Blood of the White Witch (19 page)

She grasped me tightly to her, and I let the
tears fall freely down my face, as did she.

“I’ve missed you so much, precious!” she
said, and she held my face in her hands and kissed it on each
cheek.

“I love you so much, Mom!” I replied,
kissing her back, a small well of happy laughter bubbling up in my
throat.

Grandma Milly was right behind her waiting
for her turn, as well as Brad and Shelly. Once they were done
hugging me, they moved right on to Vance. It was a very emotional
moment for all of us.

A tall man with curly blond hair, from the
remaining group, stood and made his way over to us.

“My name is Crispin,” he said extending a
hand to both of us, and he offered a warm smile. “We met briefly,
earlier this morning, though you may not remember it. I’m the
leader of this coven here,” he said turning to gesture to the
others who were seated in the room.

“Crispin and his coven were instrumental in
getting you back this morning,” my dad explained to us.

“Thank you,” Vance said, his eyes moving
graciously around the room. “We’re deeply indebted to you.”

“It was our pleasure,” Crispin replied. “I’m
just sad we were unable to do it sooner. We’ve been watching the
Cummings residence for a long while, but no opportunity ever
presented itself.”

“How long have we been prisoners exactly?” I
asked. “We were unable to keep track of time.”

“It’s the first of May today. You’ve been
held for about three and half months now,” he replied.

I looked at Vance. Three and half months,
gone, lost.

“How did you know where we were?” Vance
asked him.

“Well, apparently we have a double crosser
in our coven. You may know him. His name is Brian Fitzgerald,”
Crispin explained looking a bit forlorn as he spoke.

I gasped at the mention of Brian and turned
in time to see the angered look which flashed over Vance’s face
before he reined it in again.

“Brian is in your coven?” he asked
flatly.

Crispin shook his head.

“Not any longer. We were unaware that he was
Douglas’s nephew. Apparently Douglas sent him as a spy to
infiltrate our coven and keep a watch over what we were up to.
We’ve always been openly opposed to the Cummings family.”

I saw Vance’s face fall a little at this
remark, before he masked his expression once again.

“I’m sorry that my family has caused
everyone such hardship,” he apologized, his eyes quickly darting
over every person in the room.

“Vance, none of this is your fault,” my dad
interjected with a shake of his head. “Stop taking responsibility
for it. We’re just happy that the two of you are safe and that we
were able to get you before any real harm was done.”

“Let’s just take them home and get out of
here!” my mom spoke up, with a pleading expression on her face.

“We can’t leave,” I said, shaking my
head.

“Why not?” she asked. “The safest place for
the two of you is as far away from here as possible.”

“My mom is here,” Vance said.

“Your mom?” my dad asked, perking right up
at this bit of information. “You found her?”

Vance nodded his head.

“She’s been a prisoner at Bell Tower Hall
almost since the day she gave me up,” Vance explained.

“So it was a demon shape shifter that you
killed,” Grandma added.

“Yes. I won’t leave her behind, either.
She’s helpless. She has no powers to protect herself with either.
My father performed a demon kiss on her as punishment for defying
him.”

An audible gasp went through the room.

“Why have they kept her in her current
state?” my dad asked, perplexed by this revelation.

“They’ve been trying to breed her,” Vance
spoke with a disgusted look on his face. “Apparently she carries
the blood of the white witch, something Portia also happens to have
in abundance. They want Portia and me to have a baby so they can
receive something called the Awakening.”

“So that’s why they performed a Celtic
fertility ritual on you last night,” Crispin muttered to
himself.

“Yes,” Vance replied with a sigh. “And if my
memory serves me correctly, they were very successful at it.”

“Actually, they weren’t,” Crispin said with
a knowing smile, looking directly at Vance.

“Oh, I assure you, Portia was well … loved
last night,” Vance said, shaking his head in disagreement.

There was an awkward pause for a moment
before Crispin spoke again.

“I am, how shall I say it, um … aware of
that fact,” Crispin said a bit uncomfortably at the blatant
referrals to the intimate moments Vance and I had shared. “What I
was referring to was the fact that the ritual was never
completed.”

“There was more?” I asked, wondering what
else could have possibly been done that hadn’t been.

Crispin nodded his head in the
affirmative.

“In the ritual, the woman, that would be
you, has to wash herself in the first morning dew after seducing
her lover. That never happened. We took you well before the morning
dew had fallen.”

“So I won’t get pregnant?” I asked,
hopeful.

“Well, not because of the ritual,” Crispin
pointed out. “But as your husband pointed out, you did have plenty
of … um, exposure of the regular kind. Anything could happen.”

I couldn’t help blushing a little at his
comments, and another woman in the group spoke up.

“We could give you some herbs or something
that wouldn’t allow the pregnancy to continue if you have in fact
conceived,” she offered.

“Absolutely not!” I said in offense before I
placed my hands protectively over my womb. “If there is a baby in
here, it’s my baby. Mine and Vance’s, born out of a strong love. I
would never let anything happen to it.”

“Sorry,” the woman amended, casting her eyes
about nervously. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just trying to
offer a suggestion.”

Vance reached over and pulled me up close
against his side, placing his arm tightly around my shoulders.

“Portia is right,” he said,
matter-of-factly. “If we have conceived a child, getting rid of it
is not an option.”

I looked at him, and tears pooled in my
eyes, threatening to spill over down my face.

“Thank you,” I said into his head.

“I love you,” he replied back in the same
fashion, and he squeezed me gently, giving me a loving look.

My dad piped up then, breaking the
moment.

“We need to make a plan, people,” he said,
snapping his fingers together in rapid succession. “I want to know
everything there is to know about this Awakening thing and what
it’s all about. We also need to figure out a way to rescue Krista
from these people in the process. It’s time to put our heads
together.”

Everyone nodded, and talk began rippling
throughout the group.

My dad motioned for Vance and me to come sit
by him.

“What do you know about this Awakening?” he
asked, directing the question mainly to Vance.

“Not much,” Vance replied. “I don’t know
where, when, how, or why it happens. I just know that the power of
it goes to the witch or warlock with the most amount of white witch
blood in them. My grandparents want this power. They believe if
they combine the white witch blood that I have with the blood from
Portia, it’ll create a child with an extraordinary amount of the
heritage. They want to drink the blood of the child. It’s the only
way they can assimilate the white witch power. It has to be mixed
in with their own bloodline in order for it to work.”

“So, they’re basically cannibalizing their
own offspring,” Dad said while he rubbed his hand over his face in
a frustrated gesture.

“Pretty much,” Vance said, a look of
complete disgust passing over his features.

My dad looked at me then.

“I really hope you aren’t pregnant, Portia,”
he said flatly, his eyes flickering briefly down toward my
stomach.

“Me too, Dad, but it won’t matter to them if
I’m not,” I replied with a slight shake of my head.

“What do you mean?” he asked, not
following.

“If I fail to conceive, they’ll just go back
to their original plan,” I said with a shrug.

“Which is what?” he asked me.

“They’ll try to use Vance. He already
carries the bloodline mixed with their blood. They’re just hoping
to make that bloodline even purer through me,” I explained to
him.

Dad looked a Vance for several moments
before he answered.

“This isn’t good, son,” he said with
concern.

“I know,” Vance replied with a sigh.

“We really need to get you both away from
here,” he said, his voice sounding more insistent.

“I can’t leave my mom behind,” Vance said
stubbornly. “I won’t leave her behind,” he amended a moment
later.

“Well, you being here isn’t going to help
her either at the moment. If they catch you, things go from bad to
worse, for everyone involved,” Dad countered, trying to persuade
him otherwise.

I could see that Vance had that look in his
eye when he was not going to be easy to reason with. I decided that
maybe I should give it a shot.

“Look, Vance,” I said softly, hoping I
wouldn’t anger him by moving to stand with my father on this.
“Krista has been with them all these years, and they’ve never hurt
her. She herself said she’s absolutely no threat to them without
her powers. They probably hardly even notice her at this
point.”

He was giving me a hard stare, and I
swallowed the lump forming in my throat.

“I’m not asking you to leave her behind. I’m
asking you to consider what she’d tell you to do about this,” I
explained to him, wishing I could somehow make him understand what
I was trying to say.

He folded his arms over his chest while he
thought, looking back and forth between me and my dad with a
slightly angry expression, and I could see he was really struggling
with this.

“Fine,” he said, dropping his hands to his
sides in defeat. “But I won’t go far, maybe to Ireland or England,
but no farther. We stay there, find out everything we can about
this Awakening, and we come back for her as soon as we possibly
can.”

“Done!” my dad said, and he patted Vance on
the back. “Trust me. I’ll do everything in my power to get her back
for you.”

We ended up renting a couple of apartments
at the plush Milestone Hotel in London. Vance paid for the rooms,
but we put them under Brad and Shelly’s names to try and help avoid
detection, just in case anyone came looking.

Once we were settled in, we spent most of
the daylight hours each day searching through old documents in
libraries, trying to find anything we could that would give us
information on ancient rituals performed in Celtic ceremonies.

In the evenings, we all spent our time
strolling through, and exploring, Hyde Park, sometimes venturing
out before dusk to work our way through Kensington Gardens also
before they closed for the evening.

Vance and I usually retired to our room
early at night just to enjoy being alone with one another. Our
relationship had resumed all of its normal aspects; however, we
were very careful to use some form of birth control now, just in
case I hadn’t conceived during the Celtic ritual.

“If I have to dig through one more library,
I think my head may explode,” I complained one night while we were
crawling into bed together.

“I know exactly how you feel,” Vance said,
and he reached over to pull me up next to him so he could cuddle
with me.

“What should we do?” I asked, feeling
exasperated. “It seems we’re getting nowhere fast.”

Vance stared off into space, thinking things
over for a moment before he answered me.

“I’m thinking we must not be looking in the
right place,” he said. His eyes flitted back over my face. “I mean,
sure, we’re finding things about the history of witchcraft but
nothing to do with actual spells or rituals. We need to find
someplace that deals in things like that.”

“What about shops that deal specifically in
Pagan or Wicca materials and supplies? Surely they’d have some
things pertaining to historical rituals or prophecies,” I
suggested.

His face widened into the sexy grin I
loved.

“That pretty little head of your is as quick
as ever,” he said, placing a kiss on my forehead. “I think it’s a
good idea. We’ll look up some places tomorrow and see what we can
find here in London.”

“I also think that we need to start thinking
more like Douglas and Fiona. Where would they have stumbled across
this prophecy? What kind of places do they get their information
from?” I added.

“Another great idea,” Vance agreed with a
slight nod.

“I mean it’s obvious this Awakening is not a
well-known thing. No one seems to have ever heard of it. It makes
me think it’s a practice that has fallen by the wayside. You know,
sort of obsolete. Who knows if it really even happens?” I continued
on, the thoughts rolling around in my head.

“Good point,” he said. “I’m thinking we have
at least a few months before it might begin. They had enough time
for a full-term pregnancy to occur, as well as waiting a few months
to see if you’d conceived.”

I nodded.

“So what happens if I’m pregnant?” I asked,
glancing down at my stomach before looking up at him, changing the
subject.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to
it,” he replied without hesitation, looking directly into my
eyes.

“Will you be upset about it?” I asked, a
little bit worried since I didn’t really know how he felt about the
matter.

“Not because of the baby,” he answered
honestly. “I’d be upset about the danger it would place you and the
child in. Plus, we’re young, and I’d hoped to spend a significant
amount of time as just the two of us before we started a
family.”