12
ADDIE
Maddox collapsed on my bedroom floor. His blood pooled beneath him, but it didn’t spread. I reached to lift him up and found the wound in his shoulder closed. It gave me pause.
That couldn’t be right. Alvin might have been a shifter in life, but the form that’d attacked us had been very dead. I never thought that a dead shifter could pass on the beast. I barely knew anything about my own power, let alone what a dead shifter’s bite could do to a human.
Already, sweat covered Maddox’s brow. He groaned. I inhaled sharply and froze, expecting him to wake and curse me out again. I mean, I deserved it. If I’d told him everything from the beginning, we might not have gotten into this situation. I could have saved us from this. Instead, I’d doomed him.
Now was time to do something. I was done hiding.
Since I couldn’t lift Maddox onto the bed, I grabbed pillows from my mattress and tucked them beneath him before I reached for my phone. Ness and Ryder had a witch in their employ. If anyone could give me the information I needed, it was that creepy witch.
Calling to get Bianca’s number meant explaining everything that’d happened to Ryder. I could hear the apprehension in his voice. He didn’t like the idea of leaving me alone with Maddox.
“What do you think is going to happen? He’s unconscious.” I didn’t understand Ryder’s concern.
“Well, for one thing, he could wake up as a feral shifter. We don’t know what’s happening to him. If he wakes and isn’t himself, you could get hurt.”
There was a slim chance that I would be able to control Maddox since it was an undead shifter that’d bitten him. If not, then I deserved whatever happened to me. He was only in this position because I’d kept my power hidden. If I’d done more, then Maddox would be safe.
Still, Ryder insisted on coming over while I called Bianca.
The witch answered the phone. She didn’t sound the least bit sleepy. I couldn’t hear even a hint of exhaustion in her voice. Instead, I heard the clank of ice in a glass in the background, like she’d been up late, drinking.
When I told her what happened, she slammed the glass down.
“What?” she asked, her voice cracking ever so slightly.
I scratched the back of my head. “He was bitten…by an undead Alvin Combs.”
Downstairs, the front door opened. I flinched, even though I knew it was only Ryder. I wasn’t going to leave Maddox’s side to go check, either. Maddox’s skin was pale, and he’d stopped sweating. I wasn’t going to take my eye off him even for a moment.
The killer could come up here and get their just desserts for all I cared.
My cold arcana swirled inside my core. It agreed with me. A wrathful kind of chill filled me. I’d never known anger like this before. It fueled me. It whispered secrets to me. An anger like this might be enough to raise a whole field of undead without drawing on the life of those around me.
It should have scared me. However, I wasn’t in the mood for fear anymore. The wrath shoved fear down and put a boot on its neck.
“I don’t know what you’ve done,” Bianca said. “But I know someone who might be able to help you. There’s a massive coven out in Salem. Their High Priestess, Amaranth, is familiar with all sorts of shifters. She might have the answers you need.”
Bianca rattled off a number that I jotted down with an oddly steady hand.
“When you figure out what’s going on, I’d like to know. This could be useful,” Bianca purred.
I cringed. “You’re really creepy. You know that?”
She laughed and hung up on me. I didn’t trust the pack witch, but she’d been good to Ryder and Ness, so I had no reason to raise any alarms.
The Salem High Priestess, on the other hand, left me unsettled in a way that I couldn’t begin to describe.
“This better be an emergency, Adeline McCauley,” the witch said groggily.
“I…I didn’t introduce myself. How do you—”
She groaned. I could almost hear her rolling her eyes at me. “It’s my job to know everything. However, I don’t know why you’re calling me unless you tell me.”
“Then…that’s not everything.” I couldn’t help myself. I should have kept my mouth shut.