SEVENTEEN #2
“Oh, I love those moments. I get a rush when I let them flutter past.”
He’s saved a well-placed kick to his shin when the witch returns, bearing a pitcher of steaming black coffee.
The tattered shawl remains draped over her simple dress, but she’s now a striking young woman, perhaps in her thirties.
For now, she sticks to this form, taking a seat across from me at the cluttered table.
I thank her as she pours me a mug, but I make no move to bring it to my lips.
She could offer me my favorite meal in three decadent courses and it wouldn’t change anything—I won’t be ingesting anything offered by a hag.
“If you won’t drink,” the witch says, her voice silken now. She nods at my sleeve, soaked through with blood. “May I offer you some relief? You’re clearly not blessed like your companion is.”
“Cursed is more fitting,” I mutter under my breath. Though admittedly, I feel a pang of jealousy that Dante’s wounds are nearly stitched up now, while mine continue to send white-hot shivers of pain down my limbs. “And no, thank you. I can handle myself.”
“Don’t be foolish.”
She doesn’t give me time to protest further, steepling her hands together.
I shoot to my feet to dodge, but a burst of warm, conjured light sails across the table.
It feels like an ember has pierced my skin—hot, searing.
The sensation gradually morphs into gentle tingling that trails down my arm.
When the light fades, the gouge in my shoulder is gone.
“There. Right as rain, dewdrop.”
I rub my shoulder, staying on my feet. Kindness can scarcely be trusted on the best of days—and rarely, is it free.
The witch slides her gaze over to Dante, her brows quirked. “Is she always so defensive?”
He scoffs. “Don’t get me started.”
The witch smirks, looking back at me. Those icy blue eyes seem to slice right through me. “Regale an old woman. A vampire and a vicious girl… What brings you here? I doubt the festivities are tempting enough to steer your path.”
A beat passes. And then—
“We’re searching for someone. Someone powerful,” Dante says.
I glance at him sharply—what the hell are you thinking, trusting a witch—but he’s not looking at me.
I see it again, that thread of fragile hope behind his gaze that he works so hard to bury.
“A renowned healer named Callistia. She’s said to reside in an isolated grove not far from Verona. ”
Some of the mirth drains from her unsettling eyes. “And why would you need her services?”
Dante fidgets, folding his arms over his chest. “It’s rumored she can heal anything. Reverse the most wicked of inflictions. Including…this.” He gestures flippantly at himself, his expression guarded.
The witch straightens. “You want to revoke the dark gift? But why—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dante interrupts. “I’m not going to pen you a damn book. Do you know of her or not?”
The witch tucks her raven hair behind her ears, chewing her lip in thought before answering.
“As it happens, I do know of Callistia. She’s been a person of interest in my recent studies.
But why travel all that way to that con artist of mystic practices when I have the cure you desire so badly right here? ”
“You—what?” Dante sputters.
The witch rises from her seat with predatory grace, striding across the room. She rummages through a weathered trunk, bottles clinking. Straightening, she withdraws an oblong vial, holding it up to the firelight for us to gaze upon.
“Funny, isn’t it? I crafted this as self defense some time ago. I told you the last vampire I met was ill-tempered.” Her lips lift at the corners as she gently swirls the viscous liquid inside, like she’s gazing at a memory. Its contents glow, glinting with flakes of something iridescent.
Dante takes a step toward her, eyes wide and blazing, but her hand closes around the bottle, concealing it from view. He falters.
“Your sanctuary is my gift,” the witch says. “This, however, is precious to me. I’d like something just as valuable in return. Fair, yes?”
“We are not bargaining with you,” I snap.
“You’re not.” She’s no longer looking at me. She drifts closer, just out of arm’s reach. The witch peers up at Dante through long lashes, her unsettlingly bright eyes glinting with a cunning that turns my stomach. “Leave the girl with me, and the cure is yours.”
Dante goes rigid. Tense silence thickens the air as we share an astonished glance. While I’m still reeling, his expression shutters, a wall rising between us as he faces the witch again.
“Why her?” Dante asks. It’s a cautious, probing tone—and a far cry from the “go fuck yourselves, you will never have her” I’d have preferred to hear.
My glare sharpens at the profile of Dante’s face.
He’s fucking hearing her out. But how could I have expected anything different?
We’re both using each other as a means to an end—neither of us made any effort to conceal that from the start.
This leech would probably sell out his own mother for a chance to become human again.
If this is where the charade ends and our temporary alliance dissolves, so be it.
“You fucker,” I snarl, lips trembling. I’m surprised to find my vision sting and blur with furious, unforgiving tears.
I reach for my silver blades sheathed in the slotted leather belt that cinches around the shredded remains of my nightgown. I will not be bargained with.
Before my hands even close around the tapered handles, there’s a faint whoosh of air—and Dante’s dagger is at my throat.
He cuts a sharp look at me, but something is buried there that gives me pause. A faint, almost imperceptible tilt of his head follows.
Wait, it seems to say.
The witch chuckles at our exchange, which only boils my blood deeper. I’m flooded with images of severing her limb by limb, starting with those dangerous hands of hers and working my way in.
“Do you have any idea how powerful virgin blood is in my line of work?” she asks, cocking her head at Dante. “I suppose it all tastes the same to you.”
“I’m not a virgin,” I interject in a growl.
The witch shakes her head dismissively, like I’m barely worth acknowledging.
“Dearie, I can practically smell it on you. Anyone could.” She refocuses a beseeching smile on Dante, gesturing widely at the spellwork in progress cluttering every surface.
“A few mugs of her blood week by week will help me chase eternity in ways most only dream of. To dance with the horizon of time itself… Surely, you of all people can’t begrudge me that. ”
“Take it from me, eternity is a labyrinth you can get lost in,” Dante says. The dark smile playing on his lips is almost wounded.
“Let me handle that,” the witch purrs. “We’re not all cut from the same cloth.”
“Very well, paint me a picture. What exactly would you do with this thorn of a girl?”
“Sentimental, are we? I won’t kill her, if that’s any concern. I’m many things, but not wasteful. I’ll need that blood supply to be good and vital for a long time.”
Horror ripples through me. I glance at the shadowed corners of the cottage, any of which could easily become the place she chains me like an animal until I’m too feeble to be of any use.
I’ll die before accepting such a fate.
Dante sucks air through his teeth, as though she’s failed his unspoken test. “You’re woefully unaware of the burden you’re asking for.
She’s terribly annoying, this one. Stubborn as an ass.
” He taps my neck with the tip of his blade to punctuate his words.
“You’d be better off slitting her throat and being done with it—just my advice. ”
The witch smiles, but it’s growing colder by the second—a silent threat mounting. I doubt the last men who tested her patience endured a pleasant fate.
She eases a step closer, her earth-colored dress shifting around her. “You’re cute, but not that cute. Make your decision. I won’t offer again.”
I start forward in protest again, only for Dante to adjust the angle of his dagger and stop me in my tracks. His eyes flick to the shimmering vial in her hand. He swallows, then exhales a shuddering breath.
Stepping in front of me, he lowers his weapon to his side.
“Unfortunately, I have my own uses for her. Pick something else.”
I seize the opening to unsheath my blades and move back into a defensive stance. The front door is at my back. I gauge my surroundings for any tactical advantages that might offset an attack from her—or any traps hiding between the faded parchment and vials scattered on the counters.
“Don’t be thick-skulled, sweetling. She’s just one woman. Find another. A dozen more. I can give you the answer you’ve been seeking, right here in two swallows.”
“I said—pick something else,” Dante growls. The steely resonance in his words makes the hairs on my arms stand on end.
The witch looks over his shoulder at me in wonderment, then throws her head back. She cackles so hard that she has to catch one hand on the mantle, her beautiful features splintering cruelly. “Don’t tell me you bend to her will. You struck me as a cut better than that.”