Nutella

Dinner was awkward.

Marianna and Arie joined us, a rarity considering that they both worked nights at Greumlers. Mama had whipped up a three course meal, complete with triple chocolate cheese cake and ice cream for dessert. It took me all I had not to wolf that down like a maniac.

Afterwards, without even speaking a word during dinner, Dad asked if we could all go out for a ride. Marianna's father had presented him with a white bird gobmeister for the wedding. It was the latest model and purred like a cat when the engine was started.

Arie threw me a questioning glance. Daddy wasn't one to treasure family time. He didn't do talks, or lectures or hugs if he could help it. That was more of Mam's job.

"What's up, Dad?" Arie said once we had settled into the white bird. I sat between Marianna and him, and Mam sat up front. Marianna, surprisingly, had kept a strange quiet the whole time.

I peered curiously at her, saw the beginnings of a purplish bruise on her left cheek and turned quickly away. Crossing my arms across my chest, I leaned as far away from her as possible. I didn't want to know and I didn't want to care.

Marianna was a bitch and a half and I didn't want to think anything of the niggling unease that settled in the pit of my stomach.

Arie and Dad were the only ones speaking now. Dad was telling my brother about the impending marriage and the bride price the Winter-Sons' had offered.

I wasn't listening to that though. For the moment, my attention was on the bruise on my sister-in-law's cheek and the fact that letting our skins touch was the last thing I needed right then. '

I don't need to know.

Mam glanced once at me, noticed my staring at Marianna and turned back around. The heat that flooded the white bird scared me.

Something is wrong.

"I'm tired," I said. "Can we go home now?"

Dad looked at me and shrugged, "Sure."

A few minutes later, he was pulling the white bird in to the driveway. Before any of them could have opened the doors, I muttered a spell and Shifted up to my room. If Mam and Dad had any problem with me using Shift spells before I'd gotten my license, they said nothing about it.

"What's wrong with Ili?" Arie's voice floated through the floorboards. I guessed that he was asking Mam.

The silence that answered him was all the confirmation that I needed.

Throwing my bed clothes on, I pulled at the fastener on my hair and ran a brush through it. The tangles that would have hurt any other time to clean out didn't bother me right then and once I was done, I crawled in to bed, tears blurring my vision.

The unease and discomfort in the pit of my stomach grew horns and wings.

Something was very, very wrong.

And Marianna, annoyingly boring, stubborn Marianna of the Wood Fey, with her white golden hair and shimmering purple eyes held a secret that I wasn't sure I wanted to know just yet.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I clasped my hands together and thought of the white marble statue of the Goddess Irya that stood in the Temples of Run before I let the prayer take my pleads to Her.

Dear Mother, Protector of Women, of Child and Babe, spread out your wings now and cover Marianna as she sleeps. Keep her from the bad. Heal her hurt and most importantly ...

The tears fell faster when I thought the final request.

... protect her from my brother.