A Glow of Stars & Dusk by Eve L. Mitchell
“We should return to your cottage,”Sam told me as he pulled his head back and looked down at me.
“Why the dress?” I asked as I reluctantly stepped out of his hold, looking around to see that the others were gone.
“You look good in a dress,” Sam teased as he picked up his shoulder plate. “You look better out of it, to be fair.” His eyes flared with lust, and I stepped away from him with a smile, my hand held up in warning.
“No.” I laughed as he pouted in disappointment. “I think I have had enough outdoor sex, don’t you?”
“No.” He shook his head as he grinned at me.
I laughed out loud and looked up at the sky. It was fully dark now, and the blood moon hung heavy in the sky. I lost my smile as I gazed at it.
“What is it?” Sam asked me softly as he watched me.
“Was everything a trick?” I asked him. My eyes stayed rooted to the moon, scared in case his expression told me too much. Who was I kidding? This was Sam, the man had the poker face of champions.
“Not everything,” Sam conceded. “I genuinely never expected you to destroy the spell and throw it away for one,” he admitted sombrely. “I may be immortal, but my damn heart almost stopped.”
I grinned at him as I giggled. “I think Asmodeous had a stroke.”
“I think we all had a stroke,” he told me with a wry smile.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were putting me in a protective circle?” I asked as I scuffed my boot across the grass.
“You react better when you are unsuspecting. It was a gamble your anger would be enough.” He winked at me. “But we should know not to underestimate your temper.”
“Right, fear or anger,” I murmured as I looked at the castle under the blood moon. “I was definitely terrified and furious at the same time, I should have remembered.”
“We can discuss this back at the cottage,” Sam reminded me.
“Are they all there?” I asked reluctantly. “Yeqon annoys me.”
Sam laughed out loud. I watched his eyes dance with pleasure as his rich laugh warmed the night. “Yeqon annoys us all, but he is a necessary evil,” he told me as he reached for my hand.
We travelled and I was in my bedroom. Sam tugged my hand and pulled me towards the door. “They are waiting.”
“You pulling me out of the bedroom is new,” I remarked saucily as I followed him.
Sam’s head turned, and I saw his brief reconsideration as he looked towards the bed, and then he shook his head grudgingly. “Later.”
“Confident, aren’t you,” I teased as I walked past him towards the kitchen. “Got so much more eye candy to look at now.” I yelped when he smacked my bum, hard.
“No looking,” he growled as he pulled me against him. “No calling my brothers candy.”
“You’re no fun,” I whispered as I stood on tiptoes and brushed his lips with mine.
“I’m all the fun you need.” His teeth caught my bottom lip, and he bit gently. “Want me to show you?”
“I thought that was for later?” I asked huskily as my hand boldly caressed against the front of his leathers, and his eyes darkened with want.
“It is!” Ros shouted from the kitchen. “Please stop, you’re making me horny.”
Blushing, I dropped back onto my feet as my head rested against Sam’s chest and I giggled in embarrassment. “How soon can I learn to keep my thoughts to myself?” I asked desperately.
“It’s called Shielding,” Sam said as he walked ahead of me. “We’ll make sure you learn that first.”
Nodding, I followed him. My kitchen was overflowing with demons. “I have more rooms in the house,” I told them dryly as I regarded them all.
“Here is closer to outside,” Der told me as he opened the back door to the garden beyond.
As they spoke amongst themselves and they all drank my whisky, which I wasn’t sure how they had found, I sat on Sam’s lap, my head resting on his shoulder tiredly.
I tuned them out slightly when Ros and Der decided to challenge Bara and Suriel to combat. Six demons spilled out of my kitchen to my back garden as they wrestled. For the first time since meeting the Watchers, I gave a prayer of thanks for the fact I looked out onto fields and had no neighbours. Absently, I scratched at my arm and looked down at the mark.
“Will they still come?” I asked Sam as I brought his attention to it. “The Scavengers?”
“Oh, that.” Yeqon reached over, and his hand brushed along my arm. The mark was removed.
“You did this?” I demanded angrily.
“They were cloaking you, I needed to find you.” He sipped his drink. “It was nothing.”
“It was something to me,” I snapped at him angrily. Yeqon merely shrugged, and standing, he joined the others outside.
“Arsehole,” I muttered as I got off Sam’s lap. “You’ve finished all my whisky,” I reprimanded Sam and Zel, who stayed within the kitchen. “I’ll get more.”
I walked through to the living room, and crouching down, I opened my “drinks cupboard,” which translated to a shelf at the bottom of my bookshelf where I kept my stash of booze. I was tired. Kicking off my boots, I sat on my couch, tucking my feet underneath me. I could hear the others and their loud laughter as they enjoyed the evening. My eyes closed in weariness. There was so much to learn. So much to learn, and I was scared of what was to come. My elbow itched.
“Lass, my cottage is overrun,” Gran said to me, and my eyes popped open in surprise.
“Gran!” I exclaimed happily as I jumped up and embraced her. “How are you here?”
“There are three threes in my home, even the veil cannot keep me from the defilement on the soil,” she scolded me as she looked around. “You fixed the leak?”
“Huh?” I looked at the corner of the room. “Yes, got the gutter repaired.” I shook my head to clear it. “I didn’t do the spell, Gran,” I told her excitedly as I pulled her with me to sit on the couch. “I sent Asmodeous back to hell.”
Gran nodded thoughtfully as she patted my hand. “Yes, we know.”
“We?” I asked in confusion. “Who’s we?”
“Every soul burning in hell at his fury,” she told me with a sad smile. “You angered him good.”
“Oh.” My excitement at seeing my gran was diminishing. “Did I do the wrong thing?” I asked worriedly.
“Only you can answer that,” Gran told me evasively. “Get that book.” She pointed to the bookshelf.
Looking between it and her, I nodded and brought the book over to her. “Scotland and the Celts: A History,” I read. “I’m confused.”
“Open the book and stop when I say.”
I did as I was told, and I flicked through the pages until my gran said stop. “What do you see?”
“A tree? The tree of life?” I told her as I looked at the tree. It was a well-known Celtic symbol.
“Do you know why the tree of life is special?” Gran asked me.
I thought about it and frowned as I did so. “No, actually, I don’t.”
“The tree is said to connect that which is above to what is below,” Gran told me as her fingers hovered over the symbol. “It is said that the tree connects the world of man to heaven.” She looked at me. “Or that it connects us all. Connecting everything to each other.”
“I like that one better,” I admitted, my voice a whisper as I studied the tree. “Which one is it though?”
“Turn the book around,” Gran told me. I did so, and I stared at the tree. It was exactly the same. The roots of the tree were now the leaves, and the leaves were now the roots. “That which was underground is now above, and what was above is now below,” Gran said softly.
“The roots become the branches,” I realised as I stared at it, and a cold shiver of fear ran down my spine.
“And the branches reach for the sky.”
“The sky from where they already fell,” I murmured in understanding.
“And as they fell, they burned across the sky in a glow of stars and dusk,” Gran whispered to me. “You are in too deep, my lass, you need to find a way out. The tree is all that can save you from him now.”
“Gran?” I looked away from the book to look at Gran, but she was gone. Instead, Sam stood in the doorway, his eyes shuttered as he looked at the book in my hands. “Sam.” I gulped and hastily closed the book.
“Bit late for reading,” he said as he leaned casually against the doorway.
“Yeah.” I stood quickly, dropping the book face down on the couch. “You’re right, I think I should go to bed.”
“Do you?” He assessed me coolly; his eyes ran over me before he held my stare. “Why is your heart racing, witch?”
“Exhaustion?” I punted wildly in the dark.
“Hmm.” His look was hooded as he held his hand out to me. “Come,” he instructed.
Find the tree, Gran whispered in my ear. Hesitantly, I reached out and tried not to flinch when Sam’s fingers curled around mine. He pulled me to the kitchen and through the kitchen door to the garden outside.
A circle of Watchers waited for me, all donned in their hooded tunics, weapons of flame at their sides. Their heads were bowed, but I saw eight variations of blue and brown glowing eyes as they watched us.
“Sam?” I looked at him as fear clutched at my throat. Sam led me into the circle and stepped back, leaving me barefooted on the grass in this stupid white dress, which offered no protection from the cold October night.
The blood moon shone above me, and I was startled to see how red it was.
“Some believe that it’s red because it mirrors the sun,” Pen’s voice throbbed with power. “That the earth’s air molecules scatter out the blue light, leaving the remainder to reflect on the moon’s surface with a glow of red from the sun.”
“Others believe that the blood moon comes with evil intent.” I recognised Der’s voice and turned my head to look at him. In the darkness with their hoods up, their heads bowed, all of their eyes glowing with power, I couldn’t tell who was who.
“Which one is it?” I asked, my voice hoarse in the night.
“Which one do you want it to be?” Sam asked me, his voice was easily recognisable.
“I’m hoping not the evil intent?” I hedged, wanting this to be one of their weird pranks. Like when Pen dropped a great white shark in front of me. Fun times.
“What do you see?” Chaz spoke across the night.
“You lot scaring the shit out of me?” I bit out tersely as I searched the faces of those in front of me.
“Tell us what you see.” Chaz’s voice was hard, something it had never been before.
I turned slowly as I looked at their forms. “I see nine demons—” I heard the dissatisfied rumble, and I corrected myself. “Nine Watchers, hooded, weapons drawn, eyes glowing with power as they watch me.”
“Is that all?”
I wasn’t sure if that was Ros, but I turned slowly again. What was I missing? As I peered into the darkness, the spirits walked forward, encircling the Watchers. “The dead are here.” I wasn’t sure if this was good or bad. I hoped good. I searched the souls for Gran, but it seemed she was missing.
“And?” I didn’t care who spoke as I turned again.
For the third time. I had turned full circle, three times. Shit.
Red eyes blazed suddenly in the night as Hound walked towards me as he made his way through the throngs of the dead.
“Hound,” I said with relief.
“What do you see?” someone asked me again.
“I told you!” I said as fear rattled my bones. “Watchers, spirits and Hound.”
“Witch, what do you see?” Zel spoke clearly into the night.
Were they deaf?“I see Watchers, dead people and a hellhound,” I snapped angrily at them all.
Sam was in front of me. I would know those eyes anywhere, even as his face was cast in darkness. “A blood moon means a sacrifice,” he told me quietly. His hand cupped my face gently as his other held my arm. “Witch, what do you see?”
I was away to punch him when suddenly my eyes flew to Hound, and my step back caused Sam to tighten his hold. “No,” I whispered.
“Yes,” his voice was firm and sure. “Tell me.”
“I see a hellhound.” My voice was a dry broken whisper as tears began to flow down my cheeks. I was back at the cemetery on the very first night the Watchers came for me. To see a hellhound meant death, I remembered as I thought back with fear to the night I met them. Hound stepped closer, and his eyes blazed brighter as his jaw opened and his fangs glistened in the red of the moonlight.
A dagger or a knife was pressed under my breast, and I looked up at Sam in panic. His forehead rested against mine briefly before his lips brushed my forehead.
“I will see you burn in hell,” I seethed at him as he pulled me closer.
“I’ll be waiting.” He slid the blade smoothly into my body, and I cried out in agony as I felt it pierce my heart.
Sam stepped back as I fell to the ground, and I watched the white dress turn red as my blood stained the fabric as it flowed out of me and onto the grass below me. I looked up at the hellhound that now stood over me. Massive jaws descended on me even as I flung my arms up to protect myself.
Darkness enveloped me as my screams were swallowed in the night, and I died at the hand of the Watchers, under the glowing red of the blood moon, as a hellhound carried my soul to hell.
* * *
Continue the Watcher Series in book two - coming 2021.
Or sign up for Eve’s newsletter for all news about new releases!
http://