The Vampire & Her Witch

Chapter 1735: Stop Running Away (Part One)

Ashlynn lay in Nyrielle’s embrace, soaking in the warm, cozy afterglow of the moment for as long as she could. Eventually, however, the time came to tell Nyri what had happened since her duel with Owain, including what had happened with the seed she was nurturing for Jocelynn."So your sister is coming here," Nyrielle said as she gently stroked Ashlynn’s soft, silky hair. "Because you do not trust your heart around her."

"It’s not my heart that I don’t trust," Ashlynn protested. "It’s the seed that I’ve... Poisoned," she said after hesitating over the right word. A witch was supposed to nurture a seed of witchcraft for future members of her coven, but Ashlynn felt like the Olive Seed had become so toxic she could only call it poisonous.

And it was her fault that it had turned out that way.

"The seed doesn’t hold any feelings that weren’t already in your heart," Nyrielle chided. "If you don’t trust the seed, then you don’t trust your heart. It’s that simple. Trying to separate the two is part of what’s tearing you in two."

"You say that," Ashlynn said, squirming in Nyrielle’s embrace and sinking lower in the bed. "But that’s not what it feels like when I confront that... thing. Or when it grips my heart every time I get close to Jocey."

"You think I don’t know what your heart feels?" Nyrielle said, tracing her slender fingers down from Ashlynn’s neck to her chest until they came to a rest directly over her heart. "I feel the echoes of your heart within my chest, my darling. I know when it’s in pain, when it burns in fury... and when it’s filled with so much fear that all you can do is run away."

"I’m only running away to keep her safe from me until I can resolve this," Ashlynn protested. "Once I find a solution..."

"That’s not what you’re running away from, Ashlynn," Nyrielle said, giving her lover a firm tap with a finger, right on the center of her breastbone. "The thing you’re running from isn’t something you can escape because you carry it with you everywhere you go, and whether Jocelynn is standing beside you or a thousand leagues away won’t make any difference."

A part of Ashlynn wanted to pull the sheets up over her head to petulantly pretend that Nyrielle hadn’t hit on something that was likely true. A witch’s heart was a complex and potent thing, and she wanted to say that Nyrielle didn’t understand how intense these feelings were.

How could she understand what it had been like to watch the Olive Seed tearing into her sister in a dream that felt so real that her fingers still remembered the sensation of Jocelynn’s hot blood on her hands, when she didn’t really dream at all?

They were cruel, vicious thoughts that would cut her lover like a knife thrust into the old wound of her own faded heart. Ashlynn might feel things intensely, but Nyrielle had suffered more than a hundred years of constant, agonizing reminders of the loved ones she’d lost until the constant pain slowly wore away her ability to feel at all...

Saying that Nyrielle couldn’t understand because she couldn’t feel was one of the cruelest desires to emerge from Ashlynn’s tormented heart, and she ruthlessly crushed the seed of that thought before it could even approach her lips.

"What is it that I’m running from then?" Ashlynn asked instead. "If I’m not running to keep Jocey safe, then what is it I’m fleeing? And where am I going?" Ashlynn asked, turning to face Nyrielle and staring into her midnight eyes in the hopes that she’d find an answer there.

"You’re running from the storm in your heart," Nyrielle said, tapping Ashlynn’s chest again, though not as firmly as before. "And the storm you unleashed on the world the night you learned that Jocelynn was the one who betrayed you. That was the night you decided to murder her to claim your vengeance, and you’ve been running from that decision ever since."

The storm Ashlynn had summoned that night had been felt across two baronies and much of the Vale of Mists as well. Lightning had fallen from the sky, and the winds had been so fierce that Nyrielle struggled to fly through them to reach her tormented lover. When she’d finally found Ashlynn, trembling, exhausted, and lying in the mud, just the sight of her had been enough to break Nyrielle’s heart.

Afterwards, when Nyrielle had mesmerized Ashlynn with her gaze, pulling her into dreams that were free of hurt and pain where she couldn’t remember what had happened, Nyrielle had been prepared to lose her lover’s trust forever. Losing her trust would be better than losing her altogether, she’d reasoned, yet Ashlynn had found it in her heart to forgive the transgression.

Perhaps that was her greatest strength, but it was also a weakness that was tearing her apart.

"You don’t want to believe that you could make that choice about someone you loved so much," Nyrielle said. "But you did, and you have to accept that, if you’d been able to reach her that night, you would have bathed in her blood just to cool the fury in your heart."

"And I’d have torn out my heart for doing it afterwards," Ashlynn said. "I’d never have been able to forgive myself. You stopping me and bringing me home... I’ll always be grateful," Ashlynn said, stretching toward Nyrielle and planting a light kiss on her cheek. "Thank you."

"You may not thank me for very long," Nyrielle said as she pulled Ashlynn into a tighter embrace, wrapping her arms around the young witch as if she was afraid that she’d try to run away.

"I’ll receive your sister and host her for a day and a night," Nyrielle promised. "But when I leave the Vale, I’m bringing her with me. She’ll ride at my side when we approach the city, and I will not allow you to hide from her."

"You have to face this head-on, my darling," Nyrielle said firmly. "Or it will forever consume you."