The Vampire & Her Witch

”Jocey is probably safe from everyone but Owain,” Ashlynn said, clenching her fists as her voice grew cold. ”If he grew impatient with the poison’s progress and took matters into his own hands...”

”I understand,” Nyrielle said, gently placing a slender, alabaster hand on top of Ashlynn’s hand. ”I’ll reach out to Marcel, but at this distance, there are limits, my darling...”

”I know,” Ashlynn said, nodding her head at her lover before holding out her other hand with the wrist turned up. ”If you need my strength, you can take what you need,” she offered.

”It isn’t my strength that limits things, my sweet,” Nyrielle said, taking Ashlynn’s hand and bringing her lover’s wrist to her lips, bestowing the lightest of kisses right above the veins that pulsed with the intoxicating lifeblood of a powerful witch. ”It is Marcel’s ability to respond that truly limits us, and even if I drained you to the last drop, it wouldn’t offer any strength to him...”

”I know,” Ashlynn said, biting her lower lip anxiously. ”If we need to send someone...”

”Patience, darling,” Nyrielle said, placing a finger on Ashlynn’s lips. Already, she could feel the echo of Ashlynn’s heartbeat within her chest beginning to race as anxiety over her sister gnawed at her heart.

Ashlynn might not have forgiven Jocelynn for betraying her secret to Owain, but if there was one thing that was certain to send the young witch’s emotions rampaging out of control, it was the idea that Owain or anyone else would harm her sister before she had a chance to confront her about what had happened between them.

Nyrielle had been working hard since their return to the Vale of Mists to keep Ashlynn focused on her vengeance against Owain. Decisions about Jocelynn could wait until after she’d freed herself from the nightmares of her near-death at the hands of the man she’d married.

But now, with Bors Lothian’s death, and Loman here in the Vale of Mists, where he couldn’t restrain his ambitious brother, everything in Lothian March had suddenly become much less stable, and even Nyrielle couldn’t pretend that Jocelynn wasn’t in danger because of Bors Lothian’s sudden and unexpected death.

”Kiss of the Void: Whispers From Darkness,” Nyrielle breathed as her eyes became dark pools of infinite night, glittering with what looked like the light of countless stars suspended in the midnight blue of a gaze that no longer saw the world of the living around her.

”Marcel,” Nyrielle whispered as the temperature around her plummeted enough for a faint layer of frost to form on the silver goblets sitting in front of her and the others at the head of the table. ”Bors Lothian is dead. Where are you, and what happened? We need to know what you can tell us...”

For several tense moments, no one moved as her whisper drifted across the surface of the Void, searching for her distant progeny. Some in the room didn’t even breathe while everyone waited for Nyrielle to hear a response from Marcel.

”He’s close enough to Lothian City to reach it by tomorrow night,” Nyrielle said as the darkness slowly faded from her eyes and they returned to normal. ”He’ll learn as much as he can, and return to us the following night.”

”I know that you’re anxious, my darling,” Nyrielle said as she pulled the trembling witch close to her. ”But in two nights, we’ll have the answers you seek, and we can decide what to do from there...”

”Thank you,” Ashlynn whispered as her hands clung tightly to her lover’s lithe figure.

It had been more than a week since she learned that Jocelynn had been the one who betrayed her. More than a week since she summoned a thunderstorm in her heartache and fury while she tried to walk all the way to Lothian City to confront the sister who had inflicted a deeper wound in her heart than the husband who tried to murder her.

In the days since then, she’d cycled through everything from a deep, incessant desire to see her suffer the way she’d suffered as a result of that betrayal to a gut-wrenching fear that Owain would do something to Jocelynn before Ashlynn could put an end to his miserable life...

Now, with the news that Bors Lothian had died, Ashlynn was afraid that she’d made the wrong decision when she let Nyrielle carry her home on that cold, rainy night. And if anything had happened to her sister because she’d chosen to stay the course on her plans, she didn’t know if she would ever be able to forgive herself.

At the opposite end of the table, Loman Lothian felt more alone than ever. His world felt incredibly dark, and all he could see through the mist that formed at the edges of his vision was the group of people at the head of the table, gathering around his sister-in-law to comfort her as she fretted over her sister. Meanwhile, Loman’s father had died, but no one...

”Loman,” Liam Dunn said, placing a hand on the Lothian Lord’s shoulder. When Loman turned to look at him, he found that the Dunn heir was standing over him with a fresh goblet of wine in his hand and that he’d just set another one in front of the young Lothian lord.

”To your father,” Liam said, spilling a few drops of wine on the floor before lifting his cup to take a sip. ”Whatever else he was to the people here, he was a good man. I’m sorry you couldn’t be there at the end.”

Loman might have had his disagreements with the Lothian Marquis, as had his father, but he couldn’t deny that Bors Lothian had done his best to rule well and that he seemed to genuinely care for his family. And perhaps, there was a small kindness in the timing of Bors’ death, because Liam was certain that the Lothian line would end when Lady Ashlynn claimed her vengeance against Owain. At least this way, Bors wouldn’t be alive to see his lineage end.

”I’m sorry too,” Loman said as he picked up the cup with a trembling hand, spilling more than a few drops on the floor as he repeated Loman’s gesture. ”To Father,” he said, raising his cup slightly before he took a deep drink. ”May you find your way to the Heavenly Shores... if such a fate awaits any of us at all... I hope you can find your way there and that mother is waiting for you...”