by D. Fischer
Irene leans against a corner that leads into a hall of the private areas of the shop. She lifts one eyebrow to Kat and crosses her arms over her chest. “You mean when I asked you what you were, and you wouldn’t give me the answer?”
“Yep.” She still grins, bright in the pale lights.
I haven’t seen her smile like that in a while. It’s breathtaking, bright like the moon on a clear night. A light fighting against a black, endless universe. It heightens her pixie features, and I drink in the details, committing the grin to memory just in case I never see it again. In case I never see it directed at me. There’s still time yet – time to walk away from me as a mate. And I’ll let her because she deserves the kind of happiness she has right now, at this very moment.
The familiarity of the shop had the opposite effect I thought it would, and she seems genuinely comforted under this roof. I was so sure it would bring a bout of depression. I thought it would slip over her like a cape once she stepped foot inside and was reminded of a life she can no longer have. I match her beam, unable to help myself.
Flint stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t like you back then,” he says to Kat, and my smile fades as rapidly as it came.
“Flint,” I warn, scowling.
“What?” He flings out a hand. “I didn’t. She knows it, too. It’s no secret. I thought everything she said was a giant load of crap.”
Kat laughs, her head tilting back to proclaim her joy to the ceiling. “I bet you feel like a fool now, don’t ya?”
“It’s not the first time he’s been wrong, no matter what he tells you,” Irene says, smirking.
His finger jabs in her direction. “Hey! This isn’t storytime.”
I lean my hip against the counter, unable to wipe the smile from my face, and the thought of vampires possibly lurking around every corner quickly fades in the presence of good company. I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I’d be where I am right now. Alive. Breathing. Laughing. Free.
Kat lifts a tablet next to the ancient register. She waves it in the air, glancing at Irene. “You went more digital?” she asks her.
“Yeah,” Irene answers, pushing off the corner to join Kat. Together, they hover over the small screen while Irene shows her how to use it. Kat must not be the technological type, unlike me, who was into every technology advancement when I was alive before. I was the brains of the pack. Now . . . I don’t really know what I am besides Kat’s mate. I don’t know what purpose I truly have, but I do know one thing. I am meant to be where I am right now, at this very moment.
Leaving them to their own devices, Flint seeks out the small kitchenette past the short dark hall while I wonder to a book that catches my eye. Directly on the front is a golden pentagram embedded in the black, faded leather. The symbol is made of real gold, glistening under the pale light of the shop.
Further curious, I snatch the book from the shelf, run my hand over the texture, and open the small novel. The spine cracks with age, and the waft of old paper tickles my senses.
I flip the pages over, and with difficulty, I read the paragraphs that jump out at me. It’s Wiccan, every single entry, and written by hand in perfect cursive. Quickly, I turn it over and peer at the back. There’s no price tag but, instead, a bright red sticker declares, ‘not for sale.’ I frown and open to the last page where the descriptions of the contents are scrawled.
“What are you reading?” Kat asks from behind the counter. Finger in place, I wave the book in the air, showing the cover since there is no title. She’s silent for a moment, and then I hear her footsteps patter across the floor. “Oh, that.” She huffs as she reaches me.
“What is it?” I ask, looking down at her. Gently, I hand her the book. “A pentagram of what? Us?”
It isn’t her handwriting inside. It is someone else’s because these days, no one writes like that. The cursive has perfect dips and long loops, and the ink is definitely not ball tipped. Licking my bottom lip, I stretch my neck, prepared to out-stubborn this small woman who has yet to answer me. Instead, she stares at it, hard, her eyes darting across the surface, searching for the answers she seeks inside.
“You remember what Erline said, right?” she asks, and I nod. She moves to the counter and places the book gently on the glass. “If the pentagram is exactly what Erline said it is. . . Gosh, that has to be it.”
Thumping her hand lightly against the glass, she startles Irene.
“What?” I huff.
“It further explains the situation we find ourselves in, Dyson.” For a moment, her emotions take control, and her fingers dance with flames. She clenches her fists, and the flames disappear as quickly as they arose. Somehow, I get the feeling she’s not talking about the book anymore. “I’ve never truly read that book, only skimmed the pages. It’s been moved across the shop so many times. If I’m being honest, I bought it because I thought it’d be cool to decorate the shop with.” She traces the gold lines.
An eternity of stability, truth, clarity, and strength, Erline had said. Much to my dismay, Kat still isn’t making sense despite my perfect recollection of the fee’s words.
“What did Erline mean by eternity?” I ask, meeting Irene’s gaze for a split-second. Her lips are parted as she hangs on Kat’s every word.
“Exactly that. Sort of. My coven’s symbol is the half-moon. It was hung in Myla and Corbin’s home. In Wiccan terms, a half-moon also means fertility, life, and death. She’s the daughter of Kheelan and Erline – of mother nature and king of death.”
“Sweet baby Jesus,” Irene mumbles, a phrase often used by Kenna.
Kat only glances at her. “The half-moon, with a strike I made through it to honor our fallen mother, became the Demi-Lune coven crescent. It’s been passed down through the generations, and we never truly knew what it meant. Not until now. Not until all this.” She waves a hand in the air. “Would it not be fitting that since the waning moon couldn’t change the tides of the realm, the star must do it for her? The moon stands for the beginning – fertility. The strike through it is a great symbol of her death, and the star, the construction of it beginning several hundred years ago, stands for eternity. Eternity of five fates. Fates that govern and balance. Fates appointed by Fate himself. A point . . .” She motions to each tip of the pentagram and then curses at the audacity of it all.
“Kat!” Irene barks, impatient. “Spit it out!”
Kat gets this faraway look in her eye while revisiting past memories and the legends she was told. “My mother once said to me that the deal I made with Erline would reincarnate the first-born witch, and it did. She said it would confuse the realms. It did. That it could end it all. ‘All could be lost,’ she had said.”
End-inning, Gan had babbled in the cold, dark dungeon. A chill sweeps over my skin. “You think it’s some sort of prophecy? It has to be, right? Everything points to it.”
“Everything points to us either saving the realms,” she murmurs. “Or ending them.”
“Y’all are like a bad omen,” Irene mutters and steps away.
I raise an eyebrow at her. Everything around us is a tangled web of fate, often governed by Fate. Even if this is true though, it doesn’t change anything.
“The realms, once silent, rose like inflated balloons after I made that deal and Myla was reincarnated.” She throws out an arm. “Look at Tember. She’s fee now. I have magic I don’t understand. Eliza has power equal to her fee husband. Aiden . . . Jesus, Aiden.” She rubs a hand over her face.
“Who knows what all he can do,” I mutter. He’s a beast. A beast I’m glad is on our side.
“And then there’s you,” she says, blinking.
“Me?”
Shrugging again, she says, “Yeah. You aren’t exactly a plain rose in a garden, Dyson. Fate came to all five of us. You really think it’s a coincidence? That what we’re seeing, at this very moment, is just the beginning?”
I don’t, and I find myself thinking it doesn’t matter. Although it’s touching th
at she thinks so highly of me, it changes nothing if what she’s implying is correct. Our paths are set, no matter where they lead, no matter how chaotic they get from here. Either we win, or we die. Speculating won’t change a damn thing.
Flint, steaming mug of tea in his hands, shuffles from the back and into the main area of the shop. Our conversation immediately halts, and he huffs at our suspicious silence. There’s nothing more to say on the matter, and repeating it all over again would just defeat our purpose for being here. Besides, with his shifter hearing, he probably heard it all anyway. I’ll leave it to Irene to explain to him, knowing she will at first chance. Mates share everything with one another.
Satisfied with the inventory and profits, Irene places the tablet back on its charger. The tap of it against the surface breaks the awkwardness in the room, and Kat sags with relief. We’re quiet for a moment. A stillness falls over the shop except for the hum of the heater as it kicks on to battle the chilly draft sweeping around my shoulders.
“Do you, um,” Kat begins, nervously fiddling with the hem of her shirt. “Do you guys mind waiting down here while I go grab some of my things from upstairs?”
Flint and Irene nod and Kat thanks them, wandering past the counter and down the hall to a set of stairs at the back. I follow, and she spins on her heel just before the first step.
“What are you doing?” she asks incredulously.
“Coming with you,” I say, challenging her by crossing my arms over my chest.
She chuffs and pokes me in the sternum. “Oh no, you’re not. I can do this alone.”
I grind my teeth past Flint’s chuckle that sings down the short hall. “Vampires have been here, Kat.”
“You don’t think I know that?” she responds, lifting an eyebrow and poking me once more. “They’re always around my shop. You honestly think they would have wandered up to my apartment, sat, starving to death while waiting for my return that may have never come? Come on, Dyson. We’re talking about vampires here – the practical definition of impatience and stupidity.”
I squeeze my arms tighter around my chest and say nothing, using my silence to rip apart her excuse. In the comfort of her domain, her stubbornness has grown tenfold. Like hell I’m letting her go up there alone. There’s no way I, nor my wolf, would be able to handle her absence, not knowing if she’s being eaten by a fanged creature while we mosey around her shop below.
Growling under her breath, she caves, turns sharply and stomps up the stairs.
“Take your time,” Irene calls, humor in her tone.
I follow her up and walk through the door Kat left ajar for me. The room is cold, and the dryness of the dust chafes my nose. Aside from that, it’s nothing close to what I had expected. Her living space is cozy even with the minimal mismatched furniture and colorful decorations. The kitchenette is small, but I hadn’t expected it to be large – Kat doesn’t cook often, at least around me.
Abruptly, I sneeze as Kat rifles through the bills left on the table.
“No voodoo dolls? Flying brooms? Tipped hats?” I ask hands on hips.
Smirking, she slices through an envelope using a sharp nail. “Sorry to disappoint.” Quickly reading through the letter, she sags in relief. “She’s been keeping up with payments.”
“Irene is handy like that,” I mumble and shuffle through the tight dining room and into the open living room.
Though cozy, I feel too large for her small living room. I have a hard time picturing such a big personality living in it. Then again, the boxing walls may have made her feel safer without a coven. There are no corners for an enemy to hide, no shadow too dark, and the hallway is short, leading to the bedroom and bathroom. I tower in a space meant for shorter people. Ordinary people.
I make my way to the small kitchenette’s stool and perch my elbow on the island next to a dusty cereal box, keeping my attention directly on Kat. There’s never been a vampire in here; that is clear. With this reassurance, I allow myself to relax in this rare moment of space from every other creature and human on the planet except the one I desire most.
Every now and then, Kat sneaks a peek at me as she checks on her home, but for the most part, she pretends I’m not here. I, however, track her every move, watch her curves as she bends and snatches discarded clothes on the floor, and observe the gentleness as her fingers stroke her short hair. When she begins testing the lights by flicking the switch off and on, I get the feeling she’s deliberately doing it to distract herself from me.
Eventually, she wanders down the hall and stops short in her bedroom entrance. When she doesn’t move for several moments, I gather myself to my feet and cautiously move to stand behind her.
The bedsheets are a mess, the comforter a heap on the floor. Dirty laundry swallows the corner next to her closet, and the blinds to her window are oddly in disarray.
“It feels like yesterday I was last here, but the dust is so thick . . .”
Without a second thought to my actions, I lift my hands and place them on her shoulders. She stiffens at my touch as if not noticing I had loomed so close.
“What is it?” I ask, pecking the top of her head.
She doesn’t answer right away and glides carefully into the room, practically tiptoeing to the end table where a leather satchel rests with its worn strap dangling to the floor. A moon with a strike through it is etched into the leather, splotched with stains. This must be the famous coven crescent.
“I got this during my Right,” she whispers, grasping the bag and holding it in front of her. She runs her thumb over the crescent. “Everything was so much simpler back then. The rules were clear, yet I challenged them at every chance. If I had just obeyed them, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t be the center of destruction. I wouldn’t be the reason for all this.”
I walk into the room, stand behind her once more, and wrap my arms around her waist. “And I’d be dead. Probably twice over by now. The consequences of your actions have saved a lot of people, Kat.”
“Not when weighing those I couldn’t save,” she mumbles, picking at a few stray stitches.
“When are you going to stop punishing yourself?” I ask, bravely lowering my head and kissing her exposed neck, a soft brush of lips.
Instead of tensing like I thought she would, she melts into me. Her head tilts slightly to the side, an invitation for my touch. Every time I think she’s moved past whatever plagues her thoughts, they drive back forward.
“I’ll always blame myself, Dyson. I’ve seen too much. I’ve been through too much not to.”
I peck again, and her spine melts.
“This room is a shrine to what I used to be,” she continues. “How do I move past it? What could possibly be my next stage in life that doesn’t bring more death? When will it end?”
“There will always be death,” I say against her peachy skin. “It’s a fact of life, and no one can avoid it. How it happens to each person isn’t up to you. It’s fate.”
She snakes her fingers over the top of my arm and strokes the skin soothingly. “No, but I sure seem to be giving death what it wants. You have to admit, if I didn’t make the deal with Erline, many would still be alive.”
“That’s a foolish thought,” I say, nuzzling the collar of her shirt aside and brushing my lips over the strap of her blue bra. Her scent here is more intense, and I greedily draw it in. “Many creatures across every realm would still be in terrible situations if it wasn’t for you.” My thoughts drift to Sandy and what he was forced to endure.
“But they’d be alive,” she whispers, breathy, as I move to the edge of her shoulder.
“But they wouldn’t want to be,” I add. “You give everybody hope.”
Carefully, I turn her around to face me. Taking the satchel from her hands, I place it back on the small table. Her sparkling eyes look into mine, and when she doesn’t back away, I lower my head and kiss her properly. She further melts into my arms, a sigh snaking through her nostrils and tickling the skin o
n my cheeks.
Lifting the hem of her shirt, I run my hand along the dip of her spine. Goosebumps prick her skin, and I skim every single one of them. With my other hand, I grasp the short hair on the nap of her neck and tug. My lips leave hers and my teeth nibble her jaw, tasting.
A moan rumbles her chest against mine and her breasts peak. She tucks her arms under mine and splays her hands along my back, pulling me closer. She inhales sharply, taking in my scent like a shifter would, and it further heightens my arousal, tingling at the base of my spine. I suppose, in a roundabout way, she is a shifter.
She runs her hands up my back and then back down, snaking her fingers over my hips and to the top button of my shirt. With sure fingers, she unclasps the first, and I stiffen under her presumptuous touch.
“Kat,” I warn. She isn’t ready for the next step in our relationship, and the last thing I want is to be an excuse. I don’t want her to distract her own thoughts with lust. I want her to deal with them properly so that we may move forward. Having sex could ruin everything. Or perhaps . . . perhaps the closeness of it could mend it all.
“You know what I think?” she asks, not waiting for me to answer as she whispers in my ear. “I think you know more than what you’re telling – about the future and about what I feel for you.”
I chuckle against her skin. The muscles in my thighs clench when her breath tickles my ear. I do know a bit more than the others, thanks to my mini meeting with Fate, but only of my fate. Earlier, when she had mentioned that this was only the beginning, she had guessed right. This is only the beginning, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I have faith that it’ll work out in the end.
She continues. “You love me, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
I tuck her hips tighter to me as she continues to fumble with the buttons. Butterflies flutter in my stomach, and I mask my nerves with arrogance. “How have you drawn that conclusion?”
“I’m more observant than you think,” she whispers.
With all of the buttons unfastened, she pushes the sleeves from my shoulders and forces them down my arms. The cloth slips past my wrists, my fingers, and drops to the floor. The chillier air slithers over my skin, and goosebumps prick across my bare abdomen. Wanting skin on skin contact, I slip her shirt over her head, fling it to the floor, and unclasp her bra. The straps slide easily from her arms, and it puddles between our feet before I kick the cups aside.