Binding the Shadows (Arcadia Bell #3)(76)

The tail seamlessly jutted out from my lower back and was a couple of inches in diameter. Black and white rings, all the way to the tip. It was now wrapped around my ankle, clinging to my leg, making me look like a dog with its tail tucked.

But that wasn’t the startling part. Nor was the silver eyes or the massive dancing silver halo. None of that shocked me. Lon had told me about those things.

He didn’t tell me about the horns.

Not spiraling. Not even two. A series of ridges began on my forehead, just above my eyes. They made a wide V shape there, increasing in size and length until they became black spines. A few inches above my hairline, the spines changed to black horns, gently curving backward like crests on a dragon. Three black, glossy horns flaring in neat little rows on each side of my head. The ones at the crown of my head were the longest—maybe two feet tall.

My hair stood out from my head, licking around the horns as my halo whorled like an angry storm cloud.

Terrified of my own reflection, I pushed the moon power away as fast as I could. The weight changed on my head as the horns retracted. Scales disappeared, as well as the tail.

Fuck, f*ck, f*ck.

I stood by the bed, a slow tremor wracking my body as I looked down at Lon. I could’ve killed him. Stabbed him while he slept. My fingers uncurled around the handle of the blade I’d forgotten I’d been holding. Not my mother’s ceremonial dagger, but a knife from Lon’s kitchen—one of his fancy, expensive knives. How the hell . . . had I sleepwalked? Did my mother orchestrate all this?

Her voice rang in my head, clear and strong, as if we’d actually spoken. And maybe we had. She said it was a place between the planes. I stared at the knife. My hand was shaking so badly, I nearly dropped it.

This was so bad. I’d never felt so out of control.

Chest heaving, pulse jittery, I backed away from the bed and headed to the bedroom door. I felt like an intruder in my own home. Lon’s home. Jupe’s home. Dear God, he was sleeping two doors away. What if he’d seen me . . . looking like that?

Worse: what if he wasn’t safe either?

Stifling a sob, I grabbed my robe off the back of the door and covered myself, quietly fleeing downstairs in the darkness. I headed straight for the kitchen, where Lon kept a small light over the sink constantly switched on like a nightlight. The magnetic strip that held his knives was attached to the wall nearby. Sure enough, a narrow space on the strip was blank, exactly the space where this one belonged. He kept them arranged in a specific order, which is why he’d known I’d taken the paring knife that night I called up Priya on Kar Yee’s roof.

I pressed the blade to the strip until it clicked. Nausea gripped my stomach. I barely had time to hunch over the sink before the vomiting began—once, twice. A third time. Weak and sick, I washed it down the drain and thrust my head under the tap to drink straight from the faucet. Rinsed my mouth out. Drank more. I didn’t understand why’d I’d be experiencing post-magick nausea. I hadn’t done any magick. Besides, the moon power didn’t make me sick like Heka-fueled magick did. Maybe it was my mother’s magick.

I waited until the nausea subsided, thinking of my reflection in the mirror.

My true serpentine form. That’s what my mother called it.

I ran through a shortlist of deities or mythological beings associated with snakes, but none of them were directly associated with magick. And whatever I had pinging around under my skin was definitely a magick-wielder.

A reptilian, serpent magick-wielder.

Padding to the bottom of the stairs, I paused, listening. No movement upstairs. Lon’s jacket hung on a peg in the foyer. I put it on and quietly slipped out the sliding glass doors to the back patio.

The dark Pacific crashed against rocks in the distance. The tree line blocked the moon. I was glad for that, all things considered. Damp grass sent cold shivers up my legs as I wiped saliva over my guardian’s sigil. “Priya. Come.”

His black line appeared in the middle of my palm as he swooped down from a crack in the sky. “Mistress,” he said, folding up his wings behind his back as he landed in the grass a few feet away. He stalked forward and stopped in front of me, black halo swirling above his crazy shocked hair. “What is wrong?”

“My mother visited me in a dream tonight. She’s got some sort of control over me in the Æthyr. She’s trying to make me do bad things. I’m scared, Priya. Have you found out anything more?”

“Where is your lover? The Kerub.”

“Lon is inside,” I said nodding toward the house as I crossed my arms over my chest to fend off the biting wind blowing off the ocean.

“He does not like me.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “He’s just protective of me, that’s all. He doesn’t hate you. He’s thankful you’re helping me in the Æthyr.”

“He is right to feel protective, for you are in danger.”

“Tell me.”

“This is what I know. Your mother is claiming that she has dominion over you through an unbreakable bond. The magick that she used to conceive you is very old. It is similar to the spell used to draw demons into human bodies.”

“To create Earthbounds?”

He nodded. “She is bragging that she still has control over you. She has claimed that her control is strengthening.”

“It definitely is.”