by N. K. Vir
He wanted his power back.
He wanted her back.
He wanted to punish her with one hand while embracing her with the other. She had gifted him with a power equal to that of Lily and Adam. She alone had made him the man; the beast he was today. Had she stayed with him; had he made her stay with him, he would have eclipsed the generation before him. Now, after centuries of trying and failing to bring her back he’d finally found the key…Tanith.
The lost little wolf, as Adam had named her. She never fit into the magickal world of Earth; she was more powerful, more important than any other being on the useless face of Earth. All he wanted, all he ever wanted, was to taste the power and the warmth of Eden again; and Tanith would pave the path home for him. He did not care who he used, who he killed, as long as he was able to walk in the warmth and power of Eden again; nothing and no one mattered.
The would-be witch king was just another he would use to punch a hole between the worlds. Marek Grey had almost outlived his usefulness. He would use him to humble the Sinclair line and at the same time break the Historian, his little sister; then he would devour the little wolf. He licked his dry lips in anticipation. Their downfall would be his parting gift to this world. He knew she would come. How could she not return to protect her own beloved little sister?
“What did you tell the Sinclair witch?” he asked feigning disinterest.
“The easiest lie; the truth,” Marek poetically answered.
By the gods he hated witches. “Good,” he barked already irritated by the witch. He found them beneath him. They had been born on this side of the veil; a product of Adam’s early indiscretions with the common women who had populated this world.
Of course he was desperate, he needed the witch. His power was great. Although it paled in comparison to Adam’s he still had more knowledge than the baby Sinclair Witch. In truth he had to move quickly. The Sinclair witch’s power had grown tremendously over the past few weeks but it was his coupling with his newfound baby sister that frightened him.
She was spectacularly special. She was nothing like her late aunt; who preferred the confinement of her library instead of facing the Trinity head on. She silently shielded her little chicks instead of actively engaging them in battle. Baby sister had no problem using all of her game pieces. A brilliant mind was encased within her tiny, fragile frame. Her intelligent grey eyes never seemed to miss the tiniest clue. She had allowed herself to be blinded in order to attain forgotten knowledge. He had not been fooled by her false act. He knew she had found the lost druid text; a text that could only be read by a blind druid; a necessary safeguard against an invading Roman army.
He knew the text. He had heard of the rumors of its existence a few decades after he had tasted the beauty of Eden. It had traveled from Egypt, crossing the Mediterranean and was entrusted into the hands of the wandering Celts. In their hands it had nearly disappeared forever.
In the centuries that followed it had traveled far; crossing another ocean, always under the watchful eye of a descendant of the first Sinclair Witch. They had changed its language bastardizing its original power; hiding it in the shroud of legend until it was believed to be nothing more than a myth. Time and magick had crafted a new book secured with a separate lock and key that could only be unlocked when the descendant of the Sinclair Witch mated with the Historian.
Time and magickal law had always kept the Sinclair Witch separate yet connected to the Historian…until now.
Their union would bring about the end of the world; a twisted concept in the mind of man. The world would not end…it would burn. The veil would fall and the darkness they had kept tightly leashed would escape. Magick would permeate the very air wiping out the useless and empowering those who knew how to harness the power of the Otherside. The warmth of Eden would once again heat his flesh and he would devour enough power to overthrow his father. He needed to control how they used the book. It could lead to his greatest success just as easily as it could lead to his greatest failure.
“Kieran is aware that his coven will not support him. He stands alone,” Marek’s words were filled with confidence that Kane was wary to share.
He had misplaced his faith before. He would not underestimate the power of the Sinclair Witch again. He should have learned from the past; but sometimes a lesson needed to be repeated.
“You’ve done well,” he praised not meaning a word of it. Marek was simply another pawn in the long chess game he’d been playing.
“Remember your promise,” Marek daringly warned.
Kane snorted in disbelief; his eyes never leaving the dancing fire. Humans, whether magickal or not were always driven by the most base of needs. It was easy to promise a thing if you knew of the weakness your ally possessed.
Marek did not want power, he wanted love.
Love was an easy thing to promise but almost impossible to deliver. Unfortunately it was a lesson he had learned himself in the past. It was a lesson he was still learning from the present. Because faced with the option of choosing between her and the power of Eden; he could not say with honesty that he would make the right choice.
Chapter Seventeen
More Than A Mantra
They’re back.
They’re safe.
He kept repeating the phrase as if the simple mantra was going to make things better. He always got a little edgier before the full moon but this was something else; the curse he had dodged his whole life was catching up with him. She had always assumed the curse would slowly progress; but the man pacing nervously in front of her now was a breath away from being consumed by madness. The next few days could be his last as a human. She glance over her shoulder staring up at the night sky and wished she had the power to push back the rising of the full moon.
She understood the terror that awaited him having suffered through it herself. She had wandered the Earth in wolf form for years, for all she knew it could have been longer. Lately she had been recovering memories, little more than snapshots in the dark; they were leading her to believe she had spent an unbelievable amount of time trapped inside her wolf. She could remember a wilder world, one less populated and crowded by the buildings of man. The very thought that she might have spent that much time separated from her true form was frightening. She wondered how it was she had held onto her sanity as well as any sense of humanity. Not being able to remember, not having any control, was terrifying and something she struggled with daily.
She would never wish such a fate on anyone.
Kieran had left them outside to go in search of Wills; whose own state of mind also seemed to be slightly impaired. She wanted to find a magickal excuse for their shared current state but feared it was just something as simple and mundane as stress. Everyone was killing themselves to save her. Her feet might have given up the hope of running; but it was still an option. It would have spared her from having to witnesses Lucas’ decent into the madness that awaited him; but after he had opened up his heart to her she could not allow him to fall without her.
In the long, silent car ride back from the coven meeting she had devised a failsafe plan should all their labors come to nothing. She would wait until the evening before her trial, she would wait until the last possible moment; she at least owed Wills that much. If she thought the case was hopeless she planned to take Lucas with her and run; in wolf form, forever if necessary. If his curse was going to force him into one form then she would rather roam the world as a wolf by his side than leave him alone. He had never once given up on her she intended to return the favor. She had lived in the wild and survived. She could make sure that Lucas survived as well.
“Is he usually like this?” Daisy quietly asked stepping up behind her.
After his initial aggressive embrace he had released her and resumed his pacing path on the porch. She shook her head. “No,” she answered honestly. “This is the curse rapidly taking hold.”
“What curse?” Daisy asked confused.
“Lucas is
a seventh son,” she explained assuming that Daisy would understand. “I thought you knew,” she added when Daisy stared back at her in confusion.
Daisy shook her head. Her dark brown corkscrew curls brushed across her bare shoulders. “I’m usually kept in the dark. Only non-magickal being here,” she said pointing an indigo tipped finger at herself. “Wills and Kieran think they’re protecting me by keeping things from me.” Tanith could not miss the disappointment that was barely hidden behind her words. “I thought the seventh son was supposed to be lucky?”
It was Tanith’s turn to shake her head. “Not in the Were community. There’s a legend that Kane was gifted with his magick and strength from a being not of this world; by a lover. When he turned on her she cursed him. If he ever lashed out at another that he loved a great witch would banish his seed from growing. He killed his brother and gave rise to the Sinclair Witch,” she ignored Daisy’s gasp of shock and continued; her eyes still fixed on Lucas.
“Kieran’s ancestors cast a spell to ease Adam’s grief. Kane was banished; forced to wander the world alone for seven hundred years. To add to the insult Kane had to offer up a son of his own every generation. Every seventh son of Kane’s stock was born, doomed, cursed with insanity and destined to become a lone, feral wolf forever; repeating Kane’s punishment for sinning against his father.”
Daisy’s sudden silence chilled her. The usually talkative woman had been forced into silence by finally hearing the truth. Lucas had always known that this was his possible fate but it always seemed so far away; then, as time moved on, it seemed that it would never happen. For a while he truly began to believe that the curse was little more than an urban legend to control the Were population.
‘Run Tani.’
The voice from her past was shouting at her again. The realistic sound, the fear that was laced through that voice, forced her to flinch. Her eyes closed and another snapshot came into focus. She memorized every detail to play over in her mind later on.
“Tanith, are you okay?” Daisy asked as she laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.
She nodded committing her focus to the present and everything that was going wrong in the here and now. Their field trip to meet with Kieran’s coven had actually damaged their fragile hope. Most of the coven had chosen to ignore them, a few had left the meeting early unwilling to incur any fall out. Marek had proven to be passively hostile. In the end all they had gained was a possible enemy. Tanith couldn’t blame them. The truth was she had tried to kill Wills, and she would have if Kieran hadn’t stopped her.
She had not liked Wills when she had first met her.
For years she had thought of Kieran as hers, he only had to realize how right they were for each other. He only had to understand that fate had sewn them together the night she became human again for him. It was a story she had seen played out in the myths and legends that existed in this world. A woman turning mortal for the love of a man she spied from afar.
Her illusion of them belonging together was shattered when she met Wills. She was perfect. His eyes followed her from the moment she entered the room until she left. The green monster called jealousy had definitely ridden her hard but not hard enough to commit murder. Something or rather someone had been playing puppeteer that night.
“Can you help him?” Tanith finally asked breaking the muted silence that had settled around them. “Would the stone you used to drop Kieran work on Lucas?”
“No,” Daisy absently replied as she studied Lucas. His fierce pacing had slowed and his mumbled mantra was barely audible. “That only worked on him because he is an elemental witch who, at the time, was stuck in fire mode. But I wonder…,” her voice drifted off and she glanced down at her right hand.
“What?” Tanith asked impatiently.
Daisy turned to face her. She raised her right hand displaying the raw piece of moonstone that she had once worn around her neck. “Kieran’s coven was not a complete dead-end. Matilda told me this stone was not from this world. It has a power that seems to reach beyond a normal moonstone.”
Tanith’s hand unconsciously brushed against the still healing burn Kieran had inflicted upon her in order to save Wills. “Will it-,” she broke off, her eyes drifting towards Lucas.
“I think…I feel that it breaks through doors changing…moods?” she guessed talking more to the stone than anyone else. “It’s almost as if it does whatever is necessary to change the course of a problem. Yes,” she nodded her head emphatically. “That’s it.”
Daisy’s questioning tone did little to instill confidence. “I don’t want to hurt him.” He had endured enough pain in his past she did not wish to see him suffer more; especially since she had probably cause some of that pain.
She had not realized the depth of his feeling for her; but when he had kissed her not only had he released his own feelings he had awoken the dormant ones that she had buried deep within herself. How had she ever missed the depth of feeling she had for this man?
He had always been there for her; always patient and quick with a smile when she had grasped the complicated intricacies of human nature. He had defended her when she did not deserve it and praised her when she did. She couldn’t imagine herself in a world where he did not exist.
“I don’t think the stone will do to him what it did to you Tanith,” Daisy assured her. She must have read the indecision in her eyes. She did not want him to suffer as she had. “However I’m not sure exactly what it will do to him,” Daisy said answering her unspoken question. “He could instantly calm. He could shift suddenly; or he could drop like Kieran did.”
Tanith looked around at their surroundings. If he went unconscious they would need a forklift to get him inside. Then again if they moved him inside and he suddenly shifted the destruction could be immense. It was a difficult decision to make, between the two of them they both decided to take Lucas inside. Better to contain a beast then to set one free.
Daisy seemed confident and she trusted her. It was a new feeling and she hoped it would make Lucas proud of her. “Just keep him focused on you,” Daisy instructed. “Good thoughts breed good thoughts.”
The madness was closing in. His skin felt like it was on fire. A thin layer of sweat glued his cotton shirt to his torso creating a tight second skin. His delicate senses were overly heightened as his body fought the urge to change. His skin and senses always felt a bit uncomfortable this close to the full moon. This was different; this was painful. He shielded his eyes; protecting them from the change in light as the girls dragged him inside. With his mind focused on darker images he had followed them willingly. All he could keep thinking was that as long as he held onto them, as long as he held onto her, they would be safe.
He loved Tanith, she was his world; but Daisy had just as quickly claimed her own space in his heart. She was the little sister he had always wanted; someone small and delicate to take care of. A smile washed over his face slightly calming his racing, irrational thoughts. With his mind freed from some of the anxiety he’d been carrying a small piece of him came charging back as the world began to shift back into focus.
They had gone somewhere tonight and left him alone in the woods. He had been searching for something. Or had he been searching for someone? He was confused and the feeling frustrated him. He audibly growled; startling the girls and making them both flinch.
“Daisy’s going to try and make you feel better,” Tanith told him turning to face him.
He felt Daisy’s hand slip out of his but his hand did not remain empty for long. Tanith’s cool hands closed around both of his squeezing them tightly. He glanced down at their joined hands and smiled.
He exhaled a shaky breath as more of his old self rushed back chasing away the dark, confusing thoughts that had been plaguing him most of the night. He knew he had sounded crazy earlier; hell he probably looked worse than he sounded. He realized now that the mumbling mantra he had been repeating all night had been his subconscious reminding him that everything was sti
ll as it should be. With the heavy fog lifted from his mind he was able to concentrate on the woman in front of him.
The first thing he noticed was the dramatic color change Tanith’s eyes had undergone. Her one blue eye had paled, losing almost all of its pigmentation while her other eye had seemed to absorb the color from her paler eye. If anything it enhanced the exotic beauty she effortlessly carried.
“You’re eyes-,” he gasped running the pads of his thumbs along the ridge of her high arched brows.
Her eyes drifted closed. Whether from pleasure at his touch or embarrassment from the sudden alteration in her unusual eyes he couldn’t tell; he could only hope it was the former. He remained spellbound by her; amazed that she was receptive to his intimate touch. The tips of his fingers traced the elegant angles of her face brushing back the few strands of her hair that obstructed his view of her perfect face. He had waited years to be able to touch her like this; and he knew he would never be able to stop.
“They changed when we were at the coven meeting. I think some of the old magick and aura damage she suffered was inadvertently healed when Matilda touched her.” Daisy explained. She was hoovering somewhere behind him but he barely acknowledged her quiet presence in the room.
“Just when I didn’t think you could get any more beautiful,” he remarked with awe. His thumbs traced the delicate outline of her face meeting at the full, well-rounded curve of her lower lip.