to get myself under control. I couldn’t let Aradia come back and find me so out of sorts. A pair of yellow eyes, the ones I missed so much, came to mind. I could practically feel his hand press against my cheek as he brought his head closer to mine. Just when I was about to feel a whisper of his lips against mine, I heard a door slam. I was so lost in my thoughts I didn’t even hear it open.
Flustered, I frantically started looking for all the papers I had pulled out. I could heard footsteps now. My ears perked up trying to catch any slight sound. My blood was rushing through my body urging me to move faster. I pushed everything back into the drawer and closed it. I shut the drawer as quietly as I could and heard the turnover of the lock. I tried to pull it back out but it remained shut. I had to assume Aradia had put a spell on it. Right now it was working in my favor.
I moved out of the room. My scent would be lingering in there, but I knew Aradia wouldn’t have been able to detect it and I hoped that Jackson wouldn’t say anything. I had a feeling he wouldn’t. There had to be a way to know if he was under the spell. I headed to my room. My head hurt. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I had to do something. She planned on using me to control the wolves, to be the final key in finishing a curse cast all those years ago.
I wouldn’t be that person. I couldn’t.
I spent the rest of that day in my room. The words on the pages of the diary kept running through my head. The fear of what would happen to my loved ones, to the weres and witches I didn’t know. I couldn’t allow her to fulfill her plan. I didn’t think that anything would stop her. Taking myself out of the picture wouldn’t stop her. She had Jackson and for some reason she held off all these years trying to make another of were-witch. No hiding would save me. There was nothing else I could do.
I had to kill her.
It would be me or her. But was that possible? Was killing her something I was powerful enough to do on my own?
I had to get to Jackson. He was Alpha here, the wolves listened to him. I had to find out if he was under the spell that I read about, and if he was, I had to find a way to save him before I could save myself. And I was running out of time. In a less than one week the full moon would be here. And Vance would claim me, anyway he could.
Chapter 28 — Save Me
I was on my toes for the next two days. I waited for Aradia to attack me, punish me for being in her room. She said nothing, Jackson didn’t say anything, and Vance – well, Vance was being Vance. He was getting bolder, and would follow me wherever I went. I found it annoying and a hindrance. With him around it was harder to study the magic I was determined to learn for the inevitable showdown against my mother. I let out a heavy sigh at that thought. Was I really capable of beating her?
I watched the other witches and warlocks more carefully. Some of the seemed very comfortable where they were, others watched each other carefully. The look in their eyes was worried, their movements were calculated. The ones who seemed scared or even uncomfortable, usually, were the ones who were being used as punching bags.
I watched them as they fought and tried to mimic their movements later. Sometimes I managed to do the same spells. Other times, I think I just didn’t have enough power. I started to understand that the witches and warlocks whose spells were slightly weaker were so because they didn’t use blood magic. And inside the house, they couldn’t get the boost they needed from nature.
I found it surprising how close our two races could have been if it wasn’t for that curse all those centuries ago. But that stalled curse might still come about because of my birth. I knew that even if I managed to get away from my mother, she would come after me. She would try again and again. I couldn’t