Sybil was receiving odd looks from everyone, no doubt owing to her comment which certainly must have sounded strange. I wanted to bury my face in my hands and moan. There was no escaping it now. I’d have to explain. Before I could, though, Lorcan broached the topic on everyone’s mind.

  “I’ll repeat my question, sweetling. Who is this young lady who is so enraptured with the fire and why have you called us to assemble here?”

  I took a deep breath, but couldn’t meet any of their eyes. Any pride I had left had drained away with the arrival of Rupert’s letter. I was out of options and short on time and I really didn’t want to deal with this. Wasn’t one disaster enough?

  “There has been an... accident,” I began slowly as I glanced over at Sybil, who gazed at me with big cow eyes, a small smile on her blank face. “I’m sure some of you heard about the explosion at my store.”

  Olga nodded. “Ya. Ve wanted to help, but Taliyah insisted you had it vell in hand. Did zis vitch have something to do vith zee problem?” Then she eyed Sybil suspiciously.

  “Not exactly,” I answered. “She’s the result of the problem, really.”

  “I think it best to explain from the beginning,” Poppy offered with an encouraging smile.

  “Yes, right,” I said as I took in a deep breath and then started the long, depressing story. “I was trying to make a potion similar to Rhiannon Oil for a client with anxiety. Maverick was working on the dress Sybil is wearing, which I anointed with Pluto Oil.”

  “A potion for transformation and metamorphosis,” Poppy supplied with another encouraging smile in my direction. “Go on, Wanda.”

  “Right. He was doing the manual spellcraft when I happened to… well, I tripped. It was at that point that the potion flew out of my hand and landed all over the place, including on the dress which was ripe with Maverick’s spellwork and I probably don’t have to tell you what happened then...”

  Everyone but Lorcan and Poppy drew in a collective breath. My brothers would have a unique insight into what my words meant because once upon a time, they’d been warlocks too, just like Maverick. The expressions in the room ran the gamut from surprise to dread. Betanya’s expression was especially concerned. She knew better than most just how volatile Maverick’s magic was at the moment.

  “Oh, your magic melted togezer!” Olga called out, bringing her hand to cover her mouth.

  “Yes,” I said and gave her a quick nod.

  Betanya rose from her chair before anyone else could speak, striding over to where Sybil sat. The latter wore a rather vacuous expression on her face, which gave way to a bright smile when she spotted Betanya.

  “I know you,” she said.

  “Do you?” Betanya asked, raising a coppery brow.

  “Betanya Tayir,” Sybil said with a quick nod. “My name is Sybil Weeks. Wanda is my mother. Isn’t she pretty?”

  I couldn’t help my groan but Betanya kept her smile in place. Point for her.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Sybil,” Betanya said. “And yes, Wanda is very pretty. Would you mind if I touched your aura for a moment?”

  “I don’t mind,” Sybil said brightly. Goddess, with her constant overall happiness and good nature, she was almost as bad as Poppy. At least in Sybil’s case it was a product of being young, though, instead of a willful choice Poppy made every day. Even so, I loved Poppy for it—she was the lightness to my darkness, the morning to my night.

  Betanya held her hands a few inches from Sybil’s hair, patting the air lightly as though she could feel an invisible barrier. I hadn’t thought to check Sybil’s aura. Damn it, where was my mind today?

  “You could have been killed,” Astrid whispered as she leaned over conspiratorially. “Where’s Maverick? Is he...?”

  “He’s not hurt,” I said. “Just freaked out. Sybil is his creation too.”

  “Because his magic was also involved?”

  I nodded. “It’s like we... um...”

  “Had a baby,” William said with a dry smile as he shook his head and then frowned.

  “You don’t have to put it like that,” I lambasted him.

  He shrugged. “Isn’t that basically what happened?”

  “No, it’s not what happened,” Lorcan responded. Previously, he’d simply sat there unmoving and unspeaking. I didn’t want to know what was going through his head at the moment.

  “I guess that makes William and me uncles?” Amos said with a smirk as he turned to face me. “You should have said something sooner. We’d have thrown you a baby shower.”

  I glowered at him. “This isn’t funny—it’s mostly tragic, disconcerting and the idea that Maverick and I… well, that part is repugnant.” Then I sighed. “Furthermore, I have no clue what to do with Sybil. I don’t know if she’s even permanent.”

  “She’s permanent,” Betanya said a moment later with a clipped nod. “There’s more than just an animating spark here. Sybil has a soul, albeit a new one.”

  “How is that even possible?” I asked. The question had been bothering me since the moment she’d arrived. “I understand that Maverick’s power is unpredictable, but surely it couldn’t make a soul. Even I couldn’t do that, and my Blood Witch powers were developing faster than yours ever did, Betanya.”

  “Darla,” William started, clearly finding argument with what I’d just said.

  I turned to look at him. “Darla was a disembodied soul already. I just gave her a body. And with Libby, she was already a body, and I simply brought her back to life—I guess you could say I put Libby’s already existing soul back into her body.” I sighed as I shook my head.

  “I don’t believe Sybil’s soul was created out of nothing,” Betanya said slowly.

  “You don’t?” Poppy asked, frowning.

  Betanya shook her head. “Do you know what we witches believe about the soul?”

  “No,” Poppy admitted. “I don’t understand most of this, honestly. I’m only an honorary witch.”

  I opened my mouth to explain, but to everyone’s surprise, Lorcan beat me to the punch.

  “Witches believe that the soul flies apart upon the moment of death and parts of it reincarnate into a new person. It’s the reason why they abhor the idea of being turned vampire or half-turned. Doing so tethers them to one life and that means they won’t get another chance at another life after they’ve died for good.”

  “How do you know that?” Amos asked, obviously surprised.

  “Wanda explained it to me,” Lorcan answered with a shrug. “She was rightly pissed at me for blooding her, even as I thought I’d done her a service, that I’d saved her life.” He cocked his head to the side and chuckled. “But she was quick to set me straight.”

  I winced.

  I remembered that conversation vividly. At the time, Lorcan had been angry with me for rejecting what he considered a second chance at life and so I’d had to set him straight.

  This whole thing now was just a painful reminder that the fight to keep me mortal still wasn’t over. Rupert and his clan would stop at nothing to see me receive Lorcan’s ‘gift’ in full and clearly it didn’t matter to them that I was no longer a Blood Witch. If I was anything short of a vampire, I was an abomination in their eyes and a subject that would need to be rectified.

  Betanya inclined her head and gave Lorcan an impressed smile. “That’s exactly right.” Then she breathed in deeply and faced each of us in turn. “If my theory is correct, Maverick didn’t fashion a new soul, but rather drew several pieces from the ether to create a patchwork person in Sybil.”

  “A patchwork person?” Astrid repeated, eyes going wide.

  Betanya nodded. “If I had to guess, it was a mixture of Maverick’s and Wanda’s past lives as well as memories of their current incarnations that created this new soul.”

  “I assume that’s why Sybil is staring at Lorcan?” Astrid asked.

  I hadn’t been paying much attention to Sybil, too busy trying to sort out the barrage of new information, but when I looked over at her, I saw what Astrid meant. Sybil’s eyes were glued to Lorcan’s face, her features soft with unguarded adoration. It was that first blush of love that made your heart race, unburdened by logic. The expression was pure and painful to watch because it wasn’t her love for him, it was my own. And after everything that had just been said, everyone in the room would be quite aware of the fact that it was my love Sybil was personifying. Annoyance prickled over my skin and a hot sluice of jealousy dropped into my stomach, even as both made little sense. It was absurd that I should be jealous of Sybil, of that look she was giving him, but I couldn’t help it.

  “Stop looking at him like that,” I snapped.

  Sybil’s face crumpled, and her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry!”

  “Wanda,” Astrid said in surprise as she gave me a discouraging expression. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

  “I’m sorry,” I started, facing Sybil.

  “Don’t be angry with me!” Sybil cried as I wished the floor would open up and swallow me whole. This whole thing was just so… sucky. In fact, the suck factor was high.

  “I’m not...” I began and then let out an exasperated sigh. It was a lie. I was angry, and that was unreasonable. “I’m not angry at you. Just stop staring at Lorcan because… well, because it’s rude.”

  “I love him,” she said simply.

  “Oh, yikes,” Astrid said.

  “She loves him because…” Poppy added.

  “You do.” Sybil continued to stare at me.

  “Well, now,” Lorcan said and his smile was huge.

  “That’s enough!” I called out.

  Sybil started crying again. “I thought love was a good thing.”

  A wave of sheer mortification washed over me. Heat rose in my cheeks, and power leaped into my hands. It was an effort not to fling hexes at each and every person in the room. I wanted to curse them with momentary deafness as if that could erase what they’d just heard. Yes, most of them had guessed my feelings towards Lorcan, I imagined, but it was one thing to suspect and another thing to know. Furthermore, it was my right to say those feelings aloud, not Sybil’s.

  I was on my feet and headed for the door before I really processed what I was doing. Ignoring the calls of my coven and brothers, I just kept moving, feeling the sudden and irrepressible need to escape.

  Where I was going, I wasn’t sure. I just needed to be away from this place. I reached the front door in a matter of seconds and flung it wide, disappearing into the night with power pulsing through my veins and shame settling like a leaden weight in my stomach.

  Chapter Ten

  My feet carried me as far as my shop before I was conscious that I was headed there.

  It seemed paradoxical that I’d want to double back to the scene of the accident, but it made a bizarre sort of sense when I thought about it. This store, Wanda’s Witchery, was one of the only places that was totally and uniquely mine. I didn’t share it with the coven and now, thanks to an arrangement with Lorcan, I didn’t share it with my vampire lover either. There was a sense of power and control that came with that knowledge. Control I desperately craved at the moment.

  My hand was on the knob when I felt him approach. My senses were on high alert, keyed up by the most recent in a series of humiliations I’d suffered. But even if I weren’t sensitive, I’d still have felt him. There was a part of me that would forever be his, whether I liked it or not. And most times, I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  “Go away, Lorcan,” I said thickly. I didn’t want him here to witness my breakdown.

  A cool hand slid into mine. I didn’t turn to see him, but I could feel him at my back. I hated how soothing the feel of his skin against mine was.

  “I don’t think it’s wise for you to be alone at the moment, sweetling,” he said gently.

  “That’s exactly what I want and need,” I said, ashamed when my voice cracked. “I can’t have company right now, and I want you to go home.”

  “My dear—”

  “I mean it,” I continued, still refusing to look at him because I knew if I did, it would melt my resolve. “I will hex you to the end of Main Street if you don’t—”

  But that was as far as I got.

  Lorcan spun me around so my back was suddenly to the door, and then his mouth was on mine. I let out a hungry little sound when his hands dropped to my waist, and then I felt myself kissing him back. His hair was soft to the touch, and he mirrored the sound of want I’d made when I tugged his hair lightly. Every nerve ending I had screamed at me to pull him inside and have my way with him. It took a Herculean effort to push our faces inches apart and say what I needed to say.

  “You can’t kiss the problem away, Lorcan.”

  “I am well aware,” he answered, but the husky note in his voice said otherwise. And it made me shiver. “But I can distract you for a little while.”

  “Don’t. This is serious.”

  “I know it is, love.”

  “I need to think. Inside and alone.”

  “So, you can work yourself into the worst of states? What you need now is an ear… someone who will listen and help.”

  “You aren’t listening or helping,” I pointed out when I was able to divorce myself from his lips.

  “And someone who will kiss the pain away,” he answered with a big grin.

  I let my hands fall from his hair and groped for the door handle, clumsily jamming my key into the lock. Then I staggered back a step when the door opened, and Lorcan caught me before I could land ass-first on the floor. He backed me inside and shut the door behind us. The only light came from the shop window, outlining his profile in a pale gold, until he looked like an angel.

  “Ha,” I whispered, shaking my head. “You’re no angel.”

  “And nor did I ever claim to be one, my love.”

  I just looked at him for a moment or two, wondering if he was going to pick up where we’d just left off. But he made no motion to approach me. “So, are we talking now or doing more… intimate things?”

  He chuckled. “Talk now and intimate things in a bit.”

  I breathed in deeply and frowned. “I was worried you’d say that.”

  Then we both just stood there again, neither of us saying anything, just staring at the other while we both wore little smirks. It was strange, but it was us. Lorcan was the one to break the silence.

  “Given the words that came to light this eve,” he started, eyeing me speculatively. “I must admit, I’m worried you will avoid me forever more, owing to the fact of what I am.”

  “That’s not true and you know it,” I whispered, wrapping my arms against my chest.

  “I don’t know it.”

  I frowned at him. “My brothers are vampires.”

  “And they don’t like that fact any more than you do. By all rights, they should be centuries-old warlocks with a place in your coven. I doubt they’ll ever fully embrace being vampires.”

  “I’ve never heard them say they wish they were otherwise.”

  He nodded. “A man’s pride is an important facet of the man, himself.” Then he took a step nearer. “They have accepted their nature, true, but not in the way I have. I believe they still see what they have become as a curse.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I still saw it as a curse, even if months ago, I’d made my peace with the possibility that I might become undead. There was always a part of me that would think of a full turning as a spiritual death sentence as well as a physical one.

  “If they do think that way, can you blame them?” I asked, shaking my head. “It’s what we’ve been raised to believe. You can’t break that conditioning overnight.”

  “It has been a long spell past overnight, my dear,” he answered. “Your brothers are centuries old.”

  I shrugged. “What can I say? Old habits die hard.”

  “I am worried all this talk of you becoming fully blooded has awakened a truth in you you don’t want to face.”

  “And what truth would that be?”

  “That you hate vampires, that you despise them, and when you see me, you now see that truth.” Lorcan’s eyes burned into mine, a bright reflective green in the low light. “You’re ashamed of me.”

  I gave him a light shove. “Don’t start with that! I’m not ashamed of you and I don’t hate you or despise you. I just hate and despise Rupert.”

  “Yet you ran away as soon as the truth came to light.”

  “And what truth is that?” I asked, even though I knew what he was talking about. I was just stalling for time, trying to push this conversation back as far as it would go.

  “As soon as Sybil admitted to the fact that you love me, your reaction was to flee,” Lorcan said, voice rising. “You hate the fact that you’re in love with a vampire.”

  “It wasn’t anyone’s business!” I shouted, shaking my head, because he had it all wrong. “My feelings are my feelings and I get to announce them, not some hours-old child! If I wanted to bare my heart to the room, I’d have read a love poem or proposed to you in front of everyone. It wasn’t Sybil’s secret to tell!”

  “And why must it remain a secret if it is true?”

  I swallowed hard. “Because I’m not ready for it to be anything other than a secret at this point.” I could see the hurt in his eyes, but I needed him to understand. “I didn’t decide to be bonded to you the first or second time, Lorcan. These things… they just happened to me. Just like becoming a Blood Witch happened to me. Just like getting kicked out of Crescent Circle happened to me. Everyone keeps robbing me of choices.”

  “I understand,” he answered softly, appearing crestfallen.

  “‘I love you’ isn’t something I say on a whim,” I continued, wanting to make sure he fully understood. “I can barely say it to Astrid, and I love her to pieces… Love is a difficult subject for me. You know that.”

  “I do.”

  “So… Forgive me for being angry that I didn’t get to say it on my own time!”

  Frustrated tears pricked at the corners of my eyes and I ducked my chin before he could spy them. A wasted effort, because a moment later he tipped my chin up and brushed a kiss across my mouth. His voice was softer when he spoke.