The Witch of the Prophecy

by Victoria Jayne

  The woman walked the remaining five steps as if she were a runway model until she reached his couch. She twirled and lowered herself to a seated position. Temporarily distracted, Aric couldn’t help but appreciate the grace and poise as she crossed her long legs.

  Aric, the human and the side half in control, remained standing with a good distance between them despite his wolf’s distrust. It wasn’t every day an attractive woman sought him out. So, he’d give her a chance to explain.

  “Would you mind telling me who you are and what you’re doing here?” he asked politely. No point in getting all bent out of shape over a pretty woman stumbling upon his home.

  Canting her head to the side, she wore a blank expression.

  For a full minute, she and Aric stared at one another. The intense eye contact had his wolf on edge but not pouncing. His human skin itched at the awkward, unnatural lack of interaction. He didn’t care how fine she was, staring at him like that cost her some attractiveness points.

  Typically, if someone stared at him in such a fashion, Aric’s wolf would take it as a sign of aggression and push him toward attack. His wolf paced within him letting his distrust be known without the urge for violence. While the wolf was wary of the female, he seemed curious as well.

  Patience was not Aric’s wolf’s forte. His wolf was more a take-action-ask-questions-later type beast. What was it about this woman that felt so off?

  The woman offered no response to him. She just looked through him.

  “Well?” He broke the silence.

  “Selene.” The name trickled off her tongue.

  He waited.

  Nothing more came. Aric had asked two questions and gotten only one answer. Sighing in frustration, he ran a hand through his tangled, shoulder-length, multi-toned brown hair. “Right.” Aric clapped his hands together. “So, good talk.” He waved a hand to the door. “On your way then.”

  She lifted herself like a ballerina. With movements so fluid, Aric swore she rehearsed them. He couldn’t help but be captivated by them.

  Perhaps that was the reason for the delay in his reaction when her hand shot toward him. With wide eyes, his wolf growled, and it rumbled from his chest. Her fingers curled around his wrist before he could pull his arm away.

  It burned in a way. It tingled like a million tiny pins pricked Aric’s skin. Her touch felt as though he had sat on his hand for an hour and the blood was returning to it. Snapping his jaws, his wolf howled in discomfort. Aric, the human, froze in confusion.

  Selene held him tighter. It took Aric what felt like an eternity before he found the ability to yank his arm back. With a little twist, his arm came back to him. Her hand lowered.

  Aric rubbed his wrist glaring at her. “The fuck?”

  “Don’t you recognize me?” Her features shifted into a wounded expression.

  “No.” Aric stepped back from her again. The cramped trailer didn’t offer much in the way of room to separate them but Aric needed all he could get. It wasn’t that he was afraid of her. He just wanted to be out of her grasp. Everything about it was wrong. Sizzling pain at first now lingered like a bad sunburn. With his wolf scratching at his insides to be released, Aric grit his teeth forcing the animal down.

  She took a small step forward.

  “Stop!” Aric held up his hands. “Don’t.”

  She jolted. “But—”

  “I don’t know what you are. I don’t know who you are. But I do know I want you out of my house.”

  “You don’t mean that,” she suggested in a whimper. Again her hand came toward him.

  The rumble in his chest was his wolf’s warning to the female.

  When her hand snapped back, Selene practically pouted. Though, she did step away from him. “I thought wolves knew their mates when they saw them.”

  “Lady—”

  “Selene,” she whined. “I know I’m not a wolf. I know I must be a disappointment.” Were those tears in her eyes? “But we are mates. Didn’t you feel it? I didn’t believe it. When I touched you, I felt it. Didn’t you feel it?” The words spilled past her lips in such rapid succession Aric almost couldn’t follow her.

  “I felt something.” He couldn’t deny that.

  “The mate bond,” she urged.

  Scrubbing the back of his neck with his left hand, he considered her statement. He had never been mated before. Though, he understood how it worked. He’d seen it enough. Others had explained a physical feeling when mates touched for the first time. However, he was hard-pressed to believe it felt that uncomfortable. He was pretty sure it should be euphoric. Why would anyone keep going back to what he had just felt?

  “I’m a witch, a seer,” she confessed, interrupting his thoughts. “So I’m not just some human who knows about wolves. Have you met a seer before? Have they told you of your mate? I can’t see my future. I can see others’, though.”

  He eyed her skeptically.

  “I grabbed your arm, and… wow.” She smiled then. “I mean, wow. The zing, you felt it right?”

  Zing? Would he call that a zing? Maybe? It was pretty electrifying. He continued to rub his wrist.

  “When I touched your arm, I saw—”

  “I thought you couldn’t see your future,” he barked, interrupting her because he was not buying her bullshit. If she was a witch, she could do spells. The tingling lingered. He needed to talk to his pack. He needed to know more about what it felt like to meet a mate. It didn’t feel right.

  “I can’t.” Again the injured expression spread across her face.

  Shouldn’t he feel something when she looked like that? Shouldn’t he want to comfort her? Shouldn’t his wolf be drawn to her? She repelled the wolf. Aric just felt annoyed. She felt wrong.

  “I can see yours though.” She tempted him as though offering some kind of forbidden fruit.

  “I have done well for myself without a seer,” he countered. As his skin crawled in her presence, he sensed a buzz in the air causing him to twitch.

  First, her gaze lowered, then her chin followed. “The vampire emperor has met the sun. The prophecy is in motion.” Her voice became monotone. “There is a vampire whose heart beats for a witch, but she belongs to a wolf. That vampire shall take the seat.”

  He gaped at her. “You think I’m the wolf in some prophecy?” He blinked.

  It started slowly, with a tickle in the back of his throat. However, it wasn’t long before his laughter grew in both volume and liveliness. Aric let out an overexcited belly laugh. Doubling over with one hand covering his stomach, he used the other to slap his knee.

  “What?” The ceremony in her voice was lost, replaced with annoyance.

  His eyes watered as he continued to laugh so hard he had trouble breathing. Coughing, he shook his head and waved a hand trying to rein it in.

  “What?” Selene demanded with a stomp of her foot.

  Finally, catching his breath, Aric answered, “I don’t know who has been feeding you this, lady.”

  “Selene,” she growled with a glare.

  Uncontrollably, the chuckles bubbled up again. Now he felt joy around the woman. She was batshit crazy. Inhaling deeply, he regained his composure easier this time. “I’m sorry,” he said half-breathless. “I’m sorry.”

  Selene balled her fists and gritted her teeth.

  The jovial moment passed, and Aric straightened. He had to admit; she was actually kind of cute. Even more so when she was angry, he mused.

  “I’m not some prophetic wolf,” he sighed. “I’m just a simple guy.” He looked around his shabby 1970’s trailer. It had threadbare, mustard yellow upholstery, shag carpet, and a slight stink of a wolf. “You’re looking for some sort of King Arthur type knight, sweetheart.”

  “Selene!” she corrected him again.

  “Selene,” he repeated with a sheepish grin. “I’m not your wolf.”

  Her eyes clouded. Aric’s wolf shot up within him. Gone was the laughter. Her pale hand reached for him. Aric found he couldn’t m
ove away. Gripping him again, the pain shot up his arm and through his wolf, quelling his beast. Aric bellowed in pain and fell to his knees. What was she doing to him?

  “I have seen the prophecy. I have seen the wolf,” she roared, staring down at the man on his knees. “You are the wolf of the prophecy; you will give Perci his rightful place.”

  Crippled by his inability to call his wolf forward, Aric gawked up at the woman from his knees while shocks radiated from her touch through him. Snapping his human jaws at her felt like his only recourse. Attempting to use the strength of the wolf to get out of her vice-like hold proved futile. His wolf was nowhere to be found. Nothing worked.

  “Selene.” A masculine voice called from Aric’s door.

  Aric’s head whipped to see who beckoned the woman. A man stood with his hands behind his back. He was clad in a three-piece suit and had impeccably combed, black hair.

  “We might have to go with plan B,” Selene informed the man.

  The surge of whatever she did to him pulsed through their touch, and Aric’s throat closed. His muscles taut in an attempt to fight it off were ineffective. Choking on energy she forced through their joined skin, Aric’s vision blurred. His lids fluttered closed before weakness conquered him.

  Collapsing to the thick carpeting with a thud, Aric’s world went black.

  Chapter 6

  Lying on Divina’s floor, Rori interlaced his fingers on his chest, closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep, reliving the events of the previous night.

  Rori sat on the corner of the hotel room bed staring at the spinning card in his fingers. Any human, or well anything, watching him would see a man staring off into space holding what looked like a wedding invitation. However, what he held was much more than that.

  A vampire summoned by the Ember Witches was a pretty big deal. A vampire summoned by the Ember Witches twice in one lifetime was unheard of. Yet, Rori held the black card in his hand. The silver calligraphy taunted him. He’d done the bidding of the Ember Witches before. He wasn’t sure he wanted to do it again.

  Who was he kidding? It had nothing to do with want. It had to do with strength. Rori wasn’t sure he could do it again. The last time he did as they asked, it nearly broke him. He couldn’t handle that again.

  They would only summon him for one reason. The only matter the witches had in common with him was nothing he wanted to discuss. Rori twirled the card and sighed in resignation. With his left hand, he scrubbed his face. He could sit there for a millennia telling himself he wasn’t going to accept their invitation. In reality, when the Ember Witches summoned, you went.

  The hand-drawn filigree along the edges of the card were meant to disguise enchantments to keep the message of the card hidden from all but the intended recipient. The gothic romance of the card called to times long since passed and would remind the recipient not only of the age of the coven but the power. As with most supernatural beings, with age came strength.

  Despite the ornate design hiding the spell, the card held a simple message. The invitation didn’t need to be addressed to anyone in particular. It just needed to tell the intended recipient where to go and when.

  Ursuline Convent

  1 a.m.

  Amusement had filled Rori the first time he’d received an invitation. Awaking to its appearance one evening at his bedside had offered a bit of excitement. With no sign anyone had been in his room aside from the card laid upon the unoccupied pillow, Rori fell for the mystique of it all.

  Not this time. For all he knew, it was the same bloody card again, holding the same message. Why waste cards when they can just keep using the same one over and over?

  The reappearance of an invitation to meet with the Ember Witches lacked the mysterious aura the second time around. There was a cost to helping the witches—a debt he had paid tenfold in his opinion.

  While Rori wished he was strong enough to rebuke them, to refuse to attend their meeting, a flicker of hope lit within him. He’d be able to see her again. It would be the only reason they called him. They needed them together and while Rori was no weak vampire, emotionally, when it came to her, he had no defenses.

  No one met him at the gate when arrived the second time. Rori walked alone as if he had been there a million times before. No one appeared to help navigate the small maze of hedges for him. He walked through the grounds. No one was at the door to usher him through the dark museum.

  With the dimmest of lighting casting shadows and a sinister feel, marble statues depicting historical Catholic lore were protected behind fancy iron gates or plexiglass cases. The ornate floral and bejeweled robes of religious leaders displayed upon the walls with plaques describing the deeds of their former wearers were yellowed from age. Old oil paintings hung from the wall with only small accent lights upon them giving the subjects evil expressions and the appearance that their eyes followed Rori as he walked through the halls. A chill ran through him as he passed a bust of someone he did not recognize.

  Making his way through the halls like this was his home, and he wasn’t a guest, he wondered over the intention of the witches this time. He wasn’t sure if they trusted him or if they trusted the fact he knew just how powerful they were.

  On a sublevel below the basement, in a clichéd hidden-from-human’s room, Rori found them. The same place he had met them previously. Though he’d only been there one time before, this place left an impression.

  It wasn’t the whole coven. There was no way to fit the entire coven in one room. No, what was before him, seated at a large horseshoe-shaped table, were the thirteen male and female witches dressed in linen ceremonial robes. These were the ones in charge of different factions of the coven, the Ember Liderii.

  With the flickering of torchlight that lined the lower room, Rori observed the room of witches. They varied in age and abilities, gender and race, but their power pulsed through the air like a beating heart. The hoods of their robes were down, revealing their differences. It seemed the youngest were seated toward the opening of the half-oval table. Their appeared ages increasing the closer they sat toward the center.

  Each witch sat with their hands clasped upon the table and backs straight. Their gazes were intent upon Rori as he entered. Of course, they had been expecting him, and he was only a little late. Though, not one witch showed a hint of emotion in their expressions. Each blank slate stared at him while he made his way toward them.

  Taking a deep breath, incense filled his nose and did nothing to calm his nerves. Rori entered the horseshoe of their table bracing himself for what they’d demand of him. A lone chair waited for him at the center. Tugging at the bottom of his pinstripe vest laid over a crisp, white shirt with sleeves he had rolled to the elbow, Rori lifted his chin. Once he took his seat, he crossed his jean-clad legs and clasped his hand over his knee. He steeled himself mentally for what was about to come, while maintaining a calm facade.

  Despite the number of witches present, the room was silent. Wafting through the air, as if carried upon the scents of burning sweet spices and flickering flames, was the promise of magic held in the gathering of witches. Similar to the air during an electrical storm, their power filled the room. They offered no greetings or introductions. They’d be unnecessary. Rori may not have known all their names, but reputations preceded them.

  The witch at the center, a gaunt, older woman with waves of ashen hair cascading down her back, Esmine, was the one who represented the witches of the Council of Others. She was the head of all the witches in the country. However, witches didn’t have jurisdiction over vampires. Rori’s respect for her was solely due to the sheer power the woman harnessed.

  Esmine spoke first. “Roricus Fromm.” She announced his full name in a somber, formal tone. “You have been summoned before the Ember Witches to further your role in the prophecy.”

  Rori rolled his eyes. This was too much ceremony for him. He let out a heavy sigh. “I have an appointment. Can we cut through the pomp and circumstance stuff and just ge
t to what you are asking of me?”

  Silence.

  With a groan he folded his arms over his chest preparing for a long night. The one thing that irked him about witches was that everything with them was a big formality. They had a million steps and had to say a poem before anything could get done.

  Esmine continued as though he had said nothing. “The prophecy has been set into motion.”

  Rori stiffened, lowered his crossed leg to fold his arms over his chest. The prophecy was a sore subject with the vampires. Not only did it call for the death of their oldest and most powerful representative, but also laid blame on Rori’s kind for the humans’ discovery of all that goes bump in the night.

  “I am aware” was all Rori offered to the conversation.

  Though, it wasn’t a conversation so much as a sentence being handed down to him. The witches before him were similar to judges offering their ruling. Rori internally snorted as the idea crossed his mind. The witches had no authority over him. However, he wasn’t eager to discover the penalties for ignoring the Ember Witches.

  “You did very well with the first portion of this,” Esmine said in praise.

  Rori clenched his jaw. The “first portion of this” had changed him in a way he had never thought imaginable. A man walking the earth for over 350 years should have had better defenses for such things.

  Esmine nodded when Rori remained silent. “We understand it was difficult for you.”

  “Fuck you,” Rori spat. He knew fake empathy when he saw it.

  To the left of Esmine sat a much younger, dark-haired woman, Florence. Rori had seen her around before, outside of the convent. She kept to herself, but her large, empathetic eyes filled with sorrow often followed him. Esmine was the leader of the coven; she was the mouthpiece, so it surprised Rori when Florence spoke.

  “She was never meant for you Rori,” she said with compassion clear in her voice leaving Rori questioning her authenticity.