His Forbidden Mate

The sounds, the music, and chants thumped through Anna’s chest like a second heartbeat she had never felt before. Lights from the bonfire flickered through the trees and woods, casting shadows over the faces of her laughing friends. The night was thick with liquor, laughter, smoke, chants, and in something else she couldn’t figure out or point out. A strange and yet mysterious tension filled the air, like the woods were afraid of letting out their breath. She stood at the edge of the corner far away from the dance floor, a bottle of liquor in hand, eyes drawn to the lonely and darker part of the forest. Her friends danced and shouted behind her, but her attention was hooked and captivated by something unreal, something deeper. A whisper. A pull. A force. A dare. Maybe it was just the liquor……or perhaps it was her magic. Anna wasn’t like the others. She had never been. While her friends chanted for fun, she knew the lift and weight of real curses and spells. While others feared ghost stories, she lived a reality of being something old_something more, and something powerfully strong. Her grandmother had warned her again and again: “Curiosity is a witch’s curse”. She moved forward off the trail and into the woods. As she walked deeper, the noise and sounds of the outside world collapsed. The forest hushed. Anna felt the weight of centuries in the stillness, as if the trees whispered hidden secrets only to those who listened deeply. Her eyes were searching for something unknown, something her soul once encountered And then she saw it. She saw something large and big covered and hidden but couldn’t figure out what could be inside, she walked gently and swiftly her hands off the dirt at the surface of the casket. A large casket lay beneath, hidden by roots and overgrown moss. The surface of the casket has symbols hinting at a tale of either power, loss, or a curse, which she didn’t recognize but somehow understood the signs and symbols written. Anna squats beside it, breathing profusely, heart racing continuously as she tries to open the casket with some chants and symbols she had never tried, letting her soul take over her, she races her fingers through the ancient symbols as she continues the chants. She felt strange things surrounding her but despite continued, not her but her soul persisted in knowing more about the legend inside the casket. Her eyes were utterly shut with no distractions, only focusing on how to open the cursed and puzzled casket. There’s this force, this spirit, this fulfillment she felt. Like a bond never wanting to depart ever again, a bond willing to last forever. Anna’s sweat dripped down her body, her body unwilling to let go, her soul trying so hard to break the cursed casket. She chanted, hummed different words and then, she found the tone, that one tone to unlock the casket. A c***k split through the lid, glowing like a fiery flame as Anna stumbled back in shock. “What the hell…….?” A low growl echoed from within. Anna’s instincts screamed at her to run_but her leg wouldn’t obey her. Magic covered her to the ground, not from her, but something far more archaic and ancient. The casket opened with a grinding noise that echoed through the woods as if the earth would submit to it. From this within, a hand surfaced, clawed, dried blood and dirt. The man who surfaced was like something from Luminaria, like a dream…….or perhaps a nightmare. Bare-chested, covered in dirt, his long dark grey hair freely spreads on his shoulders. His eyes glow with an eerie yellow in the dark_ intense, focused, and feral. His cold demeanor shielded him and his skin contains scars like war has its own story in them. Scars that would be unable to heal and cure. The pains he endured but still fought to the end. His eyes were cold and fiery looking for his long-awaited enemies. Her breath stilled and her legs seized. His gaze fell on hers. “You”, he scraped, voice low and strained from decades of silence.” You woke me “ “I….I didn’t intend to,” I was just passing through, she stammered. He stepped out of the casket to reach her, to feel her. His presence mangled the air itself. The wind was quiet and the tree seemed to worship in silence. Anna's hidden power emerged from her, trying to reflect, but didn’t strike. It recognized him. It knows him. A wave of warmth and tension swept over her as she could hear her heart beating fast. This inhuman creature wasn’t just mysterious and dangerous. He was bound to her. Connected. Fated. She knew it in her blood, in her veins. “Who are you ?” She asked almost in a whisper. His eerie yellow eyes narrowed “You carry her scent, her blood….. “Whose”? She asked waiting for a quick reply, her ears alert to grab something unknown. “The witch who cursed me,” he said, his voice sounding like a hidden mystery or memory untold. “Your ancestors. Witch.” Anna stumbled back. This couldn’t be true. But it was. “How….how do you know I’m a witch”, she asked almost desperately. “Through your scent”, he took a move forward. She felt the bond tighten, their bonds embraced. A red thread tied between them that is invisible to the world, but undeniable. A bond that can’t be broken nor a thread cut off. It’s a thread that bonds souls together, even after dying, their souls will meet again in another body. A soul that can’t be tampered with. “You are not her”, he said at last.” But your soul…it summoned me.” The blood in Anna’s veins turned to ice. Everything in her life, every mindset, every scary yet strange dream, every shadow, every vision had led to this moment. To him. She didn’t know his name yet but she knows one fact. He wasn’t just any man, he was a mysterious being in a casket and was forgotten about for centuries. And now…..he was hers.