Feral Snippets

Lily B22

Her eyes returned to normal and Lily stared at her papers. Humans. She had never even considered the possibility. What use were humans when you had vampires at your beck and call? But witchcraft to protect against the supernatural, that wouldn't have any effect on a human. Lily sat back down, grabbed a blank piece of paper and sketched out everything she could remember about the person she had seen. It was just a matter of finding out who they were.

~

"Did you know she was a witch, when you sent her to Natania?"

Lily stiffened and looked up at Vincent. Nat had been free for an entire year, and not once tried to contact them. She stared at him. Had that changed?

"I saw her," he confirmed, answering her unspoken question. "She wanted some information."

Not exactly the kind of reunion they'd been hoping for, but better than nothing. "A witch?" That hadn't... no. She'd seen the human from a distance, sure, but practicing witches still carried the scent of magic. "Are you sure?" Vincent wasn't usually wrong about those kinds of things, but neither was she.

"Yes," he growled. "She's witchbound our wolf." He sighed heavily and Lily stared at him, torn between shock and fury. There was no way their paranoid wolf had agreed to that.

"Did you kill her?" Lily said quietly. She wouldn't have blamed him, but if he did then they had to get someone watching Natania or they'd never know when the pack came to kidnap her. Something about that human, that witch, made it possible for Nat to get away from them. Fuck, why did their wolf always walk into fire?

"No," he said. "I don't think either of them know it."

Lily scoffed. "That's impossible. You don't just accidentally bind someone. Or hide your magic."

"The witch doesn't know what she is." He tapped his fingers. "Her parents were killed young, by Duvall. Nat is helping her get revenge."

If that was the case... maybe she really didn't know what she was. If she didn't practice, there'd be no magic scent. She snapped her head back up. "Duvall?" The guy who had a pureblooded wolf on a black magic leash, that was who their wolf was hunting? "Please tell me you turned her away." It was too dangerous.

Vincent shook his head. "They weren't going to give up if I didn't help them. It would have just put our wolf at more risk. Either asking someone else, who might kill her, or going in blind."

Lily scowled at him. He wasn't wrong. Their wolf was stubborn as hell. And being witchbound would make her determined to see the witch happy, whatever it cost her. Lily pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fucking hell, Nat."

"She's... attached to the human," Vincent said. "More than just the bond, I think." He sighed. "That girl falls for anyone that shows her even a modicum of affection."

Lily snorted. "Sounds like our wolf." She tapped her fingers. "Why don't you just kill him yourself then?" She had no doubt that Nat could take on any normal human, but the black magic added in another layer of threat.

"It's not my place," Vincent said. "And she didn't ask. Witch families aren't normally random killings either, Duvall is likely just the middle man." He shook his head and sighed. "Have you seen anything else of her?"

Lily shook her head. "Just the pack reclaiming her." If the witch was there, they left safely. If the witch wasn't there... she grit her teeth. They wouldn't allow that to happen. Vincent might have given his word not to kill the entire pack, but she hadn't, and she had no qualms about slaughtering the lot of them.

~

Vincent popped back into the parlour, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. Lily rubbed her eyes and tried to shake off the vision. She didn't need to ask, she knew what he had found. She walked over to his side and put a hand on his shoulder.

"The Collector?" Vincent snarled. "You didn't think to mention that that was who she would 'protect' us from? She could have died, she still could."

"I didn't know it was the Collector," Lily snapped back. Vincent had told her the wolf was looking for information on that witch, but neither of them had really expected her to get anywhere with it "You think I would have stayed back and let her future play out if I had?" Not that she would have been much use against a black witch of that power, but damnit she would have tried anyway. Her visions that had tied Nat to their future had been so vague, just the wolf standing between them and darkness. It could have been anything.

It wasn't until Vincent had been called away that she had finally seen the truth of it. If the wolf hadn't killed her, the Collector would have walked right into their home and destroyed them, taking Vincent as one of her toys once she had burned the rest of them to ashes.

"She's dying," he whispered, then his voice grew into a snarl. "Even if she somehow survives, she blood bargained herself back to the pack so they wouldn't kill the human. Just for her to turn around and betray her."

Lily growled. Nat needed her pack's power to make it through this, but once that was over with, they could rescue her again. "Burn him and give her a necklace of his ashes," Lily spat, "that should satisfy the terms of the bargain." The best she could come up with without knowing the exact wording. Back to him, back with him. Exact words mattered. If Natania survived, she'd find out how to free her. Whatever it took.