“Here we are,” Pan said, depositing her at a door with some steps leading down into what looked to be some kind of basement area. There was a sign on the door that read ASSESSMENT IN PROGRESS. Victoria’s stomach soured even more at the thought of what lay beyond the entrance.
“Good luck, Tori,” Pan said, opening the door and ushering her inside. He shot her a wicked grin. “Try not to die.”
On that parting note, Victoria made her way down the stairs, her heart pounding so wildly she was afraid it’d leap out of her chest. She entered a large room, where Madame Starke and four other people were waiting.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Warrick, you are right on time.” Madame Starke introduced her to the other four people, all of whom were various teachers and department heads—Mademoiselle Claret, head of Offensive Magic; Madame Didier, teacher of Curative Magic; Monsieur George, teacher of Defensive Magic; and, finally, Monsieur Thornton, head of Spatial Manipulation. Victoria committed the names and faces to memory and hauled a deep breath into her lungs to calm her rattled nerves. This was it.
Madame Starke smiled encouragingly. “Don’t be nervous. The Assessment includes a run-through of the basic spells, including teleportation, shielding, attacking, and defense, as well as elemental magic using earth, air, fire, and water. We will understand if there is something you haven’t learned yet, given your lack of formal training. Just take it slow and easy.”
Victoria took another deep breath and the examination began. The basic spells were simple enough, and she sailed through that part of the evaluation. Transformation and teleportation were also easy, and she showed off a bit, the magic flowing like breath within her. Her control of elemental magic was adept, and only now did she understand the true strength behind her power—it was elemental demon magic. Distracted at the turn of her thoughts, she didn’t realize that Madame Starke had asked her a question.
“Sorry?” she said.
“Would you like to take a break?” Madame Starke repeated.
“No, thanks. I don’t need one. Let’s continue. I’m not tired.”
In the defensive magic part of the review, Victoria impressed her evaluators by producing a solid protection charm with her lightning quick shield magic. Her curative powers in the midst of an attack impressed both Monsieur George and Madame Didier, and her ability to simultaneously cure while blocking offensive poison spells, sleep spells, confusion spells, and petrifaction spells, was outstanding. Although Victoria wasn’t familiar with the formal spells themselves, she was able to perform the magic by envisioning what she wanted to do, as she’d done in the past. And that was without engaging the blood magic. She knew that with the blood magic, her spells were a thousand times more effective.
As the evaluation wore on, Victoria felt the fatigue start to set in, but she wasn’t inclined to stop. She wanted to push through it. The final part of the review was the offensive magic portion. A shiver passed over her skin. In defense, she’d only had to shield or deflect. This was different. She needed to assault them. Victoria was surprised to see both Madame Claret and Madame Starke get into attack positions and she took a deep steadying breath. She touched the amulet resting at her throat as she relaxed her center. It’d be the one thing that would protect them if things went south.
Both women shouted “Protectum!” at the same moment as Victoria released simultaneous stunning spells in their direction. The protection charm would defend against spells like poison, but not against physical attack spells. However, they both deflected the stunning attack easily and circled her.
“Ignis cremo,” Victoria shouted as two mini-tornados of fire encircled the two teachers. Their defensive spells were quick, but not fast enough. Victoria cringed as Madame Claret gingerly rubbed and healed her scalded arm.
Knowing she was being evaluated, Victoria went through the gambit of elemental attack spells—earth, wind, fire, and water—and each successive time, her attacks got stronger and stronger even as she felt herself growing weaker. But she refused to delve into the backup power of the amulet. Technically, it’d be cheating because its magical energy didn’t belong to her. A gift from her ancestor Brigid, Victoria had only summoned its full power when she’d had to subdue the blood magic.
Preoccupied, she barely noticed the two teachers make eye contact and switch formation. Suddenly Madame Claret grabbed her by the arms as Madame Starke shouted a corporal binding spell, which held her arms frozen against her body. “Evincio!”
Victoria’s nails dug futilely into her palms as she struggled against the invisible magical bonds. Her blood swirled and she stifled the immediate desire to invoke it. A burning pain scorched her body as one of the witches threw a poison spell toward her. In agony, she bit her lip and tasted blood. Liquid adrenaline flooded her brain as the blood magic suffused her entire body. Victoria didn’t hear the sounds of Madame Claret’s screaming as she stumbled back, clutching her horribly blistered body from the magnified and rebounded poison spell, courtesy of her blood.
The other teachers regrouped into a protective circle as Victoria fought for control. When threatened, the blood magic’s instinct was self-preservation at any cost, and it would even operate independently of her, if necessary, to achieve that goal. As if understanding Victoria’s struggle, Madame Starke moved, casting a shield spell around the teachers. It wouldn’t help them, Victoria knew. Sure enough, the blood magic surged, and the shield burned red before disappearing.
“You can’t run and you can’t hide from it,” she said. “Why did you incite it?” she said, clutching her middle with both arms.
“What do you mean?” Madame Starke said, eyes narrowed. “Incite what?”
“It will stop at nothing to protect me,” Victoria said, even as she felt the magic coalesce within her. “It’s my fault. I was tired and careless, and it took over. I should have stopped when I was able.”
“Mademoiselle Warrick, are you all right?”
“You need to leave,” she begged, gasping and sinking to her knees. “Please, for your own safety.”
The teachers exchanged a worried look, but Madame Starke stood her ground, her lips in a thin white line. “We can defend ourselves.”
“You cannot.”
“Mademoiselle Warrick—”
“Haustum anima,” her lips murmured, and before she could stop herself or move, every single one of the teachers fell to their knees beside her, struggling for breath. The spell was an unfamiliar one, but from what she could tell, the blood magic was draining the very essence from their bodies. She could see it in their sunken eyes and abnormally taut skin. They had minutes left, if that. In horror, Victoria dove into the reserves of the amulet and absorbed its power.
“Desino!” Victoria commanded as Brigid’s magic restored her fading energy, forcing the blood magic to release its demonic hold. “It’s okay. I’ve got it under control now. I’m sorry.” Her teachers stared at her with varying degrees of shock and fear. Victoria clenched her fingers, unsure of what to say or do next, but then stood weakly, holding her palms outward in a non-threatening gesture. “I was overtired and thought I could push through. I should have remembered that the curse gets its own ideas when I’m worn down.”
“It does that?” whispered Monsieur George in disbelief as he, too, rose.
Victoria nodded. “That and more.” She looked around at their dazed expressions. “That was a sliver of what it’s capable of. I’ve seen it possess a non-magical person and perform spells via its host’s body and mind.” She registered the expressions of stunned horror and shrugged. “Then again, my blood has also healed me when I was unconscious and about to die at a crazed vampire’s hands.”
She paused, noting the looks on their faces as if they were only now coming to terms with what they’d invited into their midst—the Cruentus Curse—an unpredictable raw magic that no one, not even them, could defend against. Victoria glanced over at Madame Claret, who was still covered in hot oozing blisters. She s
wallowed hard. Both she and Madame Didier had tried to cure it, but it was blood magic, and the demon curse would be extremely hard to heal. It would take weeks, if not more, she knew. Madame Claret recoiled as she approached.
“May I?” she asked, cringing at the teacher’s panicked expression. “I only want to help.” After a beat, Madame Claret nodded. Victoria touched the woman’s clammy skin and murmured, “Curo,” her forehead wrinkling from the effort of the spell. Almost instantly, Madame Claret’s skin cleared and the feverish redness disappeared.
Both women stared at her with incredulous expressions as Madame Claret studied the now healed and unblemished skin of her forearm. “Unbelievable. This was the same curse I sent your way, yes?”
Victoria nodded, her mouth twisting in silent apology. “My blood has a habit of redirecting poison spells and making them less defensible by ordinary magic. I’m so sorry.”
She could feel their stares of the two witches boring into her back as she crossed the room to where Madame Starke was waiting. Victoria’s heart sank. She knew exactly what the headmistress was thinking. She didn’t need to read her mind to discern it—she was a danger to all of them and to anyone else around her. They were going to kick her out. She could feel it. They were too afraid and her blood’s magic was too unpredictable. She was nothing more than a liability.
“I know what you’re going to say, but please give me a chance. You can see that I can control it.” Despite the stony look on the headmistress’s face, Victoria made one last ditch effort. “Madame Starke, I need to be here. I need to learn who I am … it’s the only way for me to not just control the Cruentus Curse, but for me to understand it. Please … I’m begging you.”
Clearly unmoved by her pleas, Madame Starke eyed her. “We’ll need to convene an assembly, Mademoiselle Warrick. It will have to be a staff decision. Yes, you have shown that you can control it, but it was not without incident,” she said with a pointed look in Madame Claret’s direction. “Furthermore, it appeared beyond your command of it and that is concerning.”
“I understand,” Victoria said in a soft voice. “Thank you, and I’m sorry, again.”
Monsieur Thornton escorted her to the front of the building, where the limousine was waiting. She shook his proffered hand and apologized yet again. To her surprise, he grinned at her. He was a short, bald man with a bushy beard and equally bushy eyebrows, but he had an unaffected smile and twinkling brown eyes.
“You’ve got my vote, Mademoiselle Warrick. I would like to learn more about how you don’t suffer the after effects of teleportation. And this magic you control—it’s magnificent! It would be a travesty to not explore your talents further.” He winked. “I will do everything in my power to make sure we see you tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Inside the car, Victoria fell back against the seat, exhausted, and wondered whether she had blown it or if she would indeed get a second chance as Monsieur Thornton had implied. She twirled the amulet between her fingers, feeling its warmth seep into her skin. Without it, she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the blood magic would have killed everyone in that room.
Victoria recalled the new life-draining spell that it’d cast earlier and shivered. It was getting stronger. If she didn’t learn how to control it, and soon, who knew what it would be capable of?
SIX
Necessary Choices
“Have you seen Leto?” Victoria asked the housekeeper for the third time and received the same negative response.
Normally Leto didn’t disappear for days at a time, even while renewing old acquaintances of his, but this time he’d been gone for at least three days. And while Victoria wasn’t too worried for his wellbeing, she hadn’t been able to communicate mentally with him, and that made her nervous. The last time she’d been blocked from mental communication, Lucian’s witch had tried to kill her. This time was different. It felt like Leto was consciously blocking her, even though she knew that was impossible. A familiar could not block its master. She shook her head. She was imagining things. He could be anywhere, perhaps in an area that had a spell on it to prevent mental communication.
Christian looked up from the paper he’d been reading at the breakfast table and studied her as she paced back and forth, chewing on her lip. “Tori, I’m sure Leto is fine. He’s a magical creature, one who can look after himself if he has to. You are going to wear a hole in the carpet with all your pacing.” She shot him a dark look and plopped into the chair opposite his, grabbing her untouched cup of coffee. He eyed her. “Why are you so fidgety anyway? Haven’t they called yet?”
“No, and I’ve left Aliya three messages like a super-stalker over the past week,” she said. “All joking aside, I think I scared them. They were afraid. I could sense it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they said no.”
“They’re going to call. Now come over here and I’ll make you feel better,” he said, placing his newspaper on the side table as if deciding that she needed some cheering up. He lounged back in his chair, uncrossing his legs and watching her with heavy-lidded eyes. He waited and then repeated himself. “Victoria, I said come here.”
“I’m not in the mood, Christian,” she replied, distracted by the mouthful of cold coffee she’d just sipped. In the next instant, the breath flew out of her as she felt her body lifted in strong arms and moving with inhuman speed toward the living room. Sighing at his high-handedness, she looped her arms around his shoulders as he sat down in a comfortable armchair. It had taken all of half a second to move across the entire house. She could teleport with magic, but his vampire speed was still impressive.
“Now, isn’t that better?” he said. “I’d like to whisk you far away from here, but you’d probably flay me alive if I took you away from the phone.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You know this means a lot to me.”
“I do, but have patience. There’s no way they will say no. The power you wield is far too enticing to weigh against any risk, you’ll see. Their intentions may be well meant, but people still covet what they don’t have or don’t understand. Your magic is something that they can’t afford not to take in.”
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”
“That’s not what I meant. It’s in their best interest to keep you close as their ally. In case you haven’t noticed, the relations between our worlds are, at best, tenuous.”
“Are they? I hadn’t noticed,” Victoria said, a delicious shiver running through her at the feel of his hands kneading the length of her spine. She lowered her mouth to the hollow at his collarbone and inhaled his spicy cologne. “But you may be right. I think we may need some vampire-witch bonding, you know, to foster proper liaisons.”
“Is that so?”
Christian’s pulse leapt beneath her lips as his entire body went perfectly still. She smiled. “Yes. Are you going to do something about it? Or are you just going to sit there and try not to breathe for the rest of the morning?”
Christian let out the breath he’d been holding and chuckled, bending his head to her cheek. He grazed the skin there and moved to nibble gently on her earlobe. Victoria’s body jumped in silent, reflexive response as all her breath left her body in a soft burst.
“Now who’s not breathing?” he whispered back.
“Maybe we can both forget about breathing for a while,” she said as his lips covered her own. At first, the kiss was gentle. But as she twisted her body on top of his, arching towards him, it became more insistent, more demanding. He drew her lower lip into his mouth, and Victoria sighed against him, dissolving into his embrace. Desire detonated between them like an atomic explosion. They were both flirting with disaster. But Victoria couldn’t stop him, not when she wanted it as badly as he did. Sleeping in separate rooms was torture enough.
“I cannot get enough of you,” he whispered, his voice husky. Drawing away from her mouth, Christian trailed kisses down her jaw, across the delicate b
ones of her neck, above the deep V of her camisole. Her breath hitched as his lips traced the edges of the lace. Every part of her thrummed with sensation. Christian’s free hand slid up her rib cage as he nudged the silk material aside. Victoria’s neck arched backward, her body held in place only by the brace of his palm at her back. His fingers turned icy against her skin and Christian froze, a muscle pulsing wildly in his clenched jaw at the bared expanse of her throat.
The silver in his eyes shifted into something feral and she moved backward, acutely aware of the rigidity of his body as she did so. His nostrils flared responsively, animalistic and primal. She could see the tips of his incisors pressing beyond their edges. It wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge. Deep down, a part of her wanted to. It wanted to take the risk—to give in to the pulsing demands of her all too human body. But of course, that would be stupid.
“I wish we were normal,” she whispered.
Christian made a noise caught between a laugh and a growl and nipped at her earlobe. “At times like this, being supernatural is supremely overrated.” He stood, taking her with him, his lips grazing her cheek. “I’ll be in the forest.”
She sighed. “I’ll be in the shower.”
A very, very cold shower, she amended, admiring the violently bunched muscles beneath his shirt as he moved away. He was all lean leashed strength. She had no idea how sexual hunger translated into blood hunger, but somehow it did. The two seemed to be inextricably linked. Every time they made out, he invariably started to change when things got too hot and heavy, which seemed to be happening more often than not. She’d had more cold showers than she could count in the last month.
By the time Christian returned, the afternoon sun was already descending into the skyline, dropping long fragmented shadows into the gardens. He’d been gone a long time, but had checked in to let Victoria know that he had been over to the Council headquarters to meet with David, one of the Elders. Apparently Enhard had named Christian as his sole heir and there were some papers that he needed to sign because of it. His face was tight as he walked into the lounge room.
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