Divina woke up to see her mother and father staring at her with heavy smiles on their faces. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” They chorused.

First, Divina was happy to see her father. This was the first time she had seen him in two years. But what had happened yesterday? She could have sworn she saw a man turn into a half a wolf. His face had grown facial hair until only his eyes could be seen, yellow eyes. Then he opened his mouth to expose a set of sharp animal teeth.

“Thanks Mom, thanks Dad.” she smiled and shared a hug with them both.

“Quickly, you need to clean up. We have a big day ahead full of surprises,” Amy gushed with excitement.

She got out of bed, made her way to the bathroom, and while she pulled off her clothes, a loud scream reverberated within the four walls of the house-a banshee’s cry. So loud that it made Amy and Aiden race to her room like it was on fire.

When both parents got in, Amy knew it was coming from the bathroom. While Aiden maintained his position, a few meters, not too far from the door. Watching Amy go into the bathroom only increased his curiosity.

Was it girls stuff? Menstrual cramps?

Divina was like him a tough nugget. This was more than that.

Amy walked out looking like she had seen a ghost but remained at the bathroom entrance. She gave her husband a fretting look. Aiden got her message. They had some explanations to make. He left the room to the basement to get a book, stricken with age-having hoary edges and ancient hieroglyphics. Getting the book had taken him time, and he was sure they would be ready by then.

“Can I come in?” he bellowed from behind the door.

“Yes, Dad,”

Aiden could sense anxiety entwined in an outrage.

I keep telling her, it’s our destiny-we have to face it. She needs to know that. Never knew it would come to this.

He walked in to meet his only daughter and the love of his life sitting on the bed, locked in a sympathetic side hug.

He placed the book on Divina’s table.

“You knew this was going to happen right?” Divina started, directing her first question which sounded more like an accusation to her father.

“No, Divi. Trust me,” Aiden spoke calmly

“Before I begin, I want you to know that we love you. And any decision we take is to protect you.” Aiden paused, expecting his wife to continue. Which she did.

“We’ve been through a lot and we’re still standing. We can work through this together,”

“You guys keep scaring me,” Divina said with a weary voice.

“It’s okay. I know how you feel-”

“Cut the chase. Dad, tell me. Tell me why I got a moon and a star on my left shoulder?” Divina’s eyes were wide with shock. A tattoo didn’t just appear.

“That, would provide some explanations to that,” Aiden gestured to the book on the table.

“Pumpkin, it happened that my great-grandmother was a sorceress and from the Durkheim clan. We are descendants from that clan and for generations, we have carried that blood-”

“Does that mean I am a witch or something?” Divina asked excitedly, and then her dream resurfaced causing her blood to run cold. Did she really want to be a witch? Having magic would be cool. Yet Divina was confused and had mixed feelings about how she felt about the idea of being a magical being.

“Yes, and before we continue. I apologize for telling you that the lycan research you made then was false.” Amy continued.

“So, they are true? Vampires actually exist?”

“Yes, they do. And they are so bloody and vile-not those puppets on TV,” Aiden added with a tint of anger to his voice. Divina could tell he hated the creatures.

“Are you really a witch Mom?”

“Yes, she is. And don’t get all excited. It’s more than what you think,” Aiden warned again.

“Show me some magic,” Divina said excitedly.

“Am sorry, she can’t do that. You both are the last of what is left,”

“Why?”

“Because, for every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction,”

“Meaning?”

“There are consequences for doing magic,” Aiden answered.

“Then why don’t I feel powerful?”

“I hid your powers when you were little,” Amy responded.

“Why, where? How can I get my powers back?”

“That shouldn’t be your concern now,” Aiden replied.

“Vampires, I knew they were real. I see them in my dream,” Divina soliloquized silently.

“You see them?” Amy gasped.

“Yes, in my dream,” Divina responded with a broad grin.

“What a twenty-first birthday this is,” Divina muttered.

“She is Twenty-one!” Amy had hit the light.

She walked up to the table, opened the age stricken book and found a page. Divina was very excited to get a glimpse of it. She was living the movie, the novels and the adventure. There wasn’t any birthday as good as this.

“Look, it says the Bengale-ethnologie prophecy. This takes place once in every century, a witch falls in love with a lycan and she becomes the mother of all lycans. Beneath the sixty-sixth moon, her blood brings war or peace. . .”

“I didn’t see all that. Just a load of gibberish,” Divina said pulling a face at the book.

“You didn’t expect it to be written in English did you?” Aiden’s voice sounded worried.

“This has never happened,” Amy commented, looking up from the book.

“They killed each witch before they clocked that age,” He responded slowly.

“What?” Divina asked.

“The prophecy installed fear in many. One evil sociopath of a vampire Blackclaw had all witches killed. The Salem witch trials were only part of it. No one can ever know you are a witch,” Amy said in a worried voice.

The tone of Amy’s voice and the worry written on her father’s face installed fear within her. Was she now in danger? She gulped at the thought.

***

THE MOTEL ROOM WAS decorated in pale shades of cream and red-but the soothing, appealing color scheme was doing more harm than good. It wasn’t helping him relax. Kane was still as restless and on edge as he had been when he had found the motel on the outskirts of the town, far away from home and danger. He was still thrown off balance, but he didn’t mind.

And now, Kane was stuck in this tiny space with a girl he wanted so badly he couldn’t think straight or act right.

With a fierce and hard, frustrated growl, he shoved his hands back through his short, dark hair and locked his fingers behind his neck.

Divina didn’t deserve this, damn it. Yeah, she was stubborn, free-spirited, adventurous and bad at listening to sound advice, but she was human. She was a good person. She didn’t deserve to be caught in the middle of this kind of situation. And Kane was the last male on earth who should be laying his hands on her.

“Kane.”

The slurred, gentle whispered sound of his name made him cringe. Taking a deep breath, he turned toward the bed . . . and she was waiting there. Kane managed to get her to button her shirt back up before carrying her from the truck into the room, but this hadn’t helped him much.

She still remained her incredibly sexy look, all rumpled, flushed and sensual like she was just lying there, waiting for him to fall on her like a sex-starved beast-which was exactly what he was feeling like. Had he ever had a woman in bed?

Yes, once. It didn’t matter how many women but they can’t be compared with Divina. She made a hell of a difference.

“It’s getting worse,” Divina moaned, holding her middle as if she was in pain, but reverse was the case. Her features were etched with sexual need, her heady scent thick with arousal, so much that Kane could feel the electric sensation all over his skin. Whatever drug Byrd had given her, he had no doubt it was doing its job perfectly. It was making her mindless with hunger for sex. In fact her animalistic instincts were active.

“Is this . . . do I feel like this because of your... he drugged me right?”

“Yeah.” Kane’s voice was little more than a croak.

“The drug won’t hurt you, but it’s an aphrodisiac. It’s making you crave for sex or better still, sexual release. He thought it was a sleeping pill or something,”

“I . . . yes . . . crave,” she panted, moving onto her hands and knees and crawling toward him to satisfy her needs. Kane looked into her eyes, it was glassy and bright, the deep blue reminded him of the sun and how it kissed the surface of the lake.

“I need you,”

“Damn it, Divina. You just take a second too think this through.” He curved his hands over her shoulders as she rose up on her knees at the foot of the mattress, her own hands fisting in his T-shirt. Definitely, she wanted it.

“You don’t want to do this,” he said unsteadily, trying hard to hold her away from him without hurting her or taking advantage.

“You don’t like me. Remember?”

“I like you more than any other guy I have ever met.” Divina leaned forward, nipping his chest through the soft cotton acting like a membrane between both of them sending him a hungry look from beneath her lashes.

“Please . . . don’t leave me like this. Help me.”

“Jesus,” he hissed, his fingers tightening on her shoulders. Here was a girl he fell for, from the first time he saw her begging him for sex, something more intimate than getting to know her better.

“It should be any other man in the world but me, here with you. I’m not good for you, lady, I could kill you.”

Divina tilted her head back and stared up at him, her gaze slowly clearing like she was riding another momentary wave of lucidness. Her pink little tongue swept over her lips and she seemed to be trying to calm her breathing.

“Kane, I know this sucks. And what I’m about to say doesn’t make sense. But you’re . . . you’re the only guy I can trust, no matter where I am. At home, on a freaking deserted desert or in the sea. If this has to happen, I want it to be you. Only you,”

“See?” His voice was raw. “That just proves it. You don’t have any clue of what you’re saying.”

“Trust me, I know. I’m just . . . just too desperate to let my hang-ups get in the way. But if this makes you feel better, I’m very sure I’ll be horrified that I said these things to you on the morrow. But only because I’ll be embarrassed. Not because you helped me.”

“Will you stop calling this HELP?”

Kane’s nostrils flared as his own breathing turned ragged.

“You’re putting me in an impossible situation here, Divina,”

“We are destined to be together, I am the lycan-god-mother remember. We are destined to be together. I don’t see why this is so hard,”

If Divina was herself, there wouldn’t have been any force-physical or metaphysical which could have prevented him from shredding her clothes, spreading her legs and shoving himself so, so deep inside her. So much that she could be able to feel her soul.

But this wasn’t Divina’s choice-she might have chosen him, yes. He was the chosen one, yes. That didn’t matter. She didn’t choose the circumstances- and that changed all of it. This was like a shackle to him. He shouldn’t make any mistakes. Just one momentary slip of a claw or fang, and the consequences would be grievous.

“Lie down,” he rumbled in a low commanding tone, reaching for one of her small, sneaker-covered feet. “Let’s see if getting you more comfortable is okay?”

“Hurry, don’t keep me waiting,” she panted, her voice cracking, and he could feel it in her-the rising, what she wanted. Divina caught her lower lip in her teeth, appealing for his look and affection.

This action seemed to make his stomach jerk. He choked back his uneasiness and turned his focus on Divina. He needed to make it easy for her as he could. Tossing the shoe over her shoulder, he pulled the shoe.

“I knew it”

“Knew what?” she asked breathlessly.

Kane ran the rough pad of his thumb over her red toenails.

“Your feet are just so perfect,”

Divina smiled up at him with a kind of shy-curve on her lips. He noticed the uneasiness in her eyes but ignored it.

“Take off my clothes, Kane.” Her words were soft and almost sounded like she never mentioned it. He winced like she had shouted them.

“I can’t, I won’t” His voice-hoarse . . . tight, the phrase No way in hell looping through his head over and over. He’d get her off, because it was what she needed and what he needed to do. The more barrier he had to keep, the better for him.

Why did I bring her to the motel? I should have requested for two rooms or something.

He got himself into this, he had to get himself out. But that wouldn’t be easy. Stretching out on the bed beside her, Kane pulled her close. Her back to his front as they lay on their sides. He didn’t know why he had to do this? His heart was pounding. And he wondered if she could feel his heart thudding against her spine as he closed his eyes and curved a hand over her curvaceous hip, slowly sliding it between her legs. Divina jolted at the sensual contact, even though she was still in her jeans. That didn’t prevent it. Kane could feel the heat, the desire already. He was fighting hard to keep his hands, his thoughts, his desires to himself. It seemed like the more he battled with it, the less he lost control. Ignoring what he thought was a restraint, he buried his head in her hair . . . .

Bolting up right he scanned his room. Byrd was nowhere in sight. He wasn’t the one causing the dream that time. He ran his hand through his dark hair.

He had to get that girl out of his mind. Then it hit Kane hard. Divina. She was the one doing this. She had to be. A witch. A dream walker. He had heard of only one before.

She could crawl into your dreams and make it feel real. Divina had to be pulling him into her dreams. He had to find her. What she was doing had to stop. Melissa, the red haired girl was like a love sick puppy but she would know where he could find Divina.

He dialed her number,

“Hello,”

“Hay, Melissa it is Kane.....”

“Hay Kane,”

“Listen Melissa, do you have Divina’s number I need to speak with her...”

“I haven’t seen Divina since the party,” Melissa hung up. Great, he couldn’t exactly rock up at her house.

What the hell was he to do?