Prophecy: Child of Light (40 page)

“You are a strong woman, if you believe in yourself and know in your heart that you can do what is asked of you. Valentine can see your strength. If he treats you harshly, it is only because he does not know how else to react to his feelings. Give him time and he will prove his worth to you, and he will learn the right reactions. He is a commander, a born leader, as are you. There is bound to be a conflict of command sometimes,” Mia said and then looked around at the door.

Prophecy followed her gaze and found Valentine watching them. Her chest warmed to see him. It felt as though he had come back to her and had forgiven her without saying a word. He smiled a small smile that barely teased his lips but she saw it.

She felt Mia’s hand on her shoulder and drew her attention away from Valentine.

“Go to your room. I have left you some things there. Dmitri will be ready to meet with you soon. Valentine will come to get you when the time is right.”

Prophecy nodded and walked towards Valentine, giving him a brief smile as she passed him. She stopped when he caught her wrist and she looked into his eyes. He searched hers and she tried to show him that she was fine now that he had come back to her. His fingers trailed off her wrist and she ducked through the curtains, heading back to her room.

“Valentine,” Mia said.

Valentine turned to look at her. He obeyed when she crooked her finger, intimating for him to join her. Walking across the wide, paved balcony, he readied himself for what she had to say. He knew it would be about Prophecy. Mia had taken a liking to the girl when she’d watched Prophecy’s encounter with Dmitri in the great hall. Apparently, it had been a long time since she’d seen someone defy her husband and stand up to him.

He could see the fire in the depths of her eyes when she fixed him with a hard look.

“Do not be so hard on her. She is a very powerful woman. She does not need to be mollycoddled and treated as a child.”

He dropped his gaze away from hers and stared at the grass and neatly trimmed hedges below the balcony.

She was right. He was treating Prophecy as though she was a child and he knew it was wrong of him.

“I cannot help it,” he muttered. “I do not know why I do it.”

He gave her an apologetic look and she smiled at him.

“I know.”

He ignored her comment and returned to staring out over the garden.

“It is not the only thing that is bothering you, is it?” she said and he shook his head.

“I saw things in her blood. There was a fierce battle and something else... she is young... I think her mind has been tampered with by her family. They have kept her locked inside their mansion and the prophecy is not the only reason for that. I need to know why she cannot remember anything about her past.”

Mia’s delicate eyebrows knitted into a frown. “It is concerning that you can see the future in her blood. Are you sure it was that which you saw?”

He nodded. “She showed me more. On the train here, she let me see a vision that had come to her while she slept. I felt it all, Mia, every last action I made. It was as though I was there.”

“What was it?” she asked and then raised her hand in a gesture of dismissal when he averted his eyes. “No need for details, young Valentine. Your looks tell me more than words could ever say. So her blood holds visions of the future and they are manifesting themselves in her dreams. Is there anything else about her that you need to tell me?”

He hesitated for a moment and then reminded himself that Mia had earned his trust many times over. He knew that she would never divulge any of the information he was about to give her. She would never side with their enemy. She had dissolved her ties to the vampire world when she’d mated with Dmitri.

“You have seen the stars on her?” he said, seeing in her eyes that she had and she wanted to know what they were about. “Prophecy’s blood carries strength, and something else, something which no other vampire has.”

Mia stepped towards him, her eyes searching his as though they would show her what it was he was about to tell her.

“She carries magic.”

Her brows rose into a stunned look. She blinked once, twice and then frowned.

“Magic?”

“Magic,” he confirmed it for her.

She leaned against the wall and stared out into the darkness. “How? No vampire can carry magic. It does not like demons. You have seen the magic?”

“She has used it to save my life and she has used it to heal me. She has an amulet that the Three of Paris gave to her. Apparently, it was her mother’s.”

Mia looked even more curious. He had known the moment that Prophecy had discovered her abilities that Mia would love unlocking the secret behind them. She had always enjoyed honing her skills in mind reading and regression. It was rare that a vampire be born with the abilities she had, so rare that her family had attempted to use them to their advantage. They had wanted to offer Russian royalty the chance to secure their future in exchange for power and wealth. They had wanted her to claim a human and share her abilities with them through the exchange of blood. He could still remember the scandal it had caused when the other bloodlines had discovered the plot. The Law Keepers had been swift in their justice. Mia had disappeared into the night and the arms of her illicit lover, Dmitri.

“We must look into her mind and her past. I will help you,” Mia said.

“It would help her more than me. She needs to know her past.” He took hold of her hand and pressed a kiss to it in an offer of gratitude.

She smiled and turned towards the door. “Go and attend to your lady. She will be waiting for you. Bring her to the drawing room.”

He shook his head and smiled. He hated how Mia could read him like a book. He knew that she would have told Prophecy some things about him that he would have rather told her himself, but she wouldn’t overstep the mark and reveal his deepest feelings. She would leave that to him. She had great interest in matters of the heart, especially when they went against the law like her relationship did and especially when they concerned someone that she liked.

He was glad that she liked Prophecy.

He just hoped she could give her some answers.

P
rophecy tried not to stare but it seemed impossible. She cursed her eyes when they wandered back to the hulking mass of man standing opposite her drinking what smelt like a glass of wine rather than blood. She supposed that werewolves didn’t need to drink blood. They were still mostly human after all. Her gaze roamed up his chest to his face and she found herself staring at the scar again. It was a thick ridge of tissue that ran diagonally across his eye, from his forehead above his nose to his ear. A thinner line mirrored it an inch away, nearer his temple. The scar ran over his eyelid, making that eye open less than his other one. When his gaze moved to meet hers, she quickly looked away and toyed with the glass of blood she held.

He laughed, a deep booming sound that resonated off the thick stone walls.

She kept her eyes fixed on the floor and idly ran her finger around the rim of her glass, trying to look as though she didn’t know what he was laughing at.

He was laughing at her.

He’d caught her staring at him about a dozen times now, and after the sixth time it had obviously begun to amuse him because he’d started laughing.

She forced herself to look at her surroundings. They were very different to the room they had first entered the house through. The drawing room was richly furnished with soft padded couches that looked as though they were older than Valentine. The walls had been plastered and painted a warm shade of red. There was a massive painting of Dmitri and Mia hanging above the extensive fireplace. When she’d first noticed it, she’d expected it to be a painting like so many older houses had—the happy couple dressed in their finery and posing in front of their house. It wasn’t. It was a painting of a battle with Dmitri and Mia both in their demonic form. There was layer upon layer of detail, from the distant castle, over the mass of warriors that all looked as though they were fighting for their lives, through to the couple where they were locked in battle.

She peered closely at the figure of Dmitri and wondered if it was possible to see his scar when he was in his werewolf guise. She turned, frowning at him.

He laughed again.

“Your woman seems interested in me.”

Valentine just smiled.

“I am not.” She walked over to a chair and was going to sit but changed her mind and smoothed down her clothes instead. She caught Dmitri grinning at her.

“The one responsible was hurt more.”

His deep voice sent a shiver down her spine and she tried to imagine how much worse his opponent had been injured. Her eyes widened and she looked at Valentine. He was smiling at Dmitri, his eyes sparkling with amusement. Their figures were so different that she couldn’t imagine Valentine winning against Dmitri. He was so slim, less than half the size of Dmitri and around a foot shorter too. Dmitri would be an imposing figure when in werewolf form, but she knew that Valentine had strength beyond his appearance. She’d seen him fight. He was resourceful, quick and strong. She had never met one as strong as him.

“I went easy on you,” Valentine said and refilled his glass. “I knew the lady you were courting would have had my head if I’d taken your eye.”

“Would I have?” Mia said, walking in.

Prophecy looked over at her and followed her progress. She seemed to do everything with an air of precision. She walked with her head held high, her lips curving perfectly into a smile and her back straight. Her steps were small and measured, demure.

She realised that Mia was the princess that Mathias had spoken of. Was she also the person who would be able to unlock her memories?

Mia trailed her hands over Dmitri’s shoulders and pressed a delicate kiss to his cheek when he stooped towards her.

Her gaze moved to Valentine and she found him watching her. She wanted to go to him. She wanted to feel his arms about her again, holding her body against his while his lips coursed over her skin. She wanted to know that everything between them was all right again.

She averted her eyes when he began walking towards her and closed them when he placed two fingers under her chin. She didn’t resist him when he raised her head. Her skin hummed with delight when his cheek brushed against hers and his lips touched her ear.

“I am sorry,” he whispered. “Forgive me?”

She leaned into him and wrapped her fingers around his wrist. They interlocked with his when he released her chin and he held her hand tightly. She kept her eyes closed and brought her mouth to his ear. She tried to think of something to say that would tell him how truly forgiven he was, but nothing came to her.

Instead, she pressed a small kiss to his jaw and then his neck.

He sighed into her ear.

She gave him a smile when he pulled back to look at her.

Dmitri laughed again.

She looked up at Valentine to find him scowling at his old friend. Mia was smiling broadly, her arm draped over her husband’s.

“It is sweet, no?” Dmitri laughed again. “Love never chooses wisely. It goes against sense.”

Prophecy smiled at him. He had such a simple way of expressing it that she found she couldn’t deny that what he’d said was true. Love never did choose wisely, and Mia and Dmitri were testament to that. She wished she could make them tell her just how they had met. She was sure that it would be a beautiful story. Her and Valentine’s story just seemed crazy, but at the same time, it seemed like the stuff of fairytales. A prince charming rescuing his princess from the evil prince so they could save the world together.

Her eyes dropped to her hand and her chest warmed to see the threads of magic winding around her fingers as though they were chasing each other. They were a rich shade of purple now, paler, almost white, near their tails and tips. She held her hand out with her palm facing upwards and the threads spiralled around each other, creating a vortex above the stone of the amulet.

Her fairytale even had magic.

“What is this?” Dmitri’s voice was laced with curiosity but she didn’t look at him. She could hear his heavy footsteps on the floor and could sense his approach.

“Magic,” she whispered and focused, making it shift shape until it was a heart. She giggled.

“You have been practicing,” Valentine said.

She focused again and changed it to reflect one of her pentagrams, complete with the glyphs that surrounded it in the circle. It was the one over her heart. The little glyphs pulsed with light. She could almost feel it in her body like a heartbeat.

Licking her lips, she stared at the symbol and made it grow. Something about it seemed familiar and she felt as though she should know it or know what it meant.

Staring into the core of the star that was wavering in the centre of the circle, she caught sight of something and the whole world dropped away. It was hazy. She could make out buildings and a figure. No, two figures. It was a man and a woman. She peered closer, willing the images to come into focus. There were two figures staring back at her. Her eyes widened. The woman was the one from her vision of Venice. She could see her flame red hair. She couldn’t make out the man’s face, but her heart ached to see him, as though she should have known him.

“Prophecy?” Valentine’s voice reached her and his fingers lightly touched her shoulder.

She snapped herself out of the trance and looked at him with wide eyes. He reached out towards her and brushed his fingers across her cheek. She was stunned to see they were wet when he withdrew them. Had she been crying? She didn’t remember it. All she could remember was the way she’d felt. Sorrow and loneliness had filled her. She’d been staring at the faces of people she knew or should have known. She pressed her right hand over her chest and it warmed through when the amulet touched the mark there.

“Mother,” she whispered.

“Prophecy?” Valentine ducked and his eyes reflected all his concern again.

“The woman in my vision of Venice... with the red hair... she was my mother. My heart tells me. I saw her in the mark when I made it appear in magic form. It was my mother, Valentine, and I think I saw my father, too.” Her eyes darted between his, trying to see if he believed her. She needed him to believe her.