by Tay T
‘On the count of three. One…two…three!’
Maya took the lead, using substantial amounts of black magic to ram at the seal centered on the surface of the water. The seal groaned as magic beat against magic, barely keeping itself together.
At the same time, hundreds of dark souls and apparitions floated upward. Their vengeful energy quickly joined forces with her magic to crack the barrier. Within minutes, she could hear the sizzling of the white magic losing its effects before the barrier around the surface of water gave way, creaking loudly when it shattered in an array of iridescent white light.
Maya felt the water heave around her as the entities in the lake pushed past her floating body to swim up and fly out of the water at immeasurable speeds.
Through the mass of black water and souls flitting past, Maya could not sense her mother anywhere in the deep depths, could not sense any sign of life. She could only assume they had relocated her mother to make sure no one would be able to find her.
Though the disappointment weighed heavily on her shoulders, Maya didn’t let that dampen her mood or stop her search. She swam back up the lake and crawled out of the murky water, watching the dark entities emerge with bodies formed from rage and murderous intent.
They preyed on the white witches and wizards who had victimized them for their youth, latching on the flailing bodies and sucking the life energy out of them.
Seeing as to how the witches and wizards were dying by the dozens and the vengeful souls were flying off in the direction of the Coven, Maya was sure there would be no survivors from the Coven of Light.
Maya inhaled sharply and almost choked on the miasma-filled air. She stared at the gloomy and gruesome scene of flying body parts and blood. Then, her pupils dilated. She caught sight of her mother, held back by two white witches standing behind Avalyn White.
Maya could see tufts of unruly blonde-white hair, tucked behind rounded ears, and downturned blue eyes, staring vacantly at the ground. The frail, middle-aged woman looked over fifty instead of forty-four. She was petite in size, starved beyond skinny and could barely hold herself upright. Her eyes were sunken in, her lips were dried and cracked, and her cheeks were hollow on both sides.
The sight caused Maya’s eyes to burn with unshed tears, building like a long due rainstorm.
She didn’t realize just how much she had missed her mother until she saw the shell of the woman standing before her. Broken but alive. Dazed but still breathing.
Maya forced down the tears and gritted her teeth. Her tapered fingers curled around the corners of several yellow triangles and stars as she tossed it into the sky and doused it with her black magic.
Her monstrous henchmen instantly exploded from the folded triangles, while vultures the size of zebras and centaurs made of rock and dirt formed, breaking free from the cage of yellow stars to descend upon the earth.
With her army, Maya headed to where Avalyn stood and noticed the wide, gruesome smile painted on her pale pink lips.
Avalyn’s spindly fingers weaved through Rylith’s clumps of blonde, fisting the straw-like texture in a tight and painful hold. She drew the older woman’s head up to the sky and said, “Come get your mother, Maya. If you dare.”
Anger sweltered, thick and strong, flooding Maya’s system, but she pushed down the emotions in case it hampered her win.
After recollecting herself, she unleashed the army of centaurs and vultures, killing anything standing in her way.
While her creations kept the other witches busy, Maya aimed straight for Avalyn. Her powered hands tore the half-sister away from her mother and sent the older girl flying with a hard fist to the face—well, what was left of her face.
The direct hit resulted in a satisfying crunch that brought Maya immense satisfaction. It was like music to her ears, dark and demented, full of agony and pain.
The dark sorceress stepped between Avalyn and her mother, protecting the vulnerable woman from any other injury she’d have to sustain under her own daughter’s hands. She glared at Avalyn, whose body was splayed face down on the ground, unable to get up.
Avalyn wasn’t quite dead yet, because Maya could hear her raspy breathing, troubled by the streams of blood suffocating her.
When Maya reached down to yank Avalyn up, she froze midway. Her blazing green eyes swiveled to the bloody blade peeking out of her chest, moving up and down in a synchronized rhythm with her ragged breathing.
Blood dripped down the sharp tip and splattered rapidly on her black boots, forming a small puddle on and around her feet.
Maya hadn’t heard or seen any movement, but she knew the woman behind her, the one she was trying to protect with everything she had, had been the one to drive the dagger into her heart with white magic.
Her mother had backstabbed her.
Literally.
Maya felt her blood freeze from where the dagger had entered. It was eating away at her, sucking up her dark powers and strength like a prodigious black hole. And it broke her down, tearing apart the complexity of her being, bit by bit, while turning the rest of her body to ice, like liquid nitrogen was being pumped through her veins.
Although it hurt terribly, the feeling of betrayal was a lot more excruciating than the pain rippling through every nerve ending and every frost-bitten cell.
How did she not see it coming?
CHAPTER 27
Bitter laughter gurgled up Maya’s lungs and bubbled from her throat as blood blossomed across her chest, hidden by the color of her black gown.
Because she was so cocky and confident this would be an easy win, she didn’t expect her mother to stab a dagger clear through her chest.
“Did you really think your precious mother would last even a day under the lake? How naïve!” her “mother” exclaimed, voice warping mid-sentence, deeper, darker. “She died in the first few hours she was dropped into the lake, swallowed whole by the spirits of the dead! It was such a deserving death for a harlot like her.”
From behind Maya’s frozen figure, the petite shell of her feeble mother quickly morphed into that of an older male, looking to be in his late thirties, with a head of shaggy blonde hair and gray-blue eyes. He was menacing and doused in massive amounts of holy white light.
Aldrich White.
The name left a bitter taste of disgust on her tongue. It made her want to vomit and sickened her to know she had failed to see through his magic.
“I’ve already given you so many chances, Maya. Yet you stomped all over my offerings. Perhaps, death is your only salvation.” Aldrich wiggled the handle of the blade, shoving it as deep as it could go. “Succumb to it and your suffering will be no more.”
“Your jokes are just as lame as your daughters,” Maya wheezed, tightening her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.
Aldrich frowned, but a smile was quick to replace it.
“It’s been so long since you’ve seen your father. I thought it would be a wonderful last gift to you.” Aldrich chuckled at the fury and hatred forming in the depths of Maya’s vibrant green eyes. “It took quite the while to grind your father’s bones to make this dagger. But the results are very satisfactory. Don’t you think?”
Finding no satisfaction in her lack of response, Aldrich ignored the dying necromancer’s spawn and let go of the hilt to aid his unconscious daughter.
At that one opening, Maya reached around and yanked the dagger out of her flesh, noting how the blade grew backward spikes to keep itself in place. It was terribly painful to remove because it was ripping out a chunk of her heart in the process, but Maya did it anyway.
She then aimed the dagger at Aldrich, who tried to throw up a barrier to protect himself. But she was one step faster because of Xavier’s superior powers.
Her hand blurred as she rammed the dagger successfully into Aldrich’s chest, stabbing him the same way he had stabbed her, and watched as his breath was stolen from him.
“You might as well join me in hell, Aldrich. I’m sure you’ll fit
in really well with all the demons down there.” Maya grinned wickedly.
When Aldrich instantly turned into a completely frozen block of ice, Maya realized his rate of death was a lot faster than hers.
Although she was also starting to freeze, only the outside of her skin and the area the blade had touched was slowly frosting over. Perhaps Xavier’s powers were keeping her alive longer than she was due.
Maya smiled bitterly and let her heavy eyes close, unable to hear anything other than white noise.
When she fell back on the barren dirt full of blood and severed limbs, the creatures formed by her black magic and necromancy crumbled like statues made of sand and turned into sparkling black dust.
At least she was able to avenge her parents.
_______________________
The forest fire had been controlled when Xavier left the Central Land to look for Maya. He had a gut feeling something was wrong, and he needed to go now before whatever was happening became irreversible. After all, his little sorceress had a knack for getting into trouble.
At the sound of a trigger being pulled, Xavier paused in his steps and tipped his head almost forty-five degrees to the side. A silver bullet whizzed past his jaw and imbedded itself into a thick tree trunk five yards away.
Hunters.
From behind a dense thicket of trees, a group of them filed out and blocked his path, armed and ready to kill.
Deftly, he noticed they didn’t have a scent, like it had been blocked beneath the thick layers of their skin. How their human government was able to procure such a method was beyond him.
Xavier’s eyes narrowed as the leader of the group, a female with short black hair and equally black eyes, stepped closer and opened her mouth to speak. But he didn’t have the time for her nonsense.
The Alpha dashed forward, disappearing from their sight for a fraction of a second, and stood in front of the unnaturally burly woman.
Without a warning, his sharp claws sunk into the female’s throat, tearing out the entire column of bone in one single move. Blood sprinkled everywhere, spurting erratically all across his shirt and face, as the female fell back on the ground.
Dead.
Xavier’s brows wrinkled in mild distaste, wiping off the thick substance on his face with the back of his hand.
At that same time, a despicably painful sensation assaulted his chest and ached profoundly. Xavier was made to think he had been injured; even though, he knew he was not. It was only a ghost pain; a pseudo wound that wasn’t truly there.
But from the pain, he was able to deduce that Maya had been fatally injured, possibly past the point of repair. Because it felt as if her heart had been severely wounded.
At the inconceivable thought, his hackles immediately raised, pupils dilated, and canines elongated.
A hunter to the left with his hair tied back into a low ponytail aimed his weapon at Xavier and motioned for the others to aim and shoot.
The metal projectiles propelled towards the Alpha, and when he was hit by a silver bullet infused with mercury, nothing happened. His skin didn’t char or turn black, and he wasn’t even bleeding.
It didn’t look like the bullet did any sort of damage to him.
Disbelief quickly flitted across the Hunters’ faces.
They watched as the Cardinal Alpha used a claw to dig out the bullet and drop it on the ground. When his wound closed instantly, they knew something was wrong. But they didn’t have the time to analyze him and his bizarre abilities because they soon found themselves frozen in their spot by some strange mass of darkness, leaving them motionless and awaiting a death that was quick to come.
They couldn’t comprehend what was happening to them and couldn’t call for help, even if they wanted to.
Xavier raised his right hand and enveloped the group of Hunters in the darkness of his magic, holding them captive to his whims.
Unlike his previous kill, he didn’t have to touch them to end their lives now. With a twisting motion, he snapped their necks using dark magic and tossed the dead bodies aside.
From there, Xavier backtracked to find Maya’s scent trail and followed it to her.
When he arrived at Lake Avalon, the bloody and ghastly war-like battle ground met his eyes. Dead bodies littered the barren land, and the stench of rotting, bloody flesh quickly assaulted his senses.
‘Mate did good,’ his beast crooned, absolutely pleased with the corpses lining the ground in masses.
Xavier ignored his beast. His golden eyes glowed eerily, flitting from area to area as he scented the air. After a moment to sift through all the smells, rage filled him to the brim at the sight of Maya and the scent of her blood.
He quickly streaked to where she laid, stepping on the completely frozen face of a man barely two yards away from her. Under the weight of his feet, the ice statue caved and shattered into a billion little fragments.
Before him, Maya laid in a puddle of her own blood with a gaping hole in her chest. Her silken locks were splayed under her head while her angelic face was unnaturally pale, paler than he’d ever seen her. Her body was frozen and her veins were bloodless.
Xavier could see the vestiges of her heart strewn over the black of her dress, as still as the vast lake behind her.
He suddenly lost the ability to take another breath. His throat was dry and his hands trembled from the rush of anger and despair heating his chest.
He found it harder to keep himself from shifting into his beast and losing himself to his baser instincts.
As Xavier tried to keep himself calm, his face gradually morphed between human and wolf and his canines elongated past his lower lip.
‘Mate is gone,’ his beast whimpered, whining in the back of its throat. It covered its paws over its face, as if it were mourning the loss of their mate.
‘She is not. Do not forget our mate is bound to us. If she dies, we will also die. But we still live; therefore, our mate is not entirely dead. Not yet,’ Xavier growled, losing his composure for a split second.
Although he didn’t know how much time Maya had left, he knew it was very little. If he didn’t do something, she would be gone, forever. And that simply would not do.
But he did not know what he could do to save her. If he moved her body to find a healer, he couldn’t guarantee she would live till then, without turning into a complete block of ice.
Xavier kneeled beside Maya, his long, awkward fingers grazing the surface of her pale cheeks. She felt cold to the touch, like a layer of ice had been wrapped around her body.
How can I save you, little sorceress?
Xavier frantically sifted through his memories for a solution.
After a moment of complete silence, one thought came to his mind.
His beast.
He had only seen this method done to keep a weak, premature pup born without an inner beast alive long enough to properly develop one. A pup born with this condition was similar to a human baby born without a soul. They never survived past the first few days of delivery, so his kind had created a process to eliminate the deaths of their beloved little ones.
This procedure usually involved the transferring of an adult werewolf’s beast to a newborn pup. The beast would act as a shield against all diseases and bodily failures, and would instinctively do whatever necessary to keep the pup alive.
Once the pup grew its own beast, the older werewolf would take back their own.
Although a werewolf living without their wolf would be difficult, it could be done without either side dying.
In this case, if Xavier could transfer his beast to Maya, then perhaps, she would live.
His golden orbs hardened.
Xavier flexed his hands, watching as the sharp claws quickly formed at the tips of his fingers.
He cut his shirt off and laid a claw against his chest, on top of his steadily beating heart, before digging his finger down with slight pressure, pushing past the three layers of skin to cut a deep line from the top of his chest
clear past his diaphragm. Then, he reached a hand into his own body and broke off his sternum and a handful of ribs, making it easier to access his heart.
Although the pain made his breath come out in harsh pants and cold sweat collect on his brows, it was tolerable for him.
‘We can save our mate if you listen to me,’ Xavier told his beast.
The beast perked its head and growled, ‘Anything to our save mate.’
Xavier tossed the bloody bones away.
His fingers dug into his heart and deftly ripped out a big chunk from the palpitating organ. Then, he fit the mismatched mass into the hole on Maya’s stagnant chest and watched as the pieces of their hearts connected, melding together in a mixture of him and her.
The sole action of her heart swallowing his gave him immense satisfaction. Because that meant she was still alive and fighting.
With his clean hand, Xavier turned Maya’s face away from him to reveal the pale column of her neck, where his mark laid.
He bent his head down and lapped at the layer of ice on her neck, making sure he had thoroughly thawed her delicate skin before taking a bite. His deadly canines sunk slowly, softly into her cold flesh, afraid he would shatter her the same way he had shattered the frozen man next to her.
When his canines completely entered, he breathed a sigh of relief and tore down the chains containing his beast, shattering every mental wall built over the long centuries to keep it from breaking free.
Without him telling his beast what to do, it took the lead and began to pour itself into the link Xavier had created between Maya and himself.
Torrents of life energy barreled into the dark sorceress’s body, burning her frozen veins until blood gradually melted into liquid and flowed. After several minutes, her heart slowly started to beat and color blossomed on her frosty cheeks.
When the last of Xavier’s beast exited his kneeling body, emptiness remained where it had once occupied. And gone with his beast was his ability to shift into his wolf.
