Daughter of Stars and Nightmares (The Eternal Bond Saga book 1)

Moving Forward

Ren paced the living room in Julia's house. After the attack, they made her house their base of operations. Rosalie's wound was still life threatening and healing slowly. She needed dark faerie blood three times a day and Ren and Edrys had to take turns casting healing spells to stop the wolfsbane from poisoning her any further.

Despite its name, wolfsbane was deadly to witches. It blocked a witch's powers and then rotted them from the inside out. It was a slow and painful process and the only cure was dark faerie blood, special herbs, healing spells ̶ from a powerful witch or faerie, and time.

Alex walked down the stairs rolling down his sleeve. The amount of blood Rosalie needed was talking its toll on Véronique, she had to feed extensively. While Véronique went out feeding Alex would give Rosalie his blood.

His eyes met Ren's and Alex could tell he was in for a barrage of questions. "Hey, Tink, you really need to get some rest. If you keep this up, you will run yourself into the ground and won't be of any use to anyone." He knew exactly what Ren was going through and that no amount of persuading would get him to rest.

Ren glared at Alex. "You of all people should know that will never happen." He turned to Abby, Ella and Kuro. "I can't believe we trusted Damien. I told you guys there was something off about him."

"I already told you, Ren, Damien is a good guy. He hates Thorsen as much as I do. He wouldn't betray us," Alex defended his friend.

Ren scoffed. "Then you're a fool, because I'm telling you he had a hand in all of this. If you just open your eyes and look at the facts they all stack up against him."

Abby joined them, she had a concerned look on her face, worry radiating in waves off her body. Placing a hand on Ren's shoulder she said, "Arguing over this will not get us anywhere. Come on you two, we need to sit down and really go over everything. There has to be a clue somewhere."

Ren's hard expression softened as if her touch had been a healing balm on his frayed nerves. Interlocking his fingers in hers he said, "You're right as usual." Turning to Alex he said, "Let's sit down and discuss this."

Alex could see there was something going on between those two and he hoped Abby could keep Ren calm. Over the past three days every time they sat down and comb through events, Ren always ended up flying off the handle half way though. It put a real hamper on making any progress.

When Alex sat down on the sofa he said, "Okay, I think we should start where we left off. We've been over and over the events up to Halloween."

Kuro scooted forward; he hesitated a moment. "Ren, I don't want you to lose it, so I need you to chill." Ren gave him a nod. "Good. Now, I've been wondering what that drink was that Damien was always giving Jules. She said it was some sort of juice but I seriously have my doubts because she changed so much."

Alex had noticed Julia's strange behaviour, but he would not blame it on Damien. "He told me it had brosiaberries and other faerie fruit in it. We all know how faerie food can drive non-faeries to do insane things."

Ren raised both his eyebrows at Alex. "Seriously, Alex, brosiaberries do not give a person a personality transplant. It was like Julia was Jekyll and Hyde."

"You know, what you guys are describing sounds almost like someone on dark faerie blood," Felicia said walking into the room carrying a basket. She'd been making meals for everyone and popping in and out checking on them in between the town clean up and council meetings.

"Alex, I know you don't want to admit it but you know she's right. I was even wondering if Damien was giving her his blood," Véronique said as she walked in behind Felicia.