Everybody except Layla started talking at once. Her mentor looked at her and the newly revived mouse before losing herself in her thoughts. However, what she said next immediately stopped all the ruckus. “Kill it.”
Violet thought she’d heard wrong, but, knowing Layla and how her brain worked, her request wasn’t much of a surprise. However, Sera wasn’t following her train of thought.
“You’re kidding, Layla. What? You want Violet to crunch the little mouse between her hands?”
Violet looked up at Finn, and she saw his face so closed, his light eyes an endless pool of night. She wanted to reach out to him, make him open up and talk to her, but had to wait.
Layla put her paw on her knee, bringing her attention back. “Child, if what I think is right, you will bring this little animal back to life again.”
“How can that be possible? The only people known to bring the dead back to life are necromancers, and if they do, whatever comes back is no longer the same. That bird shouldn’t have flown or sung. That mouse is moving and breathing without an aura of death surrounding it.”
No one said a word, and Layla didn’t answer her question, only looked at her and waited.
Once more, Violet silently begged Finn with her eyes, but he seemed to retreat even deeper into the room. With a heavy heart, Violet closed her eyes, bringing her hands containing the mouse against her breasts.
All those years of training as a witch helped her channel what she guessed would be necessary to do this. Everything in her rebelled against killing anyone or anything, apart from in self-defense, but she trusted Layla.
Where before she had filled herself with love and light to make life beat this heart again, Violet replaced those feelings with hopelessness and despair. It took some time, and as she felt a tear escape from behind her eyelid, the little critter stopped moving.
Trembling, she opened her hands and sobbed at what she had done. “I’m a monster.” The words rang so true, her friends claiming the opposite didn’t convince her at all, especially when Finn couldn’t get further away.
Without thinking, she pushed her power again, and the mouse, alive and well once more, scampered away. As she watched, Violet started to feel a low burn in her belly, slowly increasing as she used her power, but still manageable enough to be ignored.
Layla nodded solemnly. “I didn’t think it possible. Light and darkness, life and death are in balance inside you. You can raise the dead, but it’s not dark magic that animates it. Therefore, it regains the essence it first had when born into this world. I now understand why Abrams feared you.”
This time Sera, bless her heart, stepped in. “Why? If Violet can now yield both types of magic, how could he be more frightened than us?”
Layla’s cat’s eyes glinted. “Maybe because he realizes more than anyone else what he no longer has and what he might lose. It’s not common to be able to give back life and take it away. I’ve never heard of a witch being cursed with another power, let alone surviving it. You’re a miracle in this world. But now, more questions are raised, such as who did this, and for what purpose. I fear that whoever this Jove is, it isn’t the end of this story.”
Violet almost didn’t hear Layla’s last sentence, as when she searched for Finn, she found him gone.
Chapter 22
After what he had witnessed, Finn’s only wanted to take Violet in his arms and never let her go. That was the man speaking. The vampire in him, the creature that had defined him over so many centuries, wanted to kill her and flee in equal measure, which tore at his heart.
There was no doubt in his mind that Violet was his beloved, but now, the witch held a power that was so unique it could destroy and reform the world. As a vampire, he was one of the creatures who threaded the fine line between life and death. The one sure thing in this world was that death was always there at the end, whatever or whoever you were. Even for vampires, the concept of immortality ultimately came to an end as there were no vampires as old as the world. At one point, just before Violet’s kidnapping, he’d been considering his own end with anticipation, and a part of him still did, although the end didn’t seem that lonely anymore. The body could envision eternity; the mind couldn’t. It needed respite, the promise of rest.
Too many emotions battled in his mind to think straight, and with his own powers and danger, he was desperate for a level head. That was why despite the treason, he abandoned his beloved and had jumped in his car. Only one person could help him straighten his thoughts and find his path.
At the speed Finn was going, the small lane leading to Soren’s cabin in the mountain quickly came into view. Deep in the dense forest, it was the weredragon and High Council member’s perfect island of solitude. Soren Racovan had always been a lone wolf throughout the time he’d walked this world, hiding from humans through the centuries and now the sole survivor of his race, if no one counted his mixed-blood daughter, Valeria.
When he parked the car beside Soren’s truck, even the quiet peace of the forest didn’t help his volatile thoughts. The bearded weredragon, who looked more like a lumberjack than a living legend, was piling wood beside the house, but stopped to come and meet him.
“My old friend.” But his smile soon turned into a worried frown. “What happened? I sense something tormenting you. Is it Valeria? Or Sanctuary?”
And for the first time since he could remember, no words came to Finn, only fury weaving with helplessness,
