Bee and flower,
Heed my call for your power.
To mend what has been broken,
I offer my life as a token.”
I accept Malcolm as the mate of my heart. I take his soul into mine, and he takes me… bind us together.
The demand she made of the earth and the sky came together in a burst of stunning clarity as the entire universe flashed across her vision in a kaleidoscope of light.
The locking of her soul and Malcolm’s was beginning…
The earth answered her call for power. Every single drop of rain was suspended in the storm clouds above. Every single leaf still clinging to the tree limbs. Every fox crying in the woods, every owl flying on silent wings, every squirrel curled up in the knotted holes of hollow trees and fish in the streams.
Every living being connected with Calli in a blinding rush of pure, potent power.
All of life itself was within her, ready to help. To save him.
Her silent plea shot liquid fire through her veins. She threw her head back, her eyes glowing white as natural magic flooded through her into Malcolm’s body.
Broken ribs were mended, ruptured blood vessels were restored, air pushed into collapsed lungs, and a small lump of metal lifted up from the wound and rolled onto the grass.
“Blood freely given in love…” The voices of thirteen witches surrounding her echoed off the Black Cliffs. “Will guard this land so long as love reigns.”
Calli felt the power of the blood magic around her, and her own natural magic rushed to meet it in perfect harmony as the most powerful wards ever created were once again shielding Moonstone Falls and the land around it. The body of the hunter suddenly turned to ash upon the ground and moonflowers grew in the pattern of where he’d lain.
“We have saved the son of Salem…” A whisper so deep, so ancient that it could only have come from the earth itself tolled like a bell on the hilltop on a clear winter’s morning.
Then Calli’s magic departed and the withdrawing tide took nearly everything out of her. The vines shrank back beneath her skin, leaving the tattoos behind. She crumpled to the ground beside Malcolm, weak as a newborn kitten. She turned her head toward Malcolm. His dark lashes were still closed, then… then they gave the slightest twitch. Then a flutter, and then… oh she saw those green eyes that had ensnared her heart. They were open and shining.
His lips parted. “Death can’t be bad… if I can dream about you in the dark.”
She wanted to say something clever, something that would make him laugh. But she could only express the gravity of her feelings for him with three words.
“I love you.”
In his eyes, she saw the future swell before her in a vision clearer than any prophecy locked in ice or crystal.
Malcolm waiting as she came toward him in a shower of fallen leaves. She held a bouquet of lilies and wore a wedding gown. Watching a meteor shower together in the backyard as her grandmother’s archway glowed like a lantern. Holding hands as they stepped through the archway on a spring day. Then again, only this time each holding the hand of a little girl between them. Two old souls sitting together on a porch on Halloween’s night as trick-or-treaters flowed up and down the street…
And then, one final vision. Malcolm, lying next to her in bed. His lips brushing the crown of her white hair as she closed her tired eyes. She let out a sigh and saw the faint shimmer of the world beyond her own, telling her it was time to go.
And so she went. But she felt a hand slip through hers, and she did not go there alone.
The witch-locked bond snapped clearly and swiftly into place, joining them completely. Whispers of thoughts, his thoughts, his emotions, his magic, caressed hers along a bond that was now and forever unbreakable.
“Malcolm!” Someone shouted.
Calli felt herself being helped to sit up by Lady Batsford, while Reginald did the same with Malcolm, who was coming fully to his senses. He looked around the small clearing at the base of the Black Cliffs as though in a daze.
“Dad… what—” His words were muffled as Reginald clutched Malcolm in a massive bear hug.
“Dad… can’t… breathe…”
Something about the sight pinched Calli’s heart so hard she sucked in a pained breath. After a moment, Reginald pulled back from him and turned to Calli.
“You saved him… You saved my boy…”
