In the supernatural world, especially among witches, it was foolish to judge someone on the basis of their appearance. In my life, I had never cared about looking good or tried to look a certain way because, in our world, people perceived you by your aura. They measured your worth by the number of powers you had. For beauty, there were always thousands of beauty spells, youth spells, and no one could imagine what face was hidden beneath the mask those spells created.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, moon-shadow black hair flowing down my shoulders. I was nervous today. It was a trivial thing; I was never one to be nervous regarding my appearance, but everything changed when it came to him. I cared... I cared about what he thought about me. I cared about how I looked beside him. Did we look like a good match or a mistake made by the Goddess herself?

I knew I looked good—among supernaturals, there wasn't anyone who did not look good. But he was something else. Even among supernaturals, he almost had an ethereal glow to him. I stared at my reflection again. My olive skin looked more pale than usual, and as I stared at my hazel eyes, a pair of grey eyes came to my mind. His eyes reminded me of ashes interwoven with a wind that originated from a fire within his soul, a fire that had the intensity and power to burn everything to the ground. His eyes could be as warm as fire or as cold and hard as concrete, and either way, they were mesmerizing.

"Are you ready?" a deep voice asked, and I turned to see my mate leaning against the wall.

"Yeah. Let's go," I said, to which he nodded, and we went out of our room. We had scheduled a meeting today to know more about the Wild Creek pack and the magic aiding the vampires.

I followed Conrad to his office where Selene, Cassandra, and a man with blond hair were already waiting. He stood up when we got closer and bowed to us. With his square-shaped face, ruddy skin, and sturdy body, he reminded me of Celeste.

"This is our third-in-command, Gamma Daniel," Conrad informed. In response, I nodded and smiled at Daniel. As I sat on my chair beside Conrad, I noticed the essence crystal. It was a pure-white, diamond-like rock, and with a few spells, these crystals could become active and absorb any magic around an area. They were not long-range magic absorbers though; I was alarmed when I saw Selene glaring at the crystal. Whatever was trapped within that crystal could not be good news for us.

Cassandra picked up the crystal and chanted a spell to release its essence. A rancid smell filled the room; wisps of silver-grey smoke curled and manoeuvred their way through the air of our room as if excited to escape the suffocating pull of the crystal. Its long grey wisps seemed to curl with others that were much darker, forming a shape that closely resembled a snake. The snake made a hissing noise and vanished immediately. Even after it disappeared, some residual smoke hung in the air, a haunting reminder of what had transpired just moments ago.

I was still glaring at the air where that vile snake had slithered, my magic coiling and uncoiling around me. Tendrils of fire were starting to erupt from my hand which firmly held the arms of my chair. I was angry. I knew they would come to haunt me again. They destroyed my life once, they snatched my childhood away from me, and they were back again.

I felt tingles on my shoulder which calmed me down a bit, and I realized that everyone was staring at me warily. Conrad's hand was on my shoulder when I turned towards him to calm myself. He was worried. His eyes were searching mine in order to find answers to questions I would rather not talk about. Those questions were painful reminders of my past.

"I am fine," I reassured him. He frowned and kissed my forehead. I actually felt much better than before, but he was still frowning.

"We can cancel this meeting," he said while looking at me worriedly. I grinned. He was really sweet to the people he cared about. I had seen him interact with his Beta and some of his pack members—he was definitely not as cold and guarded as he had been in our witch kingdom. He sighed and turned around to face others.

I turned to find Selene looking at me worriedly. I nodded to her. I was feeling much better and more in control until Beta Marcus asked, "What was that? Which coven used that magic?"

"Dark Witchling," Selene replied to him.

Dark Witchling was a coven made by the banished witches. The use of dark blood magic was forbidden in our kingdom, but witches were greedy creatures. They wanted to gain power, more power than our goddess had bestowed upon them. Witches and werewolves were creatures of the moon, and we were told to always be grateful for whatever amount of power our goddess had blessed us with. For centuries, witches were aware of the dark magic, the most powerful form of magic. It was a temptation for us, an offering of an apple by Satan himself, and these witches were no better than Eve. They were so entranced by the powers it promised that they did not think that such powers were never free.

After falling into the temptation of dark magic, they were informed that they would have to offer a sacrifice to keep their powers. If they failed to pay their price, they would shrivel and die. The devil wasn't merciful though—he didn't want just any sacrifice. He wanted the blood of royals to mock our goddess. He wanted to show her he could turn her followers to his followers and have them kill one of her devout worshippers. They had killed my mother, and they took her body away. We weren't able to see her one last time. We didn't even know where she disappeared till my father was able to catch one of those witchlings. He tortured her in front of my eyes. I remember her screams and the satisfaction I felt when all that was left of her was a black charred body with skin melting off her skeleton. But unfortunately, he wasn't able to get anything out of her, and we weren't able to find more of them, which forced us to give up our search.

These witchlings were back into my life, but this time I was prepared. This time I wouldn't hesitate to burn each one of them to ashes for taking away my happiness.

I wasn't scared. I was ready.

The snake scene reminded me of the time when Harry went to the camp (more like Quidditch match with leprechauns) and dark lord's sign appeared in the air. *Proud Ravenclaw here 😎*

Thank you for reading!