Chapter 3

It was a miracle that Kaito had gotten any sleep. His dreams were plagued with nightmares of the girl from the night before. In his dreams, she was the one behind the wheel of his car and she was purposefully trying to run him over. To avoid a potential collision, he shifted out of his human form and into his werewolf form and started running.

Every time he looked back to see how close she was, she would shift back and forth between her child form and her adult form. The only thing that was constant about her features was the murderous glint in her eyes. Just when she was close enough to run him over, he startled awake.

Without looking he knew he had sprouted a tail and fluffy ears. With a sigh, he retracted them and made to get out of his bed when he heard a sound from downstairs.

All the guests had gone back to their houses shortly after Grandma Yoshida had started treating the mystery girl last night. Maybe out of terror, but whatever their reasons were he knew most of them were petrified if not even terrified. Even Haru and Murchadh had gone back to the apartment they shared.

The fairy, who Kaito later learned was called Cosmo, had been the last person to leave. After Grandma Yoshida had cleaned the girl’s wounds so that they wouldn’t get infected, he had checked that she had no broken bones and had healed her wounds so that they wouldn’t scar. Most likely, his mother and father had probably already headed for work and his grandma had taken Akiko along for the weekend shopping leaving him to sleep.

The sound he heard could only mean one thing—the mystery girl had awoken.

Shrugging on a shirt, he stumbled out of the room and down the stairs. He was greeted by a scream and a throw pillow being hurled at his face. In retaliation, he did the next natural thing: scream back.

“What are you doing in my house?” The girl demanded. Now that she wasn’t half dead, she didn’t look as sickly as she did the night before.

Her nose was still crooked and there were still old scars on her body but Cosmo hadn’t been able to do anything about those. Naomi and Akiko—who had been more than pleased to lend a helping hand—had taken their time to remove the road dirt from her braids. She was still in yesterday’s clothes as his grandma had reasoned that she would be completely freaked out if she woke up and found herself in clothes she didn’t recognize or in a room she didn’t recognize.

Kaito almost laughed. “Your house? Does this look like your house?”

The girl looked around and sighed. “I suppose not. Sorry about hitting you in the face with the pillow.”

He waved her off. “No biggie.”

He had hit her with a car. If anyone should be apologizing for anything, it should be him.

“I’m Kaito Yoshida.”

“I’m Imani.” Then she frowned before adding. “Cornwell. Imani Cornwell. I’m sorry, do I know you?”

He shook his head.

“Do you know how I got here?”

“I may have hit you while I was driving last night.” He admitted with a wince. “But then I brought you back home and my grandma cleaned your wounds and a fairy healed you.”

Her eyes widened in realization then narrowed in infuriation. “You hit me with your car?”

“Yes. But I am really sorry. You just came out of nowhere. I would have taken you to a hospital but being a werewolf and all, I haven’t needed a hospital so I didn’t know any NHE-friendly ones. This was the only place where I was sure you would be safe. I’m really sorry,” he explained shifting his weight on his feet.

Imani nodded but didn’t ease up her glare. Out of nowhere she blurted with a look he would say was both saddening and eager. “I’m a witch. I don’t have anything to show that I’m one. Unlike you werewolves, I don’t have fangs. How did you figure out that I was NHE?”

He wanted to tell her that werewolf fangs worked just like vampire fangs, retracting when they weren’t in use but he thought better of it and decided to answer her question instead. “When I hit you, you were a child. Then when I wanted to pick you up to move you to my car…”

“The one you hit me with.”

He winced but continued. “Yeah. When I wanted to pick you up, your necklace slipped off and you turned into this,” he explained waving a hand over her form. “Humans can’t do magic so I figured you were NHE.”

“Correction, humans might not have magical abilities but they can still make use of magical talismans. It just has side effects on them.”

Kaito nodded in agreement. He remembered the time Naomi had gotten a spell from a fairy to help her find her cat. After the spell was done and Tobias was back on his cat tree, Naomi had been weakened for two days and random cats kept turning up at her house long after she had disposed of the talisman.

But humans who used magic were treated as traitors by other humans. So even if Imani had been a human with a shape-shifting talisman, she still wouldn’t have been completely safe at a non-NHE hospital. She might have shifted back to her child form even without the necklace and that would have spelled trouble.

“If you’re a werewolf like you claim to be, how come you didn’t see me?”

“You came out of nowhere.” Kaito offered meekly.

She raised a brow. “I don’t recall any teleportation spells and even if I knew one, I don’t think I would be stupid enough to teleport myself to the middle of the road. That means I was probably minding my own business crossing the road when you hit me. I know for a fact that werewolves have excellent vision even in the dark so the only way you won’t have seen me is if you were texting and driving.” She was accused.

“Technically no. It’s more like video calling and driving.” He admitted regretting picking up Johan’s call.

Johan had been persistently blowing up his phone, determined to find out if Kaito thought he looked better with a bowtie or a regular tie.

“That’s not any better.” Imani snorted. “Look thank your grandma and the fairy for their help last night but I have to leave now. I suppose my folks would be expecting me back home.”

She made for the door handle and Kaito was about to tell her that he had been instructed by Cosmo to question her on whether she was experiencing any side effects of the healing magic when she paused and turned back to him with a lost look in her eyes.

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember your address?”

“I don’t remember anything.”

“What?” was the only thing that slipped out of his lips.