Prophecy: Dark Moon Rising (18 page)

Prophecy slid out of her vampire guise and smiled.

Licking her lips, Prophecy concentrated hard on her body, sensing whether she would need to kill another in order to have adequate strength. She had to feed Valentine with her own blood, it had the strength he needed to keep going, but she couldn’t risk weakening herself. She needed to eat enough to cope with the drain it would be on her.

Her senses reached out all around her, pinpointing everything within twenty metres. She waited to see if anything was moving. A few small things shifted across her senses, but they were probably leaves or rats, nothing worth moving for. She kept as still as a statue, not even daring to breath in case the rhythm of it interfered with her senses and made her miss something.

The mist swirled around her feet, reaching her knees now.

The air had a distinct chill to it that even she could feel.

Something entered the boundary of her senses.

It was large and moving steadily towards her.

She tracked its movements, staying still until the right moment presented itself. The second the person was close, she moved out into their path. She raised her eyes and immediately back flipped away, placing some distance between them while her senses screamed danger.

Landing with her feet in a fighting stance, she brought her hands up and curled them into tight fists.

She growled at the man standing in front of her. The bones of her face shifted to allow her fangs to descend and once they had, her growl became a roar.

He raised a brow at her and pulled out a crossbow. She flipped as the first dart flew at her and dodged each one before the feathers of it had even left the bow. Her senses sharpened, focusing on the weapon while her instincts moved her body, guiding her in a pattern towards the man.

When she reached him, she caught the crossbow bolt as it left the shaft and growled as she snapped it one-handed.

“You’ll have to do better than that. I’m offended. You must think me a weakling to use such a weapon on me.” She caught the crossbow with a fast uppercut, smashing it to pieces, and then licked the side of Caden’s neck. She growled into his ear. “I knew I’d get my chance with you.”

She disappeared into the gloom before he had a chance to think of another avenue of attack. Laughing at him from the mist, she watched him turning in circles trying to find her. He pulled out a slim, pointed shaft of wood. It looked familiar.

“It wasn’t my fight with you, so don’t try to finish it with me,” she said and ran silently at him from the shadows. He turned just as she stepped up onto a gravestone and launched herself at him. She brought her foot around in a swift arc, catching him across the back of the head and making him stumble forwards. The piece of wood clattered to the floor and he scrabbled to retrieve it.

She stood in the path waiting for him. “This is our fight. This is what you deserve for drugging me.”

“You really are a beautiful specimen, my dear,” he said in a rough voice and snatched up the wooden stake. He slowly came around to face her, his free hand rubbing the back of his neck. Her eyes met his. “I can see why he likes you.”

She growled at him when his mention of Valentine made her heart ache. Every mark on her body pulsed and itched, stealing her concentration away from the hunter.

Before she had a chance to think through what she was doing, she’d run at him. She blocked most of the attacks he made with the stake, and managed to punch him a few times before her senses kicked back in and told her to flee. The point of the stake scraped across her chest.

Flipping backwards, she kicked him under the jaw and placed some distance between them again.

She looked down at her chest and the blood that was seeping in tiny droplets out of the ragged streak across it.

“Bastard,” she spat the word at him and followed it with a growl. She didn’t know whether she was angry with him because of the wound or because he had dared to mention Valentine.

Flexing her fingers, she extended her claws and moved towards him. The second he moved forwards to meet her, she ducked to the side and came around behind him. She kicked him square in the back, not hard enough to break his spine, but enough that it would slow him down a little. She didn’t want this fight to be over yet. He deserved to suffer for what he’d done to her.

Valentine had warned him. Now she was going to make sure Caden died.

“You have a nerve to show your face in my city,” she said and kicked him again. He dropped to his knees, weak and vulnerable in front of her as she towered above him.

“Your city?” He almost laughed the words and got to his feet. He gave her an incredulous look.

She grinned. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

“Oh, I do. A fool of a Caelestis girl who is in love with an Aurorea.”

She frowned at the way he’d made her sound weak. Anger overruled her sense and she launched herself at him, kicking and punching him as fast as she could and blocking every attack he made.

Every attack but one.

She cried out when she felt the blade of a knife scrape across her ribs.

Leaping backwards, she took off her jacket and stared at the long gash across her torso.

She roared at him and pressed her amulet against the wound. Her eyes watered with the pain it caused as it healed her and she breathed heavily when it was over.

Taking her hand away from her side, she smiled wickedly at Caden when he stared at her side in disbelief.

“You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” she repeated with a sneer.

Before he had time to come to his senses, she attacked. She swiped the knife from his hand and grabbed the piece of holy wood from his other one. It burned the palm of her hand but she didn’t care. She snarled when she thrust it into his shoulder.

She held it there, her teeth clenched and her right hand holding his arm so he couldn’t attack her.

Her eyes met his and she twisted the stake in his shoulder. “I wish this hurt you as much as you hurt me that night.”

His eyes widened for a moment but then narrowed. She easily evaded his leg as he swept it around in an attempt to knock her off her feet. She went to move away from him but he caught hold of her left arm and pulled her back to him. She hit him hard in the stomach and threw him across the path at the row of gravestones that lined it. He slammed into one with a dull thud and the soft patter of fragments of the headstone hitting the grass.

A distant noise made her take her eyes off him for a second and when she looked back, he was gone. She extended her senses and ducked when she felt him behind her. Rolling away from him, she turned when she got to her feet but didn’t have time to stop the foot that was flying at her face. It connected solidly with her jaw, sending her head spinning. The sharp taste of blood filled her mouth and she flew at him, lashing out with her claws. He grabbed her arm and twisted it around until she lost her balance and went crashing to the floor. His knee was in her ribs the second she landed, knocking the breath from her, and all she could was press her hands against his chest when he pinned her to the ground. She was about to push him off her when he pulled the stake out of his shoulder and brought it plummeting down towards her chest. Fear paralysed her and she closed her eyes, waiting for the impact of the holy wood.

Everything went still.

Maybe this was what it was like to really be dead.

She frowned when she heard his heavy breathing. When she focused, she could feel his breath against her skin, and the weight of him still bore down on her. His knee was jarred painfully against her ribs. When she breathed, she felt the point of the stake scrape against the patch of skin above her heart.

She opened one eye so she could see what had happened, and then opened the other when she saw he was just staring at her chest, his face a mask of disbelief and confusion.

She looked down. The tip of the stake had landed in the circle of chain around her neck that held her silver star. It had trapped the star, stopping it from sliding down towards her throat, and keeping it almost directly above the intricate star mark on her chest.

A part of her told her to move, but she didn’t dare risk it. It would only take the slightest move on his part to puncture her skin and she could already feel the holy wood burning her.

Her eyes moved back to his face. He looked deathly pale in the sickly sodium light of the nearest streetlamp. She could feel that the hand holding the stake was trembling. His eyes were fixed on the star.

He swallowed and met her gaze.

“Where did you get this?” He took hold of the star, keeping the stake against her chest so she couldn’t attack him.

“I don’t know,” she said. There was no point in lying to him. Besides, she wanted to know just why the silver star had him so spooked.

He frowned at it. “You can’t … how … you shouldn’t have this … did you kill her?”

Her eyes widened and she immediately raced to remember if she had killed anyone to get the star. She couldn’t remember ever doing it, but her memories were still a little jumbled in places. Sometimes the false ones seemed to win over the real ones.

“No,” she said with confidence.

“Then how did you get it?” He almost growled the words and pressed the stake harder against her chest.

She grimaced and writhed beneath him when it burned, searing her flesh and filling the air with the smell of bacon. What was so important about the star that he was getting this angry?

“I told you! I don’t know. I’ve always had it … ever since I was small.”

He withdrew the stake enough that it wasn’t hurting her but kept it hovering over her chest. His eyes searched hers. She changed out of vampire guise and stared back at him. It was hard to keep her fangs at bay when she could smell the blood on him.

“Since you were small?”

Her hand instinctively moved to rub the sore patch on her chest and he stiffened, bringing the point of the stake back against her ribs.

“Don’t move!” His fingers tensed against her shoulder, pinning her harder into the floor.

He grimaced and her eyes flickered to his injured shoulder. He was bleeding badly and must have been in a lot of pain. Her eyes unfocused as she stared at the wound, tempted to lick her lips. He tightened his grip on her and got her attention again when he touched her with the tip of the stake. It burned.

“Answer the question,” he said and shifted the stake again so it stopped hurting her.

She had half a mind to kick him off her and kill him with the damned stake he was threatening her with, but he’d piqued her curiosity now. She’d always wondered where the star had come from and why she had it.

Moving her hand away, she held it by her side in a gesture of surrender. His eyes flickered to it briefly and then came back to hers. He paused for a second, frowned and then grabbed her right hand, yanking it towards him.

She growled.

“Where in God’s name did you get this?”

“The Three of Paris,” she said and growled again when he bent her hand down so he could see the back. It hurt and she snatched her hand away from him. He was pushing his luck now. “It was my mother’s.”

He dropped the stake and stared at her with eyes so wide she could see the white all around his irises.

“My God!” He sat back, kneeling on the path beside her. “My God, it can’t be … you couldn’t … now that I look at you…”

It took her a moment to realise that she was free.

She sat up and scrambled backwards, away from him. When she was at a safe distance, she rubbed her chest, frowning when it stung. She pressed her hand against it and healed the small hole he’d made.

His eyes moved to her star necklace again and then shot back up to her face.

“You’re too young to be her.” He sounded as though he was speaking to himself, but she wasn’t about to let him get away without answering the questions he’d raised in her head.

“Be who?” She got to her feet and watched him do the same. He continued to stare at her, his eyes moving gradually over her as though he was trying to take it all in, whatever it was.

“Your mother owned that?” He pointed to her hand.

She looked at the amulet. “Yes. She was a witch. She looked like me. I see her in visions. I don’t remember her, but Mia regressed me and saw my birth. My mother was turned when she was pregnant and I’m the result. I’m not wholly vampire, but nowhere near human.”

She called the magic to her hand and watched his expression change to one of fascination.

“Ophelia,” he said and looked back into her eyes.

“Pardon?”

“Your mother’s name was Ophelia.” He cleared the hair from his face and when he moved, she swore she saw tears in his eyes.

“How do you know that? I don’t even know that.” A chill swept over her as it dawned on her. “You knew my mother?”

He laughed dryly. “She was my wife.”

Her stomach flipped and twisted, and panic filled her as she raced to draw the only conclusion possible.

“I’ve seen you … in the amulet with my mother … I know who you are.” She backed away from him, holding her hand up with her palm facing him. The magic spiralled around her fingers. She couldn’t deal with this. This was too much and she was too weak right now.

“Your name is Prophecy, yes?” His tone was gentle now, coaxing. He pressed his hand against his hurt shoulder.

“Yes … and I know what you’re going to say … but I don’t need a father, especially one who is so intent on killing the man that I love, and me.”

He looked wounded and then nodded in a way that said he could see her point.

“It’s hard for me too,” he said.

“Really? Standing in these shoes, I find that hard to believe. You don’t know the half of what I’ve been through.”

“I never knew she was pregnant,” he said it so fast that she felt as though he’d dropped a bomb and was about to run.

She stared at him, struggling to compute what he’d just said, but seeing in his eyes that it was the truth. Her mother had never told him she was pregnant. She thought about it for a second and realised why. If her mother had told him, he would have tried to stop her, and her mother had accepted what her destiny was. He would only have made it harder for her to do what she had to.