I rubbed my hands together trying to heat them up. Not even the gloves were blocking out the freezing night air. The Pacific Northwest got chilly, but nothing like this. This kind of cold drilled into your bones, making everything ache, even your lungs.

Ophelia let me borrow one of her winter coats as mine was in the lost-and-found at the underground club. And some employee at the hostel was probably loving the designer jacket Lars had given me.

We were just behind the old factory, a plot of land with weeds and mud stretching out between the building and the river close by. The moonlight and a few handheld gas lamps were the only sources of light.

“Guys, gather around.” Kenya waved a group of us over. Only about ten Druids were here for the special class. It wasn’t much of an army, but with the dark arts, you didn’t need many to do damage…if they were good. “Divide into the groups I put you in last time. Newbies, you’re with me.”

My throat was thick as I stepped up to Kenya, joined by two others. I was trying not to think of the huge hole in Lars’s scheme. I could pretend I was controlling Lorcan with black magic, but put those words into practice? I didn’t know black magic. Not even enough to pretend.

Yes, you do. My subconscious licked at my thoughts. You can feel it deep down. I gritted my teeth, feeling the truth float up. It wasn’t something you had, but something you learned. Then what happened on the train, Ken? No doubt the energy coming from me then was dark, but how was it possible?

Everything might unravel tonight, and I couldn’t escape the fallout. Lorcan was stories below my feet, and I would not leave him.

“Cali, can you work with these two?” Kenya motioned to the other two standing with me. “I’d like to work with Raven tonight.”

“Of course.” Cali transferred the two others to a different section of the empty lot.

Kenya shoved her hands in her jacket, her stare boring into me. “You aren’t really at entry level because you can control a fae, but I still want to see what basics you know.”

Crap divided. Truth was the one thing that might save me. “Honestly, I didn’t even know what I was doing. It just kind of happened.” My toe rubbed a dent into the murky ground.

“It just kind of happened?” Kenya folded her arms, her feet taking a wider stance.

“Yeah.”

“Black magic doesn’t ‘just happen,’ luv.” She jutted out a hip, her head slanting. “It is something you train in. For years.”

I fought against the knot in my throat, keeping my gaze steady on her. I wasn’t lying. If what happened on the train was black magic, it had taken over me, not the other way around.

Kenya took a step to me, her critical gaze roaming over me. “The only time I’ve heard of someone using black magic without training was a long, long time ago. They were burned…by fellow Druids.”

A nerve in my jaw twitched, heat sizzling under the down jacket.

“Times have changed.” She lifted her eyebrow. “But natural obscurers? They don’t exist anymore.”

My tongue licked at my frozen lips. “Natural obscurer?”

“It’s when you are born with black magic already in your bones. While in your mother, she would have had to practice it extensively for it to seep into her pores, leak into you, while still a fetus.”

Horror drove through my brain. My biological mother couldn’t have been into black magic. Someone high in the Cathbad family? No way.

“I haven’t heard about one for decades.” She frowned. “Although the moment you entered, I could feel something was different about you,” Kenya said. “I couldn’t put my finger on it, but if you are a natural obscurer?”

“What? What if I am?” I whispered, all the denials couldn’t change what I sensed in my gut. It was a tense, fearful moment before Kenya’s mouth parted into a slow grin.

“The commander is going to be fuckin’ delighted we found you. Like I said, times have changed.”

A squeak of air escaped from the back of my throat, and the knotted fear in my chest loosened.

“You really don’t know how to do any black magic?”

“No.” There seemed to be no point in lying; she could find out way too easily.

She stared at me for what seemed a long time, then moved around me. “Major?” She called her son over. She met him halfway, speaking so low I couldn’t hear what she said. He glanced over at me, his eyes narrowed on me before he nodded, then he grabbed Fox, the two of them walking back toward the factory.

“What’s going on?” My nerves coiled up like a snake.

“I am sure you are telling the truth, but I still need to be sure you are truly a NO.”

“And how do you do that?”

“A natural obscurer’s magic, similar to a fae’s, works off emotion.” Puffs of condensation rolled out of her mouth as she talked. “You can train and become more skilled, but when it comes down to it, emotion will always instigate your power, at levels even the highly trained don’t achieve. Druids who learn it are only as good as their practice. Emotions help them focus but don’t help them be more powerful.”

“And how do you plan on testing me?” I swallowed thickly. I could no longer sense the biting cold, as sweat glazed my skin inside my jacket, like another layer of insulation.

“The only way I can.” Her gaze went to something behind me.

Oh. God. No. It was like I walked backward into a thick web, my skin prickling with awareness.

My head swung around, knowing without looking who would be there.

Major and Fox walked back toward us, escorting someone between them.

Lorcan! My head screamed, his eyes jerked to mine for a moment, worry flooding them. Then he went vacant. He walked forward like a zombie, lifting his absent gaze over my head.

“If you did it once on him, you can do it again,” Kenya said.

My neck snapped back to her.

“Good or bad, you have a connection to him. You were able to spell him without even knowing what you were doing. I’m going to have to see you do it again.”

“If I don’t?”

“Don’t?” She tilted her head.

“Can’t…” I exclaimed. “What if I can’t do black magic again?”

Her brows crunched down.

“Then we can’t trust you. If we don’t trust you…”

My lids squeezed together. I knew perfectly well what that meant. Most likely, Lorcan and I would be at the bottom of the river.

Crap, Ken. You have to do this. Find it in you somehow.

Both our lives depended on it.

 

 

Major and Fox placed Lorcan a few yards in front of me. I sensed every molecule of his body was on defense, but he blocked all other feelings from me.

“Now, I understand NOs need stimulation for their powers to work.” Kenya walked around me, coming to my side.

“What are you suggesting?” My mouth felt like sandpaper, and I struggled to swallow over the knot in my throat.

“Order him to attack you.”

“What?” My gut plummeted to my feet.

“It’s instinct. Your body will protect you. And if you truly are a natural obscurer, it will kick in.”

My mouth dropped. Fuck. Boy, did the time call for several of those words right now.

“Don’t worry. If it doesn’t, Major will shoot him.” She nodded to where Fox and Major still bookended Lorcan.

“Shoot him?” My head whipped to Major, he tapped the gun at his waist, a hungry grin on his face, as if he wanted nothing more than to do it right now.

Kenya rubbed her red nose, taking a step away from me. “Whenever you’re ready.”

My heart thumped like a bird trying to escape out of a closed window, bashing against the barrier with the hope of fleeing. My gaze lifted to Lorcan’s and his met mine. My exterior showed none of the fear ripping me to shreds inside. They would notice if either one of us held back. Everything was on the line. We either proved ourselves, or all this was for nothing. We couldn’t pretend or fake it.

“Don’t hold back.” I tried to communicate with my eyes.

“I won’t.” The words grazed through my mind, startling me. The thought didn’t feel like my own. It felt like he had said it, but that was impossible.

I looked down at my feet, exhaling, pushing all superfluous notions away. I sensed everyone had stopped training. The field went quiet, and eyes sizzled into my skin from all angles. I widened my stance, the pressure in the air encasing me as I centered myself.

Lifting my head, my chin set with determination, my order came out strong and clear.

“Attack me.”

Lorcan’s nose flared, his lips parted, a snarl bounding into the frigid sky. I watched his muscles twitch, his shoulders roll forward, then he rushed for me. Everything in his manner told people he was more than ready to rip me apart. No one would notice his eyes stayed green, pupils round.

And in that exact second, as he lunged for me like a wild animal, I realized I had long stopped being afraid of him.

He was home.

Safety.

Happiness.

He collided into me, taking us both down, a gasp running through the crowd. “Spell me. Now,” he growled in my ear.

“Shoot him!” Kenya yelled.

“No!” I screamed.

Boom!

The sound of a gun resounded, cracking across the space like a whip. Lorcan jerked, roaring back in pain as the bullet drove into his back, his body slipping to the side off mine.

Another gunshot rang in the air, and Lorcan’s form twisted the opposite way with a garbled holler. Blood spurt from the wounds, pain flashing in his eyes.

Like someone hit a trigger inside me, everything in my mind shut off, and anger blasted through me, raising me from the ground. The memory of being in a forest with Lorcan flickered back in my mind—when I was trying to break the curse on him and I reached a new plane.

 

“I reached it. It’s what Maya and Koke have been trying to get me to do but weren’t able. It was brief, but it was amazing…I mean, I’ve never felt anything like that. It feared me.”

“What feared you?”

“The magic. When I hit that level, it finally took notice of me. And it feared me.”

 

I had thought it was because it felt my power. My Druid magic. Now I understood. It saw the darkness in me. The same sensation rushed through my veins now like lava. My arms shot out to my sides as a chant that I didn’t remember learning hissed from the depths of my gut. It wanted to hurt, to kill. I felt myself slip to another plane, my rage directed on the man holding a gun.

“Raven? What are you doing?” Major took a step back, his eyes widening.

The spell flew to him, blackness slamming into his torso, bending him over. Then he flew in the air, and a gouge ripped through his clothes like the talon of a giant beast had swiped him. Major screamed in agony.

“Raven!” a woman shrieked.

“You do not hurt what is mine,” I growled, taking a step toward Major, his body still suspended in the air. I wanted to harm him.

Then fingers wrapped around my ankle, drawing my attention down. Half-lidded green eyes stared up at me.

“Stop, li’l bird.” The thought came into my head, halting me in place. Seeing him centered me again. I came hurtling back to earth.

Major yelled as he crashed to the ground. I fell to my knees, and my body shook and twitched with power so immense I couldn’t handle it.

I turned to see everyone staring at me with fear and shock. I looked back down at Lorcan, darkness closing in. His eyes were closed, his physique still.

A whimper caught in my throat before my body gave out. Darkness swallowed me whole.