MIAI opened my eyes and my eyes suddenly and I was back to that same horrible vision, the one where I was trapped in a casket, as if this day could not get any worse.A sudden fear gripped me as I began pounding on the walls and roof of my very small and restrictive prison, screaming at the top of my lungs and scratching at the walls and roof too.It was a very powerful feat of panic so it took me a while to understand what was going on.This vision was different from the last one, in the last one, I couldn’t breathe, I was gasping for air while screaming and struggling to no avail but this time around.It felt as if it wasn’t quite me that was imprisoned, sure there was panic and the same tight space and lack of air but at the same time, it was as if the fear and frustration I was experiencing was not my own but in fact that of another person being channeled through me.I took a deep breath and tried to calm down, I had to get a better understanding of the situation.‘Looks like som
MIA"What?" I asked my mouth ajar, I could not believe what I just heard."Wait, what exactly do you mean? How, how do you know?" I threw a load of questions at Bastien.Bastien sighed, he looked visibly tired, "I have to apologize to you all, I thought that by keeping quiet, I would protect you and keep you from getting hurt but it turns out the very danger I thought I was protecting you from seems to be out to get you regardless of my efforts.""Which dangers? What are you protecting us from?" Javier asked."For starters, the fact that Leo was your father, I didn't want to hurt you, Javier."Javier's eyes dimmed and he swallowed."Can't have been easy for you either, Dad, finding out that mom your mate cheated on you, you have had to carry that secret and betrayal for decades," Ivan said, his face showing his sympathy."I didn't find out until three years ago as your mom was about to breathe her last," Bastien corrected him. "What made it worse is the fact that Leo is my blood."A s
JAVIERThe longer the conversation went on, the worse I felt about myself, the things I had done, and how I had handled matters with Bastien.All along, he had been carrying all this on his shoulders alone, standing tall for all of us and at the same time, shielding us from an untold number of dangers that have been lurking around us all this while.I remembered the way I had treated him since he came back into our life and I was ashamed of myself.I should have known that the loving and caring father who raised me would not forget about me in a hurry and abandon me and Ivan. Grief and anger had a way of twisting things and blinding people to certain things and I fell victim to their influence.I let grief, anger, and Uncle Harold convince me that my dad – Bastien had somehow forgotten and left us when in reality he never did. How could I make this right? Even Ivan who was at the beginning angrier at Bastien than I had found a way to put it behind him and love him again, what was m
JAVIERI shook Mia hard and shook her again but she did not bulge. It was like she was in a coma, alive but unreachable, this scared me straight, I got out of bed and ran to Ivan’s room and woke him up with a shout.Ivan awoke frowning, “What is it this time again?” The look on his face told me he already knew it was Mia-related.By now, we are already used to this pattern, Mia has a hugely emotional moment, we try to console her, we end up making out, fall asleep, and then wake up to a shout.It was the way things were around the penthouse now, neither of us could go to sleep and hope to wake up blissfully in the morning.“Come, quick, it happened again, she woke up after thrashing around in bed, had a similar look to the one back at the warehouse, said some cryptic thing like ‘he’s coming,’ then fell back asleep, and now, she is refusing to wake up.” I gave him the cliff notes of everything that had happened.Ivan got out of bed and followed me back and had his turn trying to wake h
MIAI was so shocked to hear the voice of Leo and I dropped the bottle of vintage wine and ran back into the living room.Everyone had the same puzzled look on their faces, "I'll make sure he was not followed," Ivan said before darting outside. He came back soon after and shook his head, "It's all good, he is alone." "That was the same thing that Mia said in her sleep," Javier admitted.I was shocked to hear that, "What do you mean, when did I say that?" When did I say such a thing? I had no memory of ever saying such. What was Javier talking about?Leo roused himself and managed to look up at us, "You need to help me, I have been bitten."Bastien's face grew dark with caution as he shook his head, "It's impossible Leo, there has not been a way to save a wolf who has been bitten in centuries.""I risked my life coming here because I know I can be healed here," Leo shot back. "Won't die without at least getting the help I came for.""What the hell is going on here?" Ivan asked, his ga
JAVIER Watching Mia collapse in that ritual circle took my breath away, I could not breathe because I thought for a moment that she was dead.All the questions came rushing back, why didn't I stop her from carrying out this crazy plan? What was I thinking letting her go ahead with it? Was this the price of being a supportive mate? I should have been as stubborn as Ivan, if both of us had held out long enough, maybe we would have been able to convince her to back out but even as I thought so, I didn't buy it."Javier, snap out of it," Ivan said, perfectly reading my emotions and train of thought, "She is still alive, this is not the time to freeze up. This is the time for action.""It's not safe to enter into the ritual circle yet, stay out of it for now," Bastien warned, a worried look on his face. "This is all your fault, you talked her into doing this," I said, grabbing Bastien by his shirt collar. "Mia is a grown woman, I didn't talk her into anything, I presented her options a
MIAThe inside of Rylee's mind was not at all what I was expecting, it was just a long brightly lit narrow corridor with lots of doors, the corridor seemed to stretch on and on and on forever, endlessly, each door had a different color and no doubt held a different memory, this was worse than a maze. At least a maze had a starting point and an ending point, this was the opposite, an unending hall of memories. How the hell was I going to find what I was looking for here? Where did I even begin?'Lynn, are you still there?' I asked.'I am right here, Mia,' Lynn replied.'What next? How do I go about finding the right memory? There are a lot of doors,' I walked closer to one of the doors and looked over it carefully, 'there are no labels, no engravings, no nothing. How can I tell the right one?'The sheer number of doors was overwhelming but I tried my very best to maintain my cool and calm. I would take them one after the other if the need arose. I had gotten this far, and there was no
MIAWhy did it have to be a dead end of all possible places I had to run into? This was no doubt done by Rylee since as she had proudly boasted she was in complete control here.I had no other choice now, I had to fight. How exactly? I had no idea but I was not just going to stay there and allow myself to be mauled to death by this monster that was coming towards me with killer intent.Suddenly, the door directly opposite to the one I had entered was covered in a bright light and a woman stepped out of it moving faster than a speeding bullet, she got to the wolf just before it could use its claws on me, laid one hand on its back and it shattered into a million specks.Just like that, the big menacing monster was reduced to nothing in mere seconds. I had to blink to avoid getting eye damage from the brightness of the light that had just come out of nowhere, it was still shining and had only just begun to dim.I squinted and brought down my right hand that was guarding my face and took
MIAThe next few days were all dark and gloomy, we had won the war but the cost was heavy and it was felt by everyone of us, most of all was Javier.For the first few days, we just holed up in the isolated house that Leo had found and there we passed days as we all tried to come to terms with what had just happened. But today was the day, the day we said goodbye for good.Ivan and Leo had decided that we would all mourn our dead on the same day. Leo handled all the preparation, that was the least that he could do, he said.The first few days were the worst, Javier blamed himself for everything even though we told him that it was Rylee’s fault that he had that evil put in him in the first place and even though he knew this himself, he still blamed himself.How could he not? I sympathized with him and as he hurt, we hurt too. He killed Olivia and then also went ahead to kill Bastien when trying to kill my mom who was protecting him from killing his own brother.It was a very horrible ex
MIAWhat was going on? I was supposed to be dead was I not? Instead, everywhere seemed bright and happy.Not the dark and cold embrace of death that took hold of me earlier, what was going on? I could feel the sunlight on my face and I could hear birds chirping happily in the distance.My hands went to my chest, to where the blade was plunged into me, I felt around the skin frantic, there was no scar, no depression, no sign that I had sustained any injury of any kind at all.I opened my eyes and looked around, I had to blink to adjust my eyes to the brightness that was all around me.I was lying in a field and I was wearing a short rosy gown as opposed to the dark blouse and the tight jeans I had on when I was stabbed.I sat up, the grasses were about two feet high and they were swaying in the soft breeze that was blowing, it was all I could see for miles, a field covered in green grasses and hills all around.I got up and walked through the grasses bare-foot, there was just something
IVANWith Mia captured, it was different, we were able to track her thanks to her mother, things were happening so fast that it felt like I would not even be able to keep up.Mia had been sent away by her mother and then Javier had attacked us and defeated all of us easily, he was about to end my life, my brother, and that was when Olivia stepped in.Why did she step in? Maybe she felt responsible somehow and was trying to make amends but that didn't work, she just ended up getting killed by the man she called her bestie, it was tragic.Now we were all in Bastien's car heading towards the site of the ritual. Sarcana had been able to track Mia to where she was being held.All that was on my mind at this point was to kick down the front door and rush in to rescue her, but I knew deep down we didn't have the strength to stop our adversaries, we were most likely going for a suicide mission."How are we going to take down all those guys and free Mia?" Leo asked.That was when Sarca
JAVIEREverything was dark all around me, I was wrapped up in a cocoon of darkness and I did not know what was happening in the world around me.Then without any warning, a powerful shockwave hit me and put a crack in my cocoon, a ray of light filtered in and I reached for it immediately and tore at the cocoon until there was a hole big enough for me to climb through.It then felt like I was slowly rising to the surface after being submerged in a deep dark liquid for too long, it took me a while to fully return to my senses and when I did, I was overwhelmed and confused.The first thing I noticed was all the chanting and screaming, there were a lot of people around, wolves, I could tell and then something else, I could smell death in the air, vampires too.I had never been in the company of so many of them before then I locked eyes with Mia and I remembered what I had done to her.Not just to her, to Olivia, to my brother, to her mother, to Bastien, and Leo, oh my goodness, I was such
MIASo the ritual was going to happen in an hour, which meant that was exactly how long I had left to live. I turned my gaze to Javier with pleading and tears in my eyes.He just stood there like a robot or a statue, looking past me and not seeing anything at all.Was I really to take the words of the high priest Antonio? Was Javier lost to me? A part of me still felt that he was my last hope, that somehow he was the solution to solving the problem that was right in front of me.The wolf bane in my system made me suddenly groggy, I was afraid that if I fell asleep now, it would be my last slumber. I had to find a way to fight this feeling, I needed to be awake for my remaining time on the planet.The more that I tried to fight the sleep, the more it attacked me until I had no choice but to close my eyelids and succumb to it.As soon as my eyes closed, I realized that I was indeed in a vision. This one was different in the sense that it forced itself upon me, usually, when I fell aslee
MIA"How can you say such a thing about my mate, Javier? He is not cursed!" I countered the high priest Antonio."I did not mean to offend you, chosen one, I was just saying things as I saw it. Javier Romanov is cursed by the prophesy, he is the harbinger of doom and there is nothing you or anyone else can do to change that.""No, you are wrong, there is always a way and I will find it," I said stubbornly.The high priest shook his head at me, "There are far more precious things for the chosen one to be doing than fixating over a lost cause.""He is not a lost cause, stop calling him that."He got up from his meditative stance, "We have waited for the chosen one for a while now and here you are finally. You have a lot to learn, you need to learn how to use your powers to stop the forces of darkness that are converging. Only you can do it.""I don't care about any of that," I snapped, "I only care about saving Javier."Antonio sighed, "I have told you, it is a lost cause.""Then I have
IVANMy heart felt bad for Mia, having to swap her out in the middle of a serious fight like this but I was totally on board with my dad's reasoning.We could all think better and work better without Mia here, if she was not around for us to worry about, we could focus on the task of getting my brother back."Where did you send her?" I asked her mom."I..." Bastien cut her off."Don't tell him," he commanded."What? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I said, anger rising in my chest."It's not what you think son, better if only she knew exactly where Mia is, for security reasons.""You think that I would rat out my mate's location if I get tortured or something like that?""You might not have a choice, Rylee is a powerful psychic. The only one among us here that can counter her mental prowess is Sarcana. So it is best if only she knew where Mia was and besides," he looked at Leo, "You might not rat her out but someone else here might.""Great, keep treating me like a criminal wh
MIAMy mother's words filled me with a sense of doom and gloom and made me sick to the stomach. How could she say something like that? Did she not know what Javier meant to me? How could she say that there was nothing we could do about it?We just got him back after he had been on the brink of death for so long, and now we were losing him again to some strange curse that I had never heard of.Was it not possible for us to catch a break? "Mom, c'mon, you can't say that there must be something we can do to help him."She shook her head sadly at me, "I am sorry dear but this situation is out of our hands, all we can do now is take precautions."Leo was not having any of that, "Maybe you might have hit your head a little too hard because I think you said that Javier cannot be helped. Or am I the one who did not hear you right?""I'm sorry, Leo, this is dark magic, there is no way out of it," Sarcana said to him. She was more apologetic than usual."Like hell, there is nothing we can do? W
JAVIERIt was a shock to me that I was standing right there, so close to her. I wanted to reach out and rip out her throat but my body would not let me do that.I cussed inwardly, this was bad, by the looks of things she was the one responsible for what was happening to me, if I could just take her out, the spell or whatever the hell this was would be broken.She was still smiling and had not yet answered the question I asked her earlier, I repeated it with much difficulty, the dark liquid that I was drowning in made talking very difficult.“What the fuck do you want from me?” I said baring my teeth.“There is no point in a puppet asking its master what the goals of the master are. Its job is just to obey wordlessly and move as the master pulls its string.” She said and laughed hoarsely.I took another step forward, “I am not your damn puppet you sick witch, tell me how to break this spell.”She stopped smiling and locked eyes with me, “Why the hell would I do something like that? I c