Jaxon covered his nose staring at the boy he loved. Blake had turned into a creature he hardly would call werewolf. The air was thick with blood and residue of human skin still covered parts of the wolf standing on two legs growling with unfocused eyes. What the hell happened? What should he do?

“Millie!” Jaxon heard a female shout and turned to look at an even stranger scene. A tiny girl with a flannel shirt growled at the creature. She did not look natural as well as the eyes were covered by a white film, fangs heaped out of her mouth as they were too big for it and black blood flowed down from her eyes. She scratched Clover with her unnaturally big claws but Clover refused to let her go as the girl named Millie tried to attack Blake. Or the creature that was supposed to be him.

“Get her out of here!” Elliott shouted and Freya grabbed onto the girl and threw her out of the church.

“Blake?” Ahriman walked carefully over as the creature tilted its head.

“Ahriman? I can’t see. It hurts so bad.” Blake’s voice came out from the creature’s mouth and sent shivers through Jaxon’s body. It sounded so wrong hearing his gentle voice coming from such a horrid creature.

“Focus on my voice, don’t let-“

A roar echoed as Ronan attacked the creature that let out a ferocious response and threw itself at Ronan. With a speed hard to see, he ripped at Ronan’s chest. Not even hesitating to try to rip his heart out.

“Jesus! Stop him,” Elliott groaned and Jaxon did not hesitate to run towards Blake but was stopped by several of the disarray wolves of Ronan’s pack. It did not stop Ahriman though who just walked through the wolves who turned to ash in front of his eyes.

The air became thick with the scent of blood, and ash mixed to create a terrible feeling of horror. Ronan roared and threw both himself and Blake out through the stone wall of the church. Ahriman cursed and followed them threw the wall as did Jaxon but at a slower pace.

He could suddenly hear a howl at a distance. Ronan called for a retreat. He must have been badly hurt by Blake’s attack. Jaxon did not care but he heard Elliott give the order to Kai and some of the others to take up the chase. With heavy footsteps, Jaxon rushed out to find Blake.

He soon saw a scene that both gave him relief and grief. Blake had slowly started to turn back to the boy he loved. Ahriman held onto his hand watching the claws fade while he inspected the unconscious Blake. Elliott soon arrived at the scene and stared at Blake in horror.

“What the hell was that? Is he-“

“He is fine. His neck is broken,” Ahriman sighed and let go of Blake’s hand after it turned back to normal.

“Broken?! Is he dead?” Jaxon exclaimed and rushed forward grabbing onto Blake’s body.

“No, it seems that Ronan Walsh might have just saved him by breaking his neck,” Ahriman said and brushed off his clothes while rising to his feet.

“How? What did Blake do?” Elliott persisted.

“Apery, he used a magic craft called Apery,” Ahriman said like it explained everything.

“What is Apery?”

“A form of magic, I just told you.”

“You are avoiding the question. Why?” Elliott grumbled.

“Because it is forbidden,” A boy came out with a grin on his face. Jaxon smelled witch but did not like the lad. He looked shifty. What the hell did he do here?“It was banned as it was considered immoral.”

“So it’s dark magic,” Elliott muttered who did not notice the boy.

“Bullshit, it was considered immoral since it was too powerful. Apery copies the power of the target. Too few were able to learn it but those who did became powerful. Too much for the covens who banned it,” Ahriman snorted and glared at the boy who raised his arms.

“As you say, I won’t argue with the evil twin brother of God. Seems pointless. I just pointed out why you won’t speak about it.”

“I won’t speak about it since it would be a waste of my time talking to shifter about it. They hate magic and want to have no knowledge about it. Someone who has denied magic has no right to learn about it!” Ahriman hissed and his eyes glowed at the boy. “Who are you? I smell foulness on you, boy.”

“Are you sure? You might just confuse it with your own scent,” said the lad and Ahriman frowned. So did Elliott. Jaxon just didn’t care but he seriously disliked this boy.

“You did not answer. Who are you?” Jaxon asked grimly.

“Now, that doesn’t really-“

Ahriman grabbed onto the boy’s neck and lifted him off the ground. Sizzling noise was heard and the boy let out a groan in agony.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Elliott shouted and grabbed onto his arms but Ahriman did not budge.

“Jaxon?” said a meek voice. Jaxon looked down at Blake who looked at the scene with unsteady eyes. “Get Alex.”

“Alex!” Jaxon shouted without letting his eyes leave Blake’s pale face.

Alex came out of the church and frowned at the scene. His eyes first fell on Blake before looking over at the boy who had started to struggle to breathe.

“Franklin? What the bloody hell are you doing here?”

“You know him?” asked Jaxon.

“He belongs to the coven. I have talked to him a few times to get information but I wouldn’t go so far to say-”

“You know him,” Blake said. “He is your father. He looks like you.”

Jaxon patted Blake’s head. “Alex is Asian.”

“Observant of you,” Alex muttered and frowned at Franklin.

“Maybe his true face can clear things up,” Ahriman said and his eyes started to burn. A scream of agony erupted from Franklin as a fire burned off his skin and showed a man in his forties with a long black trenchcoat, unshaved face and a fedora. Ahriman dropped the older man who coughed while rubbing his burned neck.

“That hurt, mate,” the man muttered and clicked his tongue.

Alex stared at the man with disbelief. “Father?”

“This guy… Franklin is your dad?” Jaxon asked confusingly.

“No, his name is Frank Lloyd… God, why did I not realize it before? Franklin Hall is my great grandfather,” Alex sizzled.

“Wait… So he is your great grandfather?” Jaxon said and got a few glares from the people around him.

“I am disappointed, son. I used to tell you stories about how Franklin Hall crossed the sea to China. His love for the country stretched through generations, all the way to me who married a Chinese woman,” The man, who apparently, is called Frank said and touched his fedora while gazing at Ahriman. “Such a rude manner, mate. I think, I will be left with a scar.”

“I sure hope so, that was my goal. That scar cannot be covered by magic and will always show no matter what transformation you use,” Ahriman said casually.

“A shame that,” Frank said with a smile that showed no fear. Alex looked furious.

“Don’t bloody ignore me! What the hell are you doing here?”

“Manners. What would your mother say?” Frank sighed.

“She would tell me to rip your bloody head off!”

Frank seemed to ponder on Alex's words before giving him a grin. “That sounds like something she would say.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“And I don’t plan of doing so, son.” Frank bowed his head to them all. “My work is done here so I will take my leave.”

“No, you bloody won’t!” Alex rushed towards Frank but was merely met by mist as Frank had turned to smoke. Alex coughed and furiously looked around to find that his father was gone. “Fuck!”

“Your father is a witch?” Elliott asked.

“No! He is human without magic,” Alex hissed and notice Elliott’s confused frown. “He uses magical talismans and dark rituals to steal magic from other witches. It got so bad that he finally killed people to have their magic when I was little. My mom hunted him away and he has been a fugitive ever since.”

Alex turned to Blake though who looked at him weakly. “How did you know that he was my father?”

“I guessed. I kept seeing his true face. His manners, the way he walked. The way he clicked his tongue. I couldn’t figure it out until it was too late. He told me to use Apery and it wasn’t until I started to change that it hit me. He looked like you,” Blake explained.

“He wanted you to use Apery?” Elliott asked with a frown before his eyes went wide. “If he is a spy from the coven then…”

“No, apery is banned among the coven but it is not considered dark magic. In fact, the only ones that use it are hedgewitches. They cannot use it against him,” Ahriman said with a frown. It bothered him as well. Why convince Blake to use it?

“Then what was his goal?” asked Alex who did not trust his father.

“Maybe to kill Blake. Apery should not be used on anything other than other forms of magic. If you use it on a, for example, wolf shifter,” Ahriman glared at Blake,”then you will turn into a wolf.”

“That was no wolf,” Elliott pointed out.

“Apery is the ability to copy but it’s more like mimicking the power of a shifter in this case. He used magic to transform himself into a wolf but that is very dangerous as the beast is no spirit. His mind actually transformed into a wolf rabid by agony. A witch using apery risks losing themselves in the animal they transform into and be forever lost in the shape they took,” Ahriman explained before he walked closer to Blake with a determined look on his face. “Give me the grimoire!”

“What? Why? No!” Blake exclaimed but couldn’t do more than glare at Ahriman while Jaxon worryingly held him.

“This was the second time you almost killed yourself when using a random spell from the grimoire. Apparently, you aren’t ready to use the grimoire yet,” Ahriman said angrily.

“That wasn’t my fault!”

“Then whose is it? Jaxon here surely didn’t cast the spell,” Ahriman pointed at Jaxon who let out a whine. Don’t drag me into this!

“I was tricked!”

“That is no excuse!”

“Then why isn’t there a warning label on the spells.”

“Pardon?”

“This is the first time I ever heard about that you should not use Apery to copy shifters powers,” Blake pulled out the grimoire and showed the side that showed the Apery spell. Or it should at least.

Jaxon just groaned as both Elliott and Alex’s eyes went wide. He knew what they saw. Blake apparently had once again forgotten that the grimoire only showed pornographic pictures of men to any outsiders looking at the book. “But you haven’t written anything about it being dangerous. For that matter, not a word on what the dangers are!”

All eyes turned to Ahriman who pouted for a second before standing up with a casual stretch. “Now that we all agree that this is all Blake’s fault. Let’s focus on the matter at hand.”

“Twat! Asshole! Someone hit him,” Blake exclaimed and looked like an angry little squirrel as he thrashed around on the ground. A loud thud was heard and all stared in shock at the event playing out before them. Ahriman scratched his aching jaw and looked over at Hadrien who had just entered the scene.

“Was that really necessary? My jaw aches now,” Ahriman said.

Hadrien shrugged,” My hand is broken.”

Ahriman rolled his eyes,” What did you expect when you hit a god?”

Elliott groaned and rubbed his temples. Jaxon had seen his brother face too often to not know that he was annoyed by them all. Most likely because he was even more confused after asking a question than before.

“Ronan?” Elliott asked Hadrien who shook his head. Damnit! The asshole who attacked Blake is gone.

“The stragglers?”

“Oh, my brother Joshua is having fun hunting them down,” Hadrien shrugged.

“This is a fucking mess,” Elliott muttered and turned to walk into the church. “I need to look after Dale. We are here for him after all. “

Jaxon could sympathize with Dale but right now he was more worried about the pale boy in his arms. He let out a whine and Blake gave him a faint smile before cuddling closer to him and falling asleep. Jaxon did not mind watching his peaceful face. He lifted him up in a princess hold and carried him into the church.