Chapter 3: Whispers In The Blood.
1189 Words
Anna had always believed the forest was still and quiet at night. But now her mentality has changed completely.
As she lay on her bed flat, looking up at the ceiling, trying to find a solution for something unknown, she discovered one fact—that silence is a muzzle.
It’s not that the trees whispered some words or the wind sent chills down her spine.
No.
It was that something that occupied the stillness.
She sensed it, she could feel it.
It hardened her breath, her heart tightened, a sudden heartbeat that wasn't her’s. It was constant, slow, devilish, dangerous… and awakened.
Oh.
Damon.
She turned around facing the other side, her hands on the duvet tightened. The full moonlight waving through Anna’s window painted silver across her floor. She told herself she had been delusional and mistaken that the night in the forest had been strange plays of shadows, liquor, and laughter.
But deep down in her heart, she couldn't fib to herself anymore.
Not when she could still sense him and also feel his presence.
That sounds, initial fragrance earth, and something dangerous—had ensconced itself in her remembrance. It had stuck to her skin and grasped in her heart long after she left the forest.
She rose suddenly, the cloak plunging from her shoulders. Her armoire narrowed, and the atmosphere in her room felt too hefty to breathe.
Someone was with her, she wasn't alone.
Something dangerous and devilish.
Anna’s stare flickered to the window. It was open which she didn't quite understand. She was sure she had latched it before departing for the party. The gloaming atmosphere was unmoving, but it hauled a coldness that crept under her skin like a prophecy.
Her heart sank but she kept her stand awaiting what was coming.
Her charms swirled. A faded vortex of warmth spiraled in her palms, but before she could invoke a spell, she heard it—
“Little witch.”
The voice was down and low, a string of sounds that swam into her ears and through her spine.
That voice felt familiar.
Her head lashed out toward the window, but nothing was there nor was someone being fetched out. Just moonlight and the limitless latitude of dark beyond the trees and woods in the forest.
She inhaled sharply. “Surrender yourself or you die,” she said even though she was scared.
Quietness. Then, so faint she almost overlooked it, a chuckle.
As if someone was mocking her, or making fun of her.
It wasn’t mortal. Something devilish and tempting.
Anna’s heart skipped. “If you think you can scare me…you’re…”
“You’re already scared.” The words were nearer now, almost down to her ear level.
She looked around, but her room was empty, with no sign of anyone else.
Her breath caught in her throat. She could feel something connected, something combined. The red thread between the two of them—that feeling she had in the dark forest—was buzzing again, tighter and closer this time.
She retreats backward slowly as her legs hit the bed. Her magic sparked in defense and security, but deep down in her heart, she knew the truth: magic wasn’t meant to protect and shield her from him.
It yearned for him.
It wanted him.
Damon’s POV
The little witch, Anna, didn’t know how easily he could wander into her room. She didn’t know that her wards—the faint shimmer of magic strung across her window frame—were child’s play to him.
But he didn't cross the verge.
Not yet.
Damon stood there, in the shades of the full silver moon watching and reading her with the silence of a wolf.
She was slimmer and smaller than he had recognized her kind to be.
Anna’s hair was scattered from her sleep, her lips parted in anxious breath, her hands cold and trembling as she could feel and sense him but couldn't figure out where he was.
He could listen to her heartbeats—fast, quick, unsteady. It fitted and matched his own.
That shouldn't have been possible.
He had been locked up for centuries, bound by blood witchcraft in a coffin deep down beneath the forest and woods. Moment, time had eroded everything—his pack, his enemies, his rivals even the countenances of those he onetime treasured and loved. But the time she opened the coffin, the seal, something in him awakened, he felt new.
Her fragrance, her scent had struck him like a dagger through his chest.
Warm honey. Wildflowers. And beneath it… the sparks of magic and chants of spells ancienter than both their bloodlines.
Fate.
He despised that word.
And yet, as he watched her now, every intuition, every instinct cried out the truth—she was his.
Not just a mate.
The mate.
The one, the old witch prophecy had whispered about in the dark, the one tied and bound to him through blood, spells, magic, and affliction.
But the curse was the difficulty.
If he took her—claimed her—his rivals would find her too. And they would eradicate her.
If he moved away, the power between them would devour him until there was nothing left to eat.
For the time being, he would watch her in silence.
Learn.
Discover.
Stay.
Anna
The atmosphere in her room changed again, the anxiety cooled down, stilled, as if he had moved away.
She didn’t know why, but she felt his absence like sharp pain in her heart as her pulse tightened. She was still cold and anxious, but something in her still wanted his presence, something in her still yearned for him wishing he hadn't gone.
The thought startled her.
She closed the window, drawing the curtains shut with jerky movements. Sleep was far away from her as she sat down on her bed.
Her mind was unstable as her mind ran through what happened in the forest, the way his eerie eyes glowed differently and the weight of his presence as if the forest were afraid of him.
And one thing.
His voice.
She would dream of that voice again, she was certain about it.
Anna sat at her desk and pulled out an ancient leather-bound book—a family heirloom filled with spells, afflictions, and prophecies. She scanned through its pages until she saw the passage on werewolves.
Her heart raced and her mind was still when she saw it:
Beware the cursed alpha.
He is not born of moonlight but bound by blood.
He will come for you, witch, if the seal is broken.
If your soul calls to his, you will not escape nor can you run away.
The words sang before her ears and swam before her eyes. Her fingers tensed around the page.
It was too late.
Too late.
Outside, in the dark, Damon wobbled at the rim of the trees.
His lips twisted and chuckled into something that wasn’t quite a smile.
She was reading about him.
Good.
Let her fear him.
Let her fantasize about him.
Because soon, anxiety and yearning would be the same thing.
- Writer
