entirely disconcerting on the face of a wolf. For a long moment, I stare into their depths, positive if I look closely enough, I’ll discover the secrets he hides there.
But then he blinks and pulls back his lips, revealing sharp canines. He lets out a low growl that has Dean rolling his eyes.
“Brother, enough,” Dean says, and Declan snorts then turns away from me as he shifts back to a human form.
It all happens so fast, I wonder if I imagined it. But when he stands on two legs again, his clothes are gone. His powerful muscles flex as he shifts, catching the light to showcase just how impressive his physique is. As my gaze wanders down, my eyes widen and suddenly I feel like Little Red Riding Hood. My, what large…
I snap my head up, embarrassed at the direction of my thoughts, and see Declan looking at me knowingly, a cocky smirk curving his delicious lips.
“See something you like, love?” he asks.
My cheeks heat, and I look away.
“How did you do that?” I ask.
“Same way you do yours, I imagine.”
Confused, I steal a glance at him. “Same way I do my what?”
He shrugs as he saunters closer to the bars, cocky and confident. I have to force myself to keep my eyes trained on his face. “Magic.”
I blink, momentarily forgetting about the sexy, naked man-wolf standing three feet away. I look from Declan to Dean, who is watching me curiously.
“I don’t have magic,” I say, but even as I speak the words, something shifts in me, and a thousand years’ worth of family insanity washes over me in raised echoes.
She’s here.
This won’t end well.
You shouldn’t have come.
She’s more powerful than she knows.
Voices overlap, growing louder in my head until I press my hands to my ears in desperation. Even at the worst moments, I’d never heard so many of them before. Until now, I’d never heard anyone else but her.
“No,” I say to myself. To them. “I don’t want this.”
The voices cut off abruptly, leaving me alone in the silent prison of my own mind.
I open my eyes to find both of the guys watching me. Dean looks slightly worried, but Declan’s expression is too stoic to read.
“If you’re here, you have magic,” Declan says finally. “It’s that simple.” He sniffs the air and frowns. “You’re not a werewolf. And though you’re certainly pale enough to be a vampire, I can hear your heartbeat. Which makes you… a witch.”
My heart stammers in my chest, and I feel my sanity slipping a little. Am I hallucinating? Is any of this real? Am I in the middle of a really vivid nightmare?
“I thought this was a mental hospital?” I ask, trying to sort through a tsunami of conflicting emotions.
Declan snorts. “There you go again with that word. Have you heard of a hospital that keeps its patients locked in a dungeon? Or one that tortures them?” When I don’t answer, he shakes his head. “You’re not entirely off base, though. This might not be a hospital… but the mental part is true enough.”
Something about his words grates on me, and I lift my chin, straightening. “I’m not crazy. And I don’t think you two are either.” It’s the first time since that night that I’ve defended my own sanity, and the truth of my words weigh heavily on me for reasons I can’t unpack right now.
If I’m not crazy, whose voices am I hearing in my mind?
“Of course not,” Dean says, but Declan cuts him off with a look that gives me chills, stepping close to the bars until his face is nearly pressed against them.
His eyes reflect a darkness I’ve never seen in anyone but myself.
“Didn’t you know?” he says. “We’re all a little mad here, and some of us are also dangerous.”
2
The screeching sound of metal grinding against stone alerts me to someone coming, and the twins shrink into the shadows as Declan holds a finger over his lips to silence me.
What did he mean by dangerous? Did he mean him? Dean? Are there others here?
Footsteps trail the long hall, clipped and impatient, and a woman appears at my cell door. She's middle aged, with a tight bun high on her head, a web of lines dusting the edges of her hard, steel gray eyes, and a frown that looks permanently etched across her too-thin and overly pale face. "Good, you're awake," she says in a Germanic accent. "Come. The doctor does not like to be kept waiting."