Sharing Delilah Book 2

I donned my gloves, preparing to brave the outside world and tend to my garden, where the only things that could withstand my curse thrived: my poison plants.

I didn’t need gloves for my plants, but I was very careful to wear them to avoid infecting anyone who came to visit.

Any skin cells left behind—oils from my skin, or even the remains of a sneeze—could make them very sick, even from brief contact. At least... it was such for the humans.

Nightshade, belladonna, snake-root among other things, which included the little red mushrooms with white spots. I was fond of my only companions. Over the years you learn to love what little you can.

This small house had been the first place I was able to stay without hurting people since my curse was placed on me.

There were also people I could reach online, so I finally had friends again, like Delilah from the west-coast American coven.

Instead of different witches drawing the short straw and tending to me in rotations, or hired Fae who managed my curse better—though even they were affected.

Humans didn’t last long around me at all...

I knew the other witches over time had nicknamed me Poison Princess. I wish I could say it bothered me more than it actually did.

At this point, after living beyond the monarchy and serving the new rotations of leaders in different areas, they all knew they could call on me—for a price as well as my stipulations.

So it was always best for them to stay in my good graces in exchange for a favor.

For the past three hundred years this coven had cared for me; Crest of the Rose is what they called themselves. Some of my old family lineage was still in their ranks from the lost monarchy.

I was no fool. I knew they held no love for me and eventually a favor would be asked of me. The favor had finally been called in today.

I ignored responding to the email to tend my garden and think. What they were requesting, as I had been asked to do when the world still knew of my existence, was an assassination—no surprise there.

The surprise was the execution. It used to be that I was sent somewhere...

I spent a few years in Europe, my job to walk the streets while they kept the Witch Queens Elizabeth and Mary safe before putting them on their thrones.

That was vengeance for a spell placed on the king—a spell that became a curse as he began to flaunt his mistresses from each coven trying to stake their claim.

Religion was one of the furthest things from that agenda.

It was also the last job I did intentionally after seeing bodies carried in carts, children clutched by their mothers, dead.

The horrors were forever burned into my soul. Now they asked that I do so again.

They wanted me to marry a cursed prince—he requested they send a witch.

There was a prophecy the Fae had given him, and he was a major gatekeeper for the realms between—a gate that the witches would die to control.

It meant having access to creatures and items we weren’t privy to on earth, unless we made deals with others. Power.

They wanted me to wed him, bed him, and then make my departure as soon as he died and others began to feel ill. It wouldn’t be the carnage I had experienced other places before, but the thought still made me ill.

I had once had sex with a Fae before I knew of my curse, before I made everyone around me sick, and he died quickly for even a Fae. He lasted perhaps three days.

Everyone died around me.

Everyone—even vampires.

That’s what this was about—take out a vampire empire, take over the place. I was terrified—there were certainly humans there. There were certainly children there.

It was a home, a castle—a place where others existed.

But I would do it…

It was my duty to my coven.