'Little ghost' that's what he called her. His giggling phantom, darting in and out of rooms, hiding behind furniture, trying to scare him out. He stole another look at her, taking in the obvious familiarity of her features and the inexplicable strangeness.
Stephen crouched beside him; the man turned to him and whispered, "What are you going to do to her?"
"Charles, I would do everything to save her, always."
"The witch-slayer, that's what they call you in my world. You killed the unstable, powerful ones, in your world too, didn't you? In the grand calculus some lives don't matter, won't she be the last sacrifice of her kind?" Unbidden a memory came to him, a dream to be more specific: Stephen standing in front of the girl, draining every ounce of his powers to destroyer her's.
"Yes, I did," he whispered sadly. "But she won't be one of them. It took me years to realise that every life matters, no matter how much it weighs in the grand calculus. She bears a heavy price on my soul and I shall not expend it."
His words were hard to digest, nevertheless, Charles nodded nervously.
Stephen rubbed his thumb over the scars covering the dorsum of his hand and fingers. They were faint. "How many Y/N's you know across the multiverse?"
"There were two others like her," Charles grimly noted. He had thought she existed only in his universe. Just like Chavez. Never having dreams about herself in never-experienced-before situations.
"The well showed me - she dies in every universe. That's her fate." He seemed to be losing himself in another memory. "Jane had told me to accept that in her last breath. 'Stop denying' she had whispered at the end."
"You came here for the twilight well?" Stephen asked.
"Yes. Just like in your universe, Jane had built this portal to Atlantis in the other two worlds also. The only difference is, unlike your Y/N, they were killed after Jane returned. She saw something that made her kill her daughter. I wanted to know the truth. The other versions of me also wanted to know it too but they couldn't stabilize the portal."
Stephen seemed amused. "You said other 'versions', what would you possibly want to know when she didn't die?"
"She didn't die doesn't mean Jane didn't try. The other me wanted to know what she had seen that she tried such..."
Stephen couldn't help smiling, reflecting silently that witches were strange creatures, an odd mixture of chaos and balance, ancient and modern, the known and the unknown. At least she had all of it. He reached out slowly, hovering his hands over her in complicated gestures and sealing the spillage of energy.
"What was that?" she whispered as he nearly concluded.
"You were awake?"
"No, something felt odd. It woke me up." She felt hazy about their surroundings and burst energy from within. She looked into his grey eyes - calm and certain - letting his power, strength and emotions wash over her.
Compulsively he leaned down, brushing his lips against hers. All his senses went overactive. Warm, damp arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer. Soft lips moving against his. Silken fingers glided across the nape of his neck. And venom.
"You're marvellous," Y/N murmured the words against his lips and an utterance of pleasure escaped his throat when she brushed the tip of her tongue against his lower lip.
Venom cascaded down his fangs. For a moment, he froze. Desire and need flamed like a raging fire. And he swallowed it all, burning gloriously in the inferno.
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Strange Nights ( Dr Strange #1)
FanfictionStephen felt very much at peace after giving up the title of sorcerer supreme and settling back into the old habits of a surgeon. He had thought being a vampire would be a major drawback until it had healed his hands. Until he had people who he coul...
