Page 171 of A Bond with the Dark

“Was it your mom who was the formweaver?” Bash asks. “Or your dad? Because you have to be born to or bitten by one to be one.”

“I was born to one,” Laureya says steadily, and my knees feel like jelly.

“And which one of your parents was the Werewolf?” Bash asks earnestly.

“We are not werewolves; we can weave into anything.”

“Okay, sorry, which one was the formweaver?”

“My dad.”

With everything that's happened in these few days, there isn't anything else that can shock me. I had died, for fuck's sake, and had risen from the ashes. But even then, the fact that my dad is a supernatural formweaver and I'd not known my entire life floors me. Gravity beckons my knees to hit the ground, and I fight that feeling, wondering idly what the hell else could possibly come up.

I try with all the power within me not to fall. “So what do you want? Why are you here?”

“Well, because your mom's mirror spelled you to me—I got everything that happened to you. All of it. So, you can see why I kept my distance and turned to drugs to get that shit out of my mind. I also did drugs to keep myself from formweaving. I began to turn into a wolf years ago, but it was so painful and excruciating. I found out that if I was completely out of my mind with drugs, I wouldn't have to formweave. Until Mark came around.”

“Who's Mark?” Bash asks, a little sarcastic, but he's seemingly enthralled in her tale.

“Mark was a vampire.”

“Was? Past tense?”

“I killed him. Unintentionally, I'll have you know. But because of his presence, my body couldn't resist the weave anymore on full moons anyway. I had to hunt the vampires. It was in my blood. Until I met a man who gave me hope and made it possible for me to fight the weave, to form into anything I wanted and whenever. When he was killed, my heart was torn. I went back to drugs, but then I met Ryan. He's the one who has my heart now.”

“Excuse me, Snow White,” Bash intercedes, “is there a point to this story of yours?”

The look Laureya gives him could have sliced him. “He's a vampire, but I can't be with him because the desire to formweave is getting more intense. Even stranger, a few months ago, I began to have visions of this one here.” She points at me. “I saw the fire, I saw her meeting Dom, I saw you in her dreams, I snuck into the celebration of life for Fran and Dan to make sure it was true.”

“I did see you,” I state, astonished.

The realization wrings eye-rolls from Laureya as she continues unabashedly, “I saw bits and pieces of this last weekend, and I saw the artifact and the fact that it can break the lycanthrope's link to the moon. I saw this before but knew you would be here now to discuss what happened to her. So I came to confront you. I arrived here the other night, and I burst into flames when I was lying in bed. When I came to, I couldn't use my visions anymore. And now, it seems, I can set fire to people with my mind.”

“Hmm. That's curious. So,WhatDo? You. Want?” Bash's tone is derisive now. He's done listening to her.

“I want that artifact. To get this curse off me, and I want to be a vampire. I can't be both a formweaver and a vampire.”

“Why not?” Bash asks.

“Because my blood will kill anyone who bites me. I know. It's how Mark died.”

“Well, too bad your visions are broken; otherwise, you'd know we don't have the artifact anymore.”

“You don't have it?” Her gaze turns dark and worried.

“Yeah, that's what I said.”

“Laureya,” I cut in, realizing an opportunity here. “We're going to look for another one. But there are some things we need to take care of in the meantime. If you help us with that, we will help you get the curse off you and become a vampire.”

Dom and Bash glare at me cautiously.

“What do you need my help with?” she asks hesitantly.

“Did you ever stop to wonder why you burst into flames last night?”

Laureya looks at me questioningly. “I figured it had something to do with the magick I'd been doing to prevent my formweaves.”

“Well, it's not,” Bash snides.

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