When I was with him, it didn’t hit me. He was speaking, I was hearing, but I wasn’t really understanding. Now, hours later, I finally got it, finally got what he was trying to say.
A relationship between a witch and a vampire was impossible. At the end of the day, there would have to be a choice—love or your magic and your family and friends. If a witch became a vampire, they’d become enemies to their coven. They’d lose almost all of their magic for the rest of eternity. Their connection to the earth would be severed, to their friends…severed. I tried to think about how I’d feel if my magic was gone, and I couldn’t imagine it. Magic was at the very core of who I was. I loved magic and would never let that go. I tried to think about my life, all the people in it now, and I couldn’t imagine it. I was all the family Uncle Axel had left. It was one of the reasons I still lived at home. We were the last two Omerons. He never spoke about it, but he’d lost his son in the same attack that killed my father.
Then there was me.
Did I want kids?
I didn’t know. That felt like a thirties problem for me, not a twenties one. But as a vampire, I would never get to thirty, at least not physically.
There was so much to lose.
My life, my world as I knew it, gone.
All for a man, a vampire I’d only spoken to three times?
Entertaining the thought was crazy enough.
And yet…
Even though I had just met Theseus, the moment we spoke, it felt like the way you dreamed i
t would be, that moment in the movies, in all my cheesy romance books where all the stars aligned and where fireworks went off in the background. The moment you just knew. Even now, I wished he was here. I wished we could talk more. For the first time in my life, I had a conversation with someone about things I liked, a conversation where I was not expected to be Druella, the ninth circle leader, Druella the boundless witch, or Druella of the prophecy. There was no magic. No fighting. And I could just be me and be weird, girly, silly to my heart’s content. It felt so natural. Who would have thought I would find so much peace right beside a vampire?
Thinking about him, I rolled over and reached for my phone, automatically scrolling through my contacts until I got to his name, and when I saw it, I smiled. I wanted to call, but he said to call when I knew what I wanted, and I didn’t know…
No.
That was a lie.
I did know.
I wanted everything. I wanted to see Theseus, to keep my magic and my family. But I knew that wasn’t possible.
I was just about to put the phone back down when it rang, and I quickly flipped it over, hoping it was him only to see Simone’s name.
“Hello—”
“Come to the cliffs now!” she hollered, and I was already up off my bed, searching for my jeans.
“What’s going on?” I asked, hearing screams on the other end of the line as I grabbed my bra and sweatshirt.
“Tala’s hurt!” was all she needed to say for me to go running out my room and down the stairs, trying to put on boots at the same time. I managed it just before I got to the mirror and went through. The very first thing I saw was Tate holding onto his sister the best he could as Adelaide flipped through her grimoire, her hands hovering over the burnt half of Tala’s body. It looked as if she’d been set on fire on her left side.
“What happened?” I asked as I ran up to them.
“We were closing the watch with the seventh circle. Everything was fine, then all of a sudden, two Noble Bloods attacked. One had this power that was like acid or something,” Jericho explained as I reached closer, kneeling beside Adelaide.
“She saved me,” said David Whitmore, the younger brother of Faye Whitmore. He had the same green eyes and red hair as his elder sister, only slightly darker even though they were only half-siblings. David bit the skin on his thumb as he shook his head. “I didn’t see them until it was too late. Tala pushed me out of the way I—”
“How did you not fucking sense two Nobles!” Tate hollered at him, his nose flared like a bull, his grip on his sister also tightening. Running my hand over her face, I slowly made her go to sleep, even as her brother’s emotions began to explode. “What good is it having you to back up the tail of the group when you barely sense vampires!”
“It caught everyone off guard, Tate!” Faye jumped up and literally used her body as a shield in front of her brother. “It wasn’t his fault!”
“It’s never their fault! It’s always our fault! We have to watch our back, and we have to watch theirs. If it were only our circle, we would have—”
“Tate!” I yelled, grabbing his arm. His eyes shifted to me, and I could feel him shaking with anger. “You’re hurting Tala. Go take a walk. We’ve got her.”
“I—”