something she wasn’t meant to see.

“You’re different when you smile,” she mouthed softly, her knuckles brushing my cheeks. “I can almost forget you’re the same person who tried to murder me.”

“Yes, well—”

I faltered, the words vanishing under my breath as Aisla’s heartbeat quickened its tempo. It was a subtle shift, easily overlooked. But I’d become so attuned to the beat of her heart that the slight quickening was as clear as a whispered confession.

The steady rhythm stuttered for a fraction of a second, then pulsed just a little faster beneath her skin. I could hear it, feel it in the air between us. The scent of it grew richer, tinged with something warm and electric, like a spark catching dry kindling.

“What are you thinking about right now?” I asked, studying her features.

“I wonder what it would have been like if we’d met under different circumstances.”

“Like a vampyre-wytch networking event?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, but maybe at a pub or a café or somewhere more normal.”

“We did meet at a café.”

“Where I’d been assigned to end your life.”

“You mean to tell me that it’s not the fun little meet-cute you wanted?” I teased.

Her fist landed on my shoulder in a gentle punch.

“The Daily Grind just reminds me of death and grief,” she said. “It’s not something you want in your life every single day until the moment you’re allowed to retire.”

“It must be hard.” I surprised myself as I spoke. Even though everything inside me rebelled at the lack of morality in her role, I could see how such a job could take its toll.

“Very hard,” she agreed, leaning back against the headboard. Her neck and collarbones were bare save for the little soulglass that was filled with her ward. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the recipient of all their grief. That when they die, it slips into me and becomes my burden to carry.”

She touched the soulglass absently.

“My mother always said never to humanize any assignments. She was painstakingly particular about this rule.”

“And?” I prodded.

“Maybe I forgot her warning sometime over the last ten years. Or maybe it’s impossible to be human and not care.”

“Maybe it’s the latter,” I said. Brought alive by the pain in Aisla’s voice, the shadows rose from my skin, moving slowly like waves caught in a low tide. Gently, almost wistfully, they found her shoulders and wrapped around them, brushing her skin back and forth.

“Oh.” Surprised, she ran her fingers over them like someone stroking an affectionate animal. “They feel like… a downy throw. Very different from before.”

“They take on different textures depending on the occasion, but right now, it looks like they want to comfort you.”

“Don’t you mean you do?” she asked shrewdly. “They’re a part of you, aren’t they?”

“They’re an extension of me, yes. They feel my anger, my pain, my joy…”

“And your need to comfort wytches who whine about their jobs.” Her laughter held no mirth. “I should be happy I still have a job in this economy.”

“That is a rather pessimistic way of looking at things.”

“Says the vamp with unlimited funds.”

She had a point.

In recompense, I urged the shadows into a gentle knead. A soft gasp parted her lips and she let her head fall back.

“What would you do?” I asked, watching her hum in satisfaction as the shadows mimicked a massage. “If you didn’t have to neutralize my kind for a living?”

I thought she might take a moment to consider response, but the words were cued on the tip of her tongue.

“This may sound vapid and brainless to you, but when I was younger, I really wanted to start a YouTube channel dedicated to teas.” She smiled a little sheepishly. “I had this image in my head of setting up my phone in front of the hearth downstairs and making content like I was welcoming someone into my tea shop with the little bell ringing as they walked in and the kettle whistling away…”

She glanced away, avoiding my eyes. “It probably sounds silly to you.”

“Not if it brings you joy,” I said. “Not if it makes you smile when you get out of bed in the morning.”

The idea of social media was still strange to me. Nat was constantly scrolling on his phone when he should be working, and I could tell that the kid was addicted to something he saw on the screen.

It was strange that people wished to air their grievances for an audience of millions to judge. They called it building an audience, making a brand, creating a presence, but to me, it looked like shouting into the void and hoping the void whispered back.

What was it they truly wanted? Recognition? Relevance? Or was it the simple fear of being forgotten?

Aisla shrugged.

“We’ll see,” she said. “I might try and get the idea off the ground. Or I might move to a different country. Thanks to you, I now have some options.”

I watched as my shadows slithered along her neck, touching the sweet spot beneath her ear. She shivered, uttering: “Oh, that feels good.”

In a moment of utter foolishness, jealousy struck.

The shadows were mine—extensions of me, threads of darkness woven from my will. They moved where I commanded, obeyed with only the slightest resistance. And yet, as they coiled around her neck and brushed against her pulse point with gentleness, something inside me twisted.

I clenched my fists, willing them back, but they hesitated, lingering against her as if reluctant to let go. My own creations, betraying me.

But under it all simmered envy—envy that my shadows were so close to the source of maddening, magickal blood.

I could hear it—rushing, pulsing. An ache began in my belly. God, how fragile that barrier was, how thin the veil between life and hunger. A breath, a bite, and it would spill onto my tongue, warm and rich, painting the world in shades of firecracker gold.

But Aisla let loose another appreciative moan, not realizing how close I was to being undone.

Space. I needed space.

I placed some distance between us, trying to ease my parched throat. Perhaps it was time to seek sustenance at the nest, no matter how unappealing it sounded.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her fingers warm on my shoulder.

“Trust me, little wytch, you don’t want to know.”

She moved with surprising speed for a mortal, straddling my waist so that I was trapped beneath her.

Her fingers clasped my chin, raising my gaze to meet hers.

“But what if I do?”

I clasped her wrist. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“You want a drink,” she said, staring at me. “You need a drink.”

Had I been so transparent? So obvious in my need? I had spent a century and a half perfecting the art of control. I prided myself on keeping my hunger buried beneath willpower and restraint. But as she watched me now, head tilted slightly, lips pressed together, I wondered if my gaze had lingered on her neck too long or if there was a hint of drool along the corners of my lips.

“I’m fine,” I insisted, ignoring the rasp in my throat. “It’s manageable.”

It had been over a week since I fed from a willing donor. A week wasn’t long at all—barely any time in the grand scheme of things. But the lingering dregs of an orgasm still ran through my veins, tugging different needs to the surface.

“Why would you want to manage it?” Aisla asked, amusement in her voice. “When I’m offering you something most vamps can only dream of?”

If my heart hadn’t sputtered to death a long time ago, it would have stopped beating at that very moment.

She tilted her head, exposing more of her throat, and my stomach twisted.

She didn’t know what she was doing to me.

Or maybe she did.

Maybe she wanted it.

“Now,” she said, releasing my wrist and sitting back on her haunches. “I have some rules.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“This temporary bond will not become permanent,” she said. “You will take what I give you without complaint.”

Complaint?

The sentiment was furthest from my mind.

Instead, I wondered if looked like an eager dog waiting for its owner to snap their fingers for dinner.

“You can’t drink directly from me,” she said. “That’s a hard boundary. At no point will your fangs pierce my flesh.”

Could she hear the greedy gulp in my throat? The way my mind raced with every other way I could drink from her body? The way I was turning over every way I could make the experience more than a little pleasurable for her?

She leaned closer, her pulse loud, tempting, impossibly close.

A single finger rose to the base of her neck.

“An incision right here should do the trick,” she whispered, her breath hot against my cheek. “A small one, enough to make blood trickle down my chest.”

I tried to swallow the tangle of barbed wire in my throat, steeling myself against the aching void that clawed at my insides. Hunger burned through me, curling around my ribs like a living thing, demanding I take what was so easily within reach.

She twisted her neck even further, saying:

“Do the honors, Jinn.”

But it wasn’t meant to be.

A flurry of knocks on the bedroom door brought the tension to a sputtering halt.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Aisla

“Aisla?” Maia’s voice was muffled. “I brought you something to apologize.”

Frustration crackled over my skin.

“Now’s not a good time.”

“I’m sorry!” she yelled through the firmly shut door. “I’ve got some wine and snacks if you want.”

I stared down at Jinn and the tension fizzed between us like a balloon at the mercy of needle.

“Perfect timing,” she muttered, her voice edged with something between irritation and regret.

I swallowed against the disappointment tightening my throat. 

Maia knocked again, her raps quick on the hardwood.

Jinn sighed, pushing her hair out of her face.

“Let her in, I suppose.”

Those were the words Maia had been waiting for. I dove under the covers, pulling it all the way up to our chins as Maia barreled through the door with a tray full of goodies. To my surprise, Anaia sauntered in after her, rubbing herself against the bed frame.

My sister set the tray down at the foot of the bed and quickly settled next to it.

“Maia?” I made her name a question from beneath the covers. “What are you doing?”

“Pouring you some wine,” she said as though this was a completely normal thing for someone to do.

“We didn’t ask for any wine.”

Anaia took the chance to leap onto the bed near Jinn’s feet. She sniffed at the toes that poked out from under the quilt and slowly ambled her way up to Jinn’s belly. Like Maia, the tortoiseshell cat also pretended that it was completely normal to invade people’s spaces, but perhaps I could more easily forgive Anaia. After all, no one had taken the time to teach her any manners.

Jinn and I shared a puzzled glance as Maia handed us two long-stemmed glasses. Jinn took a quick sip, likely to soothe her parched throat. Teasing her with a taste of my blood seemed cruel now that I hadn’t followed through.

“Our cat trusts you.” Maia eyed Anaia’s chunky form as she curled up on top of Jinn’s stomach.

“Did I forget to mention?” Jinn said wryly, reaching out with her free hand to stroke Anaia’s round head. “I’ve also compelled the cat and all other beings in this house.”

“I knew it!” Maia reared up, only to be cut off quickly.

“She’s joking, Maia, for fuck’s sake.” I sighed. “What is this about?”

The suspicion didn’t abate from my sister’s gaze.

“So,” Maia said, reaching for a bowl of mixed nuts—which, I knew, she’d tipped out from a pre-mixed bag. She popped a salted cashew in her mouth. “What are your intentions with Aisla?”

I almost choked on my first sip of wine. “Intentions? Maia, we’re not in the 1800s and we’re not getting married!”

“I’m not saying you need to get married,” Maia said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m just asking what the vamp’s intentions are.”

“My intentions are to get my daughter back,” Jinn replied solemnly, speaking above the rumble of Anaia’s purrs.

“I see.” Maia chewed thoughtfully. “So your priority isn’t my sister?”

“Of course it is,” Jinn said easily. “I haven’t slept with anyone in over a decade. Do you think I’d fall into bed with a woman I didn’t care about?”

Stunned silence fell over the bedroom like a shroud. I turned to stare at Jinn, the wine sloshing over my glass and staining the sheets.

“What did you just say—” I began.

“What the hell—” Jinn appeared as startled as the two of us, blinking at the wine as though belatedly realizing the weight of the words that had come out of her mouth.

“You haven’t slept with anyone in over a decade?” Maia repeated. “As in, more than ten years? More than twenty years?”

Jinn took a hurried sip of her wine, but even that didn’t seem to stop the words from bubbling from her lips.

“I was busy teaching Belle how to survive,” she said, her mouth moving in a strange, erratic way. “I had no time for anyone but my child.”

“Sounds like a co-dependent relationship, if you ask me,” Maia quipped. “So, then, why end your celibacy now?”  

“How could I not?” Jinn said, the words blending together to form one long string of letters. Her jaw twitched, straining against the unnatural pull.

“...when you look at me as though you don’t know whether to kill me or kiss me. And apparently, my brain rather likes that indistinction. Oh, and not to mention the fact that you agreed to help me even though I tried to end your life. Maybe I happen to like magnanimous wytches. Or, hell, maybe I just need comfort after what Belle did. This loneliness is new to me and grief does strange things to people. Or so they say. Don’t they? Mother of god, what is in this wine?!”

Horror crashed through her with each effervescent word. She blinked rapidly as though trying to reset time with a flutter of her lashes.

But she couldn’t take the words back. Not now. Not after they had been cast into the air between us.

Her lips parted, then pressed shut again, twitching like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to make things more interesting with some half-baked explanation or just give up entirely.

Instead, she chose to flee.

Without another word, Jinn pulled a throw from the edge of the bed and stood, covering herself before either of us could catch a glimpse of her nudity.

“Maia,” I said with a hint of suspicion. “What did you do?”

My sister had the audacity to shrug. “Just a little truth serum. No harm done.”

“Maia!”

Appalled, I set the glass down with a clink. My sister was such a child sometimes, playing tricks that were best left to children.

“Don’t worry,” she said, helping herself to a macadamia nut. “I only put a drop in hers. You’re safe.”

“That’s not what I was worried about,” I bit out, tugging the quilt from beneath her. “You can’t just barge in here and slip something into Jinn’s drink! That’s unethical.”

I turned to Jinn who was tugging her vest on.

“Look—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“It’s not your fault.”

She dragged her clothes on with admirable quickness.

Maia flicked another nut in the air and caught it on her tongue.

“Leave,” I told her. “Enough meddling.”

“I’m just trying to keep you safe.” In her defense, she seemed genuinely concerned. “I still believe you’re being compelled. You’re acting like it.”

“I’m not…” I pressed my fingers into the sides of my temples, trying to reduce the sudden pounding. “I’ll talk to you in the morning, okay?”

I spoke as calmly as I could. “Just… go.”

“Fine.” With a dramatic shove, she rose to her feet and picked up the tray. “At least now you know she isn’t here to hurt you!”

“I already knew that!” I snapped at her. “Especially when the house didn’t zap her to a crisp when she walked through our front gates.”

“Oh.” Maia brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I suppose that’s a fairly good clue.”

Maia stared at me sheepishly, her cheeks turning a flushed red.

“So I guess I didn’t have to intervene, huh?”

“No,” I bit out. “You didn’t have to.”

“Oops.” Her laughter was humorless. “Guess I’ll just leave then.”

The door shut behind her with a slow creak.

I glanced over at Jinn who was trying to sidestep Anaia while she pulled on her wingtips.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said as earnestly as I could. “Maia has these crazy ideas sometimes and it’s hard to change her mind when she’s locked in.”

With her shoes firmly on her feet, she picked Anaia up and turned to face me.

“I think it’s best we don’t speak,” she said, her cheeks a shade of red identical to Maia’s. “There’s no predicting what I might say.”

“Right.” I bit my lip, trying to keep the questions locked tight, but they had a force of their own, like caged birds desperate to escape. Questions bred intimacy, and intimacy snowballed into feelings that were anything but temporary.

“Why me?”

Jinn’s gaze brushed against mine for a fleeting second. She pressed her lips together as though trying to contain the bare truth of her response, but just one drop of Maia’s truth serum was incredibly powerful.

Jinn tried to parrot the question as though she hadn’t heard me the first time.

“Why—”

The words died on her tongue, and try as hard as she did to keep them from escaping, they tumbled out in an uncontrollable wave.

“I was celibate, little wytch, not dead, and you walked into my life and reminded me that those two things were not one and the same.”

My heart stuttered in my chest.

A small part of me wanted to interject with something witty, something safe—perhaps remind her that she was, in fact, very dead. But another part, the part that glowed bright under her words, relished the way her words sank deep. They delved past skin and blood and bone and etched themselves around my heart.

I tried to swallow, but my throat had turned to sandpaper.

Jinn muttered, “Ignore what I said.”

Her throat clicked in the silence as she added: “Forever.”

“I won’t.” I shuffled across to her side of the bed. “You can’t make me.”

Splotches of color appeared on her cheeks—a wonderfully human trait I adored beyond reason.

“Jinn.” I reached for her fingers. “I know you didn’t mean to say any of those things out loud, but…”

“But?”

“It’s enough that you thought them in your head and maybe… Maybe I want you to say more things like that.”

“You want me to continue to embarrass myself?”

I shook my head. “I want you to make me feel special.”

“Aisla…”

Anaia meowed when Jinn stepped closer to me, trying to vie for her attention, but Jinn’s gaze never left my own.

“You don’t realize it, do you?” she whispered. “How utterly special you are.”

I blinked at her, my mouth parting slightly—maybe to respond, maybe to breathe—but no sound came out.

“Maybe I should ask Maia to slip you her truth serum more often…” I tried to laugh, but only a hollow sound emerged.

“Jinn,” I said, halting her as she turned to retrieve her coat. “Wait, please.”

“I’ve said enough.”

I placed a hand on her sleeve. “I won’t ask you anything else. I promise.”

I stood and placed my arms around her waist, holding her tight. My sigh was buried in her tweed vest.

“Thank you,” I whispered, squeezing her so tightly that my bones began to ache.

“For what?” she asked, pushing back the hair at my temple as she gazed at me.

“For seeing me,” I confessed, wishing tears weren’t obscuring my vision. “For appreciating me.”

How had I never realized how much I needed a hug, a kiss, a tender whisper of how special I was? Jinn’s words made something ache inside me, something I hadn’t realized was so starved for this—for her.

I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears, fingers curling into the cotton shirt, holding on to her as tightly as I dared.

For once, I didn’t have to fill the silence.

I stayed pressed to her for far too long, wrapped in warmth and comfort and something too fragile to even think about. The world outside faded into a hushed noise—no Maia, no spells, no Cold Moon, no solstice… No Belle.

Her fingers traced slow, soothing patterns on my bare skin like she, too, was in no hurry to let go.

A long while later, I said, “I will see you tonight at the covenstead, but before you go… Kiss me goodnight?”

I didn’t have to ask her twice.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Jinn

After days without rest, I cocooned myself in the guest coffin, trying not to think about the fact that the cushion beneath refused to yield to the shape of my body. Or how other strangers would have spent their nights here, too.

Instead, I thought about Aisla and her filthy tongue. The things she’d whispered still made my stomach tighten at the mere memory of it all. My skin still smelled of her, sweat laced with magick. Perhaps it was time I took the monthly bath she joked about, if only to keep memories of her at bay.

I entertained the thought for only a second before I released it. I’d rather let her linger—the beautiful filth of her.

As I tried to get comfortable in the new bed, shifting against the satin, I realized I could still feel the imprint of her nails on my skin, little half-moons pressing into me as she rode my shadows. The memory followed me into sleep, and I dreamt of blissful nothingness.

Aisla and I had agreed to meet an hour before midnight, and I found myself snoozing well past dusk. When I pushed myself out of the coffin, swiping sleep from my eyes, something—or rather, someone—made me stop short.

“Indira.”

She lounged in an armchair a few feet away, her dark satin skirts brushing the floor as she crossed her legs.

“Why, hello, darling.” Her broad smile was all teeth. Instantly alert, I got to my feet.

“Why are you here?”

The surprise creasing her skin was utterly false.

“What?” she said, placing a hand on her chest in an exaggerated display. “No hello? No how are you?”

I reached for my discarded shirt, tugging it back over my chest.

“We both know you don’t appreciate niceties,” I said, a strange sensation pricking my throat.

“True.” She shrugged, falling back onto the worn leather. “I always underestimate how well you know me, sweetling.”

Darling. Sweetling.

My hackles rose.

Suspicion coiled in my gut.

Her words were falsely laced with honey—a teeth-numbing sweetness meant to mask their true bitterness. The rhythm of Indira’s speech was familiar to me. When she spoke like this with measured pauses and careful inflections, I knew something was amiss… I simply needed to figure out what.

It boiled down to one thing: I didn’t trust her. I never have.

A hundred and fifty years ago, she’d changed me without consent, and every day since, she’d lorded her generosity over my head. Vampyrism had offered me a better life, one far away from familiar poverty and disease.

But it hadn’t been my choice to be born to darkness.

It had been hers.

A glance at the clock told me it was far later than I’d expected. As the minute hand ticked away noisily, I speared Indira with a look.

“I assume this isn’t some sort of social visit,” I said. “If so, you could have simply waited until I got home.”

“Ah.” She rearranged her skirts with one hand. “But that would be too late.”

“Too late for what?” I asked, my fingers fighting with a pearl button that had never given me trouble before.

“To stop you, of course.”

I paused with my shirt half-done.

She was composed—too composed. Her lips curled just so, like she was holding back the punchline to a joke only she understood.

She knew something. I was sure of it.

But how much did she know?

“Oh, come now, Jinn,” she said, propping her chin on an upturned palm. “You didn’t think you could keep anything from your mother, did you?”

I chose to say nothing as my stomach turned.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t know what you were planning to do?”

Her eyes met mine, and I fought the instinct to look away. I had known her for years. Long enough to recognize the tricks she played. Long enough to understand that if I looked away right now, she would think she had won.

“Have you been keeping an eye on me?”

She watched as I ran a hand through my hair.

“I don’t have to,” she said with the same sweet smile. “I have friends who tell me what I need to know.”

“You’re not stopping me, Indira,” I said, my voice as steady as I could manage.

“Aren’t I?” she pondered aloud.

“This is my last chance to get Belle back. Do you have any idea how important this is?”

“So you’ve said about a thousand times over.” She rolled her eyes and pointed to the armchair across from hers. “Have a seat. Let’s talk.”

I glanced at the clock again and shook my head.

“I don’t have time right now.”

That was my first mistake. Saying no to Indira was akin to stepping on a rattlesnake: stupid and dangerous.

I had never seen her react well to boundaries, and she wasn’t going to start today.

Magick sparked in the air, cold and acrid, making my nostrils twitch as it curled around me. My shadows reacted quickly, rising with a crackle.

“Nuh uh, none of that,” Indira chided, flicking her manicured fingers in my direction.

With a violent snap, I was pulled through the air like a ragdoll. My shadows screamed in my ears, their high-pitch keening making my teeth grit painfully.

She lassoed me to the armchair as she rose, tipping my head up to meet hers.

My ribs strained against her magick, trying to break free. But I knew, deep in my belly, that Indira was stronger. She’d always been stronger. And she knew it.

“We don’t need to have a problem, Jinn,” she said, the tips of her nails dragging over my shoulder and slipping into the open collar at my neck.

Mother of God.

Her magick pierced my flesh like hot needles, burrowing deep into my nerves. My muscles clenched involuntarily and my shadows whimpered, spasming as they struggled to retreat but found that they couldn’t. Not like this.

She uttered a string of words I didn’t recognize and a tendril of white-hot pain slithered into my veins, sinking into my bones.  

As she spoke again, I recognized the sensation that had pricked the back of my throat minutes before: foreboding. I should’ve run while I still could.

“Belle chose death for a reason, Jinn,” she said, her voice a saccharine purr. “Let her go. It’s best for all of us.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Aisla

Five minutes to midnight.

Where the fuck was she?

I glanced at my phone again, waiting for a message box to descend over the wallpaper of Anaia’s fluffy head.

Nothing.

Anger lashed at my chest.

Seriously—after making such a big deal about this spell and how important it was and how I should try it even if I messed it up—she wasn’t even going to show up?

She had almost begged me.

My stomach twisted.

Had she changed her mind? Gone back on her word? Lost faith in my ability to retrieve her daughter?

I forced myself to take a breath, but it did little to steady my nerves.

There was nothing stopping me from casting the spell on my own. After all, there would be no debating the outcome if I could bring Belle back with me. But what if I followed the instructions to a T and somehow… failed? With no witnesses?

Would I still get paid?

It was a selfish thought, but I was only human. The sole reason I’d taken this job was to break away from the coven, but now… Now I wished to ease Jinn’s grief just a little.

Damn it, why did I feel like I needed her here?

I’d only known the vamp for less days than I could count on one hand. Why did I feel like something wasn’t quite right simply because she wasn’t seated across from me?

Even if she had been here, she would be forced to do nothing but watch as I cast the spell. She didn’t have to draw the circle or murmur the incantations. She didn’t need to lift a single finger to shape the magick.

And yet, somehow, this small, anxious part of me felt like I needed her.

When the clock on my phone read 11:56, I decided it was time. There was no use wasting peak hours of the solstice waiting for Jinn to show up. She had already paid half the amount upfront, and I knew without a doubt that she was serious about getting her daughter back. The least I could do was get started.

The candles had been set; the circle mapped out with a piece of chalk. I sat in the middle, knees bent, feet flush with the ground. Jinn’s necklace had sat in my pocket overnight and I clasped it tight in one hand.

I imagined the weight of a warm stone heavy beneath my breasts, grounding me as each breath whistled through my lips.

Open.

A deep groan whipped around the covenstead.

The heavy stones above my head shifted brick by brick, the centuries-old ceiling twisting backward like building blocks as dust sifted down around the circle.

No one had touched the skylight in years—perhaps decades—but it obeyed as if the magick in my blood alone was enough to wake it. Bit by bit, the great slabs of rock moved, revealing a sliver of the night sky above.

The first beam of moonlight cut through the darkness like silver thread, spilling across the stone floor in a perfect, shimmering pool.

The light was raw, unfiltered, bright with the magick of the Cold Moon. It carried the weight of the stars, the pull of tides, and the hum of an ancient power that was dormant in my veins.

The moonlight moved with the shifting brick, piercing through the opening until it fell on my knees, my lap, my chest, my hair.

A rush of energy, cool as midnight water, crawled over my skin, raising goosebumps in its wake.

I stilled, my breath ceasing as the Cold Moon wound its way around me, weaving into my bones, twining with the tendrils of my own magick. 

All around me, the sigils carved into the stone floor by the elders long gone began to glow, dull at first, then pulsing as more of the moonlight fell through.

I retrieved the glass bottle from my back pocket and emptied its contents into a wooden bowl that waited at the top of the circle. Blessed water trickled into it, shimmering under the moonlight.

The blade sliced across my palm, trickling blood down over the necklace and into the bowl.

Strange.

I stared at my fingers, moving them deliberately but barely feeling them. An odd weightlessness moved through the air, as though my limbs had forgotten how to stay grounded.

They felt stretched, pulled in all directions, as though I had stopped being limited by the casing of my skin.

The light seeped through like liquid silver, and with it came a cool, humming energy.

A slow unraveling—a thread being pulled from the fabric of my being.

My heart—was it still mine? It beat slower, deeper, as though trying to match the distant rhythm of the tide. My pulse no longer belonged to me but to the moon itself, drawn into its orbit, tethered by invisible strings.

The magick in my blood responded, shifting, stirring, as if it had been sleeping all this time and was only now waking to the call of the moon. It slid through my ribs, down my spine, spreading like ink in water, diffusing into every part of me.

I wasn’t just standing in the light of the Cold Moon.

I was being remade by it.

And there was no turning back.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Jinn

“I’ve always thought you were one of my more agreeable spawns,” Indira said, settling back in her armchair. “You’ve never given me trouble. Well, not until Belle entered the picture.”

I strained against the magick that held me down, barely listening to her words.

She sat forward and forced my gaze to hers.

“I am not a cruel mother, Jinn, despite what you may think of me. Do you understand the consequences of what you’re doing? Bringing a vampyre back from the other side will make their thirst worse. Belle will be uncontrollable.”

I shook my head, trying to keep her words from sinking in.

“Is that what you want? To turn your daughter into a mindless predator that will devour everything in sight?”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What’s not to believe?”

“How about the fact that you’ve hated Belle from the start? The fact that you knew she was coming up to Edinburgh to get neutralized and you didn’t see fit to warn me?”

Pain spurred anger.

“You wanted her gone,” I continued. “You hated to see me happy.”

“Come now, Jinn.” Indira’s voice was oh so reasonable. I wanted to rip that smile off her lips. “You know I only have your well-being in mind.”

“Do you?”

My shadows pushed against Indira’s magick, and I thought I felt a slight give. This was the price to pay for immortality—the bond that bound creator and monster. The tie that tethered mother and daughter.

Although her lips didn’t move, Indira’s voice was loud as a bell in my head.

“Of course. You’re just being difficult, chellam.”

That word. I had once mistaken it for affection and sweetness, but now I knew its hideous nature. Indira only used it when she wanted something from me, something hard to offer up: my obedience.

Her voice was silk-thin, deceptively gentle, wrapping around me like a velvet collar. Chellam, she had often murmured over the decades, fingers brushing my cheek, cold as death. Why must you make things so difficult?

My jaw snapped shut, hating her, hating myself, hating the invisible chains that wrapped round my willpower and my limbs.

“Remember what we discussed,” she said, the resonating sound of her voice making my head spin. “I require obedience from my children.”

Her voice was soft, too soft. Almost… dangerous.

Damn it all! No matter how much I wanted to leave, to carve myself out of her grip, the bond between us made disobedience feel like drowning in wet cement.

It hurt to resist her, like a poison spreading through my body in thin cobwebs.

She called herself my mother, my creator. But mothers were supposed to love—they were supposed to care. What she gave me wasn’t love, it was control dressed up in pretty words.

“Do you think I enjoy this?” she asked, her voice cold like fingers curling over my shoulder. “Do you think I want to treat you like a misbehaving child?”

Yes. Indira never missed an opportunity to put me in my place. She had done it for well over a century. She wouldn’t stop now.

A short laugh echoed in my head, and I knew without a doubt that she’d read my mind.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” she tutted.

And I felt it—like a hand inside my ribcage, curling around my very being, crushing it in her grip. The fight inside me flickered, weakening, bending under the weight of her will.

I hated it. I hated how easy it was to surrender to my mother. After all, I had ample practice.

“That’s better,” she murmured. “Now, let go of this ridiculous notion of bringing Belle back to the nest. She was a pathetic excuse of a vampyre and we are stronger without her.”

My lips trembled as I fought her rigid grip.

“No.”

It was almost midnight. Any minute now, Aisla would be harvesting the energy of the Cold Moon and performing The Retractare.

But when Indira’s eyeballs rolled back to reveal an alarming shade of white webbed with red, dread crept down my spine. The candles guttered in their sconces, the flames bending toward her as if pulled by an invisible force.

I had witnessed her slip into this state before—a kind of self-induced trance. 

But this time…

This time, I was her prisoner. I couldn’t stop her.

And I knew, without a doubt, that she was on the other side, walking amongst the dead. If she got to Belle first, there was no telling what she would do. Above all, Indira prided herself on her unpredictability.

I threw my weight against the magickal cords that bound me, forcing my shadows to taper into sharp spears.

As Indira’s physical body slumped in the arm chair, I worked on the bonds, huffing as I tried to break free.

Chapter Forty

Aisla

I thought the spell had failed. Despite the buzzing, despite my heartbeat, despite the weird sense of floating, nothing really happened.

The circle looked the same—familiar dim candlelight and worn symbols carved into the grimy floor.

But something was off. The air felt thinner, like I was breathing in lungfuls of chilly mist. A strange silence pressed in around me, making my ears ring from the intense quiet.

My pulse thundered, but even that sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else.

The candle flames… They weren’t flickering anymore. They stood perfectly still, frozen mid-motion, reaching for the moonlight in a rigid, tapered flame.

Realization crawled over my skin like ice. I turned, slowly, my stomach twisting, my instincts already screaming what my mind refused to accept.

The world beyond the circle was wrong. Faded, translucent, as though reality had been stretched too thin. The edges of objects blurred like smudged ink. And the shadows—they moved, not cast by light but shifting of their own accord, stretching in unnatural ways.

The spell had worked.

But I hadn't pulled the dead to me.

I had crossed over to the other side.

As I took one step, then another, the portal came into view—a silvery oval line that separated the living from the dead.

I glanced down at myself, expecting to be draped in a white sheet perfect for haunting the fuck out of some livings. But instead…

Gold dust fluttered around me. I reached out experimentally, watching the mist swirl and stretch, tendrils seeking, searching.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that I could see my magick in this realm.

A black oval shape with white edges AI-generated content may be incorrect.It moved, drifted, breathed like a living thing, curling from my fingertips in slow, glowing tendrils. It shimmered and flowed as I flexed my fingers.

If I hadn’t also felt the power gathered in my core, I would’ve thought this was nothing more than a trick. A gimmick. But as the gold tendrils moved, so did something in my chest, tugging, releasing, contracting.

Curse the moon! The plan was to get Belle back to the land of the living, not get me to the other side.

Maybe this was how the spell worked. Maybe I’d need to find Belle in this infinite space of in-between nothingness and tell her that her dear mother was looking for her…

It seemed like an impossible task, but it was worth trying. It was several years’ salary worth trying.

“Belle,” I said aloud, the words echoing with a strange resonance. “If you’re here, I’d like to speak with you.”

The words rang like a hollow gong.

“Um. Please?” I added, hoping that it would be the magick word that made Belle appear. “I heard your voice last night. Were you trying to speak to me?”

I waited for something to happen. For a sound, a shift—anything to tell me I wasn’t alone in this place. Or for Belle to walk by, take my hand, and follow me peacefully across the silver-lined portal.

“Well, hello, darling.”

I froze, turning to meet a pair of eyes that were darker than soot.

There was something familiar about this person—features that curved the same way as mine and skin as dark as my own. But her clothes… They were from a different century, one where people like her and I were burnt at a stake or drowned in a mucky loch.

Black and silken, the ends of her dress brushed the floor as she moved, taking several steps toward me in an easy stride. On her feet, polished leather shone starkly, almost as eye-catching as the onyx that glittered on her neck and ears.

The only thing missing was a cheap Halloween prop that sat on her head screaming WYTCH.

But above all, it was her magick that struck true fear in my heart. It shimmered around, restless and untamed. It crackled in the air making the space us feel heavier, like the air itself was waiting for her command.

Red, wispy tendrils gathered in twisting currents, shifting between visible and invisible—a shimmer of power one moment, a pulse of raw energy the next.

Back down, her magick said. You’re nothing compared to me.

I glanced at my own fingers to confirm my magick was still there, still rising around me like a halo of gold. A part of me thought perhaps it had been scared away by her superiority.

“Do I know you?” I asked, taking a step back cautiously.

Familiar features or not, I wasn’t taking any chances in the realm of in-between. The more space between me and this stranger, the better.

She spoke with a crisp English accent, the ah in darling taking a new iteration with multiple vowels.

“I am your moon-given warning.” Her smile was altogether unpleasant. “This is not your battle, young one.”

I felt a furrow twitch in my brow. “What isn’t?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Her fingers formed a dismissive wave. “Return to your body. I’ll handle everything else.”

“Excuse me?” I slipped the necklace into my pocket. “I think you’ve got the wrong person. I don’t know you. So if you’ll step aside, I’ll—”

“You’re the little wytch that Jinn hired.”

There was a familiarity in the way she said Jinn’s name, like she’d uttered it countless times before… Like it belonged to her as much as it did Jinn.

I met her gaze, realization dawning like the slow roll of honey down the side of a jar. “And you’re the wytch who refused to help her.”

A smirk—eerily similar to Jinn’s—lifted her lips.

“You catch on quickly. I’m her mother.”

Mother?

That made little sense. She was a wytch, wasn’t she? Like me. I took another step back as she attempted to close the distance between us.

“I have no quarrel with you,” I said. “Just let me do my job. That’s all I ask.”

“But doing your job inconveniences me.”

The words were a silken purr.

“Well, then, that’s too bad, isn’t it?”

Each step we took turned into a dance of sorts.  

“Besides,” she said. “There’s no need for your services any longer. I’ve got Belle.”

Her fingers rose absently to stroke the silver vial hanging from her throat. On first glance, I’d assumed it was a ward of some kind, or maybe a spell meant to disguise any matter of things—age, beauty, height, a disability even. But now, I saw it for what it truly was.

A hexhold.

It flashed red and silver. She had clearly spelled someone into the glass, and I was willing to bet every penny Jinn was paying me that it was Belle.

But why? Why go through such great lengths to ensure they were never reunited?

My gaze flickered to the hexhold again—ah fuck, it was so close. So close.

But taking in the red shimmer around her body, the likelihood of battling an older wytch and winning was… tenuous. Not impossible, because my ego was as fat as my arse, but it would be a difficult endeavor.

I looked back at the portal that ran in an oval loop.

“That’s right,” she said. “Run along now, sweetheart. There’s a good little wytch.”

The words set my teeth on edge.

“Run back to your safe little covenstead.”

The words sparked over me like a matchstick rasping against sandpaper.

“You know what?” I said, turning on my heel. “On second thought, I think I’ll stay. I was paid to do a job and I’m going to do it right.”

The wytch angled her magick outward, making the red tendrils flare like the first flick on a gas stove. It zapped my skin and returned to its owner.

“Oh, you don’t scare me.” I’d long ago accepted that I was a practiced liar. “What scares me is the prospect of not getting paid.”

“Does the High Coven know what you’re up to? Your Elders at the coven?”

“Yes.” Sarcasm could also be considered a weapon, right? “I made sure to write them a lovely little note to explain how I was casting a spell for a vamp so she can retrieve her undead daughter who has a habit of wanting to kill herself every now and again.”

“You are delightful.” I watched as her crimson-coated nails sharpened into needle-like claws. “It’s too bad, really. It would have been nice to share a bottle of wine under other circumstances.”

“You still have that chance,” I reminded her. “We have a lovely bottle of red in our cellar back at the coven.”

“I’ll pass, thank you. Besides, it would be awkward to show up at your covenstead and demand a glass of your finest wine with your blood splattered across my face.”

“True.” I rubbed the pads of my fingers together, trying to gauge the fullness of the tank. “But you could also choose not to kill me.”

Her laughter brushed against my skin like petrified velvet.

“Oh, but darling,” she cooed. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Her eyes flickered over my face, something unreadable passing through them.

“You’re shaking,” she said, a perfectly sculpted brow rising high on her temple.

I was.

My hands trembled at my sides, my body a tight wire of restraint.

“Of course I am,” I said instead, refusing to let her see my weakness. “I am trembling with… Rage.”

“Of course, dear.”

She was enjoying this—that much was obvious. I was a younger wytch, a less experienced wytch. My magick was child’s play compared to hers.

“Just so I’m aware,” I said, attempting to distract her with conversation as I tried to formulate a strategic attack. I simply needed a straight line to the hexhold—which sounded simple enough—except for the fact that it was tethered to her neck.

“Why did you deny Jinn help? You’re clearly capable of casting this spell. It would be a walk in the park for someone of your experience.”

The question brought the slightest hint of a crease to her brow.

Good, I thought. Think about that question while I figure out a way to get out of here alive and get paid.

My gaze trailed over the aura of her magick—big and showy like a smattering of firecrackers.

If there was something I’d learned over the years by watching other wytches, it was that power was never just power. It had rules. And every wytch had a weakness.

I watched the way her magick moved, tracking the crimson coiling shadows that clung to her shoulders and created a halo over her head. When she took a step forward, the red stream trailed behind her like a long train of a wedding dress.

Shadows, I thought, my mind casting back to Jinn’s powers. Shadows meant she needed darkness for her magick. Could I use light against her?

My gaze flicked to the frozen candles at the edges of the circle and the dried herbs that littered the ground in the solarium. If I knocked the candle over, I could flood the room with fire. Would that weaken her?

Or… I wracked my head. Maybe her strength wasn’t in the elements at all. Maybe it was in her focus, her control. If I could break her concentration, disrupt the flow of her magic, I might have a chance.

I curled my fingers, testing my own magick, feeling it coil in my palms like a tightly wound spring.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but Belle was never meant to be one of us,” she said, examining her nails. “She was weak and out of control… But Jinn didn’t listen. I never understood why she was soft on the girl. What a waste of time.”

“She told me that she’d watched Belle grow up,” I said, testing my magick again like I was flexing a muscle. Could I trust it? Trust myself? “Surely you can understand why she would want to help someone like that.”

A daintily curved shoulder rose and fell, followed by a dismissive sound.

Meh.

“She turned Belle without consulting me because she knew I’d say no. I’d make it clear that Belle wasn’t worthy. A junkie? In my nest?”

“Or maybe she turned Belle because she simply didn’t want to see her die. Maybe each time she looked at her, she only saw the little girl playing alone on the swings.”

Her gaze morphed into something withering.

“Weakness,” she spat. “Humans die every day. It’s their folly.”

“Their folly?” I echoed.

There was something about the way she said the word that made it seem like she wasn’t including herself amongst our ranks.

She was human, just like me. Wasn’t she?

The question made her pause, her chin tilting in the air as though she were studying a little insect under a microscope.

She spoke again, her words crisp. “You ask dangerous questions.”

“Dangerous how? You’re one of us, aren’t you? A wytch. Human. Mortal.”

Her fangs descended, gleaming sharply against her skin.

What the fuck?

“Not quite,” she said. “Tell me, my dear, why do you keep looking over your shoulder?”

“I’m not.” I absolutely was.

“Could it be that you’re waiting for someone to rescue you from my clutches? Jinn, perhaps?”

I wet my lips, trying to ease the dryness.

“No one is coming to save you,” she continued. “My daughter is an obedient child, after all, especially when she’s tied to a chair.”

A burst of honeysuckle slithered up my nose as she rushed forward, fangs bared, slamming into me with a force that left me no room to gasp.

I had fatally underestimated her strength. The wytch’s knees dug into my waist, likely bruising my kidneys as she rose above me, staring down into my face as her magick formed a bloody red noose around my neck.

If the wicked smile on her face was any indication, she seemed to be enjoying the view of me struggling beneath her.

I scrambled for a next move—any move—flicking the pads of my fingers against each other to rouse the magick I still saw flickering in dusty gold.

But with oxygen fading from my lungs, my intention was almost non-existent, and so the magick buoyed in the cool, still air. Dormant. Useless.

Motherfucker.

Had I ever been this helpless? This powerless? This incapable of defending myself?

Even when Jinn had attacked me out of nowhere, I’d summoned enough magick to crack her cheekbone. I’d never laid on the ground, paralyzed, waiting for her to mangle me into unidentifiable roadkill.

And I certainly wasn’t going to let myself be murdered like this!

My brain was quickly turning to liquid mush. In a desperate, last-ditch attempt to save myself, I curled my fingers into fists. A bolt of gold rose from my knuckles, spearing toward the side of Indira’s head.

Without turning to glance at my attack, the red halo around her head thickened and my miserable attempt at saving my own life ricocheted to an unseen corner of the room.

For the first time that night, the threat of real, actual death twisted in my belly. Thick and sour, it curdled like acid.

The moon rose above us, its silvery-blue light illuminating every angle of her smug face.

I needed something else. Something fast.

The candles!

There was no time to consider if it would work.

Angling my magick outward, I reached beyond the portal and tipped the black and white candles over, adding a rush of air to the spell to make them spread.

It worked a little too well. Perhaps my impending death had imbued the spell with a little unexpected zhuzh.

The flames came alive, surging across the solarium in a chaotic, writhing mass of red. From the corner of my eye, I watched them crawl up the wall, licking the stones.

Above me, my attacker hissed, reeling back as the sudden, sharp brightness of the flames cut through the shadows.

I didn’t waste the opening.

The vial dangled between her collarbones, flashing red and silver. I curled my fingers, aimed the magick true, and snipped the chain in half. The hexhold fell onto my jacket with a soundless thunk.

I wrangled my wrists free and shoved at her chest, sending her flying backward with a hard pulse of magick.

Yes!

I shoved the hexhold in my pocket and scrambled backward on my hands and knees, reaching for the edge of the portal.

“Not so fast, my darling.”

A swift, suffocating pressure wrapped around my ankle, slithering across the angled bone like a snake slowly constricting around a piece of meat. Indira’s magick was fire-hot and unrelenting, pulling me deeper into the portal, away from the silver oval that was my escape. My fingers scrabbled uselessly across the floor, scraping across the gritty tiles.

My breath fogged, ragged, heart hammering in my chest.

Then—slam.

Her weight shoved me back onto the ground with such force that the air in my lungs evaporated. The cold floor bit into my cheek. The edges of my vision blurred, flickering between blackness and distorted shapes.

My legs were useless—trapped. A choked gasp was all I could manage, the floor beneath me cold and merciless.

Okay, so this is how it would end. In a portal between the living and the dead, strangled by one of my own kind. Was there a worse way to go?

As consciousness threatened to slip from my grasp, the pressure on my throat lifted.

My vision blurred with grey splotches as the wytch’s form lifted off me, hovering in the air as though caught by an unknown force.

As I scrambled to get away, I realized it wasn’t an unknown force that held her aloft. It was a familiar cluster of writhing, hissing dark shadows.

I scrambled across the floor, dragging dirt and grime with me as I burst through the portal and into the solarium.

“Close the fucking portal!” Jinn yelled, her face a rigid mask of concentration as she struggled to hold the wytch in place.

I uttered the words with trembling lips and the silver-rimmed oval vanished. The last thing we saw was the wytch falling to the ground as Jinn’s shadows retreated.

Chapter Forty-One

Jinn

“That was your fucking mother?!” Aisla gasped as she fell back against the grimy floor of the covenstead. Her curls were matted with sweat and dirt, and her skin was flushed from exertion. But she was alive.

I placed a hand on her cheek, forcing her to look at me as I searched her body for injuries. She tried to push up to her elbows, but even that small amount of energy seemed to tire her out and she fell back to the ground.

Although most of the flames had been banked by a hastily uttered spell, small fires lingered in corners of the covenstead. The dried old herbs had disintegrated, leaving little piles of ash on the ground.

This was a real flame from a lighter I spotted amidst the ashes, not a trick that Aisla had conjured. And that heightened my anxiety as I studied the depleted wytch in front of me.

When she spoke, her voice was raw, as though she’d been choked within an inch of her life. Knowing my mother, that wouldn’t be too far from the truth.

“I’m getting really tired of being strangled by you and your family,” she rasped, trying to huff out a laugh and failing miserably.

“I’m sorry.” I pulled her close, relishing the familiar weight in my arms. “I’m so sorry.”

For long moments, she seemed content to lean against me.

“Is it strange if I say that I understand you so much more after meeting your mother?” She spoke quietly, her breath ruffling the ends of my hair. “It’s obvious that you wanted to give Belle everything your mother couldn’t give you. The love, the affection, the nurturing.”

I said nothing, although my fingers curled instinctively around Aisla.

“She isn’t going to come after me, is she?” Aisla asked, snapping her fingers to test what was left of her magick. “Because I don’t know if I have it in me to be strangled three times in the span of a week.”

“I… I can’t be sure, but it would be best to get you home and into the protection of your wards. Indira is strong, but I doubt she’ll be able to break those.”

I slipped my hand under Aisla’s upturned knees, ready to lift her into my arms.

“Wait,” she said, placing a hand against my shoulder. “Aren’t you going to ask if I found Belle?”

“Well, it seemed like a moot question since I didn’t see her in the portal.”

She retrieved a flashing glass vial from her pocket and let it dangle between her fingers.

“Here you go,” she said, placing it in my outstretched palm. “Now, cough up.”

“What is it?” I turned the glass around, surprised to find that it was hot to the touch.

“A hexhold,” Aisla explained, the creases around her eyes becoming more prominent. “Something wytches use to trap spirits or otherworldly creatures.”

“And so…”

“I think Indira got to Belle before I did and trapped her in there. I can’t imagine what her plan was, other than to keep me away from Belle the only way she knew how.”

“Is she safe in this tiny thing?”

“Safer than she’ll ever be,” Aisla said. “Being trapped in a hexhold puts you to sleep.”

Aisla coughed up the last words, color leaching from her lips. She groaned, leaning heavily into me.

“Fuck me, everything hurts.”

“Of course it does.” I brushed a damp curl from her forehead. “You fought a Blood Wytch and survived.”

She scoffed, but let me help her up.

“Blood Wytches aren’t real,” she murmured into my vest as she wavered on her feet.

“I beg your pardon?”

Despite her exhaustion, my outdated turn of phrase brought a smile to her face.

“They’re a myth,” she said, settling against me. Her eyelids drooped shut. “Blood Wytches don’t exist. They never have.”

I stared at her, uncomprehending, as she rubbed her cheek into my vest.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded.

“Very.”

I cursed under my breath, scrambling to understand the implications of her statement. Before I could demand to know more, she spoke: “How did you manage to get here? Indira said she tied you to a chair.”

“Her magick isn’t limitless. The more she drew on it to fight you, the more it withered in our realm.”

“Ah.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

Her tired nod was imperceptible.

***

Although it had been well over a century since I felt the cold, I remembered it well. It was hard to forget its pinch, the way it snaked beneath skin and bone to petrify the body.

The human in my arms quivered with it. I could feel the fine tremors running through her, the way her breath hitched as she curled closer, seeking warmth I could never truly give. Her icy fingers clutched at my coat, her pulse fluttering wildly beneath her skin as I carried her into the covenstead and up to her room.

She had given too much of herself—much more than I’d asked for, and certainly much more than I’d paid for.

I could still feel the lingering traces of power crackling around her, but it was fragile now, weakened. My mother was well-versed in the art of breaking others. And yet, Aisla had still fought. She’d still believed she could overpower Indira if she pushed a little harder, reached a little deeper into the well of her magick.

It was admirable in a way—stupid, but admirable.

Now, though, she was paying the price.

Her breath came shallow, her body limp with exhaustion. She had given everything, held nothing back, and in doing so, she had left herself defenseless. If I had arrived even a second later, if I had hesitated, she would be—

I didn’t want to finish that thought.

My jaw clenched painfully as I stared at her weakened form. She should have known better. Should have stopped before it came to this. But that wasn’t who she was, was it? She would rather shatter herself against an unmovable force than give up.

Despite everything, gratitude swelled in my chest as I set her in the deep tub and started the process of filling it. I’d seen several versions of her—afraid, angry, lusty, greedy, guarded, but never quite… Soft. It plucked at my heartstrings in a way I wasn’t prepared for.

She watched me move around the small bathroom with a strange look in her eyes. Her fingers worked on instinct, unzipping the jacket and tugging at clothes, letting them fall over the edge of the tub.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said as warm water sloshed down.

“What didn’t I have to do?” she asked drowsily. Exhaustion carved deep trenches in her skin.

“Fight Indira.”

I knelt, carefully folding her underwear into a square and placing it in the laundry basket.

“I didn’t ask you to risk your life for me.”

“It wasn’t for you,” she said, her fingers drifting over the soulglass at her neck. It was cracked—a result of Indira’s magick, no doubt.

“It wasn’t?” A jumper joined the underwear in the basket, and I hung the jacket and jeans on the back of the bathroom door.

It was instinctive to brush the edges of her mind to try and get a glimpse of what she was thinking, but that only made me a recipient of Aisla’s tired glare.

“Of course not,” she said, letting her head fall back onto the porcelain. “I did it for the money. Speaking of which, have you transferred it yet?”

“I’ll send Nathaniel the memo.”

“Great.”

As I studied her, she spoke without opening her eyes.

“How does it feel to be just a paycheck to me?” she asked, a little teasing smile playing around her lips.

“Wounding,” I quipped. “But I have a feeling Maia’s little truth serum will tell me different.”

“My sister would never use her magick against me, especially if it helps you.”

“She does seem willfully loyal.” I sat on the edge of the tub and brushed her curls away from her forehead. The water was blissfully warm as it filled the bath. “I meant what I said, Aisla. You didn’t have to put your life in danger for me.”

“And as I said, it wasn’t for you. It was strictly for the money.”

“Liar.”

There was no sting to the accusation.

She shrugged. “Maybe I didn’t want you to be so sad. But it was certainly eighty percent money, twenty percent sadness.”

“A heart of gold,” I teased, the tension in my body easing a little as she found a smile.

Steam rose from the tub. Water lapped gently at her bare skin, shifting with each small movement.

“Would you…” Aisla cleared her throat, pulling her knees up as far as they would go. “Would you like to join me?”

I couldn’t say no. Hardly a minute passed as I folded my clothes into a neat pile and joined her. The hexhold, still flashing red and silver, lay atop the layers of fabric.

Water sloshed along the sides of the tub as she crept forward to press her back against my chest. Curly locks tickled my nose, but I didn’t pull away. Instead, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, grateful for her weight and the grounding knowledge that she was still here. Alive.

The heat of the tub wrapped around us, but it was her warmth I craved, the quiet pulse beneath her skin, the soft rhythm of her breath.

Droplets clung to her, rolling down slowly, tracing delicate paths along collarbones and shoulders before disappearing beneath the surface. I traced their progress with my eyes as I buried my face into her hair, breathing in the scent of coconut oil and something uniquely her.

Her breath hitched slightly.

“Fuck, I almost died.”

Reality seemed to be settling in belatedly.

My fingers traced the angry reddish-purple marks along her neck.

“I’m sorry. Will you let me heal you, Aisla?” I asked, feeling her pulse quiver beneath my fingers. “Will you let me take the pain away?”

Her fingers rose to cup her curls, pushing them out of the way. Her neck lay bare before me, an empty expanse that was marred only by the chain her ward rested on. At the base of her nape, a cluster of scratches were red and raw, likely from being dragged across the floor.

“Bend over for me, little wytch.”

Goosepimples rose over her skin, spreading from her shoulders down to her arms. She angled her body slightly, dipping lower, offering me space to set my tongue against the scrapes.

They were shallow—just the surface had been scratched away by unyielding stone. But when I dragged my tongue against the wound, she shivered beneath me.

Her blood, warm and intoxicating, spread across my tongue like the richest wine.

I savored every tremor, every quiver, tracking the way her breath hitched with each lave.

“Oh, f—”

The curse faded into a choked gasp. Her pulse fluttered wildly beneath my touch, and I could hear it—feel it—like a siren’s call just beneath the surface, the rush of her blood. The scrambling of her heartbeat.

I pressed a kiss to the rapidly fading wound, the taste of her lingering on my lips.

With a soft whimper, she tilted her head back, exposing more of her throat to me.

A silent invitation—a trust so deep it nearly unraveled me.

The hunger was still there, still simmering beneath the surface and biting into my belly with ragged hooks, but this wasn’t about taking. This was about healing, about tending to her in a way that left her whole rather than drained.

I ran my tongue along the last traces of the wound, sealing it completely, and turned my attention to the range of bruises.

Damn Indira! I had known her to be cruel, but this was barbaric. It was a wonder that Aisla was still alive. Still breathing.

A little voice in my head sprang forth to remind me that I had left similar bruises just days before, but I snuffed it out quickly.

We had made peace with each other. Hell, I’d saved her life tonight. There was no reason to dig up the none-too-distant past…

…especially when she pressed her neck into my palm like a kitten waiting to be stroked.

Here, the bruises interlaced with one another, spreading over her skin like ink in water, weaving into one large reddish-purple mark. I set the flat of my tongue against the widest part of the bruise, licking gently.

The taste of her skin and blood lingered on my lips—salt, warmth, magick, and something uniquely her. I wanted more. Not out of hunger, not out of need, but because there was something unbearably intimate about this, about having her bare before me, trusting me to take away her pain.

My tongue traced the edge of another bruise, this one higher, just beneath her collarbone. She gasped at first contact, her breath stuttering as I pressed a slow, open-mouthed kiss over the mark.

Her pulse hammered beneath her skin, rapid and uneven, and a tendril of satisfaction curled through me.

Movement at the edge of my gaze made me pause.

“Are you touching yourself?” I whispered wetly against her neck.

Aisla stilled, freezing like a rabbit caught in a trap I had designed especially for her.

“No,” she lied, but the evidence proving otherwise was everywhere. The gathered peaks of her nipples, the pant in her breath, thighs splayed apart... And most of all, the fingers that had disappeared between her legs.

“Liar.”

“It’s unfair to turn someone on and not let them do anything about it.”

“Is it now?” I queried. “Perhaps I had something better in store for you. Something more than just your fingers.”

“Tease.” The rasp in her voice slid over my skin like velvet.

“Don’t stop, little wytch,” I whispered. “After all, how else would you be able to fully appreciate my tongue if you had nothing to compare it with?”

“You’re so cocky.” But the words were more appreciative than accusatory. “But maybe you have the right to be.”

I gathered a fold of her flesh between my teeth and bit down. She arched into me, her fingers moving quickly beneath the water.

“I can almost taste you,” I whispered in her ear. “Your blood, your pussy. Every bit of you is exquisite.”

She breathed: “Which do you want more?”

There was no answer that wouldn’t be a lie.

Her pulse throbbed so close to the surface, tempting, calling to me like a whispered invitation. If I leaned in just a little more, just barely, I could feel that fragile beat against my mouth, let my fangs break the surface and take—

But then she moaned, soft and wanting, and my gaze snapped to the fingers moving rapidly under the steaming water. In and out she thrust, her hips moving to meet her fingers. In a matter of minutes, maybe less, she’d find her peak. And I wanted that. I wanted her to come apart as I drank from her neck. 

The need clawed at me from both sides.

“Does it bring you pleasure to torment me?”

“Far too much pleasure,” she confirmed like the deviant she was.

Her free hand curled over my hair, holding tight as she surged toward her peak.

I watched, hypnotized by every fluid movement as she rode her fingers, back arching, spine bowing, skin quivering…

God help me. I never thought I’d be ruined by someone else’s orgasm.

But as she whimpered and trembled around her own fingers, I found myself enthralled beyond words.

“Okay,” she said, her breathing ragged as her hips splashed back into the water. “Maybe it was more like sixty percent money and forty percent you.”

My smile was hidden against the column of her neck.

“Is that so?” I teased. “If I make you come again, will it shift the numbers? Hmm? Should I try for fifty-fifty?”

Her laughter broke over me like a warm wave.

“You can try,” she said. “But I can’t guarantee it.”

I let the edges of my teeth drag across her skin. She leaned into my bite.

“Carry me outside,” she said. It was an order. “Into the bedroom. The moonlight. It will help me heal.”

Slowly, breathlessly, under the moonlight, Aisla came to life again, the creases on her skin melting away as power surged from her fingertips.

I found myself between her thighs, buried in her core, fulfilling my earlier promise. Even as she thrashed and bucked beneath me, I didn’t let up, didn’t stop. My tongue continued to urge her towards another peak, then another, memorizing every cry and every ripple until she lay boneless on the carpet.

Deplete.

Replete.

I rose with her wetness running down my chin and placed a sloppy kiss on her lips, tasting her smile, the little huff of laughter.

“What about now?” I asked as she attempted to wipe herself off my chin.

“Maybe fifty-fifty, vamp.”

Some might call her cruel, but I adored her.

“I would do it again if it means bringing you closure,” she whispered, her curls dipped in the silver glow.

Closure.

The word crept over me like falling dusk.

I stilled, searching her eyes for the truth. 

Closure, I thought. Is that what I needed? More than Belle, more than the feel of my daughter in my arms again, did I need closure?

Chapter Forty-Two

Jinn

I stared at the hexhold in my palm, watching as it flashed red and silver. Somewhere in there, Belle waited, sleeping peacefully, yet I was immobile, sitting on the covenstead’s front steps as shavings of snow curled on my shoes.

“Why are you just staring at it?”

Aisla’s voice drifted out from the foyer. She stood in the doorway, her feet lined with fluffy pink socks that rose up to the middle of her shapely calves. A thick navy bathrobe was belted tight at her waist.

“Did you forget the words to release her?” she asked, rubbing her arms against the chill.

“No.”

How could I explain the tangle of fear inside me? The fear that curled in my stomach, cold and relentless?

I’d barely survived losing Belle the first time. Planning to get her back had simply been a crutch to cushion my grief. And now, I faced losing the crutch itself…

God help me, I might not have the strength to pull myself together.

Aisla’s footsteps were quiet over the brick as she closed the distance between us.

“I don’t mean to make light of your pain, Jinn,” she said, curling a palm over my bicep. “But you’re prolonging your agony.”

“What if—” Ah hell, my voice cracked like an adolescent. I cleared my throat. “What if she doesn’t—”

“Then she doesn’t,” Aisla’s grip tightened. “That is her decision to make.”

She leaned close to rest her cheek on my shoulder.

“You are a good parent, you know? You did everything you could to save Belle from the decisions she made in life and death.”

“I coddled her,” I admitted, rolling the vial between my fingers.

“It was your job to coddle her,” she said kindly. “But she was an adult when you turned her. She was capable of making her own decisions.”

“They were wrong decisions,” I insisted.

“Yes, but they were hers.” Aisla’s eyes brimmed with something I couldn’t read.

“She saved me from an eternity in silence,” I admitted. “A never-ending life with misery for company.”

Aisla’s sigh ruffled my hair. “Then, yet again, this isn’t about her, is it? It’s about you. It’s about your inability to come to terms with the immortality you signed up for.”

“You don’t understand.” I glanced down at the gathering snow. “It’s a lonely thing to be left behind.”

“It’s heartbreaking.” She took my hand in hers and pressed her fingers against mine. “But maybe I understand grief like a mortal would. I wonder if it’s ten times worse for you.”

I was silent.

“Give it here,” she said, holding her palm out. “There’s no use dragging things out.”

I was inclined to agree with her.

When I placed the hexhold into the center of her palm, she held it gently as though feeling the pulse of trapped energy within.

“Ready?”

Never. I doubted I would ever be ready to confront eternity alone.

But I nodded instead.

She took a deep breath, and when she spoke, the words were steady, low, each syllable like a key turning in a lock. The air around us grew heady with ozone as the hexhold trembled.

“Lowse the tether o’nicht,” she chanted. “Be lowse. Be lowse.”

The glass cracked down the middle, two halves falling apart like symmetric puzzle pieces.

With a gasp loud enough to wake the dead, Belle appeared on the ground, her hands and knees buried in the snow.

***

She was the softest bundle in my arms. Belle’s red hair tickled my nose, her sobs quiet against my shoulder.

The truth was, despite everything, I’d thought she was gone. Lost to me. The rarest gem drowned in a sea never to be returned.

I opened my mouth, but no words came. There were too many things to say, too many emotions crashing into one another, tangling into knots I couldn't undo.

I had mourned her in my own way—screamed internally, grieved, shattered beneath the reality of being a terrible parent.

And yet, here she stood. She was real—breathing, crying, sniffling like a human thing and watching me with those familiar eyes I had stared into for the past four decades.

I tried to move, but even that was an impossible task. All I wanted was to touch her hair just to be sure it was as soft as I had remembered it. Or stroke her cheek to let her know there was nothing to fear.

After days of worry and abject sorrow, something in my brain refused to believe she was real. Something inside me kept whispering that this was a trick, a cruel illusion meant to break me further.

But Belle was here. Solid. Real.

Her lips parted, hesitation flickering across her face.

“What’s happening?” she whispered, her tears creating a splotch on my shirt. “I don’t understand. I thought… I thought I was gone.”

Shaky and pale, Belle glanced over at Aisla.

“You,” Belle muttered, recognition dawning in her eyes. “You’re the wytch. You neutralized me, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Aisla said carefully. “Because you wanted me to.”

Belle dashed the tears that continued to fall onto her cheeks.

“Then how…” She glanced between us, doubt etched into her frown. “How?”

“Jinn brought you back,” Aisla said, studying Belle with the same scrutiny I was. “Well, with my help.”

Belle swept her curls from her forehead as she considered Aisla’s words.

“If it’s all the same to the two of you,” Aisla interjected. “Could we have this conversation inside? It’s bloody freezing.”

With words still out of my reach, I followed Aisla mutely as she led us to the sitting room. Anaia, the paunchy cat, stretched lazily on the windowsill and crept toward me on quiet paws.

“I’ll leave you two to catch up,” Aisla said. “If you need me, just shout.”

She disappeared around the corner, leaving us in the quiet of the covenstead with the crackle of the hearth and the motorboat noise of the purring cat. I perched on the edge of the worn leather sofa and Belle followed.

“I’m confused,” Belle began, placing her palm on my knee in an achingly familiar way. “How did the wytch bring me back? I was vanquished, wasn’t I? Neutralized.”

“It’s a spell.” My voice was rough like gravel as I spoke. “I—”

But I didn’t wish to talk about the spell, or Aisla, or the panic of the last few days.

I wanted to tell her how much I’d missed her. How much it had hurt. How her absence had carved a hollow space inside me that nothing else had been able to fill. But the words wouldn’t come. They sat like stones in my chest, heavy and immovable.

Her expression softened, something like understanding flickering in her gaze.

“I—I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” she said, her voice a whisper I could barely make out above the roar of the fire.

“You must have known I’d do everything in my power to save you, Belle.” I forced myself to meet her gaze. “I will always save you. Always.”

Her fingers tightened around my knee. “That’s why I didn’t say anything before I left. Because I knew you would try to intervene.”

“Because it was the wrong decision.”

Her lips tightened, a thin slash appearing where her cherubic pout once was.

“Jinn.”

She stood, treading across the room to the fire.

“You did your best with me,” she began. “Really—you did. But there’s something inside me that’s dangerous. It pushed me to overdose on heroin before you turned me. And it always comes back when I’m thirsty, pushing me to drink more, take more. Sometimes it even…”

“It pushes you to kill,” I finished for her. We had talked about her demons more than once.

“But we were working on it. We had it under control,” I insisted.

Belle shook her head.

“No,” she whispered. “This thing inside me can’t be controlled. It wants more, demands more every single time. And the boy… the poor child…”

She faltered, her fingers curling into fists.

“You know what the worst part is, Jinn?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder with a tear-stained cheek. “Even after I came back to myself and understood the horror of what I’d done… I wanted more of him. I wanted to rip him apart and mangle his corpse, lick every bit of his innards until he was picked clean.”

She huffed a short, humorless laugh.

“That’s the kind of monster I am.”

I stood, upsetting the cat from my lap.

“Belle, we’ve talked about this. You are not a monster.”

“You see what you wish to see, Jinn,” Belle scoffed. “Because I’m your daughter, you overlook the terrible things I do, the stain I am on this earth. But you can’t shield me from the world forever. I can’t be under your wing until the end of time.” Her silhouette was stark against the fire. “You turned me forty-four years ago and I’m still just as feral and uncontrollable as that very first day.”

“But that doesn’t mean I’ll give up on you.”

“No,” Belle shook her head, her gaze simmering with sadness. “I’ve given up on myself.”

Everything inside me rebelled as I asked: “What are you trying to say?”

Belle turned, looking every bit as broken and bruised as the day I’d turned her. Even before she could speak, I knew she had decided. It was in the way she exhaled, the way her shoulders tensed. I could already hear the words forming, sharp like a blade poised to strike.

I wanted to stop her. To pretend, for just a moment longer, that I didn’t already know. But she looked at me then, eyes filled with something I didn’t want to name, and I knew—whatever she was about to say would break me.

Soft as a whisper, the words slid between my ribs and shattered like a piece of glass brought too close to a flame.

Chapter Forty-Three

Aisla

I found Maia and Brodie in the back garden, their hands clasped in an energy circle. A shaft of silvery moonlight fell between them in a perfect arc.

They were both dressed in what I’d begun to think of as our uniform—jet-black ski pants and a parka with the hood pulled up tightly over their hair. Snow fell around them in soft little flakes, landing in the open barrels that Maia had arranged outdoors, waiting to be blessed by the moon.

The smell of tangled herbs was thick in the icy air. Rosemary intertwined with the faintest whisper of lavender—floral, slightly woody, familiar.

Usually, I’d find these scents grounding. I’d take great breaths of them and let the herby notes settle deep in my bones.

Now, however, a dull ache spread through me, wrapping around my lungs like invisible chains. Each beat was sluggish, burdened, as if Belle’s obvious unhappiness had been catching.

Because, with just one look into Belle’s eyes, I had known.

I. Had. Known.

She would not stay.

“How does it feel to be rich?” Maia asked, breaking the energy circle with a final thanks to the moon.

I shrugged. “Fine, I suppose. Good.”

“Fine or good? One sounds worse than the other,” Brodie commented, wiping off the snow that had gathered on the sleeves of his parka.

“I just…”

I glanced at my clasped hands, seeing Belle’s stricken face.

“I don’t think it’s going as planned.”

A sigh tore its way out of me.

“What do you mean?”

Brodie’s boots crunched in the snow as he crossed the garden and settled on the step beneath me.

I met his eyes, half-obscured behind a pair of tinted glasses.

“I don’t think Belle wants to be here,” I said, forcing the words out. “Jinn is going to be heartbroken.”

“And why do you care?” Brodie asked. “You’ll get paid either way.”

I watched my fingers intertwine painfully. “I know… But it feels… Sad.”

“Because you’re sleeping with her?”

I shot Maia an accusatory look across the garden.

“You told Brodie?!”

“Of course.” Her snort echoed in the night. “My sister is sleeping with a vamp—a vamp!—and you think I’ll keep that a secret?”

“A vamp that tried to kill you,” Brodie pointed out unnecessarily.

I held both my palms out. “We need to stop bringing that up. It was a mistake, okay? We’ve moved past that and so should you.”

“We never agreed to that,” Brodie said with a shake of his head. “Do you understand how crazy it is that you can look at someone who inflicted pain on you and think how hot they are?”

“Isn’t that the basis of BDSM?” I asked, my brows rising.

“The basis of BDSM is consent,” he corrected with a little huff, as though it was stupid of me not to know that. “And something tells me the vamp didn’t ask for your consent before she tried to kill you.”

“Enough.” The hard edge in my voice surprised me. “Please.”

“Can we talk about something else?” I said, forcing myself to speak slowly. “Like how the vampyre I’ve fought to bring back from the other side is about to break her mother’s heart by rejecting a second chance at immortality?”

“Why are you so sure about that?” Brodie pushed his glasses further up his nose.

“Because.” I paused to pick my words carefully. “She seemed… devastated to be back here. If I had a second chance at life, I’d be ecstatic. But Belle just seems so fucking sad.”

I placed my head in my palms, trying to untangle the thoughts that had wrangled themselves into knots.

Maia, satisfied that the barrels were under direct moonlight, walked back towards us.

“So everything you did was for nothing?” she asked.

“Not for nothing.”

When I glanced up at my sister, I was surprised to find my vision blurry. I swiped the tears away quickly.

“I think Jinn deserves closure with her daughter,” I said. “When Belle ran away to be neutralized, she didn’t get the chance to say goodbye. At least this way, they’ll be able to make peace with the decision together.”

“That is a very expensive goodbye,” Brodie quipped.

“It’s priceless to Jinn. I have no doubt.”

Chapter Forty-Four

Jinn

There was nothing left to say. No words that would smooth over the pain that lingered between us like a chasm.

Belle lay in the comfort of my arms, her powder blue coat piled on the carpet in front of us.

You need to let me go.

She had made her decision—had made it twice. There was nothing I could do or say to change her mind.

And that was the worst part—the sheer, crushing helplessness of it.

I didn’t fight. I didn’t argue. I didn’t beg. She had looked at me with those steady, unwavering eyes, and I had known. She wasn’t going to bend. She wasn’t going to change her decision. Not for me. Not for anyone.

I wondered if I would rest easier knowing that I had done everything I could. Or if the memories would throb less in my chest knowing that Belle was at peace with her decision.

I thought I’d be choked by frustration, grief, anger and all other stifling emotions, but instead, all I felt was…

Numb.

I had already mourned Belle. Perhaps I had lived with the hope of her returning to me, but that seemed inconsequential now.

In fighting to bring her back, I had gotten used to moving through the world without her, and I would have no choice but to continue to do so.

Gazing down at Belle now, all I felt was… nothing.

No shock. No joy. No sudden rush of relief.

I should have felt something—rage, devastation, terror. But all that was left were crumbs from emotions that had long ago fizzed and disappeared, as if my body had given up trying to process what my mind already knew.

I couldn't stop her. I couldn't save her.

Maybe, deep down, I had already accepted it. Maybe I had known all along that this was how it would end. That no matter how tightly I held on, no matter how hard I fought to save her, she had been gradually slipping through my fingers.

My words were thin and tired.

“So, this is it?”

I waited for the slight pause of hesitation, but she spoke confidently.

“This is it.”

I looked at her, memorizing every detail—the way the light caught her eyes, the soft curve of her lips, the quiet calm in her expression.

She was at peace.

And there was nothing I could do but let her go.

Chapter Forty-Five

Aisla

Minutes before dawn, I found myself in our back garden, staring at a pair of familiar blue eyes. Except this time, there were no crimson tears. No hesitant quivering of lips.

Just a pale, determined girl who waited to be vanquished by airborne silver.

Belle eyed the silver canister as she sat next to me on the stone steps. I studied her as she looked past the cluster of trees and watched the first hint of sunlight on the horizon.

“How did you know?” she asked, angling her chin toward the canister.

I shrugged. “I’m good at reading people.”

“Oh really?” She leaned back to rest her elbows on the top step. “What did you see when you saw me?”

I had no reason to lie. Not now—not when Belle had a handful of minutes left on this earth.

“Someone deeply unhappy.”

For long minutes, Belle said nothing.

“You’re right,” she finally agreed, although the words sounded like self-reflection rather than conversation. “Why did it take me so long to realize it when you saw it in me straight away?”

The sentiment settled between us like a gentle pause. The first dregs of sunlight drifted through the trees and mapped Belle’s features with the shadows of tree branches. There were no clouds in the sky to buoy the effects of sunlight, but Belle didn’t flinch.

The world outside our iron gates moved at its own pace—birds in the distance, the occasional thud of footsteps on cobblestone—but here, beside me, Belle sank into her own thoughts.

A deep breath. A small sigh.

I watched as her expression softened, the edges of sadness smoothing into something calmer, clearer.

“Will you…” She began, glancing away. Her eyes landed on the barrels that shimmered with moon magick. “I know it’s selfish of me to ask, but…”

I waited for her to complete her thought.

“Will you keep an eye on Jinn for me?”

Caught off guard by the request, I stared at her.

“What?”

Belle’s smile was sheepish. “She smells like you. Like your magick.”

My eyes locked with hers.

“The fact that she’s here, in your warded home, tells me everything I need to know.”

She pulled her knees up and rested her cheek on them. “It’s also reassuring, in a way.”

“How?”

Belle flashed a neat row of teeth as she smiled. “For the last few decades, Jinn’s focus was solely on me. Keeping me safe and sane was her only agenda, and I love her for it but…”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. “Everything else, including her own needs, fell off the list of priorities. I just… want her to be happy. And it feels like she has been happy in the few days I’ve been gone.”

Well… happy might be pushing it, but if Belle was about to be vanquished with the knowledge that her mother had found some semblance of happiness with me, then so be it.

“You’re asking a lot of me,” I said instead, interlacing my fingers.

“Well.” Belle’s laugh was altogether cheeky. “Since this is my dying wish and all…”

An involuntary smile tugged at the corners of my lips. I could see why Jinn loved this girl so much. We’d only spent five minutes together and I was already growing fond of her. The gravity of our discussion should have left no room for such a soft sentiment, yet there it was, settling in my chest with a gentle warmth.

“Thank you,” she said. “I can’t imagine the trouble you must have gone through to bring me back. Indira is a real bitch when she wants to be.”

I waved her words away, feeling my bones ache as I did.

“It was nothing,” I said, then decided not to lie. “Well, it was a shit show, but I survived… I think.”

“I hope you’ll find some peace in the knowledge that Indira has no reason to come after you now. I’m choosing death—not for her, but for myself.”

I acknowledged her words with a nod.

“Do me a favor,” she said, the bow of her lips quirking up at the corners as she got to her feet. “Don’t bring me back this time.”

In a different life, Belle and I could’ve been friends.

She offered me a hand. Her skin was cold against mine as I slid my palm into hers.

“I won’t,” I said, getting to my feet. “It’s clear that you’re at peace with your decision.”

“Yes.” She released my fingers to cross her arms over her chest. “At peace. It took me a long time to get here and I’m not changing my mind.”

I offered her a small smile.

“So,” I began, tracing the ridges along the nozzle with the pad of my thumb. “Does it?”

Belle tilted her head. “Does it what?”

“Hurt.”

I echoed her final question to me just a few days ago.

A small smile played around her lips. “Only for a second, and then… Nothing.”

“Good.” A relieved sigh tumbled from my lips. “I’m glad.”

The oncoming dawn swallowed my words.

Belle’s blue gaze fluttered behind my shoulder and up to the house. There was no question of who was standing there, watching us. Her smile trembled slightly as she waved.

A final goodbye.

“I’m ready,” she said, her eyes never wavering from the house.

It was over in a second—faster than any neutralizations I’d ever performed. I stood in the empty space she left behind, surprised by the speed of it all, as though the other side was impatient for her to return.

When I turned to glance up at the house, Jinn’s shadow was gone.

“Shanthi,” I said—for Belle, for Jinn, for all of us.

Chapter Forty-Six

Jinn

I heard them downstairs, pottering around the cauldron and asking each other if it would be a good moment to check on me. Each time, they decided against it, and I was grateful.

I’d sequestered myself in Aisla’s office with the blinds pulled down, plunging the attic space into darkness.

Darkness was comfortable. It suited the shape of my grief.

The only sound on the third floor was the faint ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway. At the top of every hour, it let out the saddest gong, as though it was trying to remind everyone that it was still alive.

After the utter chaos of the past week, I felt… at peace. Not the kind of enlightened peace that Buddha offered, but more a resigned state of mind.

The worst had happened. It was done. And I was somehow still in one piece.

Just last night, I’d imagined that seeing Belle again and being forced to let her go would break me. I thought I’d collapse into myself with grief and dread at the prospect of never hearing the lub dub of her heartbeat ever again.

But over the last few days, I’d gotten used to the silence. I’d become more familiar with thinking about Belle in the past.

Three words were a bittersweet comfort: she chose it. Over and over, I reminded myself that Belle had chosen this end without coercion. Her head had been clear, every part of her comfortable with her decision. Indira hadn’t been a factor.

I stared into the darkness and waited for... something. Maybe for the pain to arrive properly. Or for Belle’s voice to echo in the walls. But there was nothing to buoy the feeling of loss that threatened to shred my skin.

I shifted in my seat and the old leather sighed under me in the otherwise quiet room.

My throat had turned to dust. I hadn’t spoken to anyone, seen anyone, in over twelve hours. Not Aisla, not her nosy sister, or even the brother I scented in the house. I couldn’t face them. Not right now. Not when I could still feel the shape of Belle in my arms.

I should cry. It would be healing. It was what humans would do. But try as hard as I did, the tears didn’t come. And that hurt more than anything.

The numbness. The paralyzing silence.

She’d chosen eternal death. I repeated those words one by one, emphasizing each syllable until they were embedded in my brain.

She had chosen peace, and I had told her that I would be okay without her. That I could bear this existence.

It was strange how I didn’t regret that my last words to Belle had been a lie.

I whispered her name. Just once.

Just to see if she might appear next to me with her broad smile and big bear hug.

Nothing.

Nothing but silence. Just as it had been before Belle.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Aisla

Jinn’s train was booked for half past six in the evening. As any good former employee/lover would do, I offered to walk her to the station.

She could have made the journey in seconds if she’d tapped on her vampyric abilities, but instead, she walked beside me, matching my pace. I told myself the tightness in my chest was from the icy wind or the lower temperature—it was easier to delude myself into thinking this was just another casual encounter.

But the truth was…

This was it.

I would likely never see Jinn again.

The thought hollowed me out from the inside, leaving nothing but the dull, aching pulse of sadness that hadn’t fully settled yet. Slower, heavier, it churned deep in my belly, making each step closer to the train station even more difficult than the last.

If she glanced my way instead of looking out toward the skyline, perhaps she’d be able to see how greedy my eyes were. I wanted to memorize everything. The way her fingers brushed against mine but didn’t hold on. The gentle flutter of her hair against her temples. The shape of her mouth when she almost spoke.

Her steps grew slower as we reached the row of stairs that led down to the station, as if she, too, didn’t want to leave just yet.

But there was also no reason for her to stay.

When we finally reached the platform level, an old steam train chugged into the station. Flashes went off around us as tourists gasped over the polished steel and brass of the puffing machine.

I’d read an article—or, more realistically, watched a video online—that said only a few steam trains ran between Edinburgh and the Highlands, mostly to entertain the tourists and charge them a premium price for a journey that would’ve been a hell of a lot cheaper on the bus.

“I never thanked you,” Jinn said, breaking the silence. Steam from the old train rose over her head.

I shrugged, trying my best to channel the nonchalant lover who could be intimate with someone one day and let them go the next. Casual. Aloof.

“You paid me,” I said, my words almost drowned out by the whistle of the train.

Her smile was fleeting. “It’s not the same thing.”

We paused under a wrought iron lamp that seemed simultaneously out of place and very much at home in Waverley. Jinn stilled, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond my hairline.

“So, do it,” I said, waiting for her eyes to meet mine.

“What?”

“Thank me.”

“I—” she began, the words tapering away into silence overridden only by the clack of footsteps as commuters rushed past.

I shook my head, hating that my chest throbbed dully I spoke.

“There’s no need to say anything,” I assured her. “You hired me for a job and now it’s over. I’m going to petition the High Coven to leave my post, and that’s only possible because of the money you paid me. I count that as a win, you know?”

She studied me, her eyes like dark pools of inky sky.

“You probably have a lot to figure out,” I continued, unsurprised at my inability to shut the fuck up and remain a woman of mystery. “Losing a child is never easy, and your circumstances are ridiculously niche. How would you even get a therapist to understand? Do vampyres even have therapists?”

As an icy wind whistled through the station, I pulled the edges of her coat together and buttoned it, knowing it wouldn’t necessarily keep her warm, but taking comfort in the action anyway.

“What I’m trying to say is—don’t worry about me. Or us. Or whatever it is we did. I’m a big girl and I’ll sort myself out.”

“Aisla,” she began. Just the way she said my name made tears prickle.

I waved her away.

“Train’s pulling in,” I said, knowing she would have seen the way my nose was turning a bright red. Should I blame the wind? Would she believe that?

“Aisla.”

“This was really nice,” I blurted. “Being with you, I mean, not the whole thing with Belle. It was, um, nice getting to know you. And I’m grateful you didn’t kill me.”

“Aisla…”

“No, please,” I said, trying to clear my throat and failing miserably. “I’m not making this about me when you literally just lost your child. Goodbyes aren’t my thing… So it’s best that you leave. Get on the train.”

I forced a smile—small and fragile, a poor attempt at pretending this goodbye wasn’t shattering me.

“Mouthy little wytch,” she said as she pulled me close with a hand at my waist. “Stop blubbering and kiss me.”

She pressed her lips to mine. Fuck, how had she become so familiar in a few short days? I loved the way her hair smelled like the wind, and the way her tweed vest yielded beneath my fingers. I let them tangle in her hair, pulling her closer still, as if I could press this moment into my skin, brand it there so I’d never forget what she felt like, what she tasted like.

Oh, but she tasted like longing, like goodbye, like everything I would never bring myself to say to someone I’d known for five days.

A low sound rumbled in Jinn’s throat as she deepened the kiss, her hands sliding up my back, gripping tight like she could anchor herself to me. Like maybe, if we held on tight enough, neither of us would have to leave… That was wishful thinking on my part.

When she pulled away, my breaths ghosted in the air like little clouds.

“Stop talking and listen,” she said. “Can you write your little resignation e-mail from the Highlands?”

“Um.” An icy wind tugged at my jacket. “I suppose. Why?”

“How would you feel about a trip? Just you and me?”

I pulled away, staring up at her.

“What?”

She pointed to the steam train.

“We could go to the Highlands,” she said. “Leave our problems behind.”

Even as my heart soared, I touched her cheek.

“Grief doesn’t work that way, Jinn,” I cautioned. “You need to lean into it, not run away from it.”

“I know,” she sighed. “I have several lifetimes to come to terms with Belle’s choice, but I only have one to spend with you.”

Her words slid beneath the armor I had so carefully built, smashing apart the barriers I had erected against the eventuality of her leaving. I had spent so long fortifying myself against this moment, preparing for distance, for coldness, for the intimacy between us to vanish. But with a few words, she slipped past every meager defense.

I knew her well enough to say that this wasn’t a slip of the tongue. Jinn’s tongue rarely slipped—I would have used the word never, but the incident with Maia’s truth serum was still fresh in my mind.

She meant every word.

“Ew,” I sniffled, tipping my face into the familiar softness of her vest. “That’s so cheesy.”

Her lips pressed against the warm spot just under my ear.

“You love it,” she whispered.

Laughter crackled through my tears. “Maybe.”

“There’s another reason I don’t wish to return home so quickly,” she said, glancing away. “I don’t relish the thought of my mother lying in wait to confront me. She’s called me so many times that I was forced to turn my phone off.”

A grimace creased my cheek. “She does seem like the persistent sort. I was half-convinced she’d try to get back at me even after Belle decided not to stay.”

“She’s not mad at you—it’s me she wants to rip into for defying her. And with what you said about the existence of Blood Wytches, my head is a mess. Some time away may be my best option.”

I watched as the last passenger boarded the train bound for the Highlands.

“So what do you think, little wytch?” she asked, her arms tight around my waist. “Fancy an adventure? An escape? For both of us?”

As I stared into her eyes—dark pools that had meant so many things over just a few days—reality had never, ever felt as charged as this. As real. As spontaneous.

It didn’t matter that I didn’t even have a change of underwear.

“But why?” I asked, watching her features soften.

“Because.” The backs of her fingers brushed across my cheek. “I’m not ready to say goodbye.”

Simple and honest, her words twined around my heart, squeezing tight. I tried to swallow past the lump in my throat, but it was a monumental task.

Stay and let Jinn walk away to her old life. Stay and let this thing between us become nothing more than a fleeting memory.

Or go. Go to the Highlands and see what this could be.

A breath shivered out of me.

All the reasons why I shouldn’t go rang in my head. If Maia were here, she would easily talk me out of this. In fact, she’d be dragging me away by my hair right now.

“How do I know you’re not just going to take me somewhere and drain me dry?” I asked, feeling like I was stalling an inevitable decision.

“That’s a chance you’ll have to take.”

Before I could talk myself out of it, before fear could creep in and steal this moment away from me—I nodded, watching Jinn’s lips curve in a rare smile.

I could get used to that smile, I thought, placing my hand in hers.

The conductor blew the final whistle as we jumped on.

Epilogue

Aisla

“If you tell me you married her, I’d have to kill you.” Edged with irritation, Maia’s voice blasted through the speakerphone. “No, I tell a lie. I’d have to kill her.”

I imagined the little ruched frown between Maia’s brows and the annoyed little huff that ruffled her curls as she spoke.

“No,” I said with a laugh as I sipped the sub-par herbal tea that the BnB had provided. “We didn’t run off to get married. I promise I would never get married without you.”

“I don’t know if I believe that,” Maia groused. “You ran off to Aviemore without telling me.”

“Spur of the moment,” I said, only mildly sorry. “But I did text you on the train. I’ll be back soon, Maia.”

“When?” she demanded.

“Soon,” I said, unwilling to give her any more.

Jinn and I had been holed up in a little cottage nestled between two lochs. For nine blissful days, we’d barely left the homey space, choosing instead to spend our time naked under the thick, white quilt, talking and laughing and memorizing every inch of each other…

“Are you even listening to me?” Maia’s voice pulled me from the delicious daydream.

“What? Yes.” I tried to clear the image of Jinn’s pink nipples under my lips. “Of course I’m listening.”

Maia’s sigh carried across the call. “You’ve always been a bad liar.”

I didn’t bother to refute her statement.

“I’m just glad you’re safe,” she said a little begrudgingly. “I hear the bliss in your voice, so the vamp must be treating you well.”

I thought about the scones Jinn had kneaded to life yesterday—six of them dolloped with fresh raspberries and cream. She’d fed me each bite as we lay in bed watching a storm blow through outside.

“Very well,” I confirmed, unable to keep the wistful note from threading through my words. “Too well.”

“You deserve it, Aisla. Let her pamper you.” I heard a tinkling noise in the background, as though Maia was mixing something up in her lab. “Have you heard from the High Coven yet?”

I picked at the crown of a scone absently. “Not since they called to ask me to reconsider.”

“Funny how they responded within a few hours,” Maia quipped. “They barely replied to your message about being attacked by a vamp.”

“We are cogs in a machine. Magickal cogs, yes, but cogs just the same.”

“The machine cannot run without this particular cog.”

“Exactly.”

“Did they say what they’re going to do now? What happens to all the vamps that request to be neutralized?”

I shrugged and realized Maia couldn’t see it.

“To be honest, I can’t bring myself to care. You know all those feelings of dread and darkness? They’re gone. Just like that.”

“Getting eaten out in the Highlands would do that to you.”

My laughter rang through the small cottage.

“You’re absolutely right.”

“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t keep you,” she said sullenly. “But come back soon, all right? With Brodie away at Uni, it’s a little sad at home. It’s the first time I’ve spent Hogmanay without you.”

I could hear the sadness in her voice, the way she tried to sound casual, but couldn't fully hide the ache beneath her words.

“I know,” I said, hearing the softness creep back into my tone. “I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

We said our goodbyes moments later.

Maia had demanded to know why we weren’t on video call. She’d wanted to look into my eyes and make extra sure I wasn’t compelled. I’d given her some excuse that the signal wasn’t that great up here, but the truth was…

I was naked. I’d been naked for nine dreamy days.

The idea of putting on clothes was… Unpalatable. At least for today.

Jinn had left the tiny cottage to see what supplies she could scrounge up from the local newsagent. I would’ve been perfectly content to lie in front of the fire and speak about nothing, everything, and anything in between, but she was insistent that we needed to ring in the new year with bubbles and something sweet… especially when my stomach had rumbled loudly at an inopportune moment.

Who was I to say no to a little bubbly?

But I also knew that nothing she could find at the local shop would compare to the gift I was about to offer her the moment she walked through the door.

In the distance, the sound of bagpipes, pop music, and laughter carried in the wind. The rhythm of Hogmanay had descended over the little village in the outskirts of Aviemore, and despite the thick layer of snow, people were out to celebrate.

I, on the other hand, was curled up under a thick quilt with my crossword puzzle, tapping the answers into the squares with a happy tune on my lips.

When the key turned in the lock, I sat up from my perch on the bed, feeling my lips curve into a smile.

“The sound of bagpipes makes me want to scratch my eyes out and—”

Jinn paused, turning to face me with a bottle of champagne tucked under one arm and box of strawberries in the other. “Why is your heart racing?”

“No reason,” I said, sliding out from under the covers. The carpet beneath my feet was plush.

Jinn’s gaze lingered on my bare chest, the curve of my belly, and the thick curls between my thighs.

“I have a little gift for you.” My words were edged with the barest hint of breathlessness. “I think you’re going to like it.”

The invitation hovered between us, thick as honey and dripping with intent. She watched me unerringly, her gaze dark and unreadable, but her next words told me she knew exactly what I offered.

“You don’t have to,” she said quickly.

Liar, I thought, watching the way her fangs kissed her bottom lip, waiting to descend. Waiting to devour.

“I’m old, Aisla.” She set the bottle down on the small strip of counter space next to the front door. The plastic box of strawberries clattered as they touched the surface. “I don’t need to feed very often.”

“Is that right?” I stepped forward, my fingers running over the edges of her tweed lapel. “Are you rejecting my offer of blood, vamp?”

“I’m not—” She pressed her lips together as though trying to push back her insistent fangs. “It’s not necessary.”

“I know it’s not.” I flicked the button open and tugged the coat off her shoulders. “But don’t you ever drink for pleasure? Need is very different from want.”

I thought I heard her throat click drily over the crackle from the fireplace.

“Tell me you want it,” I said, pressing my breasts into the thick fabric of her vest. “Tell me you want to sip me slowly, that you want to savor me. That you need to feel every second of it.”

Her fingers rose to my hair, delving beneath my curls. She tipped my head up to hers.

When she spoke, her voice was nothing more than a rough purr.

“I’ve thought about little else.”

They were exactly the words I wished to hear.

“Then take me, Jinn.”

Her free arm wrapped around my waist, tipping me over until I was lying on the carpet in front of the fire. Gold light touched my hair, my skin, my heart, but it was nothing compared to the lusty flint in Jinn’s eyes.

“I remember the taste of you all too well,” she said, letting her clothes fall away. “It’s something I’ll never forget… the magick of you.”

Tears pricked at my eyes before I could stop them, and I had no doubt they shimmered bright in front of the fire. Her words sounded dangerously close to devotion… Or something deeper—something I wasn’t sure I was ready to name.

When her lips ghosted over my inner thigh, I spread them wider. I had indulged in far too many steamy vampyre novels not to know the various points they could drink from.

The femoral artery was my favorite.

“Do it,” I whispered, my fingers clinging to the carpet. “Drink from me.”

The rasp of her fangs in that sensitive dip of flesh made me gasp. But she didn’t bite down. Didn’t break skin.

Instead, she ran her tongue along the crease, over the curls, and dipped into the messy wetness of my pussy.

Her eyelids fluttered shut as she inhaled, her features going slack as though she was breathing in the most exquisite scent she’d ever encountered.

Something like pride surged in my chest as I watched her breathe me in like a sommelier before a taste of fine aged wine.

“My Aisla,” she mouthed a second before I felt the slow, long flick of her tongue.

Curse the moon! Slow and relentless, she tightened the quivering coil inside me with every pass of her tongue. Every wicked swirl set something alight.

My hips arched upward in a silent plea, begging, pleading, demanding more as she pushed me to the edge, leaving me teetering, only to watch me fall and build me up again.

Her fangs pressed against my pussy, hard, unyielding, and little pulses of heat rushed through my veins. Even without a single word from her, I knew my heartbeat had quickened, doubling, tripling, waiting for her fangs to slip into my flesh.

But what I wanted, what I needed, was held just out of reach.

“Oh fuck.” The moan slipped free, tangling with the crackles from the fireplace. “Please, Jinn… Just bite me.”

Her eyes met mine, the dark pupils outlined in a deep, devilish red.

“No,” she whispered against my clit. “I’ve waited far too long to taste you again, little wytch. You will not rush me.”

Torture—this was pure, agonizing torture. There was no other word for it.

A whimper escaped me as she pressed her tongue flat against my clit, slow, insistent, dragging out the sensation until I thought I might snap from the sheer tension of it. My thighs trembled, every nerve alight with a pleasure so intense it bordered on pain.

Then—pressure. A slow, deliberate press of fangs into my flesh, just enough to make my breath hitch. My fingers curling into her hair, holding on as a gasp trembled on my lips. The sharp pain quickly melted into something deeper, something base and intoxicating.

Heat spread through my limbs, my senses flooding with a dizzying mix of sensations—fuck, so much heat. A whirlpool of it. A bloody avalanche. Her mouth closed over the twin wounds, pulling in slow, languid pulses as waves of tingling pleasure curled through my body.

Liquid fire. Sugar-soaked lightning.

I barely noticed my own breathless moans, the desperate turn of my hips. All I knew was that I wanted more of it, more of her.

Pleasure dulled the surprise when her voice rang clear in my head.

You’ll get it, little wytch. Anything you want. More pleasure, more love. An eternity if you wish.

“Yes.” I shivered around her bite.

You taste like sin and magick and…

“And?” My demand to continue was nothing more than a whisper as I pushed my thigh deeper into her hold.

And home.

Like silk and shadow, her voice curled around my thoughts.

Mine.

Between the fireworks and the whine of the bagpipes in the distance, I could admit to myself that I was hers.

For now.

Thank You

Thank you for reading Will It Hurt?, my first foray into paranormal low fantasy. I spent my teen years binge-reading Anita Blake novels, and if someone had told me that one day I’ll be writing my own lesbian paranormal books, I never would have believed them.

Aisla holds a special place in my heart. Our lived experiences are intertwined. Feeling displaced in a majority white country is something most people of color can relate to, and I’m hoping I’ve handled references to slurs and modern day casual racism with care.

If you’d like to keep up with my writing practice, please follow me on Instagram @lilyxbooks

Book Club Questions

What surprised you most about the book?

What did you like best? What did you like least?

Is there a particular scene you loved? Bonus points if it wasn’t smutty!

Which character would scare you irl?

Which character would you like to meet?

What do you think about Belle’s decision?

What do you think about Jinn’s insistence on getting Belle back?

If you were making a movie of this book, who would you cast? 

What do you think about the length of the book? If it was too long, what would you cut? If it was too short, what would you add? 

If you could ask me (the author) one question—only one!—what would it be? 

Would you recommend the book to someone else? If so, pitch the book in 1-2 sentences!