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Amalia’s love for the stranger had been taken by the change to her memory, and now that they returned, she strangely felt them again. She also felt other things like confusion, shock, uncertainty.

As a child, she had reached for the prophecy because she wanted to become something. She had wanted to be strong. Her coven told her she would be admired for it, be loved for it, and what child didn’t want to feel that way?

It was hard not to feel these things again when they were returned to her so vividly.

Once the spell came to an end, she was left with the real memories and the ones she knew were false – of her simple peaceful life in her cottage.

Her eyes came back into focus, and her head felt heavy as it swam when everything still tried to flash even though he’d taken his hand away. She was left with a terrible headache.

When her vision finally cleared, she saw the man in front of her, but he wasn’t a stranger to her anymore.I loved him.

“You understand now, do you not?” he asked, his green eyes flicking between hers.

Once more, he looked at her with tenderness and care.

“Yes, I remember everything.”

“Excellent,” he said with a welcoming grin.

Then his mouth was upon hers, pressing like he had waited eons to do so, and something inside her heart shifted for him. Amalia readily kissed him back.

Chapter 30

Strolguil,Rurik sneered when the man entered his dungeon cell with an evil hint to his upturned smirk, and he opened the door with humour brightening his eyes when they met Rurik’s foul glare.

A growl came from his chest that was quietened by the rope keeping his mouth shut.

It faded when he saw her.

Amalia.She came into the dungeon behind Strolguil before he pulled her forward to be beside him.She is here. I must escape with her.

Her eyes found his before they drifted over his body, and the shackles and chains keeping him down. He could barely move, only shuffle slightly.

“I have been going easy on you, WitchSlayer,” Strolguil said with a laugh. “Have been keeping you at bay for years.”

Rurik answered him with a snarl. He knew he’d been taken over easily since he had been attacked with only one move that rendered him unconscious. He hadn’t been prepared for such an attack, for such unimaginable power.

He has been letting me escape him on purpose.

Now he understood that he hadn’t allowed the Witches to capture him in Mahesh’s lair on purpose. He’d even been heartless enough to kill his own kind to prevent it.

“I have been waiting for this very night for the past twenty years.” Then he pulled Amalia in front of him and wrapped one arm around her torso while his other hand came up to cup her chin. He leaned over her shoulder so that his head was next to hers with that evil smirk widening. “Did you have fun with my future woman?”

Rurik’s head reared back as at his words, staring at Amalia who was being forced to face him.

“She is quite beautiful, is she not? I did not realise when she was younger that she would grow to be this lovely.”

She knows him?Rurik couldn’t stop his heart rate from increasing as confusion crawled into his chest. His stomach knotted.

“Although I have been with her for quite some time, protecting her, I knew I needed to wait in order to not get in the way of fate.” Rurik’s eyes flickered between them, at the forceful, yet affectionate, way he was holding her. She wasn’t trying to escape. “But I have been with you for many years, have I not Amalia?”

“Yes,” she answered plainly, her eyes falling away from Rurik’s. “As Bala. As my cat.”

Rurik shook his head.It cannot be true.Confusion crawled deeper in a disgusting way in his gut.She is a captive. She is not here willingly.

“I had to watch over her,” Strolguil said. “There is a prophecy, you see, foretold when she was six. You know of this prophecy, do you not, my sweet?”

Her eyes moved to look at the wall behind him. It was as if she was bored of being there, her face blank.