AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It was a perversion of magic and my mind revolted, but I did not release the aether. Not yet.
Mariana lifted the vials and hurled them into the fire. They burst into a shower of sparks and a thin tendril of red snaked its way through the aether. It slid through the green globs, through the vines, through the boulders where they stood, branching out like veins until at last all things were connected in the circle.
With a grin, Mariana raised her hands toward Delilah’s head. Her fingers stretched and grew into slender, spiked talons that sank into Delilah’s skull. She might have screamed, but I didn’t hear it. I touched the back of my own skull, remembering that pain, that wrenching sensation that had been so blindingly terrible. Only now, through the aether, I could see the light as it was drawn out of Delilah, the amber core of her werewolf soul flickering in her chest.
Her terror was acute. It struck me in the chest like a knife and I let out my breath.
At Mariana’s feet, a new set of vines crawled out of the earth and coiled around her ankles. They continued up, past her knees, her thighs, her waist, until at last they curled around her elbows and wrists and reached for Delilah. Two curved, bone-white thorns emerged from the vines and sank into Delilah’s neck. I realized after a staring moment that Mariana resembled more a tree than a person. Her face remained visible, her mouth moving in a slow cadence as she worked her spell.
The amber light inside Delilah snuffed out and her screaming stopped.
Her heartbeat, on the other hand, continued to thrum through the circle. The vines seemed to pulse in time with each beat, and the boulders standing sentinel around the circle had their runes blazing so bright they were blinding.
Mariana opened her mouth inhumanly wide, the skin of her face stretched taut like bands of rubber, and she tilted her head back at an obscene angle. A small, bluish orb of light exited her mouth and floated toward Delilah’s face. The tight cluster of vines that had become Mariana’s body grew, this time stretching up to sink into her scalp, her eyes, her nose, consuming Mariana until all that was left were creaking, writhing vines.
Delilah’s lips parted and the blue orb passed inside her.
“Eucilla was right,” I whispered, releasing the aether at last. My hands were numb with cold but that hardly mattered.
Montgomery slanted a glare at me.
Perhaps it was unwise, but we were beyond pretenses now. Sluaghna magic was forbidden, its practices shrouded in history and myth and secrets since the beginning of time, but I understood at least this much. They remained immortal by taking the bodies of others.
“You were never Montgomery Leslie,” I said.
His manner did not warm so much as become amused. “No.”
“Then who are you?”
“Does that really matter?” He moved to Delilah’s body.
The vines were releasing her, but she was limp, and the gentleness with which Montgomery cradled her made me uncomfortable. I watched him carry her toward one of the boulders. There he propped her up, touched her cheek in a near tender manner, and nodded to himself. It was an affection he had never afforded the girl before and I swallowed hard against nausea.
“Mariana is your real daughter,” I said and waited for his glare.
It came in short order. He didn’t answer me. Of course he wouldn’t. To him I was food, why should he bother with conversation?
“I suppose it makes sense,” I went on, watching as he turned from Delilah – not Delilah anymore, Mariana in Delilah’s face – and started toward Brock. “You’ve managed to set up a fine life here, with the trafficking ring to keep your eating habits masked and the whole Allegany region to rule. What threatened it? Was it Maureen?”
Montgomery hoisted Brock onto his shoulder with more strength than a man his age and size should have possessed. The sight was jarring, as was the faint groan of protest that emitted from Brock.
Brock’s eyes cracked open and the confusion in his face made me flinch. He’d been so concerned for me in Maureen’s library, so gentle when he caught my drugged body before I could hit the floor, and I released a sobbing breath.
The plan was perfect now that I saw it. Mariana takes Delilah’s face, Montgomery takes Brock, and they could live on in relative peace with no one the wiser. They would likely kill Maureen in a year or so, forcing all that power back into their grasp, but no one would look twice.
“Did she threaten to expose you?” I asked. “Or were you tired of being in an old man’s body?”
I supposed there was something unwise in attempting to insult the creature, but some desperate part of me wanted to believe stalling would bring the Constables. Eucilla was intelligent and she kept a tight rein on her people. No doubt she would have noticed Derrick’s absence already. Which meant they were hunting for us. Still, my knees felt like mush under the sluaghna’s impatient glare, and it was everything I could do to get the next words out.
“A little gross to pose as your daughter’s husband, don’t you think? I mean, I’ve heard of Daddy issues, but this is by far the worst case I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re making assumptions based off impermanent structures,” he said. “Mortal bodies change with every passing second.”
I frowned and digested that. He was right. I was assuming that Mariana was his daughter based purely off the physical. He was older in this body, but this was not his true form. In fact, there was nothing to say he was truly a he under all that guise. Did sluaghna have a true gender or did they simply adopt whatever they chose to inhabit?
“You’re mates,” I said.
He said nothing. With a grunt, he positioned Brock near the fire, and I felt magic being summoned once more. I watched the ground, my mind racing for something to say. If I didn’t do something soon, Brock was going to die. Worse yet, his soul was going to be eaten.
