Free Sins of Eden by S.M. Reine Page A

dragged him inside the hotel, where it was warmer and Levi was less likely to get killed. From the rear window, they could only see Elise’s back, her misted hair, the umbra of her power. Everyone beyond was hazy. They could barely see the werewolves kneeling at her feet.
    It looked like Levi was going to have an aneurysm, judging by the way his face purpled and that vein in his forehead bulged. “How can they do this?” he hissed at Abram. “After everything we’ve done—after all that we suffered?”
    “The suffering’s why they deserve it,” Abram said.
    “There are so few of us left now. Why don’t they care?”
    Abram wrapped his arm around Levi’s shoulder. “They care. They’re just doing what they have to do for themselves.”
    The glass and walls muffled Elise’s voice, but Abram felt the words inside of him, and the strength of the spellcasting closed around him.
    Crux sacra sit mihi lux…
    Magic flared so brightly that it seared Abram’s retinas. He shaded his eyes, but it didn’t help. The power penetrated everything.
    Non draco sit mihi dux. Vade retro, Satana…
    Elise’s spell built and built. Abram’s head felt like it was going to collapse as her magic flowed around the pack. People cried out, falling to their knees, writhing on the ground like they were in the middle of transforming.
    Paetrick crumpled, and a moment later, there was something standing on his chest—something with huge paws, bright eyes, and white fur. Elise’s magic curved around it. Paetrick’s mouth opened in a scream. His back arched.
    The wolf ripped free.
    He slumped on the dirt, still human.
    Elise’s magic surged again. A second wave crashed into the pack, illuminating the night with orange fire. Her voice kept echoing.
    Ipse venena bibas …
    The floorboards creaked behind them. Abram released Levi just in time to see Abel rounding the corner. He didn’t seem to have seen them holding each other—he was staring out the window at Elise, his golden eyes very bright, expression inscrutable.
    And then the light cut off.
    It took time for Abram’s eyes to adjust to the return of darkness. By the time he could see again, people were struggling to stand with trembling legs. Nobody had died under the crush of Elise’s power. That alone seemed like a small miracle.
    The garden was so much more crowded than it had been a few minutes earlier. Wolves milled among the humans, greeting each other by licking each others’ faces and swishing their tails. They were smaller than werewolves became on the full moon, more like the actual animal. Abram would have believed that they were the real thing if they hadn’t been semi-translucent.
    Whenever a human bumped against a wolf—or whenever they should have bumped against a wolf—their arms or knees went right through them, like they weren’t even there.
    The wolves were nothing but spirits. Barely more than ghosts.
    Levi’s jaw dropped open. “Oh my God.”
    Abel stepped outside and Abram followed him. They stood among the garden’s shriveled bushes as still as the decorative statues while wolf spirits gamboled around them. Abel watched the wolves playing with a weird expression. Not like he was angry, or upset, but almost…guilty.
    “Before I ever got bit, me’n Seth killed over a dozen werewolves,” Abel said.
    Abram understood. He’d seen werewolves outside of Rylie’s control once or twice. They’d always been crazed, vicious—downright mean . It was easy to imagine hunting and slaughtering them.
    There was no hint of meanness in these animals.
    He stepped aside when one of the wolf spirits rushed between his legs. The wolf chasing it passed right through his knee. Their soft huffing noises as they ran echoed through the garden.
    Elise approached the men. She looked even more bemused by the exorcised wolves than Abel did. “I didn’t expect that.”
    “What did you expect?” Abram asked.
    “I thought they would have been more violent, like werewolves