This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,43
at speed. Finally, only a small sliver of steak remains on my plate and I’m not sure if I can fit in another mouthful. “How does Helen do all of this?”
“You mean how is any witch powerful enough to create and sustain a place like Hidden House?” Iyana asks.
I murmur a ‘yes’ around the last mouthful, which I decide is worth consuming even if I have a stomachache later.
Iyana gives me a satisfied smile. She looks like she’s ready to fall asleep and I remember that if she’s been up since midnight, it’s probably her bedtime now. “Helen’s responsible for setting all of the spells that make the house function the way it does, but she has a secret source of power that keeps the spells operating so she isn’t drained.”
“What source?”
Iyana rolls her eyes at me, a lazy motion before she gives a soft laugh. “What part of secret source isn’t clear?”
I snort. “You seem to know every other secret.”
She leans forward, suddenly more alert. “I’m not actually sure,” she says. “I can only guess from what I’ve pieced together over the last seven months.”
“Which is…?”
She exhales. A crease forms in her forehead. “I believe there’s a woman who sought shelter here long before anyone else. She’s so powerful that she remains in a deep sleep—hidden somewhere inside the house.” Iyana lowers her voice. “Which could be why Helen nearly freaked out the other day when she thought you might be able to break through the house’s old magic and sense the women living here and what their powers might be.”
I frown. “So Helen keeps a woman here and siphons off her power while she sleeps? But that’s not right—”
Iyana interrupts me. “No, I don’t think it’s like that. I think this woman willingly offered up her power in exchange for a safe place to retreat from the world.”
Iyana falls silent while I chew my lip. I’ve known pain, but it’s hard to imagine agony so great that I would welcome the darkness of sleep.
Wait…
“The woman in the dark,” I whisper. “Last night, Helen talked about someone she calls the woman in the dark. She was worried about what would happen if the woman woke up and Tristan wasn’t here.”
Iyana nods. “I’m not sure I’d want to be here when a woman that powerful wakes up.” She suddenly narrows her eyes at me. “Why wouldn’t Tristan be here?”
Footfalls on the stairs interrupt us. Looking up, I discover that all of the other women have left already, their tables cleared and clean.
Helen appears on the stairs and makes her way to my side. Her hair is loose and she sweeps it to the side, the glossy, dark waves falling across one shoulder.
Iyana immediately yawns and stretches. “Looks like it’s bedtime for me, then.”
Helen gives her a smile before she says, “Tessa, it’s time for your first lesson.”
Chapter Eleven
The space transforms around me as soon as Iyana disappears up the stairs.
I gasp as the tables and chairs whoosh backward and disappear into the trees, which suddenly shoot new branches at an astounding rate, sprouting new leaves until the broad, lush branches form a thick canopy directly overhead.
The ground brims with flowers and vines of all kinds. It’s still the middle of the day, but the moonlight above us softens, somehow whiter, appearing more like starlight.
Helen gestures to the two oversized plush cushions that appear in the middle of the grassy, moonlit clearing. “Take a seat, Tessa.”
I hesitate while she sits and crosses her legs, her hair cascading down her back. A trailing silver vine meanders across her right foot, sprouting silver flowers that bloom before my eyes. They blossom and turn toward Helen’s body, snuggling against the cushion on which she sits.
She lifts her hand off her knee to gesture at the empty cushion opposite her.
I pick a path through the flowers spreading across the courtyard, miraculously succeeding in leaving them all intact, before I lower myself carefully onto the cushion and fold my legs under me.
A light breeze touches my face, carrying a scent that is both wild and free, as if it has swept off ice-capped mountains, through flower fields, and among blossoms before it reached me.
A sense of space fills me despite the closeness of the trees and the blossoms flowering around me. Magic thrums through every leaf and flower—even the ground I’m sitting on.
This is not a place to eat meals anymore. It’s filled with magic that both exhilarates and frightens me with its intensity.