Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
My slow, easy breaths relaxed my muscles. I kept my eyes closed and waited for Cordelia to toss the headstone over my body.
A loud thud boomed, followed by rustling around my body, causing me to flinch. As soft footsteps approached me, I snapped my eyes open.
Cordelia stood a foot away from me, her hands by her sides.
I recoiled and peeked behind her. The two gray headstones lay on the ground close to the spots where Cordelia had raised them from the soil.
I blinked and tilted my head back to look at her while still kneeling on the ground with numb knees.
“I didn’t expect your sacrifice, child. But I’ll grant your wish,” she said.
I didn’t have time to react as she reached for my throat and lifted me to my feet. Throwing the headstones over me would have been a better way to end my life. Did she find more satisfaction in killing me with her own hands?
Her fingers squeezed so hard around my neck.
How could this petite woman possess so much strength?
I pried my hands at hers. Although I chose my ending to be such, my body still reacted on autopilot and fought the witch.
Her fingers were like rubber bands digging deep into my flesh, and I was sure I’d have a bruise.
But who cared about bruises when the end was near?
My vision blurred, the edges of my sight turning black.
I couldn’t take my next breath. My lungs burned and ached. A heavy, hot weight poured over my body like a bucket of lava. The heat wave scorched every cell, and I felt as weighty as a boulder. My hands turned limp and dropped to my sides.
Death was seconds away.
Cordelia's laughter echoed and made everything worse. “Princess, you made the wrong choice, though. If you knew the two men better, you wouldn’t have given me your life.”
She clamped down on my throat, intensifying the pressure. As she increased her relentless force and my energy left me, so did my will to live. My strength ebbed away as I slipped into oblivion, ready to enter the spirit realm.
Suddenly, Cordelia’s body jolted, her lips pressed together, and pain exploded in her eyes. She grunted as her hand released me.
I hunched over and coughed as I took a breath that got stuck in my dry throat.
Taking deep breaths, I straightened up and stepped back from the witch.
She was giving me the most sinister smile I’d ever seen. It made her look insane.
“I’m not done with you, Princess. Remember that,” she said in a low, menacing voice, and she turned her back to me.
There, on the opposite side of where her heart was located, a silver dagger stuck out. I gasped as the witch reached with her other hand and pulled it out like she was plucking a weed out of a rosy bush.
Half the blade was covered in her dark-blue blood, and more seeped from her back, soaking her shirt. Knowing that she could bleed like any other supernatural or human was comforting. Any creature with a beating heart was not invincible—something the supernaturals and I had in common.
Cordelia stretched her neck from side to side and dropped the knife on the ground.
“Anna, duck,” a familiar deep voice called.
I did as ordered and crouched down as more daggers flew toward Cordelia, some landing near me. Cordelia waved her hands and spoke her spells as a gust of wind whirled before her, stopping the daggers from striking her.
I retreated away from her by doing a backward crab walk.
In the distance, wolves and Dad’s men appeared. They stormed into the graveyard and halted in front of the witch.
The wolves growled at her, baring their teeth, but didn’t pounce.
My father stepped forward and searched for me. When he found me, he let out a heavy sigh.
I mouthed to him, “I’m okay,” and his eyes hardened.
Another muscular man stepped next to my father, and my eyes widened as I locked my gaze with the Alpha I’d saved from a doomed fate in the fake vampire club back in London.
Alpha Mark straightened and smiled at me. He looked fully recovered, without a scratch on his body, standing tall and exuding authority.
I gave Mark a small smile, mentally pleading that he would be able to soften Dad’s anger.
The King stood out from the small crowd of warriors around him.
Although he was in his fifties, you couldn’t tell.
He was of similar size to Hayden and Torin—leaner muscles and shorter than the vampire Alpha.
Dad had rugged, longer facial hair as if he had been too busy in the last three weeks to shave.
His intelligent eyes had dark circles all around, making my heart drop.
I’d made Dad worry again, but it was a given, seeing as I was his human daughter surrounded by a dangerous supernatural world. To say that the King was relieved to see me alive and mad simultaneously was an understatement. I’d nearly escaped death but not my father’s wrath.
I was becoming an emotional mess—something dark, volatile, and fiery swirling in my chest as if my emotions fought over which one to explode first.
I glanced at Mark again, but he had now focused on the witch’s every move.
“Took you long enough.” Cordelia turned and squinted at me, but her brown eyes were filled with annoyance and anger. “Nothing you can do will protect your daughter, Brendan. You failed once, and you’ll fail again.”
Did she just call my dad by his first name? I darted my gaze between the two of them.
My dad ran his hand through the gray strands of his hair.
And what was all this talk about Dad failing once? How much did they know each other?
Growing up, I’d looked up to my dad. He was powerful and wise, and I wanted to be like him as an adult.
But now, as a twenty-five-year-old adult, I wasn’t sure if Dad was my hero anymore. Deep down, I knew he’d kept information away from me, not with a bad intention, but still. My relationship with him was built on what turned out to be a house of cards. Weak. Fragile. Unbalanced.
Seeing as Cordelia would have to give up now, I filed my thoughts away for later. When I was alone with Dad, I’d confront him for information. He must realize that leaving me in the dark was more harmful than protecting me from the truth, whatever truth it was.
The tension in the air grew thick. The King stepped forward.
“You need to leave my family alone,” he said in a firm voice that would make any werewolf lower their gaze to the ground.
If Dad wanted to kill Cordelia, he would have given the order to his men by now.
Something I admired about Dad was that he was different from most supernaturals who would strike first and ask questions later.
I took after him in this regard, but rumors in the kingdom circulated that the King’s Alphas sometimes thought their King was too soft.
Cordelia scoffed at him. “I can’t do that. Your daughter stole from me.”
“And you stole from my family. Let’s call it a day,” Dad said and pressed his lips together, sending me a stern glance.
I filed more questions away for later. Dad had much explaining to do, but what would make him share now when he hadn’t for the last twenty-five years?
The King raised his hand, and his men took military stances, ready to throw more daggers at the witch. Several wolves howled, and the sound echoed in the graveyard as the warning blow of a battle horn.
I couldn’t see Cordelia’s face as she had her back to me, but she kept clenching and unclenching her hand. The witch’s body trembled.
“I see that I came unprepared, but mark my words. I will be back in three days. Reinforcing your kingdom with extra security won’t help you, Brendan, as I’ll be coming with my army.”
She abruptly turned to face me.
“Three days, Princess. We’ll finish what we started.” She pointed to my bracelet. “I know where to find you.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. She said she was coming to the werewolf kingdom to collect her jewelry, but she could have said she’d access my dream realm and take the bracelet by force there. The witch could easily defeat me in my dream realm since no one other than Torin and Hayden could access it.
Another shiver cascaded down my spine.
“I’ll raise hell in the werewolf kingdom. Its property and people will be destroyed and demolished because of your stubbornness, child,” she said harshly.
In the next moment, the witch created a tornado of wind, sending one last glance at my arm.
“It’s pointless to follow her. She’s using a spell to move faster,” Dad said to his men.
As I watched the swirl of wind disappear in the distance, I placed my hand over the golden bracelet. The four elements were engraved in gold with the athame that supposedly made the bracelet a weapon—a whip.
The witch had control over the four elements with her spells, so was it possible that the whip had control over fire, air, water, and earth, too? Did the symbols on the gold give it the power to create a similar tornado, wind, or crack open earth?
I’d have to find out within three days if I wanted to defeat the witch.
My head throbbed, and I massaged my temples. Now, I had to deal with the King.
Two pairs of black leather and gray sneakers stepped before me, making me realize I was still sitting on the ground.
Dad wore dark-gray dress pants and a matching vest. He had a long black blazer with golden ornate embroidery along the buttons and sleeve edges.
Next to the King, Mark wore almost the same casual attire he had in London—blue jeans and a white shirt.
The Alpha extended his hand to me, and after I grasped it, he lifted me to my feet. I hoped at least Mark was on my side at the moment.
Facing Dad, I rushed my words. “Dad, help Hayden. I’ll call for Torin. He may still be alive.”
Dad started giving orders to his men, and the graveyard became as busy as the streets of downtown LA during lunch hour. The small crowd of humans behind the fence had grown substantially.
After lifting the stone, the warriors brought a stretcher and placed Hayden on it. Someone checked on his pulse and nodded toward the King. Hayden’s eyes were closed, but his chest moved slowly up and down, and I sighed with relief.
They were transporting him to the private airplane Dad used to come here.
I dashed to the edge of the hole in the ground and called for Torin, hoping Torin was still holding on and hadn’t fallen to the bottom of the abyss. The warriors had already dropped a thick rope into it.
I held my breath, stared at the darkness, and called his name again. Dad walked up next to me, arms crossed, and legs planted wide.
After a moment, Torin climbed up, using his talons to assist him.
Some of the tension melted away, and my heart skipped a beat as he came into view.
His hair was silver, and his eyes were crimson—his vampire must have loaned him energy to climb.
He needed his vampire’s power to heal and survive.
He couldn’t have shifted into a wolf and jumped out of that endless hole.
His crimson eyes seemed unfocused, as if he’d just regained consciousness. Torin’s vampire must have saved him, but was he badly injured? I scanned his head for any signs of trauma. A tiny trail of blood streaked down the side of his head.
Dad’s expression hardened as Torin fully emerged, dirty and bloody, while Alpha Mark’s eyes widened at the sight of the vampire. He regained his composure quickly, and his face turned into a scowl, glaring at Torin.
Torin’s eyebrow and the other side of his head were also cut and bleeding. My stomach clenched with worry, but Torin didn’t make excuses, grimace at the pain, or meet my gaze.
I was grateful for Torin’s vampire side. But this was not how the King would see it. He despised our number one enemy, and Torin had shifted into one of them. The King forbade him from turning into his vampire around him, his family, his warriors, or the kingdom territory.
But I hoped Mark would show some respect to Torin once he realized that I accepted Torin’s vampire. Mark stayed away from our group but eyed the other Alpha with keen disapproval, or was it something else?
I darted my gaze between the King and Torin, who stayed still as something unspoken passed between them. The King’s yellow wolf eyes flashed, and Torin bowed his head in submission.
Was it fury or fear that radiated from my father’s eyes? Or perhaps an unsettling cocktail of both?
“Dad,” I said, hoping to distract them, “what army was the dark witch talking about?”
Dad’s gaze finally disengaged from Torin’s, drifting reluctantly towards me. As his eyes met mine, they lost some of their sharp edge. The lines etched around his eyes seemed more pronounced than before, deeper as if he’d lived through a thousand battles while I was in London.
“I’m not sure. But maybe vampires. She’s collaborated before with the vampire Queen,” he said.
“Wait…how exactly? So, the vampire Queen compels the dark witch to do her bidding?”
Dad shook his head. “No, witches’ minds can’t be compelled, so the two must be allies, equals…”
Dad trailed into silence, and his eyes widened as though struck by a sudden epiphany.
A chill ran down my spine as I pieced together his implications. My mind finally caught up with his words, and an uneasy thought began gnawing at me, one I refused to let go.
Vampires can’t compel me either.