Page 133 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

She stood in the center of the spell circle. I watched her transform like someone might watch an artist birth a groundbreaking piece of art. I basked in holy awe.

The darkness that bled from Evie as she chanted was that of deep space and starlight. Unfathomable. Sublime.

She called on Hekate, and I could feel it too—the flood of maternal, wise, protective energy. The spark of the revolution called for as much love as violence.

When she invoked her guides, she named Princeton directly, inviting him to be with us.

It was just a flash of curly hair and bone amulets in the corner of my eye. But it was enough to make my eyes glassy and my throat raw.

I didn’t know how I was worthy enough to witness such goddess-like power. It seemed wise to fall to my knees before her.

Through my vampiric hearing, I heard awestruck murmurs from beyond the bookcase. I was quite certain Evie’s booming, resounding power could be felt across the entirety of the underground.

Suddenly, a shadow wrapped around my arm. I gasped. My eyelids fluttered as thoughts and sensations flooded my mind that didn’t belong to me.

Through Evie, I saw The Tower. Born falling from a great, crumbling castle, King Earle’s crown struck by righteous lightning.

I saw The Star—Evie’s head in my lap as I read to her, her hair adorned with glowing constellations, a gently flowing stream beside us. I drank from the water where love was certain and always enough.

Justice. Idris’s head splitting open and the Whitfields’ blood splattered across the walls of their basement.

The Hierophant reversed. Religion turned toward ego, a girl with a child in her arms, running. Witches gathering in secret, fingers to their lips.

Judgement. The reckoning. I saw myself on the streets of Etherdale, blood dribbling down my chin. Uniformed born lay lifeless at my feet. Smoke and death and blood swam through the air. War was more brutal than I ever could’ve imagined. There was no going back.

I ended up at the kitchen table, reading Mena’s cards. She was cloaked in leopard print, red lips curved. She smelled like perfume and the ghost of a secret cigarette.

“You’re going to be something huge, doll. You know that?”

I shook my head. I could think of nothing worse.

Until the fire scorched through the block in my throat and I hugged my thirteen-year-old self and I learned that darkness melted like chocolate on the tongue and my enemies bet on sports while children were brutalized in their basements and more than all of that?—

I wasn’t sorry. Mena had been right, and I wasn’t sorry.

Back in the spell room, I struggled to separate myself from Evie. It was like we’d been fused. The magick she channeled was a high that surpassed that of my own. It was indescribable the way her brain worked—the ease with which she recognized symbols and connections, flowed through currents of subconscious waters to direct her psychic will.

I was in love with a godsdamned genius.

The circle was alive, sigils glowing as purifying white flames danced.

“Bring them in,” Evie said.

I wanted to tell her I would do anything she ever asked of me forever, but I settled on, “Yes, angel,” instead.

In a half-trance myself, I brought the first round of humans into the space. Chills swept down my spine, remembering how it felt to be in their shoes. I watched as nervousness melted into devotion near-instantly as they entered Evie’s magickal world.

Flowers bloomed from the vines crawling along the ceiling and walls. Forest sounds permeated through the space.

The angel of darkness stood in a powerful purple gown before her main altar. She didn’t speak, yet each initiate knew exactly where to lay. Shadows circled and whispered.

“Hekate, anoint these bodies and souls with the spirit of the revolution,” Evie said. She carefully traveled through the formation of intertwining bodies, delivering a drop of her blood to each forehead.

Some initiates gasped, their eyes moving rapidly as if plagued by visions.

“Though shadows may belong to each of you, so too shall you belong to the shadows. In exchange for eternal life, you pledge your service, your devotion, and your loyalty to a power greater than yourselves. You will become one part of a whole. You will be brothers and sisters in a family that will always stand with you, whom you will protect and uplift just as they will guide you through this transition. You will be a protector of the realm, of Helia and Selena’s mortal children. You may be masked today, but tomorrow, you will wear your clan tattoos proudly in a liberated world.”

We shared a mournful silence together. We remembered the grief the born had callously thrust upon us. Dead family members or friends. The choices we lost, the innocence trampled upon by greed and cruelty. One woman began to weep, and Evie pressed her palm lightly over her heart. Evie’s lip trembled. A spark of magick passed between them, a warm peach glow from chest to palm and back again. The woman settled.