I couldn’t think that way. We needed all the help we could get, and so far Mayanne was our best bet.
Levi turned off onto a dirt road, and I knew we were almost there. Mayanne lived miles from anyone else. I wasn’t sure how much of it came from her being a witch, and how much came from her personality.
We turned up the dirt drive, and I kissed Daisy on the forehead. “You ready for this?”
“As ready as I’m going to be.” She’d been quiet since breakfast. I knew that she was probably beating herself up about manipulating the waiter. I understood why it upset her. It freaked me out too.
“Either Mayanne got a new car, or she has company.” Georgina pointed to an SUV parked by the front door of the rambling home.
“Stay here.” Levi parked.
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. Stay with them.” Levi’s eyes gave me all the warning I needed. I knew he was right. One of us needed to stay with Georgina and Daisy. They were human after all.
Before Levi could make it a few steps the front door opened, and Mayanne stepped out.
I got right out of the car, and Daisy followed. I opened Georgina’s door and helped her out.
“I need you to all stay calm.” Mayanne walked out onto the rickety front porch.
“Stay calm?” I looked at the tall and willowy woman. “Why would you tell us that?”
“Who’s visiting you, Mayanne?” Georgina walked over to her friend.
“They aren’t here for me, but stay calm. They may be of help.”
I didn’t need to hear the names to know who the visitors were. “Are they inside?”
Mayanne nodded. “Stay calm, Owen.”
“I’ll try.”
Daisy slipped her hand into mine. “Stay calm for my sake.”
“I’ll try,” I repeated my words.
Mayanne, Georgina, and Levi walked in first, and Levi held open the door for us to walk inside.
“Hello, old friends.” Hugh smirked.
Any thoughts of staying calm disappeared. “What the hell are you doing here?” I didn’t think about the company I was in, I said exactly what was on my mind.
“We’re here for the same reason you are. We want to help Daisy.” Violet smiled.
“Help her? You mean take away any chance she has to stay human?”
“If we wanted that we’d have left you guys to your own devices, but we do care.” Violet caught my eye.
“Where’s Roland?” Daisy spoke for the first time since walking in.
“He’s not here.” Hugh shrugged. “We thought it best if he stayed away.”
“Why?”
“Because his interests are too complicated.”
“His interests?” Levi asked. He stepped toward the Allures. “What kind of interests does he have beyond the ones you do?”
“She has his maker’s essence. He is drawn to her, and he doesn’t mind the new packaging.” Hugh smirked.
I was in his face in a blur. “The packaging? Don’t you ever talk about Daisy that way.”
“I thought you’d prefer it to me saying he’s attracted to her.”
“Shut up!” Daisy wrung her hands. “Shut up all of you.”
Georgina cleared her throat.
“Sorry.” Daisy looked at her. “But I’m not going to stand here and listen to this. You say you want to help me? Then help me. Mayanne thinks she can buy me time. Let’s see what she can do.”
Mayanne nodded. “I can’t do anything with a crowd.”
“That’s fine. Daisy and I will go with you. Everyone else can wait.” That was the only logical solution.
“Not a chance.” Violet shook her head. “We have a vested interest in this too.”
“Because of the essence and not Daisy. She’s the important part.”
“They are both important.” Violet pressed her lips into a firm line.
“Daisy is more important. I don’t care what you say, that’s the truth.” I stood my ground.
“I’ll go with Mayanne by myself. Everyone else can stay out here.” Daisy avoided my eyes when she spoke.
“You don’t have to do that. I promised I’d stay with you.”
“And I can’t handle more of this arguing. I am nervous and freaking out already. I don’t need anyone making it worse.”
“She’ll be fine, Owen. We’ll only be upstairs.” Mayanne touched my arm reassuringly. “You know I’d never hurt her.”
“I know…”
Georgina repeated Mayanne’s words. “She will be fine.”
Before Levi could join in and agree with the two women, I cut him off. “I know she will be fine, but that doesn’t mean I want to leave her.”
“It’s not leaving me if I’m asking you to wait here.” Daisy’s face softened. “And I expect you to be waiting when we’re done.”
“Of course.” I smiled. She was the one going through the most physically. I owed it to her to hold myself together. I needed to be strong. “I’ll be right here.”
“Come on, hun.” Mayanne put a hand on Daisy’s back and led her toward the doorway.
I had to fight the urge to follow. As soon as they disappeared I turned back to Violet. “What is really going on?”
“We already told you. We’re here to help.” Violet rolled her eyes.
“But why?” I pressed. “Why are you helping?”
“Because I like Daisy.”
“But you can’t even feel. You can’t actually care.”
“I’m not heartless.” Violet sighed. “I may not be able to feel true emotion, but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel others’. There’s an intensity in Daisy.” She looked off.
“Her love for Owen is strong.” Georgina smiled warmly. “It’s strong enough that it got your attention.”
“It’s what’s keeping her fighting the change, isn’t it?” Violet turned to Georgina. “Otherwise she’d have given in.”
Georgina nodded. “I’m sure there is more at work. She loves her family I have no doubt, but her feelings for Owen are intense, maybe part of that originated from the way they met or the magic she was exposed to, but it doesn’t matter now. Her heart is what it is.”
“That kind of love is rare.” Hugh rocked back on his heels. “It’s hard not to play with it.”
Violet glared at him. “You will not make things any harder than they already are for her. No one will.”
Hugh scrunched up his face. “It’s almost pathetic.”
My hands balled into fists. “Shut up.”
“You’re lucky we left Roland behind.” Hugh grinned. “You’d be even more annoyed at him.”
“Where is he?” I had to ask.
“I guess leaving him behind is making it sound nicer than it was.” Hugh stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“Meaning?” Levi asked. He’d been unusually quiet.
“Meaning we had to use force. He’s drawn to her, but we couldn’t have him getting in the way.”
“You used force against your own?” Levi seemed surprised. Very little surprised him.
“As if you should talk? You have imprisoned Pterons before.”
“Not my friends.”
“Maybe not your social friends, but friends of The Society.”
“You have him imprisoned?” I asked. “That seems extreme even for you.”
“Not imprisoned so much as distracted.”
“What does that mean?” Levi stepped toward them.
“Why so curious?” Violet asked. “Looking for new ways to control your people?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Violet crossed her arms. “Got it. You want to know how to subdue an Allure. Now that we’re back, you’re worried.”
“We’re not worried.” He straightened out. Violet had him ruffled.
“You are. You don’t know what to do now that older, stronger creatures are in your midst.”
“He is not worried.” Georgina stepped between her grandson and the Allures. “The King of The
Society does not fear others. He is only doing his job. Protecting his people.”
“I like you.” Violet studied Georgina. “Why aren’t you in charge?”
“Because she’s human,” Hugh said matter-of-factly. “A human would never be put in charge of the Society.”
“Our mates still play a major role in our decision making. That has been the case since the Laurents have been in power.” Georgina held her chin up.
Violet seemed pensive. “I like you better than your predecessors.”
“My dad?” Levi asked.
“No, the family before.”
“You were really around for that?” Georgina seemed to be looking at Violet with new eyes.
“Yes. We live long lives.” Violet’s face fell into a wistful expression. “There are good parts and bad parts about that gift.”
I thought about what Myrtle had said. How Violet had searched for the guy and then disappeared. How did that all tie in? I sensed there was a significance we needed to understand.
“But you call it a gift, so that already speaks for a lot.” Georgina walked toward a sitting room and set down her purse. The rest of us followed.
“It is a gift, but even the best gifts come with strings.”
“You were in love.” Georgina reached out and touched Violet’s hand. “That’s why you understand Daisy.” Georgina turned to me. “Absent of true feeling or not, this one still has a heart.”
“Then Daisy might too. Even if we fail…” Levi started.
Violet shook her head. “It’s not the same. She won’t be able to give him what he needs, and he what she needs. It would never be love. And it would take her years to even remember why she cared so much.”
Georgina took Violet’s hands in hers. “I’m sure he was a good man.”
Levi and I exchanged looks. Georgina had softened over the past few years, but this was extreme for her. This had to tie into Myrtle’s story.
“I barely remember why I loved him, but I know I did.”
“How old are you?” Levi asked.
“Leviathan Laurent.” Georgina scowled. “You were raised better than to ever ask a woman her age.”
“I don’t think that rule applies for an Allure.”
“I’m old. Older than anyone you’ve ever met.”
“Older than me.” Hugh laughed.
“Age stops having meaning after a while.” She turned to me. “Everything does.”
“Mayanne is going to find a way to delay the change.”
“She will. We discussed it before you arrived.” Violet spoke calmly.
“What? What did you discuss?” I needed to know everything.
Violet sighed. “Calm down. If you want to help Daisy, you are going to have to learn to trust me.”
“How can I trust someone who doesn’t feel?”
“Don’t let Daisy hear that,” Hugh took a seat on a couch. “She’s already starting to change. My guess is that would insult her.”
“Everything will insult her right now.” I slumped down in a chair. “I don’t know what to do. I just wish I could make it all go away.”
“There will be nothing ‘just’ about it. Even if Mayanne is successful in delaying the change, it’s still going to be a difficult journey.”
“Journey? What is with all this journey talk?” I needed to know more.
“You don’t know yet?” Violet turned to Georgina. “You feel confident, determined. I assumed that meant you knew.”
“I know the place isn’t of this world.” Georgina took a seat on a chair across from me.
“No. It’s not.”
“Where is Energo?” Levi asked. “Be frank with me.”
“Your matriarch is correct. It’s of another world, but it’s not Energo you need to find.”
“Then what is?” I was tired of the games, the never ending circles.
“It’s Mount Majest. The palace at the top of the highest mountain in all of the worlds. You can only get there through Energo though.”
“I take it you know where to go?” Levi asked.
“Absolutely.”
“Tell us.” I didn’t bother with being polite. They’d worn out any politeness I had in me.
“No.” She shook her head.
“Tell us.” I repeated.
She shook her head. “No. I will show you though.”
“No. You are not coming.” I didn’t trust the Allures. They had too many of their own motives, and we knew almost nothing about them.
“The creatures you need to talk to will not give you an audience.”
“Then what’s the point of going?”
“They will however give me one.”
“Who are these creatures anyway?”
“The Elders.” Violet tossed her dark hair off her shoulder.
“They are as close to the gods as…” Georgina trailed off.
“They do say we descend from the gods don’t they?” Violet gazed off into the distance.
“And you think they will help?”
“No. I doubt they will.”
I froze. “Then I ask again, why bother seeing them?”
“Because they are your only hope.”
8
Daisy
Mayanne led me into the same room I’d slept in the last time I’d been in Mayanne’s house. This time was different. I wasn’t begging Owen to stay with me—for him to kiss me. But the memory was there. That first kiss, the first taste of the man who would get under my skin in a way that no one else ever had or ever would.
“Why don’t you lie down?” She gestured to the bed that held so many memories it made my chest clench. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was changing. Intense emotions were becoming harder and harder to handle.
“Still don’t believe you were destined for him?” Mayanne asked as she laid out several vials and a glass flask on the bedside table.
“I believe he’s the most amazing man I’ve ever met.”
“But you doubt destiny?”
“With everything looming over us, the only thing that seems destined is that we’ll both get hurt.”
“Stay confident. You will need it.”
“That word has been thrown around a lot in the past few days.”
“Because it’s an important one.” Mayanne smiled lightly.
“It’s hard to feel that way right now.” I ran my hand over the soft bedspread.
“You are still in control of your emotions. Don’t forget that.”
“Sometimes I am. Sometimes I’m not. I’ve had enough angry bursts and mood swings lately to prove it.” I’d also manipulated a man again, and from Owen’s reaction and the waiter’s, I’d done it well.
“Then try harder to control them.”
“You make it sound easy.”
She laughed. “What in life is easy?”
“Not much apparently.”
“Exactly. It all takes hard work, at least at times.”
“Do you really think this is going to work?”
“Confidence, Daisy. Confidence.”
“Oh no.” I groaned.
“What?”
“Is this one of those things that is all in my head? Like it’s not going to do anything except push me to fight against the change harder?” I’d read a lot about placebo sugar pills and things like that.
“Fighting it will help, but this should make the fight easier.”
“What is it?”
“It’s called a slug. It might make you sick, but it will also make the essence weaker.”
“Great. I’m hoping it’s called a slug because it slows things down and not because it’s gross.”
“It’s both actually, and I can tell you don’t want to be sick or weaken the Allure essence.”
“I want to weaken it, but I don’t.” I was attached to the new side of me though, even if it terrified me.
“It’s already become a part of you.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m still human.�
�
“You are human, mostly.”
“I’m human.” I was confident about that. Aside from my ridiculous mood swings, I was still me, bumbling along toward some sort of solution.
“Still don’t trust me?”
“I trust you enough to let you do whatever it is you are going to do.”
“I was right about Owen coming around.”
“After I searched for him for years.”
“But he came around, didn’t he? I thought he was going to lose it when you told him to wait in the other room.”
“He’s protective, in a surprisingly nice way.”
She rested her hand next to me. “Why surprisingly?”
“I don’t usually go for those kind of guys. I mean, yeah, I loved that he saved me, but I don’t need to be the damsel in distress again, you know?”
“I do. Drink this.” She handed me a clear glass filled with a strange blue liquid that gave off a mist of smoke.
“What is it?” The blue color was one thing, but the smoke? Was it really safe to drink?
“It’s strong. As I warned you, it will likely make you sick and you’ll feel tired.”
“You probably should have waited until after I finished the drink to remind me of those side effects.”
She shrugged. “You deserve to know what’s happening to you.”
“I wish I did…”
“Violet has a plan. I know you’re wary of her, and you have good reason, but I’d trust her.”
“You think she’s trustworthy?”
“Trustworthy enough, and she’s your only option. Besides, if the change truly happens she’s going to be the best one to help you.”
I shivered. “I have to stop it in time.”
“This should lengthen the window, but it won’t work miracles. You are still going to have to work fast.”
“Is this going to knock me out?” I moved around the glass in my hand.
“Quite possibly.”
“If it does, will you have Owen come in?”
She smiled. “Absolutely. We won’t let you out of our sight.”
“Although I don’t know what worse could happen to me—well, besides Owen disappearing again.”
“He’s not going anywhere. My guess is he’s pacing outside the door.”
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