Fated Realms: (Witchling Wars: Vampire Echelon Book 2) Read online

  Lenora must have been exhausted because she didn’t stir when I entered. And her magic didn’t wake her when it tried to warn her of my presence. Perhaps it knew that she wasn’t in extreme danger. I wasn’t going to hurt her. I didn’t think…

  The way her magic warned her was so different from mine. My magic would come barreling out of my palm. There was hardly anything I could do to stop it when I was young. It took a lifetime of practice to gain any sort of hold over it. Hers lit the edges of her fingertips and then went out. Like a light that was flickering on and off.

  She slowly stirred as if the warning was nothing more than a bad dream and she was too tired to even consider opening her eyes.

  I could hear her blood rushing through her veins. The smell of her was even more divine than the taste of my own kruxa magic in the vial Tobias gave me. As much as I wanted to have just a taste, I took a deep breath and told myself no. Again. And again. And again. Until it stuck.

  ‘She’s off limits. And she freed you. Don’t dishonor her efforts. Don’t be like the other savage vampires.’

  I might have had a clean track record as far as not killing anyone from my thirst for blood just yet, but a full twenty-four hours hadn’t passed. There was still time.

  Tobias didn’t seem too concerned. He left me the moment we returned to go somewhere with Christophe. I didn’t ask any more details. I needed a few minutes alone. And I need to speak to Lenora as soon as she woke up.

  Her eyelashes fluttered. The muscle tissue over her lungs contracted up and down. Her stomach rumbled for a meal. It was a curious thing to watch a human sleep. Even more so with a luxra. Everything happened in tandem. Her human elements recovered and her magic restored itself to its former glory as she was slumbering.

  I closed my eyes and tried a little experiment. I didn’t have total control of my crowning magic. A part of me wondered how long that would take. It took decades to get moderate control over my kruxa magic. Now I had more than I knew what to do with.

  I let a light scarlet glow of the crowning magic leave my body but only by an inch. I managed to keep it enclosed and safely away from Lenora. Then I let my mind drift in the same way I did when I meditated in a circle of salt and sage at my apartment in downtown Denver.

  Images started appearing before my mind. They were of Lenora. She was younger. A strong and curvaceous brunette with beautiful pin curls and a knee length dress. Tights elongated her beautiful figure. And she walked down the street with a grace that I hadn’t seen women possess in ages.

  Only there was something vividly different about her. And her surroundings. She was in Washington D.C. Walking without a care in the world. But the timing was off. I suspected by her age that she was born in the 1960s. And yet, I spent enough time around D.C. to know what it looked like in various decades.

  The images in my mind were of the 1940s. I didn’t know how but Lenora preserved herself with her magic. And she was much older than she looked. She didn’t appear a day over sixty or so. Her skin had developed signs of aging with wrinkles and a few wisps of gray throughout the chocolate brown. The young woman in my vision was so different. So young. And excited.

  She trotted down the street near the Library of Congress until she saw the face she was looking for. One that was clearly recognizable. Tobias stood in front of the statues by the stairs leading to the entrance. He was waiting for her with his arms crossed. And when she reached him he greeted her with a passionate kiss, letting her arms wrap around his neck as his hands explored her back.

  It was indecent. At least for the time period. It wasn’t something women did as often as they do now.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked him when she pulled away for air.

  “Somewhere I don’t think you’ve been before,” he answered. “You’ll find it interesting. I promise.”

  He walked with her up the steps and toward the entrance of the Library of Congress with his hand enfolding hers. Even though it was just a vision I could see her wanting to let go of his hand. His skin was like ice. She withstood the chill and kept holding on. Just like I held onto him when I was equally infatuated all those years ago. I could see her gripping his hand tighter as they walked, not liking the fact that Tobias attracted the attention of every other young woman nearby. Their eyes watched her with envy. She enjoyed their envy as much as she hated it.

  I knew where he was taking her. The nest Tobias created for the Catach-Brayin was in the heart of D.C., deep inside the Library of Congress. I was forced to find a way inside many times to spy on him. Often times with only a fragile concealing charm to hide my scent from the overeager vampires.

  “I was even more stunning in the 1920s,” Lenora said out of nowhere and nearly startling me out of the vision.

  I stiffened at the sound of her voice, wondering if she would be irritated by the intrusion.

  “I see my wall spell is getting a little rusty,” she sat up slowly with squinted eyes from her deep state of sleep.

  “No,” I spoke softly, fearing I had already disturbed her too much. “It was just no match for someone with crowning magic I suppose.”

  “I don’t spend a lot of time around vixra,” she said. “I’m not used to witchlings being stronger than me.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better you definitely have more control than me. And I’m not a witchling anymore.”

  “Yes you are,” she muttered. “In some form.” She rubbed her eyes. “I haven’t thought about that in the longest time.”

  I was silent. I wasn’t sure how but the vision reached her mind as well as my own. She knew what I had seen. I waited for her to explain.

  “That was the first time Tobias showed me the Catach-Brayin lair under the Library of Congress,” she said. “Thank goodness the other vampires weren’t around. I feared they might catch my scent long after I left. Tobias assured me that I would be fine.”

  “He’s taken good care of you over the years, I suppose.”

  “Indeed, he has. It’s the only reason I’m still here.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, getting a little more relaxed once I realized she wasn’t going to lash out at me for peering into her memories.

  “He provided me with small amounts of vixra blood to use in potions over the years. They helped prevent me from aging. It will catch up with me. One day. He likes having me around. He even said he wasn’t ready for me to die yet.”

  “Then why didn’t he just turn you?”

  “Into a vampire?” Her nose curled. “I understand that you may have had no other option available to you but it was never one I wanted for myself.”

  “I didn’t exactly pine after it either,” I said with a hint of attitude. “But as you said, I didn’t have other options available to me.”

  She let out a sigh and took a sip of water from a glass sitting beside the small bed. I gathered Tobias had collected the things for her room to make her comfortable while she was here. A bed, a nice mattress, a comforter, a side table and a desk for her mixtures and potions in the corner. She caught me looking at one. It was a bright shade of lavender with bubbles lining the surface. But no steam funneled from the top.

  “Is that the remainder of the tolepa potion you had Christophe shoot into me?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said sternly. She clearly didn’t want to hear a single word of complaint. I couldn’t blame her. She overextended herself when she freed Tobias and me from the tight grip of the vixra.

  “You saved me,” I admitted. “In some way. I don’t know yet whether to thank you or develop a dislike for you. But I need to ask one more thing from you.”

  “I’m spent, sweetheart. My magic won’t recover from last night for another couple of weeks. I may look strong at the surface but that spell was a long time in the making. I worked on it from the day Tobias told me that the vixra enslaved him.”

  I winched at her words. I couldn’t imagine expending that much magic. Not that I could as a kruxa. Even so, being deple
ted of my magic for only a matter of hours in the vision she gave me was enough to make me feel as though I’d lost something very precious. Something I didn’t realize I would miss until it was gone.

  “I don’t need your magic,” I said. “I need your guidance. I can use my crowning magic. I’m just not sure how. I’m not exactly adept at many spells granted I only had a few at my disposal as a kruxa.”

  I must have triggered her curiosity because she let her feet hang over the side of the bed and looked right at me. It was rare for a witchling to trust a vampire enough to look them in the eyes. It made them a prime target for luring. Not that I needed eye contact. And she knew it. Even so, it was a risk.

  “What sort of guidance?” she asked.

  Now it was my turn to trust her. At least to some degree. She would be the first person to find out about Kitty.

  “I lost something very dear to me and I want to get it back,” I answered. “I know there are spells out there for summoning lost items. Can you help me learn how to cast one?”

  Her eyebrow furrowed. “It depends on what you’re summoning. Is it a large object?”

  “Not particularly.”

  She wasn’t convinced of my sincerity. I could sense it.

  “Does it have a heartbeat?” she asked.

  I sat back in the chair in silence.

  She let out a light laugh. “Summoning a person can take hours depending on how far away they are. You’ll be in for a long morning.”

  “It’s not a person. It’s an animal.”

  “Like a pet?”

  “No. Not exactly.”

  “I need more to go on,” she complained, aggravated that I was asking her a favor only to be uncooperative about providing necessary details.

  “Someone dear to me cast a spell on a bird. The bird has become special to me. Now that I’ve turned into a vampire the bird is frightened of me. I want to get the bird close enough to allow it to realize that I’m not going to hurt it.”

  The tension in her shoulders dissipated. My answer seemed to satisfy her. At least for now.

  “Grab that small orange mixture to the corner of the table,” she instructed me.

  I got up from where I sat and took the small glass bottle into my hands. I was used to magical potions being warm to the touch. This one wasn’t. It was cool. Even I could sense the difference in temperature with my skin being tougher than it once was.

  “Now pour it into your right hand,” she instructed me.

  I sat back down, took the glass lid off the bottle and poured the mixture into my hand, cupping my fist as it tumbled out of the bottle.

  “How much do I use?” I asked as it touched my skin.

  “All of it.”

  The mixture didn’t run through my fingers and drip on the floor as I expected. It rolled up my arm and settled at my elbow, making my arm glow in an orange hue before my skin absorbed it.

  “Now close your eyes,” she said.

  I did as she asked.

  “Envision the being you want to summon. The shape of their eyes. Their nose…or beak in your case. The feathers. The sounds the bird makes. Any recent memories you have of the bird.”

  I pictured Kitty in my mind. A red light started to pierce through my fingertips, spreading over the potion latched to my skin and energizing it. I could see the glow through my fluttering eyelashes.

  “Open your eyes,” Lenora said.

  When I did I could see my magic forming a silhouette of Kitty’s body in my palm. It was glorious. She was moving as if she was right there in my lap with her wings spread out, flying about in all her beauty. I missed her. I missed a darn bird who wasn’t even my real daughter.

  A noise shot through my ears. It was the sound of cawing. It was coming from outside the tunnels leading into the caverns inside the mountain. Only it wasn’t just one bird. I could hear hundreds of them.

  “I thought you said it would take all morning,” I shrieked.

  “What do you mean? It should have.”

  I didn’t stick around to hear her explanation. I rushed out of her room so fast that I might have very well knocked her back over on the bed with the force of my speed so close to her.

  ‘She can’t hear the birds. Not with her human ears. My senses are growing.’

  I reached the outer edge of the tunnel and peered outside to see the sun rising. I let my hand drift to the edge as my skin soaked in the light. The orange hue from the potion was still there, lingering with my crowning magic.

  More cawing erupted outside. I stepped out to see what it was. Just like I predicted, there were hundreds of red-tailed hawks flying about outside.

  ‘Good lord. The crowning magic is more powerful than I ever imagined.’

  I didn’t just summon Kitty. I summoned every other hawk in the area. Along with more birds that definitely weren’t hawks. There were crows, hummingbirds, owls, and vultures flying everywhere. They screeched into the sky and flew about in chaotic circles. Kitty was among them, unsure of what was happening or that it was me summoning her that brought her to this very spot.

  ‘She must have been close by.’

  I raised my hair in the air with the orange hue of the potion still in my hand and let the scarlet red magic inside lurch through my palm, creating a stunning light shooting through the air. Kitty was drawn to it instantly. She flew down to me in a nose dive. I wasn’t even sure if she was going to stop until she landed at my feet.

  I bent down to pick her up. She was hesitant and didn’t want me to touch her. She even tried to peck at me with her long beak. And just as I thought I had a grip on her, she shot her talons right into my face with her long wings flapping about behind her.

  “Kitty, stop it!” I screamed.

  She pinched harder into me until she drew blood.

  “You’re not nanna,” she shouted into my mind. “I don’t know who you are. Other than a monster!”

  “I didn’t kill that cop!”

  “But you will. All vampires do! You let Tobias trick you into doing what he wants. Again! How could you do that?”

  ‘Enough of this.’

  I let the glow of my magic pierce through both my palms and shot it right at her, hoping to god that I didn’t kill her. She might have been immortal but she was created with kruxa magic. There was no way of knowing how much magic would permanently end the spell. And I didn’t know how strong my magic was yet. All I knew was that I had done more than just stun her when she fell to the ground with a smack and I was left standing there with scratches from her talons lining my face and blood dripping down my neck.

  Then the mess began. The birds went wild. They flew right into the side of the mountain in hoards. Some so hard that they fell down to the earth and stopped moving.

  I gathered Kitty in my arms and ducked into the opening of the cave leading to the tunnels, feeling the scratches on my face start to heal. The chaotic scene wasn’t something I wanted to watch and yet I was transfixed from inside the cave’s entrance. The birds were so confused by my summoning spell that they didn’t know where to go or what to do. They flew right into the rocks. Those that didn’t die flew away. But that left at least fifty of them dead on the ground in a heap of feathers floating down as the cawing dissipated into nothing.

  ‘You see the lengths I go to for you? Don’t let them die in vain by flying away again.’

  I hurried inside and back into Lenora’s private quarters. I stepped into the room and shut the door. The room was empty. Lenora wasn’t anywhere to be found. Her potions bottles had been emptied and her scent was already dissipating from the space.

  “Looking for someone?” Liza said, sitting on the bed where Lenora had been only moments ago.

  “What have you done with her?” I snarled.

  “What Tobias told me to do. I escorted her home.” She took out a couple of pieces of small paper from her tight jeans pocket. There were small drops of blood on them. Tobias let her have vixra blood.

  “How? Tobias a
nd I can’t use the tunnels anymore without the vixra discovering us.”

  “But she can. I gave Lenora a hit of vixra blood so she could pass through. She’s skilled enough to get through unnoticed.”

  There was only one reason why Tobias would trust Liza with such a task. She must have been one of his warriors. One of the best in fact. I sure as hell didn’t trust her. But that didn’t mean Tobias wouldn’t.

  “Don’t you dare hurt her,” I said, not even realizing that in the short time I spent with Lenora I had grown to like her a bit.

  “Hurt her? Lenora and I go way back. I dare say she likes me more so than you.” She gave me a sly wink and left the room, showing me nothing but her backside. “Nice bird,” she said just as she turned a corner and disappeared down the tunnel.

  I sat on the bed with Kitty in my arms. I took a single finger and placed it on her forehead right between her eyes. Then I let the crowning magic touch her with a gentle tap.

  She bolted awake, flapped her wings, and flew right into the empty potion bottles.

  4

  “Kitty!” I shouted as she continued to fly about the room. I shut the door as fast as possible before she could come to her senses and fly right out of the tunnel and into the darkness.

  She managed to knock over a few of the candles on the table before huddling in the corner. I could sense the mounting fear inside of her.

  I slowly approached her with my arms out in front of me, as if I was closing in on a wild animal that might snap at any moment.

  “Kitty, please calm down,” I said softly. “I won’t hurt you. I wouldn’t do that.”