Polly sighed and shook her head. “They’re not. I’ve waited over four hundred years. I’ve walked through fire, literally, and I’m tired of waiting. Many witches don’t find their True Loves but can still be happy. I just need to accept it. Samuel doesn’t want me. I need to move on.”
Zoey felt the power of the shield as they approached the clearing. All looked well, but even so, Zoey closed her eyes and sent out her powers just to make sure.
“You know that wakes everyone up every morning, right? I haven’t slept in for nine months.”
Zoey called back her powers in surprise and grimaced. “Oops. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. We all know you’re just trying to protect us. Maybe just wait until seven to search the woods? Five is a little early and some of the new witches who didn’t go through what we have don’t understand why you’re doing it. We’ve explained, but it would go a long way at keeping the peace to wait an hour or two. Too many tired witches mixed with magical powers during practice can be a little dangerous.”
Zoey nodded and as much as she wanted to have it not matter, it did. She just wanted to keep everyone safe. It fell to her. She’d seen it. She knew there was something darker out there. She and Slade were the protectors and had the responsibility of protecting every witch here. However, everyone else only cared about sleeping in and whether or not she was pregnant. It was so frustrating. Zoey wanted to scream, but instead she walked into the clearing with a smile plastered on her face.
Slade was waiting for her with Samuel by his side. Zoey instantly calmed when Slade took her hand in his. “Samuel, would you take Polly to the armory and begin setting things up?” Slade phrased it like a question, but it was an order—one Samuel and Polly immediately followed. “What’s the matter, sweetness?”
“Everyone is growing complacent. Samuel is dragging his feet and about to lose his chance at True Love. Everyone is bugging me about becoming pregnant. And while I am so happy and madly in love with you, I have this feeling that something bad is going to happen and it’s growing stronger every day.”
Slade bent and covered her lips with his. The kiss was gentle and full of compassion that warmed her heart and sent the bad thoughts scurrying for cover. “Better?” Slade asked as he cupped her cheek with his large hand.
“Yes, let’s practice.”
Zoey knew Slade could feel that she had lied. The kiss had calmed her and was just what she needed, but the feeling of dread came storming back the second his lips left hers.
3
Polly may be sweet as pie, but not when it came to fighting. She was every inch a warrior. She’d had to be to survive so many centuries. She’d been born in Europe but her family moved to North America on the first voyage to Roanoke Island in 1585, when she was not even a hundred years old. What happened there wasn’t her story to tell. What she could tell was it was where she learned to fight and to heal. She’d watched the colonies grow as she moved around from settlement to settlement, helping and healing anyone who needed it, until Alexander fooled them all into coming to Tenebris headquarters.
There, as just a young witch, she’d worn the fashion of the times–a large court dress. It was heavily adorned with bright silk embroidered in floral patterns with pearls as the center of the flowers. The lace at her neck and sleeves was so delicate she was afraid to touch it. However, the lessons learned in the wilderness of the American Colonies were strapped to each calf. She might be a healer, but Polly knew full well that threats to women came from every direction.
Her fire power had simmered in her belly, the knives on her calves warmed under the energy as she and her parents stood in court, waiting for Alexander to speak. Since Alexander had been named Grand Master, the two groups of witches had never been more divided. Recently there were rumors of the Tenebris and Claritase coming together more.
That didn’t happen. Instead Alexander killed Grand Mistress Helena in front of them all as all hell broke loose. The Tenebris had turned on the Claritase. The fighting, the screaming, the pain . . . it was all still in her nightmares. That night everything had changed. The Tenebris had split between those who followed Alexander’s ideas of stealing powers to create a strong leadership and killing off any competition, to those who followed the beliefs of the Goddess.
Polly hadn’t frozen when the fighting started like so many of her friends had. She’d been in the wilderness for years, honing her reflexes and skills. Her fire power surged from the fingertips of her left hand as she hauled up the large dress and pulled a knife with her right. Blood poured from any Tenebris Hunter who approached her as she battled her way toward Alexander and his men.
“Save the council!” her mother had yelled in the midst of her own battle. It was the last time Polly had seen her parents.
Lauren had shape-shifted into a black cat to try to sneak up on Alexander when he turned on her. His powers had rained down on Lauren, stripping her of hers, and trapping her in the form of her cat until Grand Master Linus freed her only recently. Neferu, one of the oldest witches in the Claritase, was using her air power to drive Alexander back and protect her best friend, Lauren.
Agnes and Vilma, who appeared to be in their fifties at the time, had joined in the battle to protect the council.
Zap, zap, stab. Polly was covered in witches’ blood as she fought her way to the council members. Some were dead or dying and couldn’t be saved. But Neferu, Lauren, Vilma, Agnes, and a few others were still alive. They needed to find the witch preventing teleportation and kill him. Then Polly could get her sisters to safety.
“Watch out!” a deep voice had boomed next to her.
Polly instantly ducked as a flash of air power shot over her head. Polly jammed the knife upward and into the heart of the Hunter who’d had tried to attack her. When Polly looked to see who had warned her, she found a young man fighting by her side. Tall, with a neatly trimmed dark beard, and so very muscled that he reminded her of a knight. He nodded at her and she nodded back, and then they both turned their attention back to the battle, taking down Hunter after Hunter.
No one knew which powerful witch had cast the spell preventing teleportation, but at some point, they must have died because suddenly the power-like bubble keeping them trapped vanished. In a split-second, the cavernous court was empty of the living. Polly transported back to the colonies, alone. The Claritase book chimed with an update urging all Claritase into hiding. For four hundred years, Polly hid in the remote wilderness of the southern colonies, that eventually became states, with little more than a dream of the man who had warned her as her company. Until one night, a little over a year ago, Grand Mistress Lauren had appeared in her living room.
“My faithful warrior. The time has come. The prophecy is at hand and we need your help.”
Polly fit right in to Moonshine Hollow. It was like the numerous towns she moved to every ten years all through the southern United States. But now she was no longer alone, Polly had friends and that was worth fighting for. Then one day she’d met Slade and the True Tenebris had joined their fight.
When Slade’s second-in-command stepped forward, Polly had almost fallen down from the shock. It was the man who had fought by her side. The one she’d dreamed about for four hundred years.