Blood Sacrifice (The Astral Chronicles #1)

Chapter Twenty-OneLuna

Chapter Twenty-One

Luna

I knew what she planned to do, saw it in my mind a few seconds before it manifested in her actions. There was no counter spell for the death curse, no way to change the direction it was sent. It was one of the prohibited spells that had been banned centuries ago during the witch wars. The elders had stepped in and punished those who had broken our sacred laws, bringing a quasi-peace that they still presided over today.

There was no decision to be made, no bargains to be negotiated, and no time left to call out a warning. I said a prayer to the ancestors who had guided me in my life journey, and put my fate in their hands, uttering a translocation spell and visualising my destination.

The flash of red was the final warning that the curse had been cast.

I had trained with the priestesses who protected Shangri-La in Tibet’s Kunlun Mountains, learned how to incorporate spells into my body, to create my own personal grimoire that only I could access.

I felt the moment of impact, the curse stabbing into me like a dagger cutting through my soul. The motion of me appearing suddenly in front of Salvator sent him tumbling back. My eyes locked with Aisha’s and I saw hers widen in horror as she realised what she had done before she disappeared into her portal.

“What the fuck have you done?” Dominic demanded, reaching my side, and ripping the fabric of my top to assess the damage.

Salvator pushed himself up, confusion morphing to panic when he realised I had put myself in the path of the spell. “What?” His gaze dropped to the wound at the side of my abdomen. “We need to get her to the medical unit!”

“Unless any of your doctors are trained in the removal of curses, shut up and let me think.” Dominic pressed the edges of the wound and a wave of dizziness washed over me. “Why do you always have to be so bloody noble? We could have sacrificed the wolf and rid this world of another magical threat.”

“You are an absolute dick,” Salvator snapped. “All that matters is saving Luna.”

He grabbed my face, pressing his forehead to mine until our eyelashes kissed.

“Stay with me, baby,” Salvator said against my lips. “Don’t you dare try to leave me again.”

My mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. Even my vision was blurred as another wave of pain crested over me, my fingers grasping the front of his shirt.

Salvator’s arms engulfed me, his unique spicy scent that reminded me of him surrounding me. There was no escape or cure for the death curse, only an assured painful end.

“Get your hands off me! I’m here on very important business!” a female Scottish accent said from somewhere in the distance. “I got here as quickly as I could. Step aside and let me examine the patient.”

Maia had always been a force of nature from the first time I met her too long ago for her not to be family. I felt her hands move over me when Salvator reluctantly released me from his hold, her magic making goosebumps rise.

“Hold this,” she said. “Dominic, give me some of your blood since you tend to have a natural resistance to magic.”

“What is it with people wanting a sample of my blood? First Caine and now you. There’ll be none left in me if this continues.” His mouth was protesting, but the burning at the site of my wound said he had poured his blood into it.

“Are you her mate?” Maia demanded, her hand brushing my forehead. “She’s burning up. I need the strength of your wolf.”

“What are you doing, witch?” Dominic asked, his voice sounding close as if he had crouched down.

“A death curse is created to kill one person.” Maia paused for several moments. “I’m trying to make it think there is more than one person. Spells are living entities with a singular purpose.”

“And if they can’t fulfil that purpose?” Salvator asked, his fingers lacing through mine.

“I’m not sure,” Maia replied, and I could imagine her nose wrinkling in annoyance at all the questions. She had always treated magic like a science experiment that needed to be taken apart and understood at the basic level.

I started to shiver, my body fighting the effects of the curse. A furnace burned from the site of the wound through me, making me feel as if I was about to combust.

“Fuck this,” Salvator muttered. My entire body was shifted and lifted, and even in my dazed state and unable to open my eyes, I knew I was resting back against his chest, his hands covering mine and his chin on top of my head.

I must have lost consciousness, but the next time I found awareness, everything felt unusual and tingly, my extremities numb, and my head pounding a tribal beat. It felt as if my mouth was so dry that my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth, and my skin was on fire.

The darkness consumed me, my next conscious thought that I was inside Misti the volcano, my body burning in her lava. I remembered the faces of the youths that were sacrificed, the expression in their eyes as they tried to be brave since Balor told their families this was a great honour. Their screams haunted me even now, the moments of their death something I will never forget.

I walked through dark passages with red lava casting an evil glow. The ghosts of those lost to the forbidden sacrifice wandered these corridors bewildered and abandoned. A stabbing sensation washed over me, and I held my side where the pain radiated from. Dark, thick black blood oozed from a wound, and I elevated my hand to study it, confused.

A memory flashed through my head, and I saw my sister’s face. Aisha. I tried to focus, to grasp hold of the memory. The scene morphed into our last night in the temple. The same terror raced through my veins at the thought of losing my family again. I believed Aisha and I would make our way into the world together since she was my big sister. Her eyes met mine before she pulled the hood of her dark cloak over her head and left the temple.

I replayed searching for her outside, thinking she had waited for me as hopelessness began to sink in. Salvator had found me that night, guiding me to safety and ensuring that none of Balor’s priests discovered me.

Salvator.

He hated witches for what they had done to him and the members of his pack. I had seen it on his face, witnessed the disgust in his dark eyes when he looked at me. Mates meant there was a magnetic attraction that drew us together, but that didn’t mean that he loved me.

How did we keep messing everything up and destroying what fate intended for us?

I stumbled, lost in the dim light, and crushed by all the emotions churning inside me. I tried to remember what had happened, but everything was so hazy, only fragments of memories taunting me.

“Salvator,” I whispered, crouching low to the ground when another wave of pain crested over me.

That pain transported me to memories of me being tortured, and my magic experimented on. I had screamed for Salvator, my hands raw from grasping the iron bars and fingernails fractured from my fingers almost breaking under the strain to remain still. At the beginning, I had tried to count the days, but in the constant world of darkness and pain you lost track of where days ended and began again. To keep me sane, I had held onto the memories Salvator and I had created, the touch of his fingertips across my skin, his lips on mine.

Those memories were replaced with new ones, his touch the same yet different, coloured by a lifetime of experiences that had changed both of us. I leaned my head back against the wall, a wave of dizziness weakening me.

The death curse.

I had been hit by one of the forbidden curses, one that had been directed at my mate. He had saved me all those years ago when I was young and terrified, and now it was my turn to save him. The Chimaera Foundation would survive and thrive in my absence, the witches who founded it with me all powerful and talented. They would ensure the next generation was safe from persecution. Salvator was the beating heart of his pack, and they needed him for what was coming.

All the fragments of my thoughts pieced together again, and I sat on the filthy floor too tired to move. I had known Aisha was a dark witch from the moment Salvator told me she worked with his organisation. It was the only explanation to why I felt her death. She had not died physically, but spiritually. However, there was a vast expanse between knowing your sister was a dark witch and realising that she worked with the person who had hunted you for four centuries.

I looked around me at the scenery, my hand moving to cover the wound in my abdomen that had brought me here. If I was in Hell, some hellspawn would be dragging my essence to their master to fetch the bounty for a witch’s soul. This must be Purgatory, the place that emerged for the souls too pure for Hell but not good enough for Heaven.

I was dead.

“Well, shit,” I said, leaning my head back. “You’d think if I was dead at least I could stop leaking.” I touched my wound again, feeling the sticky residue there.

In the past, I had hated people who were weak, and expected others to fight or save them. Tonight, I decided there was no shame in sitting here and resting my weary soul. There was no one to save me, no one to fight for me because death was the end of my journey.

I had lived a long time, watched the world evolve and grow through several ages, and had experienced love in its rawest form. It would have to be enough. Time meant nothing in this midnight realm, screams and other noises echoing in the darkness. There was eternity to explore this place, so instead, I curled myself up in a ball and closed my eyes.

There was no hope left, nothing left for me to achieve, and the one overriding memory was when I took my vows as a priestess, the words of the prayer that joined my life with the others. Mother priestess had made me say the words over and over again in training until they were forever engrained in my soul.

Those same words flowed from my lips as I lay here in Purgatory. They had brought me comfort in the past, and for years I had recited them like a nighttime prayer. Here, in a different realm, those same words took on a different energy. They seemed to solidify and take form, a presence taking shape, shadows moving toward me.

It wasn’t bad enough that I had died today. Could I not have some time to lick my wounds?

I pulled what was left of me together and slowly stood to face whatever had come to drag me off to wherever I belonged in this strange realm. Magic was contained in the soul, but I had no idea if it stayed with you when you died. I raised my head, bringing my hands up in front of me ready to defend myself.

“I told you it was Luna,” a familiar voice from the past said to my right. “I would recognise her energy anywhere.”

From the shadows a figure emerged, and every thought in my head silenced. Mother priestess had taken me under her tutelage, and created a family for me when I had been taken from my biological one.

“You sacrificed yourself for us,” I said, involuntarily moving forward. The thought of her being set upon by Balor and his jackal priests had haunted me for years.

A half smile curved her lips. “Life is just a season, and we all have a role to play. Mine was to protect the key players in the upcoming magical war.” She reached her hand to touch me. “And that moment is now here.”

“I’m dead,” I replied, slowly looking behind her and seeing other familiar faces. Some of them from the temple all those years ago, others that were lost when humans had hunted us into near extinction.

“The soul lives on,” she replied, taking my arm and leading me away from the place I had found to hide. “That is what Balor and his men never understood. He thought he consumed our souls and took our powers when all he truly did was borrow them. Come.”

I had no idea where they were taking me but anywhere was better than being alone. Two red moons hung low in the sky, casting a dull light across the barren landscape. Red rivers ran in crooked lines in the distance, and a faint smell of sulphur hung in the air.

I felt the pressure against me as we walked through a spell. A large black structure had been cloaked, but magic emanated from every brick it had been created from.

“No one will find you here,” Mother priestess said. “This place was started long before I arrived by one of the ancestors of the greatest magical line. She knew we would need somewhere safe in this midnight realm. We have healing potions here that tend to the wounds left on our souls.”

My hand automatically covered the area on my abdomen that still oozed a black liquid. “Aisha hit me with a death curse,” I replied. “She was aiming at my mate.”

Mother priestess merely nodded, and I had the feeling that she already knew the details of how I ended up here. “She was a talented witch, but she never understood that to cast light magic you had to be selfless. That ego had no place in our magic.”

I slowed and she glanced back at me. “She is my sister.”

“Sometimes family members are put into our lives to teach us a lesson that only they can because they are given a level of trust that no one receives during our lifetimes.” Her gaze dropped to the injury on my side. “And she will realise that those spells were forbidden for a reason, and not just because someone ends up dead.”

She started walking again and I followed her, crossing the threshold, and sensing another layer of protection. I never expected to find a place for lost witches in Purgatory, and in all the years I had studied magic, I had never heard any whispers from those who had travelled here.

“I told you we would meet again.” I stopped when a woman stepped into the hallway.

“Cybele?” I asked in disbelief. We had been friends when I was travelling across Europe, but some of the humans still thought they were living through the era of the witch trials. She had lost her life trying to save an innocent woman who had been accused of enchanting a weak man who had cheated on his wife.

Her smile was as bright as it had been in life. “The very same.” She stepped forward to drag me into a hug. “You have made every single one of us proud.”

She was the reason I had started the network that was the foundation for the organisation I ran today. I never wanted another witch to lose her life because of prejudice and jealousy.

“I missed you,” I replied.

“I was watching from this side of the great mystery of life. You saved so many lives by the sacrifices you made. That is a legacy that will last many lifetimes.” Cybele hugged me again.

She led me into a large room filled with magical instruments, a massive cauldron bubbling in the middle of the room.

I poked her, and her brow creased when she frowned at me. “Is there a reason you poked me?”

“You’re dead. I thought my finger would go through your ghost,” I replied.

“This is Purgatory. Souls have form here, and we even have clothes.” She snapped her fingers and her outfit changed. She wiggled her eyebrows and wrinkled her nose, making me smile. “Now, we have limited time to fix this problem you’ve found yourself in.”

“I’m dead, Cybele. There’s no fixing something as permanent as that.”

“Nonsense, your friend is currently working on keeping you alive.” She glanced at me. “I like her, she reminds me of a young me.”

“It was one of the reasons I let her into my inner circle,” I replied. From the moment I had met Maia, her personality reminded me of Cybele and her love of life and creating mischief.

“Come, we have already started to brew the potion,” Mother priestess said. “Our seers saw your path colliding with Aisha and there was only one way it was going to end. Her jealousy would never allow her to walk away without causing harm.”

“Salvator,” I whispered, knowing that losing his mate could possibly kill him.

“That boy was the black knight destined to protect you. Fate knew your path and that you would need someone strong enough to destroy the established boundaries.” Mother priestess stood staring into a massive mirror on the wall.

Shadows moved inside it, and I realised it allowed her to see what was happening in the Earth realm. I desperately wanted to go and see if it would allow me to view anything.

“Let me look at that wound,” Cybele said, beckoning me toward her.

“I’m dead,” I pointed out again. “Do you not need to heal the physical?” Considering these women had been here for decades or centuries, they demonstrated that dead meant no longer alive in the Earth realm.

Cybele shot me a look that I had forgotten. It was the one that said I didn’t recognise her genius. It had been a shitty day, so I sunk into a seat close to the cauldron and closed my eyes.

“How did you know where to find me?” I asked.

“Amelia is excellent at sensing when witches pass into this realm,” Cybele replied, making me jolt when she placed a cold compress on my side. “We knew it would be you since we have been keeping track of you since you arrived in Peru.”

“Your friend Maia is to be admired,” mother priestess said, watching the world through her mirror. “She is still working tirelessly to save you. If she had been born earlier, she could have been recruited into our temple.”

“I doubt she would have the obedience required for temple work,” I said with a laugh. “Maia tends to view magic through her own perception.”

“I have been here a long time, keeping watch over the children I was given since I had none by birth,” mother priestess replied. “In that time, I have seen magic evolve with every generation born. Once it was a set pattern of symbols and words, but now it responds to the needs of the witch casting.”

New gifts had emerged over the past hundred and fifty years. I had foreseen the vampire Tasha mating with a wolf and them having children. Tasha had contained magic in her that ran through her maternal lineage, something that would have been frowned upon by the magical community in bygone times. The species were interbreeding and creating new abilities and gifts. Nature survived through evolution and adaptation, and magic was no different. Witches needed to find more to rely on than ancient spells and crystals. I had collected grimoires from all over the world, trained with shamans and witches from different regions, and discovered my own brand of magic along the way that no longer resembled what I had been taught.

“We all have the potential to learn and evolve,” I replied. “I found teachers on my journey, those willing to share knowledge and help me.”

She turned to face me. “I know, we helped guide them to you. Every step of your journey, we have been with you.”

Everything started to make sense. I had believed in synchronicity and events unfolded as directed by fate. Now I had found my way here, I realised that even in death, these women had found a purpose, and I could do the same.

“Did you know it would end the way it did?” I asked. “That my own sister would be the one who ended my life?”

Mother priestess waved my comment away. “Your soul is here but you are still connected to your physical body. Aisha is intelligent, but not as clever as Fate or her sister Destiny. The other gods may have abandoned this world, but they still monitor what happens here.”

I glanced at Cybele, and she bounced her eyebrows. “It doesn’t seem right to finally find your mate and have that stolen from you. There is a war brewing, and although we cannot fight in it, we can ensure the main warriors are kept on the battlefield.”

“I have no idea what any of this means,” I complained, holding my head as I felt nauseous. “And since when do ghosts feel sick?”

“We are spirits, not ghosts,” Cybele corrected me. “Just because we do not have a physical form does not mean we cannot feel or experience life in a different way. Now that you are here, you can help us brew this potion. I had it ready for your help.”

I was beginning to think that I was a ghost having a breakdown and experiencing hallucinations. I peeked under the pad Cybele had placed on my side, and noticed the wound had healed over and stopped bleeding.

“You always were a master of healing potions. I could never replicate the one you brewed for headaches,” I said, moving toward the cauldron to sniff what was brewing.

“A pinch of cinnamon helps incorporate it into your body, because everyone needs some spice in their life,” Cybele replied. “Now concentrate, because this is important.”

The years peeled away as I remembered what it felt like to work with these powerful women. They had been busy, collecting different herbs and crystals from the Earth realm, and some from the magical realm as well. They had discovered a new way to live even though they had no physical form.

A sharp pain tore through my abdomen, making me double in half. “What’s happening?” I gasped.

Mother priestess took my hand in hers. “I believe the spark of magic that is keeping your soul connected to your body is growing stronger. Your daughter is demanding the return of her mother.” My gaze met hers in confusion. “Salvator was your destiny. There was a reason Balor forbade priestesses mating with the dire wolves, and when that child is born, you’ll discover why.”

My hand unconsciously covered my stomach and my mind went to the night we mated and he knotted inside me. I had given up hope of ever being a mother, but it seemed Fate had a different plan for me.

I had been willing to die to protect my mate. Balor and Aisha needed to find somewhere to hide because I would tear the land apart to find and destroy them to protect my child.