Mara The Next Morning
Mara
The Next Morning
Aaron opens a portal in our living room and pulls me through it. The clearing hits me first—smoke and broken wood. Scorch marks climb the walls of the buildings facing the square and the smell of burnt timber and something sharp and metallic sits heavy in the air.
Leah is standing near the far end with her hands raised, magic pouring from her palms as the broken windows pull themselves back together piece by piece, and a wolf shifter is sweeping debris into a pile near the fruit vendor’s cart.
I take in the clearing. The warlocks are gone—the ones Aaron beheaded. Someone cleaned up the bodies, but the blood is still there, soaked into the ground in dark, ugly patches. I swallow hard.
Aaron closes the portal behind us and I keep hold of his other hand while he turns straight to the cottage. The magical chains are still wrapped around it, white and blue-gold light woven together, humming low.
“It’s not going to hold,” he says.
I look up at him. “How much longer do we have?”
“A couple of days. Maybe less.”
My tail goes stiff behind me.
Kade approaches from the Market area. She looks Aaron over and stops in front of him, offering her wrist.
“Damn, you look like shit,” she says. “I can help.”
Aaron grins but steps back from her wrist. His face still looks rough—the bruises from last night are healing quickly due to the mate bond, but haven’t disappeared. I wouldn’t mind if he took it. Vampire blood would speed things up.
Aaron sighs and pulls his hand from mine. I frown at the loss of contact and he catches it, grinning down at me.
“You’ll get it back, baby.”
He looks between Kade and me. “I feel like I have a long day ahead of me.” He waves a hand over his face and blue-gold light passes across his skin. The bruises fade, the swelling drops. When the light clears his face looks like nothing ever touched it.
I narrow my eyes. “If you could do that all along—“
“I’m a masochist, obviously,” he teases.
The grin on his face is unbearable and my tail starts to sway behind me. “Obviously,” I mutter back.
Aaron turns to Kade. His grin drops and his voice goes quiet. “I’m sorry.”
I can feel the weight behind those two words.
Kade pats his shoulder. “This was a long time coming. No one is blaming you, Aaron.” She nods toward the cottage and the chains humming around it.
“The Glen was going to open with or without you. It was a realm for the witches and warlocks to be free from human and shifter judgment once.” She winks at him.
“And the vampires, for other reasons. But eventually, it became a prison.”
My tail twitches and I file that away because it sounds like a story with a lot of layers I haven’t been told yet.
“Aya Bailey and dark magic.” Aaron tilts his head. “Right?”
Kade nods. “I didn’t know how bad it was until the cleansing.”
“The cleansing?” I ask.
“That’s what we’re calling it.” Kade folds her arms. “Dark magic isn’t completely gone, but when Aya died, we got what I’d say is a reset. Our hope was that the witches and warlocks in the Glen would be overjoyed to be free from the clutches of dark magic, but—“
“Many of them were.” Leah walks up beside Kade, the magic glow fading from her hands. “They assimilated.”
“But there were also many that weren’t happy about it.” Kade perks up. “Ellie, for example.”
“Don’t start, Kade.” Leah shoots her a look.
“Why don’t you like your sister-in-law?” I ask.
Kade’s whole face lights up. “I’m so happy you asked.”
Leah sighs. “It happened so long ago. Yet you still hold onto it.”
Kade leans in and steals a kiss from Leah’s lips. “I’ll hold onto this grudge for as long as I’m a vampire.” She grins and her fangs flash.
“That could be forever,” I say.
Kade tips her chin at me. “Exactly.”
Leah huffs and crosses her arms. Kade just leans against her.
“When I met my beautiful Leah, she stole my heart at first sight.” Kade pulls Leah closer. “It wasn’t even her scent. I just thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world.”
I smile, but Leah shakes her head like she’s heard this a thousand times.
“Ellie, her sister, saw the same thing I saw,” Kade continues. “And she wanted so badly to be a social media baddie. But being a baddie isn’t cheap. It costs a lot of money—money Ellie didn’t have at the time.”
“Kade, enough.” Leah’s voice drops.
Kade pops Leah on the butt. Leah’s mouth drops open but Kade just keeps talking.
“I’ll keep it short. Ellie sold Leah into a sex trafficking ring.
” My ears pin flat against my head and my lion goes still inside me.
“The guy she was dating at the time thought Leah would make a better baddie and Ellie didn’t like that shit.
So she dumped her sister.” Kade smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Little did she know she was being sold herself. A two-for-one deal.”
My stomach turns. I can’t imagine my brothers being so cruel.
Leah groans and puts her hands on her hips, glaring at her mate. Kade’s smile softens.
“I could have lost you, Leah.”
Kade points at her own temple. “That lives with me every day. The idea of losing you.”
I look up at Aaron. My lion presses against me and I can feel her remembering—Aaron’s voice last night, raw and cracked, I thought I was going to lose you. The feral edge in his eyes when Tiana reached for me. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now.
Kade carries that same weight. It’s in the set of her shoulders, in the way her arms tighten around Leah even when she’s smiling.
I don’t tell him. I just hold his hand tighter and let my tail brush against him.
“I saved them both,” Kade says, “even after I begged Leah not to trust Ellie. I could tell she was up to something.” She shakes her head.
“And Ellie still did more stupid shit after that. When we learned she and Leah were powerful witches from an old bloodline—damn near close to the Blackwoods—Ellie lost her mind. She wanted Leah’s power for herself.
” Kade’s bright blue eyes go cold. “She tried to kidnap her own sister.”
Aaron starts to grin. “She didn’t.” Aaron’s finding Kade’s frustration amusing. My ears perk up. Or maybe he just understands why she’s upset about it. He knows what it feels like to have that fear living inside your head.
“Oh, she did.” Kade snaps back. Leah huffs and that makes me giggle.
“She turned to dark magic.” Kade’s voice goes flat. “And Leah agreed that we couldn’t save her.”
Leah throws her hands up. “Yes. My sister is not happy about the loss of dark magic.”
“Why are they so tied to it?” I ask.
“Dark magic is like a drug to them,” Kade says.
“It’s healthy in small doses. The problem is that witches and warlocks cling to it.
You stop aging, you gain more power.” She pauses.
“But it costs you. Your soul starts to rot and the magic gets harder to let go of. After the cleansing, all of that was stripped from them.”
I think about the warlocks at the Glen last night. The rage in their faces, the desperation. They weren’t just angry—they were going through withdrawal.
Kade turns to Leah. “Eternal youth is unnatural and unbalanced. Even for vampires.”
My ears perk forward. “Ohhh.”
“The curse forced supernaturals into immortality, but it was never the natural order of things.” Kade leans forward.
“Shifters like to pass on, to create new generations and build on the earth. But the witches and warlocks stuck in that Glen”—she points toward the cottage—“they were comfortable. They don’t want the natural order. They want what they lost.”
I stiffen. “My parents are going to pass on.”
My lion whimpers.
“Yes.” Kade meets my eyes. “It’s only a matter of time before Mother Fate starts calling on the shifters, witches, warlocks, and other supernaturals that shouldn’t be here.
Even vampires.” Her voice softens. “Vampires have the ability to live forever, but that doesn’t mean we can’t die.
We’ve already died. We’re just existing until Mother Fate calls on us. ”
My parents. I never once considered a world where they wouldn’t be.
Aaron pulls me close and I sink into him. My tail wraps around his waist and he looks down at me, smiling, but his eyes are already somewhere else.
“I have to find Eric,” he says.
“And that’s fine, Aaron,” Kade tells him. “But the problem is you can’t keep trying to do this alone.” She holds his gaze. “You have family here, Blackwood. All of Wintermoon. So stop being stubborn and use them.”
My ears lift. I’ve been saying the same thing for days and he sealed me in our suite for it.
He looks down at my tail around him and something in his face eases. The tension in his shoulders drops just enough for me to notice. “Alright.” He glances back at the cottage. “I just wanted to check and see how the new seal was holding up.”
Kade raises an eyebrow at the chains. “You Blackwoods are powerful as hell. I’m sure it’ll hold as long as it needs to.”
“What about the Academy?” Aaron asks. “Should we put in extra security?”
Kade shrugs. “Already done. Your mother is on it.” She tilts her head. “And she’s also very pissed off at you. Did you hit your sister? Because you know that’s against the law here in Wintermoon. We don’t tolerate the abuse of women. Doesn’t matter if Tiana is your sister.”
Aaron cringes. “I zapped her hand.”
“And he threw fireballs at her,” I add.
Aaron turns to me and I shrug. He should have known I wasn’t going to cover for him on that one. My tail flicks behind me and I give him my most innocent face.
“Well, damn. Yes, I lost control.” He runs a hand over his face. “I thought I was going to lose Mara.”
Kade laughs. “Well, that doesn’t absolve you from the law. When this is over, you’re mopping the sheriff’s station floors for a month.”
Aaron groans. “Damn.”
My tail sways behind me and I bite my lip to keep from laughing. The most powerful warlock on the island, sentenced to mopping floors. My lion purrs because she finds it hilarious.
Kade holds her hand up. “Shall we make it two months?”
Aaron rolls his eyes. “Fine.”
He opens a portal, the blue-gold light splitting the air beside us, and looks back at Kade. “Thank you. For helping me.”
Kade shrugs. “Whatever. I’m always here if you need me.”
Leah leans into Kade and Kade wraps her arms around her. I watch them—Kade’s chin on Leah’s head, eyes closed—and my lion rumbles low inside me. They almost lost each other. And they’re still here, still holding on.
Aaron steps through the portal and pulls me with him. It closes behind us and the smoke and burnt timber smell drops away, replaced by warm cedar and old paper. The corridor outside the Conjuring Hall is quiet.
“Well,” Aaron says. “Let’s go talk to my mother. I need to figure out how to fix this.”
His hand tightens around mine and I squeeze back.
“What will happen if Eric gets ahold of dark magic again?” I ask.
Aaron goes quiet. “I don’t know. But I promise you, it’s not good if he does. He’s been playing the long game.”
My breath catches. Tiana said the same thing in the classroom.
Aaron grabs my hand and walks me toward the doors of the Conjuring Hall. My lion presses against me and I let her settle there, warm and watchful, because I’m already making plans of my own.
When we find Eric, I’m going to personally rip him apart for hurting my mate and for being a terrible father. He put his hands on Aaron. That’s all I need to know.
My lion sways in approval. She and I are in complete agreement on this one.