Page 173 of Blue Moon Mistress

“I don’t know. She only tells me things when she wants to brag. But she was frantic when I caught up to her. And you’re not going to like what she said.”

“Why not?”

“She’s moved up her timeline… forcing it.”

That stops me and my skin goes deathly cold. “How?”

“I don’t know. She’s panicked and I don’t know how sloppy it’s going to get. But her spell requires a blood moon… How would you get around that?”

There wasn’t going to be a blood moon over this part of the planet for a few years. But Aphrodite wasn’t patient even when she was at her best.

“I wouldn’t. Taking shortcuts makes it too easy for the spell or someone else to screw everything up for you.”

“You’ve already been doing that. I’d bet she’s willing to take the risk. Desperation is a particularly sickening scent.”

“Where’d she go?”

“There’s a boy scout cabin just south of the park… You’ll find her car there.”

I strap the duffle bag down and take a deep breath.

The vampire is still there. “I thought you were leaving.”

“Right.” He dips his head in a curt nod. “I’m heading east.”

“I don’t care.”

He mumbles something else, and then, he disappears. Racing away. Hopefully for good.

If Aphrodite needs a blood moon and has wolf-napped the guys, there’s only one thing she’d be doing.

I dig my phone out from the pile on top of the ATV and dial my mother’s number one more time.

“Hi mom. I was not joking when I said I needed your help. Since my last message, grandma woke up from a nap. Don’t worry, she’s back to sleep. But Aphrodite is the one who woke her up and now that she’s realized she can’t count on gran for support—oh, and her vampire has left her—she’s trying for a massive power grab. And she’s doing it tonight. I don’t know how many sacred laws she’s going to break to get it done.”

Thirty-Six

It’s quickerto get to the guys house on the four-wheeler. Once I cross over the slough and the highway, it’s all back roads and straight lines, cutting through woods and pastures until I hit the town pavement again.

The wolves broke off half way to town, but I couldn’t follow them. Not without getting answers.

It’s late and I should have taken the time to spell the machine to silence, but there’s nothing I can do until I’m stopped.

And even then, I put it off.

I don’t drive the four-wheeler up onto their lawn.

The vampire might have said she’s gone, but I don’t and won’t trust him. I need to see the house for myself.

With the engine dead and the night broken only by the sound of cats fighting somewhere, I make my way through the trees that reach into the neighborhood and carefully up to Mrs. Miller’s side door.

The lock warms under my palm as I whisper, “Deschi,” and clicks open.

I step silently inside, closing the door behind me as I breathe in the faint magic in the air. There’s a broken spell. One usedto conceal and made of someone else’s magic. Aphrodite isn’t the one who hid the guys from me. One of her acolytes is more powerful than I thought.

I follow that faint and jagged spell to an innocent-looking door, and when I ease it open, there’s a light filtering up from the basement below.

Familiar stairs lead me down to a place I’ve seen in Aphrodite’s memories. The basement looks like a movie depiction of a sorority house. But the woman on her knees in the middle of the room draws my attention away from the rest of it.

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