I watched Britney from a distance as she milled about surrounded by her new friends and her mate. I had been careful to keep my presence a secret from the wolves although I hadn't been able to keep myself from reaching out to her in a dream. I needed her to know that I meant her no harm. I knew that the rest of her kind would have already filled her head with stories of my terrible deeds calling me a monster and they weren't wrong. I could never hurt her. She was my chance at salvation.It was all I could do to keep from approaching her now, but the time wasn't right yet. I had to break the curse this time because I didn't think I could handle watching her die again. Almost five hundred years ago I had lost her for the first time. I had been the one to kill her and now I was cursed because of it.
I had been human the first time I laid eyes on her in french court. The year was 1570 and she had been walking with the witch Catherine de Medici through the gardens and I knew I had to have her. Asking around I was able to discover that her name was Antoinette and that she was the daughter of a prominent french noble and favored by the Queen. Despite my best efforts to woo her, she remained indifferent to my advances. Then I tried to bargain with her father and even went to the Queen to find a way to make her mine, but they had both refused. She was to be married to one of Catherine's sons and was off-limits. The Queen had warned me that if I tried anything there would be dire consequences, but I hadn't believed her. I'd stolen Antoinette away from court for myself, but when she struggled and tried to escape I'd snapped and killed her. Ashamed I'd discarded her broken body in the river not wanting the reminder. Shortly after I began to crave blood and developed superhuman strength and reflexes. I traveled back to the French court to confront the Medici Queen. She laughed at me informing me that I was no longer human and that she had cursed me as punishment for my crimes. The girl I had killed was a werewolf as was most of the French nobility. She also informed me that as punishment for my crime I would be haunted by the girl I had murdered and that my soul and fate would be tied to her. I hadn't understood what she'd meant by that, but over the years I figured it out eventually. Every hundred years or so there would be a new incarnation of Antoinette to torture me with my mistakes.
At first, I hadn't cared. I only had half a soul and was newly immortal. I killed my way up the vampire hierarchy enjoying my invincibility. Then I saw her again. This time she was a serving girl named Elizabeth and I realized how much losing half of my soul had pained me. I killed her in outrage hoping the pain that I felt would lessen once she was out of my sight. After that, I became even crueler and when I ran into the new incarnation it felt as if the pain had multiplied tenfold. The only relief for the pain is their touch and their love.
I wanted to snatch her away right now, but I knew that doing that would only alienate her from me. I needed to keep her safe though. She was my only weakness and if any of her kind or my kind found that out they would use her to get to me.
This incarnation seemed different though. She had already killed the would-be werewolf king which was something many stronger Weres had tried to do before her and had proven to be a difficult task. Rumors were running rampant about this unusual little girl. I thought back to something Catherine de Medici had said when she'd been explaining my curse. She'd called the girl a Dirae which was the Roman equivalent of a furie. I'd thought that she had been going senile at the time or was perhaps speaking metaphorically, but it was possible that she hadn't been.
In Greek mythology, furies were chthonic deities of vengeance or justice depending on what version of the myth you listened to. It was possible in order to curse me the Medici witch had turned this girl into one in order to torment me. If that was true though it meant that Brittney was now one of the most dangerous weapons on earth. She could destroy any sinner and sentence any wrongdoer with god-like power and vengeance. Furies we're old powerful creatures and hadn't been seen on this plane in over a thousand years. If anyone actually managed to figure out what she was they would try to use her for their own purposes. I knew that I would be lying if I said I didn't find the idea of possessing a furie enticing.
While I doubted that the wolves would be able to figure out what she was seeing as their own knowledge of the old ways diminished with every generation I would have to make sure no one else heard stories about what had truly happened on that beach because there were other creatures older than I who remembered the old ways and coveted old magic.
First though I would have to break my curse which meant convincing the girl I now watched to love a monster like me.
As if sensing my presence she looked in my direction. I sank back further into the darkness although I was positive that she hadn't seen me. If she had actually seen me she surely would have notified her mate. I frowned thinking of him. He was going to be difficult to get around. I would have to find a way to get rid of him without having it traced back to me. If Brittney ever found out what I had done she would never forgive me and I couldn't lose her another time. This lifetime she would be mine
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