Page 60 of Blood Coven

Blaez woke up in the snow just outside his home. He was nearly frozen, there was no warmth left in him as he tuned into his surroundings. Scrambling to his feet, he noticed the blood, splatters of it all around him, over the outer walls of the house, a trail leading to the side. He knew it before he saw it, and yet he couldn’t stop himself from walking towards the carnage; he drew the blood, he took the life, the least he could do was face it.

Blaez’s stomach protested. He retched over the snow when he saw it, the woman he loved desecrated, parts of her intact, others a distance away. Her chest was opened up, organs and entrails spilling from her torso. One arm was raised above her head, frozen solid in the snow, fingertips black and purple where they weren’t covered in blood. The other arm was a few meters away, detached at the elbow, with crystalized blood in the snow. Her shin was snapped in the center, the bone jutting out. There was nothing left of her face, just shreds of skin and bone, teeth scattered about like gruesome seeds.

But he knew it was Ana.

“What do we do now?” Lilianna asked, snapping Blaez out of his daze.

He looked up, seeing all four women looking at him. Alina remained on her knees, clutching Red’s cooling hand, silently sobbing. Sorin held the crumpled scroll in her hand while Lilianna and Tatiana held onto one another.

I owe them nothing; all they brought was more death, more blood on my hands, Blaez thought. These girls are no different than any of the sacrifices I’ve had cross my path before.

Although he would never trust a witch, these four were not Azalea Luca.

“I can keep you safe for a time,” he said. “I can help you relocate somewhere else.”

“Why would you help us? We failed at freeing you from the curse,” Sorin asked.

He looked at Red. “She died trying to help me. Trying to change. She fought the darkness inside her, the darkness that was in her blood…I owe it to her to help you.”

“No,” Alina growled. “We finish this.”

All eyes turned to her, but the Wolf refused to accept that it could be done. Too many lives were lost because of him; he claimed Red’s death as his fault. One more name added to the ledger, somehow the most painful one of all. All she sought in life was to be free of her abusers, something he understood to his core.

Alina wiped a stream of tears from her eyes, smearing Red’s blood over her. “Red might…”

He knew she was trying to say the words, but she couldn’t admit she was dead.

“Be gone,” Alina choked, “but she did it to protect us. Maybe…”

“She needs to be the one,” Sorin whispered softly to Alina.

“We have to try! It’s what she would have wanted!” Alina shouted back, shaking violently now.

Tatiana spoke then, brushing her tangles behind her ear. “Alina, you initiated Red. We thought perhaps that interfered with the protection spell. Maybe your connection to Red is stronger than we think. Oh, Sorin, do you think it is possible?”

Sorin glanced around, eyes landing on the Wolf. “Let us give this one more try.”

He inhaled deeply, then rose from his spot on the couch. Every bone in his body ached as though four hundred years were finally catching up to him. Without being told, he knelt back in the circle. He noted a trickle of blood from Red’s corpse slithering towards him. Caught off guard by Alina crawling towards him, he was startled when she grabbed his hand and pulled it towards her. She flashed her palm to him, showing a scar across her palm.

The women around them began to chant again, repeating Red’s last words, picking up where she left off. “Summum hoc imperii.”

It was Tatiana who held the blade this time.

Alina took the Wolf’s hand and asked, “What is your name?”

A feeling of peace sunk into his weary bones as he remembered. “Blaez.”

“Summum hoc imperii.” Lilianna, Sorin, Alina, and Tatiana chanted together, as though they were one.

“Invoco terrae, luna, sanguine. Liber Blaez,” Tatianna said the words as she sliced Alina’s palm; her blood, bound with Rose Luca’s, dribbled to the floor. Three generations of Luca blood surrounded him.

He watched with fascination and horror as it touched him, soaking through his trousers. The ache in his chest, carried with him for so many years, tightened. Keeling over, he gasped. This pain he remembered from four hundred years before forced him to throw his head back, his spine bending as though he was shifting into a wolf one final time. Smoke as black as night emerged from his mouth, the curse pouring out of him.

For a moment, he felt nothing at all; he was suspended from reality.

He managed to breathe out, “Thank you.”

And as the curse disappeared, so did his life.

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