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The potion! Of course! I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bottle of final defence potion.
It won’t work, Esme said firmly. He has no magic. It’ll be a waste.
Damn her and her ridiculous practicality. This was my brother we were talking about! In my head, I screamed with frustration, I. Will. Not. Let. Him. Die.
This wasn’t like my slow death at James’s hands. I knew about magic now – I had magic now. And I would use everything at my disposal to keep Ben alive.
I pulled up my piping magic, gathering it from my stomach, reaching down again and again to the well at my centre. I pulled it up until everything in my being was vibrating with it. My skin started to itch but I ignored it.
I had been practising my piping skills and I had learned to pipe minds that I knew. I only had to pipe a mind once and I could pipe it again, even if I couldn’t see the person. The magic of Glimmer, Jess’ sentient magical dagger, had expanded my reach beyond anything my research had said I should be able to do. I could do the seemingly impossible; for me, that word spelled out ‘I’m possible’. The only limitations on this earth were the ones you gave yourself.
I wrenched all the gathered magic within me upwards and outwards and reached out to the one wolf that I knew was without a host. It was a familiar mind, one I had met before: Roan.
It was hard to reach him, like walking through molasses, but desperation kept me piping, simultaneously reaching out to him and pulling me towards him at the same time. Lucy! Esme screamed in alarm, but I ignored her and kept piping.
I fought for the connection to Roan and I kept piping until finally I felt it snap into place. And then, with Roan piped and wholly under my control, I wrenched him from wherever the fuck he was and shoved him into my brother.
Chapter 15
I pulled back to myself in time to see Ben’s eyes snap open, lit with a golden light. Shift! I bellowed at Roan.
He did not rail at me for my actions, though I could feel his resignation. I can’t, he said mournfully. I’m sorry, alpha. He is too injured.
‘The potion!’ Pollyanna cried.
‘Potion?’ I heard my mum mumble. ‘The world has gone mad.’ Dad still said nothing.
Of course! Ben had magic now, so the final defence potion would work. My hands fumbled as I pulled at the small cork in the neck of the bottle and relief filled me as it came away. I tipped the contents into Ben’s mouth. Swallow! I ordered.
Ben had checked out, but obligingly, Roan consumed the potion. I studied Ben’s broken body, desperate hope pooling in my stomach. ‘Come on, Ben,’ I pleaded aloud. ‘Come on!’ I stared at his limbs, waiting for some sign that the potion was doing its thing.
‘He’s healing!’ Pollyanna said suddenly. She pointed to a cut on Ben’s arm that was slowly shrinking.
‘Oh my God,’ Mum whispered. ‘He is healing. Dennis! Look! Oh my God! Look at it. His skin is healing!’
Shift! I ordered Roan again.
In a moment, he agreed, his tone lifting. He needs to heal a little more first or he won’t survive the first shift. Patience, my Queen. I know what I am doing.
I held my tongue, trying to ignore the vicious itching that was now riding my body. I had no time to get to a portal, and by its almost painful level I could tell that I had only a few minutes left both in the Other realm and of being conscious. The Other realm was none too gentle when it kicked you back into the Common realm.
I looked at my parents. ‘He’s going to be okay,’ I promised.
‘A werewolf?’ Mum said slowly. ‘A wolf attacked Ben, but when he was shot … he turned into a man. A werewolf?’ she asked again. ‘Werewolves are real?’ A small triangle appeared on her forehead as she was shoved forcefully into the Other realm. She had accepted that magic existed and the veil had been lifted from her eyes. She looked up at me then something caught her eye: Pollyanna.
‘Pollyanna!’ she said, her voice rising. ‘Her skin is purple. What the fuck is going on?’ She’d seen too much now. Uh-oh. This was all kinds of rules broken.
I knew that I should call it into the Connection and get a subterfuge wizard to clear Mum’s mind of the memory of magic. She was human and she shouldn’t be in the Other realm, but just the thought of doing that made my stomach roil. Now Mum knew that magic was real, I could actually talk to her about my real life. The temptation to leave her seeing was incredibly hard to resist.
‘What are you talking about?’ Dad frowned. There was no triangle on his forehead. ‘It was a dog that attacked Ben – a Pit bull. This man must be his owner. Pollyanna’s skin is normal. All the stress, Sandy…’ He trailed off.
‘Dennis, how can you not see?’ Mum asked a shade hysterically.
And that was when Jacob and Tristan arrived. Greg was talking quietly to the brethren guards, but when Jacob strolled in my dad’s jaw dropped. He stared stupidly at Jacob. ‘He has wings,’ he said dumbly. ‘Black wings.’ A small triangle appeared on his brow and he visibly started as he saw Pollyanna’s purple skin. ‘What on earth?’ he whispered. He looked wildly around the room.
Tristan moved closer to Pollyanna and touched her arm lightly, murmuring something that I couldn’t hear. My eyes were drawn back to Ben as he jerked sharply on the floor. Even though he was still unconscious, Ben gave a low moan – then he shifted into a large wolf.
Mum and Dad huddled together, staring in shock at their now lupine son. Even my mum, who was implacably calm at all times, looked shocked as she stared at him, wide-eyed. Guilt surged through me. I was putting them through hell – they were being forced into the magical realm because of me and my enemies. My poor family – I was a curse upon them. Would they reject me now they knew the truth of what I was? Even so, I couldn’t hide from it. They deserved the truth, and they deserved it from my lips before I got kicked into the Common realm they’d just left.
