Faults in FateA Vein Chronicles Novella

by Anne Malcom

  He gave her a long and pointed look that told her he saw a lot more than even the mirror showed her.

  Then he left.

  Sophie had to actively catch herself from chasing after him.

  Shit was not going well.

  And they still had the baddest witches in all existence to deal with. She was more ready to deal with them than the complicated emotions she was battling with about her wolf.

  Shit, why could she not stop thinking of him like that?

  As hers?

  Sophie sat cross-legged in the middle of the heptagram she’d drawn in rock salt. The shape itself was extremely powerful in her craft, which was the reason for the rock salt and the white candles burning on every available surface. A couple of deep purple candles also burned around them, evenly spaced. Although it was dangerous to invite the power they conducted into the room, she needed them since they helped to fuel the power of divination. Hence the heavy dose of white, and the buckets of sea salt she’d had shipped in from Greece.

  She needed the purity of the objects to cast away anything attracted to Sophie’s power, and to cast away the worst of Sophie’s power itself, the thing inside her she had yet to learn how to control.

  She failed to feel bad about her lack of action toward the power unrealized that might have the power to destroy her and everything around her. She’d been busy. She’d get around to it once she’d stopped the enslavement of humanity.

  She was using the heptagram for the purpose of seeing the future. That in itself was risky business—on the occasion that it worked. Nine times out of ten, the spell did nothing but make sure you had a sore ass from sitting too long and a lot of salt to vacuum up.

  Or for someone else to vacuum up.

  Sophie didn’t clean.

  But Sophie reasoned a lot of things had changed since the last time she’d used the spell in the sixties to see if her bob and bangs were really going to be as timeless as she’d been told by a certain member of The Kinks.

  Now she’d not only manipulated time to see a glimpse of what was ahead in it, she’d fricking traveled through it. Granted, it was not on purpose, and Sophie had been dropped smack-dab in the middle of London in the 1900s. Not her first choice. Or her two hundredth. Did you know how bad that place smelled before they’d put in a sewer system? Isla starting that great fire on Pudding Lane was the best thing that had happened to Londoners’ nostrils.

  She had yet to take any jaunts through the ages since. She really hoped she’d learn how to drive the proverbial DeLorean, because she wanted to ride a dinosaur at some point. Maybe even take Isla. But knowing her vampy bestie, she’d inadvertently step on the wrong plant or kill the wrong Neanderthal and fuck up the future. So of course she’d be coming.

  Sophie reasoned that since she had the ability to travel through time and spout out prophecies from millennia ago, she could get a tiny peek at what was in store for them, maybe even a glimpse at how future Sophie managed to figure out a banishing spell or potion.

  She wasn’t going to trouble herself with the fact that this probably wouldn’t pan out under the whole time-travel-rules scenario. She didn’t need to know the rules to break them.

  She sat toward the top of her heptagram, facing the metaphorical sun and the sign for Sunday. It then went clockwise, each point representing a planet and its corresponding day of the week. Venus—Friday, Mercury—Wednesday, the Moon—Monday, Saturn—Saturday, Jupiter—Thursday and Mars—Tuesday.

  She was clutching a mug filled with the dark liquid that would work as the conductor of her spell.

  It wasn’t blood. Yes, witches needed a sacrifice to perform rituals, but only dangerous magic required blood. This was a hefty swig of her last bottle of aged whisky that was more precious than her blood.

  Technically she was meant to have a ceremonial glass goblet, but she’d smashed it one night when she’d filled it with tequila and went hunting for rogue goblins Isla accidently set loose after too many margaritas. She’d reasoned she’d need even more tequila to get them back than she’d drunk to let them out.

  Instead of the centuries-old goblet, she was using a coffee mug that read ‘Working Harder than an Ugly Stripper’—it was almost the same.

  “Philyra, ancient witch, I call to thee,” Sophie began, calling to the goddess of divination—otherwise known as her great ancestor. She had powerful blood but wasn’t one to brag. “To show me the future I cannot see.” Power wound around the words, even with the horrific rhyme, and the salt started to vibrate and roll on the wooden floor. “Take me through the door for which you hold the key, show me the future I cannot see.”

  Sophie’s voice deepened as more power drained from the candles and the points of the heptagram came into her being.

  The grains of salt shot into the air, keeping their perfect shape, only now in Sophie’s direct eye line. Which kind of meant it was working.

  The fact that she was no longer in the middle of her apartment, wondering if the red couch was really the best aesthetic choice for the energy of the room, really meant it was working.

  She was standing barefoot on cool stone. The air was sharp enough with ice that it seemed to freeze her skin on contact. She glanced down. She was naked. Seeing the future obviously meant that you weren’t allowed to wear anything from the past, even an awesome Metallica tee sweat by James Hetfield himself.

  The room she stood in was empty. It looked to be a dungeon. She was facing a wall with bloody shackles fastened to the stone. More blood was pooled on the floor underneath them, fresh, shiny enough that Sophie reasoned she could check her lipstick in it if she so wished.

  She had the strongest feeling that blood belonged to someone close to her. Someone she loved. That someone was right in front of her, despite the fact that the closed shackles were empty. It made no sense, but she knew, deep inside her, that this travel to the future was only being seen with her third eye—her witch’s eye. Her two human eyes were closed for now.

  She suspected it may be enough to slip into madness if they were opened. That was the reason divination was practiced with such caution, because it had the very real power to send a witch off the deep end.

  Sophie had been doing the backstroke in the deep end since birth. Plus she was already mad.

  But she didn’t want to be straitjacket mad.

  And she didn’t have the shoulders for it, so she didn’t try to fuck with her lack of vision. She was there for a reason, so she just needed to wait and pay attention.

  The stone around her was obviously old—it smelled damp, and predominantly like suffering and death. That didn’t really narrow it down.

  She turned, seeing nothing in the room but the manacles and a table with shiny instruments, all designed for torture, all covered in fresh blood.

  Her stomach roiled at the sight of it, something telling her with even more conviction that this blood, this pain, this death, belonged to someone very close to her.

  “You’re not tempted?” a male voice suddenly asked, making Sophie’s heartbeat pound a little harder at her rib cage.

  So she wasn’t alone.

  The voice was smooth, accented, cruel, and not at all familiar.

  “Tempted to make you eat your own dick?” a sarcastic voice shot back, not betraying an ounce of pain or fear. “Yeah, I would say it’s enticing. It’s one of the many options I’m tossing between before I kill you.” There was a pause. “I’m still brainstorming, though, so don’t get your hopes up.”

  Sophie knew that voice. It was that of her best friend. And so was the blood that punctured the air, the freshness of it telling her that more was being spilled.

  Then the voices disappeared. The room moved slightly, but somehow stayed in the same place. Wind blew Sophie’s hair into her lip gloss—she hated when that happened—even though she was pretty sure they were underground.

  She guessed it was the future’s way of telling her they were fast-forwarding.

  As abruptly as it started, th
e wind stopped. The room stilled, if it had ever been moving in the first place. Sophie held her stomach, telling herself to hold on to her Cheerios.

  The blood had faded now, sank into the stone so it was a dark copper stain. Though there was more of it than before. A lot more.

  Sophie’s stomach roiled with dread.

  No. Isla was not going to die. Not again. She’d done that enough.

  Sophie gritted her fists, expecting them to crackle with power. They did not. She glanced down. They weren’t glowing with anything but a regular vitamin D deficiency.

  She obviously didn’t have powers there. Maybe since she wasn’t really there.

  She didn’t have time to think on that because chaos swirled in the air. Dread punched Sophie in the stomach. She sensed it—death. It blanketed the room, and she was certain something was meeting its end in a matter of seconds. She couldn’t see the people in the room, but she could sense their panic, their anger, their utter despair.

  The manacles rattled as someone thrashed against them, the sound of the metal on the stone jarring.

  “I will kill you for this,” Isla promised, her voice thick with rage. And something else. Pure fear.

  “No, mon ange,” the voice purred. “You will not.”

  And then there was the unmistakable sound of a knife cutting through soft flesh.

  “No!” Isla screamed, her voice so guttural, so full of pain, Sophie doubled over.

  Blood bloomed at the stone below her. She blinked, touching her neck, bringing her fingers up to her face.

  They were crimson.

  Another energy engulfed the room in a sorrow so palpable that it shook the walls, the very fabric of the future.

  Tears streamed down Sophie’s eyes at the familiarity of it.

  The howl brought her to her knees.

  The howl of her wolf.

  Of his utter undoing.

  At her death.

  Then the room disappeared, as did the blood of her death.

  But not her death itself. That hung around her like a promise.

  She was overcome with certainty that the vision, the knowledge of it, would not change a thing.

  “You were not sent here to change this future,” a voice whispered in her ear. It was sultry. Deep. Full of the ages of the earth. Of knowledge of past and future. “You were sent to witness. Tell no one of what you saw. Death cannot be cheated, pain cannot be avoided, and sorrow cannot be prevented. You know this. Use the knowledge for what you will.”

  Then the lips at her ears were gone.

  She wanted to scream in frustration. Why did gods think that just because they were all powerful, they had to speak in riddles?

  What was wrong with saying, ‘Sucks that you died. Don’t tell anyone, but here’s the skinny on how to kill the witches’?

  She didn’t have time to lament on that before she was slammed back into her physical body. Her limbs screamed with the assault of having them in the same position for an undetermined amount of time. Moonlight crept into the room. It had been morning when Sophie sat down.

  Her ass was numb.

  And she decided that yes, the sofa was a bad choice as she pushed her aching limbs into an upward position.

  “I’m thinking purple’s better,” she muttered to herself, intending on stepping forward out of the mess of salt around her.

  But then her vision blurred. Double. Triple versions of the room.

  Too many red sofas.

  “Sophie!” her wolf bellowed.

  There were three of him too, all sprinting toward her.

  But then there was none of him because she was no longer in that time or space.

  She was in the middle of something that had not yet come to pass; she knew this because the future had a cold and chaotic quality to it, as if she were standing on a lake not quite frozen yet. It was not certain whether this path would be taken or if the choices of those in the present would melt it away.

  But then she was wrenched back out of that strange future that was nothing like the one she’d been hanging out in and obviously died in. She was confronted with gold fire.

  “Sophie,” Conall demanded, his hands at her cheeks, gripping her head.

  She blinked. “Did you break in again? That’s rude.”

  He gaped at her, his anger taking over whatever desperate concern he’d been feeling.

  Something stabbed at Sophie at the reminder of his concern and pain so much greater than his concern right now.

  “You are in danger,” he growled as she struggled to extract herself from his arms. It wasn’t successful since her limbs were jelly. “Your power, it is trying to end you.” His eyes seemed to see the thing inside her that Sophie’s true eye couldn’t see.

  But of course that was impossible.

  She glared. “I’m fine.”

  He ran his hands over her body, as if he didn’t believe her, as if she was hiding some grievous bodily wound. She let him do his check because she sensed she wouldn’t be able to stop him anyway. Also, his hands on her, warm and alive, were comforting, chasing away the chilling grasp of the grave.

  His palms spanned her hips, pressing into them, lifting her as he moved to stand. She tested her ability to take her own weight with his hands still gripping her, keeping her upright.

  She glanced down at her purple polished toes and frowned at her feet for slacking on the job. Then she moved her eyes up to meet Conall’s, every part of her desperate to drink him in while she still could.

  They stayed like that, staring at each other, as if he was imprinting every part of her onto his brain too, as if he had seen her death too.

  Of course he didn’t.

  She was about to open her mouth and say something, but he gripped the back of her head and yanked her into his iron chest, on which she somehow landed softly as both of his tree trunk arms circled her body, clutching her to him. She expected to fight, but found herself physically unable to do so. Not because his arms made that impossible—they did—but because she didn’t want to. She needed to be wrapped in his embrace, breathe in the woodsy scent that was unique to him.

  Her wolf.

  He laid his lips softly on her head.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and let herself sink into the moment.

  He released her eventually. Her feet had regained their ability to hold the rest of her body up. Good thing too, because she couldn’t be relying on the wolf to hold her up. That was dangerous. Every woman—every witch—needed to know how to stand on her on two feet; if you relied on a man, or wolf, you’d always end up meeting the floor, heart first.

  She stepped backward, out of his embrace, needing the distance. She needed to because he needed it. She was going to die, there was no way around it, but that didn’t bother her even half as much as the memory of his pain. His utter destruction.

  She knew the goddess said that she couldn’t change what she saw, but goddesses didn’t know everything. Surely even they fucked up sometimes.

  He frowned at her, his face tight. “There is something inside of you that you cannot control,” he said, voice low and gravelly.

  She quirked her brow. “Oh, hey, pot.” She waved. “There’s a kettle the exact shade of wolf that’s in this season.”

  His jaw tightened. “I cannot control my beast fully, but it is not working to destroy me. It is part of me.”

  She jutted her chin up at the disgust in his tone, toward the very thing that made her… her. Yes there were dangerous parts of it that may eviscerate everything she knew about herself, but nobody was perfect. She bet his wolf ruined countless pairs of jeans.

  “As my magic is a part of me.”

  Again with that intense perusal. He stepped forward so he could grasp her again, as if he was scared she might just float away.

  That made two of them.

  “Yes, you were born to be a powerful witch. That is apparent in everything about you. But this danger I sense inside of you does not come from birth, it comes from
death. And it brings it.” His hands dug into her forearms. “And I will do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen. Even if it makes you hate me.” Again with the intense look. “I won’t lose you.”

  She wrenched herself from his grasp, hating that his strength would always be used against her. Then again, her power could always be used against him—the one he was insinuating he was going to destroy, no freaking way—so she did just that, and froze him in place.

  “You can’t lose something you’ve never had, wolf,” she said, the lie bitter on her tongue. Because he did have her. Completely and utterly. But it was important not to admit that to him. More important not to admit that to herself.

  She grinned in satisfaction as only his eyes moved. She could see the thrashing of his aura as the beast inside of him rebelled at being in such a state. She imagined he might be very pissed off depending on how long she kept him like that.

  I can have some fun with this.

  “I’m off to make some battle plans at the home of the vampire king tonight,” she told the Conall statue before sauntering over to her mirror, making sure she swayed her hips. His gaze was like a brand.

  “And obviously I can’t wear this to meet a king and plan to overthrow a rebellion,” she said, glancing at her ripped tee in the mirror. She squinted over her shoulder at the wolf, a nudge against her spell telling her that he was fighting tooth, nail, and tail to get out of it.

  Obviously he couldn’t.

  But Hades did love a trier.

  She made sure he could see the front of her in the reflection of the mirror before she yanked the tee over her head and sent it fluttering to the floor.

  Another nudge against her spell as she stood in her bra—purple lace so sheer, her hardened nipples almost punctured the delicate fabric—and jeans.

  She trailed her hand down the middle of her chest, between the ridges of her breast bone, her breaths becoming shallower at the power she had over Conall.

  And not just the spell rendering him immobile. No, it seemed she didn’t need a spell to make his eyes devour her with a reverence akin to a man meeting his god.