Aaron
Iclose my eyes and try to breathe but Meekah’s voice is somewhere far away, muffled. Mara’s face is the only thing I can see. I cup her cheeks again.
Her tail curls around my wrist. The tassel tightens and holds, and the gentle pressure of it nearly unravels me.
“Don’t think I’m not going to report this to Headmistress Ebony!
” Meekah snaps from somewhere behind me, but I can’t make the words form into anything that matters.
All I hear are his footsteps, heavy and furious, storming down the hall, and the crack of his tail slapping against something on his way out.
Mara’s tail uncurls from my wrist and her hands come up to cover mine. She holds them against her face and tilts her head, her amber eyes sweeping over me like she’s looking for something she can fix.
“Let me get my bag,” she says quietly. “We can go home and figure out what’s going on so I can help you.”
I nod. I give her a smile that feels hollow on my face. She doesn’t say anything. I release her face and she steps away from me, cautious, then turns and goes around her desk, packing her tote bag.
I stand in the middle of her classroom and start to formulate plans. This is all supposed to happen tonight.
I run my hand over my face. My heart starts pounding, hard and fast. I don’t have time to figure out if it was a dream or something else. The way things are playing out right now, I have to act.
Mara sticks a thick folder inside her tote and pulls the bag over her shoulder. She’s grinning when she turns around. “Papers to grade,” she says, patting the side of the bag.
Her grin fades when she reaches me. Her nose twitches, her chin lifting, and I watch her read the pain rolling off me. She doesn’t name it. She just reaches for my hand.
“Let’s go home,” I say.
I tear the air open. Blue-gold light splits along a vertical line and the portal opens onto our living room.
Mara’s fingers lace through mine and something inside me almost breaks.
She’s trusting me completely. Her ears are perked forward and her tail sways behind her in a lazy rhythm and she has no idea what I’m about to do.
I lift her hand to my lips and press a kiss against the back of it. She smirks at me, warm and easy, then pulls her hand free and steps through the portal. I follow.
The suite is quiet. Late afternoon sun cuts through the windows and lays warm lines across the hardwood floor. Mara crosses the room and sets her bag on the small table by the bookshelf, then walks over to the sink in the kitchen and turns on the water.
I stand where the portal closed behind me. I just watch her.
She’s got this glow about her. She starts humming as she washes her hands, swaying slightly, and I recognize the tune. She was doing it this morning too. It sounds almost like a lullaby.
I start thinking. The memory of that dream—or was it. If it was the future, I wasn’t anywhere near the Witching Glen when she died. She was with Tiana. So where was I? I didn’t hear everything in the classroom, but I heard enough. Mara making plans to separate from me so she could join my sister.
That shit is not happening.
Mara finishes washing her hands and reaches for the towel. My arms wrap around her from behind, pulling her back again.
She giggles. A purr vibrates through her body, rolling into mine.
“Aaron, I love you,” she says, tilting her head to give me more of her neck.
“I love you more, Mara.”
Her tail lifts and starts to wrap around my thigh, the tassel brushing against the back of my leg. I hold her tighter, breathing her in.
“Why did my sister come to you today?”
Her tail immediately unwraps. It falls limp against her leg, and the submission in that movement makes me frown.
“You should not have threatened your sister like that,” she says. “What has gotten into you?”
My frown deepens and my voice drops. “Mara, I asked you a question.”
She pulls away from me and turns around to face me. She searches my face for a moment, her brow pulling tight.
“You are too angry for me to answer,” she says.
“I’m about to get a whole lot more angry if you don’t start talking.”
She frowns at me. “You’re the one who needs to start talking, Aaron.”
I close my eyes. I try to calm down but the memory of losing her keeps flashing. The way the life drained out of her eyes. I just cannot take it. Every time I reach for calm, it crashes through again, and I feel myself losing control.
“Will you please talk to me?” Mara’s voice cuts through.
I open my eyes.
She gasps. Then she takes a step back, her ears and tail going alert, her whole body pulling away from me as she takes in the sight of whatever I’ve become.
“Aaron, your eyes...”
“I don’t feel any different,” I say, and my voice comes out numb.
The magic is sparking at my fingertips. I didn’t even know it was happening.
I look down at my hands and the blue light is pulsing through my veins, crawling up my forearms, and when I catch my reflection through a glass on the counter, my stomach drops.
My eyes are blue. Not my dark brown—a deep, electric, pulsing blue I’ve never seen before—and the glow is spreading, climbing my neck, my chest, bleeding through my shirt until my whole body is casting blue.
“I think my magic is just as afraid as I am.” I turn my hands over, watching the light pulse brighter every time my heartbeat kicks. “Maybe that’s why it took me to the future. It wanted to make sure I saw what happened.”
“Aaron, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice pitches with concern. “What did you see?”
I start walking toward her.
She hisses. Low and sharp, a warning for me to get back. Her ears flatten against her head and her tail lifts behind her, puffed.
I don’t stop.
She hisses again, louder, baring her teeth. I grin at her. Some sick, broken part of me is enjoying this. The fear rising in her, the way her body is coiling for flight.
Good. Feel it.
Because the fear I feel from losing her is far, far worse.
She puts a hand to my chest when I get close enough, her claws pressing through my shirt, and then she bolts. She spins away from me and takes off toward the front door, her feet light and fast across the floor. Her hand wraps around the doorknob.
Blue magic suddenly covers the door. It spreads from the hinges to the frame to the knob, sealing it shut. She pulls. Nothing moves.
Mara looks back at me, hissing again. Her tail is alert, the tassel vibrating.
I take slow steps toward her.
“Aaron, what is wrong with you? What are you doing?”
“I watched the life drain from your eyes.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine—too calm, too steady, like something else is speaking through me. “I watched you die on the grass in front of the Glen and all I could think about was dying with you.”
She pulls at the door. Her claws dig into the wood and she yanks, but the magic holds. I’m closer now; close enough to see the pulse hammering in her neck. She hisses, baring her teeth, and her tail whips around in a swift arc aimed at my face.
I catch it. My fingers close around the tassel and hold.
She snatches it back with a snarl and takes off running toward the window, her hands slamming against the glass. She pulls at the latch, bangs her palms against it when it won’t give.
“Help!” she screams. “Help! Someone help me!”
The glass shimmers. Blue light ripples across the surface, shielded shut. She steps back when she sees my magic sparkle across the pane.
Mara turns around.
Her tail falls. Her lips curl into a shaky pout and her amber eyes go wide and glassy, filling with tears.
“Aaron, please...”
“I can’t.” My voice breaks. “I can’t lose you.”
“I don’t understand.” A tear slips down her cheek. “I’m not going anywhere, Aaron. What happened last night? Something happened. It changed you.”
“Yes.” I close the distance between us. “It did.”
She tries to take off again but my magic moves quickly. Blue light wraps around her legs and she hisses and strains against it, but she can’t move. Her feet are locked to the floor.
“Aaron, what are you doing? Aaron!”
I keep walking. Her tail arcs up and swings hard toward me but I twitch my fingers and it slams into a wall of blue light, falling limp behind her.
“AARON!”
I gently reach out and brush my fingers against her cheek. She flinches. Blue magic wraps around her wrists, easing her arms down to her sides. Not hurting her, just holding her still.
All I can see is her.
I trail my fingers over her skin, down the side of her face, down her neck. My eyes stay trained on hers. The blue glow reflecting in her amber irises makes her look like something from a dream I can’t wake up from.
“I don’t understand,” she whispers. “Why are you doing this?”
“You could be carrying our cub.” My hand pauses at her collarbone. “Have you caught on to a change in your scent?”
Her brow creases. “Huh? We just made love last night. It takes a minute. What the heck is wrong with you?”
My gaze drops to her belly. My hand follows, sliding down until my palm presses flat against it. She stares at me.
“Oh my god, Aaron. You have lost your mind.”
I press harder. Her belly tenses under my palm, muscles pulling tight, and underneath it something else. Something I’m not sure is real yet or if I’m just desperate enough to imagine it.
“I didn’t just lose you.” My voice is barely above a whisper—breaking at the edges. “I lost our cub too.”
Her face changes. The fear doesn’t leave but a stillness moves in underneath it, a recognition that makes her stop fighting the magic holding her arms.
“You didn’t lose anything,” she says, and her voice is shaking. “It was a dream, Aaron. It was just a dream.”
I pull my hand from her belly and look at it. The blue light pulses brighter across my palm, climbing my wrist. I shake my head.
“No, Mara. It wasn’t a dream.” I look at her. “I wanted to believe that too. But then Tiana showed up to your classroom.”
I move my hand back to her cheek. Her tears are warm against my fingers and I hold her face and look at her with everything I have left.
“And you...” My voice drops. “You’re planning to sneak off with her to the Witching Glen.”
Something feral is building inside me. I don’t know how to describe it.
It’s not rage, not exactly. A territorial drive that’s been coiling since the time-slip, pushing against the underside of my skin, trying to crack me open from the inside out.
I pull my hand from her face and shake my head, trying to shake off whatever is happening to me.
“Just call for your mom,” Mara says quickly. “She can help. Or call for Tiana. I wasn’t—“
My head snaps up.
Tiana.
The memory slams through me. Tiana stepping out of the forest with her hand pressed over her mouth. The horror in her eyes. The way she turned and ran into the trees like a coward while my mate bled out on the ground.
A growl tears from my throat and the blue light explodes outward, electricity surging from my body and slamming into the walls and the ceiling and every surface in the suite until the light fixtures flicker and the windows rattle in their frames.
Mara screams. A scream of horror that cuts through the blue light and hits me somewhere deep.
“Don’t hurt me, Aaron.” Her voice breaks apart, shaking, tears pouring down her face. “I’ll stay put. I’ll listen. Just please.”
I get in her face. My entire body is surging blue, the light pulsing off me in waves, and I can see my reflection in her wide, terrified eyes.
“I cannot lose you.” My hands find her face again and I hold her, my palms shaking against her cheeks. “I cannot lose our cub. Don’t you understand?”
She’s crying. Full, shaking sobs that rack her body against the magic holding her in place.
“I’m not going anywhere, Aaron,” she says through the tears. “I love you. I love you, please.”
I look around the room. The blue light is bouncing off every surface. The edges of the room warp, the weight of what I saw pressing against what’s real until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. I have to do something. I’m going to lose her if I don’t.
“I need you to take a nap, baby.” My voice comes out soft. Steady. “Just a short one. I’ll come back and explain everything.”
Mara goes rigid with horror. She starts to strain against the magical restraints, her muscles pulling, her body fighting.
I cup her face. She hisses at me, her lion pressing forward, desperate and furious.
“Aaron, please—“
I crash my lips to hers.
The kiss is deep, desperate. The blue light softens around us, pulling inward and wrapping around us both until we’re glowing together. I pour everything into her—my shaking hands against her face, the tightness in my throat, the words I can’t say out loud pressed against her mouth instead.
Mara’s tail goes limp and her ears fall flat. Her body softens against the restraints, drifting, and the spell takes hold as her lips slow against mine and then stop.
The restraints dissolve. She collapses forward and I catch her, one arm around her waist, the other cradling the back of her head. She’s deadweight against my chest, breathing slow and even, already deep under.
I scoop her into my arms, her head lolling against my shoulder and her tail hanging loose. I carry her across the suite to our bed and ease her down onto her back.
I smile down at her.
“It’s okay, baby.” I trace my thumb across her cheekbone. “I’m going to take care of you and our cub.”
I lean down and press my lips against her belly through her dress. Then I straighten and just look at her.
She’s so beautiful. Stubborn, but beautiful.
I double-check the spell around the room—windows, doors, every exit sealed tight with blue light that pulses. The sun has gone down and the suite glows with nothing but my magic now. She’ll stay contained until I come back.
I tear the air open. The portal splits and the other side shows the Market at night, the small cottage that marks one of the sealed entrances to the Witching Glen standing in the moonlight.
I step through and the portal snaps shut behind me. The cool night air hits my skin and the seal on the Glen hums against me, low and steady but weakening. I can feel how thin it’s gotten. How close it is to giving out.
The Market is winding down around me. Vendors are pulling tarps over their carts and snuffing out lanterns, voices fading as the last few shoppers head home for the night. Nobody looks twice at me standing in front of the old cottage.
I lean my back against the cottage wall and wait. If Eric can help me change what I saw, then so be it.