Bloody Claws (Camren) Book 3

Chapter 26

The atmosphere inside the circle crackled with energy. I wasn't sure if I was actually hearing it or if I felt it and by feeling it, imagined I'd heard it. While the air was abuzz, Normani took out a length of white braided rope. The earth seemed to swallow her bloody symbol, burning deeper trenches where her drawing had been. She set about folding the rope in a neat circle around the symbol, a circle inside a circle. I thought I understood what she was doing. When she was done, she held the double-sided dagger in her hand, took my wrist between her fingers, and slashed the blade across my open palm. The cut stung, making me hiss through my teeth.

"I need you to combine your power with mine," she said, as if explaining, but she didn't really explain anything. She slashed her palm again.

"Quickly," she said, "before our wounds close. Take my blood into your body."

"You want me to drink your blood?" I asked.

"There is no time for qualms, Camila. I've summoned the Hag."

She raised my hand to her mouth and I felt her tongue tracing the wound, licking my skin clean as my body healed it.

Norman didn't offer her hand as much as shove it in my face.

I frowned, but raised my hand to cup hers, bringing it to my lips. I licked the blood that had trailed down her fingers to the center of her palm where the original cut had been. The taste of Normani's blood was smooth and velvety, only lightly metallic. Without the taint of cinnamon from Lauren's mouth, the taste was fresher, richer. I found it odd.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt the wolf agreeing with me. Good, but odd.

Before I could ask, "What next?" Normani grabbed the back of my head and kissed me, her tongue delving between my lips. I staggered and was about to push her away when I felt it. She pushed her power into my mouth and it felt like honey sliding down my throat. She held me against her tightly, her arms like shackles, her lips locked on mine, sending warmth into my belly. At the touch of her lips and power, the magic awakened.

I pushed into the kiss, taking control of it, and forcing the energy that rose from me into Normani's lean body.

She stepped back, breaking the kiss. I could suddenly feel every movement ripple through her, her spine when it straightened, her foot being placed slightly behind her. The movement vibrated through me, as if we had been caught in a web and every time she moved, I could feel the strands pulling at my skin. But it wasn't my skin her movement tugged at, every chakra on my body felt like it had been fixed into hers.

Normani stood before the circle she'd created, fingering a milky stone in her hands. She mumbled more words, harshly accented. I had a second to wonder if she was speaking Gaelic when she threw the stone into the middle of the circle. The stone sparked, as if holding a cloud of lightning inside it before I could taste smoke and ashes on my tongue.

Inky blackness formed above the stone. It was the same blackness I'd seen at the police department. I was sure of it. I'd thought she would've invited the others into the circle, but she did not. I stayed close to Normani as the black mist shaped itself. The slitted eyes I'd seen at the police station stared at us from within the veil of mist. Limbs began to form and take shape, until I could make out the silhouette of a body nearly as tall as Normani's, with mimicking human arms and legs. The figure's hands and feet were tipped with curling talons like some ghoulish bird of prey.

By the silver light of the moon, the creature became whole. Hair the color of dark wood fell to her knees. Her eyes were slitted and narrowed in contempt as she gazed at Normani. The dark mist settled over her long body like a continuously moving cloak, sliding over and around her, allowing glimpses of what was clearly a female body underneath.