Chapter 15
After spending the rest of the evening at my aunts’ house and enjoying another fabulous dinner prepared by Ruth—her infamous vegetable chili with freshly baked garlic bread, which somehow managed to taste exactly like comfort and poor decision-making at the same time—Darian, Marcus and I retreated to our cottage.
For a few hours we’d almost managed to pretend things were normal.
Almost. If you ignored the fact that my son had aged before lunch and now needed entirely new clothes.
“Okay,” I said, kicking off my shoes and resisting the urge to start measuring Darian against the nearest wall. “Off to bed.”
Darian’s lids looked heavy, and he was wobbling around like he was sleepwalking.
He might look older, but he was still a child—a tired one after all of this.
Growing up ten years would put anyone’s body through severe stress.
It was a miracle he was still standing. If I aged ten years in five seconds, I’d probably spend a week lying face down on the floor questioning every life choice that led me there.
I reached out, thinking to pick him up into my arms but stopped.
This wasn’t my cute little toddler anymore who weighed about thirty pounds.
And my chest tightened at the thought that I could probably not pick him up like that anymore.
There had been a hundred little things I’d never even thought about losing.
Carrying him upstairs. Tossing him in the air.
Letting him fall asleep on my shoulder while I pretended my arm wasn’t going numb.
That thought made something snap inside me.
A fracture of helplessness. Of rage. I hated feeling like I had no control over my own child.
The magic in me surged, pushing against my ribs like it wanted to claw out.
It wasn’t directed at anyone in particular, just the universe, fate, Addison, reality itself.
Whoever was in charge of handing out ridiculous life experiences needed a strongly worded letter.
“What’s the matter?” asked Marcus, a warm hand at my back. Even after everything, that simple touch steadied me more than I wanted to admit.
I sniffed. “Nothing. Come on. Let’s get this boy into bed.”
I moved forward and gently pushed Darian up the stairs with me, steering him to his room.
Thank god we’d changed his crib to a regular twin bed.
Otherwise he would’ve had to sleep with us.
I looked at him, at his clothes. Or what was left of them.
His jeans were hanging on through determination alone.
The shirt looked like it had survived a bear attack.
“Here. Put this on, Darian,” said Marcus handing our son a bundle of cloth. “It’s one of my T-shirts. It’ll be big on you but better.” His voice was calm, practical, like lending your suddenly ten-year-old son a shirt was a completely normal parenting experience.
“Thanks, Dad,” said Darian sleepily as he tried and failed to remove his other ripped T-shirt. His arms got tangled somewhere around his head, and for a second, he looked like he was losing a fight with laundry.
I laughed. “Let me help you.” I reached down and yanked up the torn T-shirt. It ripped. “Oops.” It came apart, the fabric had been worn out, kind of like how I felt right now. One more bad surprise, and I was pretty sure I’d tear apart just as easily.
After we got Darian into the new T-shirt, we watched him crawl into his bed, and within two seconds, he was sleeping. One minute he was pulling the blanket over himself, and the next he was gone. Out cold. Completely unbothered by the fact that he’d skipped half of childhood in a single afternoon.
I snorted. “I wish I could fall asleep like that.” At this point I’d settle for eight consecutive minutes without worrying about portals, Addison, accelerated aging, experimental magical poisons, rogue demon abilities, or whether my son was going to wake up tomorrow needing to shave.
I stood there a second longer, watching Darian sleep and listening to the quiet but not so tiny snores of a four-year-old but the louder ten-year-old version.
It was strange how something so small could feel so different.
Same face. Same dark hair. Same habit of somehow stealing the entire blanket despite being one person.
Yet every snore sounded older now. Bigger.
Like somebody had hit fast-forward on my son while I wasn’t looking and forgot to ask permission first.
I realized then. Darian had changed, but I had changed too.
Now I had portal magic, something unheard of for a witch.
Not that my life needed another layer of weird.
Apparently, becoming a Nexari witch wasn’t enough.
Apparently, the universe looked at me and thought, You know what this woman needs?
More complications. Preferably interdimensional ones.
It had just happened, just as my magic had changed and evolved into Nexari levels, I now had portal mojo.
Even thinking the words portal mojo sounded ridiculous, like something you’d buy from a late-night infomercial.
Congratulations! For three easy payments of $19.
99 you too can accidentally rip holes through reality.
I’d called a portal. Without a power word. Without my Shadow magic. It had been instinct. No spell. No ritual. No dramatic witchy preparation. One second I was trapped inside a paranormal prison. The next I was opening dimensional doorways like I’d been doing it my entire life.
The raw pull from somewhere deep inside me felt like my soul had decided it was tired of waiting for my brain to catch up. Most days my brain was still processing problems from three crises ago. Maybe my magic had simply gotten impatient and decided to move ahead without me.
I looked down at my hands. They looked the same, but they weren’t the same.
I could still feel the buzz of whatever had surged out of me earlier, like my magic was…
watching me now, waiting. Not restless exactly but more aware, present.
Like something was sitting just beneath my skin, listening.
Waiting for me to figure out what it already knew.
It was unsettling, fascinating, slightly terrifying.
Mostly terrifying, if I was being honest.
I’d become something else. Not physically.
I still looked like me. Same hair. Same face.
Same tendency to run headfirst into situations that any reasonable person would avoid.
But underneath? Something had shifted, opened, expanded.
I didn’t know what that meant yet. I didn’t know what came next.
What I did know was that Addison had hurt my son, and if these new abilities could help me find her, stop her, or make her answer for what she’d done, I was going to learn every single thing I could about them. Fast.
Marcus let out a slow breath next to me, his muscles taut beneath the fabric of his shirt.
He might not show it, but I knew deep down that he too wasn’t treating our son’s sudden growth as fine.
It wasn’t fine. Marcus worried differently than I did.
He didn’t pace. He didn’t spiral. He didn’t imagine seventeen increasingly terrible scenarios before breakfast. He absorbed things, studied them, and carried them around in silence.
Which sounded healthy until you realized he was basically an emotional storage unit with excellent shoulders.
“Come, let him sleep,” he said, his voice low and rough. “You need some rest too. You look tired.” His hand settled briefly against the small of my back, warm and steady. The gesture should have been comforting. Instead it reminded me I probably looked exactly as awful as I felt.
I gave him a look. “The words every woman loves to hear.” Especially after spending the day dealing with magical poison, prison conspiracies, accidental portal creation, spontaneous child aging, and a brief fainting episode. Really, I was thriving.
My wereape laughed as he pulled Darian’s door shut. “I just meant that it’s been a long stressful day. We can both use the rest.” I heard amusement in his voice, but his eyes lingered on the closed bedroom door a second longer than necessary before he turned away.
I raised a brow at him as we crossed to our room.
“Well, you don’t seem as disturbed by this whole thing.
You looked… pleased in a way.” The memory kept replaying in my head.
Darian flexing his suddenly larger arms. Marcus smiling like he’d just won a trophy.
Meanwhile I was standing there mentally calculating how many birthdays I’d potentially lost.
He gave me a small nod. “I am pleased to see my son big and strong. It’s part of my nature. We breed strong, capable pups, so they can survive. It’s instinct.” His shoulders lifted slightly. “When I look at him, I see strength.”
“You sound like a nature program on television. This is our kid.” My blood boiled.
“Why did Addison do this? She’s toying with our lives like we’re just pieces on a damn board.
” The more I thought about her, the angrier I got.
Every answer led to three more questions.
Every clue made less sense than the one before it.
She poisoned her sister. She lied about the prison riot.
She targeted my son. Somewhere in all of that was a reason. I just couldn’t see it yet.
Marcus’s eyes followed me. “I know.” His voice was calm, but his jaw tightened. Barely. Most people wouldn’t have noticed it. I did. Because I was married to him and because I was currently noticing everything—every glance, every hesitation, every tiny shift in expression.