I shook my head in amazement.
‘No wonder Daniel was able to sever the mark between Nathaniel and me. He was the one who created the marking process after the vixra enslaved him.’
“All this time I thought it was the vixra who created the marking process.”
Arthur scoffed. “Daniel didn’t do it alone. Such a powerful spell required our assistance. But vampires proved unworthy of our efforts. They were too rabid to even understand that immortality is a curse, not a gift.”
“When you’re afraid of death it can seem like one I suppose,” I said quietly.
Nathaniel put his arms through the sleeves of a new suit jacket as he stepped out into the hall. It was clearly too small for him but he made it work given he didn’t have any other option. Then he came over and stood next to me as I sat back on the chair completely dumbfounded. He was only a few inches from me but I wanted him closer. I wanted to reach for his hand. To stare up at his eyes and get a reassuring look that things would be alright. I wouldn’t let myself. I kept my eyes focused away from him.
Maybe a bit too focused.
Arthur looked from Nathaniel to me with curiosity. He could sense my desires. My discomfort. He knew.
“So it is true,” Arthur said with a hint of irritation. He reached for Nathaniel’s shirt and pulled him in closer. Then he placed his hand over his chest and felt for a heartbeat. There was none to be found.
“He severed it,” I said. “Daniel severed it. So you don’t have to worry.”
I knew he wanted me to mark Tobias. For Nathaniel to lead whatever shred of the Catach-Brayin we could find and prevent them from causing too much havoc. Apparently, Daniel wanted the same.
Arthur let go of Nathaniel. “You will have to explain yourself.”
“To who?” I asked.
“Everyone. A council of our oldest and wisest vixra are here to discuss the damage this incident has potentially caused and how to properly fix it. But we’re allowing you to tell your side of events before a decision is made. Follow me. We don’t want to expend all your newfound energy on sitting about.”
When I got up and walked with him, Nathaniel was never more than a couple feet away. I discreetly allowed my hand to wander behind me. Nathaniel allowed his icy fingers to graze mine so I would know he was there, following me. And granted the emotions permeating from his skin he wasn’t entirely certain he was comfortable with what Arthur had said either. If we didn’t explain ourselves in a way the vixra found satisfying, I could very well suffer the same fate as Georgeanna.
We walked for what felt like forever through the long halls of the Matthew’s home until we reached a tall wooden door that scaled from floor to ceiling. Arthur turned to me before opening it.
“Be on your best behavior or it will be the worst for you,” he said to me, then he let his eyes drift to Nathaniel. “If either of you steps out of line, we won’t have a choice but to decide your fate for you. We’ve had to do so in the past and we’re not beyond doing so again in the future if it’s for the good of witchling survival.”
I gave a simple nod and took a deep breath, trying to prepare for whatever was behind that door. A sea of faces turned to stare at me once Arthur opened the door.
‘He wasn’t lying. It really is everyone.’
I suddenly had the urge to take a very generous step back and run away. To get as far from here as possible. I only managed one small step before my back met Nathaniel’s cool chest.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he said before giving me a small push, urging me to place one foot in front of another before it looked too awkward.
‘I’ll take being presented before the Catach-Brayin again over this.’
The head of every single vixra family was standing in the gigantic room before me. A room that I could only imagine once served as some sort of ballroom. They wore long deep blue cloaks. Official ceremonial garb if I were to guess. Which meant this was a formal meeting. One lowly kruxa like me were not permitted to enter. Until today.
There were at least a hundred of them. And given that not one of them looked on the low side of fifty in appearance, they were all extremely old.
Whispers erupted throughout the room. I heard my name reach the tip of several lips before they all went silent. They opened a path for me to walk through them. Then there was only the sound of my footsteps and Nathaniel a few feet behind me.
A hole started to burn at the back of my throat. My stomach started doing flips. And the room was overflowing with an imposing demeanor I definitely wasn’t used to. I already knew what it felt like to be degraded, to be thought of as an outcast, and to live as an outcast. And the strange part was that I didn’t mind it. I liked my small town life. I liked going by unnoticed and living peacefully. Until the day Andrew called me for help with those murder cases. The day it all changed. Or was it changed all along? Was this always where I would end up because of the prophecy?
Arthur led me through the path they cleared for me toward the other end. When we reached it, every hair on my arms was standing up.
Tobias and Georgeanna were standing to the right side of a series of chairs. Chairs filled with five men and two women. They were all elderly. Meaning they had to be at least over three-hundred years old.
Arthur gave a small bow before the seated men and women in their dark blue cloaks. I did the same as did Nathaniel. I didn’t know the formalities. Arthur barely even gave me a warning. But then again, how could he have prepared me for something like this? I was being presented before some sort of vixra council. An old one. One that would decide my future. If it was decided that I should be permitted to live at all.
A woman to the far right leaned forward to gain a closer look at me.
“Harper Ashwood,” she said my name calmly. Then she brought up her hand to beckon me. “Come forward.”
My magic threatened to pierce through my sweating palms. I shut my eyes for a brief moment and drew in another deep breath, focusing on all my frustrations like Tobias taught me. Then I stepped closer to the woman, looking directly into her sapphire colored eyes.
“Do you know why you’re here?” she asked me.
I nodded, unsure of whether or not I should speak.
“We’re giving you a chance to explain yourself before judging what happened. A courtesy given the grave offense that’s been laid against you. I understand from Mr. Felix Matthew’s account of events that what happened was due to the actions of another. So tell us, Harper Ashwood. Tell us exactly what happened occurred and why you used your magic on the lawn of the White House. The most heavily watched location in the entire world.”
The anger in the room overwhelmed my senses. They thought I had recklessly revealed myself. Or worse, all witchlings. Their aggravation practically made me dizzy.
My worst fears may very well be realized. And at the same time, this wasn’t a moment to cower.
I stood up straighter and prepared to speak, knowing these next few moments could very well define the rest of my life. However long that might be.
Chapter 13
I tried my best to weave around the various layers of truth and secrets I was never meant to reveal. The fact that I had known Georgeanna was alive for over a month. That Tobias had helped me escape the vixra in my past lives. And that Edmund had been supplying Tobias with vixra blood possibly for decades. There was so much to keep track of. I tried as hard as I could to tell them everything while keeping certain details out.
There were whispers from the men and women behind me. Tobias and Georgeanna exchanged a few knowing glances at each other. And Tobias couldn’t help but send me a death glare after I confessed how he had let me believe that my memories trying to force their way back into my mind wasn’t my blood trying to mark him.
I didn’t fool the woman before me. Or the other council members. I could sense their distrust. It was downright tangible. Like a wave of energy that I could reach out and touch.
“You’re hiding some
thing,” the woman with sapphire eyes said to me.
I shook my head, trying my best to appear as innocent as possible.
She stood up from her chair and walked up to me. Nathaniel tried to stand between the two of us. She sent a luminous green light out of her hand and right into his chest. He groaned in pain and grit his teeth, falling to his knees on the tiled floor and struggling to get back on his feet.
“Don’t forget where you are, vampire,” she said to him.
Nathaniel stayed where he was, knowing he couldn’t do anything to protect me. It wasn’t like being held captive by other vampires. He couldn’t rip their throats out like he did to the other members of the Catach-Brayin when he was on trial before Tobias. This was different. He was answering to a higher power and dared protest against it.
The woman walked right up to me and lifted both hands in the air, placing one on each side of my head. The same green light she used to subdue Nathaniel glowed through her hands and right into my head.
“It’s no use keeping secrets,” she said to me. “You forget who we are.”
‘No, I haven’t forgotten. I just want to keep the little privacy I have left.’
She closed her eyes and pictures started forming in my mind. But not like a vision. And not like the memories of my past lives coming back to me. She was sifting through my thoughts, wandering within the confines of my mind and searching for the truth.
Once she found what she was looking for, I saw her blue eyes open. She gave me a knowing look and I could have sworn I saw a smile cross her face.
“She’s telling the truth,” she said to the crowd of vixra behind us. “The only lie she has told is by willful omission.”
She turned around and walked right over to Tobias standing by Georgeanna’s side. She had her head bowed down in reverence. Tobias couldn’t be bothered.
“There’s much more taking place than meets the eye, council,” she spoke loud enough for everyone to hear and not taking her eyes off of Tobias. He tried to match her defiant eyes with equal boldness but even I could see he was well aware of who he was facing.
The woman continued speaking. “Our slave, Daniel Clark, formerly known as Drostan, kidnapped Harper Ashwood with the intention of removing the mark between her and Nathaniel Stapleton. He did so for vengeance against the vixra after centuries of enforced servitude and the disciplinary action taken against his luxra coven nearly a thousand years ago. He thought that by completing the prophecy he would cause the war we have feared might come to fruition and potentially destroy the vixra. He failed.”
The whispers among the vixra standing behind me got even louder. Words of betrayal and awe until the woman raised her hand to silence them.
“Daniel went as far as to awaken memories of Harper Ashwood’s past lives to reinvigorate her former affections for this man here,” she said with a long finger pointed at Tobias. “Only her affections already belonged to another. Her blood was marking Nathaniel Stapleton.” She took a step closer to Tobias. Her eyes were downright threatening. “It didn’t need to end that way. All of this could have been prevented. Because Tobias Vallas has aided Harper in many lives in an effort to avoid the prophecy’s completion.”
My heartbeat quickened. And I imagined if Tobias had one it would do the same. His secret was out. To the highest members of the vixra no less.
“Do you deny it, Mr. Vallas,” she asked him as if she were speaking to a wild beast. One that might snap if she didn’t speak to him with a dominant voice. She was testing him. She wanted to know if he was capable of keeping his rage locked inside. Unlike Nathaniel who dared step between me and her when she got too close for his liking.
Tobias shook his head. “I do not deny it.”
She stood up straighter as though his answer pleased her. She had established her dominance over him. And for the first time since I had known Tobias, I saw him dip his head in submission. Even Tobias Vallas, the former leader of the most respected and dangerous vampire coven in the entire western world, bowed his head. He knew he was swimming his way upstream if he had even the faintest hope of deceiving them.
“Daniel was a confidant of yours, was he not?” she grilled him.
“Yes.”
“What services did he provide to you?”
I stopped breathing. Was she going to hold him responsible for the vixra blood? If she did, she might hold Nathaniel responsible for breaking witchling law as well.
“The occasional potion here or there. And services from the Boston Police Department. He kept me well-informed on the activity nationwide that he suspected might have to do with vampires. I used his information as a recruiting method for vampires to join my coven.”
“When did you first meet him?” she asked.
“Twelve years ago.”
“And you never noticed that he didn’t age?”
“Twelve years isn’t thirty or forty. His appearance was of no importance to me.”
She stiffened then started to pace back and forth across the council sitting before us.
“Ellinor,” Arthur spoke a few feet from me. I saw the woman turn around to look at him. His face was pleading. Begging her not to do what he and I both knew she might very well feel obligated to do. To tell everyone that vixra blood was circulating outside their inner circles. “We cannot hold others accountable for our own faults. While Miss Ashwood has made a great many blunders over the last few months. She is both young and a kruxa. She cannot be expected to behave as you or I would. Nor can a vampire. No matter how many centuries he has practiced improving himself.”
She took steps toward Arthur. They were slow and almost calculating. As if each one was pinning down a layer of doubt before the heads of vixra households behind us, telling them that Arthur’s words needed to be tested and tried before they were believed.
“What do you have in mind?” she asked.
Was she asking Arthur’s opinion? She clearly had a higher standing over him as a member of the council. One I never even knew existed before entering the room. But something happened in those few seconds as she walked over to him. Some sort of understanding between them.
“Tobias Vallas desired to have Harper mark him in hopes of doing what vixra have wanted for vampires throughout the centuries,” Arthur told her. “He wants to live out a human life. To die. If he did indeed help Harper in her past lives to escape the prophecy, he did so out of selfish reasons.”
“And you’re suggesting that he not be punished for those reasons?” she inquired.
“Of course not,” he said. “Although, I do have a better idea than simply punishing him out of spite. One that would likely please everyone here and help contain the damage that has been done.”
“I’m listening.”
I let out the breath that was building inside me. Was it wrong for me to hope that they wouldn’t be too harsh on him? Regardless of the fact that Tobias had scared the daylights out of me since the first night we met? Or that he lied to me and let me believe my blood was trying to mark him?
“If I may?” Arthur asked.
Ellinor gestured for him to move forward and he walked right up to Tobias.
“Do you wish to die, Tobias Vallas?” Arthur asked him. “Because if that is your only wish then I can grant it right now.”
My heart skipped a beat. I had seen enough bloodshed for a lifetime. I didn’t want to see more. Not after surviving so much.
“No,” Tobias said. “I want to live but to live differently.”
“Differently how?”
“As a mortal. I want to know what it feels like to be human again. To finish the life I had before I was turned into this.” He said the last bit with his hands in the air, as though becoming a vampire wasn’t a life of his choosing. “And I want it with the woman who I’ve loved for centuries.”
Arthur looked from Georgeanna to Tobias and then back at me. I could see the wheels inside his old and potentially much wiser mind turning. He snickered as though he had discov
ered something. A detail that no one else was privy to knowing.
“You will have your wish if you do as I tell you,” said Arthur.
‘No, no, no! He can’t do this. He can’t force me to mark him.’
“Only not in the exact manner you wish it,” Arthur continued.
Tobias glared back at him. It was a strange thing to witness. Tobias was a man of power. A man of refined taste and centuries of knowledge. He was older than Arthur. He had been through more battles and more bloodshed. And yet, Arthur stood taller than him. Not only in physical stature but in his power.
Arthur raised his hand up in the air and a green light seeped through his palm. A glowing rope wrapped around Tobias’s throat and tightened like a noose.
‘No! Don’t kill him!’
I was ready to cry out. To protest. To do anything I could to stop him. A pair of strong arms came up behind me and latched on tight. I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Don’t even think about it,” Edmund said from behind me. He had been standing a few feet away this whole time in a deep blue cloak. Watching. Waiting. Maybe even supervising the young kruxa who couldn’t be trusted to have complete control over her magic.
Georgeanna threw herself in front of Tobias and tried to stop Arthur.
But it was too late. I could see Tobias reach for his neck, gripping it like someone had a pair of hands wrapped around his throat.
When he moved them away there was a thin green light glowing just above his collarbone. The same that Daniel and Georgeanna had. Then it faded away as if it never existed. But it was still there. I knew it was.
“What have you done?” Georgeanna screamed.
“What needs to be done,” Arthur answered calmly.
The truth of what just occurred struck me. Arthur had turned Tobias into a slave. The magic around his throat would bind him to the vixra for as long as Arthur willed it.
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