Okay, so I lied. This isn't really the epilouge (as in it doesn't take place years in the future after El and Miri get married) more than it is the final chapter that takes place the day after the events in the last chapter.
I just really wanted to convince myself that Claimed was finished, so I could feel productive over my weekened of furious writing.
I really procrastinated editing this and I'm still not happy with it, but people were just freaking out too much and I realized that it wasn't really fair to leave you guys hanging. I didn't want to post this until the end of the week, but...
Eh, here.
Hopefully this sums up most of everything. Of course, there are still some loose ends, but those will be picked up in future stories.
If there is still something you really want to know--or you still feel like this left you hanging, let me know.
Thank you all so much for your support. I wasn't really expecting the massive response so it may take me a while to get to everyone's questions on the other parts. Give me some time, though feel free to private message me with anything.
Thank you all again.
-Nikki
Chapter 48
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Eliot stood on the cusp of an alley, trying to ignore the vibrant rays of sun that threatened to poke through a layer of cloud cover.
It was reckless to risk being out on a day this bright. Overnight the weather had warmed, causing the snow to melt into fat puddles. Even in the shadows, heat prickled along his skin in warning.
But, after a day of trying to put everything into perspective, he couldn’t put it off anymore.
He was surprisingly calm as he slipped into the thin morning crowd of mortals, rushing off to work, and headed down the narrow block, where he slipped into a shop tucked inconspicuously near a corner.
Inside, the oppressive scent of Jasmine nearly knocked him over, followed by the lighter scent of hundreds of dried herbs.
“Hello,” a musical voice called from behind the counter. “Chamomile his half off. It makes the perfect tea to fight this horrid weather.”
The speaker, a girl almost too short to reach the counter, trailed off. Her head cocked to the side as if catching wind of an interesting sound. Her mouth formed a lazy smile.
“Eliot,” she murmured. “What a lovely surprise.”
Alazzdria had dropped the poor pathetic waif act and wore a cropped black top paired with a nondescript leather skirt. Her black hair was slicked back close to her skull, making her gray eyes stand out.
“I see my hunch was correct,” she announced triumphantly. Her mouth took on a smug, satisfied grin. “Miriam is one of the seven.”
“Apparently,” Eliot grumbled, taking a step further into the narrow shop.
The yellow walls and wooden floors were exactly the same as they’d been the day he visited Allwyn Danva. Only now, with Alazzdria at the helm, the cheery shop took on a slightly more lethal vibe.
Suddenly those plants and herbs didn’t seem so charming.
“I see that you’ve discovered my humble little abode,” Alazzdria added lacing her hands together over the countertop. “However did you find me out?”
“It was something that Allwyn Danva said,” Eliot admitted, crossing his arms. “Something about the original owner being some ‘poor girl’ not much older than Miriam, forced to run the shop by herself.”
Dramatic picture aside, only Alazzdria was skilled enough at manipulation to inspire a description like that. She smirked unapologetically.
“Oh, come now, Eliot.” She waved a hand dismissively through the air. “The poor dear needed a job, and I needed her to remain close by. After all there, must always be a happy ending!” She clapped her hands cheerfully. “I trust that everyone is tearfully reunited and all is well?”
“Something like that,” Eliot muttered.
Things in the Spriller household were more chaotic at the moment, than ‘happy.’ Having a daughter die and mysteriously come back to life could disrupt the family harmony a bit, Eliot supposed.
When Miriam had shown up, a few shades paler, but undeniably alive her mother had accepted it with nothing more than a knowing glint in her brown eyes. Miriam’s father on the other hand, needed a little…coaxing into the situation—once he regained consciousness after passing out from the sheer shock.
Eliot’s suggestion had been to make of some lie to explain away the supernatural aspects. For example, Miriam had disappeared from the hospital because Eliot, a dear friend of hers, was so distraught at her prognosis that he kidnapped her body in order to seek the help from a friend who was into…’alternative therapies.’
Lo and behold, the holistic cure had worked.
Miriam however, had opted for the truth. At the moment, mother and daughter were slowly revealing the whole tale; vampires, witches, prophecy and all.
“I wonder how they would feel to realize that you were the one who engineered this whole situation in the first place?” He wondered.
Alazzdria shrugged and tugged on a slick strand of hair.
“I kept dear Allwyn close,” she countered, shrugging off the complicated matters; like the fact that she had been the one behind the curse that had driven the woman away in the first place. “Besides. I needed someone to watch my shop for me while I…took care of other matters.”
Like ensuring that Miriam became a vampire.
“You got your wish,” Eliot said coldly. “Now what?”
Alazzdria gave him a mysterious grin. “Don’t mistake this for satisfaction, Eliot,” she said. “My work is far from over. I have yet to see my goal.”
The darkly wistful tone made him uneasy. Eyes narrowed, he kept the witch full in his sight—just in case she decided to go for something wooden.
“And what is that?”
“Destruction,” Alazzdria said simply. “I want Vaddrian’s dream realized; I won’t rest until the realms are ripped apart and everything is left to the whim of chaos…” With those wide gray eyes and dreamy smile, the woman looked borderline manic. “Miriam has set that in motion; by bringing you back to life, that simple act has already begun shifting the fabric of the realms.”
Reluctantly, Eliot knew that she was right. Sage and Hazel still kept ties to old channels of information in the vampiric real—already reports were flooding in.
It was as if a sleeping giant had been awoken—especially in the lower realms.
Demons and werewolves were gossiping uneasily. Vampires were nervous. Even shadowhunters were starting to grow wary, despite their stranglehold on power.
Not even a day after Miriam had saved him, the three hunters after Laz had sought him out only to ask one question.
Was it true?
And he had to admit it; something was happening in the world of the realms.
Something that only promised a whole world of trouble—but that didn’t make it any easy to witness Alazzdria’s smug grin.
“Still,” he demanded in a growl. “Did you really have to stab me?”
Being injured and healing in the same instant hurt. Getting staked through the heart and not coming back?
It sucked, as the mortals liked to say.
Even now, there was a strange ache in the center of his chest. Absently he reached up, feeling the sore skin beneath the fabric of his sweater.
“I wouldn’t have minded if you had used Hazel or Sage instead, as your little guinea pig,” he lied.
Alazzdria perched the ball of her chin on the steeple of her fingers.
“The desperation wouldn’t have been there,” the witch explained, sounding clinically detached. “She doesn’t love them—not like she loves you.”
Uneasy, Eliot shifted, remembering his fear when he’d open his eyes to her tear stricken face. That beautiful mouth downcast in sorrow.
For him…
“Still,” he said, shaking off that feeling that filled his chest. “How did you know what her power would be?”
“A girl can do crazy things when she loses her love,” Laz explained with a knowing wink. “Or, I could have just guessed…”
“Stop,” he said, unwilling to hear that the witch had made a wild gamble, with his life on the line.
All that mattered was…
“How could you be sure that she even would…love me?” It was the same question that had haunted him ever since she’d come back. “You said it yourself; you manipulated everything—”
“No.” Alazzdria raised a hand, cutting him off. “Eliot, do you know how easy it would have been just to concoct a love potion and slip it to that little brute Sage? Even his little hellion of a sister!” Exasperated, she threw her hands into the air. “Those two would have had no qualms about turning poor ol’ Miri, and everything would have been just so much easier!”
There was an ounce of irritation in her voice that made him realize that she was telling the truth.
“Then why?” He demanded. “Why go through all of the trouble to bring us together if…”
It was all just part of a sick scheme.
Alazzdria laughed. “You fool! What did I say; Miriam reminded me of myself. Who else could save her from her own sense of loneliness than someone like you? She needed someone like you—it just so happened that I had use for both of you, but you can just ignore that bit. Besides, true love is stronger than any fake infatuation and you know that I never like to cut corners.”
That was Laz, Eliot realized with a frown. Methodical down to the last detail.
“So now what?” He asked her, coming closer to the counter once he was sure that no wooden stakes lurked in sight. “Now that you know that Miriam is one of the seven, what about the others? Are you planning on manipulating them into awakening their powers as well?”
“No,” Laz said with a simple shrug of her shoulders. “I’m not going to anything more—my work is done, as the mortals like to say. Now that Miriam is awakened, the others will come to her. They will be drawn to each other, these seven—unable to resist the allure. To find the remaining six, all you need is Miriam. Sooner or later, they’ll come looking.”
“So you don’t know who they are?” Eliot pressed, unable to believe that she would just sit back and wait for her much beloved chaos to happen.
“I didn’t say that,” the witch said, with a mischievous glint in her gray eyes. “One can never be sure, but the prophecy does reveal some hints.”
Jaw clenched Eliot waited as she tapped her pale fingernails against the counter’s surface.
“One will be a mortal, though she won’t appear very ‘mortal’ in the beginning. One is lost to the shadows, touched by magic even darker than my own. The next two will be a demon and vampire respectively—though have fun telling them apart—”
“What about Miriam?” Eliot demanded, confused. “If she’s not the mortal or the vampire, then what is she…”
He trailed off even before Alazzdria revealed the answer in a show of pearly teeth.
“Only a witch could bring life back to something that was never alive to begin with,” she announced, matter-of-fact. “The old hags who wrote this prophecy were clever—outward appearances do not matter. Miriam is all witch. She always was.”
Eliot shook his head. “That’s impossible.”
Alazzdria grinned. “Isn’t it?”
She cocked her head as a bell above the door signaled a new customer; a blond haired woman with an odd scent that proclaimed her a witch.
“It seems our time is up, Eliot my darling,” Alazzdria trilled, slipped from around the counter to beckon the woman to another corner of the room. “Though, do come visit me any time. I suppose I do owe you a favor or two…though, no hard feelings?”
Eliot didn’t answer as he turned to the door, but the witch’s voice floated back to him on last time.
“Take care, Eliot,” she said. “I’m not the only one invested in this now. The effects of Miriam’s magic have rippled far and wide. And, like with anything of interest—everyone wants a piece of it...”
Her haunting tone followed Eliot all the way out of the shop as he ducked back into the shadows of the alley. The heightened alertness was the only reason he even realized that someone was following him.
Soft, quick footsteps pattered over the pavement, and he turned without thinking, snagging his attacker by the waist.
Roses.
The odd scent was the only reason he kept himself from tossing the slender body into the brick wall. He pivoted instead, tucking the small body closer to his side, head jerking down to catch sight of wide open brown eyes.
“Eliot.”
It was the sound of her voice that made him realize he wasn’t hallucinating. That listening to Alazzdria’s crazy explanation hadn’t driven off that fragile cliff into insanity.
A flash of blue tethered him to the present, as she leaned forward, catching the dim light on the stone that still hung on a black shoestring around her neck.
He reached down, cradling that sweet throat with a gentleness he would have never thought himself capable of. Even as his upper lip pulled back in anger.
“What are you doing here?”
“I tracked you,” she admitted sheepishly, eyes sparkling with an inner glow that still astonished him.
She was the same. Even now, a full day after being changed. She was still herself.
But then the full brunt of her words sunk into him and fear replaced the awe.
Impulsively, he shielded her with his body pinning her against the shadows of the alley wall. Eyes wide, he scanned her milky skin for any hint of burns.
“It’s too dangerous,” he said low against her ear. “The sun—you could have—”
She shook her head, pulling away before he could stop her. “Look.”
She was quick. Too quick to stop, as she darted out of the mouth of the alley and onto the main street. Already, the sun had managed to shake a layer of clouds and shone bright with lethal golden rays.
Fear froze him solid. It was like being stabbed with a stake all over again as she slid into the path of a ray of sun and…
Didn’t sizzle.
She didn’t burn.
That skin remained pale and vibrant as she stared back at him with hesitant eyes.
“I…I don’t understand,” she stammered as she slowly walked toward him. “How can I—”
The moment she slipped into the darkness, he cut her off with his mouth on hers.
Right. That was the only word he could think of to describe it—the sensation of those soft lips, like silk against his. The feel of her body pressing close as her intoxicating scent wormed its way through him like…
Magic.
Gasping, he pulled away, bringing his mouth against the pale lobe of her ear.
“I love you,” he blurted, astonishing himself. After years of being alone. Of accepting loneliness as punishment for all he’d done. He’d never thought he’d find someone like her—he didn’t deserve it. But if something good could have come from Alazzdria’s twisted scheme then this was it.
She was all he’d ever really wanted…
“I love you,” he repeated, laughing at the startled look in her eye. “I love you Miriam...”
She watched him for a long time, eyes wide in the darkness. Then slowly, she reached up, cool fingers trailing along his cheek and down the side of his throat with feather-light motions. Those eyes sought his, holding him captive as her mouth formed a breathtaking smile.
“It’s about time,” she whispered.
And, then she kissed him again.