Blood Witch, page 3
“So, uh, who are you?” Rio asked, and I cringed.
“Ladies, my name is Fino, but you can call me Fin,” he said, introducing himself with a full bow at the waist, which also brought him way closer to the blood bag I was no longer stepping on.
He swiped it off the floor and put it in his pocket in a move so smooth, I almost missed it.
“Hey, that’s mine, er, I mean, that’s trash.”
“No worries, I will dispose of it,” he said, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.
“Give it to me, I’ll do it,” I said, hand stretched for the damning piece of plastic.
I was seconds from panicking, and my roommates seemed to know it. They bracketed me on either side, and Fin, or whatever the fuck his name was, merely canted his head and stared at me.
“Uh, come on, Mabe. We’re meeting the others for dinner,” Rio said.
“Did you want to joi—” Jade started, but I cut her off.
“No. I am sure Fino has other things to do,” I growled, refusing to look away first.
“Indeed, Miss Marlow, I do. Enjoy your dinner, ladies.”
“Thank you,” Jade replied, eyebrows almost disappearing into her hairline.
I was so angry I was shaking, but Rio refused to let go of my elbow, and both women tugged me away. Fin’s smile got bigger as we turned to leave, and when I glanced back at him, he just nodded his head and waved. So, I did what anyone in my position would do.
I gave him the finger.
CHAPTER 4
After dinner with everyone, I took a shower and snuck into my bedroom. Lately, Jade had started a whole game night thing, but I was too tired to put on a show for everyone.
Not that I did much more than show up and grumble when they forced me to play, but still. Even that was a bit of an effort. I grabbed a pair of plaid flannel pants out of my drawer and snagged a red tank top to go with it. A fashionista, I was not. I mostly wore black outside of my room, but inside I was all about the unpredictable.
Snort. Yeah. Right.
I worried my lip as I thought about Fin of the silver eyes and the fact the fucker had absconded with my empty blood bag.
What would he think about that?
Better yet, who the hell was he and what was he doing at Westwood?
The stranger had been the topic of conversation throughout much of dinner, and I couldn’t stand to think about him now. Especially because I wasn’t thinking about the danger he posed to me or my roomies. Oh no. I was thinking about how hot and lethal he looked, dressed all in black, eyes like silver daggers, skin pale as moonlight.
Not that I’d ever admit it to thinking about a boy like one of those simpering, love struck witches in the living room playing cards or whatever. Fine. Maybe I was a little envious.
How could I not be?
The only thing I had in my life that came close to having an actual relationship were the several fictional hotties I was currently in lust with. Reading was my favorite thing to do, and I missed the fact I rarely made time for it.
When you grew up in an orphanage, the idea of personal belongings didn’t really exist. But one of the sisters who ran the place took pity on me when I was about twelve and got me a second hand eReader that had been filled with fantasy and paranormal romance books. After that, I soon became addicted to them.
Reading was my escape. It helped me get through the bad times. Gave me something to do to waste away the hours between chores and school. Whenever I lost myself in a story, it was like I lived the heroine’s life. I wasn’t so lonely when I read books. I was just about to indulge in one I’d stopped a few days ago, when I heard footsteps and breathless giggles.
“Mabe! Where are you?”
Jade busted through the door, uninvited as usual, and looking like she’d just been making out with her man. She probably had been, and another pang of jealousy whipped out to strike me.
Shit.
I hated feeling that way. Especially about Jade and Arlo. He was the first to help me control my condition. And she’d been the first to offer me the one thing that eluded me my entire life—friendship.
“Mabe? Are you listening to me?”
“What? Sorry.” I jumped, having not heard a single word she said.
“Come inside with us. Magnus hunted up some info about Mr. Tall and Mysterious,” she said, waggling her eyebrows and looking like the dork I knew she was.
“Oh my Goddess, Jade! His name is Fin. He told us that,” I mumbled, feeling my cheeks heat with embarrassment.
She grasped my hand and pulled me into the living room, but not before I snagged a clean hoodie from the closet. I pulled it on over my tank top before I made it to the living room.
“Why are you putting on a sweatshirt? They already started with the heat, and I am like dying already,” Jade asked conversationally.
I shrugged my reply, knowing damn well I didn’t want anyone remarking on the runes that sometimes showed up on my skin depending on my emotions and my hunger.
Always the hunger.
The first thing that hit me when I entered the room where everyone was hanging out were the heartbeats.
Bum-bum bum-bum bum-bum.
Saliva rushed to my mouth. I swallowed it down quickly, even though I was repulsed by my own biological reactions. Not like I could help it, but still. The shifters in the room, Magnus and Brandon, followed my movements, observing me as I joined them.
They never made me feel threatened or made a move. Like recognized like. Predators. All of us. Their inner beasts knew something was different about me. Like they could feel my hunger, and it put them on guard. But I could not blame them. I was what I was.
Monster.
My auditory senses were perhaps even more acute than theirs. I wasn’t up on shifter studies, not taking any classes where their ilk was discussed. I knew they were secretive about a lot of their culture, just as I knew witches and wizards were mostly snobby fuckers who looked down their long noses at supes who were not like them. They’d been doing it to me my whole life.
Maybe I should start asking Magnus and Brandon questions.
Like, how good was their hearing?
I could have identified everyone in the room by their heart beats alone, even if I was blindfolded.
If I focused, I could hear more than that. Not just the pumping of that muscle. I could hear the rushing of blood through their veins. It filled me, deafening me to the voices I knew were speaking.
Really, I got caught up in that sound. Eyes closed, I recognized a sort of melody. The blood song. That was what I sometimes called it. The sound was symphonic.
The swoosh and hush and bum-bum all worked together, interweaving to create something incredible, always moving, always rising till it hit a crescendo, rendering me speechless and panting, lusting for more.
Hungry for blood.
“Mabe! Are you with us? I said I’d find out his last name,” Magnus grumbled, his deep voice shaking me from my reverie.
The kraken shifter cocked his head to the side as he spoke, like he was uncomfortable in crowds. Just like me, I mused, tucking my short, dark bob behind my ears.
Hell, maybe I was part shifter after all. It was one of the earliest possibilities Arlo could come up with for my condition. So far, the tests had neither proved nor disproved his theory. I had no idea why I was different.
Maybe I wasn’t a dreaded blood witch, after all. But wishing that wouldn’t make it true.
“Fin? Uh, okay, what’s his last name?” I asked.
“Apellare. Fino Apellare. Goes by Fin.”
“What the fuck kind of name is that?” Brandon muttered.
“Italian,” I said. “I think. Fino means like finished, or the end, the last. Or something like that, right? No wonder he likes Fin.”
“Yeah, in Spanish too. But what does Apellare mean?” Rio asked, scrunching her nose.
“Who knows? I mean, not everyone’s name means something. What else did you find out?” Maia asked.
Enok Zell, her mate, was sitting next to her, taking notes. The mage worked for the school now, in the archives section of the library. They made quite the pair. The rich girl, beauty queen witch and the wizard who had to earn back his magic through study and barter after his powers had been stolen from him as a boy.
They were another romantic success story, but aside from that, Maia and Enok were our resident geeks. They were always researching and checking for obscure texts and notes in the library that might help us. Because of his position, the two had access to books the rest of us didn’t.
“He’s an Enforcer. A legacy. Father was one too, and his grandfather before him. He’s the third generation to carry that name, and far as I can tell, they earned it. My buddy told me a rough translation of Fino Apellare is ‘last to call’, but really, he is the last one you call when you want something done,” Magnus said, and the room got so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
“What does that mean? He goes out, then what happens?” Rio asked, her voice a mere whisper in the room.
“It means when Fin goes out on assignment there is no what happens next. He’s your last call,” Brandon explained, his expression grim.
“An Enforcer?” I repeated, racking my brain for any hint of a memory or anything that could help me recollect what that meant.
“An Enforcer for who?” Jade asked, and I smirked. Leave it to little Miss Practical to get down to the nitty-gritty.
“For the Council of Covens,” the kraken shifter said.
“Oh fuck. That is not good,” Arlo grumbled, running a hand over his face. “The Coven hasn’t used Enforcers since the last Witch War.”
“What does that even mean?” Rio asked, and the conversation became a mess of everyone talking at once.
However, I was only conscious of myself at that moment. The memory started taking shape immediately. My breathing was the only sound I heard, and even that was fading. My slow, almost non-existent heartbeat echoed in my ears as the livingroom of 563W faded away, and I moved backward in time to a place I had tried so hard to put out of my mind.
It smelled like dust and mold, and it was dark. So dark. A young girl, wait, that was me, and I was about six or seven years old, sat huddled in the back of a tiny closet.
The floor was hardwood and clean, and it was warm, but I was shivering. The jumper I wore was yellow and brown plaid, one of the ugliest school uniforms I had ever seen. But it was neat, and it fit. I didn’t mind it at the time.
That was Mother Diana’s closet, the one inside her bedroom. I recognized the tidy shelf that held one extra pair of orthopedic shoes and a well-worn pair of velveteen slippers.
“Don’t make a sound now, Mabel. Now, you remember our secret prayers, the ones we say to the Goddess, right? Repeat those in your head for protection, but not out loud, okay? Be still now,” Mother Diana warned and closed the closet door.
The Sisters of Charity Home for Girls had been the only home I’d known for a very long time. It was a refurbished convent, turned into an orphanage and working farm sometime in the early twentieth century. Much of the land had been sold in later years, but the main building was still there, still in use.
I did as she asked, cowering deep inside the tiny cubby, hiding behind the long skirts of her spare habits. She’d placed a silver bowl full of cloves, salt, and allspice on the floor. There were some other things inside, dried flowers and plants, tiny little rocks, stuff I didn’t recognize.
I didn’t touch the bowl. Mother Diana had already warned me not to, and I was an obedient child. Especially when I knew that listening would earn me some of her prize red velvet cupcakes with hand-whipped cream cheese frosting.
A loud thud sounded, like someone banging on the door, and I covered my mouth with my hands. In my mind, I repeated the secret prayers to the Goddess I had been taught, asking her to hide me.
The sounds of a struggle and angry voices reached me, but I closed my eyes tight and prayed harder. Sometime later, I remember Mother Diana opening the closet door. She was panting, and her face was stained with tears, and maybe some bruises too.
How had I never noticed that before?
But child me was sleepy, and I simply allowed the older woman to pick me up and bring me to my bed.
“There you are, Mabel,” she murmured, tucking me in. “Go to sleep, child. You are safe tonight.”
“Hey? Mabe? Where did you go?” Jade asked, concern glowing in her hazel stare.
“Um, I think maybe I was hunted by Enforcers when I was younger,” I said, somehow putting that together after my hazy memory had returned.
“What? How do you know?”
“Well, I grew up in a home for girls without families—”
“Like an orphanage?” Maia asked, and I rolled my eyes at the tears that immediately filled hers.
Typically, I did my best to ignore the oversensitive witches I roomed with. They were like one big hormone, and which one all depended on who was around.
If it was a mated couple, the hormone was obvious. It was something I called smexy times a coming soon. And it was enough to make me pea green with envy, not that I’d tell them that. But when it was the whole gang together, said hormone was either kumbaya or let’s go kill things.
I was undisturbed by the latter, having developed a penchant for violence and a general distrust of people during my time in the home and later, when I’d run away and had to live on the street. But that was a story for another day.
“No, not like an orphanage. An actual orphanage,” I growled.
“Damn, Mabe. Why didn’t you tell us?” Rio asked, putting her arm around an openly weeping Jade.
“Look, it’s no big deal. I was dropped there when I was a baby, so it’s not like I ever had a family.”
“Ohmygawd, that’s worse!” wailed Maia.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered and rolled my eyes. “Get a grip, okay? The nuns were fine. Mother Diana was as maternal as anyone you could ever meet.”
“Mother Diana. Who’s that?”
“She ran the place. She was like the head of that section of the Sisters of Charity. But I guess she was not just a nun,” I muttered.
“How do you mean?” Arlo asked, pulling Jade back to sit on his lap.
“Well, she taught me to pray to the Goddess, and I am guessing most Catholic nuns don’t do that.”
“Um, hard no, Mabe. They definitely don’t,” Rio replied, shaking her head.
The action sent ripples of blue hair cascading down her back, and I watched with no small amount of envy as Magnus ran his fingers through it. She leaned back on him without even looking. That level of trust and knowledge, that kind of contentment, was something I had never experienced. And I likely never would.
“Um, well, I never really paid attention to all that. Mother Diana said those lessons were secret. Anyway, she died, and I left.”
“When was that?” Arlo asked, his gaze flicking to Enok’s.
“When I was sixteen,” I said, biting my lip.
“What happened then?”
“Nothing. I mean, I spent a few years on the streets, living in shelters, and just roaming. Then things started changing for me.”
“You got your powers,” Enok said, nodding.
“Yeah, my magic came in hot, and I ran into Stolbright one night when they sorta got away from me.”
“Stolbright, ugh. What did that bucket of fun do?” Jade asked, eyebrows raised.
“Well, I was about to be caught by some cops who were after me and a group of friends. They were kids like me. Kids with no families. Or just runaways, didn’t matter. We stuck together for protection, but sometimes that was bad too.”
“Like Lord of the Flies bad?” Rio asked, eyes wide.
“Not quite,” I said, shaking my head and laughing without humor. “We tried breaking into a small corner store. We were hungry, and I noticed I could pick locks faster than anyone else. Sometimes, I just had to think about the lock and it would just fall apart in my hand,” I whispered.
I couldn’t even look up as I spoke. It was the first time I had said these things aloud, and I really did not want to see their reactions. My roommates were good women, good witches. They grew up safe and loved, and they would not understand me. I simply was not like them.
“Anyway, Stolbright told me there was a place for people like me and I didn’t care what it was. It had to be better than living on the street. So, I came here. The first year, I hardly went to class and didn’t make any friends. The second year, I was assigned to live with you guys—”
“But you bailed,” Rio said, and everyone chuckled or snorted.
“Yep, I did.” My cheeks were burning, but I guess it was confession time. “I, uh, didn’t want to be around people, you know?” I shrugged.
“I’m sorry you had to do this alone for so long,” Jade said.
“Yeah, we all are,” Maia seconded.
“But Mabe, you aren’t alone now,” Arlo added.
“We’re all here for you, goth girl,” Tana added and winked.
The Fire Witch nodded, and I felt something release inside me.
Was that anxiety?
I didn’t know. All I knew was I felt lighter somehow. A feeling that was new and good, and lasted about another half a second before Enid came racing inside.
“Guys! Um, this guy was waiting for me after my night class, and he asked if he could come into our room—”
“Did you say no?” Rio gasped, shaking her head and pulling Enid inside.
“Um, not exactly,” pretty Enid replied, and that was when I saw him standing behind her. “Everyone, this is Fin.”
“Hello. We’ve already met,” a voice like gravel said and I found myself caught up in a pair of eyes that glowed like silver fire.
“You,” I murmured before I was hit by a hunger so strong, the entire world went red.
Everything inside me screamed to get closer to him. To sniff. To lick. To bite his pale skin and partake in his life’s fluid. My magic pulsed and my teeth ached as I wrestled for control.
