Blood Sacrifice (The Astral Chronicles #1)

Chapter ElevenLuna

Chapter Eleven

Luna

The world had changed from the last time I walked the path up to this village. It had been lost since it was so high up in the mountains, the Intihuatana stone was placed here by the magical priests of a bygone era, the sundial accurately indicating summer and winter solstice. These stones had been destroyed by the conquistadors when they rampaged across the Americas stealing wealth and slaughtering the indigenous people.

I stood on the terraces of Machu Picchu and watched the people moving like tiny ants up the winding trail of Huayna Picchu opposite us. The twin sister peaks had stood proudly for thousands of years, recording the history of the people who had lived on this land.

Machu Picchu had initially been created as an astronomical observatory, a place for the priests and priestesses to study the stars and predict the future. Over time, more people settled there until it became a functioning village with livestock, the terraces used to grow crops.

The village stretched across the top of the mountain, each temple and living area accessed by stone steps that created a network of activity. It was an Incan citadel hidden in the Andes Mountains. The Urubamba River coursed in the valley below, feeding life and allowing the village to flourish in this environment. The agricultural terraces to the east had originally been created to allow sacred herbs to grow under moonlight, but as the old ways vanished, crops had taken their place.

I ran my fingers over the wall, my memories taking me back in time. The masons in our empire had been before their time. They used an ashlar technique that allowed structures to be built without mortar since they were carefully cut to fit together. These rocks could tell stories of a bygone era if the correct spell was used.

Tourists moved around the complex, taking pictures with the remains or llamas behind their selfies. They were so busy seeing this place through the eye of a lens, they missed the true beauty here. It had been built from stones carried here, and the complex built long before architects and engineers would have created massive problems about constructing these structures on the top of a mountain.

I sat down and lost myself in the unique energy of this place, ignoring the chatter of people around me. It was a while later that my attention was drawn back when two women who were standing close to me started to discuss some male they were admiring.

“Go down and ask him to take a picture of you with the mountain behind you,” the redhead encouraged her friend. “Holiday flings don’t count as infidelity, and honestly a night with that man would be worth any repercussions.”

Curiosity made me look in the direction of their gazes. I recognised the tall figure immediately, Salvator standing watching over the village, his sunglasses hiding his eyes and transforming him into a handsome stranger who was gaining a lot of attention.

He had been taken by the empire when I was younger. The next time I saw him, he was no longer all gangly limbs and laughing at silly jokes. He had become a dark and dangerous assassin who killed without remorse. Standing here in the sunlight, he made an arresting figure, untouchable and unapproachable.

“What if he is here with someone?” the blonde replied. “Not many people travel alone.”

Technically, I travelled alone all the time as more than one witch travelling together tended to draw unwanted attention. What shocked me more than I cared to admit was the stab of jealousy that pierced through me at their lust. I had been building a divide between us to protect my heart, and yet a darkness emerged that whispered I could turn them into llamas and leave them here since they were acting like horny cows.

As if drawn by their observations, Salvator turned and looked up toward where we were located, a slow smile turning up his full, sensual mouth.

“He’s noticed you, Jen. Act natural, maybe wave at him,” the redhead instructed the blonde.

Salvator slowly climbed the stone staircase and I felt breathless, and it wasn’t due to high altitude of this place. My heart pounded in my veins as his muscular legs moved under his jeans, his messy black hair making him look like a rebel who didn’t give a fuck.

Trapped butterflies beat against the walls of my stomach, and it reminded me of when my eyes first met his outside the temple not long after I had been plucked from our home village. There was something about Salvator that scrambled my senses and left me speechless.

The two women began giggling and preening themselves, and I had never been so tempted to use magic on a human to sweep them off the side of this mountain.

Salvator sailed past the two ridiculous women, his smile making my panties feel too tight. “There you are. I got lost wandering up to the city gate.” He pointed toward the area he was talking about. “I always forget how breathtaking this place is.”

I linked my arm through his, leading him away from the women I wanted to curse. “It’s because it hasn’t changed in so long that it reminds us of who we used to be.” I turned at the last moment to shoot a death glare at the two women. Both of them had a current relationship in their aura, and they should be ashamed of themselves and what they had been planning behind their partners’ backs.

There were stone staircases everywhere in this structure, painstakingly carved by masons to allow people to access all areas. This had been a jewel in the crown of the empire back in the height of its reign.

The dire wolves used to patrol the forests that surrounded the base of the mountain to ensure the priests who studied celestial events were undisturbed during their time here.

“I remember the first time I saw one of the star charts created in one of these observatories,” I said, bringing the past and the present together. “I had seen those constellations all my life, had used them to orientate myself in the darkness, and yet seeing them in a chart seemed so strange and clinical.”

Salvator’s lips lifted in a half smile. “Wolves never needed those maps, we knew every piece of this land in our soul.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

He nodded up to our right. “The temple of the sun.”

Four hundred years ago, we were called priests and priestesses. Today we were witches, but the groups we gathered in tended to either work in the sun or the moon. The temple of the sun was a sacred precinct that allowed us to channel energy to invoke the power of the sun.

The two of us blended in among the other tourists, walking through the remains of a civilisation from long ago. Only this wasn’t ancient history to us, it had been our past, something we had lived through.

Salvator and I spent the next few hours exploring the site, the different structures reminding us of stories that we shared, our conversation flowing freely. We were walking through the terraces, the llamas almost running from Salvator since they sensed an apex predator prowling toward them. Salvator stopped, his spine straightening, drawing my attention to a potential threat.

“Problem?” I asked in low voice.

“Maybe,” he replied. “Maybe not. The scent in your vision from my home that was blown up appeared a moment ago.”

My fingers found his, and I chanted under my breath, tightening the spell that protected us through our amulets. Anyone watching us wouldn’t see two people standing here, but two llamas grazing on the terraces.

Salvator turned slowly to survey the area, the tips of his ears growing pointed with tufts of black hair sprouting from them. “Up there.” I followed the direction of his gaze to find a man looking about as if he had lost something or someone.

“It’s risky to use an overt spell here,” I said. “But I might be able to magically mark him so we can track him later.”

I rummaged in my bag until I found a small, zipped pouch close to the bottom. It contained the magical equivalent of a first aid kit. I selected a feather and held it to my lips, whispering an incantation that would allow it to be used as a tracking device. I set my intention on the man currently searching for us, and released the feather into the breeze. It swirled up into the sky, moving through the air currents until it reached its destination, dropping itself into the hood of his jacket.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing Salvator’s hand. “If we stay cloaked in this spell too long, people will sense a disturbance in the energy field of this place.”

We moved into a crowd of tourists, pretending to be with them for a few minutes before swapping and joining another tour group being led by a guide who was embellishing the history.

We zigzagged until we reached the exit, wandering out as if we were part of the crowds. Salvator’s height put him head and shoulders above everyone else, people moving out of his way, their instinct allowing the predator through.

We reached the village, walking down the road that had vendors selling Machu Picchu memorabilia. Salvator spun me suddenly, moving me into an outside market, his body pressing mine into a wooden column.

“Stay still,” he said into my ear, his breath fanning the side of my throat.

My heart stumbled over its beat, Salvator’s spicy, masculine scent surrounding and tempting me. The devil on my right shoulder whispered that I should lick him, taste him. My teeth bit into my bottom lip and my eyes closed as I tried to stabilise my emotions.

I tried to stay still, but I swear my body felt like it had been possessed by the spirit of a horny youth whose vagina was on an orgasmic mission. The fact that Salvator’s muscular body was pressed against mine, his hands grasping my hips, didn’t help my wayward hormones.

“I detected that unique floral scent again,” Salvator said. “I’m trying to determine where it’s coming from.”

If a wolf was tracking us, he would be able to find us by the scent of my arousal if I didn’t manage to escape into fresh air and cool down from the combustible heat that was coursing through my veins. The last time I felt this hot, a volcano had been grumbling in the background.

My head fell forward onto his chest, the molten need inside me crumbling all my reservations. I could resist this man if I was on another continent, but standing this close, my resistance was non-existent.

“He’s on the other side of the road and looking around him,” Salvator continued, his hands on my hips tightening.

A tingling pulsed between my legs, and I clamped my thighs together unconsciously.

“You might need to work a little hocus pocus,” Salvator said, his head lowering slightly, his lips touching the side of my throat. “Before he manages to locate us and I have to kill him in the middle of this crowd.”

My fingers grabbed the waistband of his jeans to pull him impossibly closer to me, the words of a spell forming in my mind before I muttered them. It would bind our energy into one so that all anyone who sought us would see was one person, who had a different appearance to either of us. This was how witches moved around in plain sight, not changing our outward appearance, but the perception of others.

Salvator’s hips ground into mine, and I suppressed a moan. We stood with our bodies pressed together and his lips brushed my skin again, leaving goosebumps in his wake. I felt the scrape of his canine and my stomach tightened. Everything else faded into insignificance except the way our auras fit together in perfect alignment. A feral need churned deep in my stomach, a craving that demanded the sacrifice of flesh and blood.

“I think he’s gone now,” Salvator said, slowly stepping back and leaving me trembling inside.

“We need to find out who he’s working for,” I replied, running a shaky hand through my hair and desperately trying to calm my emotions. “It might give us greater insight into what is going on right now.”

To cover my confusion, I turned and wandered into the market, pretending to look at the small stalls while in reality seeing nothing.

I could lie to myself and say my life had changed from the woman I used to be, and I could argue that magical beings relied on me and the network I had created to keep them safe. None of those facts mattered when the heat from Salvator’s body permeated into mine. All the arguments I could muster withered and died when I was with him, because nothing else mattered except being with him.

I had tried to convince myself that the mating ritual had never been completed because it would have tied my magic to his and Balor would have killed us both. Salvator had never bitten me, but we had shared our bodies and souls with each other, and forged a deep connection that had crossed the oceans of time and distance. He was the reason I had avoided relationships and attachments.

Salvator caught up with me easily with his long stride, his hand landing at the base of my spine in a casual gesture that sent vibrations through to the essence of my soul. I deliberately tried to lessen the tension in my body so he wouldn’t know the effect he had on me.

I’d spent years listening to the humans and magical beings around me speak of the intricacies of love. They risked everything for the chance of feeling that elation and soul connection. I had lived over four hundred years. Did I really find the love of my many lifetimes in the same small village I had been born, and played with him as a child? Dare I risk everything I had built, knowing that Salvator alone had the power to crush me?