The Prophecy (Saga of the Chosen Book 1) Read online

  Raoul took in the scene with a comprehensive glance. Beside him, he heard Hawk gasp softly at the tableau in the moonlight. Raoul directed Hawk to the leech with a wordless gesture as he approached the girl. She shrank back from him as he sat on his haunches on the floor before her. Raoul attempted his best to look non-threatening.

  “It’s okay. I’ve got you now” he said softly, his touch gentle on her as he tried to ascertain her wounds.

  She flinched away from him with a small sob and cradled her mangled wrist protectively to her chest as if to ward him off.

  Thrown in at the deep end, Raoul attempted to calm the terrified girl huddled before him. More at ease in the rough and tumble world of Pack politics where sheer strength, unabashed power and a ruthless streak stood him in good stead, he had no experience with anything like this. Raoul took a deep breath. It was imperative he determine the extent of her injuries. A vampire’s bite could have many unpleasant consequences.

  He crooned softly to the traumatized girl, trying to comfort her.

  “Shh … you’re safe now. It’s okay. I have you … shh. Let me see what the lee ... vampire did to you.”

  “It’s okay. I won’t let anything happen to you. Shh … I’ve got you.”

  She relaxed gradually, as the soothing litany of words washed over her. Eventually she used her uninjured hand to swipe the curtain of hair off her face and gaze directly at him. Something had managed to penetrate her haze of terror - his words or perhaps the soft crooning of his voice.

  Enormous gray eyes, shimmering with unshed tears gazed straight at him. An involuntary and watery hiccup followed as the gray eyes stared at him in awe. She saw a golden-skinned tawny-haired giant with heavy-lidded glittering gold eyes full of concern. He saw a petite girl with olive-toned skin, a piquant face dominated by enormous gray eyes and wavy dark brown hair that hung to below her shoulders. The eyes brimmed with unshed tears and one fat droplet splashed down over her left cheek. He raised a callused thumb to wipe away the single tear, his palm cradling her face while the gold eyes held her gray ones. She nestled her cheek in the large palm - the gesture one of implicit trust. Raoul felt something squeeze deep in his chest. He used his other hand to gently tuck her hair behind her ear.

  “You good, Big Eyes?” he inquired softly. “Where does it hurt?”

  She offered her injured wrist to him like a child. It was covered in blood. Raoul swore silently as he probed gently with his fingers to find the bite. There was an inch-long ridged scar at her wrist.

  “I’m going to try and clean the wound, okay? It won’t hurt too much” he reassured her.

  He waited patiently for her assent before standing up to pull off his t-shirt and tear a couple of strips off it. The torn up t-shirt was used to carefully wipe away her blood until he’d exposed the single ridged wound that still bled sluggishly. The wound didn’t resemble any leech bite he’d ever seen – there were no puncture marks. He bound the wound with the clean strips from his t-shirt, hoping to stop the bleeding. They needed to get her back to the Lair as soon as possible to have the doctor examine her. The girl’s body shivered suddenly, either from reaction or cold. He put his arms around her slight body to cradle her to him, attempting to impart the warmth of his body to her. Slight shudders continued to rack her occasionally though she stayed silent and lay passively against him.

  “What the f--k” Hawk exclaimed from behind him.

  Raoul turned around to face Hawk, making sure to keep the girl’s face turned away from the leech on the ground that Hawk was bent over.

  “It’s dead, Alph! The leech – it’s dead” Hawk exclaimed under his breath, unable to believe his own words.

  Raoul, gifted with acute hearing, quirked an inquiring eyebrow in response.

  “How dead can the Undead be?” he inquired dryly.

  “He’s gone. Like, I don’t think he can resurrect. He might as well be ash” Hawk responded, puzzled by the vampire’s unusual death.

  What the hell, Raoul pondered. How was that even possible? As far as they knew, the only way to make sure a leech could not resurrect was the old wood stake through the heart maneuver.

  “Let’s make very sure, Hawk” the Alpha warned.

  There were more urgent matters to take care of before they could afford the luxury of contemplating the puzzle of one very dead leech. Hawk gestured at the girl Raoul held within the circle of his arms, silently asking his Alpha how she fared.

  “She’s fine” he responded softly. “Need to get her to Doc.”

  Hawk nodded, comprehending the urgency of the situation. He glanced at the dead vampire one last time before casting his eyes around the room. His gaze came to rest on the only furniture in the room – the bed. He gestured mutely to his Alpha, pointing at the bed the girl sat on. Raoul murmured soothingly to her as he clasped her more securely to him, before swiftly arising to his feet. He strode out into the corridor with his fragile burden, making sure to keep her face angled away from the room. There was a sound of splintering wood as Hawk smashed up the bed and then, a few seconds later, the sound of wood crunching through bone. The girl’s only response was to wind her arms tightly around him and bury her face in the crook of his neck.

  “It’s done, Alph” Hawk called out softly from behind him.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  With Hawk leading the way, the two Shifters strode down the long corridor to the stairs they’d ascended in search of the girl. Noise from the fierce fighting downstairs met them as they neared the staircase. Sara came flying up the stairs to ram into Hawk before he could get out of her way. He steadied her with his arm as she peeped around him to catch the attention of her Alpha.

  “It’s bad, Alpha” she said urgently. “They’re not giving up. There’s at least fifty of them downstairs and more are streaming in.”

  “Shit” Hawk swore softly. They had eleven Shifters including Sara, the Alpha and him.

  “Sara, call Duncan and ask for reinforcements ASAP” Raoul directed. “Hawk and I will join the fight downstairs. I’m going to teach the leeches a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry” he stated softly, an underlying menace in the cold tones.

  Nestled in the strong arms, Tasia could only marvel dazedly at this whiplash of cold menace from the same man who’d shown her so much gentleness just minutes before.

  The two men raced downstairs to be greeted by a nightmarish tableau of fighting Shifters and flying vampires. The fight raged on in the cavernous main hall that covered most of the first floor. The hall, like the floor upstairs, was not powered by electricity. Instead, it was illuminated by the candlelight generated by six sets of candelabra – three on each side of the room, set high up towards the ceiling. Most Shifters retained their human forms though a few of the smaller beasts had shifted into their animal forms to wade into the crowd of vampires coming at them from all angles. Torn and bleeding body parts lay strewn around in a gruesome scene.

  Raoul noted that the long hall had another doorway to the other end, away from their access through the staircase. The leeches seemed congregated near that end of the hall as increasing numbers of them came crawling in through the open doorway. On this side behind him was a small foyer that opened out towards the main entry to the house. They’d need to hold this end of the hall to ensure that their reinforcements could get through to help them. Raoul estimated that they had maybe ten minutes before they were completely overrun by the sheer numbers of leeches streaming in. He needed to buy a little time for the Shifter reinforcements to get here.

  He set the girl down carefully against the wall by the hall entryway. She seemed listless and passive, drained by her daunting experience and the blood loss she’d suffered.

  “I’m going to get you out of here” he promised, the gold eyes meeting her pain-filled gaze with confidence. “Hold on, Big Eyes, and stay close to Hawk.”

  He turned his attention to Hawk next.

  “Watch over her, Hawk. No matter what happens,
do not leave her side” he commanded. “The leeches want her badly enough to fight for her. And I want to know why. Leave the fighting to me and signal me when the reinforcements arrive.”

  “Got it, Alph. They won’t have her.”

  The Alpha directed a final glance at the girl huddled on the floor and then he was gone, disappearing in a flash into the dark mass of fighting bodies.

  Hawk bent down to crouch before her.

  “Hang on, Tasia” he said urgently. “The Pack is here and we won’t let anything happen to you” he attempted to reassure her.

  Tasia nodded weakly, leaning back against the wall that propped her up. Her wrist throbbed and the poison from the Blutsauger’s bite rendered her weak. Fear and pain clouded her mind, making everything around her appear like a dream.

  A huge roar rent the air. The Shifters moved into higher gear to fight with greater fervor as their Alpha Protector called them to the fight. Tasia watched in a daze as vampire bodies were flung in the air in a grisly rain of torn body parts. The vampires with torn and mangled limbs attempted to flee the fight. They’d regenerate eventually but it would take some time.

  Her position by the hall gave her a vantage point to watch the battle unfold. Hawk fought with deadly intent beside her to keep any stray vampires away from the girl he guarded. The odd thing was that the leeches seemed mostly disinterested in the young wizard. As the haze cleared slowly from her mind, Tasia realized that the Shifters fought in unison to a plan. This was no mere jostling for position – the Shifters were intent on incapacitating as many of their prey as quickly as they could. They tore limbs, heads and whatever else they could reach with teeth, nails, claws and bare hands to fling the disabled vampires to the other end of the hall. Their intent was to hold this part of the hall from the vampires. The Shifters did this while moving preternaturally fast and with seemingly tireless strength while dodging the limbs and fangs of the vampires that flew at them. At first glance, the Shifters seemed to be winning the fight but Tasia could sense that they were slowing down. Despite the vampire bodies piled up on the other end of the hall and the vampires attempting to flee the scene, a steady drone of fresh vampires kept streaming in through the open doorway across the hall from her. It was only a matter of time before the Shifters were outflanked by the sheer numbers against them.

  Tasia straightened up to focus on the fight as the gravity of the situation pierced the dream-like mist pervading her. The Shifters could certainly do with a little help to prevent being overwhelmed by the ever-growing vampire horde. Hawk and his Alpha had come for her with the Pack in tow and she’d be damned if she let them get overrun by their opponents. And these were Blutsaugers. The most dangerous of all Chosen when it came to her. She had to help the Shifters win this encounter any way she could. Most of the fighting seemed to be concentrated away from her towards the latter two thirds of the long hall. When a few vampires did manage to get through the protective wall of Shifters to her end of the hall, Hawk seemed to rout them fairly easily without breaking a sweat.

  The easiest option would be to separate the two sides of the hall. That way the fresh wave of vampires streaming in through the distant doorway would be cut off from this end of the hall. It would make the number of vampires a lot more manageable for the Shifters and allow them to get a handle on the fight. If she was right about their strategy, it would also help the Shifters in their goal to hold this end of the hall. She would create a wall of magic to do the deed, Tasia decided woozily. Erecting a barrier was fairly simple magic. The hard part would be to make it act like a sieve. Allowing Shifters to cross through any magic barrier she built while it simultaneously held off vampires would be second nature to her. One could almost say that her brand of magic had been formulated to specifically target the Blutsaugers! The tricky part would be to allow vampires to cross over to the other end of the hall but not back to her side of the magic barrier - a kind of one-way sieve for the Clan. Tasia hoped that would give the Shifters some breathing room to ponder their next move or until their numbers were more even.

  Her wrist still bled sluggishly but Tasia needed it to bleed more profusely to power her magic. Her magic would be tested by the combined power the Clan would throw against it once they realized that they were caged in. She closed her eyes to focus better as she relaxed against the wall. A quick zap of her magic helped ram rapidly healing bite wound. What would the Clan say if they ever found out that she’d exploited the blood from a bite one of their own had given her to bolster her magic against them tonight, Tasia mused grimly.

  As her blood dripped through the make-shift bandages around her wound, Tasia concentrated on marking the boundaries of the magic sieve she intended to construct. For her plan to work, any barrier she erected would need to be anchored very carefully at just the right points along the opposing walls of the hall. Once she had marked the boundaries, she started filling in the magic sieve, constructing it much like a spider weaves his web in concentric circles that move gradually away from the epicenter. In some ways, it was similar to Mfector work, Tasia mused in tired amusement, although the magic in this case was much more powerful and complex. The blood that flowed through her newly reopened wound weakened her, but it also increased the potency of every ounce of magic that Tasia worked.

  Raoul was the first to notice that the leeches seemed unable to cross an invisible barrier isolating the hall to a third of its size. He and his Shifters had slowly but steadily been pushed back towards Hawk and the girl as the vampires flooded the hall in a constant stream. He observed that Ian fighting in his beast form seemed to have no trouble crossing the invisible barrier. Raoul didn’t waste much time pondering it. Whatever was going on here, he intended to take full advantage of it. He’d gladly take anything that helped them stave off the hordes of leeches pouring through. Even a few extra minutes might just buy enough time for the Pack reinforcements on their way here. Raoul redoubled his efforts to fight his way through to where Hawk held off the vampires from the young girl, ruthlessly flinging leeches in his path to the other side of the invisible barrier as he went.

  “Shifters, to me” he roared in the ancient tongue of Wyrs. The Shifters converged towards him, drawn by the command of their Alpha and the invisible threads of ancient magic that bound them to him.

  As his Shifters fought their way towards their Alpha, it became clear that the leeches couldn’t follow them to the end of the hall he had summoned them to. As more Shifters became aware of the invisible barrier, they made short shift of routing the remaining leeches to fling them over the barrier that held them caged to the other side of the hall. A wall of leeches tried desperately to cross the barrier by flinging themselves en masse against it. It proved insurmountable for the leeches hit the barrier only to slide off. A sudden shout heralded a large contingent of Shifters led by Duncan. They poured in through the main entry and into the hall.

  “Duncan” Raoul roared. As Duncan’s eyes snapped to his Alpha, Raoul spoke to him in the ancient tongue “Get everyone out. Something’s keeping the leeches back but I don’t know how long it’ll hold.”

  Duncan glanced at the leeches throwing themselves frenziedly against an invisible barrier only to bounce of it before a new wave of them stepped up to attempt it again. His jaw dropped open in sheer shock. Raoul almost laughed out loud at the uncharacteristic sight – Duncan was the most self-possessed man he knew. As Duncan collected himself to order the evacuation of Shifters to the Pack transportation that awaited them outside, Raoul turned his attention to the girl the leeches had fought so hard to hold. She sat still with her eyes closed and her injured wrist cradled in her lap. To his alarm, her wound now bled through the strips of the t-shirt he’d tied around it. A small pool of blood around the hand lay testament to how much she’d lost in the twenty minutes he estimated that he’d been gone. Hawk had probably been too busy keeping the leeches off her to notice. Raoul ran towards her as he heard Duncan roar a final order for the Pack to retreat towards the cars. It wou
ld be ironic indeed if they lost her after the fight the Pack had just put up for her. The girl lay almost comatose, her pulse very faint. Her eyes remained closed but she continued to mumble unintelligently as he sank to his knees before her. As he attempted to scoop her off the floor carefully, her eyes opened with an effort.

  “Cannot leave. Not yet” she muttered. “Need to help you.”

  “We’re good, Big Eyes” he reassured her. “It’s time to leave!”

  Yet she resisted, her gaze focused towards the barrier as her lips moved softly in a chant. A staggering suspicion hit the Alpha suddenly. It couldn’t be, could it! This was very powerful magic – he should know. How could this little slip of a girl have this much power, he wondered. Raoul stared at the girl in absolute disbelief, oblivious to the hubbub around him as Duncan made sure his Alpha’s orders were followed quickly and efficiently.

  He lifted the girl’s chin gently to meet her gaze.

  “Did you do that?” he asked, awestruck despite himself at the power in her.

  Pain-filled gray eyes met his dazedly. Before she could answer him though, he heard Duncan call out to him urgently over the pandemonium.

  “We’re done, Raoul. Need to leave now!”

  He wasted no time in picking up the girl to head out at a dead run to the SUV door that Duncan held open for him. Duncan clambered in after them. The two buses and set of SUVs carrying the Pack peeled away simultaneously from the curb, tires screeching in their hurry. The girl now lay in a dead faint on the seat between Duncan and the Alpha. Raoul could barely feel her pulse and her wrist continued to bleed. He glanced back to see some of the leeches come running out of the nesting house. If there’d been any doubt in his mind at the girl being the source of the magic in the hall, the leeches stumbling out took care of it. The barrier had collapsed without the power to back it up – either because she’d been removed from the scene or because she had succumbed to unconsciousness. The released leeches were essentially harmless. They wouldn’t dare fight the Pack out in the open – it would draw unwelcome human attention and break the Supreme Edict.