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Flaring my nostrils, I could make out the faintest hint of a floral scent, but my magic couldn’t detect life that should be associated with flora.
Something was extremely wrong about this place.
Looking up again, my stomach dropped when I found a woman looking at me.
Not one of the witches who had raised me, but a woman with a heartbroken expression and a familiar face, even though I’d never seen her before.
Panic rushed through my senses. I hadn’t heard her coming or even seen or smelled a hint of another person nearby.
Perhaps it was the mist messing with my Hunter senses, but she didn’t approach me with a threatening posture.
Instead, she seemed devastated and elated all at once. The powerful emotions wafted from her, sending the black petals at our feet breaking from their stems to swirl into the air.
“Dante,” she said on a breath.
My eyes went wide, because the realization of who this woman was hit me hard.
She knew my name.
She seemed so familiar because she shared features with me, the ones that I had when I looked at a mirror hard enough to see past the scars.
This… was my mother.
HENDRIK
It took me longer than I liked to finally catch up with Dante.
When I did, I found him face-to-face with a woman.
Pausing a few feet away, I assessed the situation to see if this female was a threat.
Her features seemed wrong. The blood-tinged wind rippled through her skin, but didn’t disrupt her long, midnight hair.
Her eyes were a pale blue. I imagined what Dante’s might have looked like had he not been turned into a Hunter as a babe.
Because this was clearly a close relative of his. I’d recognize that stern jaw and lean physique anywhere.
“Mother,” Dante said, confirming my suspicions.
He spat the title as if it were a curse. I knelt and sank my fingers into the ashy soil of the field we’d ventured into.
My fingertips met the soft, black petals of something that grew here. Maybe not everything in this place was dead.
But for some reason, it didn’t feel alive, either.
Her familiar firm jaw flexed upon hearing the tone of how he said that word. “You have every right to be angry with me,” she said.
Gods. Even her voice sounded like his, had he been a bit more feminine.
Strong. Alluring. Full of power and authority.
I found myself intent on listening to the conversation as Dante slowly drew out his dagger. It glowed hot with powerful waves of magic.
He hadn’t even cut himself, but he’d found a new way to channel his past miseries. His scars bled all over his body, leaving a trail of red through the field where he’d walked.
“I was waiting for the day you’d come here,” she said. That’s when I noticed that she coddled something against her chest. Her fingers stroked it, but the shadows let me see what she held.
Her gaze flicked to mine, indicating that she recognized my presence. “I am surprised that you brought him with you, though.”
