Page 5 of Witch's Betrayal
He kissed my hair and I nuzzled my head under his chin. My fingers returned to the ink traced under his skin.
"I want to get all three of yours tattooed on me," I said suddenly. "Yours first, then Sal's then Raum's, in the order that I met you. And Lucifer's somewhere else, of course."
"You're going to have to keep reapplying them," he teased. "Tattoos don't transfer over to a new body when your current lifetime is done."
"How does the whole reincarnation thing work?" I asked, lifting my head. "Does my soul move to a newborn baby and I have to grow up before I'm with you guys again? I feel like I should know this."
"Lucifer plays a hand in it. A lot of it is his power and even I don't understand it completely," he answered. "But no. After you die in one body, you always find us within days in a new body. Sometimes you're a teenager, but almost always near adulthood."
"How do you know it's me?"
"Your eyes never change," he said, stroking my cheek affectionately. "And we just know. We feel your power. We felt it that day you, as Deja, first met us at that party."
"Before I even knew I was a witch?"
He nodded. "We sensed your power had been blocked or stunted in some way. Figured it had to be your oppressive upbringing never allowing you to practice. Once you came to that realization, we felt your magic open like floodgates."
I rested my head on his chest again. "What happened to make me forget everything?"
His body stiffened and his arms tightened around me.
"If you truly don't remember that, then it's best you don't," he said crisply. "It was extraordinarily painful for the three of us. I can't even imagine what it felt like for you."
"That bad, huh?"
"It didn't just hurt us personally to lose you. It threw the whole world into the dark ages," he said softly. "Without you, we had little motivation to continue our cause. Libraries full of timeless knowledge were burned. Illiteracy, famine, and disease were at an all-time high. Women were nothing but breeders and glorified slaves. For a few hundred years, the cross-bearers got the faithful, frightened people they always wanted."
"Then what happened?" I asked.
He sighed. "The tide turned so slowly, I can't even pinpoint it to one thing. Christianity reached every corner of the world like a pandemic before we saw our first glimmers of hope."
"What did that look like?"
He smiled. "Women who refused to lie down and take it. Some of it was as simple as getting a job outside the home. Others disguised themselves as men to go to war. But my personal favorites?" He tightened his arms around me. "They killed the men who abused and raped them. I saw a little bit of you in all of them because parts of youwerein there."
"What do you mean?"
He hesitated but went on. "Your soul was essentially split apart into many pieces and you lived in different bodies at the same time. That turned off your consciousness, which is why you don't remember any of that time. But your spirit and instincts shined through those people's personalities."
I froze, speechless against him. "Who has the kind of power to do something like that?"
"No one," he said firmly. "Not anymore." He patted my non-bruised butt cheek. "Now you should probably get up. You'll be late for work."
"Shit." I kissed him long and deeply. "Can I see you after I close?"
"What about Raum?" he teased.
"He can wait," I said, my hand lingering on his cheek. My fingers didn't want to lose the rough touch of his beard on them. "He got his morning sugar. I think he'll live."
