wants to take over our world. I don’t know where she ran
off to. How do we find her?” I worried.
“We could perform a finding spell,” she said. “It’s
worth a try.”
“But if she doesn’t want to be found, she will be
blocked,” I argued.
“Let us at least try, Sofia. I will prepare. When do you
want to come over?” she asked.
“I’m exhausted right now. Fighting her and healing
Nick took too much out of me. Can we wait until morning?
I won’t be any good if I try now,” I said.
“Of course. Come to the store when you wake up. Sleep
as long as you need to. We can have Nathalie help us when
you get there.” I agreed and hung up.
I put my phone back down on the nightstand and Nick
wrapped his warm arms around me. “Well?” he asked. “She thinks we should try to reach her with a finding
spell so I’m going to the store in the morning. And… she
said…”
“What is it?” he asked.
“She said for sure that I’m the only one who can have
the child.” I couldn’t look at him. He already knew how I
felt about it and I was so not going to have this
conversation right now.
“She’s sure it can’t be Gia?”
“Well, I’m not, but the prophecy did say that it’s the
ones who broke the curse and reunited our people. And
that’s definitely us,” I said. “I need to sleep. I’m super
wiped out.”
“Thank you for saving me again,” he whispered. “You
keep doing that.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said.
“You saved me from that—male witch that you used to
be friends with.” He still couldn’t bring himself to say Ky’s
name. “I feel like I should be the one protecting you, but
you don’t ever need me.”
“Oh, Nick, I always need you,” I whispered. I
remembered one more thing I wanted to do. “Hey, before
we go to sleep, I want to try a spell.”
“Are you sure? You look drained,” he frowned. “Just a quick memory spell. I want to make sure Gia
hasn’t ever tried anything with you before,” I said. “You’re still worried about that?”
“Uh, yeah. If the roles were reversed and you walked in
on me in bed with Ky, wouldn’t you want to know for sure
that nothing happened?” He growled at the sound of Ky’s
name. “See?”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “What do I
need to do?”
“Just keep your eyes closed and relax. I need you to
think back to the moment you heard the knock at the door,”
I instructed. He nodded. “Now focus; try to remember what
happened next while I say the spell.” He did as I asked. I
put one hand on his forehead, the other cradling the back of
his head.
I recited,
Mother Earth, I ask for your charity.
Give Nick focus and clarity.
Lead me to what I need to find.
Restore this and his peace of mind.
Nick inhaled in alarm as the memories came. “Now, tell
me what you see,” I instructed.
“I hear the knock at the door and wonder who could be
coming over. I know you are working with Nat, so it isn’t
her. And I don’t recognize the scent. I think it might be a
neighbor,” he started.
“Okay, what next?” I asked impatiently.
“I open the door and Gia is standing there. I say, ‘Hey,
what are you doing here? Sofia’s at work right now’. She
says, ‘Perfect, I rather like her and would prefer not to hurt
her’.” He shivered when he said it. “I wonder why she
would need to hurt you. Then…” he paused, like he was
struggling to remember.
“What happened next, Nick?”
“Then… Gia says something I don’t understand. It
sounds like a spell. I relax and she takes my hand and leads
me to the bedroom.” I didn’t want to hear any more, but I
needed to know. “She starts to undress me and sits me on
the bed. Then she undresses herself. She says, ‘This is the
first of many, incredible nights we will spend together my
sweet Nico’.” I wanted to throw up, or scream, or both. I
had my answer. Gia had never been here before, and I
needed to stop if I didn’t want to hear any more. Before he could say anything else, I quickly said, “It is
done.”
His eyes snapped open and he pulled me to him tightly.
“Oh my Sofia,” he whispered softly. He kissed my hair.
“I’m so so sorry. I would never hurt you.”
“I know,” I mumbled into him. “But clearly Gia would.
At least we know that it hasn’t happened before.” He
continued to apologize and held me close as we went to
sleep.
I didn’t wake up until after 10 a.m. Whenever I
conjured too many spells at once, it completely wiped me
out. Nick was awake and watching me. “Are you okay,
Sof?” he asked.
“Not really. I attacked someone last night, had to watch
my husband practically bleed to death, heal him, only to
see the events that led up to it all. I can’t ever un-see that.
And I’m angry,” I admitted.
“I wish I could take it away. I wish I could rewind. But
nothing happened. You got here in time.”
“You were kissing. That’s not nothing. And what if I
hadn’t gotten here in time? What if you had…” I couldn’t
finish the thought.
He took my face in his hands. “Shh… try not to think
about it anymore. The important thing is that it didn’t
happen. And I won’t let it happen. Do you think she’s given
up?” he asked.
“Not a chance. She wants that baby. She won’t give up
until she’s pregnant with your child.” I shivered at the
thought.
“Why not another were? Why not Rene? She was so
attached to him. Why me?”
“Because we were the ones to bring our people
together. That’s what the stupid prophecy says.”
“Mannaggia,” he swore. “When will this all be over?
When will we be able to enjoy our new life together
without all this—” he searched for the right word. “Drama?” I said.
“Sὶ, exactly.”
“I don’t know, but it’s draining me,” I turned away and
sat up on the bed. Even though nothing too extreme had
happened between Nick and Gia, I still couldn’t get the
horrible images out of my head. I didn’t want to look at
him or talk about it anymore. He didn’t move. I got up, got
dressed, and turned to leave for the store.
Nick stood up and walked over to me. He took my hand
and spoke softly, “I have to come with you, no? I don’t
want to risk being alone again.”
“Oh yeah,” I mumbled. “Then hurry up already.” He
quickly threw on a shirt with his khaki shorts and followed
me out of the apartment. We took his car because I just
didn’t have it in me to focus on driving. Aspen Springs was
small, and even though we had to drive downtown, it took
&
nbsp; less than ten minutes to get to the store.
Nick pulled around to the employees only lot behind
The White Witch. We went in through the back door and
into the front of the shop. The entire left wall was full of
different herbs and mixing tools. Mamma was talking with
a woman, helping her find some herbs. There were a few
shelves full of books in the middle of the store and other
supplies like candles and ribbons lined the back wall. She
carried a small selection of ceremonial gowns in the very
back. The front wall was a giant window, and Nat was
behind the counter in front of the wall on the right. The counter had a locked, glass case where the athames were
kept.
“You look like someone died,” Nat said as I walked up
to her.
“Nick, why don’t you go hang out in the office,” I said
as I turned to him. He just nodded, getting the hint that I
needed some space for a while.
“Oh crap, Sof. What’s wrong? You guys weren’t even
holding hands,” Nat got up off the stool she was sitting on. “Did Mamma tell you what happened last night?” “Yeah. I’m so sorry, Sof. I knew something about her
wasn’t right,” Nat rubbed my shoulder.
“Me, too. Everyone keeps apologizing. It’s getting
annoying. It’s not like it was your fault,” I snapped. “Geez, relax. It’s because we love you and feel bad you
had to go through that.”
“Sorry, I just haven’t told you the extra sucky part yet,”
I said.
“Oh no, what else happened?”
Mamma walked over with her customer. “Would you
like me to ring her up, Nathalie?” she asked with a smile. “Yeah, thanks. That’d be great.” She pulled me by the
hand and we went to the back by the gowns. She looked at
me, waiting for me to continue.
“So, I decided to do a memory spell on Nick. I was
totally freaked out that this might’ve happened already. I
couldn’t handle the thought of him… you know—with
her.”
“Ah snap. And?”
“Well, luckily this was the first time. He remembered
all of it, and she said it was the first of many nights they would spend together,” I frowned. I didn’t realize I was crying until Nat hugged me tightly to her. “But Nat, I saw it all in his mind. I saw her undress him and then strip down
to her underwear.” I sobbed into her shoulder.
“Shh…” she soothed as she rubbed my back. “Oh, Sof.
That so totally sucks. What a ‘b’! But you have to see the
good. Nothing happened. You stopped it. Which, by the
way, your mom told me how you choked her unconscious.
You’re one wicked witch,” she smiled, trying to make me
laugh.
I gave her a half-smile. “Yeah, but she kicked my butt
right back, and Nick got hurt, too.” I continued to throw
myself a pity party. I just couldn’t find anything good in the
situation. “And what if I hadn’t shown up? What if I had
counted the register instead of you?”
“But you didn’t. It’s over. We’ll find her, Sof. We won’t
let anything happen. So, is that why Nick is here? Is he
afraid to be alone?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’m afraid for him to be alone, too.” I wiped the
remaining tears from my eyes as Mamma came back
toward us. She opened her arms to me and I fell into her.
She ran her hand down my hair and held me silently. “Nico, could you come out here per favore?” she called
out over my shoulder. He walked out of the office, and
before he could say anything, she asked, “Could you watch
the shop for me while we work back here for a few
minutes?”
“Sὶ, Mamma. Don’t worry about anything,” he
answered with a smile.
We went into the office and Mamma cleared the counter
against the wall. She already had everything ready that we needed to work the spell. There were three candles: white for divination, yellow for knowledge, and green for luck. There was a bowl of cedar oil and she crushed nutmeg and saffron into it. “There, this should work,” she said. She dipped her finger in the oil and anointed each of our foreheads with it. “This will help with the sight,” she
finished.
I lit each of the candles and placed them in a circle
around the three of us. We held hands, closed our eyes to
focus, and Mamma repeated the spell three times, Power of the witches rise.
Course unseen across the skies.
Come to us, we call you near.
Come to us and settle here.
Blood to blood, I summon thee.
Blood to blood, return to me.
We stood there silently for several minutes, each of us
concentrating on finding Gia. I gasped as I saw a vision.
“Mannaggia,” my mom never ever swore. This was bad. “What the crap is she doing with Ky?” Nat asked. “I can’t believe he would stoop this low,” I nearly cried.
“Does he honestly think he’s going to get me back? He
can’t break our bond.”
“Sὶ, but he believes you will leave Nico if Gia has his
baby,” Mamma said.
“I will never leave Nick,” I said firmly. “It’s like he’s
trying to start Werewolf/Witch world war two.”
“What a douchebag,” Nat said under her breath. I had to sit down. I was going into shock. “We will find
a way to stop this,” Mamma promised. “Could you tell
where they were?” she asked Nat and me.
“It looked like some kind of apartment, but it wasn’t
familiar,” Nat answered.
“Then we must keep searching,” Mamma said. “I better
check on Nico. For now, Piccola go home and rest. You still
look tired and you must be emotionally drained. I will talk
with Babbo tonight and we will think of something
together.” She left the office for the front of the store. A
minute later, Nick walked in.
“I’ll leave you guys,” Nat smiled. She squeezed my
shoulder as she walked by me. “It’ll be okay, Sof. We’ll all
do this together.”
I was crying again and Nick knelt down in front of me.
He sat there silently with his hand on my knee and waited
for me to say something. I finally looked at him, grabbed
him around the neck and pulled him to me.
“What did you see, Sofia? I hate to see you so sad.
What can I do? Are you angry with me for the—thing?” he
asked.
I sniffled, wiped at my eyes, and pulled back to look at
him. “It was Ky.” It was all I could say at first. I still
couldn’t believe our vision.
“What was Ky?”
“Gia is with Ky. I think he’s working with her to break
us up.”
“Testa di cazzo!” he shouted. “I will kill him this time,
Sofia. Who does he think he is? We’re bound. He can’t
break us up anyway.”
“Yeah, but Mamma thinks he believes if he can help
Gia get to you, then I would leave you.” I sniffled again.
He gathered me up in his arms and held me tightly to him. He ran his fingers through my hair and whispered in my
ear, “Would you?”
I pulled back and looked at him in shock. “Are you
serious right now? Do you honestly think that after
you? I was the one who wanted to be bound in the first
place.”
“I’m sorry. I know. Sometimes I just worry. I was the
one who had to chase you. I knew before you did that we
were meant to be together, remember?” he smiled. I relaxed slightly. “Well, don’t be an idiota. I will never
leave you. I know none of this is your fault. She’s the one
who tricked you. And even though you might’ve been the
one that had to convince me that we should be together,
I’ve never once looked back since I chose you that night in
my backyard after Spring Fling.”
“Well, do you have a plan? On how we can find them,
so I can kill him?”
“You can’t kill him, Nick,” I started.
“Like hell I can’t,” he interrupted. “You can’t change
my mind on this.”
“The coven will deal with him. He’ll be punished. You
don’t want to be a killer,” I argued.
“I guess for now we will have to agree to disagree.” I
started to shake my head and say something again, but he
stopped me with a kiss. I melted into him and wrapped my
arms around his neck.
“No fair,” I said when he finally pulled back. “Do you have to stay for work now?” he asked,
changing the subject.
“No. Mamma told me to go home and rest some more.
I’m kind of an emotional wreck at the moment, in case you
hadn’t noticed.”
He laughed and pulled me by the hand to the back door
of the store, “Then let’s go home and watch a movie. I’ll
even let you pick out your favorite chick flick.” I gave him
a genuine smile and followed him out to the car.
When we got home, I went in our room to change into
pajamas and realized I hadn’t cleaned the blood up off the
floor. Nick followed me. “Uck, I need to get rid of that,” I
said.
“Let me help. What kind of cleaners do we have?” “None, unless you’ve bought some lately. I got this.” I
knelt down over the spot and waved my hand in a circle
over it. It slowly faded.
“That is so awesome,” he grinned. “I love watching you
do magic. By the way, what did you do to her last night?”
he didn’t say Gia’s name.
“I threw a really bad spell at her, and then I choked her
until she was unconscious,” I answered without hesitation.
Destiny Revealed Page 16