I stood up faster than was wise. My head spun and I stumbled to the wall.
Propped against the wall, I touched my head and felt warm wetness and a lump. Great.
I walked to the sink, pulled a clean rag from the drawer, wet it, and held it to the bleeding goose egg on the side of my head as I leaned against the counter.
That bitch said Johnny had a son.
He hadn’t denied it.
A son. How old is he? My mother and Nana had teased me that maybe since Johnny is the Domn Lup he was somehow immune to the nonprocreating rule. I didn’t buy that idea at all. Because Johnny’s memory was blank except for the last eight years, the kid would have to have been conceived eight years ago or more.
My stomach did a flip when I worked my way around to wondering who his mother was.
He has a family somewhere.
I filled a glass with water, added ice from the fridge, and drank it down. Swallowing hurt, but the cool liquid eased my throat. I dumped the ice from the empty glass into the rag and alternated holding it to my head and throat.
I’m a liability to Johnny.
I’d already proven what a burden I was for Menessos. He’d lost his haven because of me. It hurt to know what I’d cost him, but even though the power Johnny was attaining was changing so much about him and our relationship, I didn’t want to cause him problems. More than that, I didn’t want to be the reason he—or his son—were in danger.
That meant I was alone.
That shouldn’t have bothered me. I’d lived by myself for years before all this Lustrata business crashed into my life and took over.
I’d been so worried about Johnny’s new title and responsibility changing him, but this destiny of mine was certainly changing me, too.
Not only had I been forced to expand my skills as a witch—skills that included sorcery and the manipulation of dangerous ley line energies—but I’d reconnected with Eris, the mother who had abandoned me. It hadn’t ended like a sappy and uplifting Lifetime movie, either. It turned out she was the artist who had tattooed Johnny—her magical artwork locked up all his power and subdued his beast. He’d also been left with no memories. We more or less bullied her into undoing the bindings. Certain complications in wære politics resulted in her losing her right arm.
Sure, it was the bullets the Rege fired that did the damage, but he was there because he was after Johnny, and Johnny was there because my witchery had discovered who’d inked him in the first place. Essentially, I brought danger and misfortune into Eris’s home.
I’d also learned I had a half-brother—Lance—who now hated me. Nana was with Eris and Lance now, cleaning up my mess and mending family ties.
I’m a magnet for destruction.
It was probably for the best that Nana stay far away from me.
Hell, everyone should avoid me.
Maybe Johnny should be with someone else.
I grabbed the chair from the floor, righted it, and shoved it into its place at the dinette wishing it was that easy to put the pieces of my life in their proper places. I sank onto the bench seat at the table.
Torrid nights with Johnny had made me feel deeply attached and desired in a way that I had never felt before. As far as Menessos was concerned, after bonding magically with him and discovering I’d flipped his mark back onto him, I’d given him my own mark atop it, and now I felt him awaken every night.
In truth, I was anything but isolated.
With Johnny, the moments of seeing groupies fawning over him, of finding them kenneling with him, had hurt me badly, but I believed we could survive the rough patches. Then his beast got the best of him. I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive an attack like that, but here, earlier in my kitchen, for a fleeting moment, I’d believed I could.
Before Aurelia arrived.
Not now. Now I knew the Zvonul had given him Ms. Hot-Body McMistress as an assistant. It was an altogether new kind of hurt. Like all those who Johnny was destined to lead had conspired against me and left me no hope of “us” surmounting their will for him.
With Menessos, I’d felt twinges of jealousy knowing Eva was in his bed. I’d been more than angry with him for working the in signum amoris spell over Johnny and me without permission, and for being manipulative in general. Even though he’d pulled Beverley from the ley line and surely saved her life, he’d also taken her away and basically forbidden my coming to the haven while telling me I had no choice but to run to the Witch Elders Council.
Wouldn’t it be best if I kept them both out of my heart and at arm’s length emotionally?
In spite of our triangle—no, because of the corollary effects of it—I didn’t just feel alone, I was alone.
Alone in this big empty house.
Alone in facing this big empty feeling.
Alone with my “what am I gonna do” decision.
My decision.
Mine.
Who are all these other people, these wærewolves and vampires, to think they can make decisions for the Lustrata? The thought came in the voice of Amenemhab, my totem animal.
What could I do to keep the Excelsior at bay while not needing Johnny to hide me or running to the Witch Elders?
Considering what I knew about vampires, I remembered something that could be useful.
It was dangerous. And I’d need Menessos to help. . . .
After punching the buttons to call him, a “this phone is shut off” message played.
I stared at the phone in my hand. That had to be wrong. I redialed. Same thing.
Menessos wouldn’t turn his phone off. It must have been damaged in the flooding water at the park. I glanced at the clock. Zhan might have been able to drive to the haven by now, but it would be close.
I stood.
I paced.
My gaze slid to the rag in my hand. There in the middle of my darkened kitchen, I held the rag out and squeezed drops of water from the melting ice cubes while turning slowly to create a circle of water around me.
I sat cross-legged and flipped that mental switch for my meditation state to “on.”
When I opened my eyes, however, I was not on the shore I was accustomed to.
In fact, I’d never meditated myself into such a dirty place before.
It was a human-made structure around me, not natural, and this place was a wreck . . . crumbling and blackened as if it had burned long ago. Standing, the creak in the floorboards under me put me ill at ease. I brushed myself off and spun slowly. I slid one foot to shift my stance for better balance, and realized my socked feet were a mistake. I should have put shoes on before I meditated.
Somehow this place seemed familiar. If it had not been in such a tragic state, or if there were more light, maybe I could have placed it. As it was, I wanted to get away from the depressing atmosphere.
I took a cautious step. The floor creaked again under my weight and I retreated. Keeping one foot planted, I tested all around, and each place I tried, the boards threatened to shatter like glass.
I’d brought tangible items out of the meditation with me before, and I was certain that if I was injured in this world it would transfer to my physical body. Though danger was not typically an issue, it was part of the risk of coming here.
And it hit me: I hadn’t said the rhyme. I hadn’t asked for a sacred space. I’d slipped into meditation without the proper safeguards in place. A foolish mistake, and even the attack and attempted murder—perhaps a concussion—were not good excuses for me to be so careless.
I had arrived somewhere that was not my meditation space. I’d been pulled into someone else’s. I had to get out of here before they figured out I was trespassing.
My knees bent and I tried to sit, but something held me upright.
Oh no.
“You are quite trapped.” The whisper was spoken from right behind me.
I felt his body materialize even as the last word formed.
Creepy.