by Nina Croft
He dragged her against him and kissed her savagely. Then he pushed her from him. A moment later he vanished and a sky-blue moth alighted gently on her hand. She carried it to the window and watched as it stepped from her hand to the blind. A moment later it disappeared behind the edge and out into the open air.
As soon as he was gone, Raven was filled with a frantic urge to call him back. Because now, when it was too late, she finally understood the true meaning of her visions. She knew why she had been shown Kael all those years ago. It wasn’t only desire that drew her to him, it was love.
She collapsed to her knees, a scream ripping through her mind. And she wept then. For the first time since her capture, the hot tears spilled over, filling her eyes with red haze for the baby she would never hold.
She squeezed her eyes tight shut, but before her closed lids the vision replayed itself, over and over again, taunting her with the future and the lies she had told. For there had been no baby in her vision, only Raven, stretched out upon the altar in the great hall. She was staring up into Sorien’s hate-ridden, triumphant eyes as the sun slowly rose behind her.
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Chapter Six
“Be strong…”
The words echoed in her mind and Raven took courage from them.
She didn’t know what had happened to Kael when he left. Something, because she knew he would have come for her otherwise. But, whatever had happened, she sensed that he was somewhere in this world, that he still lived. As did her father, and it comforted her that there were people out there who would mourn her going. They would know that today was her birthday, the day of the prophecy. Were they thinking of her?
She’d made no attempt to hide after Kael had gone that day, and the fire-demons had found her almost immediately. But Sorien believed her story. She had received a savage beating and been returned to her cell, but she knew she would have fared much worse if they had suspected the truth.
The last month had been an agony of hope, but now she had reached some level of peace and at least she could die knowing that the fire-demons would gain nothing from her death.
It would be over soon. Once she would have welcomed this, now her soul cried out against it. She wanted to live; she wanted to spend eternity with Kael, to bear his children. She loved him and she longed for the chance to tell him so, somehow to lessen the pain he would feel at her death. He had lost so much already.
But it was too late, for the time had come and she was living through that final vision.
She opened her eyes and stared straight into Sorien’s vicious face. A smile played across his features, triumph gleaming in his coal-black eyes.
“Well, the time is here at last,” he murmured, stroking a claw-like finger down her throat. “Can you feel the sunrise, so close?”
Raven turned her head away. She lay stretched out on the altar. She wasn’t tied, but a fire-demon stood at her head and one at her feet, their claws around her wrists and ankles, shackling her to the smooth, cold stone. Through the stained-glass window above her she could clearly see the blood-red glow of the coming dawn.
The sun touched her feet first and she felt the prickle of heat in her toes. Soon the prickle became a sharp, searing pain. The scent of charred flesh filled the air and the pain grew until it consumed her whole mind. She squeezed her eyes tight shut, clenched her jaw against the scream that tore at her throat. She tried to think of making love with Kael, the sweet taste of his blood, but the pain grew, ripping the very thoughts from her mind.
Just as she thought she could hold back her scream no longer, the light dimmed. Behind her closed lids she could sense the dawn fading, and the flames that licked at her body flickered and died. She opened her eyes; beyond the window the rising sun had been banished, eclipsed by a vast black shadow so only a faint glimmer of light still showed.
The window above her exploded and a huge winged creature hovered in the opening, its wings beating the air as it searched the room. Then the creature threw back its head and screamed before diving for the altar.
Raven kicked out viciously at the fire-demon holding her feet, then hissed and bared her fangs at the other. They appeared dazed, staring at the creature, backing away. But Sorien was still beside her, his face twisted into a mask of fury and determination. He drew a long knife, raised it high above her with a scream of rage. But, as he brought it, down the creature slammed into him, knocking him from his feet then picking him up in its talons and hurling him across the room. At the same time the huge wooden doors burst open and a swarm of people flooded in. She recognized the uniform of The Council and it came to her, in a brief flash of hope, that this was Kael’s army.
But Raven couldn’t watch; her whole attention was taken by the winged creature landing lightly at the foot of the altar. She stared into its deep-blue eyes and knew him.
“Kael?”
He lifted her almost gently in his claws and flew with her to the shadows in the corner of the room. She almost fell as her feet touched the floor, then Kael stood before her. He went down on his knees and lifted her foot. He kissed the reddened skin then looked up into her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
“Sorry?” Raven shook her head, not quite believing that this was happening. “You saved me.”
She swayed towards him and he stood up quickly, taking her in his arms, pulling her almost roughly against him. She was shaking, touching him, running her hands over whatever parts of him she could reach. Checking that he was real. All around them the sounds of fighting filled the air, but she ignored them, focusing only on Kael.
He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “I can’t believe we were almost too late.”
“Tell me what happened?” she asked.
“I was taken as soon as I transformed outside the castle—traitors in The Council. They used magic to bind me in my human form and imprisoned me with your father.”
“You escaped?”
He looked uncomfortable. “With a little help.”
He nodded in the direction of the fighters. It was chaotic, but after a moment she saw Sorien was up and was fighting a tall, slender figure. With a flash of shock she realised it was a woman, with long blond hair that whipped about her face as she spun and twirled. She was holding her own against the huge fire-demon, in fact, she appeared to be toying with him. She was fighting back-to-back with a tall, dark-haired man, and Raven’s eyes widened as she recognised her father. Her gaze flew back to the woman and briefly the fight seemed to stand still as their gazes clashed. The woman had pale, silver eyes, rimmed with black, witch’s eyes. She flashed a smile, then she was whirling away, and Raven turned back to Kael.
“Your mother,” he said dryly.
“She helped you?”
“It seems the prophecy was never her doing. In fact, she didn’t know about it until recently.”
“So who…?”
“Her sisters. They wanted to get back at your father. Your mother had been banished to the shadowlands. She returned recently and only then discovered what they had done.”
“Three months ago?” Raven asked.
“Yes, how did you know?’
“She spoke to me. I heard her voice.”
“Well, she’s done what she can to put things right. She sent the original message telling us where you were. She kept away because she was going against her sisters, but when we failed to get you out she came to find us.” He grinned. “She’s a formidable woman, your mother.”
“Did she do that?” Raven nodded in the direction of the window where a black sun hung in the morning sky.
Kael nodded. “Hmm, I told you there are rumors that they can control the sun and the moon. Well, it appears that the rumors are true.”
At that moment, obviously bored with playing with Sorien, her mother made one final sideswipe with her blade and sliced his head cleanly from his body. For a moment the torso clawed at the air before tumbling lifelessly to the ground.
“Messy,” Kael murmured beside her, “but effective.”
Raven watched as Sorien’s body crumbled until nothing remained but a pile of ochre ashes. A curious lightness filled her as she realised that the nightmare of the prophecy was finally over. She could start to dream again. She glanced back to see that her mother had leapt back into the fighting, still with Darius at her back.
“Definitely formidable.” Raven muttered. “Are she and my father…?”
Kael shrugged. “Who knows? Or at this moment cares?” He reached out a hand and dragged her to him, covering her face with hungry kisses.
“I’ve been going insane,” he muttered. “I kept telling myself I would save you, that you had seen our future together, our children.”
Raven felt a flicker of guilt. Should she tell him of her lie? She’d made the only choice she could, but would he understand that? She reached up and smoothed a finger over the lines of stress that cut deep into his face.
She would tell him later, she decided. Perhaps she would make those children a reality first. At the thought of Kael’s children she felt a wave of longing. What would they be—vampire, witch, shape-shifter? Some combination of all three? She knew she would find out in time.
She pressed herself against his hard chest, then reached up and raked her fingers through his sunlight hair, pulling his head down, kissing his jaw, his cheek, his lips, touching and tasting.
“I love you,” he murmured against her mouth.
She wrapped her arms around him, holding him to her, melting against him. He had been her dream for so long, and now he was her reality. She kissed him once more, then spoke the words she had been longing to say. “And I love you.”
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-4878-0
The Prophecy
Copyright © 2010 by Nicola Cleasby
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