Page 2 of Blood Witch

Why such hatred?

Such fear of the unknown?

But it was more than either of them could fix overnight. Helga could have screamed, but bit her tongue, for all the good it would have done her.

“Go Helga! You must. Protect Mabe,” he said, blood tears staining his face as he bent to place a kiss on the infant’s head. “Goodbye, my darling.”

“Gabriel, I can’t. Take her with you,” Helga began, tears streaming down her face.

“Do not ask me to doom my child to a terrible life enslaved by men who would use her magic to gain power. Helga, please, not you, do not ask this of me. You must take her. Protect her. Hide her with someone who will care. Just do it, Helga. Do it for Madeleine,” Gabriel begged before jumping straight into the air.

Helga Armstrong stood and watched, struck dumb as her sister’s lover’s body shattered into a million pieces before reshaping into a giant Vampire bat. The baby cooed in her arms, and her attention returned to the child with blood red eyes and hair blacker than the night.

“I will do all I can to ensure no one knows what you are, Mabe Marlow. I will hide you well, and someday, I will see you reach your potential,” she vowed.

Helga kissed her niece’s sweet-smelling forehead before disappearing down the alley with her precious cargo, using magic to cloak them.

Someday, we will be together again.

CHAPTER1

Summer flew by,but I expected that. Fall had started in the outside world, but that did not really matter at Westwood. Here, I could experience any season I wanted to within the confines of the magical campus. But the weather didn’t really hold any interest for me.

I had bigger things to focus my attention on. Change was coming. In fact, it was already happening. Inside of me, slow at first, barely noticeable, even. But with every second that passed, I could feel the change growing and growing. I felt it all the time, now.

In. Every. Single. Cell.

I felt like I’d been living in a two dimensional black and white TV version of the world, but now, everything was suddenly in 4D. Sounds, smells, sights, all of my senses had sharpened to where it was almost painful to be in mixed company. I was hyperaware of everything, and it was downright exhausting.

Hunger filled my every waking moment. My dreams too. Sometimes, I woke up shaking, drenched in sweat, and starving. Always starving.

Thank fuck for Arlo and Jade. The healer and the earth witch were the first to catch on to what I was, and to offer aid. It was difficult for me to accept help, but I had no other choice if I wanted to survive. Trusting people was hard, but I was learning to do just that.

Slowly. Ever so slowly.

My roommates were the only ones who knew the truth. Well, them and their mates. I had to admit, those females were a lovey bunch, hooking up with monsters and wizards left and right. I’d never been that lucky in love or that free to just go off willy-nilly with whomever took my fancy.

Sex was complicated for me. I couldn’t get close to someone without it sparking my hunger, and if that happened, well, look out, world! I had more important things on my mind than my non-existent sex life. Such as, getting all my shit moved out of the hidden space where I’d sequestered myself after I first came to Westwood.

Who knew I’d accumulated so much shit in just a few months?

But after I’d moved the last box, I had to admit, relocating to room 563W was the best decision ever. Not that I had made that decision on my own. Jade Montrose, an earth witch I used to call pigpen, was responsible for that.

She didn’t deserve that nickname any more than the others used to describe the witches and wizards of the acceptable covens here at Westwood. Acceptable only because theoh so greatCouncil of Covens had decreed it so sometime after the second Witch Wars.

They were all a bunch of stuffy tightwads and bigots, in my not so humble opinion.

But what else was new?

Everyone at Westwood had a place, somewhere they belonged, and they all knew it too. Elemental witches and wizards were simply like that, flocking to their own kind without questioning why they couldn’t do something else. Something different. Something other.

Belonging to one thing had its benefits, I could not deny that. Knowing where they fit gave witches and wizards in those covens a confidence I had never known.

How could I when there was no real place for people like me?

Believe me, I looked. As it stood, water witches belonged to the Cumatilis Coven. Earth witches to the Tellus Coven. Fire to Incendo. Air to Caelum. And there was even something called the Somnior Coven that no one knew anything about. I even looked it up, but all I could find was yes, it once existed, but it had been an age since anyone had belonged to it.

I had my own ideas about that. Still, there was one more coven no one spoke about. At least, not any of the students. That was the Sanguine Coven. I only knew the name because I asked Enok and Maia to hunt down any information they could about anything having to do with blood magic.

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