Page 63 of Blood Sacrifice

It was only when Luna said it that I realised Aisha had been trying to control the men in the corridor. My heart sounded in my ears when she walked toward us with the air of a queen, taking her place beside Dominic. He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist, and my wolf howled in rage in my head. I stood here wanting to break every bone in his body, even though my every instinct screamed for me to rip his hand off that dared to touch my mate.

“You always had a knack of being able to get what you wanted,” Luna continued, facing her sister. “Whether it be more food, the attention of the priests, or more favourable living conditions. You were able to control the will of men even back then.”

How the fuck had I never noticed her manipulative abilities before?

“Never him,” Aisha said, nodding in my direction. “No matter how much I tried, he ignored me. I realised why the night I heard the two of you laughing together behind the temple. Although I see your taste has changed to those with fangs.”

Dominic flashed a fang-filled smile complete with menace at her comment. “Vampires are the natural ally to the magical world.”

Aisha shrugged one delicate shoulder. “Salvator was yours for a short time in your youth, but he has been mine for centuries, while you have been slumming it with vampires. You will never have what we experienced together.”

Which was nothing. Everything slotted into place. I had trusted her because she was Luna’s sister, and she had been the one who told me Luna was dead, that she felt the connection break at the moment of her death. I had treated her like family because even though the bond hadn’t been completed at the time, Luna was my mate. Her lies meant that I had spent centuries alone, mourning my mate when I should have been searching for her.

“You should never have come back. No one has wanted or needed you since the night you ran away,” Aisha continued, disgust twisting her face. “Balor had accepted the fact he would never have all the priestesses, so he ignored some of us, and let us live. Now that you have returned, all that is changing.”

Luna slowly moved, deliberately gaining Aisha’s attention. “Mother priestess gave her life for us to escape. She loved every one of us enough to give us a chance of survival.”

Aisha’s lip turned up in a terrifying sneer. “No, she gavesomethe chance of survival, she put a target on the rest of us. Salvator saved me after he got rid of you.”

Luna continued to walk, deliberately touching the foreheads of the captive witches. They slid unconscious to the floor, eliminating them as a threat. She had been a girl the last time Aisha saw her, but had returned as a woman to claim her crown as my queen. She never reacted to anything her sister said, her gaze briefly meeting mine.

“I heard rumours of a witch who made deals with mortals,” Luna said. “It only made sense when Dominic started to report the emergence of hellspawn and their princes several years ago. They possess the ability to use the energy of Purgatory to broker deals in return for souls. The princes rarely visit this realm, and use those living here to negotiate in their name.”

All eyes were on Aisha, who stood watching her younger sister as she painted a horrendous picture of what had been happening under our noses.

“I did what I had to do to survive,” Aisha replied, her head canting to the side as she studied Luna. “The world was changing, humans fearing magic and hunting us to extinction. I refused to go back to being poor and living in squalor. You seem to have elevated your status as well.”

“Some of us fought to save others,” Luna retaliated, the expression in her eyes growing hard. “Some of us suffered to make this world a better place.” I had seen the scars on her body, they bore testament to the fact that she had bled to protect the whereabouts of her coven.

“They don’t hand out bravery medals to good witches. They give them a wand and put them in a book,” Aisha retaliated. “I’m sure they’ll find a princess for you to be a godmother to.”

The two women began to circle each other, and I noticed my wolves starting to regain consciousness, their faces creased in confusion while they held their heads. I nodded to Jethro and Paulo, who moved to help them. Dominic’s men didn’t try to stop us as all attention was on the two witches.

“I knew it was you when the reports came in that magic was detected. I could sense your energy walking on this land,” Aisha said, her fingers clenching and unclenching at her sides. “They promised me you were dead. My trackers said there was no energy signature of you for decades.”

Luna flicked her hair back, and I saw the symbols appearing on her arms that hadn’t been there before, as if her body was energising itself ready for a fight.

The depths of Aisha’s lies were astounding. “I thought the priestesses were supposed to be able to sense one another,” I said, intervening since everything was spiralling out of control and my mate was in danger. I’d seen witches fight and there were often casualties of those in close proximity.

“We can if we both continue to use light magic. When a witch indulges in the dark arts, then her soul is irreparably tainted and she dies to the rest of us.” Luna paused for a moment, her eyes meeting her sister’s. “I felt that moment, and believed you were dead. Mother priestess would be ashamed of what you have become.”

Aisha’s laugh made my sphincter muscles tighten because there was something incredibly sinister about that sound. “That was the day I freed myself from the restraints that had been imposed on me.” She raised her hands above her head and slowly lowered them to demonstrate herself. “I chose to be who I wanted, and be with the man I wanted.” She deliberatelylooked at me and my skin crawled. I had never given her any encouragement or hint that I was remotely interested in her. Since Luna was my mate, I looked at her as a sister.

Luna shook her head. “They are not restraints. The laws of magic are to be respected because in the wrong hands they can destroy the fabric of life and of this entire realm. Why else would Balor want the lifeforce of all the priestesses?”

It was a question I had sought the answer to for centuries, and no one had been able to enlighten me. Jethro and Paulo started to drag wolves off to my right, aided by more vampires who had arrived.

Aisha uttered a spell and blew it toward her witches, who fell through a hole that appeared below them. That was new; in all the years I had known her she had never been able to create portals. She spread her hands wide, her lips turning up in a mocking grin. “The combined power of the priestesses allows us to access void magic, which is raw and beyond limit. To prevent it falling into the wrong hands, the key to the portal was split and cast throughout the witches. Over time, the fragments were drawn together, manifesting in certain lineages, and ultimately converging in the place close to where the original nexus was found,” Aisha said, shrugging one delicate shoulder. “He needs our life force so he can bypass deals with the devil and make himself into a new god to rule this realm, like the old gods when they walked the Earth.”

Luna met my eyes briefly, and it felt as if someone had kicked me in the solar plexus. “Void magic is forbidden for a reason. None of us have the physical bodies to contain it, and those who have tried have been burned alive from the inside,” Luna replied.

“And if a priestess gets killed while Balor is not in the vicinity?” Dominic enquired, his dark gaze set on Aisha, and Ididn’t doubt that he would snap her neck in a heartbeat if he thought it would prevent any further conflict.

“One priestess was killed about a hundred years ago,” Aisha replied, her attention moving to Dominic as she assessed the ancient vampire. “I believe there is a way to retrieve a soul if you have the assistance of a prince of Hell.” A sickness washed over me as I saw the true darkness that existed in her—she wanted access to the void magic herself, and would happily kill the other priestesses and Balor to access it.

This scenario went from bad to worse.

“This is my base,” I said, playing my part and attempting to take control of the situation again. “Remove your men and I might consider letting you leave with your head.”

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