Page 62 of Just One Bite

Chapter Fifty-One

Parker

She isn’t in the studio. What happens after is a vivid harebrained blur.

I follow her scent, screaming in my head for her but I get nothing but silence.

I can’t think as Aster and I wade through the other students in the hallways and the paths outside.

I follow the scent to the Central Lawn where Octavia is sobbing in the grass with Darien at her side.

He has a handkerchief outstretched to her, while he kneels by her feet.

“I started to think something was wrong, but … it wore off after I put her in the car and watched it drive away.”

“What is she talking about?” I hiss.

Olivia’s scent is all over her, and all I see is red. Pulsing, bloody red.

Octavia looks up at me. “I’m so sorry Parker.”

I growl. “Where is she?”

“There you are asshole.” Aster stalks toward Darien.

But not before I wrap my hands around the collar of Darien’s blazer. “He’s mine.”

I can’t hurt Octavia so Darien will have to do.

“Is that any way to treat a man who has been keeping your mate safe since the day she arrived?”

“You knew Cane was behind all this and you didn’t say anything.” I’m about to shift. My body skipped the itch and went straight into the shaking. Aster feels it and he steps back with a smirk.

“I suspected him but couldn’t get any definitive evidence because he’s good at covering his tracks.

It took time to slowly piece that together and his interest in you and your mate starting with the day she arrived.

I overheard him making plans to mark her.

I could never figure out his fascination with Octavia though.

Late night talks and casual drinks together, but Octavia never remembered much about them when I’d ask her. ”

“It started slow. Too faint to notice till I was missing time.” Octavia’s voice is a whisper.

“He was drugging her. But like Olivia, I couldn’t figure out how or why. They were never alone together. It was always in public with witnesses.”

“I don’t have fucking time for this.” I’m slipping, my claws began to form and snag on the fibers of his jacket. “Get to the point.”

“Cane’s father has been helping him get forbidden potions. That’s what he gave Olivia that night at the party. He befriended Octavia because he needed an opening with your mate.”

“We’d drink late at night. I thought he needed a friend.

But I’d started to have gaps, like the night of the party.

We never talked about you or Olivia.” Octavia is talking to me but I’m barely there.

“I never thought ... it was me who did that to her. I thought maybe I’d just had too much and started to forget things. ”

“Olivia, where are you?” There is still no answer.

Memory and motor function charms are forbidden.

They don’t work well anyway, and they wear off fast. He had to have been drugging Octavia slowly over time for it to work.

Getting the potion in her system and then giving her higher doses when he needed to get her to do something.

The only way to control someone from a charm like this is if there is already a negative feeling associated with it.

Cane did this. Octavia was just another one of his victims. Who knows how long he’s been brewing them.

And now I know he has Olivia right where he wants her. I feel sick to my stomach, and there's heat under my skin. The sickness is starting. She's getting father away. I have to find her. This can’t be it. This can’t be the end.

“I have to go. I have to find her.”

“I can help you with that. You will owe me though.” Darien cocks his head with a smirk and I drop him into the grass.