Mara
One moment I’m trapped in our suite with Aaron’s magic wrapped around me. His lips are pressing into mine in a kiss that tastes like desperation and goodbye. The next I’m standing in the library with my arms at my sides, my breath coming out even, like I’ve been here for hours.
The library is empty, all of the students gone down for the night. The long study tables stretch out in rows under the dim glow of the overhead lanterns. Chairs pushed in. Books stacked on the shelves. Everything looks the same as it always does but I can’t smell any of it.
My tail hangs behind me. I can see it dragging against the floor when I take a step forward but I can’t feel it. I frown and try to flick it but nothing happens. I try again, harder, focusing like I do when my lion is being stubborn, and the tail just hangs there.
I reach for my lion. She’s not there. I reach deeper but there’s nothing to grab onto, just a hollow where her warmth should be. I press my hand against the nearest table.
My hand goes through it. I snatch it back and stare at my fingers. They look normal. Solid. The lines on my palm are still there, the short curve of my nails. But when I reach out again the hand passes through the wood like the wood isn’t there. I can’t feel a thing.
I hiss at it, sharp and instinctive, then step back.
The thought comes fast and it nearly buckles my knees—am I dead?
I’m still wearing the dress I had on when Aaron kissed me.
My feet are on the floor but I can’t feel it.
I press my palm against my belly and I can’t feel that either.
If I was carrying our cub, if something was just beginning to grow inside me, would I even know?
Would dying erase it before it had a chance?
I force myself to breathe. The double doors that lead to the Conjuring Hall pull at me, faint but steady, like a thread hooked behind my navel. The answer is on the other side of those doors. It has to be Tiana.
I break into a run. My feet make no sound on the floor and the wrongness of that almost stops me, but I keep going. I come to a stop at the large double doors and look around, listening.
Nala’s voice drifts down from upstairs, muffled like I’m hearing it through water, but I can make out enough. She’s fussing about a book one of the pup-cubs chewed on. Kael, probably. Torin’s low voice is somewhere behind hers.
I groan quietly. Nala came back from maternity leave and I didn’t even notice.
I’ve been so consumed with Aaron and my new life that I missed my friend coming back.
I wonder what else I’ve let go of since I started building a life with Aaron.
How much of myself I’ve been losing without even knowing it.
I reach for the door. My fingers pass through the wood like it isn’t there, but my feet are still solid on the floor yet I can’t feel it. I don’t understand the rules of whatever this is. I pull my hand back.
Nala says something about teething. Torin laughs.
I just push through. My whole body passes through the door like it’s air and I’m standing inside the Conjuring Hall, which should not be possible because this room is protected with magic so heavy I’ve felt it press against my skin every time I’ve walked past.
My ears strain to swivel. They won’t move. They’re stuck flat against my head like they’ve forgotten how, and the absence of that reflex makes me feel more naked than anything else.
Light moves on the upper floor. Voices carry down, sharper now, and someone is pacing.
“That damn boy,” Angie mutters, her frustration barely leashed.
“We need to get to the Witching Glen.” Tiana’s voice has an edge to it. “I think Eric is messing with Aaron.”
I take the stairs fast. My feet don’t make a sound on the steps. I reach the top and step into the open space of the second floor.
Angie sees me first. Her mouth sets into a hard line and she plants her hands on her hips. “How did you get in here?”
Tiana, Kiara, and Samara shift immediately.
The sisters pull together in a tight formation beside their mother, their shoulders touching, all three of them fixed on me.
I can’t smell anything in this form. But their faces tell me everything I need to know—they aren’t happy to see me, and I need to explain myself before they decide I’m a threat.
“I don’t know,” I tell them, and my voice sounds strange to my own ears. Thinner than it should be. “I was with Aaron and he...”
Angie’s jaw is set and Kiara’s fingers are twitching at her sides. They’re waiting for a reason not to trust me, and words aren’t going to be enough.
I walk over to one of the tables near the wall and reach for a crystal orb sitting on a brass stand.
“Don’t touch that,” Angie snaps.
My hand passes through it. I pull my hand back and turn to face them.
Angie’s mouth falls open. Kiara grabs Samara’s arm.
“I’m surprised you can see me,” I tell her. “But grateful.”
Angie steps forward, leaving her daughters behind. She’s studying me.
I shrug. “I don’t know how I got here. Aaron came unhinged earlier, and...”
Tiana pushes past her mother. “Aaron did this to you?”
I nod, my face crumbling even without my lion there to steady me.
“He was angry that I was making plans to visit the Witching Glen with you,” I manage, and my voice doesn’t hold.
“He locked me in our suite with magic. Then he bound me so I couldn’t move.
” I hold my wrists up even though there’s nothing there anymore.
“He used his magic to hold me down. I couldn’t get free. ”
Angie’s hand comes up to cover her mouth. “Oh my god. Please don’t tell me he...”
“She’s not dead,” Tiana cuts in, sharp and certain. She looks at me, then back at her mother. “Look at her. She’s astral projecting.”
Tiana turns to Kiara and Samara. They nod in unison, quick and sure, like this is something they understand on a level the rest of us don’t.
“We do it all the time,” Kiara offers.
Angie’s head snaps toward her daughters. The look she gives them could peel paint. They shrug and giggle. Tiana rolls her eyes.
“When we want to snoop or do stupid shit we have no business doing, we astral project,” Tiana explains.
“But it requires the body to be protected because you’re in the most vulnerable state when you do.
You have to be able to get back to your body.
” Her expression darkens. “You stay out too long and you’ll end up stuck. You could wind up in limbo.”
“Limbo?” I look down at my hands. I reach for my lion again and there’s still nothing there, just that same awful silence. “I can’t feel my lion,” I whisper.
“Well, that makes sense,” Tiana tells me. “Seth tried astral projection since he’s a hybrid. His wolf never traveled with him. He hated it.” She pauses. “He won’t even try anymore.”
“This night is just full of surprises.” Angie exhales hard through her nose and points at her daughters. “I’ll deal with you about that later.” She drops her hand. “Go ahead and finish, Mara.”
I swallow. “He kept saying he lost me. But I’m right here.
He was feral, Angie. I couldn’t reason with him no matter how hard I tried.
He told me he needed me to take a nap, then he kissed me.
” The memory of that kiss burns even now, even in this body that can’t feel anything.
“Next thing I know I was standing in the library downstairs.”
Angie looks to Tiana. “I’m telling you, it’s Eric.”
“I agree,” I say.
Angie turns back to me. I clear my throat and drop my gaze to the floor.
“Aaron took me into the forest to meet him,” I admit. “He conjured a mirror and introduced us.”
“He did WHAT?”
Her voice cracks through the room. Kiara flinches. Samara steps closer to her sister.
I shrug because I don’t know what else to do.
“I could feel something was off about that man. Like his love for Aaron wasn’t real.
I couldn’t smell it, but I could feel it.
” I try to perk my ears and they don’t budge.
I frown. “Lions are very good at catching predatory people. It’s a special sense we have. ”
Angie opens her mouth to respond but every single person in the room stiffens at the same time. The alarms. They cut through the building, high and shrill, and the sound is muffled for me but I can see it hit everyone else. Kiara’s hands fly to her ears. Samara’s jaw locks.
“How convenient.” Angie puts her hands on her hips and tips her head back toward the ceiling. “Goddamnit.” She stomps her foot against the floor.
She tears the air open. A portal splits beside her, blue-gold light spilling across the floor. On the other side I can see the Academy cafeteria. Jacob is standing in the middle of it with a broom in his hand, his body still, his head up and alert from the alarms.
“Help gather the children to the emergency cellar and put a shield up,” she orders Kiara and Samara.
They nod fast. Kiara rips a portal open with a flick of her wrist. They step through together and it closes behind them.
“Go get this damn girl back in her body,” Angie tells Tiana. “I’m going to go find Aaron and put a stop to this shit right now.”
She steps through her portal. It snaps shut behind her and the room goes still except for the alarms still screaming through the walls.
Tiana and I stand alone on the second floor. Neither of us speaks.
“I can’t put you through a portal,” Tiana says finally. “We have to take the long way. So hurry up, let’s go get you back in your body.”
The alarms are still blaring when we reach the faculty wing. The hallways are empty, every door shut. Tiana walks ahead of me with her cloak sweeping the floor, her shoulders set. I follow behind her.
She stops in front of my suite and stares at the door. Blue light pulses around the frame, sealing every edge. Aaron’s magic hums through the wood.
“Damn.” Tiana runs her hand along the frame without touching the light. “This is a powerful seal.”
“Does that mean I can’t get in?” My voice pitches higher. “Get back to my body?”
I press my hand against my belly. I can’t feel anything there but the gesture is instinct now. “I think I’m going to be a mom soon,” I tell her. “I don’t want to lose my cub.”
Tiana scrunches her face up. “Did I really need to know that shit, Mara?”
I blink at her because I don’t understand why that’s a problem.
“This is going to take a lot of power.” She rolls her shoulders back. “But I think I can pull it off.”
I step back. Tiana plants her feet and raises both hands toward the sealed door.
Blue-gold light erupts from her palms and slams into Aaron’s shield.
The two magics crash together in a burst of sparks that light up the hallway.
The shield flares brighter, fighting her, and Tiana grits her teeth and drives more power into it.
Her cloak whips behind her. The veins in her arms glow blue through her skin.
The hallway fills with the sound of magic grinding against magic.
The shield fractures down the center and splinters outward. The blue light dies in jagged pieces that dissolve into the air. Tiana drops her hands and bends forward with her palms against her knees. She’s breathing hard.
I reach toward her and stop. My hand would go right through her. “Are you okay?”
She looks up at me, sweat on her forehead, eyes sharp. “Do I look okay?”
The alarms are still screaming. Somewhere outside I hear people running.
Tiana straightens up and reaches for the doorknob. She turns it and pushes the door open. The suite is dark except for the moonlight coming through the windows.
I follow her inside and stop. My body is on the bed. I’m lying on my back with my hands resting at my sides, my face peaceful, my lips slightly parted. My tail is curled loosely beside me on the mattress, the tassel twitching in my sleep.
“So weird to be without my lion,” I murmur.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Tiana tells me.
She flicks her wrist. Blue-gold light pulses from her fingers and I blink.
When I open my eyes I’m looking up at the ceiling.
The wood beams come into focus. The moonlight cuts across them in pale stripes.
My tail brushes against my cheek—the tassel soft and warm against my skin—and I smile because she’s back.
My lion is pressing against my chest from the inside, furious and awake, and my ears twitch forward for the first time since I left my body.
The alarms flood in, louder now, and I hear the thud of shifter feet outside the window.
I sit up on the bed. My body feels stiff. My joints pop when I swing my legs over the side. My tail whips behind me, the tassel snapping back and forth.
“Looks like you’re all set,” Tiana says.
She tears the air open. A portal splits in the center of the room. On the other side I can see the forest, trees dark against the night sky.
I stand from the bed. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to help my mother stop my brother from whatever stupid shit he’s doing.” She sighs, her shoulders dropping. “I should have told my mom the moment I found out.”
Tiana steps through the portal. I leap through after her before it closes and land in a crouch on the forest floor. Dirt and leaves press under my palms. The cool night air hits my skin and my lion roars inside me.
Tiana spins around. “Oh, absolutely fucking not. You’re going back home.”
She starts to raise her hand to reopen a portal but I stand upright and close the distance between us.
“Please don’t,” I plead. “I love him too, Tiana.”
“And that’s why I’m sending your ass back.” Her eyes flash. “If something happens to you...”
I start walking through the forest. The ground is solid under my feet. My tail lifts behind me, high and alert, the tassel cutting through the air.
“You damn stubborn lioness, get your ass back here!” Tiana shouts behind me.
I look back at her over my shoulder with a grin. “No. I’m going to save my man.”
And I mean it.