‘The crowning magic. Victor must have made my visions even stronger.’
“I saw you,” I said, hearing feet move around me. I shifted my eyes to see what was happening. The other vampires encircling us were moving about, watching me with intrusive eyes.
“Leave,” Tobias commanded them. “Your work is done for the night.”
I didn’t speak again until the sound of their footsteps were far enough away for me to feel as though we had some sense of privacy.
“They made you watch me burn. The vampire put something inside of me.”
His shoulders slumped a little. As if the memory was still as potent as the day it happened.
“It was a long time ago, G. We don’t have to speak of such things.”
“Yes, we do,” I said.
“Why?”
“Careful, kruxa,” Victor’s voice entered my mind, whispering through my conscious in a way that still made me cringe. “We made a deal.”
I turned my head around and sat up to see Victor leaning against the wall twenty feet away. Tobias held my hand until I was straight up as if he expected me to fall.
“You!” I shouted, crawling onto my hands and knees like an animal about to pounce.
“What?” Tobias asked, seemingly confused.
“You wouldn’t remember,” I said. “He lured you!”
I stood up from the slab where I was a half human half witchling only moments ago and summoned my magic from my hands. Scarlet red light burst through my hands like lightened striking from the sky and shot Victor right in the chest. It was the same type of magic he used on me in the cell. In another life. In a vision. He was the same Roman soldier. He hid something inside of me. He tortured my husband before my eyes. Then he forced him to watch me burn alive. Or was it just a dream? A vision? A long lost memory that I only now recovered? Could I trust it?
‘No. I felt the flames. I felt his magic. I couldn’t have imagined it!’
“G, stop!” Tobias reached for my arm. My magic struck Tobias and tossed him aside like he was nothing more than a human trying to intervene on a god’s will.
Victor summoned his magic and brought his hands closer to his chest, holding his hands before him as a ball of flames and crowning magic weaved into a sphere and pushed my magic back. I could feel the force behind his magic. It was incredibly strong. I was used to him being able to overpower me. This wasn’t our first violent encounter. Only this time, I wasn’t prepared for the shock of losing. Not when I had never felt so strong and I could sense the crowning magic he gave me swirling inside my blood like a life force of its own.
“Don’t be foolish, kruxa,” he whispered in my mind. “I’ve lived well over a thousand years. You will only make a fool of yourself.”
“I’m not a kruxa anymore,” I screamed at him.
“No. You’re not. But you will always be so to me.”
His magic overpowered mine in an instant and I went flying back into the other side of the cavern. Vampires rushed back to the large space, watching as I slowly recovered and stood up. A sound like a hiss escaped my lips as I felt anger rise up from inside me. A rage I had often endured and never allowed to control me. I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t even give it a second thought as I rushed with a newfound speed I never had before.
“Not so fast,” Lenora said as she shot her blue luxra magic through her hand and stopped me dead in my tracks.
I fell to the ground as her magic dove into my body and shocked me down to my bones.
Tobias rushed over to me as if he didn’t even care that I had just shot him backward a solid twenty feet.
Lenora’s magic didn’t fade away. She kept it swirling over me, tying me down to the floor like chains weighing down my arms and ankles. I had just relived a memory of being tied up and burned alive. I didn’t fancy being tied down again.
‘Let me go! You don’t understand! You don’t know what Victor has done!’
“Calm down,” Tobias ordered me in a stern voice.
“I’m not sure staying calm is the best idea,” Lenora said, easing her magic away from my body and letting it float across the space of the cavern. Pieces of the cavern hanging above us were crashing down in shattered pieces. Lenora’s magic disintegrated the pieces into nothing as they turned to dust the second they hit the ground. If she hadn’t had her wits about her we all might have been crushed. Or trapped for eternity from a cave in.
Once the ground beneath us wasn’t shaking anymore she finally let her magic stream back into her body, looking a little exhausted from the effort.
“Lenora, go lay down,” said Tobias. “You’ve done enough for one night.”
“More like enough for a few months.” Lenora leaned against the slab and I could tell she needed to do as he said and go rest. She expended most of her magic on helping me break free of the vixra with her spell. Then she stopped the cavern from caving in. It was a great deal more than any normal luxra could handle in a single day. I wondered for a moment how long she had saved her magic to perform the task. Especially after freeing Tobias before she freed me.
Those thoughts only lasted for a matter of seconds. Soon all I could hear was the heavy pumping of her blood inside her body. Her pulse. The rush of blood going in and out of her heart, sending more blood to her limbs as veins in her throat swelled. Moving up and down as her heartbeat gradually slowed down.
The dry spot at the back of my throat started to burn. I wiggled under Tobias’s weight, holding me down with his hands over my wrists. He knew exactly what I was thinking. And what I was smelling. The sweet scent of Lenora’s witchling blood was practically intoxicating.
A sharp prick stung my gums. My fangs were wanting to pierce all the way through and finish forming in my mouth. But the transition wasn’t complete yet. My fangs couldn’t tear into her throat. At least not yet.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Victor spoke in my mind. “There might come a day when you need the likes of that luxra.”
The sound of Victor’s voice set me off. My temper was flaring and I wanted to tear him apart. When I saw him all I could recall was the armor he wore. The Roman uniform that set him apart from my people and made him a target.
“I need to be alone with her,” Tobias said softly.
Lenora wondered out through an opening in the corner, looking as though she was sleepwalking and completely drained.
Victor dusted himself off and headed out of the cavern, stepping over the hills of dust from what was left of rocks nearly caving in around us.
“Watch what you reveal to him, kruxa,” Victor spoke in my mind. “I’ve worked too hard and come too far for you to screw things up now. I cast the spell that made you reincarnate under absolute secrecy. I can easily cast a spell to end both of you here and now. Don’t tempt me.”
I watched his backside as he walked out, wishing I could sear holes through him with my eyes. It took every ounce of willpower I had remaining not to shove Tobias off and lunge at him.
“I’m going to start searching for other potential Gandira sites,” Victor said without turning around or stopping. “I want to take Ryker with me.”
“Granted,” Tobias answered as Victor rushed out of the cavern without another word.
I was alone with Tobias. I was a vampire. Well, almost. And I finally understood how vampires were driven to such recklessness. Only this time it wasn’t just a vision. I was experiencing it first hand. The thirst inside of me was maddening. And if I didn’t feed, it would only get worse.
2
I must have been in quite a state because Tobias looked at me with such intrusive eyes. An intrusion that wasn’t there before. At least when I was nothing more than a witchling. Almost like I was a mystery he needed to solve. I thought I saw it centuries ago only to have any hopes of such feelings inside of him dashed when he forced me to leave. I hoped night after night that he would come to find me in the American colonies. But he never came.
Tobias let his hand off my wr
ist and pushed away the strands of hair in my face. Then he let it slide down my cheek. His skin was so smooth. Just like I remembered it. But not freezing cold as it was before.
“Give me a chance to explain,” he said softly.
“You knew?” I mumbled, trying to control the rage inside my chest threatening to come barreling out. I didn’t want the first few minutes of our new agreement as partners to be followed by attacking him. And yet, the urge was steadily growing by the second. I needed to let out the energy brewing within me. To aim it somewhere. Anywhere.
He nodded. “Victor confessed to me only a matter of weeks ago that he had been luring me the day you died in your first life. A life you spent with me in Caledonia. We fought off the Romans together. Many times. Until Victor amassed a sizable force full of vampires. We weren’t ready for such an attack. Then he killed you and forced me to watch.”
“And you still work with him? You trusted him to help turn me? To give me his crowning magic?”
“What we’re facing now is far more important than what we’ve faced together in past lives, G. We have to cooperate with him to save the coven and prevent any further exposure. I don’t like it any more than you do. But if the magic he gave you helps us then it was worth it no matter what may come.”
It made no sense to me. How could he put faith in such a man who did harm to us both?
‘Is Victor still luring him somehow? Just to get him to cooperate?’
He took hold of my hand and helped me up. My body swayed from side to side. I couldn’t get steady.
“Easy,” he said as if I was an untamed horse. And given the way I felt inside, I might as well have been.
I reached for my throat and groaned as the pain in the back got worse and worse. My eyes opened wide. I could feel the fangs gradually getting longer and pushing through my gums. But it was slow. Like a child growing adult teeth.
Tobias led me to a table nearby. It was covered in an array of glass bottles. Only these bottles weren’t like those at the Gandira facility. They were filled with blood. My blood.
“You drained me?” I asked.
“Lenora took some of your blood as you were dying for my best warriors to drink for day walking abilities. But given so many have fallen or abandoned the coven, there aren’t many I can choose from to give it to. We will change that as we find those who are more worthy in months to come.”
He took one of the vials and removed the top. “Here,” he said.
“You want me to drink my own blood?”
“More so than I want you to burn alive in the sun, yes. It will calm your thirst enough so you can focus on hunting without making a scene.”
Hunting? Good lord. I chose this for myself. Therefore I had no one else to blame. Even so, the thought of having to hunt humans was as repulsive as it was divine. Just the thought of blood made me want to find the nearest human and tear into their skin. To feel the hot liquid seeping out of their veins and into my body.
I took the glass vial in my hand and swallowed it in one large gulp, closing my eyes so I didn’t have to look at it. It was glorious. The dryness to the back of my throat was instantly satiated. I could feel the magic inside my blood from only moments ago coursing through my veins and replenishing me. Down to the very tips of my fingers and toes.
Tobias smiled as I opened my eyes. “There’s more where that came from.”
“I thought I was going to drink from you,” I said.
He looked at me with confused eyes.
“That’s what I did in the vision. You said you taught the Catach-Brayin to control their cravings for human blood by one vampire drinking and the others learning to drink from that vampire.”
“What else did I say in your vision?”
“Plenty,” I said, grateful that I could still hang one thing over his head. He would never know what he did in the vision. I would never tell him. Not about the way he kissed my arm or the tenderness with which he held me. Or how I managed to throw him into a wall with very little effort with the crowning magic in my system.
His eyes looked into mine and tried to find something. I couldn’t make out what. But he was searching. A sign perhaps that he hadn’t done anything too brash in my vision.
“I know you must be furious with me, G, but you must know one thing. I wanted you to do this because despite the long history we’ve had, and despite the number of times I’ve entered your life only to leave it, we’re facing something that cannot be conquered alone. Victor has made mistakes. As have I. But between the three of us, we might stand a chance to stop what’s coming.”
‘I’m not sure if Victor’s idea of stopping it aligns with ours.’
“Victor didn’t seem too concerned with exposure of our kind a matter of months ago. He was helping to cause it. He’s the reason why the President knew our kind exist. He might even be the reason Gandira started hunting down you’re coven.”
“But he’s here now. And he wants to stop what’s coming. Victor and I have had petty feuds over the centuries. I only realized once he told me what he had done to you all those centuries ago why I held such hatred for him as well as admiration. Only I had been lured and I couldn’t place where my anger was coming from. As far as I know, he’s the only vampire in the world who can lure other vampires. He’s the most powerful vampire in the world and one of the oldest. He saw fit to turn me to help him over the centuries. To find other vampires and show them another way before the vixra could completely destroy us. He’s fallen prey to thinking of me as a traitor. I did the same for obvious reasons. We have to move beyond that now. For all our sakes. I believe Victor understands this. If you do not trust him, then trust me. I know its a stretch for you, but I need you to trust me. Especially if we are going to rule this coven together.”
“I wouldn’t have let you turn me if I wasn’t willing to place my faith in you,” I said softly.
He lifted his hand to place it over my cheek once more. All those centuries ago this small gesture of affection would have made my heart race. There was no heartbeat lurking inside of me anymore. And no way for him to sense how he was starting to have the same effect on me now that he once had.
I drifted away from his touch, not wanting to give him the wrong idea when my eyes held onto his for a moment too long.
There was too much history between us. Too much hurt. And for now, far too much thirst. The small vial of my blood wasn’t enough.
“Do you think it’s working yet?” I asked. “Can I walk in the sun?”
He smiled. “Only one way to find out.”
In all my years of being a witchling, I thought I had experienced life in a way that no one else could. Magic running through my veins gave me an entirely different perspective. Feeling the emotions of others, sharing in their pain, their joy, having visions, and the occasional unexpected flare of my magic when I wasn’t expecting it gave me a way of living that was unlike anything humans experienced.
This was entirely different.
I always frowned on vampires. All witchlings do. As I stepped outside the deep tunnel I understood why. Witchlings don’t know what life feels like for a vampire. The way the trees swept by me as I ran, the scent of the nearby stream, the sound of deers running through the woods, and the shifting of the clouds above me. It all came into focus. I could see the moon and the stars with new clarity that was completely foreign to me. It filled me with awe and excitement. And I hadn’t even tasted human blood from the vein yet.
Tobias took me down the mountainside. The nest was somewhere deep inside Mount Evans. Something I only realized once we got outside and I could see the nighttime skyline of Denver lit up in a sea of gold. No one was driving down the highways. It was the dead of night and the entire city was still on lockdown. The only people we would be able to find were police or secret service agents. I didn’t care which one. I just wanted to hold a warm human body in my hands.
The air held a different feeling entirely as I ran down the mountainside alon
g Tobias and we reached the lower tree line. It wasn’t chilly like it was only hours ago. My skin was so cold that it could withstand the temperatures. I didn’t feel the crisp and icy touch of the breeze raising the tiniest hairs on my arm. I could even run at night without my leather jacket on. And most of all, I moved faster than I thought possible. I knew vampires were fast. And yet, I never experienced anything like this before. Nor was I expecting it.
The world swept by me with impossible speed. The trees. The wild animals. I could sense them all. I could even hear them as they ate in the quiet of the night.
Tobias leaped from one rock to another over a crag. I easily followed him and jumped through the air, controlling my descent back to Earth and landing softly on my feet with barely even a sound.
It was no wonder vampires evaded witchlings over the centuries. With speed and agility like this, any vampire could get away. The only thing that helped the vixra was having magical weapons to even the score. And the predictability of blood lust getting the best of vampires in the end.
Tobias came to an abrupt stop over a cliffside. Rocks fell from the edge as I stopped behind him and ran directly into his backside, quickly stepping away from the awkward feel of his body in my hands.
“What do you think so far?” he asked me.
I didn’t immediately answer. There was an owl hooting in the air, searching for prey down below in the darkness of the night. The sound his wings made as he flew was incredible. Then he swooped down to the earth and snatched a screeching mole in his long talons. My senses were so heightened. Everything was fascinating. And distracting.
“G,” he tried to get my attention once more.
“I can see why vampires put up such a fight over the years,” I answered him.
“Witchlings are always so arrogant,” he said. “We may be the bottom of the magical food chain but we have a great deal to live for. Especially if we can control our thirst.”
‘Which most can’t. You know that better than anyone.’
Fated Realms: (Witchling Wars: Vampire Echelon Book 2) Page 2