Lust or Mate?

Chapter 12 - A Dark Spirit

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Alexi

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"Alexios…. Alexios,"

"Mm," I murmured, turning to my side as Fifi whispered my name in my ear. But her soothing and gentle voice sent me right back to sleep.

"Alexios," she whispered again, and I tried to force my eyes open, but my mind, which was desperate to sleep, forced me to believe it was a dream. However, the voice grew louder, and just as it dawned on me that she was calling me by Alexios instead of Alexi which she knew me by, the voice took on a demonic quality as if something sinister was trying to lure me out of my peaceful sleep. I began to feel like I was drowning in a sea of dark energy and that finally got my attention.

"Fifi, wh-" I tried to speak, slowly opening my eyes, feeling disoriented and confused. But the words died in my throat, and my eyes flew open as I heard a hissing sound coming from the other side of the room. I abruptly sat up on the bed, noticing I was in complete darkness, and I tried to adjust my vision to figure out what the hell was happening.

It was as if my vampire strength was gone, and it sent me into a complete panic. But just then, the hissing sound filled my ears again, causing me to freeze.

My eyes traveled in the direction of the sound, and everything stopped as a cloud of dark smoke rose from the foot of my bed. In the smoke, I could make out the shape of an old woman, wrinkled and hunched over. The woman opened her mouth, and a snake crawled out of it and wrapped around her—its beady eyes that seemed to glow in the dark, locking with mine.

I was frozen in horror, my mouth open, as I tried to make a sound or move but couldn’t. The woman began to chant in a language I didn't understand, calling my name as though she were casting a spell on me. I watched in horror as the snake slithered off her and towards my bed, and my heart hammered in my chest as I watched, powerless to stop it. The closer it got to me, the bigger it grew until it was large enough to wrap its entire body around me.

I tried to move, to scream, to do anything to escape its grasp, but it was as if my body had turned to stone as it coiled itself tighter around me. Its cold scales sent shivers down my spine. And then, with a sudden, sharp pain, it sank its fangs into my neck, right where my marking spot was, and my voice finally broke free, and I screamed. But just as suddenly as it had started, the lights in my room came on, and the snake was gone.

"Alexi?" I heard Fifi’s voice before feeling her hands on me, making me realize she had been calling me for a while and my eyes trailed toward the door to find the woman also gone. "What’s happening? You are scaring me?" she asked, looking spooked as I blinked, trying to determine what the hell just happened. My trembling hands reached for the spot where the snake bit me, and there was nothing.

"I-I had-I thought," I stammered, not even sure how to tell her without scaring her, and she got up, saying she was going to get me some water while I realized I was drenched in sweat, which was weird because since my vampire got activated, I never sweat again. My body was still burning hot, and I reached for the light switch and turned it off again, causing Fifi, whom I had forgotten about for a second, to call my name.

"I’m sorry," I whispered, quickly putting them on again, realizing I do have my heightened senses. Was I dreaming? It felt so real. Fifi returned with the water, and I took it, thanking her before gulping it down.

"You are okay. It was a bad dream," she said, brushing my hair, which had stuck to my forehead, out of my face. I pulled her into my arms and held her, and she straddled me and held me tighter, repeating I was okay again before we held each other in silence.

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Cora/Meira

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I groaned, falling into the circle inside my hotel room again before the candles flickered on. I sat up, looking for Astrid, but she was gone, and I wished she weren’t.

We had completed the mission for tonight and were successful, but I needed answers about the dark shadow that protected the girl Alexios was with. I expected to find Alexios alone since I knew he wasn't supposed to be with anyone but he wasn't.

I wanted to know if the girl was his mate before killing her in her sleep, but I couldn’t touch her. A dark shadow that sent chills down my spine stood before her, and when Mama attempted to fight it, it threw her against the wall, causing Astrid’s voice to echo through the walls as she screamed in agony.

She and Mama were bonded. The only way anyone could fight Mama was if the spirit of the person was darker than Mama, and the spirit that protected that girl was darker than anything I have ever come across. It also reeked of rage—raw, scorching rage, and I wanted to ask Astrid about it, but I didn’t know when I would see her again now that we had completed the part she was supposed to help me with.

I scrambled to my feet, grabbed my herbs, and ran back to the circle. I arranged them on the floor and completed them with my blood, trying to do a finder's spell, hoping it would show me who the girl was.

If I could find out who she was, I could look into the males in her family since I knew the spirit was male, and I would be a step closer to knowing who he was. But no matter how hard I tried to focus, it wasn't working. I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration, smearing the blood that was still dripping from my palm onto it in the process.

I couldn’t take risks. I couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong this time, so I had to find out who he was. But it was going to be difficult without enough powers. The only powers I possessed were my own and some of Astrid’s, and it wasn’t enough. I needed Erika’s powers, but she was gone. I could never tap into her power until I had completed my mission and resurrected her.

Astrid and I weren’t biological sisters, and we didn’t call each other sisters because we were all witches or from the same coven. We did so because we were all linked together by the magic that saved our lives. Decades ago, vampires, witches, and wolves coexisted and lived in harmony until the Wolf King noticed that the number of vampires who were mated to female wolves increased drastically, which was strange.

Wolves who were mated to vampires gave birth to hybrids—powerful creatures with the strength of both species who were more loyal to their vampire side. Vampires used to mate with humans the most, but strangely, human mates decreased as wolf mates increased.

After the wolf king started to investigate, he discovered that vampires had found a way to turn wolves who weren't their mates into their mates by biting them before their wolves awakened, causing them to recognize the vampires as their mates when they came of age and their wolves finally awoke.

They did this with the help of a witch. When they were discovered, a war broke out, and the vampires who survived went into exile with the witches.

My coven went into a hideout they had prepared near Silvera in case something like that were to happen. Our regent saw how careless the vampires had gotten, and after their cautions fell on deaf ears, they started preparing for the worst.

As witches, we draw our strength from our dead, so we must remain in one place as it keeps us strong. But what our queen regent, never saw coming was the vampires finding out about our secret hideout, and coming after us.

They terrorized us in the night, causing us to flee and leave everything behind. When our Regent saw the suffering of our people, she made a promise to find a way to return them to their homes. She didn't have a clear plan as to how she was going to do it, but she knew something had to be done. For her to even know where to begin, she needed someone inside the Silver Palace, someone to be our eyes and ears, so when I turned eighteen, I left the coven and returned to Silvera.

I had to get into the palace by pretending to be a human servant, but I didn't know how to go about it, so when I heard about the Becoming Ball that was to be held in honor of the prince's eighteenth birthday, I decided to attend. I intended to sit at the back and observe the servants so I could take one of their places, but fate had different plans for me. When I entered the ball, I immediately caught the eye of the prince.

The next morning, I woke up in Anselm's arms, and the plan was suddenly clear. We didn't have the numbers to fight a king's army that had already defeated us when we were at our best, so the easy way was to get the prince to fall madly in love with me and become his queen. Once I became queen, I was going to bear him an heir to cement my claim to the throne, and then kill him, bring my people back, and get our revenge on the vampires.

But his father had already picked a bride for him, and Anselm couldn't stand up to his father as he had promised. He married his chosen bride, and I tried to stick around as his mistress, even putting a spell on him so he and his wife wouldn't conceive, buying myself time to figure out something, but soon tragedy struck.

The vampires found us again and decimated our coven. I had to return home, and when I got there, only our Regent and a handful of children had survived, and only because the children were hidden in the secret spell-bound bunker.

She was badly wounded, and it was clear she wasn’t going to make it, so she used the last of her strength to put us into a deep sleep, long enough for the vampires to think we had all perished, and she sealed us into the underground bunker. The spell was going to lift after fifty years, and we were all to stop aging at twenty-five while under the spell.

Fifty years passed, and as foretold, the spell lifted. Before we went into a deep slumber, we made a promise to our mother to keep our coven alive and restore all that was lost. But we woke up to a different world, and we needed a new plan, or at least I thought so until I discovered that the spell I gave Anselm had worn off and he had two sons, which meant my plan was still viable; I just needed to change my target. Getting close to the older prince wasn’t hard with how things are done nowadays. He was a cocky and arrogant bastard, but it didn’t matter as long as he served his purpose. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that he wasn’t Anselm’s son as I thought but had been adopted.

That forced me to set my eyes on the younger brother, but the moment I got to know Ares, the more the lines started to blur, and I found myself straying from my mission. I fell for him, but unlike his father, he didn’t fall into my traps. I could never get through to him no matter what I did, and I tried just about everything.

Eventually, I had no choice but to exploit the only other thing I had realized since getting closer to them: Nolan’s thirst for the throne and his envy of Ares. He was so jealous of Ares that you could almost smell it, even though he knew he wasn't a Silver and had no claim to the throne.

He and I struck a bargain: if I helped him sit on the throne, he’d take me as his queen and allow my people back. So I did. I helped him kill Ares and used his heart for a spell that would blind the king to making Nolan his successor.

But Nolan and I missed a crucial piece of information: Ares wasn’t just a Lycan like the rest of his family but a hybrid. He rose from the grave and ruined all our plans.

Nolan betrayed me and sent my family into slaughter, but my mother heard my last prayers as we were being taken to the fire pit and gave me the strength to jump from my body and possess a little girl that was playing in the garden.

For eighteen years, I pretended to be her while searching for ways to bring back my family so we could complete our mission. Every day, when no one was looking, I would go to the place where I buried their ashes and try to summon them to ask them to help me bring them back. I was lost and in agony. I got them killed with my stupidity of trusting greedy men who only cared about themselves.

Astrid's grave was far away, and we were living in the Silver Palace. Plus, being in the body of a child made it difficult for me to get to the places I needed to get to, so I waited. It was only after I turned sixteen and moved out of the palace that I was able to do what I needed.

I visited Astrid's grave, and I broke down and cried from all the built-up anger. After that, I begged her to help me.

Astrid died before the rest of my sisters, so we gave her a proper burial and reunited her with our ancestors. I prayed for six consecutive nights by her grave, only going back to the house at dawn. On the seventh night, when I got there, a snake was waiting for me, and I knew it was Astrid's guardian, whom she referred to as Mama.

As my knees touched the soil, Mama slithered up to me and coiled around me until I drifted off. I was awakened by the sound of birds, and Mama was gone. I went back home and waited for a sign, but nothing came. So I went back the following night, and a strange thing happened. Instead of praying, I was overcome with sleep. I slept there, and in my dreams, I heard Astrid's voice asking me why I called her.

I told her everything and that I needed her help. The following night, I didn't go to the graveyard, and when I woke up, red soil that resembled the soil of the cave in which we hid for years was scattered on the bed. I knew I had to go back to the cave, and that is indeed where I found my answers.

The plan is not difficult, but the magic is not enough. The magic that preserved us bonded us. When one of us fell we didn't just feel it; we were weakened by it. So, the only powers I could access now were Astrid's because she was the only one given a proper burial and reunited with our ancestors.

The souls of my other sisters were lost, and the two of us alone without their magic were not that strong, and I needed to find out who that man was. I needed to know if he was going to stand in our way. He didn't interfere when I left the girl and went to Alexios, but I still needed to know what his story was.

Why did he reek of so much evil? Who was that girl?

I took a deep breath and got to my feet. The first thing was first. I needed to head to Crestwood Academy for the second part of the ritual. I packed everything I took out of my suitcase back and fixed the room before heading to the shower. I wasn't going to come back here again.

"You can thank your father and grandfather for everything that's about to happen to you, Alexios Silver. They did this to you."