The Dark Witch And Her Knights

25

I turned back to Arbor checking his injuries. Gavrial had gotten a few good hits to his face. His lip was busted and his teeth were coated in red. The swelling and early signs of a bruise were forming at the corner of his eye.

"Why didn't you fight back?" I nearly snarled at him.

His look said it all. Gavrial was right and he deserved what he got. He had expressed how he thought he deserved worse. Was I to a fool of the curse? It didn't matter what mattered is that I chose for myself to survive. To do what I must at any cost. And I had to prove it.

I got up and headed out the door leaving Arbor on the floor of the cottage to simmer in his wounds. I thought to offer him assistance with knowledge of herbs he could use for his wounds, but then I remembered I was his new apprentice nor did I think he wanted to heal his abrasions.

Following the path of kicked-up leaves and steps imprinted in mud heavy with anger till I found Gavrial knelt in the center of an opening in the wood. The trees created a perfect circle around a patch of white flowers. The moonlight shined directly down upon him in the middle. An athame hand raised toward the moon and a fist dripping blood next to it. He chanted in Latin trying to break the curse over me.

"Gavrial," the wind carried my whispers to him. "Stop, It will not work."

Although there was a distance between us, I had to take a step back when he turned to me with such hate in his eyes. Rising to his feet he stomped towards me, hands wrapped around my arms ending the retreat I unknowingly started. One of them moved to my blouse pulling the fabric to view the mark. My doubt in Arbor had brought back the black veins. They were small but I could see them.

"It is the curse that fogs your mind. I will never stop trying to break it." His hands clasp around my face in a tender caress he had never shown me before. The feel of his blood was wet against my cheek. "Arbor has taken what was not his to take and may have doomed us all. You have no idea the damage he has caused."

"Do not stand here and think for one moment that I did not try to fight this. The more I tried to rid myself of this curse the more of my life it stole from me. The lives of others out there are more important than me throwing a fit over who I've been chained to for the fulfillment of this damned prophecy. If I don't fight, it stops trying to kill me. I chose to start a relationship with him so that at least I can save the people out there counting on my life. I chose to accept the curse I could not break. I opened my heart to him so I could live. So others could live." My mind was being poisoned by the curse long before I gave in to salvage it. To free myself from its inky clutches, I had to do something. Never thought I would tragically fall in love with Arbor and I couldn't tell Gavrial that.

"You will save no one with him at your side. The prophecy will be fulfilled but not in the way you think. Your reign as queen will bring nothing but darkness and pain since you were not meant to be his. You don't understand," he stopped himself and pulled my face toward his, joining our lips together.

I went to push back and force him off me but he was faster and stronger gripping my wrist in his large hands. His kisses continued and I eased into them slowly remembering our time together in his home by the sea. I tried to fight him off thinking this was another training method of his. He was too handsome for me. Strong, wise, smart. I could go on for days with reasons why he was too good for me and why I never allowed my eyes to linger too long on him or let myself desire him in any way. What the hell was he thinking?

I pushed harder freeing my lips from his. "Stop," I demanded. "What are you doing?" He reached down picked me up and threw my legs around him. My instincts kicked in and I held on with my thighs trying not to fall. My hands wrapped around his neck briefly till I felt his hands cup and squeeze hold of the flesh of my ass through my dress.

I began swinging at him fully aware that he was walking us through the flower patch back to the center. Directly under the full moonlight. A hand had slid up my back, between my shoulder blades, forcing me closer to his large chest, and shortening the distance I used to create haphazard blows. Tightly he held onto my wrist and dropped my weight into the middle of the field. Not once did his grip ease so I could run.

Forcing me to my knees he used his free hand to pull the athame from the deep pockets of his long jacket. "You were never meant to be with Arbor. What he has done has set off the dark side of the prophecy and I must break the curse before it is too late. You will forgive me when this is over."

The hand clenching the athame yanked back his sleeve and sliced a deep welt of red across his wrist. The blade fell to the ground fingers tangled with my hair forcing my lips to his cut. "Drink," he demanded and I resisted for the life of me until he forced it upon me. His blood was irony but sweet, salty, and not. When his blood hit my tongue I immediately sensed something was happening to me. Slowly my eyes closed and my muscles began failing me one by one. His body gently collected mine before it could fully collapse.

I could hear him whispering in Latin above me.

"Et sanguis meus, anima mea,

Omne maledictum non potes habere,

Liberate me alia maedia,

Ut deum ira nec faciem meam."

Lighting and thunder cracked loudly around us. My skin felt oddly tingly and charged with power. Then came the pain, gut-wrenching pain. My body arched as I screamed out. Gavrial's hands wrapped around me tighter as he started to rock us back and forth. The feeling of rain came over me, swiftly drenching us in the tears of the stars.

"Et sanguis meus, anima mea,

Omne maledictum non potes habere,

Liberate me alia maedia,

Ut deum ira nec faciem meam."

He continued to bellow his chant in Latin, screaming up to the skies above. The pain in my chest grew shockingly worse. I would attest the moon herself had reached down from the night sky and tried to rip out my poisoned heart.

***

Et sanguis meus, anima mea,

Omne maledictum non potes habere,

Liberate me alia maedia,

Ut deum ira nec faciem meam.

-----

With blood of my soul,

No curse can hold,

Free my other half,

Or may the gods face my wrath.