Page 58 of Secrets & Spells
“Yeah, it was?—”
A shrill scream cuts me off. My head whips to the side as I search for the source of the commotion. Jared’s doing the same. “There.” He points to the middle of the town square where a few supes are running away from… “What the fuck is that?”
“No idea. Let’s see if we can help,” I say, grabbing Jared’s hand again and pulling him with me.
My confusion only grows the closer we get to the gazebo.
“Raine, baby, you’re freaking me out. Please, you need to calm down.” Audrey’s blue eyes are wide as she pleads with her mate, but the mer is having none of it.
“What happened?” I ask, screeching to a stop next to Audrey. We don’t know each other well, she only started working as a barista at Sweet Dreams a couple of months ago, but she’s still clearly relieved when she spots me.
“I don’t know. She wanted to try on her costume and then started freaking out.”
Raine dives for Audrey again, snarling. “I must have your blood!” While Audrey does her best to keep her at bay, I notice Raine’s usually green irises have turned red like a vampire’s when they’re feeding.
“Stop, you’re going to hurt yourself,” Audrey pleads, but Raine’s past reasoning with. I move to help Audrey hold her off and, with more strength than a mer should have, Raine flings me across the square. Too surprised to use my magic to save me, I hit the ground a few feet away, the impact knocking the wind out of me.
“Selene!” Jared cries out, panicked.
“I’m fine. Help Audrey,” I wheeze, struggling to sit up.
Jared reaches for Raine, but he’s too slow and she lunges for Audrey’s throat. Audrey’s pale-peach skin turns to grey as she transforms into her gargoyle form just in time to stop Raine piercing her neck. Wait, how on earth does she have fangs?
Yowling in pain when her newly formed fangs connect with Audrey’s strong grey skin, Raine staggers back. Her red irises glow even brighter, and she lets out another scream of outrage. Audrey reaches for her mate again, but Jared holds her back when Raine’s body starts trembling violently. A split-second later, Raine explodes into a cloud of bats.
“No fucking way.”
“Raine!” Audrey falls to her knees, sobbing hysterically.
Jared stumbles back from the swarm of beating wings, looking utterly bewildered. “I thought you said vampires don’t do that.”
“They don’t, and Raine’s not a vampire,” I tell him. Before any of the bats can escape, I recover enough from my fall to use my magic to freeze them.
“What’s happening here?” Neith, a member of the town’s protection team, comes running over dressed in all black, her dark hair secured in a severe bun. About damn time.
Jared’s now doing his best to help an inconsolable Audrey, so it’s up to me to answer. The trouble is, I have no clue what just happened. “We don’t know yet. Somehow, Raine turned into a vampire, but not a normal one. Then that happened.” I gesture towards the frozen bats, and Neith’s deep-brown eyes widen in shock. It’s the most emotion I’ve ever seen from the crocodile shifter.
“How is that possible?”
“No idea, but now they’re—she’s—immobilised, I can use my magic to check if she’s under some kind of spell.”
“I’ll stay out of your way.” Neith joins Jared and Audrey, laying a comforting hand on the distressed gargoyle’s shoulder. Maybe she’s not as cold as she’d have everyone believe… Not the time.
Tuning out Audrey’s crying and Jared and Neith’s attempts to soothe her, I focus on Raine. Reaching out with my magic, I use it to see if Raine’s under some kind of spell. At first, it’s difficult to get a read on the magical signature because it’s currently fractured into around fifty starsdamn bats, but when I finally piece it together, I curse under my breath.Shit. Silently, I get to work unravelling the botched spell. Now that I know what I’m dealing with, it’s simple enough.
I open my eyes just in time to see the cloud of bats quiver then merge back into Raine’s human form. With lightening-quick reflexes, Jared catches her before she hits the ground.
“Raine.” Audrey leaps forward, shifting back to her human form and gently cupping her unconscious mate’s cheeks. “Raine, baby, it’s me. Please wake up.”
Raine’s eyelids flutter open, and I’m relieved to see her irises have returned to their usual green. “What happened?” She looks up at Audrey, confused. “Are you OK?” she asks, noticing her mate’s tear-stained cheeks.
Audrey makes a half laugh-half sob of relief. “I’m fine. Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”
“Why are we on the ground?” Raine asks, looking around in bewilderment. “And why do my gums hurt?”
The others look to me for an explanation. “Well, the good news is you’re going to be fine. Your body will need time to recover from the transformation though, so I recommend you take the rest of the day off.”
“Transformation?” she asks, sitting up to lean against her mate’s side.
