Page 41 of The Mating Frenzy
“Her mother is in a status frozen spell. Do you know any magick or cure that will slow the spell until Ella can cure her? Anything you’ve found in those ancient scrolls in the secret archives?” heasked.
Danica knelt on Nellie’s right side as Darcy knelt on the left. Ella squatted down next to her mother’s head, reaching out to stroke her forehead, but Danica seized herwrist.
“Don’t touch her,” Danica warned. “We can’t be certain what kind of effect the spell has on you while you’re still withoutmagick.”
She glanced at Darcy. “I’ll need your help. I’m going to use theTeighnaughtreversingspell.”
Her employer looked at Ella. “It’s an ancient Fae spell for countering evil. It’s simple, but usuallyeffective.”
Usually? She didn’t want to risk her mother’s life on “usually.” Every logical bone in her body urged her to call an ambulance and counter the hypothermia. But each time she touched her mother, an icy coldness sank into her own skin, a frigidness that Ella sensed was not of thisworld.
Danica chanted in a low, lyrical voice, the notes pure and soothing, easing the panic in Ella’s chest. Darcy kept laying her hands over Nellie’s heart. They glowed white, and then red, and the blue tint began to fade from her mother’sskin.
A few minutes later, Danica stopped chanting. Her mother’s skin went from glacial blue to pale white. Relief flooded Ella. “She’s going to live. Now we have to warm her in thebathtub.”
Darcy shook her head. “No. The only way to break the spell is to use your Wylding powers to warm her slowly. If we attempt to heat her body the normal, human way, her heart will never beatagain.”
Sinking back on her haunches, Danica dragged in a deep breath. “Dear goddess, that spell always drains me. May I have a glass ofwater?”
Kieran gave the woman a critical look. “Brandy would do better. For you too,Ella.”
He herded her toward the cabinet Nellie opened earlier, and fished out a decanter of amberliquid.
He came back with two small glasses, handing one first to Danica, who bolted it down and then gave it to her sister. She gasped. “Goodstuff.”
Ella sniffed the liquor and sipped. It did warm her, burning her throat. As she went to sip again, Kieran took the glass fromher.
“It’s not ordinary brandy.” He gave the snifter to Darcy. “It’s Elven cordial. Powerful, and it can be toxic to mortals. I would not risk drinking more until your firstshift.”
Shift? Ella knew he wasn’t talking about her job, but something darker and more complex. She couldn’t take it in rightnow.
Worry tightened her chest as she studied Nellie, whose chest still did not move. “Is she going tolive?”
“It buys her time, but not much.” Darcy rubbed her hands against her jeans. “A week, perhaps ten days, at themost.”
Ten days? “Please, we have to save her. She’s all I have.” Tears swam in Ella’s eyes. “I don’t know what is happening here, but I trust that all of you want to help. I can’t doanything!”
Kieran rubbed his chin and looked suddenlyweary.
“There is a way to break the spell. I’m not supposed to do this.” He raised his head and called out in a loud voice. “Gideon! Tome!”
A brilliant flash of red light manifested in the living room. Ella squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, a handsome, tall blond man, the tips of his hair dipped in red, stood in her house. Dressed all in crimson, he had an air of danger. Power radiated from him, making her eyeswater.
Darcy and Danica both bowed their heads. Kieran did not. Hands on hips, he faced the strangerbravely.
Men who appeared out of clouds. Creatures that struck down her poor mother with the threat of icy death. She struggled to maintain her grip on reality. And then deep inside, something calmed and soothed her. A sweet, feminine voice told her this was the new normal. She wasn’t losing hermind.
You are gaining your newidentity.
Ella wasn’t certain how she knew this, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was saving hermother.
“Gideon, the Tornakt struck Nellie with an ice spell. You must save her,” Kieran told the blondman.
Whoever this Gideon was, Ella did not care as long as he had a way to restore Nellie. Though Darcy and Danica backed away, she lifted her chin and approached. “My mother is dying. I don’t know what or who you are, mister, but you must saveher.”
Darcy and Danica heaved in a collective breath. An amused grin touched Kieran’sface.
“That’s my girl, Ella. Nofear.”
