Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“Don’t fight it,” Hans whispered, but I was still shaking my head.
The side of a lake surrounded by people. Ropes and jeers and splashing.
Jeers…
WITCH!
DROWN THE WITCH!
Lillian crying, arms reaching out in desperation for her mother.
I heard a woman’s voice, begging.
“Don’t kill her, please! She isn’t a witch! She’s just a little girl! Take me, not her! Because I’m the witch. I’M THE WITCH! I’M THE WITCH, NOT LILLIAN!”
I slammed my hands down on the breakfast bar and pressed my forehead to the counter. My mouth wide open in a silent scream.
Don’t kill her! Don’t kill Lillian!
I’M THE WITCH, NOT HER!
A woman with her hair across her face as arms grasped at her, tugging and binding. So many arms and so much strength. Too much to fight them all.
I’M THE WITCH, NOT HER!
The cold of the marble against my forehead shot into my senses enough to realise that the screams were coming from my throat, right now in the present. I heard the desperation in my own voice, just like the woman in my memory.
“I’M THE WITCH, NOT HER! NOT LILLIAN!”
I sucked in a big breath, my eyes wide as I sat bolt upright and stared over at Hans with a new sense of recognition. The tears streamed like rivers down my face.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” I asked Hans through the sobs. “I’m the witch, not Lillian.”
He reached out to take my hands. They were as pale as his.
“Yes, Katherine, that’s true. You were the witch, not Lillian.” He smiled like he hadn’t seen me in centuries. So full of love it broke through my pain.
I felt the splash as I was dunked into the lake, the jeering of the crowd muffled underwater as I fought for breath. Lillian’s screams fading in and out with my consciousness.
Hans was nodding, gripping my hands so tight.
“It’s true. Believe the memories,” he whispered. “You weren’t Lillian, you were Lillian’s mother.”
I knew before he said it.
His smile burst in and ate my whole soul in one, two magnets slamming together after centuries apart.
“Yes, my beautiful little one,” he told me. “You were Mary.”
Chapter Twenty-four
The feelings I’d had for Hans over the past few days were nothing compared to the longing that screamed inside me as I looked upon my vampire lover through long-lost eyes.
I was a trembling wreck when he held me tight in his arms. The memories were still coming through strongly enough to have my insides twisting.
I saw a younger Hans as a Templar at Garway church, sitting next to me by the spring as we talked about life and love and our faith.
Hans had been such a pure soul, so devout and full of strong, powerful hope, and I’d been Mary, a sweet simple girl from Orcop village. Two people who loved each other’s smiles, and laughs, and friendship. And so many hints of the passion that was to come between them…
But then the world around us took it away.
The darkness kept coming for me. Memories whipping like a hurricane on a stormy sea.
“Let them flow,” Hans whispered. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m not going to let you go. Not again.”
Not again.
My body lurched at the next slam of pain, but this one wasn’t of me fighting for breath as I was drowned in the lake for witchcraft. This one was all about Hans, the man I loved.
I saw the men with swords and burning torches descending on Garway church when Hans and his friends were in prayer. They’d rounded up the men of the Church like beasts, trying to force confessions of heinous sins, and my sweet love had been amongst them. I’d been dragged back to the village, wracked with sobs, praying that God would have mercy, and I’d see my love again.
I did see him again. Once.
I’d found him hanging limp from a cross a few days later, beaten, broken and destroyed. He was dead, his head bent forward and lifeless. Gone from me for ever.
Or so I thought.
But Edwin had saved him.
“I hid in the tombs under the chapel for a long, long time,” Hans told me. “Edwin told me I should run, but I wouldn’t leave Garway. Instead, he showed me the path to the vault under the chapel and told me to stay away from the world until the torture had passed. So that’s what I did. I stayed hidden in the vault, venturing out in the still of the night and spending the days in silent prayer. Edwin was the only person I spoke to for decades.”
I struggled to comprehend Hans being there so close to me, hiding under the chapel.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were still alive?” I sobbed. “You could have told me you were a vampire, and I’d have been there. Hans, I’d have been there!”
“I know.” He rocked me in his arms at the breakfast counter. “But I didn’t want to take your life from you, to pull you into the pit of my own. I didn’t want to drag you away from your family and your heritage to live in darkness with a vampire, condemned by the Church.”