The manor is gone. The witches are gone. Darkhaven is gone.
There is only Will and his blood inside my veins.
A wave of magic assaults me, and I nearly jolt upright from where I sit. Breathless, I struggle to maintain my hold. He digs his fingers into my flesh, and the pain grounds me.
I want to go back to that place where nothing exists. There was no pain, no pleasure—just eternal nothingness. I wasn’t a disappointment, my friend wasn’t missing, and I could just be still.
But I know I will find no answers in that place. I sway from side to side as I fight the urge to float away again. My aura, my mind, my entire essence wants to leave this place, this physical plane. But I need to focus. I need to stay here. I have to find Liv.
I open my eyes. With a heaving chest and glossy eyes, Will stares at me. I think he’s speaking to me, mumbling words I can’t understand. His voice is barely a whisper, and it pains me to focus on what he says, but I do it anyway.
By the time I recognize the Latin incantation, the air is already hot around us. The elements are strengthening as they prepare to locate Liv. When I look into Will’s eyes, our surroundings begin to fade away, and our magic regains the control it needs to lead me to her.
The world becomes dark, with nothing but Will’s piercing crimson gaze rooting me.
Once again, there is only me and Will and the unfamiliar feeling of his essence coursing through my veins.
This time, I don’t float away. I stay rooted in the present, on the physical plane, and I clear my mind. I focus on our intention, understanding that Will and I can only hold on to this magic for so long.
My skin is slick, and I ignore the overwhelming urge to reach up and wipe away the sweat that dribbles down my temple. It tickles my skin, and I shake as I shiver.
“Use our magic to locate her,” Will says. He whispers when he speaks.
Silently, I call to spirit, using Will’s power and my memory to focus on Liv. I remember all the times we shared. I picture her, seeing her as clearly as I see Will before me now. I imagine she’s beside me, leading me to her body on this physical plane.
I see her dark hair, her brown eyes, her pale skin. She smiles at me, and it feels like it used to. We’re friends again, and I’m just a witch. We laugh and keep secrets. We have our whole lives ahead of us. I’m not dead—and neither is she.
The wind around us grows stronger, the air heating as we connect with Liv. I close my eyes, desperately trying to maintain my control over our combined magic.
“Will…I feel her,” I whisper.
I sway again, fighting the urge to topple over. Will reaches out, guiding a hand to steady me.
I see flashes of images—all things Liv must have seen. I don’t know what’s real and what’s her imagination. Can I use these pictures to piece together where she is now? I try to, but my mind begins to wander as I tire. Exhaustion is sneaking up quickly, and soon, I’ll be too weak to connect at all.
“Stay focused,” Will warns.
I nod, my head heavy. I slump over, resting against Will. He wraps his arms around me, and I lean against his chest. His pulse is pounding against my ear. I can’t hear anything but his breath and the steady, strong beat of his heart. If I don’t pull away from him, I’m certain I’ll lose my connection to Liv.
Will must understand because he pushes away, setting me upright. With slick wrists, I nearly break our connection when we move. I dig my fingers into his flesh, desperately trying to grip his arm. Will does the same, and I wince. Our bleeding wrists must stay bound together. The wound tingles as my vampire blood attempts to heal it, but this ritual is meant to maintain this vulnerability. Until we separate, we will continue to bleed into each other.
With both hands, we hold on to each other’s wrist. Each second I harness this magic, I feel my energy draining. I’m weakening. My body was never meant to harness the magic of two hybrids. With heavy eyes and a sleepy gaze, Will doesn’t seem to be handling the power any better than I am. He continues to whisper the incantation, only breaking when he speaks to me.
“Tell me what you see,” Will whispers. He sounds pained, and I fight to keep my eyes open so I can look at him.
“I see…trees. A lot of trees. It’s…remote, very rural. Very cold.”
I shiver as if what I envision can actually affect me here, now. I know it cannot—and not because the undead don’t experience things like the cold the way the living does. I know what I see is through Liv’s eyes. She may be experiencing pain, but it will not transfer to me. I just need to see enough to be able to locate her.
I focus intently on the task at hand, becoming breathless from my exertion. My arm aches, and my stomach grumbles. I’m growing weaker by the minute. I need to see something worthwhile soon, or I’ll never find her.
“What else?” Will asks softly.
“She feels close,” I say.
“Good,” Will says. “Maybe she’s still in Darkhaven.”
I squeeze my eyes closed as tightly as I can, trying to see through Liv’s eyes. I fear what I might witness. She’s alive, but is she still mortal? Is she rogue? What will be expected of me if she’s a vampire? Will I have to hunt her too?
“I see…” I squeeze Will’s hands so tight, my nails puncture skin. He sucks in a sharp breath, and the sound of hissing air pierces my ears. I shiver but don’t ask if he’s okay.
“Keep going,” Will says. “Try harder.”
Sweat beads down my forehead and pools in the crevice of my eyes. It stings, and I shake my head to whisk it away.
“Focus, Ava,” Will warns. “We haven’t much time.”
“I see…”
I open my eyes, sucking in a sharp breath. I pull away from Will, yanking my arms free to break our connection. I don’t want to see Liv anymore. I don’t want to be inside her head or experience what she sees. Will is so surprised by my abrupt disconnect, he releases me with little fight.
I stare at my fellow hybrid, unable to speak. I know my shock is evident on my face, because Will frowns at me. He opens his mouth to speak before quickly snapping it shut again. He’s not sure if he should ask, and I’m not sure I want to admit what I saw.
Because what I witnessed changes everything.
“The locater spell worked,” I say. “The ritual worked. I connected with Liv and saw through her eyes. I watched her life unfolding as if I were her. But I can’t believe what I saw.”
“What did you see?” Will asks.
“It can’t be true,” I whisper, shaking my head.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Will asks, confused.
My wrist tingles, and I glance down at it. My flesh is healing, removing any evidence of our spell. It’s as if it never happened. And internally, I wish it hadn’t. I wish I’d never cast the spell. I wish I’d never seen what I saw, and I wish I’d never risked my life to save hers.
“What did you see?” Will asks. He swallows, and I stare at his throat. I’m hungry, but the desire to feed is masked by something else. Another emotion rages within me, and it’s all I can feel. Never in my life have I felt so betrayed, so furious, so…malicious.
“Ava, tell me!” Will shouts.
“I found her,” I say quietly, still unbelieving of what I saw.
“And?” Will asks.
“She’s with Mamá.”
I’m stomping through the snow, uncaring of how much noise I’m making. Dead brush crunches beneath my feet. Twigs snap, the sound like a whip in my mind. The witches will surely hear my approach, but I don’t care. I want answers.
“Ava, think about what you’re doing,” Will says.
He struggles to keep up with me. I’m familiar with this frozen tundra, but he’s not. He trips over fallen branches and crashes into tree banks. He’s been trying to calm me down since I broke our circle and began rushing over here. But I can’t be tamed.
“I want answers, Will.”
“I know, and I do too, but think about this,” Will war
ns. “Think about the timing of this. We just battled another coven, and we’re outnumbered. We’re weak from the spell.”
But I don’t care about any of that. I just need to see them. I need to know what happened, why they lied—if Liv was ever missing to begin with. Questions circulate in my mind, and it’s all I can think about right now. I don’t fear for my safety; I fear for theirs.
“I need to know why,” I say, repeating myself.
Why would Mamá lie to me? Why would she make me think Liv was taken? She knows Liv was important to me. Was this just some cruel game? Did she think it was funny? Was she testing my loyalties? Was it Liv’s idea, or was she an innocent bystander in the witches’ messed-up games? I have more questions than answers, and that just frustrates me more.
“Maybe they already found her, and that’s why she is with them,” Will suggests.
“She didn’t seem like she was just saved from her abductors,” I say. I smack a low-hanging tree branch as I pass it. A flurry of snow cascades around us, falling to the ground. “In fact, she seemed just fine. Now tell me, Will, if you were just held captive for two full days, would you act like nothing happened? I think not.”
“Ava, this is suicide!” Will says, his voice frantic.
“Then wait here,” I say. “I’ll only be a minute.”
Straight ahead, I see Mamá’s house. The forest brushes up against her backyard. The only thing separating the two worlds—the forest and her home in Darkhaven—is a short, wooden fence.
I make my way toward the gate and stare at the house I used to find so homey. I liked that Mamá never painted the wooden planks Papá used to build our home. I thought it was sweet, like she was secretly always waiting for him to return to us. It makes me sick to think of the woman he would have come home to. She’s nothing like the person he fell in love with.
I peer into the windows, squinting to see shadows inside the rooms. It’s too dark inside to see anything clearly. The house looks empty, but I know she’s inside, waiting for me. If this was just a test or some sick, twisted game, then she expected me to figure it out eventually. She knows me well enough to trust I would come here for answers.
I open the gate, the creak from weather-worn hardware announcing my presence, and step past the threshold and into her backyard. Will is beside me, but he scans the surrounding woods. He’s certain more witches are coming for us, and he might be right. But I can’t think about that now.
“Hola, hija,” Mamá says.
She steps out of the shadows, where she was waiting, hiding.
“Mamá,” I say in response.
“Sabía que vendrías,” she says, confirming my earlier thoughts. She was expecting me to return home.
“And what did you plan to say to me when I came back?” I ask. I narrow my gaze at her, hoping my anger is evident.
“Liv was not missing, mija,” Mamá says. “She was never in danger.”
“You lied to me. But why?” I ask, shocked my coven would stoop so low. “What was the point? Was this all just a game to you?” Faking the disappearance of one of their own was pathetic. They should be above such trivial, childish pursuits.
“Esto no es un juego,” she says. “After you came to our aid so naturally when the vampires attacked, I knew you would come again. You just needed motivation.”
“What do you mean ‘this is not a game’? What’s going on?” My skin is prickling, warning me of incoming danger.
I glance at Will, who’s shaking from nerves or hunger or both. He must feel it too. Something is…off, not right. He stares into the distance, noticing what I was too distracted to see.
We are surrounded. While I was confronting Mamá, the other witches encircled us. Standing in their crosshairs, I have no choice but to wait for their attack. I’ll admit, I might not have been on friendly terms with my coven, but they’re the last witches I expected to actually hunt me down.
“I had to lie, mija,” Mamá admits. “It was the only way to get you here.”
“And now what? What happens now?” I ask, desperately trying to sound stronger than I am. I’m terrified, and I don’t want the witches to sense it.
Are you going to actually kill me, Mamá? Your own daughter?
“Now you come home,” she says.
Chapter Thirteen
I wish I could say I never expected my demise to be at the hands of my own mother, but even I know that to be a lie. Even so, that doesn’t make me stop wondering how Mamá could betray me like this. From the beginning, she’s hated what I’ve become, but is her animosity, her bitterness toward my new life, really enough to make her feel death is my only way back to salvation?
Time slows as the witches draw nearer. It’s almost as if they move in slow motion. I know they’re not. It’s all in my head, and briefly, I pretend everything is in my head. I’m not standing in Mamá’s backyard. I’m not facing the witches in what will surely end in a battle. I’m not risking death or fighting those I once loved. I’m in bed at the manor, and everything is okay.
Until it’s not anymore.
Frowning, I scan the crowd. There are so many faces I don’t recognize. I’m not surprised Mamá asked the other covens to aid her in this ridiculous, spiteful pursuit, but I am shocked so many side with her.
They dive into a world of unknowns, not caring to understand the truth or accept the half-blood creatures Will and I claim to be. They will not have promises of peace and prosperity, and because of this, we will never escape war and bloodshed. I understand that now. I understand that it is either them or me.
When I look at Mamá and stare into her eyes, I do not see sorrow. There is no regret, no anguish. She does not mourn her daughter. She looks at me with disgust, with shame. Am I really so far gone in her eyes? She mourns who I was without considering that which we’ve gained.
My throat tightens as the witches begin their chants. I inhale sharply, holding my breath as I consider our options. Everything in my life results in death and destruction, yet I can never get used to fighting to the death like we’re gladiators.
Will is beside me. He grabs on to my hand, sliding his fingers to thread them between mine. I stand as a united front with a stranger. He does not know me, but he risked his life to save another. I search for her, wondering if she knows the pain she’s caused.
I see Liv. She stands beside Mamá, a formidable force with a fireball bouncing between her two hands. It seems I’m not the only one who’s been training. She smiles at me, but it does not reach her eyes. Even so, they tell me everything her lips do not. She helped Mamá plan this attack. Together, they worked to kill me.
The weight of Will’s hand against mine is almost too much to bear. If only I’d listened to the vampires, if only I’d believed the witches were up to no good, we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be close to death, and Will would live to see another day. I refuse to be responsible for his end. He’s shown me more support in the past day than my coven did my entire life. He deserves my protection; they do not.
“Ava,” Will says.
His voice is cold, his tone hard. His gaze is sharply attuned to what’s happening around us. I should be as focused as he is, but I can’t shake the feeling that confrontation will only make things worse. We will quarrel our way to freedom, but in the meantime, the witches have a plan, and it’s nearly sunrise.
Mamá has outsmarted us. From the beginning, she anticipated my reactions. She knew the vampires would not assist her, and she knew I was too stubborn a creature to let Liv die. She was smart enough to foresee my leaving yet another home in favor of what I believed was morally right.
My skin prickles, a clear warning that I cannot rattle. Every day, my skin tingles as the moon sets and the sun rises, but usually I’m safely inside the manor, and often I’m tucked beneath the covers of my bed. I envision it now—cold, empty. I wonder if I’ll ever glide beneath those sheets again.
“We need to act quickly,” Will hisses.
His pulse is r
acing, his skin burning. I’m sure if I look into his eyes, I’ll see his magic bubbling within them, pools of the raging elements at war with what the witches are executing—us.
He’s angry, afraid, and forcing me to choose. Our enemies have made it clear. If we want to survive, they will have to die. We can escape their fury tonight, but that means sacrificing anyone who gets in our way, including Mamá or Liv or the countless others whose faces I do recognize.
My former coven members look at me with disdain. It feels like a lifetime ago when I would have gladly sacrificed my life to save any one of them. How much can I withstand? How many betrayals do I need to experience before I relinquish control over that selfless girl?
Blinded by devotion to the only blood I’ve known and terrified by the idea of an eternity without them, I willingly allowed the witches to abuse me. But the cycle ends here. As much as I want to forgive Mamá and love her, I can’t. She won’t let me.
I squeeze Will’s hand three times to let him know I’m ready for an all-out brawl. I’m prepared to fight my way through bloodshed and teardrops if that means we see another nightfall. I wish it didn’t have to end this way, but they’ve given me no other options.
If they want a war, the vampires will give them one.
I exhale slowly and release Will’s hand. We separate, him skating to the left, attacking the many witches attempting to control him with their magic, and me rushing to the right, toward Mamá and Liv and far too many familiar faces.
Everything moves too quickly. I don’t think about what I’m doing, because the thought sickens me. I’m dashing forward, tearing through flesh. I hear their screams, but I try not to think about the voices, the lives behind them.
I dodge a fireball directed straight for my heart. I don’t know who sent it my way. Maybe Liv. Maybe someone else. I’m focused too intently on simply surviving.
Dark Promise (Darkhaven Saga Book 3) Page 12