Page 6 of Azure Mania

“No shit,” I snort. “But, look!”

I grab the small pocket knife from the nearby shelf, hidden behind the herbs I’ve been carefully drying. I sit down next to Lucifer, and drag the knife across his forearm. The wound appears immediately, the black blood dripping down his arm.

Then, I hiss in pain, closing my eyes. The exact same wound appears on my forearm, the same amount of blood oozing down. The burning sensation makes my entire body recoil, and I swallow down the tears. This fucking hurts.

“Jesus Christ,” Octavia breathes out. “You two are connected now.”

The tension, the ache slowly starts to ease once his vampire abilities kick in, healing the wound. My own starts closing up, and soon enough, it’s like it was never even there. Not a single scar, just smooth skin without any imperfections.

“How in the world did this happen, Octavia? Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

She shakes her head, a look of sympathy flashing her eyes.

I called Octavia here because she really loves to read. Not only is she the only witch who could’ve possibly read something about this strange occurrence, but she’s brilliant enough to remember it. If she doesn’t already know, she’ll at least know where to look for information. Strangely enough, she has connections in places I have never even heard of.

“No,” she breathes out, biting her inside of her cheek. It’s a clear tell how hard she’s thinking about this, her brows narrowing in concentration. “But if you two are connected, how come he’s passed out, and you aren’t?”

I slump against the wall. “I knocked him out, then I passed out, too. Of course, when I woke up, so did he. Thankfully, he was already chained, so that gave me enough time to put protection spells on myself, before using magic to knock him out. Honestly, I’m shocked it worked.”

She frowns at me, before dropping her voice, “That means you can’t kill him because if you do, you’ll die too.”

“Bingo,” I rub my temples, groaning. “Just what I needed.”

“Didn’t you say yesterday that you wouldn’t mind laying down your life, if it meant killing him?”

I give her an unimpressed look. “Yes, and I stand by those words. But I’m not killing myself just to see him dead. What I want is to kill him slowly, painfully. Then flaunt it around a little before I die.”

Much to my surprise, Octavia laughs. It’s soft, sudden, and bubbly. She’s quick to clear her throat, and look away, once she sees the judgmental look from me.

“Okay, okay, there must be an explanation for this, and a solution,” Octavia stops laughing, then pulls me up to my feet. “Come on, let’s go grab some tea, while he’s passed out.”

With a small nod, I cast a couple more spells to ensure he can’t hear our conversation, if he wakes up. Locking the door behind me, as we leave the basement. Octavia, as always, makes herself at home, brewing us both tea and grabbing my favorite set of cups. They’re very old, dating back to early 1900s. I saved a young child from drowning and as a thank you, the child brought me these teacups as a gift.

They’re handmade, in a cute shade of white, with clumsy, rosy flowers drawn all around. I imagine, in normal circumstances, they wouldn’t have lasted this long. Back then though, I put a preservation spell on the cups, keeping them as my favorite little item to this day.

“Do you think this could be a Faith and Ophelia thing, too?” Octavia asks, taking a seat and putting the cup in front of me. The scent of tea fills my nose, the steam hitting my face. My heart is pounding, and my mind drawing a blank.

“No,” I say, the thought of such a terrible thing makes my skin crawl.

Faith is — well, was — a human hunter that worked with me. She went on her own to hunt down the vampire who killed her parents, and unfortunately for her, it turned out to be one of the Sacred Seven.

The seven oldest vampires alive, the ones who started it all. They’re stronger, smarter and far more dangerous than regular vampires.

Faith ended up being turned into a vampire by Ophelia, and that was when the two of them realized they were mates. Faith had no chance at killing Ophelia, even less so once they were bonded for life. I’m assuming they’re still in Transylvania, living their lives together.

But this is different. Mates always have matching marks, somewhere on their bodies. The first thing I did was check for those, and I’m very happy that I found none. Besides, having a soulmate doesn’t mean if one is hurt, the other gets the same injury. This is something different.

“Alright, then,” she sighs, then takes a small sip of the tea. “Walk me through the curse, Yvonne. You said it was your first time casting one?”

“It was two hundred years ago,” I groan. “I don’t remember.”

“You must remember something, Yvonne.” She says matter-of-factly.

“I was in England,” I lean back, closing my eyes, trying to remember. “I was following up on a lead, that one of the witches from my coven had a descendant there. The lead turned out to be false, but I didn’t leave immediately. I stayed for a while, and one night, I ran into Lucifer while he was feeding off someone in a dark alley.”

“How did you poison him, exactly?”

I open my eyes, looking at her. “I honestly have no clue. I had a poison of sorts on me, but I don’t remember what it was. I just remember thinking it wouldn’t work on him, so I added some of my blood, and it worked like a charm. He passed out, and that was when I put the curse on him.”