Page 53 of Twice Bitten

Two hours later, my elbow was no longer glowing, and I had a new stitch in my arm. I didn’t feel any different, but I never did when she messed with the implant.

Marinka wiped sweat from her brow. “Too much damage. You need more help than I can give.” She leaned over and scribbled something on a discarded piece of cardboard. “Go here. Tell them I sent you.”

I didn’t look at what she’d written for fear she’d change her mind and yank it away. Shoving it in my pocket, I rose. “Thank you.”

Marinka gave me a sharp nod. “It’s about time. Girls should not go so long not knowing who they are.”

Those were the most words she’d ever strung together for me. “Why did Mom do this?”

Marinka’s eyes softened. “Mamas protect. That’s why.”

I opened my mouth to say something else, but the moment was over. “Now you go.” She pointed to the door. “Out, out, out. Pay at the register. No card. No check. Cash only. Tips appreciated.”

I rolled my eyes. There was the Marinka I knew.

I was just about to slip out the door when Marinka spoke once more. “Alex.”

I turned. “Yes?”

“Find someone worthy to trust.” There was no hint of amusement in Marinka’s eyes. I don’t think the woman had ever smiled. But this felt different somehow. Marinka was serious. The thought twisted something inside me.

Not having friends or lovers wasn’t a conscious choice. Ididn’t shove people away from me when they tried to get close to me or anything, but I wasn’t the kind of person who attracted people who stuck around. I was too difficult to get to know, or so I’d heard—not to mention the extreme suspicion I felt when someone asked too personal of a question or seemed too curious. Safety meant keeping secrets.

I could be sad about it, but I preferred to think I was worth getting to know. If someone couldn’t stick around and figure me out, was a friendship or a relationship with them worth it in the first place?

“I don’t see any of your friends around here,” I groused.

“Friends not for work. I go to Bunco and walking club. You go home and drink wine.”

I stared at her for a moment. “Fair,” I admitted.

“Now go away.”

SIXTEEN

The wolf pendant was exactly what it appeared to be. No strange spells hiding deep in the silver or entwined in its original purpose. The necklace was meant to suppress shifter magic, and while I wasn’t sure I would shift, I tugged it over my neck anyway. The full moon was only a few days away and I couldn’t risk turning furry while grocery shopping or worse.

In my limited knowledge, I knew shifters could transform any time they wanted to, but the full moon forced one on them. The last thing I needed was for that to happen while I was in public. Everyone knew I was a witch. Seeing me shift into a literal werewolf would cause a shitstorm of epic proportions. My life would never be the same.

Not that I was a shifter or a hybrid shifter, or even becoming anything of the sort, but the evidence of something startling and unprecedented happening to me became more evident with each passing day. Since the pendant had one purpose, I’d be a fool not to wear it. Just in case.

The bigger question was who sent it and how did they know what had happened and my subsequent symptoms? Symptoms, I shouldnotbe having. In some ways, I felt better than I everhad. My skin and hair looked like I’d been on a long-term juice cleanse. In other ways, I sometimes felt unmoored, like I was standing on a boat in the middle of a rocky sea and had no idea how to swim. While my blood cravings were almost unnoticeable, I still had the occasional intense craving for meat so rare I had to suppress the urge to scope out a farm and go midnight hunting.

Occasionally, I felt the urge to strip off my clothes and run through the woods like a wild thing. Fortunately, I was a witch with the willpower to squash down those urges because the need for answers was far more pressing than getting popped with a public nudity charge.

Thus why I’d sequestered myself in my basement, poring over old texts while I tried to find any history of something like this happening. My energy still felt off from last night, but it was way too soon to do another cord-cutting ritual.

Mom had urged me not to perform any other high magic—a rare note of warning in her voice as she helped me perfect the cord-cutting ritual. Her mixed magic made her more flexible when it came to experimenting with herb combinations and spells. But that night, she was adamant I should only use the Archangel’s help when my energy was so damaged it prevented me from performing my other magic to my usual abilities.

Alric’s energetic presence still lingered today. I’d already soaked in a salt bath and cleansed the space with lavender and sage, keeping the white sage wand burning and letting it flow over my skin and hair. Slowly, as my aura regulated and settled, the Prime’s presence finally wiped away. The phantom feeling of his hand wrapped around my neck would haunt me, but I would soon no longer feel Alric’s energy. Despite my encounter with the Prime, Beckett’s presence felt darker, a presence I needed to cut away immediately—something about his energy disturbed me on a cellular level.

Unlike Beckett, I felt like the Prime did not want to possessme, at least not in the intense and permanent way Beckett did, and Alric’s energy felt different. Energy like the Prime’s would fade away, but I didn’t want any lingering residue around me as I worked. While the fear from our encounter lingered in my psyche, the bath had washed most of his presence away, the sage erasing the rest. Beckett’s had lingered, seeping deep into my psyche, so deep I was forced to ask for angelic help.

I closed my eyes for a brief moment, settled my mind, and got to work. If the Prime came around again, I’d be ready. The flower trick wouldn’t work on him more than once, but I still planned to preserve several more hair pins and wear them to work.

Even in that alley, I’d felt like Alric was more dangerous than the Shifter King. Or at least more dangerous to me. The shifter had tried to help and hesitated to leave me there.

I didn’t feel any warmth for either of them. The King had left me to die, same as Alric, but he got a little credit for his hesitation and for not showing up to strongarm me afterward. Alric tracking me down was odd. I was supposed to be dead, and him showing up inside my coffee shop after trailing my scent was unusual. The wolf pendant arriving to my house was a strong indicator the Shifter King knew I was still alive. Or, if he was planning for a just in case, the attention from Alric sending that insane vehicle for me last night was also a good clue I was still alive and kicking.