The blood of Joana's coven tasted nothing like the sweet, wild, powerful flavor of Warin’s. It was slightly sour and tasted overwhelmingly of iron tablets.
I gagged as I forced myself to keep the bottle to my lips so every last drop of the sluggishly dripping fluid landed on my tongue. When it was finally empty, I tossed it to the floor and pressed my hand to my mouth in an effort to not hurl all over the staff room.
“Good,” Joana said. And then she clasped her hands to my upper arms with surprising strength, her eyes lighting up with a bright green and one hundred percent unnatural light.
I croaked and tried to jerk away from sheer surprise, but she clung on.
“Be one of us, Liv. Feel for us. Bleed for us. Die for us. By the dark goddess, by the power of the blood—take our pain, be our shield against the night. My will be done!”
The oddest sensation of power crackled through my veins as Joana spoke, almost electric in nature. It felt oddly like it had when the green light had shot from me to push away the skinwalkers, but different. Foreign—like an outside force pressing itself through my blood.
Something inside me rose up, like a tidal wave of responding power, as if my body tried to defend itself against the invading magic, but it was too late.
I felt the foreign magic take hold—and then nothing.
Joana let go of my arms with a deep breath. “It’s done.”
I blinked and stared at my hands, halfway expecting them to glow with the strange green light, but there was not a single sign that a witch had cursed me. “I don’t feel any different.”
“You won’t, so long as your vampire behaves himself.” She looked at me, head tilted. “Do you know you have the Gift?”
“The Gift?”
“You have magic, girl. You’re one of us.” Joana reached out and grabbed my hand between hers. “Did you know?”
I bit my lip. “I, uh… had an incident the other day. But I didn’t… I mean, it wasn’t like a spell or anything. I’m not even sure—“
The redhead shook her head, silencing me. “You’re a witch, Liv, and deep down you must know. We all do, even if we don’t know what it is.”
I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t. Not after having felt that powerful green light the other night.
Magic. I had magic.
A week ago my only impressive skill was my extraordinary ability to find the bitchiest reality TV, no matter when I flicked on the TV.
“Does your vampire know?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think he’d be thrilled.”
“No.” Joana hesitated before she gave my hands a squeeze and let go. “He mustn’t find out, Liv. Your life would be in danger. He might act your friend now, you might think you understand him, but… trust me. You don’t. And he isn’t. Whatever his reason for protecting you now, if he knew you were one of us…”
She paused, letting an ominous silence hang between us. I wanted to deny her suggestion that Warin would ever hurt me. He’d saved my ass twice now, and I trusted him in a way that went beyond even that. It was almost as if part of my mind… recognized him somehow.
I’d never felt as safe as I did when I was around him.
And yet…
“I won’t tell him,” I said softly.
“Good.” Joana nodded. “If I were you… I’d try to suppress your power, at least for now. Magic can be volatile and unreliable when a witch first starts out—you don’t want it to accidentally burst out when you’re around the dead man. Once you part ways, seek me out and I will put you on the path. As a thank-you for what you have done today. But not before.”
Wait on delving deeper into my suddenly-appearing magical power? Yeah, that sounded pretty all right. One supernatural disaster was enough to focus on at a time, and at the moment, the skinwalkers kinda had priority.
“Yeah, sounds good. But, uh… one question.” I drew in a deep breath, steeling myself. “How does one become a witch? Where does the magic come from? Is it hereditary? Like, were one of my parents…?”
Joana shook her head. “No, it’s nothing like that. It’s tied to the soul, not the blood. Your parents can be the dullest accountants west of the river, but you could still catch the spark. And even then, you could live go your whole life with no sign of it. Maybe a few moments of deja vu, a dream of future events now and then, a strong sixth sense, but no real magic.”
“But why me?” I hadn’t meant to ask, but the denial that it could be hereditary made the question burst past my lips before I could stop it. I’d hoped…
But of course that was just a silly child’s dream. Any little girl who’d been abandoned by her father would wish there was a reason, or at least some mystical tie that would one day lead her to him.
My mom always said my dad walked out on us because he didn’t want to be a father anymore. Hoping he was a great witch hiding from evil vampires was probably too much to hope for, when Mom’s explanation was the far likelier.
“Your path is going to be long, Liv. And maybe you’ll find the answer to that question one day—but not yet. We have to focus on the skinwalkers, and on forging an alliance with the vampires, and you’re our only link. We can’t risk that. Not now.” The redhead gave me a sympathetic look.
“So hang tight until war’s no longer about to break out before I go on any spiritual navel-gazing journeys?” I grimaced. “Gotcha. Don’t worry, I’ll get Warin to meet with you. As much as he might dislike witches, I’m sure he’d rather focus on getting rid of the skinwalkers in his territory.”
A small gasp escaped Joana's lips and she stared at me, eyes wide. “Warin? Warin Waldlitch? The Night Lord?”
“Uh, yeah. Is that a problem?” I hadn’t really realized Warin’s fancy vampire title might bleed into my day-to-day life, and seeing the complete shock on Joana's face at the sound of his name was unexpected. But then again, I guess getting cursed by a witch wasn’t really day-to-day for me, either.
“No, that’s—“ She blinked again, appearing to shake herself out of it. “That is potentially fantastic. Please bring the Night Lord at Isla tomorrow night. We will talk more.”
I watched Joana leave the staff room, hoping this meeting was going to go as both she and I hoped. Because if not… there was still plenty time for me to regret this curse. I patted my chest where I’d last felt the swell of magic from within, hoping Warin would see it for the opportunity it was.
15
“What exactly do you mean, you ‘met with a High Priestess’?”
Oh, boy. The dangerous quality to Warin’s voice and his narrowed eyes as he glared at me from across the sofa made me fidget in my seat. So far my “he’ll totally see this as the greatest idea since bagged blood” idea wasn’t in line with reality. He’d been in my apartment for a grand total of five minutes before I’d mentioned my meeting with Joana—leaving out the curse aspect as a fun surprise for later—and I was already starting to regret it.