“A-Aiden?” I blink up at his white face barely visible in the darkness, trying to make my eyes focus. Why is everything blurry and then suddenly sharp? And why does my scalp itch so badly? I put up a hand to touch my hair but blue sparks fly from my fingertips. With a gasp, I pull my hand back. I don’t want to set my own hair on fire! “What’s…what’s going on?” I ask him in a trembling voice.
“Your magic—you finally came into your magic.” Lexy is suddenly kneeling beside me, free of the tape that bound her earlier. Beside her Grant is standing, his hands on his knees, peering at me curiously.
“It’s true,” he says. “It came in like an earthquake when you fused the spell. I’ve never felt such a manifestation of power before.”
I recoil from him, thinking I’m still naked, but then I realize I’m wrapped in Aiden’s charcoal jacket. “Is that true?” I look up at my master for verification.
“I don’t know,” he says honestly, looking immensely relieved. “I’m just glad you’re all right, darling. You fainted and I couldn’t wake you up. Gods…” He puts a hand over his face for a moment in an uncharacteristic display of emotion. “Emma,” he says in a muffled voice. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. I thought…thought I’d lost you.”
“You still might.” Lexy puts a hand on her hip. “Why didn’t you warn Emma this day was coming? Why didn’t you tell her she was related to Katherine? And what else are you holding back?”
“Lexy, please…” I hold out a hand to stop her. “I don’t want to fight right now. I’m too tired and I feel too weird.”
“No, your cousin is right.” Aiden sits back, his grip on me loosening. I don’t like that—I want to be held in his arms again but somehow I can’t say so.
“What…what do you mean?” I ask softly.
“There are things I haven’t told you.” He looks down at the flagstones, the curving circle still half filled with his blood. “Things I haven’t shared. But only because I wanted to spare you pain.”
“What things?” I don’t want to know but my mouth forms the words anyway. “What…what are you talking about? Please, Aiden, I need to know.”
Aiden sighs heavily and releases his hold on me completely. I feel so cold without him near me but I’m afraid to get close, afraid of what he might say.
“I never told you that you were related to Katherine because I didn’t want to tell you about the night I first saw you,” he says.
“You mean…the first time you came into my shop?” I asked, confused.
He shakes his head. “No, darling, I met you long before that. You just didn’t remember me. And I had almost managed to forget about you as well—until I walked into your shop. But the first time I laid eyes on you was fourteen years ago on the night your house burned to the ground.”
“What?” I look at him in disbelief. “But how…why…?”
“I’ll tell you everything.” He looks defeated and tired, as though he’s suddenly feeling every year of his immense age. “Though you will not like it and you may hate me when I’m through.”
A sudden thought occurs to me. “Aiden, you told me that Katherine was a virgin before you found her being…attacked. But somehow I’m her direct descendant so she must have had a baby.” I feel sick. “Please tell me you’re not my great, great, great grandfather or something creepy like that.”
“No.” Aiden looks startled. “No, of course not. The baby girl she had was as a result of the rape. I wanted to keep her and raise her but Katherine refused. The baby was a constant reminder—she wanted nothing to do with her.” His expression turns sad. “We placed her with a childless couple who desperately wanted her. I didn’t think about the blood tie I had to her—to all of Katherine’s descendants—until that terrible night I first saw you.”
“Blood tie?” I ask, frowning.
“When a vampire takes enough of your blood, it forms a kind of bond,” Lexy lectures. “Depending on the type and quantity of blood they take, the bond can be very strong—even lasting across centuries and generations.”
“True.” Aiden nods. “I was bound to Katherine by her blood,” he says, a faraway look in his eyes. “I loved her so much I wanted to die when she did, so I went to ground, hoping to sleep away the pain.”
“I know about that,” I say.
He nods. “When I went to ground, I still had Katherine’s blood in me—the way I had your blood in me tonight. It formed a bond to her next of kin—the little girl she gave away. She must have lived a quiet life and her daughter after her and her daughter as well, because none of them ever disturbed my slumber.
“Then, one night over a hundred years after my beloved Katherine died, I felt a calling—a tugging inside me. It was almost as though someone had tied a cord around my heart and was pulling as hard as she could.”
“The blood tie,” I whisper and Aiden nods.
“Your mother knew, darling,” he says. “I don’t know how—maybe she researched your family tree. But she knew I was bound to Katherine and her descendants and she called me up from the grave to save her and her little girl.”
He puts a hand to his face and I sense that what he has to say next is hard for him. “I came as soon as I was roused but I couldn’t save your mother—I’m so sorry. I don’t blame you if you hate me for that. But I did manage to bring you to safety. I put you in your aunt’s arms before I left.”
“That night,” I whisper. “I always dream about that night…” Suddenly The Dream comes back to me. Its details are vivid and for the first time, I can remember it all. The man with the deep, kind voice and white hands, the one who shielded me from the flames and saved me from the man with the slotted yellow eyes…it was Aiden. He was there for me from the first!
“But…” I shake my head in confusion. “If you were there, you must know how the fire started. And who was the man you saved me from? Was it…?”
“It was Sanchez,” Grant says. “He told me he’d been sent once before to get you, back when your power first started manifesting, early on when you were a child. The vampires wanted your blood to mend the spell, which was already in bad shape, even fourteen years ago.”
“Sanchez…” So that’s why when I see him I always smell burning and hear weeping. I shiver. “That bastard.” I ball my hands into fists. “I’ll kill him! Is he the one who set fire to my house?”
Grant frowns. “No—at least he says he wasn’t. According to him he went to your house but your mother intercepted him. They had words and fought—she managed to drive him away, back into the yard. He claims the fire started on the second story—he saw witch-flames shooting up the curtains in one of the bedrooms and then suddenly the whole place was ablaze.”
“Witch-flames?” I feel sick and dizzy. I look down at my fingers and see the crackle of blue sparks shooting from their tips. The Dream peels away like a piece of protective film that’s been covering my mind. Suddenly I realize that its safe fuzziness has been protecting me, keeping me from knowing, from understanding what really happened that night.
“Emma—” Aiden puts a hand out to me but I shake him off.
“Me,” I whisper, balling my crackling, dangerous hands into fists and stuffing them under my arms. “I’m the one who started the fire. I heard them arguing and I thought he wanted to hurt my mom—I didn’t know he was after me. So I called the flames. I…I wanted to throw them at him but somehow they got out of control. Oh Goddess…” I put my head in my hands, no longer caring if I set my hair on fire, as sobs rise to choke me. “I killed her—she sacrificed herself for me because she knew the fire had to be satisfied. The fire I called.”
“Oh, Emma, hon…” Lexy puts her arms around me. At first I resist but then I wrap my arms around her neck and bawl.
It all makes sense now. The way I couldn’t find my magic and thought I was a dud. It was because I’d buried it, hidden it along with the horrible memory of the night my mother died. Because I didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to admit to myse
lf what I had done, that I had killed the one person who meant more to me than anything else in the world.
“I’m so sorry.” Aiden’s voice sounds far away and oddly formal. I force myself to pull away from Lexy and look up at him. He is standing there, in the circle, a look of grim despair on his white features. “I never wanted you to know that, Emma,” he says softly. “I fear that I’ve brought nothing but pain to you, just as I brought nothing but pain to Katherine.”
“Aiden…” I whisper but he shakes his head, a look of determination crossing his face.
“I release you from your servitude. I am no longer your master.” He stoops down and I think he’s going to kiss me one last time. Instead, he reaches behind my neck and unfastens the leather collar. Then he rises swiftly, regret filling his eyes. “I’m sorry, Emma. I hope you’ll live a full and fulfilling life.”
Before I can say another word he’s gone—flashing out the door in a white blur—showing the supernatural speed and grace vampires are known for.
For a moment I’m stunned. I feel like I’ve lost my mother all over again and now I have just lost the man I cared for, the man I…what? The man you love, whispers a little voice in my head. Only now he’s gone and he’s never coming back.
Chapter Twenty-four
Lexy takes me home with her and runs me a hot bath because I keep complaining that I’m cold, so cold I feel like I’ll never be warm again.
“You’re just in shock,” she tells me, hugging me tightly as she sits me on the bed in her spare room. “A lot has changed for you tonight. I’m going to get a bath ready and you can wash away all the bad things that happened.”
If only it was that easy. I sit on the bed feeling tired and cold and horrible. Over and over in my head, two different lines are playing and neither one of them is pleasant.
I killed her, whispers one. Me, I’m the one who did it. I killed her. I killed her.
He’s gone, hisses the other, sounding very much like the vampire with the snake voice. He’s gone and he’s never coming back. You’ve lost him. He’s gone.
“Bath’s almost ready,” Lexy calls from the other room.
Guess I’d better get undressed. I’m still wearing Aiden’s charcoal suit jacket but also my other clothes too, which Lexy helped me find and put back on. I drag myself up from the bed mechanically and start to strip even though I don’t want to. I cuddle the jacket close before I take it off. It still smells like him—like cedar and dark, masculine spice. I’m never going to smell that scent again because he’s not my master anymore. He let me go, released me from his service. He—
Suddenly I catch sight of a complete stranger right across the room from me. She’s tall and has long black hair and vivid purple eyes. For some reason, she too, is clutching a dark gray jacket to her chest. What the hell is she doing in Lexy’s house? And who the hell is she? Her face looks familiar but those eyes…
I turn to face her more fully and realize that I’m not looking at another person at all. Lexy has a full length mirror on the back of the closet door and it’s reflecting…me.
“But that’s not me,” I whisper aloud, daring to get closer to the mirror. “It can’t be. It can’t.” I feel a strangled scream rising in my throat. What’s happening to me? What am I becoming?
“What…what is it?” Lexy rushes into the room so fast she almost runs into me. “Emma, honey,” she cries. “What’s wrong?”
“That…that girl…her…” I point to the mirror, unable to say anything else. To acknowledge that the girl in the glass is me.
“Oh, that.” Lexy shakes her head. “I thought you knew—couldn’t you feel it when your magic was coming in?”
I remember the strange tingling in my scalp, the burning in my eyes, the aching in my bones. But still… “I didn’t know,” I say in a shaking voice. “Lexy, you should have told me. I thought there was a stranger in the room.”
“Oh, hon, I’m so sorry!” She hugs me but her arms around me feel different somehow. Looking in the mirror again, I realize why—we’re the same height now!
“Lexy…” I gasp, pulling away. “I…I’ve grown. I can’t believe…I don’t understand…”
“It’s just what happens when your magic comes in,” she says. “Like a second puberty. Remember how I used to be short and pudgy and have stringy dishwater blonde hair before I got my powers?”
I do vaguely remember that. But my cousin has spent so many years being tall and slim with her gorgeous waterfall of long auburn hair that I can barely recall the way she looked when we were both kids. Of course, everyone knows that a witch gets her true eye and hair color when her magic fully manifests for the first time. I just never expected it to ever happen to me. Apparently, tonight, it did.
“You’re a late bloomer,” Lexy says gently. “But you’ve got some of the strongest magic I’ve ever felt, cuz. That’s why it made such a dramatic difference when it finally came.”
“But…” I look at my new reflection, frowning. I don’t mind the hair—it’s actually the exact same shade as my mother’s hair. Just thinking of her makes me wince so I hurry on, trying to catalog the other changes. I’ve never heard of anyone really having purple eyes but mine are now—a deep jewel-like amethyst fringed with thick, black lashes. They’re startling—arresting in a way my old muddy hazel never was.
Despite the more obvious changes to my hair and eyes, what’s hardest to get used to is my new height. My body feels strange—stretched out—taller. But I can’t help noticing that even though I’ve grown a couple inches, I still have a fuller figure than my slender cousin. Which is so not fair. If I’d been able to change anything about myself, I would have wished to change my weight. I want to be skinny and sylph-like instead of hourglass shaped. Why did the magic change everything but that?
Then I realize what I’m thinking. Who cares what I look like now? Not when I just found out that I’m responsible for my mother’s death and Aiden has left me. Who cares about anything? I might as well lie down on the bed and just die.
“You stop that right now.” Lexy shakes me.
I look at her, startled. “Stop what?”
“I can hear every word you’re thinking and I don’t like it one bit!” she snaps. “Your mother loved you—she knew what happened wasn’t your fault. Kids make mistakes—you were only eight.”
“But I killed her, Lexy,” I protest. “That’s more than just a mistake.”
“For the Goddess’s sake, Emma, you’re acting like you went after her with a gun!” Lexy sounds exasperated. “You were precocious—you had a huge power crammed into your little body and it was leaking out like crazy. Remember how I told you what I overheard your mom telling my mom about you being the most powerful witch in a generation? And besides, you were trying to protect her when you started that fire.”
“I know that, Lexy,” I whisper. “I know it in my head. But in my heart I can’t help feeling…feeling that I’m to blame. I loved her so much…”
“And she loved you too, honey.” Lexy hugs me again, enfolding me in a fierce embrace, pressing her cheek to mine. “She knew you started the fire but she forgave you for it. What were her last words to you?”
“She said…” I close my eyes, the memory of my mother wreathed in flames pressing down on me like a weight. “She said she loved me.”
“Of course she did.” Lexy strokes my hair. “She never stopped loving you, no matter what. She forgave you and in time, you’re going to have to forgive yourself.”
I know she’s probably right but it’s hard to think about now. So hard when all I want to do is just curl up in a ball and stop breathing.
“There you go again.” Lexy pulls back and shakes me. “Stop it with the suicidal thoughts already, Emma!”
“How…” I clear my throat. “How can you even hear me?”
“It’s your witch-whisper, of course,” Lexy says. “Now that you’ve learned it, you don’t seem to know how to shut it down.”
“It??
?s the magic.” I feel stricken. “There’s too much of it and I can’t control it—any more than I could back when I was eight. God, Lexy, I’m a walking time bomb!”
“No, you’re not,” she says fiercely. “You’re just a very powerful witch who hasn’t been trained to control her powers. But don’t worry, we’re going to fix that. I’ll work with you every day until you get it under control.”
“But…what about tonight?” I look at my hands apprehensively, expecting to see blue sparks shooting from my fingertips again at any moment. “What if I accidentally light your house on fire, like I did back when I was eight?”
“You won’t,” my cousin says calmly.
“How can you be sure?” I start to move away from her. I should go sleep out in the yard. Or better yet, in the middle of a swimming pool or anyplace that’s not flammable…
“I put some magic dampers in the bath,” Lexy says. “You’ll be safe for tonight and the dampers will have worn off in the morning so we can work on getting your magic under control.”
Hearing this makes me feel a little better. I’m so glad I have a best friend like Lexy. She might seem ditzy at times but when the going gets tough, she does too and I know she won’t let me down.
Lexy makes a face. “I’m glad to have you as a best friend too, Emma. And I’m going to let the ditzy part go…this time.”
“Oh!” I put a hand to my mouth, aware that I was projecting again. “I guess I’d better go get that bath.”
“Guess so.” Lexy smiles and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. “I know everything seems horribly overwhelming right now but you’re going to get through it, Emma. I promise.”
I kiss her back. “Thanks, cuz. I hope…I really hope you’re right.”
But inside I doubt it. I doubt it very much.
Chapter Twenty-five
I spend the next several weeks at Lexy’s house, working on my magic. Surprisingly, learning to control it is not as hard as I feared it would be. I’ve already been through all the lessons, back when I was twelve and thirteen and still waiting for my powers to manifest. And I’ve watched my cousins and my aunt practice all my life. So it’s just a matter of putting what I already know into action.