The Destined (erotic paranormal) (The Breeding Prophecy) (5 page)

BOOK: The Destined (erotic paranormal) (The Breeding Prophecy)
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re
dressed her in gauzy white pajamas. “Would you like to take a walk in the garden
later this evening?”
he
suggested
.

“Under the full moon?” she asked. At his nod, she agreed with delight. “I would love to.”

“Good. I will return to bring you more food if you like.”

“As if you need to ask,” Cassandra replied dryly. The need for food was the only constant in her life as long as she was gestating. “Something crunchy,” she added. “And salty.
But don’t bring me a pickle.

“No pickles, I promise. I will do my best to find something that will satisfy your craving.
Until then, you need to rest.”

She sighed. “All right but only because I am pretty tired. You took all my energy,” she
teased, smiling with genuine happiness as she snuggled down into the soft bed
to sink into an exhausted sleep filled with nice and naughty dreams of her sexy Alpha beast.

***

Cassandra awoke to Serra sitting beside her. It was disconcerting to find the woman who openly hated her had been watching her while she slept. “What are you doing?”

“I’m leaving,” Serra said, her expression curiously flat. Cassandra expected tears or venom but Serra offered neither. “It seems I underestimated Tieran’s affection for you. I was mistaken in believing I was his True Mate. In our kind, we mate for life. I’d been raised believing that I would be the one to stand by
his side. But fate had a different plan.”

“I’m sorry,” Cassandra said,
empathy lessening her animosity. She could understand Serra’s feelings at the very least.
She shifted, putting more distance between her
self
and Serra. “Where will you go?”

Serra, who had been staring at her hands, looked up. “Does it matter?”

“Well, yes. I know you think I’m some terrible person but I never meant you any harm. I didn’t even know about my heritage, much less your relationship with Tieran. We don’t have to be enemies.”

A small smile lifted the corner of her lips but her eyes remained cold. “You share our DNA but you know nothing of our ways. We cannot be friends. Tieran was right to send me away. I cannot make a life here with you and Tieran playing the happy couple. While his heart is closed to me, my heart still beats for him. It will take time and distance to heal that wound and I cannot do that here.”

“I understand,” Cassandra said quietly. “I love him. I will be a good mate for him.”
Serra’s lack of response felt like a cold slap but Cassandra didn’t blame her. It was a difficult situation all the way around. “For what it’s worth…I’m sorry for everything you’ve lost.”

Serra attempted a half smile but Cassandra could tell it was all she could manage. Serra drew a halting breath and stood, gesturing to the plate of cookies on the nightstand. “The cookies are from Hannah,” she explained, as if knowing she needed to explain that they didn’t come from her.
She didn’t offer any niceties or pleasantries, or even a polite inquiry as to the babies, and frankly, Cassandra was grateful. She didn’t think she could successfully make small talk with Serra after everything that’d happened.

Maybe someday, after things had settled…Cassandra watched as Serra closed the door behind her. How awful. She could only imagine the pain Serra was in. Cassandra sighed and rubbed her belly just as it grumbled. “Hungry again? If I didn’t have the metabolism of a hummingbird I’d be a two-ton cow by now,” she said to her stomach as she reached for the largest chocolate chip cookie on the plate. Hannah, the clan cook, was a dream in the kitchen. It was no small tragedy to wolf the cookie down in two big bites.
However, b
y the third cookie, Cassandra began to feel sick. Sweat dotted her hairline and a general nausea rolled across her belly, cramping her gut until she doubled over in pain.
Her babies squirmed frantically in her womb and Cassandra was gripped with the knowledge that something was terribly wrong.

Tieran!% iad I was

She stumbled from the bed and crumpled to the floor, her last thought a desperate attempt to shove her fear into Tieran’s brain so he would come running.

But as she began to lose consciousness, the door opened again and Serra slipped in, silent as the grave. She picked up the plate of left-over cookies and stared down at Cassandra with open contempt and every ounce of hatred she’d been holding back only moments earlier. Serra bent down to whisper in Cassandra’s ear. “
If you were one of us, you’d know that the Alpha always feeds his True Mate. Hannah would never send a plate of cookies to your room. You’ve taken everything from me. It’s only fair that I repay the pain in kind. You are his True Mate but you and your babies will die and Tieran will spend the rest of his life grieving for you. Goodbye and good riddance, Cassandra.”

And then Cassandra was aware of nothing more.

***

Tieran stilled as a discordant vibe washed over his entire body. He had seconds before Cassandra’s scream echoed through his mind. He gripped his head with both hands and for a moment went completely blind. He stumbled and Jandin caught him before he crashed into the wall. “What is it?” he asked.

“Cassandra,” Tieran answered, pushing off his brother and running at a full tilt to her bedroom with Jandin and Koris close behind. He burst through the door, shattering the jamb into pieces to find Cassandra crumpled in a ball, her arms cradling her belly as if to protect her babies. “Oh Goddess, no.” He scooped her from the floor and laid her gently on the bed. When he released her body, he realized she was leaking blood.

“Woman’s blood,” Jandin said, worried as he looked to Koris. “Get the vampire. He knows the most about Breeding Females. Where is Iona?” Koris immediately split the room, fast as his beastly strength could take him.

“Gone until tonight. Damn the old woman for her stubborn ways. She wouldn’t tell me where she was going or why,” Tieran nearly shouted in his fear. He leaned in smoothed her forehead with his palm. “Cassandra, talk to me. Open your eyes. Tell me what is wrong. What should I do?”

Jandin
leaned in, his nostril flaring. “There is something here…something that shouldn’t be.” He followed the scent to the nightstand and inhaled sharply. “Something was here…in this spot. Wolfsbane. Brother…” he looked at Tieran, shock in his expression. “Someone has poisoned your True Mate and the Prophesied One. Goddess he
lp us…who would do such a thing?

Tieran heard Jandin’s horrified question and realized with a sinking heart he knew the answer. “Serra,” he said, closing his eyes. “It was Serra.”

“No,” Jandin breathed, unable to believe it. “Serra is a good woman, a strong and loyal member of Clan Barrachius. It had to be someone else.”

“It was Serra,” Tieran said sharply. “I told her that Cassandra is my True Mate and she didn’t believe me. I had to send her away for her own good, so she could heal and move on. I did her a kindness and she repaid me with pain.” Tieran rose, his fists clenching. “I will kill her if Cassandra dies.”

“Brother, your justice must wait. Cassandra needs you right now.
We will find Serra. She will answer for her crime but for now…we must find a way to help Cassandra.

Tieran’s blood raged for vengeance but he realized the wisdom in Jandin’s advice and choked down his need to tear Serra limb from limb for her treachery. Cristophe entered the room and went straight to Cassandra. Tieran suffered the vampire’s presence and the knowledge that Cassandra had been intimate with the blood sucker only because Cristophe seemed bound to aid by the Gods’ hand to guide the prophecy. Otherwise, Tieran never would’ve allowed Cristophe to remain in the compound. That, and Cassandra seemed to enjoy the vampire’s dry wit
even if Tieran found him tedious and irritating.

“Wolfsbane,” Cristophe spat the word as if he’d tasted the poison himself. “Someone has poisoned her.”

“We’ve figured that out ourselves, vampire,” Tieran said, glowering. “What can we do for her?”

“Nothing.
” Cristophe tested her pulse and grimaced at her sluggish beat. “
Wolfsbane almost always takes its victim.
And if it doesn’t kill Cassandra, it will most certainly cause her to abort the twins.”

“No,” Tieran uttered the word as his heart cracked in two, not only for Cassandra but for the babies he had yet to meet.
“Do www.eroticalexxandria.wordpress.coms ad I was something.”

“I can do nothing. Wolfsbane was the poison we used on the breeding females when the need arose. I’m sorry. We’d need a miracle.”
Cristophe’s stricken expression mirrored that of Tieran and Jandin. “Maybe the Gods will favor us.”

“And maybe they have forsaken us,” Tieran countered bitterly.

Cristophe said nothing; his expression said it all.

Cassandra was likely going to die.

***

Iona’s old bones creaked and rattled beneath her thin skin and she wished she could still transform. She missed the feel of the ground beneath her paws, the feel of arterial blood gushing into her mouth as she took down prey. Ah, those were the days. Now she was stuck in this old woman’s decaying body, her mind still as sharp as ever, but her ability to do anything
more than
shuffle and limp
was
lessening by the hour. She’d known the minute she saw Cassandra, she
’d be The One. Relief and sadness followed the knowledge but when one has lived as long as she, the relief was a bit more pronounced than the sadness.

And now the time was here; albeit a bit
more quickly than she’d anticipated. Thankfully, she’d already paid her homage to the Mother Goddess for all the years she’d given her and she was ready to pass the torch.

Cassandra was dying.

She pushed aside the
wall of men standing helplessly around Cassandra’s inert body, shocking everyone with her sudden appearance. “Seer!” Tieran exclaimed. “Serra—“

“Has poisoned Cassandra with wolfsbane,” she cut in irritably. “Yes, yes, go make yourself useful and get me my bag as well as a sharp knife.”

“A knife?” Tieran repeated but Iona’s no-nonsense stare quelled his_ iad I was questions and he left quickly.

To Jandin, she said, “You must keep Tieran from this room. I must be allowed to complete the ritual in order to save her life. Do you hear me?”

Jandin nodded fearfully. No one would gainsay the Seer. “Yes. Can you save her?”

“Seeing as the fate of the world rests on her survival, I damn well
better
try,” Iona said, surprising Jandin when she cackled a short laugh before shooing him from the room. To Cassandra, she said, “You didn’t ask for any of this but you’ve handled yourself well. I know you will shoulder this next responsibility with
as much grace as you’ve shown thus far
.” From a pocket in her long skirt, she withdrew a tiny vial with a milky substance. “A gift from the Mother Goddess,” she murmured as she poured a drop into Cassandra’s slack mouth, then another, and another, until the vial was
nearly
empty.
Iona put her weathered hands on Cassandra’s stomach, felt the frantic beats beneath her palms and whispered a secret song that soothed distressed infants. “You must calm yourself if you are to live,” she said to the babies. The squirming subsided and she smiled. “Strong little Alphas,” she murmured, sighing when she realized she would never know them.
“You will do your kind proud and bring the clans together. You must end the fighting. And you will. But first, you must live.”
She checked the babies’ position and frowned. Breech. Cassandra’s eyes opened slowly as the magic of the Mother Goddess counteracted the poison but a different
threat loomed. Iona looked into Cassandra’s blearily focused eyes and instructed her firmly, “Your babies will die if you do not transform right now. You must birth them out of your human form. Can you do this?”

Cassandra’s eyes were glazed with pain but she managed a short nod. She struggled to her feet, clutching her stomach as waves of pain racked her body.
“I can’t,” she gasped. “H-hurts too much…can’t focus.”

“You will or they will die,” Iona said simply.

Cassandra cried out and focused hard, her scream cut short as her body ripped apart and knitted back together beneath her skin, transforming her into the white wolf of legend. The beast whined and collapsed to the floor and Iona quickly followed. “Now push them out, www.eroticalexxandria.wordpress.coms ad I was Cassandra. Let your body do what nature intended.”

It took several minutes but Cassandra
managed to birth two slippery bundles. Immediately, Cassandra began cleaning the babies who had come out as actual pups. Within seconds, Cassandra changed again and the babies shimmered and changed into infants. Iona marveled at the
olde worlde
magic
k
that wove itself around the babies, tying them to their mother. Iona could see the
magick as it pulsed like a living thing, a God vine to the eternal and immortal. The Mother Goddess granted
Iona
one last vision as she saw the twins, hand in hand, the male and female, tied to each other in strength and weakness, bringing the clans together after centuries of bloodshed.
She smiled, knowing her time was drawing near. She retrieved the vial from her pocket again and gave each baby one drop, finishing the vial.

BOOK: The Destined (erotic paranormal) (The Breeding Prophecy)
8.34Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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