“You’re still afraid of him,” she muttered under her breath, disgusted, “after all these years.”
But the words didn’t change the truth. Dominic Volkhov had been her brother’s closest friend and her childhood tormentor
The boy she’d loved in secret despite having every reason not to.
He’d been her measure for strength, for cruelty, for everything she was told she could never be.
And now he was Alpha.
And she cowered before him.
Her eyes narrowed, her magic flaring in her gut, sharp as a needle-point. She clenched her fist, and ice began creeping over the brass bowl. Slow, then fast, until it was completely encased.
She gestured sharply with her point finger.
The bowl exploded.
For a brief, glorious moment, she feltpowerful.
And then it ebbed back, and red crept up her cheeks.
She was better than this. She had to be better than this. She couldn’t resort to petty destruction whenever she was angry. It would just prove them all right.
With a wave of her hand, the bowl was whole and clean again.
“Right,” she muttered, “there’s work to do.”
She reached for one of the upper shelves to start reshelving her texts. As she lifted a stack, a thinner, dust-coated volume slipped loose and landed on the floor with a muted thud. The sound made her flinch, nerves still raw.
She crouched to pick it up, brushing dust from the cover. It was a plain binding, the leather nearly black with age. She almost laughed.
Of coursethatbook would jump out at her.
Layla almost put it back without opening it. Almost.
Instead, she carried it to the table and laid it flat. The spine creaked when she turned the first page. Inside, the handwriting was an uneven, looping scrawl. The ink had bled brown with time.
She read the heading of the chapter.
On the Nature of Hybrids in Respect to Witchcraft.
Her pulse kicked.
She scanned lines, her lips moving silently as she traced the faded words. There were diagrams in the margins, wolfish silhouettes overlaid with runes, fragments of lunar cycles annotated in cramped script. The author had written about binding, about attempts to suppress hybrid power using magic older than the packs themselves.
She turned the pages, faster now.
It was dark magic. Blood magic. The worst kind there was. Possession of this text alone was reason enough for exile. Or worse. If she gave it to them, they would burn it. And if they found it in her hands, they would burn her with it.
Layla closed the book carefully, fingers trembling.
She thought of Dominic’s face upstairs, his anger. His surprising restraint. She’d never known him to be restrained.
Maybe if she brought him this…if she could show him she’d found something useful…he would look at her differently. Maybe she could be something more than a burden, more than the outcast who never shifted.
But the idea of handing it over twisted in her stomach. She’d be signing her own death sentence.
Besides, she was just one witch. Self-taught at that, no elders to guide her, to teach her coven ways. Proper ways. Even if she was the most powerful witch alive, to perform this sort of spell…it would take an entire coven.
