Liam shook his head. “This is your place, Gray. You can access it any time you wish.”
“Not anymore.”
“You’ve suppressed your natural magic for many years. You’re just out of practice.”
I considered his words, trying not to fan the flames of hope kindling up inside me. If I could find a way to control it, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe I could reconnect with this place, get rid of that creepy black forest. Open myself up to the joy I used to feel with Calla, long before my magic turned dark.
“It’s a matter of stilling your mind,” Liam said. “You need to learn to be fully present, casting your mind here while you can still feel—and be in complete control of—your body on the physical plane.”
“So… meditation?”
“Some call it that, yes.”
It made sense. Calla was big on meditation, too. She used to say a quiet mind was a witch’s sharpest magical tool. I’d never fully understood that as a kid.
“Can you teach me?” I asked him.
Liam smiled, and the sight of it took my breath away. He really was beautiful, and not just physically. His otherworldly presence lent an almost imperceptible glow to him, a richness that radiated outward, drawing me in.
“I thought you didn’t want any part of your magic,” he teased.
“I’m not sure the universe is giving me a choice.”
At this, he turned serious, the arctic ice eyes brightening. “There is always a choice Gray. But if you don’t make it, others will do it for you. So…” He spread his hands before him like an invitation. “Who’s going to make your choices?”
“You’re doing great, Gray. See? This isn’t as foreign as you feared.”
I beamed, inhaling the fresh lavender- and lilac-scented air around me. Liam and I had only been practicing for an hour, but already I felt the transformation inside me. I was reconnecting with my magic place, and our bond manifested here, too, in the crisp spring air and the lushness of the meadow, blanketed with new growth.
The black forest around us had remained still and silent. It hadn’t encroached further, but it hadn’t retreated, either, and the path that led from my stone pedestal to the archway and the Shadowrealm beyond still beckoned.
Liam noticed me eyeing up the dark path. “That is just as much a part of you as the flowers and the grass, Gray. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can tap into the rest of your gifts.”
A shudder rippled through my body, and deep in my gut, an ember of magic ignited. I closed my eyes, neither resisting it nor encouraging it, and the ember sparked another, then another. Soon, it roiled and bubbled inside me, sending heat and electric tingles to my limbs.
“That’s it,” Liam said. “Welcome it. Connect with it. Bring it in to—”
“No!” I opened my eyes and sucked in air, forcing the embers to cool. I didn’t want that all-consuming feeling, that complete lack of control, the mysterious power that had compelled me to kill a vampire without remorse, to take Travis’s soul, to become someone I no longer recognized.
But even though the heat inside me had subsided, black vines crept over my feet again, pulling and tugging…
“You must not fear it,” Liam said, frustration edging his tone. “You must learn to control it. You must—”
“I’m not ready for all those musts.” I tore away from the vines, stomping them down again. “I just—”
A new sensation crept across my skin, cold and icy. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
“Someone’s here,” I whispered, narrowing my eyes and peering into the trees. I’d gotten used to the silvery eyes that lurked there, but this was different. This was wrong. “I can feel a presence. He’s watching me.”
Liam seemed unfazed. “You must learn to use your magic, Gray. Or Rest assured, it will be used against you.”
I nodded. He was right. I knew it intellectually. I felt it. But learning how to pop into my magical realm on command was very different from calling up that strange, dark power. Liam kept telling me it was my birthright, that it was a gift. But no matter how many ways I tried to look at it, all I saw was a curse.
“I want to accept this,” I said, clenching my fists to keep the fear at bay. Magic pulsed through me again, calling to the black vines at my feet. They twisted closer again, teasing me. “But I—”
A blur of black fur streaked across my vision, and then I was flat on my back.
It’d happened so fast, no more than a blink.
My chest heaved under its weight. The smell of rot and ruin clogged my nasal passages.
The beast was back.
No. Not like this.
If this unholy beast was going to tear me to shreds, so be it. But I wasn’t going out without a fight.
I slammed the heel of my hand into the bottom of its jaw, grabbing a fistful of matted chest fur with the other hand…
“Don’t move!”
“I’ll get it!”
Voices filtered in from some faraway place.
“Haley!” someone else shouted. “Don’t get near that thing!”
“Ronan, she’s awake.”
“Back off!”
My eyes snapped open at Ronan’s sharp voice, taking in the scene. I was back in my bedroom, covered in mud and sweat and grime, surrounded by four familiar faces.
Asher. Haley. Ronan. And Death—rather, Liam—solid in his new human form.
All eyes stared down at me.
And at the rotting black beast in my bed.
Forty
Gray
Liam struck first, leaping onto my bed and wrestling the beast to the floor.
I bolted upright, panting and trembling. My shirt was torn again, the bandages Ronan had patched me up with last night soaked through with fresh blood.
“Do what you need to do, demon,” Liam warned Ronan. “I can’t hold him much longer.”
Ronan placed his hands on the beast’s head, whispered some ancient incantation, and then the foul monster was gone, vanishing into nothingness. Liam got to his feet and dusted himself off, and then he was gone too, leaving the signature black feather in his wake.
“It’s the same thing I saw in my nightmare last night,” I said. “It attacked me again, but I tried to fight back this time. How did I… I… I brought it here?” I looked around my bedroom in disbelief. It was daylight now, probably late morning. How long had that beast been in my bedroom? What if it’d attacked one of the guys? Or Haley?
Ronan slumped onto the edge of my bed, shoulders sagging with exhaustion. I had no idea when he’d gotten back, or where he’d been, but it was obvious he hadn’t slept. “It wasn’t attacking you, Gray. It was protecting you.”
Haley came around the other side of my bed, inspecting my torn, blood shirt. “This isn’t protection, Ronan. It’s mutilation.”
Ronan’s jaw ticked. “They’re not the most conscientious creatures.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Protecting me from what?”
“From whom, more likely,” he said. “If you’re encountering these creatures in your magical realm, someone is there that shouldn’t be.”
I rubbed my arms, trying to shake off the feeling of being watched. It still lingered, even here in my bedroom, far away from my magical realm.
The beast had shown up right after I’d sensed that other presence. And now that I thought about it, it hadn’t actually attacked me; despite the sharp teeth and claws, all it had really done was pin me down, scraping up my skin in the process.
“But… What the hell is it?” I asked.
Ronan held my gaze for a beat, then glanced at Haley.
She seemed to get the hint.
“I should… probably go,” she said, looking from me to Ronan and back again. “I just dropped by to leave you some stuffed shells and to tell you that Norah and Reva left.”
“What do you mean, left?” I asked.
“I don’t know much—just whatever Norah said in her voice
mail. I guess she’s worried about Reva, and she decided to get out of Dodge until things calm down here.”
“What about the coven?”
“We’re on our own.” Haley sighed. “What’s left of us, anyway. After we heard about Norah, a few of the others shipped off, too.”
So much for strength in numbers.
“I can’t really blame them,” she said. “It’s not safe here right now. I’m just not sure it’s much safer anywhere else.”
I reached for her hands, giving them a squeeze. “You can’t lose hope, Hay. You’re in charge of the hope in this operation, and you need to keep it going. For both of us. Okay?”
She gave me a soft smile and nodded.
“We’ll figure this out,” I said, pulling her in for a hug. “And thanks for the stuffed shells.”
“Anytime.” She started to head out, but Ash stopped her.
“You need a ride? I’ve got a few errands to run.”
Haley smiled. “That would be great.”
Asher glanced at me, our eyes locking. Memories of my late-night fantasy flashed in my mind, and I realized in that moment he probably knew. Probably sensed the brief surge of sexual energy when I—