Fate Mate

Chapter 41

As it turned out, we couldn't start the damned spell until the actual battle commenced.

Otherwise, Angelina's coven would sense her sudden depletion of magic and intervene before we'd even begun. Seeing as we already had a swarm of hybrids plotting against us, we didn't need the ever-powerful Gemini Coven at our heels as well. And so we waited.

I sat on the edge of the bed, eyes glued to the outside world beyond the window where my friends and family prepared to meet their fate. My heel tapped incessantly against the floor, in perfect rhythm with Angelina's pacing footsteps nearby. She'd busiest herself in continuously muttering the spell's latin incantation, as if she might forget otherwise.

"Why aren't you with the rest of your coven?" I asked, finally ripping my gaze from the scene out of the window.

Angelina didn't cease her pacing, "Same reason that you aren't with your pack. I'm too special to risk."

Too special to risk? Right. The blasted prophecy that destined the end of the hybrids at my hands. I managed to resist an eye roll, "What prophecy is attached to you, then?"

It was Angelina's turn to roll her eyes and snort, "No prophecy. Just more powerful than the Gemini Coven has seen in generations. It scares my mother, more than anything. She doesn't want the hybrids to catch wind of my abilities."

I didn't bother reminding Angelina that there would be no hiding from the hybrids as soon as word reached them that she'd brought me back from the dead. She'd be next on their hit-list, no doubt.

I released a small huff, "We make an unlikely pair. A witch that is too powerful, and a werewolf that isn't powerful enough."

If I'd been holding a glass of alcohol, I might have lifted the beverage in honor of our chaotic, unprecedented circumstances.

Angelina, too, stopped her pacing and flashed a dangerous, albeit, amused smile in my direction, "If we make it out of this mess alive, Charlie, I think we could be friends."

"You mean, if you don't leave me dead in the afterlife?" I joked, despite the unease threatening to crawl up my throat. If I focused too much on the shoddy plan we'd comprised, I would only talk myself out of participating. Instead, I forced myself to place blind trust in this girl, practically a stranger.

Angelina smirked, "Exactly."

I cleared my throat, "You once mentioned a curse on Nolan?"

Even while I asked the question, I couldn't be sure whether I wanted to know the answer. What if Angelina's discovery revealed some ominous future? What if Nolan would survive this battle only to fall victim to dangerous magic a few days later? These worries haunted my every breath, and yet... If some unseen dark force plagued my mate, we needed to know. For better or worse.

The witch, my tentative friend, frowned at the memory. Her slender fingers began fidgeting with her shirt-sleeve. "Yes, I did mention a curse... But I shouldn't have."

"You're kidding. I hope you are kidding." I catapulted the words more harshly than I'd intended, standing from the edge of the bed to confront her.

She let out a long breath, "My mother punished me for slipping that piece of information to you. I can't tell you anything else. At least not yet."

I laughed, although the sound came out as a feral snarl. "That's rich. Y'know, I'm starting to reconsider my role in our little plan."

But my words were an empty threat, and Angelina knew it. She called my bluff, "Then you are sentencing hundreds-- no, thousands-- of innocents to death."