I walked back into Sam and Starla’s house as quietly as I could, in case Sam was sleeping. Raven, Melanie, Joshua, and Tony were still sitting in the living room, talking quietly.
“How is he?” I asked.
“I took him some water a little while ago,” Raven said, “but he was sleeping, so I just set it by the bed.”
“What are we going to do?” Melanie asked. She had a worried look on her face, which wasn’t unusual for Melanie because she worried about a lot of things, but in this case. I couldn’t blame her. I was worried about Sam, too.
“Maggie suggested we let him get some sleep and see how he is in the morning. If he still can’t remember anything, she said she’d see what she could do
I had to go to bed. I had no choice. Even with Starla in the hospital, bleeding, Brice wearing Sam’s face around, Sam not remembering a damn thing about anything, and Fionna in my back yard, capable of burning the world down with a flick of her wrist, I was exhausted. Making Brice look like Sam was it for me. I couldn’t handle any more activity that night. As it was, I had to get up to go to school in something like four hours, and that meant I was going to be one cranky witch the next morning.Mage Jaye had said I had one more day at WHHS before I had to transfer to the school for mages I’d just build, but I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do that as soon as she wanted, especially if I couldn’t find a way to drag my butt out of bed the next day.Ben laid down with me, but I knew he wouldn’t stay long. Not for the first
I did what I was supposed to do. I went to school. It wasn’t easy. In fact, it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I spent the entire day lost in my own thoughts and even screwed up my grades because I wasn’t paying attention while I was doing my work, including a quiz in math. Staying home would’ve been a better idea. At least I would’ve had the chance to make up my assignments when I was feeling better. The only problem with that was I had no way of knowing if I would ever feel better. It seemed like every time I turned around, there was another problem that needed taking care of, and I was the only one capable of fixing them.And as I was finding out, I couldn’t fix everything.The rest of my pack was just as out of sorts as I was. At least Brice was back at our table in art and sat with us a
“Hi, Sam,” I said stepping into his bedroom. He was smiling at me, but that vacant look in his eyes told me that he had no idea who I was, other than what he remembered from the night before. “How are you?”He shrugged and looked around the room before he said, “Lost.”It seemed like a stupid question, but I asked it anyway. “You still don’t remember anything?”“Nope. Not a damn thing. All of my memories begin with my waking up on the front porch of the house next door last night.”“That’s my house,” I told him.“That’s what I hear.”I smiled, wondering what else everyone ha
I didn’t know what to say to Sam. He didn’t want to try and remember everything that he’d forgotten because he had feelings for me? How could he know at such a deep level that he and I were meant to be together when he couldn’t even remember his name?I thought it had complicated things the day before when Starla had admitted that it had been magic that brought her and Sam together to begin with, but this was something else entirely. This was him saying that there was something about me that innately told him that we were meant to be together, even when he didn’t know who he was.“Sam,” I began, taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly, trying to figure out how to respond, “there’s a lot more to this that you don’t remember at the moment.”&ldqu
Mage Jaye was still waiting for me. At least she wasn’t standing outside when I walked out of Sam’s front door. I was informed that Brice was picking Starla up from the hospital, that he’d been released, with a strong sedative. For a few moments, I wondered if she’d notice if I borrowed some of those pills. It would be nice to black out for a bit, sort of like Sam was doing by refusing my help. But then, I could probably manufacture my own drugs. Which led me to think that if this whole mage school thing didn’t work out, perhaps I could make my own line of designer drugs and sell them on street corners….“Are you going to the school?” Ben asked me. He was in the yard, and even though he was fully dressed at the moment, I could tell he had just been out on a run. He smelled of the woods and a bit like perspiration, which I didn’t mind at all.
I was dismissed from Mage Jaye’s office pretty quickly after I told her that Sam was my legal guardian, at least when it came to school. Surprisingly, she wasn’t rude about it, but she did send me home. I did tell her that any conversation she had with him about me I wanted to be present for. I didn’t come right out and tell her I didn’t trust her not to use her magic to manipulate his mind, but that was pretty much what I implied--because it was true. How did I know she wouldn’t use her powers to make Sam sign something he otherwise wouldn’t?I took my time walking home, enjoying the peace of the forest. I was glad I hadn’t seen any of the people I knew at the school. As much as I’d thought it might be fun to hang out with Kayla, Lluvia, and Sean, I just had too much on my mind to actually be entertaining at the moment. Still, as I walked throu
It took me a moment to process what Starla had just told me. Even then, once the words had registered, I was still useless. “You don’t know?” I repeated. “What do you mean you don’t know?” “You don’t know who the father of your baby was?” Sam asked, scratching his chin. “Did you sleep with so many men you can’t keep track, or…?” “No!” Starla objected, clearly upset that he’d accuse her of something like that. “No, I didn’t. Only one other guy. And you, Sam.” “Well, I’m not a genius,” Sam began, but then he turned to me, and under his breath, asked, “am I?” I laughed because even though he couldn't remember a damn thing, he was still Sam. “I’ll take that as a no,” he said, turning back to Starla. “I’m not a genius, but I’m pretty sure, if it wasn’t me, then it had to be this other guy. Unless of cou
“I’m so sorry to bother you, Harlow,” Liam Finch said as he wandered over toward me, his hands shoved down deep in his pockets, his eyes on the ground. I could tell Sam wasn’t sure he should leave us. He was lingering a few feet away from where I’d stopped, between our houses.“Sam, it’s fine. Just tell them I’ll be right there,” I said.“Okay.” He looked at Liam a little bit like a person stares at a spider before they squish them and then headed toward my house.“What’s going on, Liam?” I asked as he awkwardly came to a stop in front of me.“Well, I just, uh… I didn’t want to come,” he said, looking up into my eyes for the first time. “I want you to
There’s a comfy chair right next to the fireplace in the main living area of Brookstone. It has become my favorite place to sit. I can sit there for hours and do absolutely nothing but stare out the window at the beautiful forest and sparkling lake. It’s amazing to me to think how far I’ve come in just a year and a few months. I don’t just sit around and do nothing, though. I haven’t had to use my magic to fight off any other mages or shifters since we destroyed Grimly Grouse and his evil minions, but I do use my magic sometimes for other things, like producing presents for my friends or making mythical creatures to entertain us. Brookstone is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside. Part of that is the fact that we modernized it and redecorated a lot of the rooms. We wanted all of the modern conveniences we were used to, but we didn’t ruin the amb
My plan had been pretty simple. I’d bust into Brookstone, make the other mages and any shifters that were there think that the house was on fire, and I’d run them out to where my pack mates were waiting to take them down.I had no idea one of my pack members had her own idea of what should happen then. I guess I should have. It isn’t as if she hasn’t shocked me enough times in the past for me to expect Fionna to do something… unexpected.The mages in Grimley’s pack came streaming out of the house. Most of them went out the front door because I’d started the alleged fire in the kitchen, which was in the back of the house, on the east side. Fionna, being the tricky mage that she is, had opened a portal right on the other side of the front door so that every single one of the mages who ran out that exit sprinted right int
I didn’t bother to get a ride back to Brookstone the next day. It was clear that no one wanted to drive out there anyway, and it wasn’t as if it was a necessity. We had other ways of getting there, after all.I volunteered to change my wolves into birds so they could fly with us, but all of them passed on that. They said they weren’t used to flying and were afraid they’d fall out of the sky or something. Like I’d let that happen. I’d rolled my eyes, but since most of the area around where we’d stayed the night before was woodsy and rural, we decided it would be okay for them to walk out into the woods and shift there. The rest of us would fly over.My wolves weren’t going to be entering the property until after I knew the situation in the house. Once I knew whether we were on the defensive or the offensive, I woul
It was difficult to get rooms with enough beds for all of us, but my wolves decided they could always shift into their wolf forms and sleep on the floor, and since most of them didn’t sleep much anyway, we went with that. I was definitely going to be sleeping that night, though. I was so tired, I could barely keep my eyes open to discuss the plan for the next day. Fighting mages is hard work--apparently.“So what is our plan for tomorrow?” Kaylee asked. We were gathered in the room she and I were sharing, all of us sitting on the beds, the floor, and the small sitting area. “I take it we’re going right back there since you wanted to stay so close, Harlow.”“Yeah, we need to go right back over there and take care of things once and for all,” I said. “We just need a plan that will get rid of Grimly Grouse as s
With the ground shaking beneath our feet, the mages lifted themselves up into the air. I pulled up my wolves, too, but that didn’t help save my house. The thought of Grimly Grouse destroying my family home was enough to make me want to set his hair on fire.The ground was cracking beneath us now, some of them were at least a foot across. The idea of one of my people dropping inside of one of them was enough to make me want to fly everyone out of there and back to our rental right away.“Kaylee,” I shouted, wanting to try to fix the problem beneath us and keep my wolves out of danger. “Can you take over for me?”“You mean… float them?” she asked. “All of them?”“We can all help,” Liam said from the o
Looking around at my mages, I tried to determine who I needed to help and who was okay on their own. Liam was taking on a large male mage with a nose ring and the appearance of horns coming out of his bald head. I assumed those were placed there by magic, and he didn’t really have horns growing out of his head, but it was difficult to know for sure. “Give it up, Harlow!” I heard Grimly shout from far behind the line of advance. “I have more reserves. You cannot win.” It was difficult for me to keep my eye on this brute that was about to knock Liam out and respond to the maniac in the back. I decided to ignore Grouse and concentrate on Liam’s predicament. I was fairly far away from the fight, and there were other engagements going on between me and Liam, but I couldn’t let that stop me. The devil guy with the horn
The mages from Brookstone were slowly walking toward us, their long cloaks in a rainbow of colors not even moving from the wind they made, their steps were so even and slow. I stared at them for a long moment, trying to determine what the best thing to do was. A quick estimate told me that there were probably about thirty of them, which meant my team was outnumbered about five to one as mages went. The wolves would be able to help a little, but not much. They were mostly there to fight off any wolves that came our way, and Grimly Grouse had stopped using those, pulling out the big guns instead.We really only had two choices. We could stand there and fight and probably get annihilated because we were outnumbered so badly, or we could run away, regroup, and figure out when and how we should come back. I was really starting to lean toward Plan B, but when I looked at the faces of my packmates, I could tell t
I took advantage of the fearful flicker I’d seen in Grimley Grouse’s eyes and hit him with a bolt of power before he had much time to expect it. He got his hands up, but it wasn’t enough to completely deflect it. I ended up hitting him hard enough to knock him backward almost to the edge of the stream. The other mages around him took a few seconds to stare in shock before they remembered they had powers and could possibly do something to help him.They weren’t going to be able to help him, though. My mages were all ready, so before any of the red cloaked mages could hit me with their powers, mine had their hands up, shooting rays of light to counteract the ones directed at me. I watched the magic around me bend and shift, redirecting back the way it was coming. A few of the red mages were knocked off balance, but none of them went flying the way that Grouse did, probably because mos
I heard the first sounds of battle coming from my left, to the southwest of the house, but I couldn’t tell who it was that was caught up first by the wolves coming from Brookstone. I thought that Raven and Tony had been the furthest to the south, but I wasn’t certain. I decided I should fly over there and have a look. Of course, by the time I got over there, there was a good chance the rest of my wolves would be under attack as well since we’d seen the wolves shooting through the forest at an incredible rate spread out in a line. As I landed, I heard the sounds of battle echoing across the forest as Grimly Grouse’s wolves collided with mine. This wasn’t going to be pretty. I changed back into my mage form as soon as my feet touched the ground and immediately fired a