The Goddess Redemption #2 - Spellbound (a Paranormal Romance) (2 page)

             
The sun was lighting up the forest around him when the girl regained consciousness.
Girl
, Victor almost laughed. She was anything but a girl. Her skin was perfectly polished and her hair was long and dark. Her plump breasts rose up and down invitingly, as she lay there sleeping. He had yet to see her eyes, but he knew they were green, a deep dark green that could see right through a man. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew her, though it had lessened as the sun had risen.

He watched her as she stirred, bringing her hand up to rub at her forehead. Her eyes flew open suddenly and she rose up
, startled, and started backing away. He watched her look around, wildly, until her eyes trained on him.
They are green
.

             
He would have given anything if her eyes had been blue or brown, hazel even. How had he known they would be green?

             
“Where is it?” she asked him, clearly meaning the shifter. After retrieving his arrow, he had dragged its corpse behind the next rise.

             
“It’s dead,” he told her.

             
“You’re lying,” she snapped back at him. “No one has ever killed one.”

             
“I have killed many. You should be damn grateful that I came when I did or else you would be feeding that pack right now,” he told her.

             
“If it’s dead, where is it?” she asked him and he watched her plant her fist into the dirt in an effort to rise. She grimaced and sat back down hard, bringing her injured wrist up against her abdomen and holding it there, protectively. He moved toward her and offered her a hand.

             
She looked up at him briefly before taking it with her good arm and allowing him to hoist her to her feet.

             
“I took it that way and left it there,” he said and pointed behind him over the hill.

             
“Take me,” she said.

             
“What, you don’t believe me? Fine, I will show you, but first, tell me what kind of weapon that was? I have never seen anything like it,” he said and truthfully, he hadn’t. He had seen the devastation; the trees were charred white and the embers still glowed orange when he had happened on the patch of burned forest. After her fall, he had searched the surrounding area, looking for another one of the beasts, sometimes they hunted in pairs. When he had first seen the explosion site, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.

             
“It was a blasting potion,” she answered him, offering nothing else.

             
“You mean a vial of liquid did that?” he asked incredulous.

             
“What, you don’t believe me?” she challenged, catching him off guard, using his own words. He laughed.

             
“You don’t have anymore, do you?” he asked, his laughter subsiding, leaving him suddenly wary. The woman had proven herself either mad or dangerous just by being out in the dark with those beasts. If she suddenly decided to use the weapon against him, he wouldn’t survive it. He watched her brush her hair from her eyes with the back of her hand. She was extremely beautiful, even covered in dust and scrapes from head to toe. She shook her head.

             
“No,” she said and let out a long breath, “That was all I had.”

             
“The beast is this way,” he said and led them over the rise and down the next slope. The dead werewolf lay at the bottom. He could tell from her expression that she couldn’t believe her eyes. He was accustomed to the look; it was the same everywhere he traveled.

“How?” she asked him as she inspected the corpse. Victor watched the rays of sunlight travel across the forest floor
. Like fingers, they crept over the leaves and twigs reaching for the wolf, finding a paw first, then flank and tail. Victor held his breath as he watched the beast transform in the sunlight, pink naked flesh in the form of a man. The woman shrank back as the dead wolf became a dead man in front of her, drawing her hand back as if the monster could still bite.

****

              In spite of how unnerving it was at first, Sara found the transition to be a peaceful event. She was still having trouble wrapping her mind around the creature being dead at all, but to see it transform into a man before her eyes was surreal. She watched as the paws spread out into fingers and the fur retreated into the skin. The tail shrank away as the bent hind legs of the wolf became legs and knees. She watched the change inch its way along the creature, following its path along the abdomen, arms and chest. Slowly, she saw it spread up the neck and jawline, the creature before her nearly completely a man.

             
When the face was revealed, she leaned back and a cry caught in her throat. She knew him. Eduard had tended the stables in town; he had been one of the first in the village to be bitten. Meg had liked him, though she never told anyone. Sara fought back tears, she had already mourned the man once and it seemed too cruel to have to do so again.

             
“You know him.” It wasn’t a question. “I am sorry.” She could tell by his sharp intake of breath that he wanted to say something else, but the words never came. As the daylight washed away the gray, her situation hit her full in the stomach causing her to nearly wretch up the modest breakfast she had eaten before starting out after the wolfsbane.

             
Hope dwindled like a broken promise. She couldn’t protect herself, much less her sister. With no wolfsbane, death was all but a certainty. They could run. But that would put them traveling at night which was another situation to bring about their deaths. Or worse, they could be changed. With no chance of finding any wolfsbane, Sara suddenly wanted to be home. Through her tears, she looked up at the sky, got her bearings and set off.

             
“Where are you going?” the man called out from behind her. Sara could hear him stomping through the leaves, following her.

             
“Home,” she said, not even bothering to turn around, more focused on putting one foot in front of the other. She wondered where Julip was and if she was alright, but she knew she couldn’t dwell on it. In fact, as she moved through the sycamores and tall pines, she had to force herself not to panic.

             
“Who are you?” he called out again from behind. She didn’t have time for his inquisition, she needed to get home.

             
“Sara,” she answered, a little sharply.

             
“Is this how you treat all men who save your life?” he asked her and she came to an abrupt halt. He plowed into her back and they both hit the ground.

             
“After saving a woman, do you always try to kill her?” she asked, picking herself up off the ground. She held her wrist tightly to her chest as it throbbed.

             
“No, just you,” he said. Funny, she didn’t feel special.

             
“How’d you kill it?” she asked him. If he wanted idle chat, she could at least learn something. And he had saved her life. Even after all she had witnessed, she still hated to admit it.

****

              “Silver,” he said. Victor was almost certain that the woman before him was one of the witches he had heard about. After his first encounter with the beasts, he had traveled far and wide, searching them out, using
Ice
to kill one monster after another. While spreading word of how to kill the creatures and take back the forest, he came across the tale of two witches protecting a whole village from a pack.

             
“Silver?” she asked, wrinkling her nose as if something didn’t smell right.

             
“Through the heart, though they can’t seem to heal as well from wounds made by silver in other parts of their bodies. Silver, right through the heart, will kill them,” he assured her.

             
“How do you know this?” she asked him.

             
“Well, that’s a story,” he said, as they resumed their walk. Although her fall down the hill was anything but, the witch in front of him moved with the grace and skill of a hunter, barely leaving signs of her passage through the forest. As they walked, he told her everything. He told her about being a skilled hunter in his own village. He told her about the old woman who had given him
Ice
, how he had barely managed to release the arrow in time to drop the beast on the cold hard ground. He told her how he had hunted the creatures for the past year, rooting them out and killing them. He told her how many villages had been ravaged in the mountains and which ones he had been able to help with his weapons. He found conversation with her very easy.

             
“After taking down a monster, it is hard to go back to hunting stag. And it certainly doesn’t help that I am practically a hero in some places, I have a reputation to maintain, now,” he said and he got the smile from her he had been looking for.
Gods, she is beautiful, especially when she smiles
.

             
“Well, I’ll be sure to tell everyone how you rescued me, wouldn’t want to sully your reputation,” she said, swinging a branch back wide and allowing him to go before her like a lord. “What is your name, hunter? Or do you prefer I call you, Hero?’ she asked and he had to look back at her to see that she was teasing him. Her green eyes shone mischievously and another smile threatened her lips.

“Hero is fine
,” he said and then added, “You can call me Victor.”

When they finally gained the
worn path to the village, the walk and the conversation had become ever more pleasant. No one would ever know the way was infested with danger. But that was how it was; the horrors of the night always seemed less real in the light of day.

The sun was nearly directly overhead when the small cabin came into view. He followed the witch through the tiny garden, though most of the plants were brown and dying, harvest having been weeks before. Still though, some of the plants were recognizable, like the low-lying squash plants and the tall yellowing stalks of corn. There were other plants still alive, turnips and greens and some small grayish plants, which Victor had never seen before.

He was about to ask what they were, when the cabin door flew open and the most beautiful woman he had ever seen came rushing out. Her blonde hair rose lightly on the wind as she raced across the garden towards them.

“Sara! I thought you were dead or...” Victor could tell the woman couldn’t bring herself to finish as
she hugged Sara. Her eyes were red and slightly swollen from crying.

“I’m fine, Meg, just got tossed. You haven’t seen Julip, have you?”
Victor heard Sara ask from inside the smothering embrace.

“When I woke up, you were gone, and when I went outside, Julip was loose. She was so scared, Sara, what happened?” the blonde named Meg asked
, as Sara pushed her way out of the woman’s arms.

“Nothing, she spooked on the trail and
I wound up falling down a hill.” Victor could see that Meg didn’t believe any of it, but she held her tongue when she noticed him. He watched as she straightened her dress and smoothed out her blonde curls. He could barely take his eyes off the woman and when he did, the look Sara gave him could curdle milk. He raised his eyebrows in question at her and she rolled her eyes. What had he done?

“
She ran here, stomped around and then ran back up the path. I would have chased her, but I didn’t know where you were. Were you able to find it?” Meg asked and Sara shook her head.

“Find what?” he asked, his curiosity
piqued.

“Meg, this is um, Victor, he found me and followed me here
,” Sara said, her voice hesitating around his name. “He kills them.” There was no question what “them” was, as he watched Meg’s eyes widen in surprise.

“That’s impossi
ble. If the blasting potion doesn’t kill them, what on earth can?” Meg asked and Victor pulled
Ice
from his quiver.

****

Sara had seen the silver tipped arrow, with the ornate shaft and the strange blue glow when Victor had shown it to her in the forest. She hadn’t remembered it pulsing, though it clearly was at that moment. Victor held it out for Meg to see and Sara watched her sister gingerly reach out to touch the arrow.

“It’s so cold. What kind of magic is this?” Meg asked
Sara, but she could only shake her head.

“I don’t know. But it isn’t the magic that kills them. It’s the silver tip
,” Victor said and pulled out a much plainer arrow, also with a silver broadhead. “This one does the job just as well.”

“You must be very brave.” Meg said.
Or mad
, Sara added mentally. Someone would have to be insane to actively hunt the werewolves, she cautioned herself and took a wary look at him. She could hardly look at the man without heated cheeks and visions of them tumbling together naked on the forest floor. What was wrong with her? Why did she keep seeing these images in her mind? Her brain felt crowded for a moment and she wanted to scream, but she didn’t have the time.