I heard a woman’s voice, begging.
“Don’t kill her, please! She isn’t a witch! She’s just a little girl! Take me, not her! Because I’m the witch. I’M THE WITCH! I’M THE WITCH, NOT LILLIAN!”
I slammed my hands down on the breakfast bar and pressed my forehead to the counter. My mouth wide open in a silent scream.
Don’t kill her! Don’t kill Lillian!
I’M THE WITCH, NOT HER!
A woman with her hair across her face as arms grasped at her, tugging and binding. So many arms and so much strength. Too much to fight them all.
I’M THE WITCH, NOT HER!
The cold of the marble against my forehead shot into my senses enough to realise that the screams were coming from my throat, right now in the present. I heard the desperation in my own voice, just like the woman in my memory.
“I’M THE WITCH, NOT HER! NOT LILLIAN!”
I sucked in a big breath, my eyes wide as I sat bolt upright and stared over at Hans with a new sense of recognition. The tears streamed like rivers down my face.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” I asked Hans through the sobs. “I’m the witch, not Lillian.”
He reached out to take my hands. They were as pale as his.
“Yes, Katherine, that’s true. You were the witch, not Lillian.” He smiled like he hadn’t seen me in centuries. So full of love it broke through my pain.
I felt the splash as I was dunked into the lake, the jeering of the crowd muffled underwater as I fought for breath. Lillian’s screams fading in and out with my consciousness.
Hans was nodding, gripping my hands so tight.
“It’s true. Believe the memories,” he whispered. “You weren’t Lillian, you were Lillian’s mother.”
I knew before he said it.
His smile burst in and ate my whole soul in one, two magnets slamming together after centuries apart.
“Yes, my beautiful little one,” he told me. “You were Mary.”
Chapter Twenty-four
ThefeelingsI’dhadfor Hans over the past few days were nothing compared to the longing that screamed inside me as I looked upon my vampire lover through long-lost eyes.
I was a trembling wreck when he held me tight in his arms. The memories were still coming through strongly enough to have my insides twisting.
I saw a younger Hans as a Templar at Garway church, sitting next to me by the spring as we talked about life and love and our faith.
Hans had been such a pure soul, so devout and full of strong, powerful hope, and I’d been Mary, a sweet simple girl from Orcop village. Two people who loved each other’s smiles, and laughs, and friendship. And so many hints of the passion that was to come between them…
But then the world around us took it away.
The darkness kept coming for me. Memories whipping like a hurricane on a stormy sea.
“Let them flow,” Hans whispered. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m not going to let you go. Not again.”
Not again.
My body lurched at the next slam of pain, but this one wasn’t of me fighting for breath as I was drowned in the lake for witchcraft. This one was all about Hans, the man I loved.
I saw the men with swords and burning torches descending on Garway church when Hans and his friends were in prayer. They’d rounded up the men of the Church like beasts, trying to force confessions of heinous sins, and my sweet love had been amongst them. I’d been dragged back to the village, wracked with sobs, praying that God would have mercy, and I’d see my love again.