Page 29 of A Trial By Blood

I was looking at someone else.

Mags moved up beside me, wrapping her arm around my waist. I looked at her smiling face, then back at my own. We looked like sisters. We were different, but for once, I could see the similarities too. My face had filled out, my cheeks were pink, and my lips were deep red. My pale blond hair was no longer thin or balding in places, it was thick and had a slight wave, falling halfway down my back. And my body…

I ran my hands over my hips. God, my thighs actually touched. I had a waist, because I had a butt, and my boobs, okay, they weren’t huge, but I had them. I wasn’t ultra-curvy like Mags. My sister was shorter and rounder. I was tall and willowy, but I most definitely had curves.

“How?” I whispered. “How did this happen?”

Mom followed us into the bathroom. “Ronan. He figured out what you were. What you needed. He saved your life.”

“What I am?” I had a memory of Ronan standing over me, or me holding on to him. He was feeding me something. “What do you mean? He found a cure?”

“You could say that,” Mags said with a grin.

“He found your father, Rose,” Mom said. “Somehow, he found your father when no one else could.” Her throat worked. “It turns out he’s not…human.”

I spun to face her. “What?”

“He’s a bat shifter.”

My heart thumped in my chest. “He’s what?” Something heavy hit me in the back, or at least that’s how it felt. I was thrown off balance, and I grabbed for the wall as Mom and Mags stumbled away. It felt as if I were carrying something heavy. I glanced over my shoulder, where something white and translucent and glittering rose behind me. “What the…”

“Wings,” Mags said. “You’ve got freaking wings, Roe.”

I struggled to keep my balance and gripped the edge of the vanity so I could turn and look at them over my shoulder. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Bat wings, but white. They sprouted from high on my back where the hump had been. The wings weren’t overly big, but they were heavy.

“I have wings,” I rasped, stunned. “But how? Where do they go?”

“Your shifter side has somehow blended with your magic. They vanish completely, then just…reappear.” Mom closed the space between us. “And there’s something else you need to know.”

I turned to her and almost lost my balance again. “There’s more?”

“Yes, sweetheart, there’s more.” She swallowed thickly and tears filled her eyes. “All this time, you weren’t sick, Roe, you were…goddess, you were starving. Ronan worked out that you needed blood.” She took my hand. “That you needed to feed.”

I jolted. “On blood? I needed to feed on blood?”

“Yes,” Mom said, dashing her tears away and watching me carefully.

“And Ronan…what? He got me some?”

She shook her head. “He opened a vein and fed you himself, fighting off Warrick and Ren when we didn’t understand what he was doing. He saved you.”

I turned back to the mirror and stared at myself in shock all over again.

“Are you okay?” she said.

Was I? You’d think the idea of drinking blood would be disgusting. It wasn’t. A flash of memory hit me. I’d held on to Ronan, clinging to him, drinking from his wrist.

Drink, he’d said in a deep, rough voice. Take your fill.

And I had, until I’d passed out. I spun back and nearly toppled over again. “They dragged him from the room. Why? Where is he?”

Mom chewed her lip. “He asked them to. He was having some trouble letting you go. In the end, he asked the knights to get him out of the room. I’m not sure what’s going on with him. Luna’s been with him, and we haven’t been able to talk to her. One of the knights makes the deliveries and they’re not telling us anything either.”

“Deliveries?”

Mags leaned on the vanity. “We tried to give you blood while you slept. Everyone donated—the wolves, the hounds, the coven—but you wouldn’t take it, you’d fight us. In the end, we had to call the knights. Ronan has been sending his blood over for you. His is the only blood you’d drink.”

My heart thumped hard behind my ribs. He was sending over his blood? “I want to see him.”