William (The Valentines) - By Sam Crescent Page 0,25

I call on the bodies of the people I need to speak with and my spirit self brings their spirit to merge with their body, and then the raising begins.” Poppy winced as she moved to a sitting position. Adam was the first person to seem genuinely interested in what she did.

“So it’s not as simple as it sounds.”

Poppy laughed. “Do these scars look as simple as it sounds?”

“They attack you?”

“Some dead people don’t like being disturbed.”

Adam nodded. “I can understand that. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be disturbed.”

Poppy shook her head, smiling. The pain in her abdomen was fading as her body began to heal itself. The healing was taking longer than usual because her other half was still licking her wounds from the last raising they’d done. Well, not exactly a raising…

“The other problem is that I can’t always control whom I raise,” she admitted to him.

He frowned at her. This was the reason she’d followed him that night. The reason why she had been at that awful bar.

“The last person I raised was a witch…” She licked her lips, nervous as she recalled how bad it had been.

She had been walking home from the library. She liked the library. It was the one place she could go and think without interruption. It had been late and she’d walked past the cemetery. As always, she’d been able to sense the bodies there. Their unrest. A magnetic pull that she hadn’t been able to stop had forced her all the way into the deepest part of the graveyard, occupied by the bodies of those who had died a hundred of years ago or more.

She had raised one nasty witch. Pulling up a body that had been dead for a few years was hard, but one that had been underground for several hundred years was worse.

A message passed from beyond the grave.

“She gave me a message to send to William Valentine,” she said.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice growing louder.

At that moment, her spirit self merged with her, delivering the message that had caused them so much pain.

“Katie White is in danger. An old force threatens the coven of new witches. Katie is the key to the revival of witches, the vessel of the family magic.”

Poppy could see his confusion.

“Wait, what the hell are you saying? Katie is the first witch we’ve seen in years. The rest were wiped out by James and his pack.”

“James is not responsible for this destruction,” continued the spirit within her. Werewolves can kill us but only through direct hits that drain our powers. Our family was killed by a witch,” the spirit inside Poppy said.

“Wait, what? Who?

“Emma!”

Poppy felt her spirit self leave. Her job was done, her message complete. Shaking and cold, she pulled the blanket tightly around her shoulders.

Adam stared at her as if she had grown three heads.

“Don’t look at me like that. This witch is the reason I’m failing to heal properly. I fought the message and the raising. She wouldn’t let me. Said something about it being family, that Katie was family. A several-times-great granddaughter.”

Adam left the bed and stormed round the room. Poppy wondered what had caused the swift change in him. She’d delivered her message and now the weight in her chest had eased and the healing process was speeding up a little.

“Do you know what this means?” he asked her.

“Well, no. I don’t know you and I’m only delivering a message.” Her tone was sarcastic. She had known the guy for less than a week and already he’d made her feel hot, made her feel regretful about her scars, got her chewed up by a werewolf and now had forced her into this bizarre war between vampires and werewolves. She couldn’t leave now.

What pissed her off more, though, was that even taking all that into consideration, she didn’t want to be anywhere else.

How was that for fucked up?

“Emma killed her own family. It must mean that. Holy shit—Emma has to be alive.”

Poppy watched him freak out. He looked really cute, until he walked out and left her sitting here. All alone, Poppy wondered what the hell she’d done.

* * * *

Katie lay on her bed, shaking. She had used too much magic. Her energy was draining with every passing minute. She was dying. Her body still hummed from the wondrous dream. Being in William’s arms had made her—for a short time—feel complete and loved.

Who would have thought she would find her soul mate in a