Saved By Her Dragon (35 page)

A powerful white witch sworn to the Earth, of long regal
lineage made whole by human love, must mate a dragon of royal
descent marked by devastating loss and the heart of not one clan,
but two.

The vibria born of human parents and the last female born of
two dragons lost in plain sight
.

Born to an extinct race, thought to be one but actually two.
Both with destinies blessed by Fate, neither knowing the other
exists…

A calling to heal, a hidden nature, a history long
forgotten…all protected in the heart of a woman destined to
complete a warrior and his beast. The revelation of all she is
brought forth from the joining with her mate.

Another
page, one much older and most certainly written in blood, fell from
between the last page and the back cover as he shifted his
position. The moment he saw it, he remembered John showing it to
him before and wanted to scream for not following up on it from the
beginning. Thankfully, his assistant had possessed the wherewithal
to remove the page from the ancient grimoire and hide it away for
safe keeping. This one, very old piece of parchment held the spell
to deliver the forever death to any shifter ever known.

Smiling his first real smile in days, Andrew lay back on the
stone floor and closed his eyes.
Those
fuckers are not going to know what hit them
.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In the
last week her captors had resorted to torture in an effort to get
her to reveal the location of the grimoire that contained the most
powerful and most deadly spell known to magical practitioners
worldwide. This new development, although painful, gave Calysta a
little more insight into her captors…they were working for someone
magical. Only the most experienced witches or the oldest families
with long lineages knew of the existence of the spell. To all
others it was only a myth, passed from person to person as a
warning to the evil of meddling with things one didn’t
understand.

On the surface it looked like a simple summoning spell, but
the ritual was written so that as each step was completed another
would appear, erasing the previous; each step becoming more
complex, more dark, and more deadly. It was written so that a
single, experienced witch with incredible power may work the spell
without deadly repercussions that would span her entire line. And
only on Samhain, when the veil between worlds was the thinnest.
Legend stated it was created by a dark Priestess trying to find the
soul of her long dead lover in order to place said soul in a
waiting body, thus allowing them to once again wreak havoc on an
unsuspecting world. Simply known as Thanatos, the name of the
witch’s lover and also meaning death, the spell drops the veil
between Earth and Hell, allowing only the witch working the spell
to bring over any
thing
her heart desired, and only that witch can restore the curtain
between worlds.

The
spell was only ever recorded in one grimoire and had always been
entrusted to the most powerful priestess to keep hidden. Since
taking her place as the leader of her coven, Calysta had protected
the book and its contents with every resource she possessed. It was
hidden in plain sight, spelled to look like an ordinary instruction
manual in the library of her coven, warded more heavily than any
single artifact in their vault. Only she and Della knew of its
location, and both were willing to die to keep it safe and out of
the hands of evil.

The most recent indignities she had suffered had come at the
hands of her female captor, with the male standing watch. They
always came in together and, until yesterday, only
he
had spoken. His voice
was low and gravely with a bit of an accent that she knew she had
heard before but simply could not place. The female was younger and
Calysta could tell from the reluctance pouring off of her, far less
certain about what they were doing. The Grand Priestess had caught
the last bit of an argument between the two as they entered her
cell the day before. The man had growled her name, Mara, right
before a loud slap had echoed throughout the chamber, followed by a
very female whimper. Calysta gave her credit for not crying out and
thought if only Mara were to visit her alone, she might have an
opportunity to convince the younger woman to help her. But it was
obvious they still feared her power, even though she was kept
chained in iron to a cement slab in an iron-lined room,
malnourished and close to dehydration.

Face
down on the slab, arms shackled over her head, iron chains thrown
across her abused back, Calysta rolled her shoulders, trying to
find a position that would let blood flow return to her fingers.
She hissed as pain from the burn marks she had received yesterday
shot through her body. The bitch had shoved acid soaked iron
daggers into her back and then rinsed her wounds in a mixture of
salt and deadly nightshade to keep them from healing and increase
her suffering.

It was apparent to Calysta that the Goddess, the Universe,
Fate…whoever…was not going to let her die. The almighty powers had
a plan for her and she was going to have to carry it out, whether
she wanted to or not. Pulling on the strength of her ancestors and
the power that would always be a part of who she was, Calysta began
to chant…”
Heal me now and make me whole.
Take my pain, refill my soul. Let the scars remain, no one can
know. Bring peace and comfort; let your light brightly
show.”

She prayed with all she was. It was her last chance. Finishing
her tenth or maybe it was her eleventh time through the chant, the
sound of iron scraping concrete reached her ears. But it was the
unmistakable scent of sulfur that had her pulling against her
restraints.
“What hath hell
wrought?”
was her last thought as pain
pushed her into the oblivion of unconsciousness.