Bianca De Lumière : High Suspense Urban Fantasy Romance (The Re'em Prophecy Book 1)

by Lisette Prendé

  Before I could reach the other side of the clearing, a third Skadhavar flew from the trees in front of me. I slowed and turned, aiming instead for a gap in the trees. But the creature leaped in front of me, blocking my path. I turned again but I was trapped. The other two beasts had caught up to me and were spreading out. I was surrounded.

  I stood inside the circle, staring at the creatures. Rotting flesh, red and weeping in places, hung from their emaciated bodies. Their mouths were a mass of yellow fangs. And atop their heads was a black horn that sloped backward. Their empty auras wafted towards me, filling me with darkness.

  I turned around and around in the circle looking at each of them. “Stay back!” I screamed. It came out not as words but in an angry neigh.

  The largest of the three Skadhavar lifted its head and released a shriek into the air. But it wasn’t only a shriek.

  “We have you Re’em!” it said. “We have you. And soon you will die just like your father!”

  My father?

  Shock, pain, and anger ripped through my body as I let out a cry. “You’re lying!” I screamed, my tail flicking behind me.

  All three Skadhavar erupted into cackles of laughter.

  “We do not lie, Re’em,” spoke the leader. “He begged for his life.”

  The ball of rage formed in my belly again.

  The beast opened its drooling mouth. “You will die, Re’em. Then she will rule and darkness will prevail.”

  The Skadhavar lifted its front feet off the ground and stood back on its hind legs. It approached, its deformed hooves, splayed and claw-like, extended towards me. “Unless of course,” it continued, in a guttural drawl, “you wish to become one of us?”

  Sparks of rage flickered through my body. I pounded the earth with my hooves. “Never!” I spat. “I would die first!”

  The towering bipedal Skadhavar cackled again as it walked closer. “Like father, like daughter.”

  The other beasts laughed and hissed in amusement, though their calls did not form words like those of their leader.

  “Very well.” It lowered into a crouch. “It’s been a while since we’ve tasted Re’em. We were told to save every drop of your silver, but surely a taste won’t be missed.”

  It leaped towards me with its long teeth bared. I turned and kicked my back legs out, landing a blow to its chest. The large beast fell backward. I pivoted, looking to the other two snarling Skadhavar. They approached, black foam seeping from their mouths. The leader was up again, ready for another attack.

  With all of my energy, I pushed my aura out around me. I pushed my white light against their darkness. Everything around me paled to shades of bright ivory. I pushed as hard as I could; even harder than I had with Sheena. My mind pulsed with hot, white energy. Still, I pushed. A high-pitched chime filled my ears.

  The two smaller Skadhavar were the first to fall. They crumpled to the ground and moaned pitifully.

  The leader fought to remain standing but released a pained cry.

  I breathed into my gut, finding what energy I had left, and pushed a hard blow towards it. The large Skadhavar released a moan and fell to the ground hissing wildly.

  As soon as they were down, I ran. I crashed through trees and galloped for home. I didn’t know how badly I’d wounded the Skadhavar, but I wasn’t about to wait around and find out.

  Once I’d neared the row of pine trees that bordered our property line, I slowed. I was slick with sweat, my breath hard and heavy. I emerged from the forest into my backyard, where I slumped onto the grass.

  I’d never been so happy to be alive. I tried to push my aura out to search for any presence of the Skadhavar but I didn’t have the energy. My aura fizzled and sparked and then gave out.

  A hollow headache was booming between my temples. I lay there on the lawn, wondering how on earth I would shift back into my human form, and closed my eyes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Bee!”

  My eyes snapped open. My mom’s worried face hung over me. Behind her the sky was growing dark; I could just make out the first few stars.

  “Bee!” she said again, helping me up. “Here you are! Come on, inside.”

  I shivered in the twilight air. My legs were wobbly and my bare skin felt pitted and tender from the grass. “Mom,” I said, bursting into tears. “I saw them! They’re awful!”

  “It’s okay, honey.” My mom wrapped a blanket around me. “I’ve got you now.”

  She helped me inside and led me into the bathroom, where she ran me a bath.

  Tired tears rolled down my face as she uncorked a glass vial and sprinkled a powder into the running water. The room immediately filled with the smell of herbs and flowers.

  She caught my gaze. “Herbal healing remedy,” she said. “From Hyssop.” She swirled a hand around in the running water. “Okay honey, in you get.”

  Standing up, I dropped the blanket to the floor. I looked down at my body; mud, dirt, and a collection of fresh pink cuts decorated my pale skin. I stepped into the hot bath and gasped.

  “Sorry,” my mom said. “It might sting a little. It’s the salt.”

  “Salt?”

  “It wards off dark spirits; foreign energies and entities. Hyssop said it will help you feel better—the Skadhavar can leave you feeling…”

  “Miserable,” I managed. Tears welled in my eyes again.

  She sighed. “Oh Bee, why did you have to run off like that? We were all so worried about you.” She dipped a washcloth into the bathwater and started to dab at the scratches all over my back.

  I winced as the briny water stung my cuts. “I’m sorry,” I said, through tears. “I really am. About everything.”

  “I’m sorry Bee. I should have told you sooner. But…” She paused. “When someone turns up and tells you your daughter will turn into a unicorn on her sixteenth birthday, it’s normal to doubt them a little isn’t it?”

  I looked into my mom’s eyes. “Who turned up?”

  She swallowed and went on. “Before your father left, he said you were different and that he needed to leave to protect you. He told me not to worry, that people would be watching out for you. Then when you were about four, Sunder came. He said he was a friend of your father’s.”

  “Sunder?”

  She nodded.

  Sunder wasn’t my father. I already knew as much from what the Skadhavar had said. But still, it felt good to hear it from her.

  “When he told me what you were, I didn’t take it terribly well. I mean, really? A shapeshifting unicorn? But after Cendrine confirmed it, it all started to make sense. I mean, I always knew you were different.” She took a slow breath. “Just like I knew your father was different.”

  “You did?”

  “The first time I laid eyes on him I knew he wasn’t…normal. He was too beautiful, too wise. There was something about him.”

  “Did he tell you what he was?”

  “Not for a while. He told me it was better if I didn’t know. Safer. I knew he was different, but the details didn’t really bother me.

  “So, my father was a centaur?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  My father. For years I’d wondered who he was. As a kid I made up stories; maybe he was a Russian spy? Or a circus performer? Perhaps he was king of a far-off land and one day he’d come to take me away from this awful place and make me a princess.

  But mostly, I wondered why he’d left. Why he’d decided to break my mother’s heart. Was it my fault? Was having an albino child too much to bear?

  My mom placed the washcloth on the edge of the bath and spoke. “He shared a herd with Sunder. They were brothers.”

  “Brothers? So Sunder’s my uncle?”

  She shook her head. “Not by blood. Members of the same herd.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying to hide my r
elief.

  “Mom?” Pain clawed at my insides, pre-empting my question. “Why did he leave?”

  She got up off the floor and sat on the toilet lid. Her eyes were on mine, intently. I could see the strength in them. In her.

  “Some people don’t believe in love at first sight, but I know it’s real. The moment I saw Lars, I knew. I felt it with every cell in my body. In that second I felt so lucky; I’d found my soulmate. It was undeniable.” She sighed, the longing still thick in her mind; it quivered through her aura.

  “When you were born,” she went on, “Lars told me that you were different.” She smiled. “That much was obvious. I thought he meant you’d be like him at some point. I mean, I knew it was a possibility, but I didn’t care. I was so in love with him and you. I had no idea that you’d become a…

  “Unicorn.”

  She nodded, took a breath and went on. “One evening your father went out for a run. He came back hours later looking awful. I knew something had happened. He was shaking all over, pale, terrified. I asked him what was wrong but he could hardly speak. That night he rocked you to sleep in his arms. He spent hours with you. I knew something was up. He came into the living room and told me he had to go.” She paused for a moment, biting into her bottom lip. “He said he had to return to his herd. That if he didn’t, it could put you in danger. He couldn’t risk anyone finding out about you.” Tears rolled down her face. “I watched him shift one last time, then he disappeared into the night. We never saw him again.”

  My mother buried her face in her hands and began to sob. Loud gasps escaped through her fingers. Her aura turned dark purple and wallowed around her. I felt her heartbreak. Her loneliness and her unyielding love for both my father and me.

  I leaned forward and rested a hand on her knee. “Mom, I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m okay honey,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I just haven’t talked about him for so long.”

  “I know.”

  “And I never hated him for leaving because I knew he was doing it to protect you. I loved him even more for that, which made it even harder.”

  I nodded.

  “Part of me hoped he would come back. That he would do what he had to, to protect you, and come back to us. I waited. I think I’ve always been waiting.”

  Tears burned behind my eyes. I swallowed. All these years I’d thought it was my fault. That the pain in my mom’s aura was caused by my birth. It wasn’t my fault. It was the Skadhavar.

  The vile words of the largest Skadhavar came back to me: Soon you will die like your father. We watched as he begged for his life.

  A hard ball had formed in my throat. I wanted so badly to tell my mother that he was gone, killed by the Skadhavar. It would bring her closure, allow her to heal. But it would hurt her too.

  I opened my mouth to speak but I couldn’t do it. My mouth could not form the words.

  “Life went on though,” she said, with a sniff. “I changed your last name to Taylor like your father insisted, and we got on with things.” She looked into my eyes. “We were okay, weren’t we, Bee? We were happy.”

  “We were great, Mom,” I said. “You were all I needed.”

  Her eyes filled with tears again and anger began to tiptoe into my stomach. I clenched my fists under the water. Not only were the Skadhavar trying to kill me, but they had also killed my father and made my mother live a life of heartache.

  For that, I would kill them.

  Every last one of them.

  “Mom, what was his last name? My father’s. You said you changed my name to Taylor.”

  She looked at me with a stern face. Her lips hesitating. Her aura quivered with fear and uncertainty. “His name was De Lumière. And so is yours. I never changed it. Not officially.”

  “De Lumière.” I said it slowly, feeling it with my tongue.

  My mother smiled at me, her aura soothing itself. “You are Bianca De Lumière.”

  As she said it aloud, a shimmer filled my ears like the sound of snowfall. My skin tingled despite the warm bathwater. It made so much sense. I wasn’t Bianca Taylor, school freak. I was someone else. Something else. I was Bianca De Lumière. Re’em. Unicorn of the realm.

  And I was going to destroy the Skadhavar.

  I needed to start training right away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sunder arrived after dinner. As I was scraping the last of the potato salad off my plate, I heard Terence’s tell-tale groan up the driveway.

  “Must be him now.” My mom rose from her seat. “Nice of him to bring your car back.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “I’ll let him in,” I said.

  I cast a quick glance at the hallway mirror and immediately wished I hadn’t. The welt on my cheek had swollen, distorting my face. I looked even paler than usual and had dark bags under my eyes. I smirked back at myself; I kinda did look like a White Walker.

  Sunder knocked again, louder this time.

  “Bianca? Are you gonna let him in?” my mom called from the kitchen as she crashed around loading the dishwasher.

  “Yes, Mom!” I snapped.

  When I opened the door, a kaleidoscope of butterflies took flight in my stomach. He stood on the porch, his aura full of warmth and concern. The butterflies flew into my throat.

  “Hi!” I squawked. I cleared my throat. “Come on in.”

  “I was very worried about you,” he said, stepping inside.

  Without warning, his strong arms wrapped around me in a hug. My whole body tingled. He smelled sweet and salty; like caramel and woodsmoke. My aura pulsed as the butterflies made a beeline for my groin. Images flickered in my mind: kissing his lips, his skin against mine. I couldn’t stop them. I pulled away from the hug with an exhale.

  Sunder placed his hands around my face. “Bianca, you must promise me you will not put yourself in danger like that again.”

  I looked into his eyes, my heart hammering in my chest. “Okay,” I managed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run off like that. It was stupid.”

  “I made a promise to your father to keep you safe,” he said. “I swore to him that I would protect his little girl like she were my own.”

  The butterflies dropped dead instantly. Little girl? Is that how he sees me?

  “Sunder,” I replied, my voice stronger now. “I’m not a little girl anymore!” The sass in my voice was more prominent than I’d intended.

  “I know.” He smiled. “But as you’ve seen, you are also not ready to protect yourself from the Skadhavar alone.”

  “Well, I did okay today,” I lied. I’d been lucky. Lucky there were only three and lucky I’d forced my powers into working out of sheer fear. I knew very well I could have died.

  Sunder looked at me with pity in his eyes. Damn him and his beautiful blue eyes!

  “Bianca, it was amazing you were able to fight off those Skadhavar today. But I can teach you to do what you did today with more force and more control. All I ask is that you trust me.”

  We made our way into the living room where my mother was wiping the dinner table.

  “Hi Sunder,” she said, looking up.

  He nodded a greeting.

  “Have you eaten? Can I get you some dinner?”

  “I’m fine thanks, Veronica.”

  “Do you even eat?” I asked.

  He grinned. “Like a horse!”

  My mom laughed.

  “No, I mean don’t horses eat grass? Do you eat normal food?”

  “Do you?” He winked.

  “Okay, good point.”

  “And Bianca, I’m only half horse remember?”

  “Yeah okay, silly question!”

  My mom was still laughing. “If anyone is going to eat grass, it’s you, honey!”

  Sunder chuckled.

 
I couldn’t help but laugh as well.

  “Well if you must know, Cendrine cooked a fabulous meal. Roast duck with vegetables and an amazing chocolate gateau for dessert. I’m really quite full.”

  “Well how about some tea instead?” my mother asked. “I’m just about to make a cup.”

  “Tea would be great thank you, Veronica.”

  “Bee?”

  “Yes, please.”

  My mother walked off into the kitchen while I gestured to the couch and sat down.

  Sunder sat down next to me. “So,” he said. “Tell me what happened in the forest.”

  A shiver ran down my spine as I pictured the Skadhavar. “They were hideous. They were like, dead, deformed horses. Rotting and bony. And that sound they make…” I trailed off, shaking my head.

  “It’s their horn.” Sunder gestured to the top of his head. “It’s hollow, like a flute.”

  “Is that how they communicate?”

  “No. The horn catches the wind as they run. That’s how it creates the call. If anything, it’s actually a liability. It’s their giveaway. You hear the call, you run,” he said, his eyes wide and serious.

  I nodded. Though it hadn’t only been the call that alerted me. I had felt them. Their sickly, cold spot had been impossible to miss.

  “Here you go!” My mom carried two mugs of tea into the room.

  “Thanks, Veronica,” Sunder said, taking a mug.

  “Well, I’m dead on my feet!” My mom sighed. “I’m off to bed. Don’t you two work too late, okay?”

  She wandered out of the room and shut the door.

  “Sunder?” I sighed, trying to find the strength to ask the question.

  “Yes?”

  “Did the Skadhavar kill my father?”

  His gaze fell to the floor. “I believe so.”

  I already knew as much, but I still felt a fresh stab of pain in my heart.

  Sunder took a slow breath and went on. “Your father was an elder. He’d been in our herd for centuries. The Skadhavar have been our long-standing enemies. He’d killed many of their kind before he left our realm to be with your mother.”