“The girl believes it happens when someone touches her. Skin to skin contact,” Robert explained.
“Curious. We must try it.”
The Supreme High Councilor looked around the circle. He smiled at a man who was unnaturally beautiful and had an ancient look to his features. “Alistair, my good friend. If you would be so kind?”
“Of course, Councilor.”
The man got up from his seat and Robert pushed me from mine. “With your permission, my lady,” Alistair said to me, holding out his hand.
“As if I have a choice?” I grumbled and clasped hands with the man.
I was met with that same familiar wave of energy and then suddenly the man holding my hand changed. He still looked human, for the most part, but there were differences. He was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him. His eyes were as large as an anime character, his fingers an inch or two longer than they should’ve been, and his ears came to points at the top.
I blinked. “What happened? Why do you look different?”
“You are now gifted with the Sight, my lady. You are seeing through my glamour. Seeing me in my true form.”
“Simply incredible,” the Supreme High Councilor muttered. Abruptly, he turned to the boy sitting in the corner. “Have you any light to shed on the subject?”
The boy sat silently for a moment longer, then nodded. The man I now resembled bowed and then went back to his seat but I didn’t dare sit back down. There was something in the way the council reacted to this strange boy that made me afraid to move.
“She is not exactly fey right now,” he said. His voice was soft, but confident. “She has adopted the traits, but at her core there is something that is still all her. She is pure.”
Another round of gasps and murmurs came from his verdict, and this time even Duncan, Constance and Robert were shocked.
“A pure!” the Supreme High Councilor cried. “Of course!”
“But a pure what?” someone asked. “What is she?”
I thought I saw the hint of a smile on the boy’s lips. “She is unique. A new race of supernatural. And she is the one from my vision. The one of whom the prophecy speaks.”
“You’re the Seer?” I asked.
The boy nodded, but I think he was the only person to hear my question. The rest of the council had erupted into happy cries of relief and astonishment.
“Long have we awaited you, dear girl,” the Supreme High Councilor said. “For now we will be able to stop the resistance and restore the balance in favor of the supernatural. No longer will we be forced to live in fear.”
“But what of the other part of the prophecy?” Alistair asked. “How are we to ensure she is not a danger to us all? How are we to know the one who will keep her on our side?”
Okay, that didn’t sound good. I whirled around to Duncan. “What other part of the prophecy? You didn’t mention any other part of the prophecy.”
“I didn’t think you’d want to hear it,” Duncan said. He smiled and teasingly added, “I was afraid you’d kill the messenger.”
I looked back at the Supreme High Councilor and demanded to know what they were talking about but he wasn’t paying any attention to me, he was talking to the boy. “We need to know whose love she needs. We must know if she is to succeed. Will you look into her future?”
The boy thought it over for a minute and then rose from his seat. “Come,” he said to me. “Take my hand.”
I swallowed hard and wished I were still a vampire because my heart raced embarrassingly fast at the thought of being close to him. My legs wouldn’t move. Duncan poked me in the back nudging me forward and the boy held out his hands, palms up. “I won’t hurt you,” he offered.
I got half way across the room and was hit with a wall of desire that nearly brought me to my knees. I froze in place, gasping for the breath I’d suddenly lost. “The cravings,” I breathed. “Why are they different with you?”
“Different how?” the boy asked.
I couldn’t help the heat that rose in my cheeks and looked away from his face.
“It is because you are both pure,” the Supreme High Councilor answered. “Power attracts power.”
I don’t think it was his power I was attracted to. I felt the need to be near him so badly I was trembling. I didn’t just want to be near him, either. I wanted to touch him. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to kiss me the way Russ had kissed me. The desire for this stranger was so strong it was ridiculous.
“Come,” he urged me again.
“I don’t think so.”
I didn’t budge so he walked to me. As he got closer, the cravings became so intense that I swooned. Duncan shot out of his chair and snatched me up before I hit the ground. I felt weak, but I was still conscious. “Remember what I told you,” he chided me as he helped me to a chair. At least the Seer had stopped in his tracks. He looked scared to come any closer. “Don’t fight the cravings. Just accept the energy. Your body needs it.”
Duncan made sure I was secure in my chair and then looked back at the Seer. “It should be fine now,” he said and then backed off just far enough to give the Seer a little space.
The Seer knelt down in front of me and held out his right hand, palm up. I placed my hand in his and let out a yelp of surprise as I was hit with a tsunami of desire. The Seer put his other hand against my cheek and my entire body began to shake.
“Danielle,” Duncan said sternly. “Stop resisting. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly.”
I closed my eyes and did as he said. And suddenly everything was perfect. I melted into the hand that was cupped against my face. It felt amazing. I felt better than I had since this whole mess started. When I opened my eyes the Seer was frowning at me, but it hardly mattered because I was in such a state of bliss.
The Seer took his hands away, and I sighed, sorry to see them go. But I felt wonderful. He’d fixed me in just a matter of seconds.
“I can’t see her,” he said. “I can read her aura, but I cannot see her future. It makes no sense.”
“You can try again if you need to.” I knew I’d regret that comment later, but at the moment I didn’t care. I was slap-happy all of a sudden, drunk off his power. It felt like I’d been starved of affection my entire life and he was here to make up for it.
The Seer glanced down at me and his frown turned to a very sincere smile. He gave me his hand back. “This week must have been very difficult for you.”
I accepted his touch eagerly this time, but holding his hand wasn’t as good as when he’d touched my cheek so I plastered his palm against my face and let out another sigh. Behind me someone laughed. Duncan, no doubt. I didn’t care.
The Seer knelt down in front of me, and I looked into his beautiful eyes, then suddenly I was standing in a dark unfamiliar room. It was a bedroom fit for a king. The moon shone through a pair of sheer floor-to-ceiling curtains, throwing enough light on a large four-poster bed that I could see two figures sleeping soundly.
I could see them, I just couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the Seer, every muscle in his well-defined chest, moving up and down with his slow rhythmic breathing. And there, curled into his side as if she belonged nowhere else, was me!
How was this possible? Where was I? How was I standing here and also sleeping there at the same time?
The sleeping me let out a piercing shriek and flew into a sitting position, panting and sweating. The Seer sat up and pulled me, the other me, into his arms. “The same dream?” he asked her.
“No,” she replied. “They’re not dead yet. He hasn’t killed them yet. But he’s going to do something horrible with that blood. We have to stop it! We have to find a way to stop him, Gabriel!”
“Shh,” the Seer said as he pulled the other me away from his chest. He wiped away the few tears that had escaped her eyes in a gesture so intimate it gave me, the real me, goose bumps. “Okay. We will speak with the Councilor again. I am sure he will understand. At his core, he is a good man, Dan
ielle. He will see reason.”
The other me nodded, but I know myself well enough to see that she definitely didn’t agree. Gabriel didn’t buy it either. “If you cannot have faith in him, will you at least try to have faith in me?”
“I—I,” the other me stammered. “I do have faith in you, Gabriel.”
The two looked at each other then, and I got the distinct impression that her admission was a major breakthrough in their relationship—our relationship. I knew what was coming next and it was really strange to be watching it from a third party perspective. I didn’t want to see but I physically couldn’t pull my eyes away.
Gabriel was afraid. His hands trembled as he drew our faces together and then he brought his lips to hers—mine—so tenderly it looked painful. They stayed frozen against one another’s lips for a moment and then slowly the kiss progressed into something deeper. There was no lust, no fire from the cravings, just emotion—an emotion that I was scared to put a label on.
And then the vision was gone and I was blinking my way back into the conference room.
The Seer was staring at me with concern. I shivered as I remembered the delicate way he’d kissed the me from my dream. My mouth became parched. I wanted that kiss. Desired it so much it terrified me.
Instinct kicked in and I slapped Gabriel sharply across the face. He stumbled back, his hand coming to his stinging cheek.
All the council started talking and they sounded really angry but only Duncan spoke to me directly. “What’s wrong with you? Why did you hit him?”
I ignored him and shouted at the Seer. “What did you just do to me? How did you put that into my head?” The tears that sprang up in my eyes surprised me. “Why would you show me that?”
“I showed you…?” Gabriel’s voice was awestruck. “Do you mean to say that you had a vision?”
“A vision?”
Then I understood, as did the Supreme High Councilor. “Of course!” he said. “At his touch she became like him, a seer.”
I heard voices from around the room.
“Another seer!”
“Think of the possibilities!”
“It’s a miracle!”
“Come, child,” Robert said. “Tell us what you saw!”
I remembered the kiss and looked again at the Seer. His eyes were fixed on me. I got caught in his stare and whispered one word without thinking. “Gabriel.”
The boy’s eyes went wide. “You saw my future?” he gasped.
“F-future?” I blushed fiercely at the possibility.
“If you’ve glimpsed the Seer’s future Danielle, you must tell us,” Constance said.
“I…I….” I looked at the Supreme High Councilor and then to all the faces in the room. Each of them watched me eagerly. I blushed even deeper. “I don’t know what I saw.”
“But you know my name. No one except the Councilor knows that.”
The Supreme High Councilor rose to his feet. The smile stayed on his face, but his eyes narrowed. “We will have no lies in the council Danielle. You have a rare gift and we need your help.”
Anger flared inside me. The Danielle in my dream didn’t trust this man, and looking at him now I was beginning to agree with her. “Why would I help you?” I asked. “Why would I ever help you? You had me kidnapped! They forced me to come here! They took me from everyone I love! They didn’t even let me say goodbye to my parents!”
“That was for your own protection,” Duncan said. He put a hand on my shoulder that was meant to be reassuring, but this time it didn’t help. I might have liked him, but he’d kidnapped me too.
“If it was only for my protection then why wouldn’t you let Alex and Russ come with me? They could have helped me feel safe.”
No one answered me so I answered the question for them. “Russ was right. You just want to use me. Well I’m not going to help you. I’m not going to tell you anything.”
The Supreme High Councilor towered over me and raised his hand as if he were going to strike me. I didn’t flinch. “Go ahead,” I hissed. “Hit me. The moment you do I’ll become a warlock again and then you’ll be sorry.”
“How did you know I was a warlock?”
“I can feel your magic. And I promise you I know how to use it. I’m powerful. I was more powerful than Alex, and I’d be willing to bet I’m more powerful than you too.”
The Supreme High Councilor looked outraged, but he lowered his hand and stepped back. He whispered an incantation and my hands were bound by magic to the chair I was sitting in.
“For my own protection, right?” I spat when I realized I was now a prisoner.
“Yes child,” the Supreme High Councilor said. His temper had calmed and he smiled again, but the smile was unsettling. “You do not understand your own power and you haven’t learned to control it. You know nothing of this world or your destiny yet.”
“I don’t believe in destiny!”
I couldn’t help glancing at Gabriel then, and he figured out my secret. “You didn’t see me,” he said. “You saw us.”
The room fell into silence.
The Supreme High Councilor squatted down to my level. “Is that true?” His anger was gone and for some reason he looked very excited by the Seer’s suggestion. He waited but the only answer he got from me was an offer for him to kiss my ass.
He stood again with a sigh. “My, but she’s a spirited little thing. I suppose that’s necessary if she’s to fulfill the prophecy.”
“I can never see my own fate,” Gabriel said to the Supreme High Councilor. “If my fate is tied to hers it would explain why I could not see her future.”
“Yes,” the Supreme High Councilor said. “Of course. Of course. Power attracts power and you are both pure. A perfect match.”
Gabriel stood in front of me again. The move was not antagonistic. He didn’t mean to make me feel inferior the way the Supreme High Councilor did. “Did you see us together?” he asked. “Is there a connection between us? Is that why you are afraid to tell us what you saw?”
He knelt down in front of me and gazed into my eyes with something like hope. It frightened me. “No,” I whispered and then looked at my lap.
I felt a hand come down on mine and I changed form. When I looked up, Alistair was smiling down at me. “Are you sure, my lady?” he asked. “That it was not you and the Seer together that you saw?”
I opened my mouth to deny it again and my voice caught in my throat. The words could not escape me. The more I tried to speak the more I felt my lungs seize up and it was painful.
When I started panicking Alistair asked, “Is there a problem?”
‘Yes!” I screamed and then stopped, surprised that the word flowed from my mouth. “How come I couldn’t speak before?”
Alistair smiled again. “At the moment you posses the traits of the Sidhe.”
“Sidhe?”
“Creatures of Faery.”
“You’re a faery?” I gasped.
“Indeed, my lady. And as such, I am physically incapable of telling a falsehood.”
“Faeries can’t lie?”
“I’m afraid not. So tell us again, did you glimpse a future in which you and the Seer shared one fate?”
Stubbornly I stayed silent, but I knew that was the same as an admission.
The Seer pulled my chin up to look into my eyes. Energy flared through me from his soft fingertips. “Do not be afraid of the visions,” he told me. “They come from the Creator and have only ever brought about good.”
My voice was a lot shakier than I cared for when I asked, “Do they always come true?”
“Yes,” Gabriel admitted. “Unless we interfere. If you know the future, Danielle, you have the power to change it. As another Seer, what you must decide is whether or not you should.”
I couldn’t bear to look at him any longer when I could still feel the effect of his kiss from my vision. I jerked my face from his grasp.
He rose to his feet again and spoke to the Councilor. “Ther
e is one thing I do not understand. How was she able to see this vision when a seer cannot ever glimpse their own fate?”
“As a warlock she casts spells without incantations,” Constance said. “As a werewolf she defeated a male second without any prior training, without even understanding what was happening to her. Perhaps she is even more powerful than you.”
“More powerful than the Seer?” Robert muttered.
He went to stand next to the Supreme High Councilor and whispered, “Think of the possibilities, Councilor. We have much to discuss here.”
The two of them looked me over, considering. Their eagerness made me sick. If my hands weren’t bound to my chair I’d have given them both the finger.
The Supreme High Councilor nodded to Robert, then turned to the rest of his companions. “Ponder what you have witnessed here tonight and get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll hold an all-council meeting.” He looked at Duncan. “Take her to the white room. Make sure she gets the things she needs.”
Duncan looked startled. “The holding cell, Councilor?” he asked. “Is that really necessary? She is not a prisoner. Is she?”
The Supreme High Councilor dismissed the notion as if it were foolish. “Just a precaution. It is the safest place I can think of for her at the moment where she will find a hot shower and a comfortable bed.” He smiled at me. “You must be exhausted, child. Go with Duncan now and get some rest. After our meeting tomorrow I will come to you. We should have some answers by then.”
“And then I can go home?”
The Supreme High Councilor smiled but didn’t answer my question. “Get some rest, dear one.”
. . . . .
“Well no one could ever accuse you of being boring,” Duncan said once we’d left the council behind and were roaming the dim halls of the consulate alone. “What’s the matter? Not going to speak to me anymore either?”
“Why should I? Are you, or are you not escorting me to my prison cell right now?”
“It’s not that bad. The Councilor is right about a place to shower and a comfortable bed. There aren’t many of those here at the consulate.”
We walked in silence until Duncan stopped and swung a large metal door open.