Prophecy: Child of Light (28 page)

She turned her head slowly as the portal shimmered into existence.

Magic hummed through her veins as it opened.

She tensed when Valentine whispered a word, his voice so full of emotion that she could almost feel it herself.

“Lucya.”

V
alentine couldn’t move as the portal flickered and Lucya appeared in front of him followed by Indigo. He blinked rapidly, hoping that this vision in front of him wasn’t real. She was as beautiful as ever, her golden hair reflecting the warm streetlights, her eyes clearest blue and her dangerously low cut dress leaving nothing to the imagination. The narrow waist of it emphasised her figure and the front of her skirt was pulled up to reveal her legs.

If his heart could still beat, it would be racing now.

He cleared his throat, his eyes never straying from her while the whole world around them disappeared. He could hear distant voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. There was only her. There had always been only her.

She smiled, her delicate lips curving gracefully as her eyes shone.

“Valentine,” Lucya said.

Her voice was as soft and delicate as he’d remembered it, even after two centuries apart.

“You look as dark and beautiful as ever.” Her smile widened as she stepped towards him.

“You are still as stunning as the darkest rose,” he said and narrowed his eyes on her, his lips arcing into a smile.

She lowered her head, covering her mouth with her hand and giggling. His smile widened. She tentatively raised her eyes to meet his again.

“How could I ever leave you?” Her voice was full of disbelief and regret.

He frowned at the reminder of what she’d done. She withdrew a step, a look of mild panic flickering across her features and her eyes darting to Indigo before she regained her confidence. Something wasn’t right.

The world seemed to come back into existence for a split second and he felt Prophecy close by. He growled at Lucya, furious about her attempt to place him under her thrall and annoyed at himself for falling for it as he’d always done.

A cursory glance over his shoulder brought him face to face with a very angry looking Prophecy. He looked back at Lucya and Indigo. They were both smiling at him. Their eyelashes fluttered and they gave him their most alluring looks.

“Come, Valentine.” Lucya held her hand out to him.

“War is coming, Valentine... we need you.” Indigo ducked her head and smiled up at him through her eyelashes.

“Come...” Lucya swept her hands towards herself, luring him.

He shook his head, resisting the call she was sending out to him. She was still strong. Her blood still ran in his veins, that would never change, but she didn’t control him any more, and she didn’t have a hold over his heart.

Lucya frowned for a split second and then smiled at something behind him.

“She will be your downfall.” Her tone was more serious. He looked at Prophecy and could see that she was itching to fight. “You must serve your family, Valentine. All will be forgiven if you come back to us now. It will be as if none of this had happened.”

Lucya’s words were honey in his ears, sticky and poisonous. He closed his eyes, not wanting to consider what she was offering to him but finding himself considering it anyway. He clenched his fists. Lucya didn’t want him. She had left him over two hundred years ago for a Vehemens.

He looked at her. She was swaying on the spot, her hips moving enticingly and her hands coursing up and down her body in an attempt to make sure that he noticed her fully.

Thunder echoed overhead.

“Come, Valentine, my love, my passionate child, my darkest lover. Come back to me.” Lucya held her hands out again, her expression pleading him to do as she was asking.

He swallowed hard, listening to the sound of his own ragged breathing and the thunder in the distance. She was offering him everything he’d wanted since meeting Prophecy. It was his only chance to wipe the slate clean and return to his family, leaving all this madness behind him like he wanted to.

“Come... all will be forgiven, our dutiful son. Come back to us. Kill the girl.”

Her words hit him hard in the chest and he recoiled, a frown knitting his brows.

Kill Prophecy?

“Never,” he whispered and sensed a change in the atmosphere between them. It grew cold and distant. Lucya drew herself up to her full height and glared at him.

“So be it. If you will not come back to us, you will die with her, by my hand, child.” She spat the words at him, her eyes dark as midnight as she changed into her vampire guise.

“I would sooner die with her, than live with a treacherous snake such as yourself.” He let his demon guise come to the forefront, his teeth growing into sharp points and his bones shifting. “Did Kalinor offer you redemption if you lured me back?”

She looked offended and hissed at him.

He held his hand out to one side as Prophecy moved forwards and looked across at her.

“Don’t,” he said.

Prophecy frowned at him but eased back so she was stood a few feet behind him.

“Dissention in the ranks.” Indigo shook her head. “You really should take our offer. Your declination offends our family. Kalinor has offered us both to you and you think one little Caelestis is better than us?”

“Come, Valentine.” Lucya purred at him, her hands luring him to her.

He raised a brow and straightened up, tilting his head back slightly and looking down on her as he did so.

“Did your wretch of a Vehemens leave you, Lucya? I knew that he would. I knew in time that you would attempt to secure my feelings again.” He smiled when she looked hurt. “Your power over me faded long ago. Your blood may run through my veins, but it no longer commands me to do your will. I shall not murder Prophecy for you or my family. I will not lay one finger on her to harm her. Your offer of redemption means nothing to me, because you offer it only by pain of Prophecy’s death and that it something I could never live with.”

When Lucya wrapped her arms about her, a frown settling on her face and a look of hurt showing in her eyes, he could see that his words had hit their mark. She had believed that she still had power over him, that he was still her child to command. Kalinor had probably sent her here because she had promised to bring himself back with her. There was fear in her. He could sense it. If she returned without him, Kalinor would kill her without flinching.

“My place is here, with Prophecy,” he said and felt Prophecy close behind him.

He was surprised to find that she wasn’t scared. The power was coming off her in tangible waves, washing through him and making him feel as though it was his own. She wanted to fight. She was ready to spring into action at the slightest command.

A door opened behind them and a new power echoed on the edge of his senses. Elena had joined them.

“Leave,” Elena commanded on stopping next to him.

He gave her a confused look.

“This is my place. That makes this my fight.”

He shook his head, unable to fulfil her order. “If we leave and you do not defeat them, Kalinor will know that we have been here. They will get word to him.”

“Kalinor already knows that you are here.” Lucya smiled, her confidence returning as she ran her eyes over him. “That is why we are here. This was not a chance meeting. We were told of your arrival.”

“The werewolves,” Prophecy said and his attention was with her. She looked less confident now that she knew that Kalinor was here. He knew what she was thinking. If Kalinor were here, then Arkalus may be too.

“Not ours,” Lucya said. “She really is a dirty little Caelestis isn’t she, Valentine? Imagine my horror when I learnt of what you had done. Years of loyal service thrown away on such a filthy, despicable little creature.”

Prophecy growled and moved. He put his hand out to stop her and his jaw tensed when his palm pressed into her chest. He swallowed hard, a part of him wanting to let go while the rest of him rejoiced over the feeling of her soft bosom beneath his fingers. He held her firm, not letting her push him away when she tried to move forwards.

“I’ll kill you.” Her tone was venomous and he believed that she would kill Lucya if he let her go.

He toyed with the idea, wondering who would actually win. Lucya was older and wiser but Prophecy had more passion and strength. He could feel her power when she growled. It rumbled through her chest and his fingers, little tremors that betrayed how close she was to losing control.

“Prophecy.” His voice was almost a whisper. He caught her eye and she immediately relented, backing off a step while taking a deep breath, probably to steady herself.

Indigo sneered at him and slipped into her vampire guise, her pale violet eyes switching into their lapis blue state. “Let’s fight. I’ve always wanted to get my claws into you.”

He arched a brow and licked his canines while surveying both Lucya and Indigo.

“I said leave... this is my fight.” Elena stepped in front of him, blocking his path. He growled at her, showing her that he wasn’t about to do anything she told him to. “You have more pressing matters to attend to.”

He noticed she was already calling up the magic. He could see it building between her hands as she muttered something beneath her breath.

“Don’t you...” He started.

She clapped her hands together. His surroundings shifted, the scenery spinning at a dizzying speed and making him queasy. When the world came back into focus, he was in St. Mark’s Square.

Prophecy doubled over, clasping her stomach tightly and trying to steady her insides.

“... Dare.” Valentine finished his sentence.

She looked at him. He was kneeling on the floor, a surprised look on his face. She pushed herself up onto her feet, closed her eyes and waited for the floor to stop pitching and the world to stop wobbling.

She reached out to Valentine, who was getting to his feet, but before she could touch him, she felt a pull inside of her. It felt as though the magic had been sucked out of her and her body was a sudden void. Valentine dropped to his knees beside her, resting on all fours and grasping the pavement as though he was trying to steel himself against something. He changed into vampire guise and then back into human form before his face screwed up in pain.

“No!” He breathed and dug his fingernails into the paving as though he was holding on for dear life.

Feeling her power return to her, she crouched beside him and placed her hand on his back when he growled in apparent hurt.

“What is it?” She frowned down at him and felt her heart wrench when he looked up at her with a lost expression, his mouth moving but forming no words. “What’s wrong?”

His brows furrowed. The look of pain in his eyes increased and she swore she could see tears forming in them.

“Lucya.” He pushed the word out in the quietest of whispers.

She snatched her hand away as though he’d burnt her with his words. Her chest tightened, her brows meeting in a frown as she looked at him. He searched her eyes and she noticed that he looked even more hurt now that she’d withdrawn her comfort from him.

“She is... gone...” he whispered.

She couldn’t stop herself from gathering him to her when she realised what he was saying. She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his while he clung to her, holding her tightly and burying his face into her neck.

Lucya was his sire and Elena had killed her.

She’d seen vampires who had been devastated by the loss of their sire. The bond was irreplaceable and once it was broken, the child was left feeling empty and lost. She tightened her grip on him, not wanting to hurt his shoulder but desiring to hold him as close as possible so he knew that he wasn’t alone.

She could feel his breath against her neck and his fingers bunching the material of her shirt as he held onto her where they knelt together on the floor. Her fingers played in the shorter hair by his neck, trying to soothe him as best she could.

“Everything will be fine,” she whispered into his ear and savoured the feeling of him in her arms. She could feel him trembling and could sense his pain. She pressed the smallest of kisses to his ear.

Her eyes opened when she felt him nuzzle her neck. He let go of her shirt and flattened his palms against her bare back underneath it. She swallowed hard when his teeth scraped against her throat. A shiver of desire echoed through her. Her fingers tightened their grip, drawing him closer while she silently begged him to go through with it and bite her.

“Valentine...” She started and tensed when she saw movement in the shadows. “We’re not alone.”

He released her, his eyes still lapis blue and his canines still sharp. She looked at his mouth, the desire to kiss him rising up inside of her and making her forget the possible danger she’d just seen. She was surprised when his eyes dropped to her lips. She wetted them, anticipation building in her stomach and chest as she waited for him to make a move.

She was about to close her eyes when a roar broke the still air.

“Damn it,” she growled.

When she looked at Valentine, he was getting to his feet, his face back in human form. She sank back onto her heels, muttering a string of obscenities under her breath and then trying to find a bright side to it all. She supposed that if he had kissed her, she would have spent eternity wondering if it had just been because of the pain of losing his sire.

She took hold of his hand and smiled when he pulled her up onto her feet.

Two broad-built vampires were approaching them from one side while another three came from behind. They were moving slowly. She cursed the sky as fat raindrops began to fall, saturating the pavement in the blink of an eye. The thunder rumbled overhead, the lightning illuminating the wet square. Her senses to sharpened in order to compensate for the effect the rain had on them.

She took a deep breath and shifted into vampire guise. She flexed her fingers, waiting for the vampires to make a move to reveal which family they were from.

Valentine growled as they approached. The hairs on the back of her neck rose and the marks on her skin prickled. She gave a thought to the amulet in her pocket and her hand hovered over it. The temptation to use it was great, but she couldn’t risk the distraction that putting it on would cause. She had to focus.