Page 29 of Bewitching Her Monsters

Is it a nightmare? It must be.

Even so, I stay alert, just in case someone is able to fool my senses.

The Witch Council might have come after Jade, thinking she has been compromised by my continued presence and Maxum taking her to brunch.

Her breathing becomes ragged. She’s more panicked. She’s reliving a painful moment.

I hear her drop from her bed with a thud. Then she crawls along the floor.

What the fuck? Is she being attacked?

I still don’t scent anyone. She sounds as if she’s crawling into the closet.

I almost break down the door so I can understand what’s happening, but this will only blow my dog cover. Shifting instead, I race into her office and grab a thick paperclip to pick her bedroom lock.

Within seconds, I unlock her door and crack it open. I shift back into my dog… ugh,wolfform, before fully entering.

Goddess, has this woman domesticated me already?

As my animal, I crawl on the ground army style, making myself a smaller target, as I don’t want Jade to shoot me. I don’t see her, but the door to her walk-in closet is open.

The entire room is laden with the scent of fear so potent it burns my nose. It smells as if the person knows they are about to die. But not yet pissed themselves.

When I get close to the closet with my ‘night’ vision, I can see Jade curled up on her side. She’s shivering, no longer whimpering, but is grunting in agony, like a soldier might do after being shot.

Relieved that I don’t see her gun in her hands or on the floor, I glance back and see it’s on her nightstand. Odd. If she had woken up and been frightened, she would have taken that with her. She must have been sleepwalking.

Without the threat of the gun, I venture inside the tight space and peer down at Jade’s face.

It doesn’t quite look like her—much like how actors can change how they look from role to role by engaging different muscles in their faces.

She’s holding her stomach as if she’s been injured. She has her knees drawn up protectively, from what, I am not yet sure.

Her eyes pop open. The irises are now a dark charcoal, no longer their pretty hazel-green.

“Arran? Is that you?” she asks, her accent and tone much different as well.

Is she possessed? And who has taken control?

“I can barely sense anything. Are you there?” they ask. “It feels like your energy.”

I’m in my wolf form, so… not answering. And I’m not sure if I should.

“Arran… It’s me… Osen.”

What the fuck? No way. It can’t be. Can it be? But this is impossible.

“Tanil is after me. She fucked me up real bad.” Jade-Osen moves their hands as if to show me the damage. “She dosed the wound with iron. Help me?”

I shake my head in disbelief. This is an echo of exactly what happened almost fifteen years ago. Tanil was an evil witch Osen had fooled around with. Of course, he didn’t know she was evil at the time. She seemed to be a sweet and kind witch, but she had seduced Osen and then tried to kill him.

It’s just another horrific example of why I resist trusting Jade’s innocence.

Which makes me wonder if this is some trick.

Is this really Osen’s spirit? And is his soul stuck in the past?

But supes don’t connect with the spirit world and work through mediums. We don’t see or communicate with ghosts. Although hellhounds, a particular race of demons from the Underworld, can capture souls.

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