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The words hung in the air like a blade waiting to drop. Hands shaking, her skin ice cold, she flinched as his lips brushed hers. The crowd around them clapping as the priest stepped forward. His eyes on Talia. His voice soft.
“It is time,”
Time. Time for what? She knew she should know this. But staring at the two rings on her hand, it was taking all her willpower not to throw up.
With a gentle touch, the priest led her towards the altar. Simone, standing nearby, carefully unrolled an ancient, fragile parchment. Her eyes barely glancing at her as she laid the parchment out.
Talia’s whole being trembled as she gazed at the dates and names on the scroll.
Draven’s name had been inscribed multiple times in the entries, each separated by one hundred and fifty years.
But it was the feminine handwriting next to his that made her throat close up. The names were all different, but the handwriting was hers. Every name written next to every date had the same curls and dips that she wrote with now.
How many times had they had forced her to write her name next to his? How many times did she know or not know what was coming next?
“Sign your name,”
She blinked away more tears and looked down at the felt-tip pen the priest had pressed into her hand. Draven had already signed and dated the parchment with today’s date. Her twenty-fifth birthday. Unable to stop them, her tears spilled down her cheeks, one following immediately after the first.
Every instinct screaming at her as she pressed the tip of the pen to the parchment. Signing this meant death. She knew it in every cell and fibre of her being.
But it wouldn’t be her that Draven punished. She could withstand that. No, it would be Ghost. The only person, other than Hyde, that had shown her any kindness. Just the thought of the red-eyed alpha shot a twisting pain through her.
Hyde.
He had almost died because of her. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, let it happen to Ghost. Not when she could stop it.
Taking a deep breath, she forced her hand to be as steady as she could. Writing her name next to his. Sealing her fate.
Simone’s face was impossible to read as she rolled the parchment back up. Sliding it into an ancient scroll case and handing it to a dark robe acolyte. Two more cult members stepping forward to clear the altar. Revealing the metal cuffs that had lain out of sight under a silk chalice cloth.
By the gods, this was going to happen. Nobody was going to rescue her. Her grandmother was missing and Hyde was laying half dead in a bed somewhere.
Her blood thundering in her ears as her chest constricted painfully. Every breath seemed less than the one before it. Talia’s eyes flickered around the room.
Every door had been closed. The silk drapes were being pulled off the walls as ancient dark glyphs were revealed. Most of the sitting vampires had moved the chairs in stacks to the back and stood waiting as the cult members moved around them. They had rolled the carpet covering the silver pentagram up. As members took their place.
A slow repetitive chant sounding as one by one, the acolytes and vampires raised their voices in the ritual that they all seemed to know. The hairs all over her body rising as power started to build. Filling every inch of the room.
Over a hundred people were in this room, and every single one of them had come to witness her execution.
Watching Simone lift the sheathed knife from the altar, Talia took a step backward. Her eyes watching the blade be pulled free, as Simone brought it to her wrist with a sure practised stroke. Dripping fresh red blood into the chalice that Damascus held under her bleeding wrist.
“Ghost,” Draven’s voice beside her, making her jump. “Help Talia to her place”
Ghost didn’t hesitate and took her hand, leading the way forward. The blood on her fingers was still wet and fresh as she led Talia to the end of the altar. Where a small stone step waited. Struggling to breathe, Talia fought not to pass out as everything in her screamed at her to run.
To get out of there before the magic they were raising trapped her completely. Before the knife that had now been handed to Draven to add his blood into the chalice. Was used on her.
Meeting Ghost’s eyes. Her heart breaking a little more at the sight. Tears had filled the wolf’s eyes, escaping to run down her cheeks, even as she moved her hands to push her forward.
“It’s ok” a whisper was all Talia could force out. “Don’t blame yourself for this”
Talia gathered her dress and lifted it as she climbed up to the altar, pulling herself onto the blood stained slab. The cold marble was unyielding under her hands and knees.
Was this the same altar he used every time? Her heart beat loud in her ears, her breath hitching at the thought.
Her eyes lifted to the sky as she lay down, watching the clouds drift by and block the moon from view. She couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran through her entire being as Ghost locked a metal cuff around her wrists. Pulling her arms together over her head. Before moving to lock her feet in a similar position.
