Chapter 197: The Witch’s Feast

DINA’S POV

I stumbled out of the storm and into a lonely path, the trees closing like shutters around me. The moon cut a cold scar through the branches. I  screamed at it until my throat burned.

“Moon Goddess!” I spat into the white, “whoever blessed this world with mate bonds, I curse you. I curse the wound you sewed between chests. You made the strongest men soft because of the damn bond. How divine! How original!”

My voice broke on the last word. For a long second I just stood there, chest heaving, the scream faded into the night. Anger rolled through me like a fever.

The image of Malrik…his smirk, his mate clinging to him…burned behind my eyes. I had pictured him as a weapon. The perfect distraction for Leo Ashton. Instead, he listened to a soft voice and turned his back on the blade.

Coward.

I hit the ground hard. The dirt bit my palms. I let the cold crawl under my skin and I laughed…a short, empty sound. It cannot end this way, I told myself. It will not.

All hope was not lost. It could not be. There was one more place to go. One more person who would jump at this chance to win back what he had lost.

He would take the bait, claw at the world to get it back. He would be hungry. He would be mine to hone.

Although it might seem difficult to get him on my side, I just have to try. It’s not like I have much of an option, anyway.

I pushed myself up and steadied my shoulders. I had to prepare. Supplies. Spells adequate enough to shield me. The perfect entrance that will leave them bewildered.

The journey would be hard. I acknowledge that. But it’s one I’m willing to take to destroy the Ashton legacy for good.

Malrik’s threat scraped at the back of my mind…his treacherous voice promising to spill the truth if his mate was harmed. He thought it would stop me. He thought he had leverage. He did not scare me. He never had. Nobody has ever…not even the moon goddess in all her might.

I scoffed in the dark and tasted the iron of my own contempt.

Let him whisper. Let him run to his palace friend. Soon I would serve him the very war he rejected today. I would place it before him on a plate, and he would choke on what he had begun. It would be finished fast. It would be clean.

A small smile crawled up my face. I began to hum a tune under my breath…a thin thing, almost a prayer, almost a chant.

The sound steadied me. I began making mental notes of what I needed to prepare for this particular trip.

I set out down the path to hunt supplies and thought with a kind of cold joy about the next move. The forest was quiet. Too quiet. The smell of damp earth and old leaves filled my nose, and somewhere a fox cried.

Then I heard him before I saw him. Footsteps. Human. Clumsy.

The soft crunch of boots on dead leaves. A lone figure stumbled into view…a mountain explorer, eyes hollow with thirst, a pack slung crooked on his back. He looked as if he had been walking for days, lips cracked, tongue a dry stone.

He froze when he saw me. “Please,” he asked, voice ragged. “Do you know where I can find a stream? I’ve been walking for miles and I need water.”

Something in him moved like a bell in my chest. He was exactly the sort of curiosity that wandered into caves and cliffs. He would have wandered right into my nets if I let him keep going. Fate, perhaps, had decided to serve him to me.

I smiled…small, patient. I pointed him toward the ridge where the last of my victims had been seen.

“There’s a stream over the hill,” I told him. “Follow the old deer trail. You’ll find it before dusk.”

His shoulders relaxed. He thanked me like a man relieved to be saved and I watched him go. The satisfaction that rose in me was slow and clean, like honey poured into cold iron. A meal had found me instead of the other way around. It made my mouth wet.

Stupid human. He didn’t even bother asking what an old woman like me is doing in the middle of nowhere, carrying a staff.

What happened to their survival instincts?

I licked my lips and followed him at a distance. My steps were soft. My breath matched the rhythm of the forest. I moved like the shadow I had always been, pleased to see the world handing me what I needed.

It was time to prepare for the journey to reach the last option on my list.

The forest was silent when I stopped. The air hung thick…too still, too heavy. The moon watched me, pale and merciless, as I stood in the clearing, clutching my staff. My body ached, every vein screaming for a feast. I was running out of time.

I made a little sound and he spun around so fast. He looked up at me, confusion and fear crossing his face. “Are you okay? Do you…do you need help?”

A slow smile crept onto my lips. Help. How sweet. How stupid.

“Come closer,” I whispered. My voice was honey and smoke. “I need your help.”

He hesitated, but the spell was already weaving itself around him. The air shimmered faintly. My fingers traced the ancient sigils in the air, glowing faintly red.

“Sleep,” I murmured. “And see what I want you to see.”

His knees buckled. His backpack fell to the ground, rolling into the shadows. Then came the tremors…the signs that the nightmare had begun.

His eyes moved beneath closed lids as the illusion unfolded. I could see what he saw. That was part of the magic. His mind was my canvas.

At first, it was his home. The warm kitchen light. A woman’s laughter. A child’s toy on the floor. Then the walls began to darken, the sound twisting, warping into a low hum that shook the floor. The woman turned, her face melting into ash. The child’s laughter became screams.

I whispered softly, shaping each vision with precision. The more fear took hold, the stronger I felt.

He began to shiver, his body arching against the invisible weight pressing down on him. Shadows crawled beneath his skin, and his breath came out in sharp, broken gasps.

The ground pulsed beneath my feet. The forest trembled. I felt the energy flood through me…raw, electric, intoxicating. My veins burned, and for the first time in months, strength poured back into my limbs. My body glowed faintly, my fingers steady once more and my youth renewed.

This was how it worked.

I don’t just stop at stealing their lives.

I steal their terrors too, draining them until what’s left is only their skeleton.

Their nightmares were currency, and I was rich again.

“Look at you,” I whispered, watching the trembling man. “A creature so easily undone by his own mind.”

I lifted my hand, and his nightmare deepened. The forest around us melted into smoke. He stood at the edge of a cliff, the whispers of his lost family calling his name. He moved toward it, his voice cracking as he begged for it to stop.

Ah, the breaking point. Always the same. Always beautiful.

His screams echoed through the valley, and my laughter joined them…high, sharp, unrestrained. It wasn’t the laughter of joy, but something else. Something fractured.

When the spell faded, he collapsed. Silent. Empty. His eyes were open, staring at nothing, his mouth open as he took his last breath.

I stepped closer, looking at his bones and licked my lips. His fear had fed me well. My skin no longer felt like ice. My body no longer shook.

“Rest now,” I said softly. “You’ve served your purpose, mortal.”

The forest began to stir again. A cool breeze brushed my face. I tilted my head toward the moon, smiling through the faint glow that returned to my veins.

“Ah… pure ecstasy,” I whispered to the night. “How easy it is to take what I need.”

Then I turned toward the shadows, the thrill of power humming beneath my skin.

It was time.

Time to prepare for the journey ahead.

There was still one more name on my list…

one last soul desperate enough to join me.

And this time, I would not fail.