I let out a sigh of relief when he did, in fact, cross the street and made his way to a student parking spot.
The students of Hernando High School were all dressed in homecoming spirit Friday attire. Faces painted with leopard paws, yellow and purple clad everything, and cheer for the big dance that would occur tomorrow evening in the high school gym.
Lisa found me, just before calculus started, “What in the world is going on? Why is Dmitri my mother’s protector now?” she asked quizzically.
“It's really involved and very temporary, Lisa. I wouldn’t worry about it. You guys are in great hands.”
She shook her head, “I don’t like it.” She admitted, taking her seat and pouting like a little girl.
I pierced my lips and shrugged my shoulders, basically saying, too bad, so sad.
“Are you two still going to homecoming together tomorrow?” she asked, wondering if life was still going to go back to normal.
I nodded, a smile ever present on my face, not wanting to put too much emphasis on my presence at homecoming.
Dmitri made it a point to meet me in between each class, trying as he might, to make his presence a constant in my day.
Kyle kept his distance, realizing that the change would take time, even if time was in short supply.
Any time one of the girls would start talking to me, I would hear Kyle assure me that I was going to make it. That today would be over before I knew it.
It wasn’t until after Mr. Hamric’s class that I realized why he was trying to be so soothing with his assurances.
Dmitri, once more waiting for me, stopped Kyle out in the hallway. The two whispering to each other something that sounded heated.
“What do you think is going on?” Lisa leaned in.
I shrugged my shoulders and turned to walk alone to my next class. That is until I heard a voice call my name.
Celia
My feet stopped, dead in their tracks, and I turned around to find that I wasn’t alone.
Behind me, I could see Ciara’s outline in the center of the hallway.
Leave this place, now, go home. She warned, her voice trailing off.
Then another voice intruded, “What’s wrong?” Kyle asked me, standing next to me with Dmitri on at his side.
I turned to face them, shaking my head, and looked back to where I had seen her.
“Celia?” Dmitri asked this time.
“I need to go home.” I mumbled.
“School’s not over.” Kyle stated.
“I need to go home, I just saw Ciara.” I reiterated more sternly.
Dmitri took my arm and started walking out the back door. “I will take her, you stay with Lisa.”
When we got to my aunt’s house, I didn’t know how to ask him to stay with me.
I unlocked the front door and looked back to him, he was standing by his car.
I waited, hoping I wouldn’t have to ask. It took him a moment but he figured it out on his own that I wanted him with me a little longer today.
Lying on his chest on the sofa, I felt at ease finally. Ciara’s warning, however, still plaguing me.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” he asked, combing strands of my hair with his fingers.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to worry him.
“Ciara warned me to come home.”
“How did she do that?” he asked, not signaling in any way that he was concerned.
“I saw her, standing in the hallway at school.”
His hand slowed, “You saw her?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but she was there.”
“That scared you?” he asked frigidly.
I took a deep breath and admitted what coursed through my system in those moments.
“No. I was just worried she meant that it was time.”
He pulled me up, our eyes locking, “Time for what, Celia?” he asked, the seriousness lining his voice.
“For what’s coming.”
“And that would be?”
I got up from the sofa and took to reacting in his typical fashion. I paced the length of the sofa where he sat.
“Why does it always go back to this?” I asked him, “Why can’t it be simple?”
“Because, Celia, you are not a simple witch.” He stated casually.
Stopping for only one glance, “Your right, I’m not.” I started moving again.
“Tell me one thing.” He suggested, standing to stop me. “Do you believe, with all that is in you, that whatever you are going to do is going to stop him?”
I didn’t have to think about it, I knew, deep down that I would succeed.
“Yes.”
“Then I trust you.” He assured me, as simple as that.
I molded into his arms and found the silver lining in our situation.
When it was over and done with, I would have Dmitri, and I will never have to give him up.
CHAPTER fOURTEEN
I woke up in Dmitri’s arms the following morning. I had fallen asleep on the sofa, wrapped in his warmth. When the light crept across the living room floor, I sensed it was time to face the day.
I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d miss that feeling of waking up in his arms, the wonder of staring the day like this. Would I miss everything that is this very moment?
“You are so pensive.” He sighed, probably frowning because he couldn’t know what I was thinking.
“I was thinking how lucky I am to have this moment.” I lied, in part at least.
“Pray tell me how you find yourself fortunate.”
His use of old language made me smile. No matter how long we would stay together, he would always have that, his age.
“I have you, in which, I am the luckiest woman alive.” For the time being at least, I thought to myself.
“I agree with you one hundred percent. You are lucky.” He mused, tugging on me tighter.
“I do have to ask you to leave though. It’s going to take me all day to get ready.” I suggested, looking at the clock and taking note that I had slept the whole morning away.
“Is it really going to take you that long?” he asked, shocked for some reason.
Nodding, I felt the lie weighing heavy on our interaction.
“Okay, fine. Just let me know when you want to leave.” He said, getting up from the sofa. He kissed me on the forehead and walked to the door.
“Dmitri,” I called out, wanting to see him, from this perspective one last time.
He turned, just as he gripped the knob, “Yeah.”
“I love you.”
A smile brightened his face, his dark eyes sparkling with what I could only explain as equal admiration.
“I know,” he teased, turning and leaving.
Slowly, methodically, I prepared myself to do the most difficult task I’d probably every do in my entire existence.
I dressed in my mother’s white lace and beaded gown and left Aunt Olivia’s house, disguised as a homecoming date.
I took Olivia’s keys and sat behind the wheel of her mustang.
I’m leaving. I let Kyle know just before closing our connection.
Driving through Brooksville tugged at one heart string I hadn’t felt before. A flood gate of grief tangled with a memory as I past the funeral house.
I turned down Jasmine Street until I caught a glimpse of the headstones. I slowed the car and contemplated pulling in.
I wasn’t ready to say goodbye, Mom. I thought to myself.
Without thinking, I pulled to the opposite side of the road and stared over to all the graves that marked a lost love.
It was a feeling stronger than I’d ever known, the need to stand in front of her grave overwhelming me. I walked across the street and found myself there, staring down at the tombstone.
Nanette Elizabeth McOwens
Beloved Mother and Sister
Death is only the Beginning
January 18, 1972 - September 30, 2014
I choked back on the cry and
let my eyes fill with the tears I’d been holding back all these months. I fell to my knees and cried for her. How I had lost my epicenter, the center of my universe.
“Why did you have to leave me?” I sobbed, my arms finding their way around my waist and rocked myself calm again.
“I have to snuff out the light, Mom, to become the type of witch capable of saving everyone.” I sighed, praying that if she could hear me she wasn’t disappointed in me.
“I have to do the dark magic spell you deciphered, take in Ciara’s soul, depleting the life source. It’s the only way to save Olivia, Augusta, and the coven.”
Feeling calmer, I noticed a single daisy growing up out of the ground just at my knees, and my heart ached.
It was her. I could feel her energy all around me. My hand reached out, just as it bloomed and I caressed it.
As the tears fell freely now from my eyes, I blinked and said, “I love you, Mom.” Taking her daisy from the earth and tucking it into my hair above my ear.
I drove, for more than an hour to Philippe Park. Every moment that past was like walking in a dream. I’d been here, several times in fact as a child. Seen this tree, the sister tree to the one on the castle’s grounds. I’d smelled the ocean in the distance, and even sat on the steps that were mere feet away from where I now stood.
She’d told me not to fight it, to let my actions be the same as hers, but the outcome was what I feared the most. The choice to make everything right comes at a terrible cost, one that falls solely on my shoulders.
But wasn’t it entirely my fault anyway. Isn’t bearing the consequences what I deserve? He is, after all, my father and I, the seed of his monstrous self.
Too many deaths had happened because I never listened. I need to be who I am meant to be. A witch who’s magic is strong enough to fight the darkest of all evils. No matter the cost.
Believe in your strength, Ciara had said. Her voice, echoed deep in my soul.
The tingle in my spine was the signal that it was time. Kyle, I could sense it, was now looking for me, and I’m sure when he realizes the full extent of what is to come and why I’ve blocked our connection, he will find Dmitri to help him find me and stop me.
I reached out towards the tree and whispered the ancient words of the immortal coven, the same words Ciara spoke to bind her soul to the nine. I felt the life source of the great tree entering my soul and something inside of me cried for its passing.
I graciously accept from thee the glow of days to come and enter into a realm of forever. I take from nine the essence of the one and free the spirit from confinement. In light the spark of life, in darkness the shadow of strength, together we are one, and evermore the same.
Thunder shook the ground beneath my feet as the words left my lips. The leaves from the tree were scattering all around me, as if it was raining leaves.
I fell to my knees and said a final prayer for my soul, for Ciara who now was being torn from the coven.
I felt my heart race, and this too I had known was coming. Fearing the rest, I stood and staggered away from the tree.
The spell is complete, I said to Kyle
I’d managed to make my way back to the steps when I heard them calling out for me. I sat, feeling the light of life leaving my body.
“Dmitri” I whispered, my voice weak, mirroring the weakness in my limbs. That was when I felt my body fall down the steps I’d been sitting on.
The look of horror on his face when he reached me was more terrifying than I could have ever imagined.
“What have you done?” he cried, taking me into his arms.
“It was the only way.” I gasped, the air leaving my lungs. It was happening faster than she had warned in her notes. I could feel Ciara more every second that passed.
“Jeez, Celia, this isn’t what I though.” Kyle said as he reached us.
“I don’t know what is happening but I feel her heart fading.” Dmitri cried out to him, tears filling his eyes.
“And I feel something completely different, Dmitri. Our connection is failing altogether, but she is becoming so much stronger.”
“You’re the one that I love. I’m doing this for us, for her.” I whispered, my heavy lids falling closed.
“Oh my God Celia!”
My heart became like stone, and with its final beat the excruciating pain stopped.
Dmitri shook me, realizing what had just happened, but in truth, he knew nothing about what was to come.
“She’s gone Dmitri. We were too late.” Kyle mumbled, the sorrow in his voice was the clearest emotion I’d ever heard, he too oblivious to the true extent of my actions.
“No. She can’t be gone.” Dmitri snapped. “Take it back, Celia. Take all of it back.” Dmitri cried, shaking my body.
“I give in. I’ll give up. Just don’t leave me here alone. Not now. Not after I’ve waited my whole existence for you.” I felt him shake, “I’m sorry. Wake up!”
My resolve wavered but deep inside I knew I couldn’t open my eyes, I couldn’t give in. Not yet. Everything depended on him believing that he’d lost me. That I’d given up on him, on us.
“Dmitri, we have to assemble the coven, or everything will be lost. They are all in danger now.” Kyle warned gravely.
He did not say anything, he stood up, my motionless body still in his arms, and we left that place.
I knew where he had taken me, even though I had never been inside. The mansion on the top of the hill, where he said his family lived, was where he, Kyle, and Toren spent most of their time.
The house, which stood like a fortified mini castle on the top of the hill was the one place I had always wanted to visit but never found a way to asking him.
But there I lay, on the top of a stone table in a room empty of life, including my own.
Ciara’s magic surged though my being, her voice echoing in my mind, like a phantom crying out commands.
Angry, she insisted that I open my eyes and cast the summoning spell.
I refused. As if still in my subconscious I found a quiet place in my mind to talk to her.
“Calm down.” I warned her, taking the dominate role was precisely what I needed to establish early on in this tattered union.
“If he realizes what you’ve done, he will kill them, and this will all have been for nothing.”
“He won’t kill them, Ciara. If my memory serves right, he will have a single moment of weakness upon hearing I’ve died. That is when he will react.”
She huffed, but before she could say anything further, I countered.
“His undoing will be his one weakness.” I said smugly.
“And what weakness is that?” she wondered, her eyebrow rose.
“Me.” I started, “I am what he’s wanted this whole time, the one thing he wanted his whole life, and I’ve just taken it away from him. I’ve broken him.”
“He is going to know you are not gone when he sees you.”
“Yes, but then Olivia, and Augusta will be with him. The coven will be intact and I’ll have all your power on my side.” I admitted.
I heard Dmitri walk into the room, his presence signaling the return of the coven.
I didn’t have to have my eyes open to see what was happening. He stood at my side, as one by one, each and every member appeared behind him.
“Oh, my God, is she…” Maura cried out.
“We’re not sure.” Kyle answered, stopping all the questions from continuing. “She is no longer alive, but her magical presence is concentrated, as if she were stronger and very much living and breathing.
“What are we doing?” Beatrice asked Kyle.
He turned to them, showing them my book and a note I left him.
“What does it say?” Gloria asked, the sadness of her own lost ever present in her voice.
“She asks me to have you summon him.”
Valerie laughed, “She is crazy!”
“It’s the only way.” Dmitri snapped at her, shutting her up immediately.
“Celia wouldn’t have taken her own life in vain. It was for something much greater than all of us.” He seethed his anguish obvious to everyone.
“What do we do?” Jezabel asked, clutching her fellow sister’s hands in her own.
Broken (The Immortal Coven Book 1) Page 22
