Chapter 15 Ep 15

Rhys

"We can't just walk in" Taylor hissed at her Twin "If you haven't forgotten, there's still a Coven of Witches watching over the cemetery"

"Oh I haven't forgotten" he gritted his teeth "But our best friend is in there, facing God knows what alone. I'm not going to leave her there without back up"

Taylor sighed "If we don't think through this rationally then you might not get an option in the matter"

A chill swept through my body and I turned in time to see two figures approaching us from outside the cemetery's fence border.

"Heads up everyone" I growled "We aren't alone"

Two little girls appeared in front of us, smiling

I blinked

And then I blinked again

"Are you guys seeing what I'm seeing?" Matt whispered to us

"I see small people" Ethan whispered back

"They're little girls," Taylor said

"Don't be fooled" My Uncle said "Take a look at them. A good look"

I scrutinized them

They sneered at my Uncle

"Still alive Xander? We thought you've been dead by now" The girls spoke in unison

My uncle gritted his teeth "Still possessing innocent people's bodies I see"

The girls giggled, lifting their arms and twirling a little "What use do they have for them now? They're dead"

When the girls twirl, I caught sight of their bashed skulls.

Taylor and Mia gasped

"Hansel and Gretel are necromancer Witches," My Uncle said "They can infuse their magic with freshly deceased corpses to do their dirty work"

"And you know this how?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the dead little girls

"We go way back," One girl said

"Did now one else catch their freaking names?" Ethan muttered under his breath "Hansel and Gretel, like the story?"

"Exactly," My Uncle said "Except unlike the story, the two children were actually the witches"

"Ah," One girl said wistfully "Good times. Ain't that right Gretel?"

The other one nodded

"They can resurrect anyone?" Taylor asked, sounding frightened

My Uncle nodded "They can resurrect anyone unless they're headless"

I looked at him "That's why you took their master's head"

"We have no master" They snapped

I ignored them

My Uncle nodded "However, I would have taken his head regardless. He was a bastard"

He then looked at the little girls "Why are you two still here? I thought the first thing you would have done with your master being dead was to flee?"

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

"We can't," they said in unison with gritted teeth

My Uncle's eyes widened in realization and he started laughing

"You...you two made a Blood Oath with a High Ranking Vampire? I always knew you were stupid but now I know how stupid you really are" He cackled

"What's a Blood Oath?" Taylor asked me

"I don't know" I answered

My Uncle sobered up "A Blood Oath is when a Vampire strikes a deal with a Supernatural Creature. It binds them together by blood and the only way to get rid of it would be to either complete the deal the Supernatural promised the Vampire or die"

"But the guy's dead," Ethan said "Wouldn't that make their deal null-and-void?"

"Nope" Uncle grinned "Even if the Vampire you made the Blood Oath with dies, the Supernatural still has to follow through with their promise or else they suffer the same fate too"

"We should have killed you in Ibiza" one girl snarled

"Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda" he taunted

Their eyes began to glow an amber color and the ground beneath our feet began to quake.

"Oh Hell No" Ethan muttered "I don't deal with no Zombies"

Three Different hands came out of the ground from three different scattered graves

The girls clasped hands, closed their eyes, and started chanting incantations together

"Kill one of the" My Uncle snarled "One can't survive long without the other. Necromancy requires massive amounts of magic, magic in which one person can't produce enough alone"

"Won't they just resurrect themselves?"

"Yes but it'll take time to find a fresh body, time in which gives you the chance to kill the other one"

The corpses rose slowly from their grave

"I really don't think they'll be a big issue" Ethan pointed to them "I've watched the Walking Dead. I know how slow..."

Out of nowhere, the corpse attacked Ethan

"Shi..." Taylor's curse was cut off by a corpse attacking her

I charged towards the gate to get to the girls but as soon as I touched the metal bars, I yanked my hands back.

"Aconite" I hissed "How in the hell did you infuse the iron with Aconite?"

"Thank the Hunters" one smiled "That was all their doing"

"I want his body Gretel" one suddenly said "I'm tired of being a little girl"

"I think it suits you" My Uncle snarled, fending off a hefty corpse "You always were a little bit..."

The other girl cut him off in a wistful sigh "And when the girl dies, I call dibs Hans. She has such pretty hair. Plus, she's a Princess. You know how much I've always wanted to be a Princess"

I. SAW IT. RED.

"TOUCH HER AND I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL GIVE YOU A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH!" I roared

"Ooh, Gretel, I think we touched a nerve" one snickered

"So this is lover boy" Gretel, I'm presuming, said "Huh, thought he'd be cuter"

"Right..." Hans said, before pausing, his corpse's eyes going white.

Gretel's corpse mimicked his before they both crumpled to the ground

I heard thumps from behind me and presumed the other corpses dropped dead too.

Again

I looked behind the two dead necromancers possessed corpse to find a young Hispanic girl leaning against a tree, out of breath.

She gave us a weak smile, her silver eyes dimming slightly

"Come now, Aconite is disabled"

"Why did you help us?" I asked, hesitantly taking a step forward and reaching towards the locked gate.

I expected a burning sensation to start as soon as my skin came in contact with the bars but when the sensation never came, I relaxed slightly.

"Princess..." she wheezed out "Is...a...good...person"

She took a deep breath in before continuing "She will be a good leader. A fair leader. She doesn't deserve to die like this. Not when she has so much to live for"

"Works for me," Ethan said, walking fast past the girl, heading toward the direction in which the little necromancers came

"Why would you betray your people?" I accused

"Rhys" My Uncle's voice sliced through the air "Enough"

He then looked at the girl

"Thank you," he said in a softer tone "For saving us"

The girl gave him a weak smile before falling to the base of the tree

My Uncle caught her and swept her off her feet "Do you know where we're going?" he asked in the same soft tone

She nodded and pointed at a mausoleum a few yards away "In the forest behind that mausoleum"

"How do we know this isn't a trap?" Matt asked warily, narrowing his eyes on the girl

"We don't," I said simply

"Well, I called for back up," Mia said, looking between her mate and me, holding up her phone "They should be able to find us"

Suddenly, an ear-piercing shriek ran out and before I could even consciously understand what was going on, I found myself running towards the devastating noise.

Kassi

I woke up with a raging migraine 2

I moved my arms to rub my temples but something pulled against my wrist, restraining them to a cold, hard object.

My eyes popped open and I was met with the dark sky, moonlight shining brightly upon me. 1

I tried to move the rest of my body, but like my arms, they too were chained to something.

"Oh Good," a voice rang out "You'll be awake for this. For a minute there I thought we weren't going to have any fun" 3

It took me a minute to place that voice and when I did, I glared at the darkness in which David's voice sounded.

He stepped into my line of vision and I blinked away the multicolored stars dancing around my vision.

Damn it, I'm pretty sure I have a concussion.

He grazed his fingertips against the side of my face and I flinched away

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" I snarled

He laughed, continuing to graze his fingers across my face and down my neck.

"It's too bad" he murmured, his eyes grazing over my face "If only you were full-blooded Hunter. You would have been my wife" 38

"Thank God I'm not full-blooded Hunter then" I snarled

His face hardened and he raised his hand.

I met his stare dead-on, not giving him the satisfaction of flinching

A hand shot out and grabbed his wrist

"Are you dense boy?" Julian hissed at his son "We do not damage our property" 1

"She's a disobedient wolf" David hissed "She needs to be taught a lesson"

"And you need to be kicked in the nuts" I taunted 12

Julian looked at me and scowled "I would watch my words if I were you, Princess. We might not be able to hurt you right this moment but that won't be the case for long"

"Why don't you just kill me now," I said "You're obviously going to do it eventually. Why not get it over with now?"

Julian grinned "Now where's the fun in that?"

"Sir," A voice said from behind Julian "We have brought the prisoners you asked for"

"Excellent" Julian grinned "Bring them forward" 3

There were two heavy thumps to the ground

"Julian, I swear once I get free from these cuffs I'll kick you in your crooked teeth," A familiar voice said. 4

My eyes snapped to a disheveled person behind Julian and my mouth dropped open.

"Mom?" 18

Her eyes locked on mine

I watched as her face blanched in horror

"KASSI!!" She screamed, lurching forward, trying to get past all the Hunters

"Mom!" I cried out, pushing as hard as I could against the restraints "Mamma!" 31

She continued and manage to incapacitate five of the Hunters before they tackled her to the ground.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU JULIAN!" She said, her tone dangerously low and unlike anything I've ever heard from her "I'm going to skin you alive and rip every bone from your puny little body!" 32

Julian just laughed, as did the rest of the Hunters

"Do you honestly think you, an Ex-Hunter, could take me on Carrie? Things are different now than they were Seventeen years ago"

"Your right things are different" she hissed "Because Seventeen years ago, I won't waste my time-fighting scum buckets like you. However, now since you've touched my kid and hurt my family, there won't be a place on earth in which you could escape me. I'll make Satan look like God" 82

His smirked turned into a scowl "Always had a way with words"

He motioned behind him and two men stepped forward with a man between them.

"I know these past couple of weeks hasn't been easy," Julian said with fake remorse "That's why I came baring a gift" 3

The two men pushed the third forward and my heart stopped.

Literally stopped

There, in the middle of the Moonlight, stood a man. 4

His frame was tall and lanky with graying long hair and a long beard. His clothes were dirty, he had no shoes on, and was on the verge of being malnourished. 8

There wasn't really a difference between him and some random person on the street except for his eyes.

Eyes that I inherited

"Dad?"

Rhys

"Alpha, Something isn't right," Matt said "We passed that tree 6 times"

He pointed to a gnarled stumpy tree

"You're right " I looked at the sleeping Witch in my Uncle's arms.

He raised an eyebrow

"She feeds us the wrong information" I stated

"No I didn't" She whispered "The other witches are just cloaking the location"

"Well uncloak it," I said angrily

"I can't"

"And why the Hell not?" the Twins exclaimed

"Because they're siphoning her powers out of her" My Uncle explained "She barely had enough to fight off the necromancers. Whatever she had left is now gone"

"How do you know that?" the girl whispered

"I've been a Vampire a very long time now," he said "After a while, you start to develop new...traits"

"But why are they siphoning your powers?" I asked, "And I thought a Witch couldn't steal another witch's powers?"

"It's not stealing if you gave it to them voluntarily" she whispered

"And why would you do that?" Mia asked this time

"For the Wolf Moon Ceremony," Kaden's voice sounded throughout the woods.

I then turned toward where Kaden's voice was coming from and watched as he emerged from the trees with some of my Pack Warriors behind him.

"You finally found out some information about the Wolf Moon Ceremony?" I asked in surprise

"My Son found it actually," he said "After Kassi went missing, Sky decided to find out of there were any clues related to this Wolf Moon in some of the other books. When she was flipping through some pages, my son pointed out that the Moon Goddess looked a lot like Kassi"

"And that helps us how...?" I said

"Sky and your friend Shawn started digging more and found this historical website dedicated to these ancient ceremonies, one of them being the Lunae Lupus"

"Wolf Moon" I whispered

"What does it consist of?" Taylor asked

"Well, from what we understand," Kaden said "It's basically a ceremony that calls upon the Moon Goddess"

"But what does Kassi have to do with it? And the siphoning of a Witch's powers?"

"The best way to make contact with a God or Goddess is to either offer up a sacrifice of what the God loves most or to possess a personal item of a God that they can't live without"

My mind was reeling from the new information but something stuck out to me the most

"The Dimitriou line is descended from the favorite daughter of the Moon Goddess right?" I asked, waiting for confirmation

The others nodded

"And what better sacrifice would it be to offer a Goddess a descendent of her favorite daughter"

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

"But why Siphon the Witch's powers?" Ethan asked

"Good question," I said turning towards the Witch "Why exactly are they sucking your powers from you?"

She looked down

My Uncle sent her down under a tree

I kneeled and lifted her chin so that we were eye to eye

"You said it yourself," I said gently "The Princess is a good person. She doesn't deserve to die like this. She can't die, not when I just found her"

"How long have you been waiting for her?" she asked quietly

"Four excruciating long and lonely years" I answered just as quietly

An ache started in my chest at the thought of those lonely years.

Watching as every single one of my friends fell in love.

Watching as that love grew and formed into something so beautiful that I couldn't even be in the same room with them without my jealousy flaring up every time I looked at them together. 4

For a long time, I was angry at both the Moon Goddess and myself. I was blaming her for my loneliness and myself for not being adequate for a Mate.

"When a Witch is about to die, her Coven siphons her powers away from her to retain the power of Thirteen for as long as they can until they find a new witch to fill in the gap. While this practice isn't forbidden, it is very uncommon nowadays because of the lifespan of a Witch. We live a bit longer than humans and by the time we grow old, the new generation has already taken our places in the Coven. The only time we siphon a Witch's powers is when she is gravely injured or is she is about to participate in a Sacrifice"

Mia and Taylor gasped

"Why are they sacrificing you?" I asked "You're not the descendant of a Goddess"

"No," she said "But the Ceremony doesn't just call for the blood of a Dimitriou"

She stared past us, looking at something deep into the forest

"The Ceremony consists of the Sacrifice of a Wolf, a Hunter, a Vampire, and A Witch," she said "All the parties involved in Original Story"

"I get the Wolf," Ethan said "But I don't get what a Vampire, a Hunter, and a Witch have to do with it?"

"The lesser God that killed Endymion was the father of Vampires," My Uncle said, rubbing his neck like he was uncomfortable.

"Than that means Endymion himself was the Hunter" Taylor concluded

"Then what's the Witch for?"

The girl's shoulders slumped

"They're channeling you" My Uncle exclaimed after a moment "They're using you as a vessel for the magical power collected from all the Supernatural sacrifices" 5

"They're siphoning just enough power from you so that you'll be able to contribute to the ceremony but not enough to become overwhelmed with power"

"Why are you doing this?" Matt asked "You're so young. Couldn't someone else in your Coven take your place?"

"I'm a Gemini," she said

333

My Uncle looked surprised

"Cool," Ethan said "I'm a Scorpio"

496

"She doesn't mean the sign nitwit" Taylor barked "She means she's a twin"

"And what does being a Twin mean?" I asked my Uncle "And why do you look so shocked?"

"Unlike with Wolves, Twins are very uncommon for Witches" he explained "Because a single Witch fetus consumes half of the mother's magical powers in the womb while forming their own powers, it would be impossible for a mother to bear more than one child at a time without dying"

"My sister's very ill," the young witch said suddenly "When we were in the womb, I guess my body took most of our mother's powers, killing her and leaving my sister magically deficient"

"You think it's your fault" Kaden's face hardened "That's why you're doing this. That's why you're freely giving your life away"

"Isn't it?" she screamed at him "If it wasn't for me, our mother would still be alive and my sister would have been born normal. She would have been accepted in our society instead of shunned. She would have been healthy and thriving"

"Do you really think you dying would change the opinion of your Coven?" I asked solemnly "Because from where I'm standing, an outsider looking in, your powers are the only thing keeping her alive"

"My powers are killing her" she muttered "It's the Curse of a Gemini. So long as two twins live, the magical power between them is unequally distributed. Because of this, our life spans are cut short and our power supply is limited. The only way to get rid of the Gemini Curse is to kill one of us"

"And after you're gone, do you really think your Coven is just going to accept her that easily?"

"They have to," she said "They don't really have a choice on the matter"

"And why is that?"

"Because once a Gemini twin dies the surviving twin becomes ten times more powerful than they were before" she leaned her head back against tree stump "It would be stupid of them if they didn't"

I sighed and stood

"It's obvious that whatever we say isn't going to change your mind," I said before looking at everyone "So, is there anything else I should know about the Wolf Moon Ceremony?"

I was about to speak when the Witch spoke up

"They aren't going to sacrifice the Princess," the Witch said "Not yet at least"

"What?!" Everyone exclaimed, looking at her in disbelief

She ignored them, instead choosing to keep her eyes on me "I mean, how could you sacrifice the Moon Goddess herself?"

Chương trước Chương sau

Wolf moon