He froze and looked up at me, still bent in a laugh. “How?”
Fuck. I bit my lip and tried to keep my face straight. “Never mind. Forget I said that.” I couldn’t tell him about Kitty. He might never have sex with me and I needed her back.
His warm, appreciative grin sent a jolt right through me. “I never knew you would become an enigma. I have to admit, it is very appealing.”
I tried to focus on the ugly grass around us so he wouldn’t see a flush on my face. Why was I blushing? This sucked. “Yes, well. Feel free to disappear, but remember I can summon you anytime I want, and yes, I’ll be doing it often.”
His smile grew until it was as bright as the sunlight. “I will be looking forward to it. See you soon, Lisbeth.” And he was gone, with only his footprints in the grass to show he’d been there.
God damn it.
Not only had the father of my older daughter kept secrets from me all this time, he was also flirting with me again. The last conversation I had with my husbands notwithstanding, I wasn’t sure how to handle him staring at me like I was a damn Twinkie.
With the look on his face hammered into my head, I got back into my car and started driving in the direction the magic compass was pointing. I could only hope Highborn was nearby, but it could’ve very well been in a different country. Selene hadn’t told me where it was.
When I checked the compass needle again, it started spinning in every direction. I thumped it against the wheel to fix it and a glowing purple cloud appeared in front of my car, swallowing me up and spitting me out somewhere completely different. I slammed on the brakes as an invisible barrier rose up to meet me, crushing the front of my car. Cursing under my breath, I got out to assess the damage when a ripple went through the barrier and I could see what was behind it for a brief moment.
Hogwarts.
I was at fucking Hogwarts.
That fucking witch sent me to a fictional place and now I’d never be able to get back home.
“You there! How did you get here?” A woman stood at a nearby entrance gate that was no doubt the only way to get through the barrier. She had a long, purple dress on and a wand in her hand, so I was definitely in the right place. The school disappeared until all I could see was plain and indifferent countryside. The witch was fast approaching me, holding her wand out like a sword. “We don’t allow your kind here, vampire. I’ll have to wipe your memory of this place and send you on your way.”
“You touch my head and you’ll be in all sorts of trouble, lady,” I warned, and held up the compass so she could see it. “I’m on a mission. Selene Halace sent me.”
Her thin, razor-like eyebrows raised so high they were going to get caught in her hair. “Halace sent you? Halace doesn’t know any vampires.”
“Look, I’m really tired of this day, so can you just show me inside? Believe me, I would’ve rather never known your kind exists, because if I didn’t, I’d still be back in 2084 with my family, instead of being here where they don’t exist.”
Impossibly, her eyebrows rose even higher. “2084.” I nodded so hard my hair fell over my face and I had to swipe it back. “Come with me.” She turned and we walked through the entrance gate, revealing again the massive school building sitting on top of a large hill.
“You realize this place looks like Hogwarts, right?” I noted dryly, looking everywhere at once so I could take it all in.
She humphed at me like a strict schoolmarm. “It does not. That place is completely different. Don’t let me catch you saying that to our headmaster either, he takes offense.” Her long dress hit my legs if I walked too close behind her so I stayed a few paces back. “I’m Isabelle Wisniewski, by the way.”
“Lisbeth Bathory.”
We’d just reached the front courtyard when she turned with a look of horror, the name clearly sparking a reaction. “You’re not related to that… to Anastasia Bathory, are you?”
Leaning in close to her head, I could smell the succulent blood in her veins, feel the rapid beating of her heart. “She’s my mom,” I whispered with a grin.
“Oh!” She popped a hand to her mouth. “Oh my.” Her eyes darted to the various children in the courtyard around us, no doubt wondering if she had enough time to get them to safety before I attacked them. I would’ve been amused, if the idea of harming a child wasn’t so utterly repulsive to me.
“Relax, Isabelle. I might be a vampire but we have very strict rules about attacking humans. Plus, I’m one of the few who refuses to hurt children. It’s gotten me into trouble, too, I can assure you.”
Her shoulders relaxed and she managed to smile back at me. “I’m very glad to hear that.” We continued on like we’d never stopped and she opened the massive front doors for us, leading up to the entry way where a class of students were standing. “Thank you for waiting, class. Theresa,” she addressed to a taller one who approached us. “I need you to stay with the children for now.” They discussed a few other things, leading me to believe Theresa was Isabelle’s teaching assistant. I zoned out as I waited, looking over the group of kids. They were all about the size Gwen had been, and I stopped cold when I saw a girl that resembled her. Her dark tanned skin, her long black hair, they were the same. But it wasn’t her.
What if I never got her back?
“Lisbeth,” Isabelle addressed, bring me out of my haze and back to her face. “Come with me, please.” I took one last look at the girl and followed her teacher out of the hall.
We went up a flight of stairs, down a hallway, up more stairs, until Isabelle opened a door and led us inside. It looked to be a potions classroom, and three people stood around a cauldron that had bubbling green liquid inside. A large bubble of it burst, sending a drop sailing to the table it sat on, and it sizzled as it ate at the wood. Gross. What was in that? Magical acid?
When I looked up from the cauldron, I recognized one of the three standing in front of it. “You,” I spat at a younger looking Selene. “You’re the one who brought me here.”
Of course, this version of her had never seen me before, which she demonstrated by laughing at me with a hand in front of her mouth. “I have no idea what you’re—” I interrupted her by holding up the compass and her face turned pale.
One of the other three was a man who was barely taller than my navel. “I’m Headmaster Cauldron. That compass is a magical artifact, it belongs to the school. Where did you get it?”
I pointed a finger to Selene and tossed the compass to Cauldron so he could inspect it. “You took me from my home sixty-seven years in the future. I’d like to know why I’ll never see my children again.”
The compass started floating above Cauldron’s hands and a strange glow came from it. “There’s a message inside,” he said as he squinted at something I couldn’t see. He chanted some odd words and the compass top opened, then suddenly another version of Selene was there with us like a hologram.
“My name is Selene Halace. An apocalyptic level event has all but destroyed life on the planet. My fellow witches and I have protected the portal for as long as we could, but after humans attacked us, I am now the last witch alive, and though I have done everything I can to extend my life, I will not live forever. If the portal remains unguarded, demons will be unleashed on the world, and Earth as we know it will be destroyed.” She winced and I could see the bloodied wound she’d had when I met her. “I’ve been dealt a fatal blow, and I will use the last of my magic to find her: Lisbeth Bathory, the leader of the vampires. If I can discover her hiding place, I will send her back to the past and hope that she can stop Alistair from destroying the planet again.” Another audible wince came from her and she doubled over in pain, pressing a hand to her side. “If I can’t find her in time, all will be lost. I’ve recorded this message in the hopes my mission succeeds. Please, help the vampires stop Alistair at any cost, or this future will happen again and everything will be lost.” The message cut off and she disappeared, leaving the younger Selene slack jawed with shock.
“It’s Jaz, Professor Halace,” she remarked, setting off an eye roll from the older woman. “And yeah, I have the power level, but my specialty wouldn’t allow it. I’d have to be divination like Halace.”
I asked the question that was burning a hole inside me. “So you can’t send me back?” All four of the witches looked uncomfortable and met my eyes with regret, killing all the hope I’d had up to that point.
It was Cauldron who said something to break the tension. “Time travel spells can only go to the past.”
Halace looked the most regretful. “Surely I explained that to you,” she said quietly. My eyes filled with tears I didn’t want to hold back, with several falling off my lashes when I shook my head.
“I just want my babies back,” I sobbed weakly, an overwhelming need to curl up into a ball rising inside me. If I stayed that way forever, maybe I could forget this nightmare. “You said I could get them back.”
Without another word, she spun on her heels and walked quickly to one of the shelves in the room, putting aside specimen jars and opening books, looking for something. “Jaz, get a fresh cauldron ready.”
Unable to keep standing with this news, I found a nearby chair and sank into it. The headmaster walked up to me and took my hand, patting it with his own tiny one.
“I’m sure what we’ve done must seem insignificant to losing your family. Please know that protecting the portal to the demon world is vital to the survival of this planet. We would not have destroyed your future if there had been any other way.”
I wanted to take my hand back, but he was trying to be kind, and that kept me from bolting away from his touch. “I’ve already lost everything trying to save this world. Now I’ve lost everything again. But…” I trailed off, shutting my eyes and swallowing hard. “Before I had my children, I only cared about protecting the humans. And now I’ve lost them to protect humans once again.”
“How many children, vampire?” Selene tossed at me from her work.
I felt too defeated to ponder her motive behind the question. “Four.”
She nodded, still working on picking up things from the shelves. “Headmaster, I need you to perform a grab and go spell,” she barked as Jaz hauled a cauldron onto the table beside the acid one.
He seemed to know what she was getting at because he let go of my hand. “How long have you been back in this time?”
My head was aching but I remembered what time I’d gotten up. “About an hour. Maybe two.”
“Perfect,” he said, rolling up his brown sleeves. “The longer you’re here, the more your future gets degraded. It’s already almost gone, but we can bring one, maybe two items back here.” I pushed forward in excitement, but he held out a hand to stop me short. “Not a person. Now, think of something that has DNA from all of your children. We’ll need it for what Halace is making.”
It wasn’t hard to think of what we needed: a necklace I’d worn every day for years, but that last day I’d left it on the dresser because I was in a hurry. “A necklace,” I answered. “It has some of their hair in it.”
Cauldron slapped his hands together, spoke a few words, and a glowing ball formed between them that he expanded by pulling his hands apart. “Come over here, take my arm. Tell me where you left it.” I put a hand on his small arm and pictured the dresser in my head, the cherry wood, and the necklace on top of it. “That’s it,” he said in triumph, reaching his hand inside the glowing ball and pulling it back out with my necklace clasped in his tiny fingers. “Heads up,” he shouted, throwing the necklace behind him where Selene caught it without looking, still bent over the cauldron. “We have enough time for a second item. Preferably something to stop Alistair.”
“I don’t…” I squished my eyes shut to think of something, anything. A memory of my mother’s house came with her personal journal on a shelf, one she’d used during her quest to find him all those years ago. “It’s a journal in my mother’s house.”
“It’s not yours?” he said with gritted teeth, seemingly struggling to keep the glowing ball between his hands.
“It’s harder to bring back items that don’t belong to you,” Isabelle explained, kneeling next to us and putting a hand on the headmaster’s other arm. “Here, you can use some of my magic to find it.”
I pictured the journal in her house and the headmaster started sprouting drops of sweat on his forehead. “This part of the future is too degraded. Think of a different time when you saw the journal, something closer to this one.” I remembered when everyone had returned from finding Balthazar, Anastasia had kept the journal in her backpack, and I saw it when she put her bag down to grab a slice of sake. “Got it!” Cauldron shouted, reaching into the glow again and coming out with the book in his hand. The glow disappeared and he staggered back, catching his breath and wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Ahh, shit. That spell is so hard.”
“Language,” Isabelle chastised with her lips pressed together.
He waved a hand at her in dismissal, handed me the journal, and sat down hard on the cold stone floor next to us. “We can’t do it again, you understand,” he told me as he leaned back against his hands.
“I do.” I looked up over his head and saw Selene opening my necklace to take some of the hairs out while Jaz stirred the pot. “Can I have that back when you’re done?” She nodded, ignoring me, too engrossed in what she was brewing. “What is she making?”
Selene checked a book and added a few leaves of something into the cauldron. “It’s a life potion, made specifically to bring back children someone has lost. Time travel isn’t done very often, but we do have ways to help the traveler. This is what I was talking about when I told you we could get your children back.” I hopped up, eager to see the process that would bring my family back.
Jaz smiled at me, still stirring the potion, and I could see a trail of magic coming from her hand and down the spoon to the mixture. “I’m a necromancer, so life and death are my thing.”
“Yes, well, I’d do this one myself but I’m not powerful enough, plus it needs a necromancer’s life power,” Selene grumbled, adding something that looked like a dried toad. “You’re lucky we have one. There hasn’t been a necromancer for four hundred years until Jaz came here.” She checked her book and turned to me with another question. “How many of the children are with the same father?” Surprisingly, she didn’t seem judgmental with that question.
“Two.”
“We’ll need two bottles then, if you would, Isabelle.” Isabelle got up and floated over to one of the shelves where she found a big bottle and a smaller one that she put next to the cauldron. Jaz kept stirring until the potion turned bright pink and Selene checked one more time in the book before dropping the hairs inside, making it turn as purple as my eyes. She leaned back, satisfied, and got out a ladle to start pouring into the bottles.
“I umm…” I started, and they all looked up at me from their work. “I had a bit of difficulty conceiving with one of my husbands, it took nineteen years for me to have our son. Will this fix that?” I didn’t want to wait that long to have all of my babies back.
Thankfully, Selene slowly smiled and continued fixing the bottles up. “I added a little something that will aid in conception, you shouldn’t have any trouble this time around. In fact, you might find yourself pregnant quite quickly between births if you’re not careful.”
“And why two bottles?” I asked as she handed the larger bottle to Isabelle.
“One dose will get the three with different fathers, but in order to conceive with one of
them a second time, the potion needs to be reapplied. So, you’ll drink the large one first, and when you want to have the fourth child, you’ll drink the smaller one.”
Isabelle corked the larger bottle. “Selene, you’re explaining it wrong. She’s going to think all she has to do is drink it.”
“I’m sure I understand having a child takes more than drinking something,” I said, unable to not be a smart mouth. Jaz laughed and the teachers glared at her for it.
“My apologies,” Selene said, adding one other thing to the cauldron before filling the smaller one up as well. “There is something else needed for this potion to work, thank you, Isabelle.” She took the bottles and handed them to me. They felt warm, like a heartbeat. “You have to get all three of the fathers to fall in love with you for it to work. Real, romantic love. Not friend love, not family love.”
“Can’t be boner love either,” Jaz said, making them glare at her again. “Hey, I’m an adult. Leave me alone.”
Selene held up a warning finger to her pupil before looking back at me. “If it’s only two of the three that love you, it won’t do anything. And you have to love them romantically as well, that’s also important. You’ll know it’s worked when you feel an icy burning warmth in your belly for each pregnancy.”
“There’s one other thing, and I’m hoping future Selene told you this,” Cauldron said as he came to stand beside me, looking up at me as I looked down at him. “You’ll get the same children back, but they won’t be the same children you knew. They could be a different orientation, different mentality, different personality, different powers. The only thing we can guarantee is that you will give birth to the child you had before.”
I studied the bottles in my hands and clutched my fingers around them. “That’s enough for me. Details are nothing. As long as I get them back.”
“You should take the larger one now,” Selene said, starting to pick up her supplies. “I put something extra in the smaller one so it stays potent for about five to ten years. Don’t delay on that one or we’ll have to make another. If it stops being purple it’s not viable anymore.”
The Born Vampire series: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Complete Series, NSFW Edition) Page 85
