Chapter 3
Yvonne
This was not supposed to happen.
I pace back and forth in the basement of the cottage, my body trembling. A wave of cold sweat washing over me, I don’t know what to think, or how to perceive it. At one point, something must’ve gone terribly wrong, for the side effects to be this great.
Lucifer is asleep — well, knocked out — and chained to the wall. His superhuman strength would make it so easy for him to break out of the chains, so I added a little magic to them. It’ll take him a while, but I hate that I can’t find a permanent solution to keep him locked up.
“What the hell was so urgent?” Octavia questions, running down the stairs, panting.
She immediately removes her cloak, tossing it to the floor.
Then, she pauses. Her eyes flick between the sleeping Lucifer on the floor, and me.
For a moment, it’s silent, the silence feels suffocating.
“What the actual fuck, Yvonne? You already got him?”
“No,” I breathe out. “Something is so wrong, Octavia. I just can’t figure out what!”
She flinches a little at my raised tone and I suck in a sharp breath, trying to calm myself down. It doesn’t help, though. My body is still shuddering, half in ache, half in terror at the implication of what this could mean.
“What happened?” She takes a careful step toward me, as if she’s approaching a wounded animal, and she’s trying not to scare it off. “Are you alright?”
I shake my head furiously, lifting my palm right in front of her eyes.
A frown tugs on her lips when she takes my hand gently, her thumb circling around the burn marks. “How in the world did you burn yourself?”
“I didn’t!” I defend, half-exasperated, half-annoyed that she can’t read my mind. “It’s all his fault! Ugh!” I stomp like a petulant child, grabbing one of his palms, and showing it to Octavia. “See? I used magic to burn him, and it burned me too!”
Her eyes widen in realization, and she steps back. “That’s… not good.”
“No shit,” I snort. “But, look!”
I grab the small pocket knife from the nearby shelf, hidden behind the herbs I’ve been carefully drying. I sit down next to Lucifer, and drag the knife across his forearm. The wound appears immediately, the black blood dripping down his arm.
Then, I hiss in pain, closing my eyes. The exact same wound appears on my forearm, the same amount of blood oozing down. The burning sensation makes my entire body recoil, and I swallow down the tears. This fucking hurts.
“Jesus Christ,” Octavia breathes out. “You two are connected now.”
The tension, the ache slowly starts to ease once his vampire abilities kick in, healing the wound. My own starts closing up, and soon enough, it’s like it was never even there. Not a single scar, just smooth skin without any imperfections.
“How in the world did this happen, Octavia? Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
She shakes her head, a look of sympathy flashing her eyes.
I called Octavia here because she really loves to read.
Not only is she the only witch who could’ve possibly read something about this strange occurrence, but she’s brilliant enough to remember it.
If she doesn’t already know, she’ll at least know where to look for information.
Strangely enough, she has connections in places I have never even heard of.
“No,” she breathes out, biting her inside of her cheek. It’s a clear tell how hard she’s thinking about this, her brows narrowing in concentration. “But if you two are connected, how come he’s passed out, and you aren’t?”
I slump against the wall. “I knocked him out, then I passed out, too. Of course, when I woke up, so did he. Thankfully, he was already chained, so that gave me enough time to put protection spells on myself, before using magic to knock him out. Honestly, I’m shocked it worked.”
She frowns at me, before dropping her voice, “That means you can’t kill him because if you do, you’ll die too.”
“Bingo,” I rub my temples, groaning. “Just what I needed.”
“Didn’t you say yesterday that you wouldn’t mind laying down your life, if it meant killing him?”
I give her an unimpressed look. “Yes, and I stand by those words. But I’m not killing myself just to see him dead. What I want is to kill him slowly, painfully. Then flaunt it around a little before I die.”
Much to my surprise, Octavia laughs. It’s soft, sudden, and bubbly. She’s quick to clear her throat, and look away, once she sees the judgmental look from me.
“Okay, okay, there must be an explanation for this, and a solution,” Octavia stops laughing, then pulls me up to my feet. “Come on, let’s go grab some tea, while he’s passed out.”
With a small nod, I cast a couple more spells to ensure he can’t hear our conversation, if he wakes up.
Locking the door behind me, as we leave the basement.
Octavia, as always, makes herself at home, brewing us both tea and grabbing my favorite set of cups.
They’re very old, dating back to early 1900s.
I saved a young child from drowning and as a thank you, the child brought me these teacups as a gift.
They’re handmade, in a cute shade of white, with clumsy, rosy flowers drawn all around. I imagine, in normal circumstances, they wouldn’t have lasted this long. Back then though, I put a preservation spell on the cups, keeping them as my favorite little item to this day.
“Do you think this could be a Faith and Ophelia thing, too?” Octavia asks, taking a seat and putting the cup in front of me. The scent of tea fills my nose, the steam hitting my face. My heart is pounding, and my mind drawing a blank.
“No,” I say, the thought of such a terrible thing makes my skin crawl.
Faith is — well, was — a human hunter that worked with me. She went on her own to hunt down the vampire who killed her parents, and unfortunately for her, it turned out to be one of the Sacred Seven.
The seven oldest vampires alive, the ones who started it all. They’re stronger, smarter and far more dangerous than regular vampires.
Faith ended up being turned into a vampire by Ophelia, and that was when the two of them realized they were mates. Faith had no chance at killing Ophelia, even less so once they were bonded for life. I’m assuming they’re still in Transylvania, living their lives together.
But this is different. Mates always have matching marks, somewhere on their bodies. The first thing I did was check for those, and I’m very happy that I found none. Besides, having a soulmate doesn’t mean if one is hurt, the other gets the same injury. This is something different.
“Alright, then,” she sighs, then takes a small sip of the tea. “Walk me through the curse, Yvonne. You said it was your first time casting one?”
“It was two hundred years ago,” I groan. “I don’t remember.”
“You must remember something, Yvonne.” She says matter-of-factly.
“I was in England,” I lean back, closing my eyes, trying to remember.
“I was following up on a lead, that one of the witches from my coven had a descendant there. The lead turned out to be false, but I didn’t leave immediately.
I stayed for a while, and one night, I ran into Lucifer while he was feeding off someone in a dark alley. ”
“How did you poison him, exactly?”
I open my eyes, looking at her. “I honestly have no clue. I had a poison of sorts on me, but I don’t remember what it was. I just remember thinking it wouldn’t work on him, so I added some of my blood, and it worked like a charm. He passed out, and that was when I put the curse on him.”
“What was the chant you used?”
I bite the inside of my lip, drawing blood. The taste coats the inside of my mouth, and I’m reluctant to admit what it was because saying it out loud, will just prove how reckless and stupid the decision was.
“I improvised,” I wince at my own words. “It wasn’t a spell. I just know that I was so angry, and the words, all the curses I could’ve mustered… they just… came from my mouth before I could stop them.”
Octavia takes a deep breath, eyes closing for a moment. The silence is deafening, I can feel the tension, the shift in the air. It was stupid and reckless, at the time I couldn’t have stopped myself, even if I tried.
“Let me get this straight,” she says, her voice calm. “It was your first ever curse, and you just threw words around? Do you not understand how insane that is? It could’ve ended terribly! It could’ve backfired! What if it was you who was put to sleep instead?!”
“But it wasn’t!” I defend, though the words fall flat. “Look, I know it was stupid.”
“Yeah,” she scoffs. “And without knowing what words and magic you used, it’s impossible to tell where it all went wrong. I can tell you this much, you didn’t just become connected to him. It happened back then.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because curses don’t suddenly start working after two hundred years. Your wording must’ve been unclear, or your intentions didn’t come from the right place within you. That is the only time a curse can go wrong.”
I sigh, gulping down the remainder of tea in one go. “So, what now?”
“Now, I must try and find a solution to this. I need to warn you, though, he’ll wake up soon. If he figures out what is going on and that you’re connected somehow, he might just snap his own neck.”
“It wouldn’t kill him, though.”
“But it would kill you, Yvonne. Please be careful. Better yet, just let him go.”
“I can’t let him go now,” I clench my jaw. “Not that he would leave. Now that he’s found me, he won’t be letting me go until I’m dead.”
“Then, you need to get the upper hand somehow.”
“But how?” I lift a brow, trying to hide the unease.
“Keep him sedated with magic, and shield yourself for now.”
“I’ll try.”
I can’t tell her that it took a lot out of me to cast both the protective spell on myself, and the one to knock him out. Doing it twice, or more, in a single day would definitely weaken me, and it would make it even easier for him attack.
“Good,” she breathes, offering a small smile. “We’ll figure this out, okay? We’ll find a way to separate you two, then you can kill him. Look forward to that.”