Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Karsyn
“Mate.”
Those words vibrate around me. Confusion overwhelms me.
Fear threatens to choke me as I hold the gaze of the shifter who spoke.
He’s a man, all man, but his eyes give away to the shifter part of him.
The way they lock on me with such intensity, the sclera of his eyes vanishes, no longer is there any white left in his extremely dark eyes, and the aura surrounding him .
. . the intensity of it is nearly too much.
Being in his presence scares me. Just as that one word does.
I don’t know why it does, yet at the same time, a part of me is excited at the thought of this very man being my mate. I don’t understand it. Not one bit.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” another man sneers. “You’re mated to a witch.”
“VP,” Dane growls.
“Remember, she’s still half-wolf,” Daniel remarks.
“Wh-what happened?” I whisper, swallowing down my fear.
“You don’t remember?” Daniel asks, eyes full of concern.
I shake my head, furrowing my brow as I try to remember what happened.
Closing my eyes, I recall the last thing to come to mind. Daniel telling me about a charm. Me telling them that I escaped the blood witches. Dane . . .
I suck in harsh breath, open my eyes, and whip my gaze to Dane. “You’re scary. You looked ready to kill me,” I whisper.
“Wasn’t going to kill you, Karsyn,” Dane mutters. “Pissed me off learning what you said.”
“And that would be?”
The deep, rumbling voice of the man who claimed me as his mate sends tremors down my spine when I hear his voice again, gaining my attention. Though I might admit, the aura surrounding him held my attention from the moment he first said that one word. It’s terrifying and intriguing all in one.
“Dane already said it, but I’ll say it again,” Daniel growls deeply, his anger apparent. I don’t have to read his energy to know this. “Karsyn escaped those sick and twisted blood witches and is the reason they’re in the area once again. They’re looking for her and we can’t let them get her.”
“Of fuckin’ course she is,” the one Dane called VP mutters. His lip curls in disgust. “But what I want to know is why the hell she came here? Who’s to say she didn’t bring them here and is in on whatever they’re up to?”
“Karsyn, why were you glowing?” Dane asks, evidently ignoring his VP’s comment.
“Glowing?” I swallow past the lump lodging itself in my throat. “That can’t be possible,” I whisper.
“We saw it for ourselves.” Dane grunts, crosses his arms over that massive chest of his, and leans against the wall. “You said you were going to come looking for Daniel when you were healed enough, but you looked healthy in the woods. You started glowing and then passed the fuck out.”
“And you brought me here,” I finish for him weakly.
“We weren’t going to leave you out there alone,” Daniel grumbles.
“I’m used to it. I’m always alone.” I find myself whispering.
“Enough of this shit. If she’s half-wolf, why don’t I sense the wolf inside her?”
“Prez?” Dane grunts.
“She’s got no wolf.”
Evidently, the one who called me his mate is the Prez, whatever that means.
“Is that even possible?” another man says, folding his arms across his beefy chest.
What is it about these men? They’re all massive with muscle.
“I don’t know.” The Prez grunts.
“She shares our scent, though,” Dane mutters.
“True, but there’s no wolf inside her.”
“I know,” I speak up. “I’ve never shifted. I only have ever been able to elongate my fingers, and I can hear very well. That’s it.”
“Way I see it, she might share blood with Dane and Daniel, but she’s still a witch.”
“Justice.” The name comes out on a growl, but it shocks me since it’s the Prez who it comes from.
“Corbin, Prez, man, you got to agree with me on this. This whole thing feels like a setup,” Justice remarks.
So, his name’s Corbin.
Interesting.
I bite my lower lip, draw my knees up to my chest, and wrap my arms around them, holding them tightly. Wishing I could disappear from under the scrutiny of these men’s gazes.
So much keeps happening, and it’s overwhelming.
Squeezing my eyes shut, everything goes silent in the next moment.
I open them to find I’m no longer in the room full of men.
I’m somewhere else altogether. Scrambling to my feet, I twirl around, looking, fearing that the blood witches have found a way to summon me, only to find myself back in the cabin.
“How did I do this? Bring myself back here?” I’ve never been able to do something so powerful. I’ve heard of it. My mother was able to vanish and reappear, but she never taught me. She didn’t tell me that something like that was even possible for me to do.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something shimmering that I hadn’t seen before.
Frowning, I move toward it to find out what it could possibly be.
I squat down and reach into the gaping wall, wrapping my hand around a handle and pulling whatever it is out.
I gasp as I realize it’s a mirror. A beautiful one at that.
Why on earth would someone hide a mirror?
I run my fingers along the pristine design and sigh. Never have I seen such remarkable work. The mirror glows, and I release it as if it burned my hand, only to find the mirror floating in the air.
An image of my mother appears in the reflection, causing me to gasp.
“Mom,” I whisper.
“My sweet, sweet baby girl.” My mom’s voice fills the cabin.
“I know you’re not born yet as I cast this spell, but I feel you inside me.
Growing. Getting stronger. But what you must know is this world is a dangerous one.
By you finding this mirror, you will have returned home.
Home to where you should have always grown up.
I wish that were what your life was like. ”
I watch the tears on my mother’s face and the way she hitches her breath.
“Our lives won’t be easy, and I’ve no choice but to run and hide.
To keep you safe. There’s so much that even I don’t understand.
What I do know is Death wants my child, and I cannot allow that to happen.
I won’t let you be used. Our family holds a grave secret, one that I couldn’t tell your father out of fear that he would convince me he could protect me from.
I couldn’t allow this. I couldn’t let him leave his son behind.
See, you are special and need to be protected at all costs.
You are not just an earth witch, as you will be raised to believe.
You’re a half-shifter, I’ll never hide this from you, but you will not have a wolf.
Not really. The Mother Goddess and the moon blessed me with you, and you are to be born the night of an eclipse.
I pray they will shield your birth so that no one will be able to know you were born.
Not yet, at least. I want you to grow. Learn and become the beautiful woman I want you to be.
“However, you must know this. Death wants you because of the abilities you’ll have.
The ones I intend to teach you to control .
. . to hide. You are more than just earth witch and shifter.
You are magic itself. Blessed by Mother Goddess.
Our family comes from the bloodline of the Mother Goddess herself.
She can’t protect us as we would like. That would mean turning her back on all those who worship her.
But we cannot ever allow the dark to consume us. ”
More tears stream down her face, and she looks away from the mirror.
“I can only hope that when you find this, you won’t be alone any longer.
That you’ll have found a mate and that he’ll protect you.
That together, you two can keep Death away.
Keep those who are in danger safe. If Death gets his hands on you, my sweet girl, nothing will stop him from controlling the rest. He has blood witches amass and will stop at nothing.
He needs purity. Innocence. You. If he gets his hands on all three, we’re all doomed. ”
The mirror loses its glow as my mother’s image fades. Her words resonate with fear inside me. I already know what Death is capable of. He’s a monster. Completely terrifying. I know what he wants from me. What he wants me to do. It’s not just about what my mother said. It’s so much more. Worse.
So, so, so much worse.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I think about what my mother said about me being from the Mother Goddess herself’s bloodline. It couldn’t be possible. Could it?
All of this is confusing, and now I have a mate.
Corbin.
How do I handle this?
I know absolutely nothing about shifters other than what my mother taught me.
It’s all strange. What I do know is with the blood witches out there, it’s not safe for me to be here alone.
Not anymore, not when they were able to find me.
And on top of that, with this glowing thing, and now I just learned I can vanish, my powers are unpredictable.
It scares me, and I don’t know how to control it.
But if I ask them for help. For them to protect me, I could be putting them in danger.
Moving toward the cabin door, I throw it open and step out into the night air.
I barely get one foot out the door before I hear the growling.
Whipping my head around in the direction of the sound, my eyes widen as I come face-to-face with the largest black wolf I’ve ever seen.
One look in his eyes, and I know right away it’s Corbin, and he’s not happy.
The massive wolf approaches me, teeth showing, large sharp teeth that make him look scarier than even the wolf in the Little Red Riding Hood stories.
Once he’s right in front of me, he shifts, no longer is he the beast, but a very furious man.
“You have got to be the stupidest woman I know for doing something so idiotic,” he snarls.
“What’s that?” I whisper, unable to keep myself from asking or continuing. “And for the record, I’m not stupid or idiotic.”
“You vanishing the way you did, right in front of all of us, fuckin’ stupid, mate,” he sneers that last word like it gives him a bad taste in his mouth.
“I’m not your mate.” I straighten and narrow my gaze, feeling myself grow bold in his presence. “Also, for the record,” I breathe, “I didn’t mean to vanish. I didn’t even know I could do that.”
“Bullshit,” he spits.
“Not bullshit,” I mumble. “I’m not a liar. I don’t know how, and I know you can probably smell if I were being deceitful.”
“There’s plenty of ways for a witch to hide her lies,” he sneers, wrapping a beefy hand around my bicep. “Now, let’s get back to the fuckin’ clubhouse. You’re going to the cells until further notice. Dane and Daniel don’t like it, but too fuckin’ bad. With you there, I know you can’t pull no shit.”
“The cells?” I whisper, not liking the sound of it. Not in the least. “Please, don’t put me in a cell.”
“You’re going in a cell.” He growls.
“Please,” I whisper, turning into a whimper when he squeezes my arm. “Please, I’ve lived in a cell for the past five years of my life. I don’t want to go in another one.” Small spaces scare me. They make me feel as if I were an animal.
Corbin stops and twists me so that I’m facing him. “What do you mean you were in a cell for five years?”
“The blood witches.” I sigh, squeezing my eyes shut. “That’s what they kept me in until the day I escaped. The only time I was let out was when they wanted me to do something for them. Or unless . . .” I shake my head, not wanting to think about it.
“Unless what?” he demands.
Slowly, I lift my head, tears swarming in my eyes, and the energy around me swirls. “Unless Death came for me.”
“The fuck does that mean?” Corbin snarls, tightening his grip.
“Death became my master, did what he pleased with my magic.” I drop my gaze and utter the rest. “With my body. I was his to toy with.”
“I won’t put you in the cell, but you will not be allowed alone either,” Corbin grinds. “Now, get walking. It’s getting late, and I’ve got shit to do tomorrow. We’ll deal with you more after that.”
I let out a breath at his words, though I didn’t know what he meant by dealing with me. He at least isn’t going to put me in a cell. For that, I’m grateful.