by Bella Klaus
“How dare you,” I snarled from between clenched teeth.
“Mera?” he said, the skin between his brows creasing with a frown.
My gaze slid to the beauty mark on his cheekbone. “How could you call me that word after how you left things?”
Valentine drew back and peered into my eyes as though trying to delve into my sould. “Are you alright?”
Flinching, I stepped back and folded my arms across my chest. “I will be after you tell me if anyone’s really trying to kill me.”
“But the assassin—”
“There were three fingers and a pool of blood,” I snapped.
He cupped my cheeks with both hands, a look of urgency crossing his features. “Please, tell me what you’re talking about.”
My brows drew together. “Did I dream that you cast me out at our engagement ball in front of the cream of vampire society?”
He said. “No, but—”
“Even if I feel nothing for you, the humiliation you put me through still burns.”
Valentine flinched. “But you said—”
“Enough. I’m tired of dealing with you.” I walked around the bed, looking for a patch that Macavity hadn’t taken up with his selfish sleeping position. “Tomorrow morning, I’m finding myself somewhere else to stay. After that, you’re going to leave me the hell alone, and I’ll tell my aunt to stop bothering you.”
The air shifted, and Valentine appeared in front of me. “Will you tell me what’s changed between us?”
“Me,” I snapped. “Now get out of my way before I stick you with my new dagger.”
His lips pressed into a tight line, and he stepped back. “We will speak tomorrow.”
Every muscle in my body trembled and my lungs spasmed, holding in a gust of air. Valentine seemed so convinced that he’d done nothing wrong, even after admitting that he really did dump me in public. This had to be an advanced form of gaslighting because he was making me doubt if my perception of what he had said had been wrong.
He walked around me and moved across the room at a pace even a human would find slow. I didn’t bother to watch him leave, but when the door clicked shut, I exhaled a long breath.
Maybe there had been a huge miscommunication at the ball and a supernatural trickster had made me imagine Valentine’s words as harsher than they’d been that night.
That couldn’t be right. If Valentine hadn’t ended our relationship, he would never have waited three years before coming after me.
Someone was definitely meddling with my life, and if it wasn’t Valentine, I wanted to know who.
Sleeping with a big cat wasn’t the ordeal I had imagined. Macavity moved to his side of the bed and curled around me like I was his kitten. With his protective presence, I drifted off to an uninterrupted sleep and awoke curled around a purring Bengal cat.
A change of clothes lay on the dresser—new jeans, a tank top, a sweater of the softest burgundy cashmere, and a lambskin jacket in my size, along with a change of underwear. My eyes widened at the designer labels, and a breath caught in the back of my throat. These were the kinds of brands Beatrice could only afford in the sales.
Biting down on my bottom lip, I glanced over my shoulder. It was just like Valentine to buy me luxuries. But what did he want from me in return?
After showering and dressing, I walked downstairs, following the scent of freshly-brewed coffee.
The kitchen was through one of the doors I had passed on my way to the stairs and was a long space that spanned the house’s entire length. White, lacquer units ran along its right side, with a middle island containing a double-sink unit. I groaned at all the dishes I could cook from scratch in a kitchen as large as this.
Morning light streamed in from an entire wall of windows at the back of the room. Steam billowed from a coffeepot on a table overlooking a paved garden, and I hurried past the unit to get a taste.
Enough food for four lay at one end of a mahogany table large enough for eight, including a large serving bowl of fruit salad, a plate of Danish pastries, and serving bowls of granola with a cold jug of milk. Bowls of blueberry and raspberry jam sat among half-slices of grapefruit and an entire baguette.
I picked up the silver coffeepot and poured myself a cup, wondering if whoever had set the table had meant for Valentine to be eating with me.
Next to my place setting was a china bowl filled with the juiciest-looking sashimi and another bowl containing water. Macavity jumped on the table and pawed at his water before tucking into his fish.
I stroked his soft fur with one hand and nibbled at a cinnamon whirl with the other. The poor cat had gone through a painful transformation the night before. He deserved the best.
After eating, I patted Macavity on the head. “Thanks for taking care of me last night.”
He met my gaze with a solemn nod.
“Could you transform again?”
Macavity tilted his head to the side, and I swore the cat frowned.
“Not right away,” I blurted. “If there’s danger another time, would you change to protect me?”
He nodded and continued with his breakfast.
“See you later, then?” I said, not quite knowing where I would end up tonight.
I stared at the cat alternating between his water and sashimi. Valentine’s behavior had been puzzling. Admitting to dumping me but expecting me to be fine about it. There was something missing in this scenario.
Even if he was right about the assassin being real, I was certain he was hiding something extremely important. And I was sure it was related to the firestone and the flash of light that had made the shadow mage flinch.
I walked through the marble hallway with a newfound determination. If I couldn’t work it out myself, perhaps I could enlist the help of Istabelle.
Chapter Ten
The crystal shop was only a short bus ride away. I walked down to the end of the road, hopped onto the number twenty-three bus, which took me past Paddington Station, and got off at Marble Arch. After that, it was a seven minute walk down Park Lane to Upper Brook Street.
It was my first real commute. Staying over at Beatrice’s place didn’t count as I only did that on the weekends. When I first arrived in London, I stayed in Istabelle’s spare room until I got the studio apartment in Grosvenor Square.
I arrived at the shop, feeling refreshed and finding no peculiar men in black, curling shadows or any other sign of supernatural beings. If someone had followed me, they were either wearing Cleopatra stone or had used another method to cloak their magic.
I peered through the window display of rose-quartz necklaces arranged around studded earrings. Once again, Istabelle was already standing behind the counter when I arrived. She’d even opened the shop.
Today, she wore a pink suit that looked like she’d bought it in the late sixties or early seventies. It consisted of a round-neck tunic that fell mid-thigh and wide-legged pants with a light flare. A cerise-and-white neckerchief in a flamboyant pucci design finished off the entire ensemble.
Today, she wore a silver headband at her hairline, pulling back her white puff of dandelion fuzz. For a century-old woman, she was in better shape than human women half her age.
I pushed the door open, walked around the pamphlet display and stood at the other side of the counter. “Are you alright?”
She offered me a weak smile. “I had trouble sleeping last night. Did you notice peculiar flares of power around ten?”
“Oh.”
Istabelle raised a painted eyebrow. “I take it that you did notice something?”
I told her everything from Macavity transforming to the shadow mage I’d encountered on my escape down the stairs, ending with bumping into Valentine and being abducted into a safe house.
Istabelle placed her hand on her chest and listened to my account of last night’s events with parted lips. When I finished, she shook her head, walked around the counter, and turned the shop sign to CLOSED.
I stared after her,
wondering what she was about to say that was more important than keeping the shop open for business.
“You must come with me at once.” Istabelle grabbed my hand and strode around the counter.
I thought she would take me to the basement library, but instead, we went into treatment room one. It was a rectangular room of white walls and white linoleum floors, containing a full-sized hydraulic massage table with enough space to move around its perimeter to perform healing.
Two framed posters hung on the wall. A Traditional Chinese Medicine diagram that depicted the body’s meridians and acupuncture points and a Vedic diagram that depicted the chakras.
Spanning the entire back wall was a counter where we kept flower remedies, boxes of crystals, and sound bowls. It curved around to the wall on the right-hand side, where there was a sink for cleansing hands and crystals along with a huge roll of paper for the table.
Daylight streamed in from two skylights, providing scant illumination. This was fine in the winter when creating a relaxing atmosphere, but in summer, we needed blinds.
“What’s going on?” I leaned against the wall and folded my arms.
Istabelle pulled out a long strip of paper and laid it flat on the bed. “Lie down.”
“Are you going to check me for magic?” I asked.
She nodded. “Intrinsic magic, curses, psychic attacks, and energetic attachments.”
A breath whistled through my teeth. While deliberate psychic attacks were rare, energetic attachments were often executed on purpose. Disembodied spirits could latch onto people, using the life force of their victim to cling onto the mortal plane.
Most people didn’t notice the attachment at first, but over time, it caused a drain that suppressed the immune system, blocked the dopamine receptors, and resulted in a spiral of bad luck, poor health, and depression.
“Do you think something’s clinging to my aura?” I asked, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice.
“That’s what I want to find out,” Istabelle replied. “Get on the table.”
My throat dried, and I sucked in shallow breaths. Some species of fae and demon also attached to people out of a need to feed.
I wouldn’t call it consensual because they never explained outright what they did to their victims. Instead, the victim would think they were getting one thing, such as a relationship with someone richer and far better looking than they’d expect, only to end up being fed upon over months or years before finally being discarded.
“Alright,” I said, my feet dragging as I walked to the treatment table. “You’ll tell me if you find something, right?”
She inclined her puffy head. “Of course.”
Sometimes, knowing too much was bad for the brain. Take the situation with Valentine and me. He was a bloody king, ridiculously handsome, powerful, and rich.
I wasn’t plain, and with a bit of makeup and the right styling, I could look great. Some nights, I lay in bed, wondering if Valentine had fed on me in the same way.
After climbing on the table’s cushioned surface, I lay on my back, and closed my eyes. We had done this over a hundred times before, both as part of my vampire detoxification program and part of my training to become a new age healer.
Istabelle always said that the only way to learn how to heal others was to get treated myself.
“Sound bath first?” I asked.
“I’m going to sense your aura and see if I can find something—foreign or new—that might cause concern.”
Gulping, I let my eyes flutter shut. “Alright.”
Istabelle placed a warm palm on the space between my brows, right above the third-eye chakra. The other, she placed on my solar plexus chakra below my breastbone.
She sucked in a huge breath, her way of connecting with her own third eye. Like me, Istabelle couldn’t see or wield energy, but her ability to feel it was far more developed than mine.
Istabelle described it as being able to read braille, but instead of feeling raised dots under her fingertips, her entire energy body was a conduit for reading magic.
When she exhaled, she moved the hand on my third eye down to my throat and placed her fingers on the medallion of black tourmaline I always wore to ward off negative energy.
“That’s the first piece of foreign magic,” she muttered. “This crystal is almost full, so you should cleanse it immediately.”
“Right,” I croaked. “Thanks.”
The fingers on my solar plexus moved to my right hand and skimmed the tattoo over my wrist.
“There’s a tiny hum of residual power on your skin here, but nothing significant enough to warrant any attention.”
“Do I have any magic whatsoever?” I asked.
Istabelle stepped back and sighed. “You’re exactly the same as you were when you arrived. Unable to store and wield magic. Unless…”
I cracked open an eye. “You’ve thought of something.”
She shook her head and turned to the sink, where she washed her hands. “It was a ridiculous suggestion and virtually impossible.”
“What?” My other eye opened.
“I don’t want to get you alarmed.”
The lining of my stomach fluttered with trepidation. “I still don’t know if Valentine was lying about the shadow mage coming to assassinate me, but the cat I’ve lived with for the past three years transformed into an oversized leopard before my eyes.”
Istabelle rubbed her chin and stared at me through narrowed eyes, as though she was assessing whether I’d freak out over whatever she wanted to say.
I sat up and met her gaze. “Something terrible is about to happen, but I don’t know what. If there’s anything you can tell me—”
“It’s just a theory,” she said.
“I’d love to hear it.”
Istabelle exhaled a long sigh. “When you do, don’t run off and lose yourself to despair.”
My breath caught. She was about to tell me I’d been cursed, wasn’t she? Or something a hundred times worse. I bit down on my lip, trying to act casual. If I acted scared, she’d withhold that information, and I’d never discover what was on her mind.
“I promise not to overreact,” I said. “What is it?”
Her gaze wandered to my wrist, making me wrap a protective hand over the tattoo. “You said the shadow mage attacked you with his magic?”
“I’m sure he did.”
She raised her brows. “But a flash of light made him back away?”
My pulse quickened. “Right.”
“What if someone gave you the firestone to absorb fire magic?”
I shook my head. “But I’ve never been to a volcano—”
“You could be a fire mage.”
I slid off the table, pulled off the paper sheet, and placed it in the wastepaper basket. Istabelle was right. Her theory wasn’t just impossible, it was outlandish and could get a person killed. The penalty for wielding magic was death. No trials, no mercy, just a swift execution.
“Fire mages are extinct,” I parroted from a history lesson. “The last fire mage burned out his magical core—”
“While trying to take over the world,” she said. “Yes, I also got that lesson. I’ve also been in the human world long enough to learn about genetics.”
My teeth worried at my bottom lip.
Istabelle folded her arms across her chest. “Magical ability is a dominant gene, which is why supernaturals can mate with humans and produce magical children.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “But I come from a long line of witches, not mages.”
“You come from a long line of witches and humans who might have had mage ancestors,” she said. “Some magical traits are recessive.”
I ran a hand through my hair and blew a breath through the side of my mouth. The Supernatural Council was mostly tolerant about the needs and bloodthirsty peculiarities of its citizens as long as they didn’t raise the dead or expose the world of magic to humans. The one thing they couldn’t abide was a supern
atural who wielded fire.
It didn’t matter what kind—hellfire, actual flames or illusionary fire. Even witches, who could create the chemical reactions to produce fire, refrained from performing fire-based spells for fear of inciting the council’s wrath.
The last fire mage was a man called Kresnik, who burned himself out half a millennium ago. After that, all supernaturals who even had a hint of fire magic were destroyed at birth. It meant that there were no dragon shifters, fire mages, salamanders or ifrits. According to my history teacher, they now all dwelled in hell.
“Can we not talk about this?” I said. “Anyone under suspicion of harboring that sort of thing gets disappeared.”
Istabelle inclined her head and walked toward the door. “It’s just a thought.”
“Let’s keep it that way, please.” I followed after her.
She opened the door, and bumped into a tall young man with honey-blond hair swept off his face, sharp-as-dagger cheekbones, and the most startling aquamarine eyes.
“What are you doing here?” she said.
The boy’s gaze wandered over Istabelle’s shoulder, landing on me. “Watching out for Miss Griffin.”
I stepped back, examining his symmetrical features. Even though I couldn’t feel an ounce of magic on him, everything about his appearance was perfect from his flawless alabaster skin to his full lips, and his square chin.
He was beautiful but without the dazzling sparkle of faeries or the smoldering heat of a demon. The boy had to be a baby vampire—one whose fangs hadn’t yet descended.
Istabelle dropped into a curtsey, holding the door for balance. “It is an honor to meet you, young man. May I have your name?”
Pink spots appeared on his cheeks. “Kain Shepherd, and there’s no need to curtsey. I’m no one.”
My eyes narrowed. Was he a royal nephew or something? Istabelle could recognize people’s exact species, but she had never told me she could differentiate between a regular vampire and one related to Valentine.
Kain stood back, letting us walk around the corner into the shop. I stared at the peculiar vampire boy, wondering why Valentine had sent someone so young to watch over me.