Page 27 of The Prophecy

“It seems she didn’t know about the prophecy until recently.”

“So who...?”

“Her sister, Regan. Apparently, when you were born, she had a vision telling her of the prophecy but also foreseeing that one day your father would kill your mother. So she sent your mother to the shadowlands after telling her you were dead, stillborn. She returned recently and only then discovered what had happened.”

“Three months ago?” Raven asked.

“Yes, how did you know?’

“She spoke to me. I heard her voice.”

“Well, she’s done what she can to put things right. She sent the original message telling us where you were. She kept away because she was going against her sisters, but when we failed to get you out, she came to find us.” He grinned. “She’s a formidable woman, your mother.”

“Did she do that?” Raven nodded in the direction of the window where a black sun hung in the morning sky.

Kael nodded. “Hmm, I told you there are rumors that they can control the sun and the moon. Well, it appears that the rumors are true.”

At that moment, obviously bored with playing with Sorien, her mother made one final sideswipe with her blade and sliced his head cleanly from his body. For a moment the torso scrabbled at the air before tumbling lifelessly to the ground.

“Messy,” Kael murmured beside her, “but effective.”

Sorien’s body crumbled until nothing remained but a pile of ochre ashes. A curious lightness filled her. The nightmare of the prophecy was finally over. She could start to dream again. Her mother had leaped back into the fighting, still with Darius at her back.

He would never kill her. Would he?

But what did she really know of these people? They were strangers to her, though perhaps she would now have a chance to get to know them.

“Definitely formidable.” Raven muttered. “Are she and my father...?”

Kael shrugged. “Who knows? Or at this moment cares?” He pulled her deeper into the shadows, dragged her to him, covering her face with hungry kisses.

“I’ve been going insane,” he muttered. “I kept telling myself I would save you, that you had seen our future together, our children.”

Little tendrils of guilt prodded at her mind. Should she tell him of her lie? She’d made the only choice she could, but would he understand that? She smoothed a finger over the lines of stress that cut deep into his face.

She would tell him later, she decided, a long time later. Perhaps she would make those children a reality first. At the thought of Kael’s children, a wave of longing washed over her. What would they be—vampire, witch, shape-shifter? Some combination of all three? She would find out in time.

She pressed herself against his hard chest, then raked her fingers through his sunlight hair, pulling his head down, kissing his jaw, his cheek, his lips, touching and tasting.

“I love you,” he murmured against her mouth.

She wrapped her arms around him, holding him to her, melting against him. He had been her dream for so long, and now he was her reality. She kissed him once more, then spoke the words she had been longing to say. “And I love you.”

The End