Page 78 of Baneful Magick

“Look, forget it,” I told her, not wanting to hear whatever patronizing excuse she was fabricating.

“Echo…” She held out a hand, stopping short of touching me when I flinched back. “My answer isn’t no. I just… I need to talk to someone first before I can say yes.”

“Talk to someone first? What does that even mean?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I haven’t seen you in a few fucking hours. How complicated could it have gotten?” I demanded.

Her soft reply hit me square in the gut, and time slowed to a standstill. There was no way I’d heard her right. I heard myself ask her to say it again, and this time she came over to me, grasping my hands in hers.

“I have a mate.”

Every flame of hope inside me extinguished. I stared up at Isla and her beseeching gaze and felt nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

UNKNOWN

The place reeked of blood, sex, and death.

Greywood hadn’t changed a bit in my absence.

Fear permeated the air, and the trees were quietly screaming a sinister warning as I slowly ambled through the quad to where I’d be teaching for the foreseeable future.

When I reached the building, the forest fell silent and an odd sense of awareness reached out to me. Something knew I was here. I paused, waiting to see if they would make themselves known, but whatever it was faded away. Probably better for everyone that they did since I didn’t have the patience or inclination to deal with anyone right now.

The door to the greenhouse opened soundlessly when I pushed it, and the richness of the dirt and plants inside enveloped me, welcoming me back.

To be truthful, I had never intended to come back to this place, but the call was too alluring to resist.

Greywood reminded me of everything I had lost. There was no getting those pieces of me back, and I felt that loss keenly as I looked around the building I hadn't seen in many years.

Now was not the time for this, I reminded myself. I had to focus. Whose magick had flared strong enough to call out to me in my solitude?

Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply, sending my awareness out, searching.

My magick paused when it felt a power so like my own—rich, earthy tones with a hint of a deadly allure hiding underneath. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the one who had beckoned me here.

Before I could pull back, bone-chilling coldness slithered amongst the deep richness of her magick. I quickly yankedmyself back into my body before I could experience more, bitterness creeping up my throat until it threatened to spew out of me.

The change and shift in powers… It could only mean one thing.

Her gifts were awakening, and the secrets that were hidden behind the facade of this conservatory were going to come to light.

Time was running out.

“Hopefully, I’m not too late.”