“Christian, I have something that I need to ask you.” Although I didn’t wish to truly know the answer to the question that I had for him in my heart, it nevertheless would plague me until I found out. “How do you see me exactly? In your mind and heart?”

Casting me a puzzled expression, Christian gave me a scolding look. “I understand your concern. But don’t doubt that you and I are destined, like I had said before.”

I nodded. It wasn’t that I doubted him. Just that I doubted myself.

And, part of me still had trouble when it came to trusting or believing that my mother wouldn’t come back from the dead to haunt me, somehow.

“How many times do I need to tell you to shut your trap?” a voice wandered back toward me from the front door. It felt so cold and alone on the floor like this, but it was likely even worse where Nadir was standing, and a few of the other wolfish creatures.

It wasn’t that I thought they were actual wolves. They just seemed wolfish in spirit or in essence.

One of the men who seemed to be pissed at me looked back at me directly in the eye. I gasped as I realized that his eyes were totally devoid of their pupils. It was the very first time that I had seen the whites of another’s eyes like this.

“F*cking just stop,” I whimpered as I tried in vain to forget the image that had greeted me. But the person whom I presumed to be co-leader here wouldn’t stop staring at me. And all I could hear in the background was the murmur of the rest of the clan, their voices cackling barely above an audible whisper.

I felt like I was the butt of the joke, like everyone’s eyes were on me, watching, waiting for me to fall to my ultimate ruin. It was bad enough that I felt ugly and diseased, that Mother had tortured me to the point of near death. But with these four “wolf spirits” within my reach, I knew that I would never have any chance of being redeemed.

“Christian, can you save me?” Terrified, I reached out my hand in vain to clasp it around his. But when I tried to catch his gaze, I realized that his eyes weren’t even looking at me.

He had drifted off to sleep. How could he sleep at such an inopportune time as this?

I truly didn’t understand…

“Christian, wake up!” I shoved my arms at him quite abruptly. I didn’t care if the other wolf spirits heard me. They deserved to be disrupted, to be cast away toward the deepest throes of Darkness and Hell.

“Huh?” It was quite surprising to see Christian so delirious, so groggy. He seemed empty, like something had overtaken him entirely, had stolen his lifeblood, his soul, his energy.

“I need you to wake up! Wake up, Christian.”

Steadying his eyes, at last awakening, it seemed that Christian had fallen into some type of trance or higher dimension, or else, some type of torturous enslavement. “I’m so sorry, Ashlee! Ashlee….”

But Christian’s voice still continued to trail off as he reached his hand out toward me. It somewhat surprised me, as he had never demonstrated such affections prior to this point. But then again, I did barely know him.

“I think I need you,” Christian murmured, half-delirious, clasping his hands against mine.

This really was too crazy for me. I had always been the type to be rejected by men. It was surprising for me to find one who was desperate for passion or love.

“You certainly don’t need her,” a voice whispered from the left of me. I gasped as I peered up at one of the wolf spirits, his hands moving calculatingly through the air. A needle and thread spread throughout his palms as he wove something that he had sewn by sleight of his very own hands, maybe.

“F*ck!” I screamed as I realized that this wolverine creature also did not have pupils. Again, I could only see the whites of his eyes.. He looked gorgeous otherwise. But how could one so terrifying evil actually be considered beautiful?

“Ashlee, it’s okay. You will be fine. Trust us. It’s not what it seems,” Christian said gently so that only I could hear him.

“But who are you?” I trembled, my hands unable to steady themselves.

“We are the Wolves of Spirit. Have you not been told?” the gorgeous, yet ominous, one practically spat back at me. “Come with us and we will show you the way to true life.”

“What do you mean?” I cried with a panicked expression written all over my face.

“I mean that….” But the pretty little wolf’s voice trailed off as he faced an even darker, more foreboding presence, which overtook him completely.

“You have unfulfilled duties still,” a steady voice of darkened melody hollowly, irately broke the silence. “The force of the light of the Moon is crying out to be satisfied by you.”

And with that, an even darker manifestation stood hauntingly, glaringly, above, gazing back at the abyss that I felt within my heart.

“The Wolves of Spirit are here to help you arrive at some semblance of safety. We know that you have killed your mother and we are here to help you understand why.”

“But why…?” I perplexedly looked them in the eye. They seemed so dark and foreboding at first, yes. But I just didn’t get why they had to be so forceful.

My worst fears had been confirmed. They knew my secret. They knew I was a witch.

“How do you know about my mother?” I snapped. “Because if it is in fact about her, then I can assure you that you won’t be welcome here. I want absolutely nothing to do with her spirit, her energy, her body. She was a dark witch, and serves the Darkness in ways that I cannot simply condone.”

“It is not about your mother, although we do have our qualms with her for having behaved and participated in doctrines of demons for so long,” the darker voice stated.

“How do you know my evil mother?” I demanded, unable to move past this one detail. I had, after all, killed her, even if it was only in self-defense.

“We have known her for centuries. If you come with us, then we will show you everything. All there is to know. All the beauty, honor, and glory that you could ever ask for or dream about. It’s all there, at your very fingertips.”

“But how?” I scowled, folding my arms across my chest. I knew that I sounded just like a little child, and yet, I had to understand the origins of the darkened world that my mother had essentially d*mned me to.

Not that I would forever be d*mned, since I was a good witch above all else. But just that Mother had caused me endless pain to the point where I no longer knew myself was enough to be rightfully p*ssed.

“Come, darling. Let us show you,” a voice whispered to me.

But I slunk away. “But what if I don’t want to be shown?” I snapped testily. “What if the only thing that I can ever be shown are the forces of Darkness, death, decay, and pain?”

“My sweet, that is all about to change for you,” the dark voice of the wolverine creatures echoed out above me.

Truthfully, I didn’t understand how all of this could have been happening to me if I didn’t even believe in half of it. I had never been one for superstition or plagues or any of that fancy sh*t. It just didn’t make sense to me.

But ever since I was ordained a white witch, I felt I needed to take on the role of High Priestess. First, however, I would likely need to find a coven, and Cecilia alone, didn’t count. But these rogue wolves just f*cked with my ability to do that.

“What do you want with me? Please just be straight with me. I can’t afford to constantly play games like this.” I shook my head. I could feel a panic attack beginning to come on. But it was all so dark around me…

Only, none of it seemed to matter in the end anyway.

“Let Christian lead you,” the hypnotic, dark voice gracefully called around me. “He will understand you perfectly.”

“I can’t,” I whispered as I began to clutch my chest in anguish. I could still feel remnants of the panic attack coming on, from before.

“You can let him lead you. He will be safe with you,” the voice gently prodded as some type of supernatural force descended upon me. I wasn’t sure if it was bad or good. The only way I could tell that it was supernatural through the strength of its power. It carried a special type of masked life force energy that I found to be unmatched with that of any other.

“I need you to be close with me.” I turned toward Christian suddenly as I realized that he still fell limply beside me. He was quite clearly asleep, or else, exposed to some type of witchcraft spell that caused him to behave in such a way.

How could I hear his voice so clearly in my head?

Christian was not acting as himself, though of course, I didn’t know him well. I wanted so badly to reach my arm around him, toward him, so that I could pull him a bit closer to me. But he still seemed so limp, so lifeless, that I couldn’t exactly force him to draw near to me.

He was beautiful. And yet, there was little I could do about it, save stare at him in all his beauty and wonder.

Without him, I knew that I was bound to lose my mind. The chaos that I felt from within was just so unending. Unnerving, rather, I thought to myself.

What a beautiful being of light and life that he was! I couldn’t believe that I had gone for so long without him, or that I had spent so much time simply observing him — from a distance, a past life, at that.

“He’s so beautiful,” I muttered softly to myself. “Oh, how I wish he weren’t part of this. How I wish it could be just him and me. I have so many dreams, the vast amount of which remain unfulfilled…”

Feeling a few tears escape down my cheeks, I began to whimper as I leaned in to listen to the conversation that carried on around me. Truly I felt neglected, but the chaotic nature of the Wolves of Spirit was proving itself to be evident.

“Christian, wake up. Christian!” I felt I had no choice this time. It was about time that someone forced him out of his slumber. He needed something to truly wake him up, to remind him of who he truly was.

“Huh?” Christian jumped up suddenly from where he lay on my floor. “What’s going on? What happened?”

“We’re going back to the grounds,” a snicker echoed from all around me. I had no idea as to what the hell was going on, but it seemed like the Wolves of Spirit, perhaps Nadir, had placed a curse on Christian, from what I could tell.

“Why would you do something like that?” I wondered aloud. “I can understand if you really hated him all that much, you could just kill him off. But to put a spell on him? I don’t really get it. What’s your point?”

I knew that I was livid. I could not contain the depth of rage that currently washed through my body and soul.

It was simply undeniable.

But to the grounds, we would go. Did I really have a choice?