Latchling Blood Moon: A Cassidy Edwards Novella - Book 3.5

by Carmen Caine

  “‘Twas nothing more than a fanciful dream, Dorian,” I whispered in my mind. “Our love is not meant to be, but I will see her safe.”

  And with that, I strode towards the Stonehenge Druids, already gathered, awaiting my return.

  My One Regret

  The months flew all too quickly. I spent my time on the isle within the hallowed walls of the Stonehenge Druid vaults, poring over manuscripts and forgotten lore for anything Mindbreaker. I tore through the pages, my eyes flying from one page to the next. At times, I would pause and smile at the tiny feet kicking within me, but I couldn’t let myself stay idle for long. I had a task to accomplish, and now I found myself powerless, my only chance in destroying Emilio lay with knowledge. After months, I’d learned much, but nothing definitive. That only spurred me on.

  One early summer night, I closed a dusty, leather-bound volume and yawned, glancing over to where Marie lay snoring on the bed. I smiled. Marie. My constant companion. “Bless you, Marie,” I whispered her way and, stretching my stiff neck, stepped out of my chamber into the soft, welcoming moonlight.

  Almost at once, a familiar form dropped from the slate-tiled roof to land beside me with the grace of a cat.

  I jerked, startled. Would I ever become accustomed to my newfound blindness?

  “Jacques!” I cried, warmly kissing his cold cheeks in greeting. I knew I shouldn’t ask. I’d decided to move on, but I couldn’t help it. “Dorian? Is he safe? Is he well?”

  “Ma belle dame,” Jacques greeted, his eyes dipping over my expanding girth. If he noticed the change in my eyes, he didn’t mention it. “May I say you look the picture of health.”

  Noticing his lack of an answer, against my better judgement, I decided to press further, “Dorian?”

  “He is well,” he informed me, but in a curiously reluctant kind of way.

  I bit my lip to keep from asking more. I knew better. I shouldn’t have broached the subject in the first place. Why pour salt on my near-mortal wound? Instead, I asked a darker question. “Emilio?”

  Jacques lifted a finger to his lips and cocked his head to one side as if in fear of being overheard. Leaning close, he whispered, “He’s grown only stronger, ma belle dame, engaged in unholy dark arts under Lord Rowle’s guidance. They reside in Dunnottar, awaiting your return for the birth.”

  The birth, still two months away. I didn’t like to think of it. It meant that in two short months, I would bequeath my daughter to a new life and return to Dunnottar with a stranger’s babe in her stead. Tears threatened. I turned my face sharply away.

  No. I would not think of that now.

  Instead, I switched the subject. “I’ve not been idle here,” I informed the vampire quietly. “Not all knowledge of the Mindbreaker has been erased from the world.”

  Jacques’ dark eyes snapped at the mention of his name. How I wished I could tell him that Emilio and the Mindbreaker were one and the same, but I knew the time was not ripe. Not yet. Besides, my research hadn’t been entirely fruitless.

  “He has an Achilles heel,” I continued in hushed tones. “A weakness even Common Folk could exploit.”

  “Common Folk?” Jacques arched a querying brow.

  I nodded, wanting to tell him that I’d now joined their ranks, but again, I could not.

  “Then ‘tis a weakness, indeed,” he murmured a bit skeptically.

  “The Hell Stone,” I explained, knowing this must, at least, be shared should I meet an unexpected fate. “If it truly is from the Under Reaches, such a thing may be opened by any of the Hell Kind.”

  Jacques lifted a brow at that. “The Hell Kind would hardly open such a thing at our bidding, and even if they did, what comes from the opening of it?”

  I didn’t have exact answers for him, only half-written texts combined with an instinct I no longer knew I could truly trust. Still, I shook away my doubt and forged ahead, determined. “Such knowledge I must keep for now, Jacques,” I bluffed, praying he wouldn’t notice. “But I need your help. When I return to Dunnottar, you must be there, you and the wolves. Together, we must wrest the Hell Stone from Emilio’s grasp.”

  “Much easier said than done, my lady,” he murmured, clearly taken aback.

  “He may be strong,” I acknowledged. “But he is far from impervious.”

  “At one time, I would have agreed, but now …” Jacques shoulders sagged a little. “Now, I am not so certain, not after …”

  “After?” I prodded.

  He hesitated and then simply shook his head, “Mayhap, ‘tis just a fear.”

  He would not speak of it more after that. He told me other news then, and after swearing to meet me in Dunnottar, he was gone.

  I let myself think of Dorian then, but for only a short time. Sadness would stand in my way. I couldn’t afford to indulge upon it or anything else that might hinder progress.

  After a short time, I forced myself to return and with a sigh, lay down upon the bed, listening to the comforting, harsh cadence of Marie’s snores.

  * * *

  As the birth approached, I found it difficult to move. My daughter moved frequently, offering me little rest and sleep. I rose at dawn, still intent on expanding my knowledge in the records of the Stonehenge Druid vaults, but in the past few days, after the midday meal, I found myself yawning and seeking the nearest bed or chair. There, I would lie like a cat, drenching myself in afternoon sunlight, praying for just one more day to keep my daughter with me, safe in my womb and away from those wishing her harm.

  If only I could have stopped time altogether, but alas, it marched inexorably on. One cannot keep a babe from being born. The golden, hazy days of autumn brought the harvest, and along with it, my daughter.

  That morning began as many others, with Lord Rowle’s men insisting I board a ship and return to Dunnottar forthwith.

  “Soon,” I told them. “After the ritual is complete.”

  “But, my lady,” they would invariably begin.

  “I have time,” I cut in, waving them away.

  When they opened their mouths to object further, the druids came to my aid and Lord Rowle’s men hastily withdrew.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, rising to my feet.

  I felt the first twinge of labor then. My stomach clenched. She was coming. I could feel it. Part of me cried out, submerged in grief but I could not let it consume me. I could not greet my daughter with sorrow. I had so little time with her and what I did have, I wished it to be filled with joy.

  It was a struggle, but I schooled my emotions and called for Marie.

  A moment later, her cheerful face popped around the corner of the door.

  “It’s time,” I said, the nerves in my belly easing slightly.

  Marie smiled, nodding. Long ago, she’d agreed to follow my desire by showing nothing but love and laughter in the presence of my tiny daughter, but now that the moment had arrived, she clearly found it as difficult as I. She couldn’t quite hide the sadness in her eyes.

  I turned away, lest her sorrow trigger mine, and instead focused on the blue skies of the warm autumn day. A light breeze blew from the west. In the distance, the waves beat against the rocky cliffs like a drum, the occasional cry of the gulls rising above the din.

  I scanned the horizon, eyeing a flock of geese flying above me in formation.

  My time had come in more ways than one.

  I would greet my daughter, see her safe … and then face Emilio.

  Marie and I both kept my labor secret, and Fate fortuned me with a light one. By early evening, my daughter arrived, a child conceived in love.

  I admired her delicate features, her angelic expression and the wispy, brown curls rioting about her tiny, red face. She looked so much like Dorian, sharing his bright, moss-green eyes. She carried only one part of me: the promise of a latchling hidden deep in her blood, a promise that would lie dormant over seven hundred years—providing her bloodline survived.

  I held her close, fighting the tears I’d sworn neve
r to shed as I marveled at her tiny, red fingers and toes. I did not sleep that night. I curled by her side, spending the time kissing her soft cheeks, exquisitely shaped chin, along with every finger and every toe. I stayed there, lying next to my drowsing daughter until the warm rays of the morning sun caressed her tiny body and I knew it was time.

  Forcing a smile, I swallowed my tears. I could wait no longer. I wrapped myself in a dark blue cloak, allowing the hood to spill forward and hide my face, and then calling to my druid kinfolk, I let them ferret me away.

  Lord Rowle would be furious. I knew that well. But I was determined to see my daughter safe. I left his men on the isle, slipping past them as they slept and took my kinfolk’s ship instead. We sailed south, following Marie’s seeking spell. For months, she’d crafted the enchantment, working closely with the Stonehenge druids to read the stars. Fate had given her the signs, of both a home for my daughter and a babe, a boy, to bear back in her stead. Both waited for us in the south.

  Our ship touched shore and stepping past the seals basking on the rocks, we met yet more kinfolk waiting with horses and mounted quickly. I rode as hard as I could, holding my sleeping daughter close to my breast. The leaves on the trees whispered around us in hues of red and yellow, and the afternoons were crisp and cool. Finally, I lifted my eyes to see the highlands spreading out before me in all of their splendor.

  We passed over the moors where crofts and shielings once stood, cantering along silver-tinted lochs and through tall, majestic pines.

  Finally, we reached a bridge with mountain goats nibbling at the ropes and there Marie paused and pointed.

  “There it is, my lady,” came her fateful words.

  The dreaded moment had finally arrived.

  I sat there on my horse, allowing myself to brood a brief time, my heart bleeding and crying out in a secret agony I knew I would carry to the end of my days. Discipline alone finally allowed my eyes to follow the line of her finger.

  There, perched high on a hill above the moors stood a quaint croft with a thatched roof and climbing roses framing the door.

  Marie and the druids approached first, preparing the way, summoning ancient, changeling magic. From this moment on, the parents would look at my daughter and see only their own flesh and blood.

  I followed, slowly. Each step more difficult than the last. Minutes. I had only minutes left to hold my daughter to my breast.

  Finally, I arrived.

  “They cannot see or hear us, my lady,” Marie murmured. “And when she sees the babe, ‘twill be as if she’d never lost her own wee one, just two days ago.”

  I nodded and glanced at the cottage.

  The door stood ajar. Slowly, I peered through the open door. The scene was one of a young mother with blonde hair and a rosy complexion seated next to a wooden cradle, sewing, her brows knit with sadness as the needle flashed through the cloth. A basket rested on a little worktable nearby, a basket filled with baby clothing.

  The place was simple, the walls plain and unadorned.

  Her husband, a gentle young man with a bent nose, a thick mustache, and a kindly look in his eyes, walked by her, pausing to rest a comforting hand upon her shoulder.

  The woman lifted her head and looked up with a sorrowful yet openhearted smile.

  Grief tore my heart, along with a sense of peace. Marie and my kinfolk had chosen well. I had no doubt this humble woman and her husband would love my daughter with their hearts and souls.

  Crooning the last melody I’d ever sing in my daughter’s ears, I slowly approached. I held her as long as I could, a lovely little weight in my arms. I clutched her close, savoring our last moment.

  My daughter seemed to have sensed it. She opened her eyes and grabbed my finger tightly, working her mouth as if to smile and send me courage.

  Then it was time.

  Woodenly, I placed my child in the woman’s arms.

  “This is your child, a daughter,” I whispered.

  The young woman resisted, as any good mother would. A low sound of distress escaped from her throat. In that moment, I knew she wept for her own lost little one, battling the loss of such a cherished memory, but then the pain vanished from her face and she smiled, a smile of great sweetness.

  I took one last look at my daughter’s dimpled, pink cheeks as she nestled in the arms of the only woman she would ever know as mother.

  I moved then.

  I have no recollection of leaving the humble home nor of mounting my horse.

  I only recall pausing a moment at the bottom of the hill, looking back at the tiny, barely visible cottage perched over the sweeping moors with the mountains towering behind it.

  Some say the highlands are cold, cruel. I don’t agree. They are beautiful. Wild.

  And safe.

  My daughter would know joy and peace there.

  What more could I hope for?

  Straightening my shoulders, I forced my horse onwards, never to look back again.

  But I have one regret. The only one of that time—I returned to the path of my destiny, never knowing my daughter’s name.

  Woe

  They brought me the babe, a Charmed boy—or so I trusted him to be. I could no longer tell. I do not recall his features. I only remember the sound of his cries. I accepted him and kissed his cheek, but he would have none of me. He wailed and fidgeted, even as I held him close, hoping to ease the pain of my daughter’s loss. But alas, neither of us could forge a genuine bond.

  I rode to Dunnottar, never feeling more alone.

  Once we reached Dunnottar’s lands, my kinfolk withdrew. We’d agreed long ago they would only see me to the castle safely. What happened within its walls would be my fate alone. I watched them ride away, disappearing into the dark clouds gathering on the horizon.

  Marie and I pressed on, arriving later that morning with a storm shrieking at our heels and the wind whipping a cresting sea. But as my horse trotted under the castle’s mighty stone gate, an unexpected spectacle met my weary eyes.

  Yes, Lord Rowle stood there bedecked in velvet finery, having heard of my approach. Men and nobles of note gathered behind them, but no one made a move to greet me. They held still, strangely silent but highly alert.

  Puzzled, I drew rein and dismounted at the gate.

  My foot had scarcely touched the stone when I heard a hiss, “Halt!”

  I whirled.

  There, scarcely a yard away, stood a Rowle House Drake, and judging by her inability to stay in human form, a very, very young one. She vacillated between her human-sized snake form, covered in black, obsidian scales and her alternate image of a slim, young woman of oriental descent with long, dark hair, disdainful brown eyes and skin as white as a doll.

  “Noble Drake,” I acknowledged, bowing low in complete shock.

  For the most part, house drakes remained invisible. They lived in the shadows, taking various lizard forms, and were rarely ever seen unless they felt the house that they protected stood on the verge of destruction. I’d never seen a drake in my entire marriage to Lord Rowle. In fact, I hadn’t any reason to think they still protected his bloodline.

  It couldn’t be good news that she’d appeared.

  She moved towards me, opening her mouth with a deafening roar, and the next moment, her fingers closed about my throat. “Not one step further,” her voice resonated deep in my mind.

  I choked. Heat flooded through me—a side effect of her spell, but an effect I knew only the Common Folk experienced. I couldn’t resist her. I was helpless. Could she read my every thought? I couldn’t tell. My thoughts raced. Why hadn’t I accounted for such a possibility? Oh, what a foolish, foolish blunder. The Charmed version of me wouldn’t have erred in such a way.

  Suddenly, she let me go, and as I stood there, rubbing my neck and gasping for air, her voice whispered in my thoughts, sounding hoarse and scratchy. “I should see you in a cold, narrow grave this morn.”

  Should?

  The word gave me pause, even as my
flesh continued to burn. I knew it meant she wasn’t finished probing my mind yet. I resisted, or tried to, praying she could not delve deeper to unveil the truth.

  Alas, but she did. “A changeling,” her voice commented in my mind and a glint of viciousness entered her eyes.

  I caught her hands in mine. “Young drake,” I whispered so she alone could hear, desperation roughening my tone. “Please hear—”

  “I have heard more than enough,” she interrupted, again injecting the words directly into my thoughts alone. “The House of Rowle is weak. At last, it falls with nothing left to rise up from the ashes.”

  I couldn’t miss the snarling venom in her tone and stared, astonished, that a house drake could utter such disloyalty. Was it a test? How I longed for my Charmed abilities, or at least enough to sense just where this creature’s thoughts truly lay. What game did she play?

  “I play no game,” her answer hissed, settling the question of exactly how much she could read my mind. “You bear the Rowle name, do you not?”

  So. She was using me for her own purposes. “Clever,” I observed. “But hairsplitting.”

  The drake sent me a chilling, black look and flicked her eyes at Lord Rowle where he waited a fair distance away. “Your daughter’s latchling descendant will have the power to undo many wrongs,” she said, her dark eyes as cold as ice. “Including those heaped upon the Firedrakes.”

  Without my Charmed defenses, she’d obviously sifted through my mind with ease, ferreting out even my deepest, darkest secrets. The fact she knew of my daughter’s existence filled me with despair even as part of me dared to hope. She hadn’t announced my betrayal to Lord Rowle yet. He still stood with his retinue, a safe distance away, and with his eyes locked on our every move, awaiting her judgement.

  I took a deep breath and whispered, “Are you not bound to protect your lord and master, young drake?”

  A sharp, poisonous smile curved her lips. “I am bound to serve the best interests of the house,” she answered instead. Darting a quick glance to Lord Rowle, she added, “I will not fight for that one. Not after what I have witnessed upon my kind and others like them. He has allied himself with evil. I, Tabitha of the Firedrakes, will not bow knee to the Mindbreaker’s ilk.”