Page 26 of Blood Match

A presence looms over me, and I glance up to see our High Priestess towering over me, her brow furrowed.

“It looks like they turned on each other.” Her tone is contemplative.

“But why would they do that?” Marina steps up beside her, squinting down at a fallen vampire.

But none of it makes sense. None of it explains the carnage before us.

As the others debate, my mind wanders back to him. To Darick. I scan the bodies, half expecting – hoping? – to see his face among them. But he’s not there. Of course he’s not. He probably fled the moment Gran unleashed her power.

The coward.

And yet… I can’t shake the memory of his face. The shock in his eyes when he saw me. The way he seemed to want to talk.

“Rowan?” Kara’s voice breaks through my thoughts. She’s standing beside me, her face etched with concern. “Are you okay? You look a little…out of it.”

I force a smile, hoping it doesn’t look as fake as it feels. “I’m fine. Just… processing, I guess.”

Kara nods, but I can tell she’s not convinced. “It’s okay to be shaken up, you know. What happened here…it’s not normal. Even for us.”

I laugh, a short, bitter sound. “When has anything in my life ever been normal?”

She doesn’t respond to that, just squeezes my arm gently. We stand there in silence for a moment, watching as the other witches begin the process of cleaning up, of trying to restore some semblance of order to our desecrated grove.

He’s one of them!

The realization that the voice in my head belongs to a vampire still has me reeling. My stomach churns with disgust and…something else I can’t quite name.

How could this happen? Why me?

The thought of having one of them inside my mind makes my skin crawl. There’s no way I can tell anyone about this – they’d think I’ve lost it completely. But I know I have to do something. I can’t have the enemy in my head. The very idea makes me want to claw my own brain out.

I’m so lost in my spiraling thoughts that I almost miss the shift in conversation around me until Seraphina’s voice, sharp and authoritative, cuts through my internal panic. And her words cut my thoughts short.

“How did they know we were here?”

8

Chapter 8

Darick

Ipace the length of Arabella’s antechamber; my mind is a mess. The plush carpet muffles my footsteps, but it can’t quiet the raging thoughts in my mind.

A witch.

I have a witch in my head. The absurdity of it all would be laughable if it weren’t so damn troubling. Her face flashes before me again – eyes like emeralds, that cascade of auburn hair.

Fuck.

I stare down at my clenched fists, frustrated by how vividly I can recall every detail of her features. She’s beautiful, there’s no denying that. But she’s a witch. Our sworn enemy. The very thought of finding her attractive feels like a betrayal to my kind.

And yet…

I can’t shake the memory of how she smelled. Even with the distance between us, it had hit me like a wave. Sweet, intoxicating – like nectar and sunlight and something I can’t put my finger on. My fangs ache at the mere recollection, and I swallow hard against the sudden flood of saliva in my mouth. I can’t remember when last I’ve reacted so viscerally to anyone’s scent.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I force myself to stop pacing, bracing my hands against the ornate mantelpiece. The cool marble beneath my palms helps ground me, but it does little to calm the storm of questions. How is this connection even possible? Why her…a witch? And why now, when tensions between our kinds are at a breaking point?