I pulled it from the shelf carefully and opened it. The pages were yellowed with age and slightly brittle.
I skimmed through sections on spells and rituals. Protective wards. Healing spells. Transformation magic. Then I found a section on portals and my breath caught.
The wording was similar to what I’d read with my friends that night. Not identical, but close enough that I recognized the same basic structure and rhythm.
I’d never really questioned how I was able to open the portal. How the spell had worked when I didn’t believe in magic. How I’d managed to pull Mal through from another realm entirely.
But now I was wondering.
Mal had told me once that this wasn’t the first time the portal had been opened. That when it closed in the past, people got trapped on both sides. Wolves in the human realm. Humans here.
Could I be the descendant of one of those people? Could that be the reason I was able to perform the spell without even meaning to? Because I had magic in my blood that I never knew existed?
I was so lost in thought, turning the possibilities over in my mind and trying to make sense of it all, that I almost didn’t notice when the atmosphere in the library changed. The air felt different somehow. Heavier. Wrong.
Then the smell hit me and pulled me violently out of my thoughts.
Blood. Copper and salt and unmistakably fresh blood.
My head snapped up from the book. My heart began racing before my brain had fully processed the danger.
I turned around slowly and my stomach dropped.
A man dressed all in black with his face covered by dark cloth was pulling a knife from the chest of my younger guard. The blade came out slick and red. The guard’s eyes were wide with shock and pain as blood bloomed across his chest.
Time seemed to slow down as I watched him crumple to the floor. Blood began pooling beneath him, spreading across the ancient stone in a dark stain.
The other guard across the room saw what was happening and ran toward his partner and the assassin. They collided in the middle of the library in a tangle of limbs. The sounds of their fight echoed off the high ceilings as steel clashed against steel.
I was frozen at the railing of the second level. My brain couldn’t process what I was seeing. Couldn’t make my body move. My lungs felt like they’d stopped working.
Then training kicked in. The hours Mal and Aurion had spent teaching me how to defend myself. How to think under pressure.
Move.I had to move.
I forced my legs to work and stumbled down the stairs. My hands were shaking so badly I had to grip the railing to keep from falling. I made it to the fallen guard and dropped to my knees beside him.
“Please,” I whispered, reaching for him with trembling hands. “Please wake up.”
But his eyes were already glazing over. There was so much blood. Too much blood. His chest wasn’t moving anymore.
He was dead. Because of me. Because he was guarding me.
A sob caught in my throat but I swallowed it down. No time for that. I had to focus.
I grabbed the knife from his belt. The handle was slick with his blood and my hands were shaking but I forced myself to grip it tightly. Then I focused on the bond. On Mal. On that golden thread connecting us.
I gathered every bit of strength I had and pushed a single word through.
“Help.”
The effort made my head spin and my vision blur at the edges. But I felt it land. Felt Mal’s immediate response through the bond. Panic and fury and the promise that he was coming.
A scream pulled my attention back to the fight. The assassin had just drawn his blade across my other guard’s throat in one vicious motion. The older man’s hands flew to his neck but blood poured between his fingers. He made a horrible sound as he fell to his knees and then collapsed forward onto the stone floor.
I was alone with a killer.
Terror flooded through me but I forced myself to move. I ran for the other exit where the older guard had been stationed. If I could just get through that door and into the corridor, I could scream for help. Someone would hear me.
