Page 262 of Gift from the Source
It’s been a long time since we’ve had parties for our birthdays.
Typically, we spend those special days wrapped up in one another. Most times we’re lying on a beach, cuddled in a cabin in Terravile, or just defiling the entire mansion or southwing.
The last huge birthday party we had was Draken’s fiftieth.
We spent that in Essemist Keep and let me tell you, the vampires know how to party. All damn night long. I was so exhausted.
The smile on my princess’s face, though, as she got spun around on the dance floor by Mr. Dericko, Keeper, and Draken made it entirely worth it.
So much has changed in the forty-six years she’s been here.
I took the changes in stride.
Some I thought I’d lose my shit over.
Some were the best decisions we ever made.
The biggest were reopening some of the realms. It was a culture shock that we were but also weren’t prepared for.
That day all those years ago when she healed the once known as Forsaken Forest, life sprouted about everywhere. We walked along the forest as she ran her hand over everything lovingly. Until we reached the portal.
The grass ring that circled a very faintly lit swirl was a shade of dark brownish green that looked completely out of place from the flourishing grass that was starting to surround it.
When the forest was infected, it would’ve resembled the only living piece of land there, but at that point, it looked like it was dying.
Willow slowly lowered herself to her knees and ran her fingers through the brittle blades of grass and sighed. She explained the way the Summum-Master was using her blood was tainting the portal.
She didn’t hesitate slicing her palms and bleeding life back into.
In the heart of Freedom Forest, the grass ring now sits starkly in silver and green colors around a vibrant swirl you step into if you want to go to the nonmagical realm.
Which I don’t know why anyone would honestly.
It’s my least favorite place to visit.
Part of me thought for sure she’d open Essemist Keep sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
It took seven years.
There were major changes that took place in the five hundred years of Keeper’s absence. Those changes had to be rectified on their side first.
The day she did open it, though, Keeper and Tanith came flying through in a blaze of glory. Although they’d already been granted access to come and go as they pleased, he wanted to celebrate the day.
Make it special.
It made me think back to the first time we traveled to Essemist Keep for Draken to meet his grandparents. Keeper went all out with a grand vampire celebration for us. That was an amazing adventure and a story best told by him.
He loves to tell it to any who will listen.
Nowadays, he’s here just as much as he’s there.
Willow didn’t talk about it much, but we were all internally curious as to why she wasn’t opening any of the others. When we did mention it, she always brushed it off, saying it just simply wasn’t time.
One night, roughly five years ago, she woke from the dead of sleep, hollering for us to wake up.
My heart dropped to my stomach.
