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nbsp; The simple prayer calmed her mind and solidified her focus. If she continued in this way, she would have no problem supporting the protective shield through the night. She would soon be reaching out to Mastyr Malik as well to arrange for a meeting. Once she ended things between them, she would be able to fully turn her attention to keeping the colony safe.
The wraith community had been part of Ashleaf Realm for more millennia than the current ruling wraiths even knew.
And beneath their cottage-like homes, established in the largest meadowland in Ashleaf, beat the heart of the Nine Realms like a living force that Willow felt even now.
She gained her strength from that beating heart and allowed the vibrations from within the earth to rise and cover her.
She could breathe more easily now.
Suddenly and without warning, however, the image of Malik once more intruded within her mind, but not in the sense of needing or wanting him. Instead, the beating heart of the realm connected her to Malik so that right now she could feel that some kind of terrible despair had overtaken him. Because Malik carried the weight of his realm with him at all times, she knew the sorrow he also bore that half-breeds died so often in Ashleaf.
And she knew without having to be told that more of her kind had died and his sadness became hers.
Her heart reached for him and because she could feel the earth’s vibrations, a present-moment vision came to her that brought tears to her eyes. She watched Malik fall to his knees over the bodies of a family of four elves murdered viciously with an axe, the way The Society killed half-breeds. She knew the family because she knew every realm-person in Ashleaf known to have a full-blooded wraith for either a grandparent or a great-grandparent.
Her heart felt bludgeoned as she held the vision within her mind.
Tears now flowed down her face just as they flowed down Malik’s.
As one-quarter wraith, she knew the stigma that all half-breeds bore in Ashleaf, and that each realm-person with even a hint of wraith-blood would one day be targeted for extermination by The Society.
She pulled out of the vision and opened her eyes, wiping at her cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt.
She rose from the small space and moved to the window that she’d thrown open for the night. Ashleaf Realm had dozens of night bird species that chattered and called out until dawn. From the thirty foot height of the meditation room, she could see down into the shallow stream at the foot of her oak-based complex. Frogs croaked and some of the larger birds waited to catch a meal near the stream.
She stood there for a long time, just staring down into the stream, listening to the frogs and the chatter of the birds.
Sadness clung to her for a long time as well as thoughts of Mastyr Malik and what it must have been like for him to enter the elves’ home. She wished she could ease him and console him at such a terrible time.
Instead, her duties lay elsewhere. She knew what needed to be done, and she made the difficult decision to go immediately to Birchingwood and to finally speak to the man she’d been craving for the past two years.
CHAPTER TWO
Malik walked slowly out of the home of the cobbler elf and his family. He tried to wipe the blood off his hands, but couldn’t. He had blood on his leathers, his boots, the bottom edge of his Guardsman coat.
He’d knelt in the spilled blood because there was nothing else he could do. He couldn’t bring the family back to life, shore up their horrific wounds, or make the blood disappear. All he could do was kneel, take a moment, honor the dead.
The killer had used an axe.
He leaned against the front porch post, shading his face with his hand. The attack had been incredibly brutal, worse than anything he’d witnessed before, which meant he was sure the family had been tortured.
He’d seen a lot of bloodshed in his life, but the little, twin boys had only been toddlers, maybe two-years-old, if that. Nausea now accompanied his usual stomach cramps, and his mind still wasn’t functioning right.
A village woman, a troll and a good neighbor to the family, approached him. She carried a basin of water in her arms, and a rag dangling from her hand. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “We know one day you will make this right, Mastyr, and that you will end The Society forever.”
He stared at the tightly compressed ridges of her forehead. He didn’t blink as she began wiping the blood from his boots and his Guardsman coat.
As she performed this grief-laden service, he glanced up and down High Street of Birchingwood. He had twenty of his Vampire Guard standing watch at intervals. Many realm-folk wept openly and more than one woman wailed her distress and her grief.
He glanced up at the treehouse level, two and three stories above the ground. Many occupants of the homes up there stood along the rope walkways that led from tree to tree.
Some of the realm-folk wept, some just stared at him in mute horror. Others looked distastefully satisfied by the killing. His realm was completely divided and all because of Mastyr Axton and The Society.
Still struggling to bring his mind to order and absorb what had happened, he didn’t know how much more he could take.
An agent from the Realm Investigative Unit was already inside working the crime scene with his forensics team. But they wouldn’t find much. The killers associated with The Society were well-trained and employed illegal charms bought on the black market to shield their deeds. None of the neighbors saw or heard a thing, even though the family must have screamed in agony through their ordeal.
