A whistle soaked in the stench of sulfur fell from the air in the foyer as the black ball of mist spread out like little fingers in every direction. As it faded away, the only thing that remained was Teddy with Tessa tucked tight against him. “I got you. We made it.”
The feverish hands tugged at his chest when they balled his shirt in them. A shrill whimper built at the back of Tessa’s throat as her fat bottom lip quivered. “They killed them.”
He gritted his teeth and blinked up to the ceiling to halt the sting of tears and hide them from her. They were twin flames, and when one lost control, the other followed along until the spark became an Armageddon.
With his hands on her shoulders, he bent down to look into her eyes. “Go grab our bugout bags and meet me right here. Find Momma and Daddy’s too. Go on! Be quick.”
When he heard her little feet start beating against the stairs, he rubbed his neck and took a deep breath through his nose. They practiced for this kind of thing at least a hundred times, and he knew the script by heart. “First, grab your fucking bags. Second, get everybody to safety.”
While the young man walked swiftly to the kitchen where the staff was still having dinner, one could see him becoming his father along the way as his kind and charming face became stern and demanding.
He strolled across the threshold like the Lord of the house, and it was as if Jasper stood there handing out orders to them.
“Listen to me. You’re in danger. You know what you’re supposed to do.” He glanced to the floor and shook his head. “Don’t come back here until we send for you.” His arms wove across his chest as he tilted his head to the door. “Go on, get out of here.”
He pushed the door shut as the last of them escaped to the secret tunnel in the wine cellar, then he turned to the security guard, Oliver. “When Haldir comes, if you can stay that long, tell him that my parents are dead. He knows where we’ll be.”
Finally realizing what tonight was really about, he shook his head as he grabbed Oliver’s shirt. “If anyone but Haldir shows up here tonight, you mist out immediately. They will kill you, Oliver. They’re here to take us all out.”
“No.” His face drew together, and he shook his head as he wrapped his hands around Teddy’s arms. “I’ll come with you until Haldir finds you.”
His fingers didn’t want to let go of Oliver’s shirt, but he eventually pried them loose and patted his shoulder. “You shouldn’t get mixed up in this. I don’t expect we’ll ever be coming back here again, so go be with your family. Stay the hell out of Savannah.”
The pause in his heart sent a cold shot through his veins as Tessa’s muffled screams filled the air. “Teddy, help me!”
The screams faded to nothing but warbled rushes of his pulse pounding in his ears as his legs carried him to the foyer. Trying desperately to stay on her feet, Tessa slipped in the blood pouring from her body and stumbled to her knees.
The soles of his shoes squeaked as Teddy skidded through the puddle and caught her in his arms. “He killed me.” Where her green eyes used to be was nothing but the spent black cells of the blood that left her tear ducts. Her whole body trembled and twitched as he tried to keep her from sliding from his grasp. “Why did he kill me?”
“No. You’re alright, Sugar.” He lowered her to the floor and pulled her up in his arms. “I got you. We’re a package deal, and I’m not ready yet, so hold your damn horses and wait for me.”
While she gasped and choked on the blood as she tried to swallow it away, her angelic face pulled down into a pouty frown like a toddler who got scolded by their mother. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen to Momma.”
He caressed her messy face with his fingers and shook his head. “No, Tess. It’s not your fault. You were just doing what the Fates made you do.” More than once, he’d chastised her heresy against their ancient gods, but he never would again. “They can just be cruel bitches sometimes.”
The fire in her eyes was only embers now, and their bond nothing more than a flicker, so he kissed her cold, bloody cheek and gave up. “I love you. When you wake up again, just sit tight and wait for me, Tess. I won’t be far behind.”
Too weak to even pull her sticky lashes apart, she went limp in his arms and breathed out her last words. “Okay. I’ll be waiting.”
While Oliver tried to keep up with the blood draining from her body as he wiped her face with his handkerchief, he broke Teddy from the shock he found himself spiraling towards. “She’s still alive. Take her to the human hospital outside town, the one we visited when we took flowers to that shopkeeper.”
His eyes flicked up to Oliver as the fight in him faded away like Tessa’s bond was. “They can’t help her now. No one can.”
Oliver shook his head as he reminded him that he wasn’t helpless. “You need to let the warlock come through. Call on him before it’s too late.”
Being so preoccupied with his dying sister, they never even heard the front door open.
When the bolt of the lightning flashed behind his dark form coming through the doorway, Teddy looked up to see Rafik soaked by the storm now raging outside. His shoulders heaved up and down, and he clutched at his chest as he staggered towards them.
While the blood pooled on the black-and-white checkered marble floor around them, Teddy glanced down at his sister. “Why did you kill her? She’s so in love with you.”
Collapsing before them, Rafik put his trembling fingers to her lips. His pained face turned into an ugly, angry scowl as he sobbed back his father’s betrayal. “Please, forgive me.”
A falling sensation started in Teddy’s shoulders and washed over his entire body as he came to understand when he saw the boy’s look of horror and regret. “You didn’t know he planned on killing her, did you?”
“No.” Rafik put his fingertips to his mouth and rubbed the sweet, metallic essence of her life onto his lips and tongue. He would savor the memory of her flavor all his life.
Bloody, foamy bubbles gurgled from her mouth as her last breaths tried to make their way through. Rafik kissed her and licked her blood from his lips as he glanced over to Oliver. “I think I can save her. Get me a knife.”
Oliver ran to the kitchen and took a knife from the wooden block. As his fingers wrapped themselves around the handle, he contemplated sinking it into the traitor’s back as he knelt over his mate, but Rafik may be the only chance she had left.
The cool blade met his hand, and Rafik blew out a breath, then gritted his teeth and slashed through his arm without a moment’s hesitation. A stream of hot blood poured from the wound as he lifted his chin. “Tilt her head back.”
While Teddy readjusted her in his arms and her head fell backward, Rafik held his wound over her parted lips and delivered his gift of salvation to her mouth. “Le do thoil cinniúint bheannaigh cibé cairde a thugtar dom, le do thoil a thabhairt di. Taimid ar ceann de na.”
The squelch of blood between his fingers echoed through the foyer as Rafik wrapped his wet hand around her jaw. He shoved her mouth closed to force her to swallow and smashed his lips to hers. “Blessed be.”
His teary eyes searched for even a spark of life in her face as he whispered against her lips. “We are bound now, my love. Until the end of all things, we belong to each other.”
“Give her Burdock Root as much as you can for the next few days. It will help her liver clear the poison.” Rafik took her hand and placed it on her chest as he backed away. He searched his mind for more as he smeared their joined blood across his forehead. “Fluids. She needs fluids, as much as her body will allow.”
His hands slid out from underneath him as he pushed himself up to his feet. With the bloody remnants of his mate dripping from his palms, the rage built inside him. “Take her now. Go far away from here and never come back.”
Teddy pulled her into his chest with a teeth-gritting grunt as Oliver and Rafik took his arms to help him lift her. They wrapped the straps of their bags around his neck and shoulders, then Rafik kissed her forehead and backed away. Pausing at the door, he placed his hand to his heart then kissed his fingertips. “Until the Fates reunite us, Rohi.”
Oliver put his hand on Teddy’s shoulder and leaned into his ear. “Go now before they come for you. Go!”
The blackness crawled over them, and the reality they were escaping from became a smudge of colors that broke into pieces and began to chip away.
Before the dark eyes at the doorway disappeared, Teddy called out to them. “I won’t forget what you’ve done for her. I won’t let anyone forget that.”
The dark mist cleared into the night that surrounded him in little specks of charred coals as Teddy scanned the poorly lit parking lot and the rain poured down over them. “Alright, Tess. We’re here. You’re going to be okay now.”Like he was on the road to deliverance from the nightmare they found themselves immersed in, he staggered across the parking lot towards the emergency department sign. “Third, you’re Sean and Sara Osulf now. Your father is Howard. Sean and Sara Osulf, your father is Howard.”For being so petite, she was like a floppy, wet sack of hundred-pound potatoes the way her limbs flailed around as he walked.He tried to keep hold as he gritted his teeth, then stopped and tossed her up in the air. “It’s okay. I got you. Had to move you around a little; you’re slippery as hell.”The blast of air that beat down on them when they came through the automatic doors splattered her bl
The bed dipped down as Haldir shoved his knee on it, and he lowered Tessa on the sheet. After he covered her shoulders with the blanket, he glanced at Teddy as he sat on the edge of the bed facing the wall. “Have you been able to reach her yet?”The crushing sensation began in his head and radiated through his body as Teddy’s mind got sucked into a dark room.On the edge of that cliff she always teetered on, Tessa stared over the side as she swung back and forth and hummed out a song he couldn’t place. After he snapped his fingers in front of her, he tapped on her shoulder. “Are you done yet, Tess?”He blinked out of his trance when she didn’t answer him and shook his head no. “I can see her now, but she isn’t ready to talk yet.” His back jerked as he huffed out his mouth and shook his head. “You’re not going to believe this shit, but I think she’s dancing.”Haldir pushed
In the darkness of the bedroom that surrounded him, Haldir tried to drift off to sleep. Teddy said a spell of protection over the thin, wooden door, but he didn’t trust the warlock’s skill yet.Once he relaxed enough to let his mind wander in the celestial plane, he envisioned Tessa in his mind. Not the little girl that laid beside her brother in the other bed as weak and helpless as the day she was born, but the one she was meant to be.She glowed as bright as the angry sun on the hottest day as she walked through the fields of her enemies and cackled in her witchy way as she laid them all to waste.Dreadful and beautiful, the oldest of warlocks bowed down before Tessa in reverence as they witnessed her carnage. The Queen of Ruin returned, and even the devil himself feared her.He squinted through the flames and black smoke as he followed her and her beasts through the field of war-torn bodies until he noticed a familiar form on horseback in
“Jesus, will you go tell your sister to hurry up? We’re going to be late.” Haldir checked his cuff link with his arm turned over as Teddy admired his hair in the mirror.“Yeah, I’m on it.” His handmade leather shoes slid across the marble floor as he passed through the villa, and the waves crashed against the rocky cliffs outside the windows while the Mediterranean breeze swept through the home.His knuckles bounced off the doorway he leaned against as he knocked on it. “We’re waiting on you.”While she slid her hands down her waist, Tessa turned to the side and took in the splendor of her own loveliness in the full-length mirror. “Yes, I’m aware, but something that looks this amazing is worth waiting a few extra minutes on, don’t you think?”The makeshift family was in hiding for ten years, and now that the danger was over, they appeared in public under their proper names witho
“Sleepwalk…” Tessa shook her head as the song she long ago refused to utter fell so sweetly from her lips again. “Where in the hell did that come from?”While she packed her things in her room, she found herself humming the tune again. The flash of the memory of Rafik’s brown eyes came to her mind, and she swallowed back the urge to cry. “What the hell is going on?”Leaning over with his hands clasped between his legs, Haldir breathed away the dull ache in his chest. He’d spent almost every second with her for ten years, and the thought of her being somewhere without him made a sick sensation rise in his gut. “Don’t you think you should prepare her for what’s about to happen?”On the soft, white couch across from
“Hello, Rohi.”In the last ten years, Tessa often wondered if she remembered everything right, but he had changed little since she last saw him. His curly black hair was shorter, and he had a short black beard, but his dark brown eyes still had a hint of amber in the right light. The dark tawny skin she remembered was paler now, but Rafik spent most of his time in a cold, damp basement these days.While he inched closer to her across the dusty old floor, Rafik’s chest pounded with the renewed spark of their bond. Seeing her was like a surge of fire running through his veins that made him breathless, and he placed his hand on his chest to catch some of her magic. He sensed her fury and grief as her eyes burned through him. “I’m sorry, Tessa.”When her eyes locked with his, the room heated with her rage while the Firestarter in her gained momentum. He knew it should terrify him, but he only stared in wonder at his rare creature.
Swinging her bag as she strolled through the apartment, Tessa hummed to herself, then stopped at the front door and picked up the phone. “Yes, this is Tessa Mason in apartment 1211. Can you send up the doorman, please?”She poured herself a drink at the bar and glanced up to the door when the knock came. “Come in, Reggie. It’s open.”The balding doorman smiled at Tessa and closed the door behind him. He was always happy to hear she was in town again because he made more than a pretty penny over the last few years from their side deals. “What can I do for you, Miss Mason?”She winked her eye and held up her finger. “One moment.” As she walked around the back of the bar, she knelt before the safe and opened it. “What’s the going rate these days, Reggie?”The doorman slid onto the wooden bar stool and shrugged. He was sure the witch didn’t care about money at all and would probably
“Please, come in.” Standing aside with his hand pressed against the heavy iron door, Rafik tilted his head inside. The soft scent of strawberries followed behind Tessa and made him miss the days spent on his grandfather’s farm.“Thank you.” She clasped her hands behind her back and glanced around the long vast basement lined in shelves full of glass bottles and books and scrolls. “I’m sorry I’m late.”Working her way slowly around the room as she examined the vials and papers, she inhaled through her nose, and a smile rose on her lips. The scent of old books would always take her back to the days of sitting on her father’s lap in his study while he read stories to her before bed.“You’re not late. I am at your service.” While she inspected her new surroundings, he stood by the door with his arms crossed as his eyes traveled all over her. The curly hairs that fell from her loose bun fra