Destiny Revealed (16 page)

Nick stood up and walked over to me. He took my hand
and spoke softly, “I have to come with you, no? I don’t
want to risk being alone again.”
“Oh yeah,” I mumbled. “Then hurry up already.” He
quickly threw on a shirt with his khaki shorts and followed
me out of the apartment. We took his car because I just
didn’t have it in me to focus on driving. Aspen Springs was
small, and even though we had to drive downtown, it took
less than ten minutes to get to the store.
Nick pulled around to the employees only lot behind
The White Witch
. We went in through the back door and
into the front of the shop. The entire left wall was full of
different herbs and mixing tools. Mamma was talking with
a woman, helping her find some herbs. There were a few
shelves full of books in the middle of the store and other
supplies like candles and ribbons lined the back wall. She
carried a small selection of ceremonial gowns in the very
back. The front wall was a giant window, and Nat was
behind the counter in front of the wall on the right. The
counter had a locked, glass case where the athames were
kept.
“You look like someone died,” Nat said as I walked up
to her.
“Nick, why don’t you go hang out in the office,” I said
as I turned to him. He just nodded, getting the hint that I
needed some space for a while.
“Oh crap, Sof. What’s wrong? You guys weren’t even
holding hands,” Nat got up off the stool she was sitting on.
“Did Mamma tell you what happened last night?”
“Yeah. I’m so sorry, Sof. I knew something about her
wasn’t right,” Nat rubbed my shoulder.
“Me, too. Everyone keeps apologizing. It’s getting
annoying. It’s not like it was your fault,” I snapped.
“Geez, relax. It’s because we love you and feel bad you
had to go through that.”
“Sorry, I just haven’t told you the extra sucky part yet,”
I said.
“Oh no, what else happened?”
Mamma walked over with her customer. “Would you
like me to ring her up, Nathalie?” she asked with a smile.
“Yeah, thanks. That’d be great.” She pulled me by the
hand and we went to the back by the gowns. She looked at
me, waiting for me to continue.
“So, I decided to do a memory spell on Nick. I was
totally freaked out that this might’ve happened already. I
couldn’t handle the thought of him… you know—with
her.”
“Ah snap. And?”
“Well, luckily this was the first time. He remembered
all of it, and she said it was the first of many nights they
would spend together,” I frowned. I didn’t realize I was
crying until Nat hugged me tightly to her. “But Nat, I saw it
all in his mind. I saw her undress him and then strip down
to her underwear.” I sobbed into her shoulder.
“Shh…” she soothed as she rubbed my back. “Oh, Sof.
That so totally sucks. What a ‘b’! But you have to see the
good. Nothing happened. You stopped it. Which, by the
way, your mom told me how you choked her unconscious.
You’re one wicked witch,” she smiled, trying to make me
laugh.
I gave her a half-smile. “Yeah, but she kicked my butt
right back,
and
Nick got hurt, too.” I continued to throw
myself a pity party. I just couldn’t find anything good in the
situation. “And what if I
hadn’t
shown up? What if I had
counted the register instead of you?”
“But you didn’t. It’s over. We’ll find her, Sof. We won’t
let anything happen. So, is that why Nick is here? Is he
afraid to be alone?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’m afraid for him to be alone, too.” I wiped the
remaining tears from my eyes as Mamma came back
toward us. She opened her arms to me and I fell into her.
She ran her hand down my hair and held me silently.
“Nico, could you come out here per favore?” she called
out over my shoulder. He walked out of the office, and
before he could say anything, she asked, “Could you watch
the shop for me while we work back here for a few
minutes?”
“Sὶ, Mamma. Don’t worry about anything,” he
answered with a smile.
We went into the office and Mamma cleared the counter
against the wall. She already had everything ready that we
needed to work the spell. There were three candles: white
for divination, yellow for knowledge, and green for luck.
There was a bowl of cedar oil and she crushed nutmeg and
saffron into it. “There, this should work,” she said. She
dipped her finger in the oil and anointed each of our
foreheads with it. “This will help with the sight,” she
finished.
I lit each of the candles and placed them in a circle
around the three of us. We held hands, closed our eyes to
focus, and Mamma repeated the spell three times,
Power of the witches rise.
Course unseen across the skies.
Come to us, we call you near.
Come to us and settle here.
Blood to blood, I summon thee.
Blood to blood, return to me.
We stood there silently for several minutes, each of us
concentrating on finding Gia. I gasped as I saw a vision.
“Mannaggia,” my mom never ever swore. This was bad.
“What the crap is she doing with Ky?” Nat asked.
“I can’t believe he would stoop this low,” I nearly cried.
“Does he honestly think he’s going to get me back? He
can’t break our bond.”
“Sὶ, but he believes you will leave Nico if Gia has his
baby,” Mamma said.
“I will
never
leave Nick,” I said firmly. “It’s like he’s
trying to start Werewolf/Witch world war two.”
“What a douchebag,” Nat said under her breath.
I had to sit down. I was going into shock. “We will find
a way to stop this,” Mamma promised. “Could you tell
where they were?” she asked Nat and me.
“It looked like some kind of apartment, but it wasn’t
familiar,” Nat answered.
“Then we must keep searching,” Mamma said. “I better
check on Nico. For now, Piccola go home and rest. You still
look tired and you must be emotionally drained. I will talk
with Babbo tonight and we will think of something
together.” She left the office for the front of the store. A
minute later, Nick walked in.
“I’ll leave you guys,” Nat smiled. She squeezed my
shoulder as she walked by me. “It’ll be okay, Sof. We’ll all
do this together.”
I was crying again and Nick knelt down in front of me.
He sat there silently with his hand on my knee and waited
for me to say something. I finally looked at him, grabbed
him around the neck and pulled him to me.
“What did you see, Sofia? I hate to see you so sad.
What can I do? Are you angry with me for the—thing?” he
asked.
I sniffled, wiped at my eyes, and pulled back to look at
him. “It was Ky.” It was all I could say at first. I still
couldn’t believe our vision.
“What was Ky?”
“Gia is with Ky. I think he’s working with her to break
us up.”
“Testa di cazzo!” he shouted. “I
will
kill him this time,
Sofia. Who does he think he is? We’re bound. He can’t
break us up anyway.”
“Yeah, but Mamma thinks he believes if he can help
Gia get to you, then I would leave you.” I sniffled again.
He gathered me up in his arms and held me tightly to him.
He ran his fingers through my hair and whispered in my
ear, “Would you?”
I pulled back and looked at him in shock. “Are you
serious right now? Do you honestly think that after
everything we’ve been through together, I would leave
you? I was the one who wanted to be bound in the first
place.”
“I’m sorry. I know. Sometimes I just worry. I was the
one who had to chase you. I knew before you did that we
were meant to be together, remember?” he smiled.
I relaxed slightly. “Well, don’t be an idiota. I will never
leave you. I know none of this is your fault. She’s the one
who tricked you. And even though you might’ve been the
one that had to convince me that we should be together,
I’ve never once looked back since I chose you that night in
my backyard after Spring Fling.”
“Well, do you have a plan? On how we can find them,
so I can kill him?”
“You can’t kill him, Nick,” I started.
“Like hell I can’t,” he interrupted. “You can’t change
my mind on this.”
“The coven will deal with him. He’ll be punished. You
don’t want to be a killer,” I argued.
“I guess for now we will have to agree to disagree.” I
started to shake my head and say something again, but he
stopped me with a kiss. I melted into him and wrapped my
arms around his neck.
“No fair,” I said when he finally pulled back.
“Do you have to stay for work now?” he asked,
changing the subject.
“No. Mamma told me to go home and rest some more.
I’m kind of an emotional wreck at the moment, in case you
hadn’t noticed.”
He laughed and pulled me by the hand to the back door
of the store, “Then let’s go home and watch a movie. I’ll
even let you pick out your favorite chick flick.” I gave him
a genuine smile and followed him out to the car.
When we got home, I went in our room to change into
pajamas and realized I hadn’t cleaned the blood up off the
floor. Nick followed me. “Uck, I need to get rid of that,” I
said.
“Let me help. What kind of cleaners do we have?”
“None, unless you’ve bought some lately. I got this.” I
knelt down over the spot and waved my hand in a circle
over it. It slowly faded.
“That is so awesome,” he grinned. “I love watching you
do magic. By the way, what did you do to her last night?”
he didn’t say Gia’s name.
“I threw a really bad spell at her, and then I choked her
until she was unconscious,” I answered without hesitation.
“Sometimes I feel darkness in me Nick. It worries me.”
“You did what you had to. She was attacking you, no?”
he said.
“Yeah, but still, I could’ve just defended myself.” I sat
down on the bed.
“And then what? She would’ve kept attacking you. You
had to do
something
.” He sat down next to me and took my
hand. “And there is no darkness in you. You are filled with
light. You won’t even let me kill Ky.”
I laughed at the way he said the last part. “Does it smell
in here to you?” I asked. I hadn’t noticed the scent the night
before.
“Like what?” he wondered as he smelled the air. His
sense of smell was much stronger than mine. “Ew, yes.
What is that?” he said before I could answer.
“I think it’s jasmine,” I sniffed. “And a little rose and
vanilla.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Oh my gosh, that stupid hooker,” I yelled.
“What is it?”
“She must’ve covered herself in love oil!”
“Oh, wow. How do we get it out of here? I don’t want
to smell it.”
“Hang on a sec.” I went into the closet and dug through
a small tote where I kept some of my spell supplies. I came
back out with a gray candle.
“Do you need me to go get a lighter?” Nick asked,
trying to be helpful.
“No, check it out,” I grinned. I blew on the candle wick
and it lit.
“Crap, Sof. When did you start doing that?” Nick asked
in surprise.
“Just a little somethin’ I’ve been working on,” I
wiggled my eyebrows at him. “Okay, be quiet for just a
sec.”
“What’s the gray one mean?” he interrupted.
“Neutralizing. Now shush,” I chastised him. I said a
little spell as I waved the smoke from the candle around the
room,

Mother earth, take away this awful stench
Brought to my home by that evil wench
Nick couldn’t help himself and laughed out loud.

“There’s no way that’s a real spell.”
“It doesn’t always have to come from a book. And it
sounded good,” I gave him a goofy grin as I blew out the
candle. “Can you still smell it? Your sniffer is better than
mine.”
“My sniffer? That’s kind of offensive,” he gave me a
fake frown.
“How so? It’s true, you sniff the air all the time when
you’re a wolf.”
“Yeah, but—”
I interrupted him, “Sheesh. Do you still smell it or not?”
“No, it’s gone. This magic stuff really comes in handy.
Especially since you can do it without having to call Nat
over all the time. I lucked out,” he grinned.
“Let’s go watch a movie, goofball,” I smiled. Already, I
felt so much better. I felt the negativity leave our room with
Gia’s smell. I was going to try my hardest not think of her
for the rest of the day.
We ordered Chinese take-out for lunch and watched
movies for the rest of the day. Nick didn’t complain once
about the chick flick marathon I made him sit through. He
just let me lay my head in his lap with my feet up on the
arm of the couch.
He couldn’t resist commenting on things he thought
were ‘lame’ though. “That’s so unrealistic. I mean, if we
seriously had to carry clothes with us everywhere when we
shifted? We’re shifters. When we shift, everything shifts
with us. That’s just lame,” he commented during one of the
movies with werewolves in it.
“I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t have clothes on when
you changed,” I grinned wickedly. He leaned down and
kissed me.
During the next movie, he said, “Really? They fall in
love over a
weekend
? Come on now.”
“You did
not
seriously just ask that. Really, Mr. I-Fellin-Love-With-You-After-Our-First-Kiss?”
“Oh. Okay. I see your point,” he shrugged.
When the last movie ended, he asked, “So, not to bring
it up, but do you have any idea where they were?”
I knew what he was talking about and answered, “All
we could tell was that it was some kind of apartment. But it
didn’t look like any of the ones we went in when we were
looking in April.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll find her,” he assured me. “Um, I
kind of need to go out tonight. I haven’t been out with the
pack the last two nights.”
“Call Rene then. Make sure he stays with you the
entire
time. I mean it, Nick. He can’t leave your side. Ky knows
where you guys run at night.”
“Of course,” he said as he pulled his phone out of his
pocket to call Rene. He left about twenty minutes later to
meet Rene behind our apartment complex. “What about
you? Will you be okay?” he asked before he left. He
answered his own question before I could say anything,
“Never mind. Clearly you can handle yourself.”
“Hey, in case I’m asleep when you get in, tomorrow
I’m going to have Luca and Nat come over to help me put
some wards up to keep psycho out of here.” He nodded,
kissed me, and left for the woods.
I took a shower and decided to listen to some music to
help me relax and fall asleep. Surprisingly, techno also
calmed me. I turned my favorite CD on at a low volume
and quickly drifted off.
I started to dream almost immediately. I was lying in
bed and I heard the front door open. I assumed Nick was
back and felt him climb in bed next to me. But it wasn’t
Nick, it was Ky.