He worried for Divina were they to implement such intimidation. There was a time when he could have predicted exactly how she would have responded to anything. Not anymore. She was no longer his timid little witch.
Sitting back, Rori’s head fell against the seat. He stared up at the roof of the car while the driver, behind a privacy screen, remained silent. Guilt stirred in his gut. He’d done this to her. He’d put her in the prophecy’s path. He’d handed her over to the witches without a second thought, all for his own selfish gains. The witches predicted and promised Rori power over all supernatural kinds. All he had to do was charm Divina, seduce her, and then hand her over to them. And he’d done it. All for a stupid throne he had no business coveting.
Taking ownership of his role crushed the air from his lungs. If he’d left her alone, she’d never have met the Ember Witches. She wouldn’t be in their crosshairs. Maybe, if he vowed to leave her be, she could be free of them. Maybe, if he went along with the prediction, they’d leave her alone. He could spare her.
Perhaps Rori was the right one for the emperorship and the Council of Others seat that came with it. Using his charm, he most certainly could win over seven of the members and get them to align with his vision. His first act would be to vote Esmine off the council representing the American continents, if for no other reason than to save Divina from whatever torture her coven would inflict upon her. With nine members on the council, maybe he didn’t have to shoot for seven—six would do, or even five. He just needed a majority. Granted, he’d feel a bit of satisfaction if he could punish Esmine for manipulating him into the prophecy in the first place.
If the prediction couldn’t be stopped, and he had no choice, it was on Rori. He needed to get on board and be emperor. He’d have to rule. He would find a way to fill the role. It might be the only way to save Divina. For now, he would allow all those concerned to believe he was a willing participant. However, once he found her again, Rori would take her back.
Fuck the prediction. It didn’t state how long he had to serve as emperor. It just meant he would take the council seat. Anything after that was up for interpretation.
CHAPTER 5
Leaving the diner, needing space between her and the witch, Divina opted for a fast food breakfast from the only drive-thru in town. Parking the truck in the diner’s lot, she ate her bacon, egg, and cheese on a croissant and sighed through her coffee. Not totally convinced she should stay and meet with the waitress, Divina decided to walk through town to clear her head.
An abandoned strip mall, “going out of business” signs, and ill-kept homes painted a bleak picture of the town. Mirroring Divina’s hopelessness, she passed a school with outdated playground equipment. Stopping to grip the chain-link fence, she watched the children running around. A few used the swings, some the slides, others played tag. The laughter in the playground, as run-down as it was, sparked something within her. Glancing around the town of many failures, she couldn’t drown out the children’s laughter. Despite the poverty, broken dreams, and failed businesses, the children still had joy. There was still hope in their hearts for something better. They could still find time to play.
This town brought to mind the prophecy. On the face of it, the prediction held a lot of promise: the vampire would get to lead his kind and be a part of the Council of Others. It also outlined the witch and the wolf finding their mates in each other. The strip mall once held people’s dreams in the form of businesses. Someone thought they would be successful with their shop. It had been a beacon of promises. Now, though, it stood an empty husk of what could have been.
Was there joy in the prophecy? If she looked hard enough, was there hope for something better?
In running from Aric, leaving her vardo and New Orleans, Divina had fled the prophecy. Whether or not that made the prediction a failure was up for debate. However, the people it had brought into her life had done her no favors. She hadn’t met a more manipulative bunch than those connected to the prophecy. Trusting them left her questioning herself.
With heated cheeks, Divina realized all the poor choices she had made. Pushing off the fence, aggravated with herself and with them, she continued her walk.
Rori had been a bust not once, but twice. She was not about to let there be a third time.
The Ember Witches had their own agenda. When she’d met with them, they laid it out clear. They wanted the witch of the prophecy to join their coven. So their plans aligned with Rori’s scheme.
Then there was Aric. Divina rubbed again at the ache in her chest. The spell had taken the Ember Witches’ ability to sense her away, but it had done nothing to soothe the pain she had since leaving New Orleans. It never went away. She needed to look into that. Perhaps the woman from the diner knew a spell for that, too.
She reached up to her shoulder where Aric had bitten her. The pain of the bite was long gone. However, the red, raised mark remained.
She moved a finger to the right, closer to her neck, until she found two small puncture wounds. Rori’s bite marks were smaller and easier to hide, whereas Aric’s two half circles made an oval and to hide them would be nearly impossible. They peeked out from the collar of her crew-neck T-shirt. Something told Divina that Aric’s bite was meant to be displayed, not hidden, whether she wanted to or not.
As her thoughts shifted to Aric’s bite, the dull ache in her chest plumed and spread about her upper body. A combination of warmth and a stinging sensation had her eyes watering and her lungs tightening. With air forced from her body, she gasped. Trying to take deep breaths, she found her lungs only allowed shallow ones. Divina stopped walking and placed her palm on the building beside her to keep from falling. Everything blurred, and she was filled with panic. On wobbling knees, her heart raced, and the world shifted.
Was this Aric or the Ember Witches?
No.
They hadn’t done a spell near her in a while. It must have been the diner witch—that incantation, the one she had Divina repeat. She’d done this to herself at the directive of someone she didn’t even know.
Cursing herself for being foolish, she swayed. With her back against the wall, her mind raced for solutions and explanations. Her inability to draw sufficient air into her lungs left her dizzy. Sliding down the brick wall, she doubted her legs would hold her much longer.
With her butt firmly planted on the pavement and her legs outstretched before her, Divina rested a hand on her chest and tried to focus on her breathing. Suffocating despite the wind that picked up around her, her hair whipped her in the face. Strips of paper and lightweight trash whirled around as the air taunted her. Her body tingled with magic.
“Gods!” cried a woman as she rushed to Divina’s side. “What’s happened to you?”
Divina looked up, the woman from the diner coming into her field of vision. The sun shone behind her head, giving her a halo effect. For the briefest of moments, Divina thought she might be dying.
The woman crouched, her frantic eyes skimming over Divina. “What’s wrong?” she asked again.
Trepidation swept over her panicked body when the thought of death passed. Would the diner witch help, or did she do this? Divina reached for the woman with her free hand while the other clutched her chest. There was only one way to find out.
“Can’t—” She couldn’t get enough air. “Breathe,” Divina croaked.
With a furrowed brow, the diner witch held Divina’s shoulders and scanned her body. The woman’s gaze landed on the bites on her shoulder, peeking out from her shirt. In a quick motion, the woman yanked the collar aside to reveal two crescent-shaped teeth marks beside the two vampire pinpricks. “You’re bitten,” she declared.
Divina gasped. “Help. Me.” What did it matter that she’d been bitten? She was dying! The bites weren’t important if she couldn’t get air into her lungs. “Help. Me,” she implored again with a rasp.
The woman’s lips tightened into a thin line, and her eyes locked on Divina’s marks. “You can breathe. It
’ll pass. Try,” she urged, meeting Divina’s eyes. “Try to take a deep breath.”
She had tried! Was the woman daft? Divina couldn’t do it. “I. Tried,” she explained between short intakes of breath.
“Harder,” the woman insisted, shaking her.
Closing her eyes, Divina tried one more time. Focusing all her strength on her diaphragm, she inhaled. The cool air swirled in a tornado to fill her lungs. Her chest expanded. Her eyes shot open. It worked. She tried again. Another lungful of air. Relief filled her as each breath became easier. The tension in her muscles relaxed, and she fell back against the wall, where she proceeded to thank all that was holy. She could breathe again. The ache remained, but she could at least breathe.
Looking toward her savior, Divina smiled. “Thank you.” Her pale blue eyes drifted down to the nametag on the woman’s uniform. “Sonia.”
With concern lingering in her features, Sonia smiled. “Your color is coming back,” she observed. “Another few minutes on the ground, and then we can go.”
“Who are you?” Divina asked.
Tilting her head, Sonia eyed her warily while biting her lower lip. She tapped her nametag. “Sonia.”
“No.” Divina straightened herself as her strength slowly returned. “I mean, like, what are you? Who are you with?” She tried to clarify but realized she didn’t have the words to ask what she meant.
Sonia regarded her but didn’t speak. Instead, she tapped Divina’s knee and lifted herself upward. When she put her hands on her hips, she looked out toward the parking lot. “You got a car or something?”
Frustrated by the lack of an answer, Divina sulked. “What did you mean when you said I’m bitten?”
Looking away, Sonia tucked her hands into the pockets of her uniform. Leaning against the wall, she crossed one ankle over the other. “I think you know.”
“Well, yes. I know two people put their mouths on me,” Divina responded, annoyed as she used the wall to lift herself. “But what’s it to you? What happened to me? What was that?”
Narrowing her brown eyes, Sonia regarded her for longer than Divina was comfortable. Under the scrutiny, she shifted and lowered her eyes as she tugged at her collar to hide the bites as best she could.
“You don’t know what those marks mean?” Sonia asked in a challenge.
Divina turned her ice-blue doe eyes toward the woman. “Other than a vampire drank from me and a wolf-man bit me, no,” she declared. Sure, Aric told her he had claimed her, but that was bullshit. He was just some hulking Adonis with a bad case of machismo. Fucking did not mean commitment. He could take his claim and shove it up his ass.
Concern crossed Sonia’s features as she pursed her lips. “You have come a long way with such little guidance.”
Divina glared at the woman. “What do they mean?” she growled.
With a blank expression, Sonia reached out and tugged the collar down again. Divina reached up to stop her, but Sonia tapped the bite with her index finger. “You’re claimed by a wolf,” she affirmed.
Divina swiped her hand away. “He said that,” she grumbled. “Tell me what it means.”
Sonia gestured to Divina’s sternum. “It means the longer you two are apart, the worse that will get.”
Divina ran her fingers over her chest gingerly. Everyone around her seemed to know more than her and would only give cryptic responses to her questions. Heat filled her cheeks as frustration boiled within her. Everything was piecemeal, and she was tired of it. Opening her mouth to let the woman have it, she found herself interrupted before she’d even started.
“Come on,” Sonia ordered. “We have a lot to do and not much time to do it in.” She started walking away.
Divina peered at her as anger gave way to confusion. “What are you talking about?” she asked, taking a few steps to follow Sonia.
“You’re, what, twentysomething?” Sonia said over her shoulder as she walked. “That’s a lot to catch up on. I can’t believe no one took you in before now, knowing who you are.”
Divina stopped short. “Wait a minute.”
Sonia kept walking. She didn’t look back.
“I said wait!” Divina shouted with a stomp of her foot.
Looking over her shoulder, Sonia paused. “I told you, we don’t have a lot of time. Move.” Waving an arm, she resumed walking.
Divina hesitated for a few steps before trotting after Sonia. “Who am I?” she asked, unsure she truly wanted the answer.
As the two fell in step side by side, Sonia smiled. “You’re the witch of the prophecy, and it’s my fate to mentor you in the way of the witch.”
As the pit of her stomach dropped, Divina’s breakfast threatened to make a second appearance. She couldn’t escape that prophecy. Rori had dragged her into it, and no matter what she tried, it stalked her. It first reared its ugly mug when Rori had come to her vardo a few nights ago. When she tried to leave him, it came at her again by thrusting Aric at her. Now Sonia. Was there nothing she could do to escape the blasted thing?
“Are you an Ember Witch?” Divina whispered once they had stopped before a small green house with a wraparound porch surrounded by hedges and a chain-link fence. Thick pillars, once white but now stained from the years, supported the roof over the porch. They were not far from the diner, just a few blocks away. Broken blinds covered the windows, and a tabby peered out from behind one of them. Paint peeled from the green planks adorning the one-level residence.
Without an answer, Sonia led Divina up the path toward the three stairs of the porch. Taking out a key, Sonia unlocked the door to what Divina assumed to be the woman’s place. Taking it all in, she lost tension in her muscles. The drying herbs dangling from the overhang and the potted plants along the floor called to her soul, lulling her into a sense of security. Beyond the porch, inside the house, was a couch with large cushions and a love seat covered with homemade afghans. Several more potted plants lined the walls below the windows. A large-screened television hung on the wall above a small fireplace. The house smelled of incense and cats.
Divina hesitated before she entered. She wasn’t sure she could take that last step. Entering felt like submitting to the prophecy. By going inside, she would be accepting Sonia’s mentoring. The other woman knew the prediction, as it seemed tied to one told for her as well. Sonia said she was fated to mentor the witch of the prophecy; going inside meant accepting Divina was that witch.
Peering down at her feet, Divina doubted she’d be able to live up to what the prophecy wanted. She wondered if she should turn and run again.
Turning her attention to Sonia, Divina sighed. “I was told I’m supposed to be an Ember Witch,” she admitted weakly, trepidation hindering her movements.
Sonia nodded, scratching the head of a gray cat before she regarded Divina. “Yes.”
Divina furrowed her brow, still standing on the front porch. Looking over her shoulder, half expecting Rori to come out from the shadows, or maybe a witch—someone to push her into Sonia’s home, to shove her forward so it wouldn’t be her decision—she hesitated. It hadn’t been her decision yet, and there was some solace in that.
“You can come inside,” Sonia offered.
Divina looked back. “I thought they were supposed to teach me.”
Sonia shrugged. “Perhaps at one point in time that was the case,” she said before she went over to a bookcase. She ran her fingers along the old, splintered spines. “However, some things have changed, as have the visions, and now”—she pulled a book from the shelf and turned to Divina—“it’s my honor to begin your lessons.”
“How do I know I can trust you?” Divina shot back quickly.
Sonia’s forehead creased as she peered at Divina with a look of confusion. “Have I done something to warrant distrust?”
Opening her mouth to answer, Divina got cut off.
“I made it so the Ember Witches couldn’t sense you, so you can be alone in your time of learning,” Sonia pointed out while holding the book
to her chest. “I helped you through the mate ache to get you breathing again, and you question whether you can trust me?”
“I’m tired of being a pawn,” Divina admitted.
Sonia stood before her bookcase, canting her head to the side as she regarded Divina with warm, soft eyes. The silence between them hung heavy on Divina’s shoulders. With her lips in a tight frown, Sonia looked to the window of the room as though considering her words.
“Would you feel more comfortable if I told you that regardless of what you learn or don’t learn, the prophecy will persist?” Sonia asked.
Letting that resonate, Divina didn’t answer.
“I have no stake in the prophecy. I gain nothing if you choose the wolf or the vampire. I lose nothing if you choose yourself.” Sonia stepped toward her. “All I’m offering is an opportunity for you. I’m offering a chance for you to grow into your inner strength and to harness your power that others will want to exploit. I want to show you how to have control.”
Biting her bottom lip, Divina glanced over her shoulder one more time. Her heart fluttered, and her stomach churned. Entering the house meant accepting the prophecy. Entering the house meant she chose to do this. She’d have no one to blame but herself no matter how things turned out.
Divina’s foot hovered over the threshold. “I’m the witch of the prophecy?” she asked, not because she doubted it but because she wanted to appear as though she did.
Sonia smiled and nodded. “You are the witch of the prophecy. I’m the witch who aids the prophecy.”
Closing her eyes, Divina took a deep breath. She hesitated just a moment longer before she entered the witch’s home. There was no escaping it. It was time she sucked it up and did what she had to do.
CHAPTER 6
The beast within Aric howled incessantly. The pain in his chest alternated between a throb and a dull ache. Nothing he tried relieved it. The only hope he had of stopping it was out of reach.
The Wolf of the Prophecy Page 4