Chapter 4: : Chapter 4

Five hours later, I staggered down the stairs in a desperate search for coffee.

Casey was sitting at the table eating a bowl of Fruit Brute, which featured a howling werewolf on the front. I was certain it had been out of production for years, yet he’d bought it from God-knows-where just to troll me every morning.

“Do you know anyone who makes sleep potions?” I groaned as I poured myself a piping hot mug of black gold from the pot.

I would have asked Uncle Pete, but he was out of town. Not that I wanted to drink one of his foul concoctions.

Casey nodded and mumbled through a mouth of cereal, “Yeah, they can knock you out for days.”

“No, I mean, if you drink it, it’s like you’ve actually slept, because I need to pound a couple of those.”

“Another rough night?” my aunt asked as she whisked into the room.

Casey met my eyes.

I hadn’t wanted to face the music quite so early, but I knew I couldn’t outrun this. My mind still echoed with the fortune teller’s warning, and I could almost feel the sorcerer’s nails digging into my chin.

I sighed and poured myself a bowl of cereal as I filled my aunt in on what Jaxson had told me.

When I was done, she pursed her lips and put a kettle on the range. “I find it strange that Ulan Kahanov was the one hunting you.”

“Why?”

My aunt tossed her long silver hair over her shoulder. “I knew of him. He was a creepy bastard, for certain. But from the little you’ve told me, this doesn’t seem like his style. He was a loner known for experimenting on his victims with blood magic, but only one at a time. He worked with demons, but never anything coordinated like the attacks so far. Nothing so dramatic.”

“Prison apparently changed him.” I twirled my spoon reticently around the bowl. Fruit Brute was awful, but the sooner the box was empty and out of the house, the better.

Casey slurped a spoonful of bright pink milk from the bowl. “Maybe the rogue wolf that Jaxson put down was the one actually pulling the strings. That could be good news for you. He’s dead.”

I hadn’t told my family that that rogue wolf was Billy, Jaxson’s brother-in-law, or that been the one to kill him. Instead, I’d helped the pack sweep everything under the rug. Now, I wasn’t sure whether that had been the right choice.

My aunt nodded thoughtfully. “That could be. Our family didn’t have any serious interactions with Kahanov that would warrant a target on your back. He was just another monster, brought down by the Order. However, half the packs in the Great Lakes hate us for manufacturing wolfsbane. Maybe they caught him after he escaped from prison and tried to use him to get vengeance.”

I shrugged. Billy had planned on murdering our whole family, but I knew for certain who was pulling the strings—Kahanov, the faceless man…who might not be so faceless in my nightmares if I asked the Order for a photo.

I put my head in my hands and rubbed my temples. “I’m just exhausted from being hunted. I can’t have a night out without being followed by a pack of werewolf bodyguards, and I can’t stop worrying that some deranged blood sorcerer is going to send demons after me.”

My aunt nodded. “I completely understand.”

Then she left.

I shook my head and went back to my bowl of cereal. The LaSalles were a strange bunch.

Moments later, my aunt returned and slapped a thin leather album in front of me. Lifting an inquisitive brow, I carefully opened it. Inside were faded newspaper clippings and photos. The first headline read, There was a picture of a girl, not more than fifteen, standing by the smoking corpse of a monster.

I flipped the page.

The faded color photo showed a red-haired girl on the steps of some public building. My aunt.

She leaned in and spoke softly. “That was Edwin North, a particularly heinous criminal and a pervert. He messed with the wrong girl.”

My mind whirled. An album of monsters and villains she’d overcome. Or to think of it another way, people she had murdered.

What was death toll now?

“Savannah, you have power—deep, untapped resources of magic. I can feel it vibrating around you. It’s a gift, but it means you will be hunted and challenged all your life. Get used to it. You have to face down your fears and not let them get in the way of the magic around you.” My aunt touched my hand and smiled when I looked up. “I don’t keep this book because I’m proud, or because I need trophies. I keep it because sometimes scared. For myself, for my husband, for my son, and now, for you, too. It reminds me that the gods gave me the talent to protect myself and the strength to overcome anything. You have that strength. I know it.”

I swallowed and nodded as I turned the page.

A fierce, bearded face looked back at me with dark, half-mad eyes. The headline above the little black-and-white photograph read, My aunt tensed. “Dragan was the worst. Absolutely deranged. And I disintegrated him at the end.”

I scanned the article. “You worked with the Laurents—the werewolves. I thought you hated each other.”

“Dragan was a demented aberration—half sorcerer, half werewolf, driven mad by a dark split in his soul. The pack came to us for help. We thought it could be a new beginning, but Alistair Laurent, Jaxson’s father, betrayed us not long after we brought Dragan down. A treachery so deep that it still cuts my bones.”

With a sharp motion, she turned me to face her, eyes blazing with unbridled fury. “Never trust a wolf. When it comes down to it, they will always choose pack over justice, pack over truth, pack over anyone else—and that includes you.” Her shoulders dropped as she gave a heavy sigh. “That, more than anything, is why I don’t like you working with Jaxson. He may be helping you now, but one day, he will have to make a choice, and you’ll be on the losing end. I guarantee it.”

My gut twisted. Some part of my soul knew it was true.

“You can only ever rely on yourself, Savannah. That’s why you need to master your power.”

I’d been practicing sorcery with Aunt Laurel every day, but I couldn’t manage too much yet. So far, I’d found that I could release bursts of power, control shadows, and snuff candles. It seemed so small compared to the blood sorcerer, compared to what Casey and my aunt could do…but it was more than I’d ever imagined two weeks ago.

I looked down at my right hand and drew in a little of my power. It appeared as dark wisps of shadow that trickled over my skin and stung like ice water. “I’m not even really sure I understand what my magic is.”

“You need to know who you are to understand what your magic is, and what your magic is to understand who you are. Right now, you’re searching for both. That’s why we’re going to accelerate your training.”

The last time my aunt had wanted to accelerate my training, she’d tried sucking my magic out with a doohickey that, if dialed up to full strength, could consume half of Magic Side.

I stirred my cereal nervously. “Please tell me that this doesn’t involve the Sphere of Devouring again.”

“No, don’t worry. We’re only going to be summoning a few demons.”

My spoon froze halfway to my mouth, and bits of fruity cereal slowly dribbled off into the bowl.