Blood and Prophecy ║ 18+ (Ménage)

Ashes

Luca's POV
I touched the ashes that scattered on the ground with a numb feeling growing in my chest. My mind was still trying to process what I'd just witnessed. The skin on my palm and fingers was starting to heal from the burn. My beloved's body turned into ashes in my arms. I should feel horrified. I should feel sad. I should be grieving. But the confusion was clouding my mind.

"Alexandra," Valeria said with cautiously. "What had just happened?"

She voiced exactly what I was thinking. Never in my hundred of years I walked on this earth I had seen something like that. He wasn't a vampire, so he shouldn't be burning under the sunlight. Even a vampire didn't just disintegrate into ashes.

"I-I don't know," the witch answered with a baffled expression. "I'd never seen anything like that before."

"Are you sure he wasn't a vampire?" Sebastian asked, making my heart ache at the past tense on his words. "Any accident happened?"

I wanted to growl at his questions. He was asking me whether or not I was accidentally injecting my venom into Damian's bloodstream. It was a stupid question.

"No," I curtly replied. "There's no way he turned into a vampire. You know as well as I do that turning isn't easy. Valeria and I would've known. And yesterday he was still out in the sun."

"Just checking," Sebastian mumbled.

"He's a shifter, right?"

The question came from Evander, who stood behind me. Frowning, I stood up and turned around to face him. The way his eyes looking at the ashes made me curious. He knew something — something that not even Alexandra knew.

"Yes, he was," Valeria answered for me.

She walked towards me and hugged my waist. Her tears had started to dry and I wrapped my arms around her, reminding myself that I still had Valeria beside me.

"Is. Not was," Evander said.

I narrowed my eyes, itching for him to elaborate his statement. "What do you mean?"

"What shifter is he?" He asked, ignoring my question completely.

"We don't know. But something related to fire," Valeria told him. I kissed the top of her head, thanking her for answering him since I seemed to only want to growl at him for not answering my question.

I watched Evander closely, looking for any sign of deceit. His eyes fogged for a moment, probably mind linking someone. I didn't like the fact that he knew something that I didn't about my beloved. I wanted to shake him so bad that he had no choice to answer me. But I couldn't.

Evander King had a good reputation ever since he took over his father's place. I knew he wasn't a bad person. And I also knew that he wouldn't say something that he wasn't sure. So I rather let him think than forcing him to say something that might be false.

"He's not dead," he finally said.

His words made my body and Valeria's went rigid. I gritted my teeth and raising my eyebrow at him, silently asking him to explain his statement.

"What do you mean?" Adam demanded the answer for me.

"I know what a broken bond looks like," he said, pointedly staring at me and Valeria. "You won't be standing right now if he's dead."

"He's fucking turned into ashes," Adam growled at him.

Without looking at him, I knew that Adam was ready to charge Evander. Hopefully, he wouldn't do anything stupid. I really didn't have the energy to face any more drama.