Read 2. Darkness in the Blood Master copy MS 5 for Free Online Page A

balanced equation. Mrs. Alice, whom I loved and trusted, was a dark witch and was as far from evil as I could imagine. Bearing a dark gift didn’t make me evil. My head knew this, but when Shadows slithered across my skin and beautiful burnt oak trees scented the air, my heart had a hard time believing.
    Shadows crept across the clearing towards Ethan. He stood firm as they got nearer, watching me closely. “Um, you might want to move,” I said a little breathlessly. “Remember the tree?”
    “You’re doing fine,” he countered absently, as if he wasn’t really listening. He stared at my hands intently and sucked in a deep breath. I flexed my fingers, turning my palms skyward before flipping them back down. I’d discovered that I could control the thickness of Shadow, just like I could when drawing with a pencil. I pinched my fingers inward, creating very thin lines. The more I handled them, the less nervous I got.
    But I didn’t want to be less nervous. It was like getting friendly with the monster under my bed. If I relaxed my guard, sooner or later he would crawl into my bed and eat me.

    ***

     When he finally let us quit, I was mentally and physically exhausted. Ethan’s idea to treat Shadows like any other artistic medium made them a little more manageable, if not less frightening. No matter how many times he told me otherwise, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it said something about my essential nature. Something bad.
    “You did great,” Ethan murmured. The river rushed madly on. I watched its flat gray streams and swirls with my throbbing head propped in his lap. My vision blurred as I tried to follow trails of water with my eyes. A sharp stab of blinding white light erased my sight totally for a minute. I cried out and curled up into a ball, suddenly sick to my stomach and dizzy. “What?” He crouched over me, his hand on my forehead. “What’s wrong?”
    It passed almost as quickly as it came. I uncurled a bit. “I’m not sure. My head hurt, and everything went white, and…” He looked panicked. “It went away.” Ethan eased back on his heels, watching me intently. “Really. I just feel tired now. I think I just overdid it.”
    He looked like he didn’t quite believe me. “Rest, then.” I found myself using his lap for a pillow. I smiled against the soft corduroy covering his legs. I couldn’t wait until spring. Whitfield in spring was beautiful. So far, he’d seen only our fall and winter. “Ok. I’ll rest,” I coaxed. “If you tell me the story of how you became human again.” I felt like an eager child demanding my favorite bedtime story. I hooked a leg over his and pulled him even closer, as if he were a puzzle I could solve by locking the pieces tighter together. “Please,” I added for good measure.
    “Like everything had been turned up too much- the lights, the sound, the temperature, everything; and that I was carrying some kind of very heavy weight while trying to operate incredibly complex machinery with no instructions and every part of me was screaming different kinds of wants and needs, like hunger and cold and pain and fear- but they all meant essentially the same thing.”
    I rolled over on my side and pushed his hood down. “What?” I demanded, skimming my palm across his jaw. I knew the answer to this one, but I never tired of hearing it. “What same thing?” His face was stubbly. I let my eyes droop half closed, picturing a shirtless Ethan, drawing silver razor through scented white foam. The only man I had ever seen shave who was not my brother or my father. Shivers I could not define as warm or cool crept delicately up my neck.
    He caught my wrist and pulled. I yelped in surprise at the strength of him, sprawled on the forest floor. Even human, he was still strong. He pinned me, half-teasing, but searching my face for something.
    “Where does your mind go,” he said softly. It was a question, but it wasn’t addressed to me. “I wonder, sometimes.”