“I like where this is going,” she said. His mouth went dry as she endeavored to be as naked as he. Silver veins stood out through her skin as she shivered with the chill of the room, but he pushed her out to about arm’s length. “Okay, never mind. What are you doing?”
“Gwendolyn’s trying to teach you shapeshifting through fancy gestures. We’re going to embrace your wild side.”
Her gaze drifted downwards. “Uh huh.”
He tilted her chin up with a wink. “Focus.”
“I’m not sure what you’re trying to do,” she admitted. And honestly, he didn’t know either. He thought she might be more comfortable letting out a possible inner beast of her own if she was away from prying eyes. Just the two of them, without the barrier of clothes.
He thought it might work to bait out his own beast and follow its instincts. He gave it an ounce of control, waking it from its fearful torpor from spending so much time with Ancients much stronger than he was. His eyesight narrowed to a laser focus as it roused, lending its keen senses to his own.
Violet saw the change come over him, a flush coming to her cheeks. His inner beast was a part of him that liked to come out in moments of passion, and as it woke it, it purred to see her naked. Mate. Mine, it said with certainty.
How to explain to that beast that he wanted to awaken something similar in her? His thoughts grew hazy with its much simpler needs. Is she like us? he thought, trying to steer it to focus. His brow furrowed in confusion.
“Are you all right?” she asked, more confused than his beast.
Maybe he was mistaken. Often, his instincts had answers he couldn’t see on the surface, but this time, it seemed unlikely. She made magic with gestures and phrases while his magic was a part of him, melded into his instincts like a living thing.
Her fingertips brushed his hand as she took a step forward, lips parted on another question. In that moment, man, instinct, and magic alike understood.
He crushed his lips to hers, fingers laced through her hair. They swallowed each other’s moans, coming skin to skin. “Be mine,” he whispered, their foreheads brushing as he pulled from their kiss only by an inch. Her hot breath washed over his chin.
“Yes,” she said, her touch drifting lower on his back.
He knew what she thought he meant. The beast in him spoke without inhibition. “I mean, be mine, lifemate.”
Her touch stilled, eyes widening. “Lifemate?” she echoed, the first thread of uncertainty entering her voice. “But…”
“You can’t tell me you don’t feel it too.” He stroked a lock of hair from her otherworldly silver eyes, breathless with tenderness even as he waited for her reaction to that rush he’d felt between them since the moment they’d first kissed.
Surely, she knew. Even without his level of instinct, she should’ve felt it by now, the flame of their attraction.
“I thought…but you’ve already had…”
He interrupted that thought with a kiss. “Had. But now I have you. Team Violet, remember?”
Her expression softened. “How is it possible? I thought you said there was only one…”
“One of the only times I’ve been happy to be wrong.” His heart soared to see her smile in agreement. “I know we haven’t known each other long, but it feels right.”
“What are you asking of me?” She still hesitated. She was a new vampire, he had to remind himself. Mortals didn’t have such things as lifemates and a shapeshifter’s inner beast, lacking the certainty he embraced so readily. If he didn’t phrase it just right, she would push away such an ambitious move in their relationship.
He took a mental step back from plunging headfirst into explaining a mating bond. “I love you. That’s what I’m trying to say.” His heart beat harder to be presented to her so soon. He hadn’t felt this way for another in a longer time than he could remember. Had anyone really come before Violet? He barely thought of the distant memory of his first mate, who paled to a cherished glimmer compared to the blaze of potential before him.
She touched her fingertips to her lips, eyes sparkling like polished coins. “I love you too. I thought…maybe it was too early to say it.”
“You don’t have to hide how you feel with me.” He bent to kiss her fingertips until she moved her hand aside, their lips meeting in an unhurried embrace. The first time they’d kissed, she hadn’t recognized the electric certainty that passed between them like a static shock, but this time, she sighed through her nose with the bliss that lingered behind.
“You don’t have to hide anything,” he whispered against her lips. “Do you feel it too?”
“Yes,” she said in breathless entreaty. “I think…I think I’m ready. What do we need to do for me to be yours?”
Alex showed her the way, melding body and mind in a dance and binding as old as the vampire race. They became mates, following the promise of the lifemate call that they were secretly two halves of one beautiful whole. The bond between them sang of shared emotion and pleasure, their mate’s attention only a thought away.
Laying tangled together to rest, Alex’s inner beast called. Something within her called back, new and wild.
Chapter 33
Violet
VIOLET GREETED GWENDOLYN the next day in the shapeshift of a cat, a great bushy one with sandy fur and a proud purr in her throat as the elderly woman startled and looked down at her in confusion. “You mastered your last element. Good,” she said, scratching Violet under the chin.
“How did you know that it’s me?” Speaking from an animal’s vocal cords was still a challenge, but she’d barely practiced. She and Alex had been far too occupied last night, only catching a few short hours of sleep before Gwendolyn called for her.
“Your eyes are silver still.” Gwendolyn set her aside on cool stone. A part of Violet wanted to flop down and rest there. She was still getting used to the idea that shapeshifting magic made her a little like the animal she’d become, inheriting the instincts and bad habits along with the fur coat.
“Show me what else you can do,” she continued. She glanced up to where Alex watched, holding a bundle of clothes for Violet once this demonstration was done.
Violet could feel his pride in her even from that short distance, mingling with the simple joy within herself to be able to do this. How jealous her childhood self would’ve been to know she’d learned to become an animal herself! She smiled within, her cat face remaining rigid and incapable of the same expression.
Drawing from Alex’s knowledge, she became various animals with ease. A twittering robin, a mastiff, and then plunging into the darkness as a squeaking bat. She shifted quickly into more animals, growing larger as she went. It felt like showing off after the thirtieth form, but Gwendolyn simply stood back to give her more room and gestured for her to go on. She stroked her jaw as Violet continued until her bones ached from shifting and resizing.
“This is your strongest element,” the elderly woman said in a tone of complete certainty to the horse Violet had settled on as her final shapeshift.
“You think so?” Violet neighed enthusiastically.
Gwendolyn turned her face away, her shoulders shaking. If she didn’t miss her guess, her mentor was laughing but holding it in with a stiff upper lip. “If you would shift back into a human form, I have a gift for you,” she said once she’d mastered herself.
Alex followed as she trotted to a shadowy corner of the garden and took a deep breath. In the couple of times they’d practiced this, shifting back into herself was the hardest part. The part of her that was a horse wanted to remain a horse. She twitched, her bones crackling unpleasantly as the magic twisted and reformed them into a human’s skeleton. Buck naked and on all fours, she shook herself and stood, flexing her hands to return some of their flexibility.
“Think I impressed her?” she asked, dressing quickly in the clothes he’d brought.
He offered a languid shrug. “You surprised her. When you get as old as her, I imagine that’s the
closest thing.” His emotions flowed to her, expressing what his words did not. While Gwendolyn might not have been moved by her performance, Alex was certainly impressed and proud of her progress. She got onto her toes to kiss him. They shared a moment until her curiosity compelled them to return and see what Gwendolyn intended to give her.
The Ancient was making slow progress out of the garden when they rejoined her. “Let’s go for a walk. It’s good for my old bones.”
They fell into step with her, walking at her pace as she took the cobblestone path toward the city ruins. “Did you know that two moons rise over this island?” Gwendolyn continued, tilting her head up to the pitch-black heavens. “It is incredibly rare that any light shines through the magic shrouding Nyixa. But when it does, all vampire powers are at their strongest.”
“Like during the full moon,” Alex remarked.
Violet gaped up at the sky as if two moons would suddenly make an appearance. “But why two? That doesn’t even make sense.”
“There are two that hang over Faerie, wherever in the cosmos it lies,” Gwendolyn said. “And Nyixa is the closest place in this world to Faerie. Anyway, a fun fact for you.”
“Cool,” she said with a smile. Even though he didn’t verbalize it, Alex was quietly impressed as well, though she felt he was also wondering why Gwendolyn would mention it now.
“I’ve looked into every nook and cranny of these buildings, searching for anything that survived Nyixa’s stay under the sea,” Gwendolyn continued, gesturing them toward a mostly intact building close to the palace. “Anything magical. And I was lucky indeed to find these.”
Within the building was a slab of white stone toward the back, located where a bed might be in a one-room cabin. Upon it, glittering like gems in the dark, were five orbs reminiscent of the Eye of Worlds in the center of the island. Gwendolyn picked up the largest of them and offered it to Violet. “This is my gift to you. A Sorceress’s best friend.”
The glass was heavier than she expected, dropping into her palms with all the heft of a bowling ball. Under the surface lay cloudy darkness, hiding beneath the veneer of shine on the orb’s exterior. Like a globe, it was attached to a crescent-shaped piece of copper etched with the thirteen symbols of fae magic. She glanced to Gwendolyn, puzzled as to how this could be her “best friend” when it seemed like a tourist’s replica of the Eye of Worlds.
“Lucia first translated the same word for what you’re holding and its larger counterpart, the Eye of Worlds. This is an occultarus,” Gwendolyn explained. “The fae manufacture them as tools to help with magic. In short, I’m giving you a focus to push your magic through. You don’t need to make the gestures if you’re holding it, which will make your spellcasting much faster.”
“How does it work?” Violet eyed it with eagerness. She was merely a beginner but already could see how much better it would make her at magic if she didn’t have to telegraph exactly what she was doing. Very good in a fight.
“Give it a shake. The magic within it will imprint to you.”
“Imprint, huh?” she murmured to herself, giving it a solid shake. The shadows within it circled like a mini cyclone, individual motes branching off like grains of sand. Darkness turned to light, becoming a new beacon to replace the lantern by her side. The orb floated of its own volition, circling around her torso. “Is it supposed to…?”
“Yes. For your convenience, when it’s active, it’ll circle around you to your natural movements. I’ll teach you how to do this, but you can send it magical signals to jump into your hand if you need it.” Gwendolyn watched Violet interact with her new magical tool with a troubled frown—as if her thoughts were miles away.
She barely noticed, enamored with the copper occultarus as it established an orbit around her shoulders, spinning as if she were a planet. “That being said, I need you to take a look at the Eye of Worlds,” the Ancient continued, sweeping from the room abruptly and cutting short her admiration of this gift.
“Isn’t it cool?” Violet whispered to Alex, catching it on its way past her right arm. It floated right above her palm as if awaiting its use.
“I’m jealous I don’t have fancy enough magic to get my own moon.” He winked, reaching for it. It rolled out of the way, toward Violet’s chest, staying just out of touching range. “Makes me wonder if the big version is as cheeky as this thing.”
Gwendolyn, not far ahead of them, shot a stern look over her shoulder. “The Eye of Worlds is evil,” she snapped. “You might toy with Violet’s occultarus, but you do not touch the Eye. Ever.”
He worked his jaw, and Violet felt him weighing and fighting against firing a barbed response back. Taking a deep breath, he responded, “Of course. But perhaps you should share how an inanimate object can be evil?”
“I’ll show you,” was all she said on their walk to the monolithic structure. Violet and Alex held hands and took simple pleasure in watching her new occultarus make a loop around him in apparent approval or understanding of their mating bond.
When they reached the Eye of Worlds, Gwendolyn leveraged her cane on its base, climbing until her face was mere inches from its surface. “Come. Look into its depths. Tell me what you see.”
Exchanging a glance with him, she did so, getting up close with the shining dome. Beneath the surface lay darkness, just like with her occultarus when it was dormant. However, the longer she looked, the more she noticed cloudy shapes and movement. Sprites gathered at the corner of her vision, pointing at her.
Laughing.
Her anxiety spiked as she realized how many of those sprites there were, jeering and jostling to stare down at her. Her gaze turned to her reflection.
“What a mistake. You never stare into the Grand Occultarus, dear,” came Lucia’s voice, purring into her mind as her reflection started to blur like a heat mirage.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, her mental voice breaking with a shrill of fear.
Alex gave her shoulder a shake, but she couldn’t look away. Her reflection changed, donning a silver gown with a waterfall of ruffles and taffeta curls beneath a fitted bodice glittering with sequins like miniature stars. “What is your heart’s deepest desire? Where do you wear this dress?”
The backdrop changed from ruined buildings to a church’s pews, lined with familiar faces. Next to her, Alex’s concerned expression smoothed to one of love and devotion, replacing his old t-shirt with a fine suit. “Is it to your wedding?” Lucia asked.
“Stop. Stop this,” Violet said, her hands trembling within the folds of a dress she could almost feel.
“I’m not doing anything. Isn’t it incredible? This tool responds to my will and mine alone. You may have an occultarus of your own, but it’s a mere toy. Feel the power pinning you in place.” Lucia’s voice was mere narration as Violet tried to blink and shut out what she was seeing. A dark-haired woman appeared over her shoulder, her features beautiful and cold as if sculpted from marble. Her eyes were a silver as pure as an ingot, marking her for who she was.
Her hand ghosted over Violet’s shoulder, there, but not. “In mere days, we will meet.” Her mouth moved, but the words pushed into Violet’s head, inescapable.
“Let me go. You can’t hold me like this,” she protested, tears starting to slip from her eyes.
Lucia tilted her head. “Why do you cry? Why do you fear me? I found you dying. I gave you new life. We are one of a kind, you and I.” She raised her hand, a flame burning white-hot in her palm. When Violet moved to speak, she held up a hand sharply, silencing even her weak protests to leave her helpless. “Hush, my dear. Weep not. I have a special plan, just for you…” She leaned in, her cold lips brushing Violet’s cheek.
A sting of pain followed. Violet tumbled backward into the dirt, her cheek smarting and Gwendolyn looming above her, trembling. “I’m sorry,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “I needed to know—”
Alex grabbed her collar, snarling. “How dare you strike my mate.”
“Thi
s is much worse. I had to see what would happen,” she said, shoving him away easily with Ancient strength. She landed hard in the dirt, offering Violet a hand up with eyes full of remorse. “I know what she’s done to the Eye of Worlds now.”
“Did you see…?” Violet asked, feeling light-headed from the rush of blood to her head. She sat down on the base of the Eye, holding her head and shutting her eyes hard, trying to squeeze the vision of Lucia and her words from her head.
Alex’s warm arm covered her shoulders, pulling her into his side. “I didn’t see anything,” he murmured.
“And I didn’t see anything, but I felt Lucia’s magic,” Gwendolyn said, sitting heavily to her other side. She rolled her cane between her hands, head bowed. “What did she say?”
In Alex’s embrace, she found it easier to repeat the conversation. It hadn’t been a long one, but it’d felt nauseating, and Lucia’s phrasing seemed more ominous on repeat. Gwendolyn nodded slowly to it all, breathing out a sigh. “Lucia hasn’t disabled the Eye of Worlds. She’s made a pact with it.”
“And how do you know that?” Alex frowned, a growl edging into his voice as he held Violet protectively. She could tell he didn’t appreciate Gwendolyn using her for bait with the magical tool.
“I, too, have a special relationship with it.” She chuckled without humor. “The Eye is one thing all fae are mum about. There is an intelligence inside of it that can see your deepest desires, and it taunts you with them. If you try to use it for magic and are weaker than it, it will find a way to destroy you.”
She turned watery eyes their way, her face etched with pain. “Long ago, when I used it, it showed me what I could’ve been. An angel with burning wings, fully invested in the light I used to wield. I don’t dare attempt to command it now.”
Violet opened her mouth to ask but realized Alex understood. He glanced her way and shrugged. “She’s been alive for a long time. If this thing really is that powerful, her desire to move on from this world might break her like a twig.”
Dream Walker: Blood Legacy Series Book 1 Page 20
