Zoe's only wish is to be able to run barefoot through grass, but she knows it'll never happen. Ever since she was born, she's been unable to touch anything living without it instantly dying. It's a curse she would do anything to get rid of, but that...
As soon as I stepped into the hotel, I knew something was up. An ominous feeling settled in me and the air felt thick, which made it hard to breathe. Call it instinct or magic, or maybe it was just the fact that I had had an amazing day and I knew it had been too good to be true.
When I opened the door to my room, I immediately spotted the reason for my feeling.
She stood with her back to me. Wore one of her typical short black dresses. The back was open, but her long black hair covered it. I had expected her to come, but that didn't mean fear didn't take me when I saw her, made my mouth dry and palms sweaty.
"Zoe," the Priestess said and turned around. Her vivid blue eyes soft and her mouth set into a smile. "How good it is to see that you are okay."
"Priestess," I said, bending my head and curtsying.
"I've been worried about you, Zoe. It's been over a week since I set you your task and I haven't heard from you. That's highly unusual. I was worried the witch hunter got to you. Clearly I was worried for nothing."
"I'm sorry, Priestess. It's been more difficult to get close to the witch hunter than my usual targets. He has amulets all around his estate, so I haven't dared going in there while he's asleep. When he's awake he's seldomly alone," I rambled out the lie. The fact was that I had no clue about Harry Jackson's movements. My mind had been to occupied by Felix Jackson.
"Has something changed? Does your gift only work when the victim is alone nowadays?" the Priestess asked, her voice as sweet as ever and her smile didn't falter.
"No, Priestess. I'm only being extra cautions considering that he is a witch hunter. I don't know if the people he mingles with are hunters too. They might understand what happens and come after me."
"But if that happened, couldn't you just kill them too?"
"I'm just being cautions, Priestess."
She stepped towards me. With my head still bowed, I couldn't see her face, but I could see as she put on an elbow high black glove. I swallowed hard, but a knot in my throat made the saliva unable to pass.
"You know why I sent you to take care of him, right Zoe?" she asked.
"Yes, Priestess. He has killed several sisters in our coven."
"That's right. Four of them, all within two months. Now, for each day that you remain cautions, the risk of him going after another sister increases. I do not particularly like losing sisters, do you?"
"No, Priestess," I mumbled.
"But maybe next time he won't kill a sister. I don't want to lose another sister, but a losing a brother... Maybe we should make it easy for him to find his next victim."
My head snapped up as ice cold terror swept my body. Her eyes were still soft, and the smile was still in place. I couldn't believe that I actually had believed in the sweetness of her face and voice once upon a time.
I had been about twenty when I had realized her true nature. I was ashamed to say that I had been happy and proud during my first few years of serving the coven. At fourteen, when she had asked me to kill for the first time, I had taken on the task eagerly. The idea of being of use to the coven had made me happy. There had been a clear shift in the other witches' attitudes towards me that day as well. It had gone from fear and bullying to fear and respect. I had felt like I finally had a place where I belonged and that there was a purpose to my curse.
But as time had gone by and the deaths had piled up, I had started to hate myself instead. So when I was twenty and once again called into the Priestess's office to be given a task, I had stupidly asked her to find another way, that I didn't want to do it anymore.
Still with a smile on her face, the Priestess had hurt me and shown me an illusion of what would happen to my father if I refused. Since that day, I had felt like nothing but a murdering puppet. Her threats were the strings that controlled the puppet and her threat had now been as clear as it had been when I had argued against killing the child, compared to before I had set out on the mission. Father would die if I didn't finish the mission soon. It was Father's life or my mate's father's life.
"Please, Priestess. I will get the job done. I just need some more time," I begged, though the truth was that I knew I wouldn't be able to ever kill Harry Jackson.
She placed one of her gloved hands on my cheek. Stroked it almost in an affectionate way. Her eyes were filled with malice.
"I know you will get the job done because you know exactly what is at stake."
She kept on smiling as she quickly moved her hand from my face and then slapped me. She was surprisingly strong and my cheek burned where her hand had landed, causing tears to surface, that I hastily blinked away.
"If you do not manage to complete this task before another sister is killed, the next one we'll lose is a brother," she said, her voice filled with poison, before disappearing, teleporting herself away.
What was I going to do? I knew I should kill Harry Jackson. If not, my own father would die. But he was Felix's father. As much as Harry might have deserved to die for all that he had done to my kind, I couldn't hurt Felix in that way. And Felix could find out what I was if I did it. How would he take that? No, how would he take it, because one day I would have to tell him. But I couldn't let it be because I had killed his father.
Why? Why couldn't anything in life be easy?
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