The Darke King

White Lighters

The hiss of his hot breath and beastly grunts against her ear was enough to push Rosemary over the edge again. She slid back and forth against the rug and moaned into his hand with each thrust. Every slap of his hips against her ass made her whole body tremble, and she whimpered for more through his fingers. "Please."

The Season made her the most potent force in his world, and even Daniel wasn't immune to the enchantment. Not that he wanted to be. His mind was constantly in motion, and having his rightful family surrounding him again was the single focus of his life. Every spare moment they found in private, they spent wrapped up together like this.

When he filled her once again, he backed away and wrapped his arm around her waist. She giggled as he pulled her up with him and kissed her neck. "Until later."

He playfully smacked her bottom, and she grabbed it in her hand. "Ouch." With her teeth dug into her lip, Rosemary tried to hide her drunken smile as she turned around to face him and shimmied down her skirt. "Thank you again."

He pulled his button back through the hole of his trousers and leaned over to peck her lips, still swollen from his kisses. "I'm at your service, my queen."

She crossed the library backward as she watched him pull on his shirt and crouched down where Sigrid lay sleeping on her white, fluffy blanket as she pushed the hair from her cheek. "What a little angel you are."

Daniel slumped into a chair at the table and examined the book cover while he wiped his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief. "Curses. That sounds like fun."

Rosemary's hands pushed down his chest, and her chin rested on his shoulder as she looked over the leather-bound journal. "Hmm!"

His eyebrow lifted as he glanced back at her. "Hmm? What does that mean?"

She slid into the chair beside him and puffed her cheeks while she blew through them. Tapping her fingers on the book, she thought about how to say it before she met Daniel's eyes again. "You must be careful, Daniel. There are very dangerous, even if you do not mean them. Especially for a warlock like you." Her head shook, and she placed her hand on his arm. "You must never speak them near anyone unless you really mean it."

She took a deep breath and flipped to the last page. "This one, most importantly. It is the death curse, and it cannot be undone once spoken." She shook her head and turned to face him. "You can never use it, Daniel. It's not even taught anymore because it's so terrible."

His eyes darted around the pages as his mind tried to recall something he just couldn't place. A falling sensation came to his hands, and he rubbed them together. "Why not? I mean, why can't it be undone?"

She pushed herself back in the chair and shrugged. "When an Earth witch dies, they come home just as they are and go on like nothing ever happened. I don't know why things are this way. But her" — she tapped her fingernail on her armrest — "in the Realm, if you die, must start all over again. You can't remember much, if anything. Maybe here, perhaps on Earth. It could take a million years for us to find each other again if it were to claim us."

His head shook defiantly at the concept, and he waved his hand at the book. "No. That won't happen. I'll never allow it to happen to us."

Her hand slid to his, and she leaned into him. "When the curser commands the soul to leave its body, it cannot be called back, no matter how great the wizard's skill." She trilled her lips and flipped through the pages. "I doubt even a Lady of the Light could reverse it."

"Lady of the Light?" Daniel shook his head when he turned to her for answers. "What's that?"

She chuckled through her nose and kissed his cheek before leaning back into her chair. "You don't remember anything, do you?"

"No, I guess not." He shifted back into his chair and wrapped his arm around her. "So, tell me."

Rubbing her fingers in the hairs poking from his mostly open shirt, Rosemary relaxed her head into his shoulder. "They are the decision-makers. The Fates blessed them with the gift of resurrection. When men were struck down on the battlefields, the White Lighters decided who lived and died."

She turned a page in the book and sighed at the words. "Unfortunately for them, the Fates gave them no defensive powers. Before the war, the Evil hunted them all down, and they had no means of protecting themselves. The ones he didn't kill, he kept prisoners in little cages until their light was gone. There are none left, or at least, they won't come forward out of fear of being exterminated."

"You've seen how things end." Daniel rubbed his lips into Rosemary's hair and kissed her. "We could surely use them."

She nodded and sighed into his chest, blowing her warm breath into his shirt. "Agreed. But I don't know how we could ever go about finding one; they look just like you and me."

His teeth bit into the inside of his lip as he thought and slid his fingers up and down her arm. "What else do you know about them?"

Her shoulders shrugged, but she pushed up from his chest when it came to her. "Wait. There is something. They glow."

She sat up out of his arm and stared at the bookshelf. "That's right. Thye shine." She jumped up from the chair, rushed to the shelf, and went from book to book until her fingers found the correct title. "This one. Can you get it, please?"

Daniel's hand wrapped around the spine, and he tugged it out and handed it to Rosemary. As she walked back to the table, she hurriedly flipped through it, then tapped her fingers on it and smiled. She set it in front of Daniel as she hovered over his shoulder. "They're the original healers. The ones witches like me learned from. They can heal the most deadly wound with just their touch and drive out darkness with a hand wave."

She shook her head and twisted her lips as her fingers outlined the ancient words. "When they are using their healing touch, they glow as bright as the sun. Can you just imagine?"

Daniel nodded as he glanced over at her. "That's why he killed them all. He knew they were the only ones who could defeat him."

She nodded and closed the book. "Yes. They can undo death itself."

His fingers drummed on the table, and he gazed at the window and sank back into his visions. Closing his eyes to the dreadful images, Daniel turned back to Rosemary. "I think that's how we died, Rosemary. He used the curse on us. But there's something else. The," — he wiggled his fingers in front of his mouth — "it's right there on the tip of my tongue, but I just can't remember. Right beyond the veil." He traced the seal on the front of the book, and his teary eyes shot to his wife. "We need to gather them all, Rosemary. We can't win this without them."