Chapter Two

Of all the rotten luck. Luck that I so desperately had been counting on. I couldn't understand it. Could hardly bring myself to put the words together, even as the single word that held all the answers had tumbled from my lips.

I had prayed to The Fates to bring us answers before we left on this mission. Had prayed that this would finally bring an end to all the dangers that our families had been subjected to for decades now. And yet this was their answer to those prayers?

Ayden Fairchild-Humphris of the Voland Coven, the moon witch destined to bring chaos to my life, now made to be my mate. The Fates were always said to have some twisted sense of humor, but I always chocked it up to exaggerated tales.

And now, thanks to his distraction, Minerva had gotten away yet again. It had taken us weeks to track her to this alley. A month before that to even know to come to this middle of nowhere town. It was a cruel twist of fate that Ayden had been here right at this exact moment, as we had nearly completed the very mission that Uncle Brady had started.

All of his research from twenty years ago pointed to a darkness, with the witch Minerva, at its center. Research that he had hidden away for years, only for Rory and Baer to stumble upon it during one of their late-night library rendezvous.

We hadn't told our parents about our discovery. We had decided that The Fates wanted us to finish what our parents could not, and we knew that despite being adults, they would not have allowed us to do so without a fight.

And now, thanks to Ayden, we lost our chance with only this small and not so promising lead, as to what the witch was doing in this alley at all.

"I don't know what you mean," the vampire said, his voice shaky with nervousness.

Baer's large body blocked his path, his arms crossed over his chest, while Rory admired some potion bottles along the shelves with interest.

"Wow," she whispered. "I've never even heard of some of these. What are Reapers Bells?"

Ayden's eyes snapped towards my cousin, an obvious recognition in his widened moonlit eyes.

"Well now," he said, his head slowly turning to the vampire. "You have some very interesting items here. Now let's see." He began to run his fingers along the shelf that lined the counter before chuckling darkly as he stopped. "Just as I thought. Tell me, what do you think the council will think about you dealing in wolfbane as well as human anatomy."

I creased my brows as I looked at the item. He paused at the jar's label, nearly illegible.

Type O Negative, female, freeze-dried.

"I bought those items in a perfectly legal manner," the vampire argued, though his eyes shifted nervously between both doors.

"And the reaper bells? What legal manner did you come across them?"

Rory and I both exchanged glances then, curious as to what it was about the strange herbs that triggered Ayden's line of questioning. We were here about Minerva, not some weird illegal herbal sales.

"What the hell does this have to do with why we're here?" I asked. "If all you're worried about is some plants and human blood sourcing, then get out of our way so we can ask him the real questions."

"Back off, Rigel," he growled back at me, his eyes never leaving the vampire behind the counter. "I know exactly what I'm doing."

"As if I would trust you! You probably purposefully let Minerva get away. Don't think I didn't notice you didn't rush at the smoke like the rest of us. Now for all I know, you're trying to lead us as far from her as possible."

"Do you ever shut the hell up?" He snapped. His arms reached out over the counter and jerked the clerk over as he yanked on his shirt. His eyes glowing brighter than the moon in the sky outside and his teeth elongating as his wolf seemed to begin to take over. "Where did you get those herbs? Did she sell them to you? Answer me now!"

I stepped back as the pulse of his aura swept over the store, only Baer seemed to withstand the heavy atmosphere of his power. The power of an Alpha King. One of only three knowns to exist in this era. I gritted my teeth against submitting to the power, my own alpha side growling at the mere idea of bending a knee to anyone, least of all him.

‘Mate is powerful,'my wolf said with admiration and pride. ‘The Fates has greatly blessed us.'

‘No, we haven't,'I snapped at her. ‘Don't forget. He is destined for darkness. For all we know, he is exactly what Uncle Brady was searching for.'

I could hear her let out a low whimper, doubt pressing into my mind from her. My eyes ran along Ayden's arms, taking in the muscles as they flexed in use, holding up the vampire. I couldn't help but wonder what they would be like wrapped around me. The strength of them holding me in the air as his lips explored my body.

"There is a portal to the Forgotten Realm," the vampire cried out, breaking the trance of thoughts my wolf had been slipping into my mind.

I shook my head to rid the thoughts, doing my best to hide the blush that I could feel burning against my cheeks.

"How?" Ayden demanded, as the rest of us exchanged more confused glances.

"The Forgotten Realm?"

"Isn't that just some old bedtime story?" Baer asked.

"I don't know if I've ever heard of it at all. What story?" I asked as I looked between Rory and Baer.

"Where?" Ayden continued to question. He was completely ignoring us and our questions. He shook the vampire when he didn't answer right away, his fingers shifting to claws that dug into the papery thin skin of the undead creature. I could feel his magic then. The strange magic that only he possessed. The very magic that I suspected of darkness, despite its lack of the dark scent when he used it.

It was a control spell. His way of forcing living beings to do and say what he wanted them to. A power that could bring about world domination if used in the wrong hands. I could see the Vampire's tongue loosening even more now, unable to resist giving up the information, even if he wanted to.

"The forest just outside of town! Its scent is disguised with licorice! She leaves it open for me to collect the ingredients in exchange for free blood!"

This time Ayden seemed confused; his head tilted to the side. "Why would she need blood?"

I smirked as I realized he had no idea about her mate, the former headmaster of the Pacific Academy of Magick. Vampire John Thorne.

"It's probably for her mate," Rory suddenly shared, my gasp audible as I turned to look at my cousin in astonishment.

"Rory!"

"Her mate huh?" Ayden chuckled. "Good to know she has a weakness."

He pushed the vampire back over the counter and straightened his shirt casually.

"Thank you for being so accommodating with your answers. I promise you won't have any more trouble from me, and the council won't hear a word of your…," he looked down at the bottle labeled as blood again. "Supply choices from me."

He turned and headed for the door as I stared back at the vampire in horror over the deal that Ayden had just made. Baer and Rory followed him, whispering together before I finally ran after Ayden and pushed him up against the alley wall.

"What the hell kind of deal was that? How could you willingly walk away from an obvious illegal harvester like that?" I demanded, as he stared back at me with a bored expression on his face.

I glared back, seeing every bit of the evil that I knew he could be behind those eyes. He didn't care about what I had to say. He didn't care that what that vampire was doing was illegal. There was no telling if this so-called portal was even real, or if it was just a ploy to help Minerva get even further away.

He rolled his eyes, my fury for him growing as he pushed me away from him and turned in the direction that Minerva had disappeared in.

"I gave him my word that I wouldn't tell the council. I never said anything about you three and I never said I wouldn't tell anyone else. Like, say, my great aunt Nikini who has quarterly meetings with the council. Or my mother who is bound by her position as coven leader to report illegal activity." He looked back at me smugly. "I don't have to tell the council for it to get to them."

I growled at his tone, my hands shifting to claws, ready to rip him apart until Rory's finger wrapped gently around my wrist.

"Sasha, don't," she said, her eyes hazy as if she were halfway between this world and a vision.

"Rory?" I whispered, my eyes now glued to hers as the mist within them grew heavy and her body relaxed into the trance of her vision. "Shit! Baer!"

I grabbed her in my arms to ensure she didn't fall as I looked for her mate, only to find him in the exact same state. His large body going limp as his eyes glazed over with a vision of his own. I watched in horror as he began to teeter on his feet, the alley's ground covered in broken glass and debris before him. I couldn't get to him. I wouldn't be able to stop his fall, even with magic. Not with Rory in my arms like this.

A gust of wind exploded through the alley then, the glass and debris clearing away as the wind pressed Baer's body against the wall of the nearest building before slowly easing away. His body slumped with the wind, gently sliding down the wall and onto the now cleared ground.

I threw Rory over my shoulder and rushed to Baer to make sure he hadn't been injured in his trance, my breath coming out in a deep sigh as I found him perfectly well.

"Don't they usually have some kind of warning system, so they don't fall over like this?" Ayden asked. I turned with surprise to see him suddenly behind us, a frown on his lips as he looked down at my cousin and her mate. "Their parents are two of the most powerful Seers known today. Isn't there some kind of an evolution requirement by this point to have some sixth sense that tells them The Fates are calling."

I scoffed and shook my head. "The Fates don't give warnings. And the seers don't always fall over like this. Usually their bodies lock up, but this was different. I don't know if The Fates came to them this time or if maybe they went to The Fates."

I thought about the journal entry my uncle left as he gave up on his research. His regrets of not spending enough time with Rory as a baby and the strong vision he had received by The Fates to stop his search. How he had seemed to enter their realm and had stood before the three goddess sisters as they showed him he held no more connection to the darkness and should stop his search for answers that he would never find.

I hadn't ever told Rory about it. I didn't want her to be scared off from this mission. Something in me told me that we couldn't stop the search. That this was what we were meant to do, but I knew that my younger cousin would see her father's journal entry as a warning to stop and forget about it.

Now, I wondered what exactly The Fates would tell Rory and Baer, and if this was the end of our journey together. Because no matter what The Fates had to say to my cousin and her mate, I wasn't going to give up on finding these answers. I would go on without them if I had to. I just hoped that I didn't have to.