Witchling Academy Semester Eight - Avery Song Page 0,186

I suddenly felt like I was slipping through some cracks beneath the ground. It was a slow transition: bits of me were already drifting away while others fought hard to remain and see what this man was shocked about.

Wasn't it obvious who I was? I was the girl who was always mistaken in the tabloids for being some sort of twin sister doppelganger of the richest heir in NYC.

Anyone - and I mean anyone - would want to be William De Luca. The rich heir of the De Luca Organization, which hid its secret mafia roots behind plenty of businesses. The organization made the idea of giving drug money to the poor appear pure.

I tried to speak, but that only made me cough up more blood. Suddenly I was gasping as dark spots began to claim my vision. The man before me was now wildly shaking me, and it almost pained me to see the fear that gripped those cotton candy spheres.

He knew I was dying. While it wasn’t caused by his own hands, it left him desperate to be the one to claim such ownership of my end rather than allow another to do so.

As I continued to drift, his eyes became wilder, leaving me almost confused as to why.

"You can't die!" he declared as if it were my choice. I surely didn't want to enter the pits of Hell when I'd yet to prove my worth, let alone find a mate that would be crazy enough to date the 'human' mistake of an Alpha mafia leader father, but sometimes beggars really couldn't be choosers. When death came knocking on your door, all you had to do was suck it up and skip right into Judgement.

The idea of it all made me wonder if I'd be able to do just that - skip right into the toasty realms of Hell.

My attention returned to the man as he dropped to his knees. He clearly didn't care about the blood that surely would have pooled all around me by now as his hands pressed against the very wounds that bled away the remaining fragments of my twenty-five years of life.

"Dammit!" he cursed and looked me dead in the eye. "Don't you dare slip away from me! Did I fucking give you permission?!"

That made me smirk, though it had to be a tiny one that ignited his rage as he pressed even harder. I couldn't feel the pain anymore, but I was sure that my blood merely slipped through the spaces between his spread fingers and quickened my approaching demise.

How wonderful to get a helping hand.

"You're not leaving us," he snarled when his efforts were finally deemed hopeless. However, his words made no sense as he couldn't stop fate itself.

I was a goner, just like my mom had been as she lay chained in the dungeon of our mansion home for weeks until she finally died. My death was better off. Quick and painless now that my senses were practically gone.

"Awaken." The man's whisper left me in wonder before something seemed to beat hard enough for me to feel through the numbness.

What?

The man of my peak of hatred watched me in shock before tiny traces of hope flooded those pink rings that dilated further.

"I knew it," he whispered as a cynical grin formed on his lips. "Our little wolf is right there at the brink of death."

He hovered over me suddenly, and I watched as a tattoo that blared with vitality within the dark night formed on his left arm. His eyes began to glow, those pinks spheres suddenly shifting to a dangerous silver with rings of purple around his irises.

His black short strands began to flood with silver, leaving me to shiver internally as the pulsating force pushed harder for release.

He looked into my eyes with so much force that it seemed to unlock the sensations that had been muted by my approaching death. Sensation came surging back through me, making me gasp as my back arched like I’d been revived by a defibrillator.

"Awaken, our forbidden fruit! Let that dazzling beast out of you!" he commanded, and the next pulsing force left me screaming. The pain was back but far worse than before. I was frozen with spasms of crippling agony as my mind experienced multiple emotions.

They flickered through from four different directions, a compass of foreign feelings that begged for my utmost attention. Confusion, uncertainty, and intense lust were only a fraction of the emotions running through me. A burning