The Sacrifice: A Paranormal MC Romance Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Rights

  Dedication

  - Chapter One

  - Chapter Two

  - Chapter Three

  - Chapter Four

  - Chapter Five

  - Chapter Six

  - Chapter Seven

  - Chapter Eight

  - Chapter Nine

  - Chapter Ten

  - Chapter Eleven

  - Chapter Twelve

  - Chapter Thirteen

  - Chapter Fourteen

  - Chapter Fifteen

  - Chapter Sixteen

  - Chapter Seventeen

  - Epilogue

  - Acknowledgments

  - Also by Jessica Gadziala

  - About the Author

  - Stalk Her!

  The

  Sacrifice

  —

  Jessica Gadziala

  Copyright © 2020 Jessica Gadziala

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review.

  "This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental."

  Cover Design by: Jessica Gadziala

  Cover image credit: Shutterstock. com/ Jag_CZ

  Dedication

  To Anne.

  Who believed in this even more than I did.

  Chapter One

  Lenore

  The Sacrifice was something spoken of in whispers, lips quivering behind closed doors.

  It was the phrase thrown at children to secure good behavior.

  Do your studies; You don't want to become The Sacrifice, do you?

  Watch your tongue; I don't want you to be the next Sacrifice.

  Unfortunately for my mother—and, as it turned out, myself—I had always been a headstrong child. I was a girl with far too many opinions, and far too few inhibitions. I was always running when told to walk, singing when I was told to be silent, proud when I was told to be humble.

  See, The Sacrifice was both a verb and a noun.

  An action.

  And a person.

  In this generation, that person was me. That action to be taken was my life would be handed over.

  There was nothing to be done.

  Nothing my mother could say.

  Nothing I could do to prevent it.

  The day began before dawn, my door creaking open, a dozen sets of footsteps quietly filing in, trying not to wake me. As if I had been able to sleep the night before. Which was when they'd told me I was the Chosen One. I was to be this generation's Sacrifice.

  I only got one night's notice because they didn't want to risk me trying to run off. As it was, our small cottage was surrounded by guards to prevent any temptation to take my chances with the woods I had known as my home my entire life.

  Our little village was far away from the ugly outside world, with its superficiality and cruelty.

  I would never see this village again.

  That was a thought that had plagued my mind the night before as I walked numbly back to my room, dropped down on my bed.

  This place, these people, this way of life.

  It was all being taken away from me.

  I tried to block out the sounds of my mother's muffled weeping in the other room.

  The only daughter of an only daughter of an only daughter, our family had been cursed for generations. While other mothers enjoyed three to six little girls pulling at their skirts, sitting at the tables learning the meanings of the cards, the names of the gems, my mother had only me.

  And now she was losing me.

  My heart ached for her.

  But it raced for myself.

  Because no one knew what happened to the Sacrifice once she was handed over. Assumptions ran rampant, of course, as they would in any small community. The more creative of the girls invented tales to be told around a campfire, like normal children might do with ghost stories.

  Except there was a very good chance that these stories might be real.

  That I might be stripped bare and gang-raped every day for the next few decades.

  That I might be strung up and bled dry slowly over time.

  That I might be cut to bits and eaten piece by piece while I was still alive.

  No one knew.

  The not knowing was the worst part.

  I had no idea what to mentally prepare myself for.

  I suddenly wished I had been a better student, that I had sat quietly and let my mind drift away for hours during meditation. Had I applied myself, I might have become one of the star pupils, one of the young women who could endure beatings during meditation without feeling a thing. I could have been one of the Transcendent Ones, meant to be one of the leaders of the coven.

  I could have avoided this all together if I had been a better daughter, a better student, a better member of our community.

  It was too late to change now, though.

  As I heard the women's hushed whispers beginning a chant I had seen in our family grimoire on the table in the living space, something I had pored over at the table when I was younger—so curious about darker things, convinced there was no way they could ever happen to me, I could feel my empty stomach churning.

  I knew this was it.

  It was the end.

  I had so naively thought I had so much life left to live, so much more to experience.

  Now, it was all being taken from me.

  The chanting grew louder as the moments passed, meant—I imagined—to gently wake me.

  As if sleep was ever possible for the Sacrifice.

  As I lay there, I suddenly remembered the tale of Avia, a supposed Sacrifice from eighty years past, who had learned of her situation, and had convinced one of the guards to sneak her a handful of the belladonna hidden in the Poison Garden, allowing her to end her life before she had to be Sacrificed.

  She'd saved herself.

  And damned another young woman who had done no wrong.

  And to be fair, Avia had done wrong.

  Just as I had done.

  Over and over.

  Year after year.

  If I took the coward's route and took my life, who would take my place?

  Maeve, whose biggest misstep in life was once falling asleep during an all-night moon circle?

  No.

  I couldn't force my fate on her.

  So I stayed in my bed.

  I let my thoughts swirl.

  I waited for the rituals to start.

  Hands grabbed my covers, drawing them down my body, exposing my white muslin nightdress, allowing the early morning chill to penetrate through the thin fabric, causing gooseflesh to prickle up over my skin.

  "It's time," Marianne, our High Priestess, told me, sensing my alertness even though I kept my eyes shut.

  Taking a deep breath, I made my eyelids flutter open, finding Marianne standing above me with a candle glowing in a glass jar in her hand, setting her face in light and shadows—her sharp cheekbones, her square jaw, her moss-green eyes. Her silver-streaked red hair was pulled into the elaborate braided style that was standard for our coven, both for beauty and for practicality.

  They us
hered me out of bed and the house, into the common circle in the yard where we would sit at night and talk, where we would perform rituals, where we would celebrate the solstices.

  A tub had been pulled into the center, the water full of herbs and flowers, smelling earthy and comforting as my nightdress was stripped away and I was pressed into the water.

  The warmth of the scented water eased the tight muscles in my neck and back as the women walked in a clockwise circle around the tub, chanting.

  They chanted for my safety.

  For my protection.

  For my peace.

  My eyelids fluttered closed as I started following their chants inside my own head, feeling a calm start to wash over me.

  It wouldn't last, of course.

  Because, too soon, I was pulled out of the tub, the chilly morning air whipping my wet body as two sets of hands set to drying my skin and hair.

  A small twinge of insecurity made my belly swirl. Nudity was something natural in our community of all women. Full moon rituals involved stripping off our clothes to bathe our bodies in moonlight.

  But the last time hands were all over my body was when I had my first blood cycle at thirteen. I remembered feeling this same insecurity as they bathed me, dressed me, and welcomed me into womanhood.

  Dried, they wrapped me in the pure white gown and cloak, both embroidered with a pentagram between the shoulder blades, that were saved for The Sacrifice.

  Finally, I was pressed down into a seat as my mother moved out of the crowd, giving me a sad smile as she moved behind me, combing out my hair then working to plait it into ornate braids as the other women started a new chant.

  Not for my peace.

  Not for my protection.

  But a chant about the gift of the Sacrifice, about her holy place in our coven.

  My jaw tightened as I cast my eyes down, not wanting to show them my resentment.

  It was easy for them to chant about the gift of the Sacrifice, about my holy place. When they weren't the ones going off to some unknown, horrible fate.

  My mother's hands kept moving from my hair to my shoulders, giving them a reassuring squeeze. Each time, tears swam in my eyes, making me squeeze my eyelids tight, fighting them back.

  I didn't want to cry.

  I didn't want to beg to stay.

  If I was the Chosen One, I wanted to go with some dignity intact.

  I imagined there would be plenty of time for crying and begging for mercy in my future.

  And, I reminded myself, my place was important.

  If not for the Sacrifice, the treaty would be voided. And that meant the women of my coven would be free game to the whims of their evil souls.

  I wasn't sure how accurate the tales were, if the truth could survive thousands of years, but the story we were told was that in the time before the Sacrifice, the coven had been constantly under attack. Women and girls had gone missing, never to be seen again, fates unknown, and there was very little that could be done by the coven to protect themselves.

  When dark times came, witches were always targets for small men who were afraid of our power.

  The Sacrifice gave us peace to practice, to live free of the ill intentions at the hands of men.

  And, I guess, if you looked at the situation as a whole, it was a fair trade.

  One woman.

  To save dozens more.

  I would be doing this to save my mother, to save the little girls with their bright smiles and carefree laughter, even to save my peers who had always been better community members than I had been.

  I was the least useful member of the coven.

  I was expendable.

  My pride might have hurt with that realization, but there was no denying its truth.

  And there was no stopping my fate.

  Once my hair was braided, the sun was casting golden fingertips across the sky, and the small girls were walking into the circle dressed all in white, carrying hand-woven baskets brimming with flowers they each took turns placing in my hair, their soft little voices humming a lullaby we had all been sung as babes.

  When they were finished, they each took a turn standing in front of me, clasping their hands in prayer position and pressing them against the top and centermost parts of their forehead where I had—and they would eventually have—a dark blue crescent moon tattoo: the symbol of our goddess—the pointy tips disappearing into my hairline.

  I opened my eyes for them, taking in their innocent faces, reminding myself that I was saving them from terrible fates.

  It was a salve over my resentment.

  Because I knew that, should some man with ill intentions break into our paradise, I would throw myself in front of each one of them to save them.

  This was no different.

  It was simply far less dramatic.

  A noble Sacrifice.

  That was what I could be.

  "Lenore," Marianne said, voice deep and firm as it often was when she addressed me. "It is time."

  My heart darted around in my chest—a rabbit in the gaze of a predator—but I nodded to her as I reached for my mother's hands, giving them one last squeeze, offering her a smile I didn't feel, then falling into step behind Marianne.

  We made our way through the woods in silence.

  Marianne and I had never been close. On a good day, I never knew what to say to her.

  Today was not a good day.

  We reached the road an hour later, finding a single black van waiting, the back doors thrown open. The driver was nothing but the back of a head obscured by a hat.

  My stomach flip-flopped as Marianne walked me to the van, climbed inside, then reached to help me in as well.

  My gaze fell on the box there.

  Pine wood.

  Plain.

  A line of air holes drilled into the top.

  A coffin, of sorts.

  My gaze skittered to Marianne, finding nothing on her face that betrayed her true feelings.

  But that was the way of the High Priestess.

  It was about the coven, not herself.

  And, in a way, I finally understood what that meant.

  Marianne pulled open the lid, revealing nothing but the inside but a strong wooden box.

  Taking a deep breath, I stepped inside, lowering myself down into the space, folding my arms over my chest, and watching as Marianne lowered the lid.

  The hammering came next, nails into place, trapping me in my coffin prison.

  Doors slammed.

  The van lurched to life.

  And I was off to become a Sacrifice.

  Come what may.

  Chapter Two

  Lycus

  "This fucking rain," Ace grumbled, waving a hand out at the window where the yard was steadily forming pools of water after five full days of nonstop, unrelenting rain. The wet was seeping in through the house's stone, making all the fabrics inside start to feel damp, chilling all of us through.

  We'd been around for longer than any of us cared to count anymore, but not a single one of us had gotten used to the cold and wet. It went against our nature.

  What can I say? We spent most of our immortal lives in a very warm climate.

  We all missed it.

  Especially on days like this.

  Ace—all six-foot-four of him—was pacing along the wall of windows. Dressed all in black, he looked paler than usual, something that made his red-flecked ice blue eyes even more dominant a feature. His blond hair was messier than he was typically known for, proof of the weather wearing on him.

  "Have a drink," Drex suggested, already holding a glass of whiskey in his hand at two in the afternoon. The answer to everything, in Drex's opinion, was to have a drink.

  Unlike Ace, if you came across Drex on the street, you would place him as the biker that he was. Six-two, wide-shouldered, and dark-haired, he was dressed in worn black jeans, a wrinkled white tee, and a leather jacket. His beard was a prominent feature of his face, obscuring the bone structu
re we'd all been looking at for generations. He also had blue eyes, but a darker, stormier color than Ace, with only a small fleck of red that looked like a small birthmark in his iris.

  "I don't want a drink. I want this shit to stop," Ace grumbled, pausing his pacing to stare at the relentless rain for another moment. "Sounds like Seven is back," he said a moment later.

  And over the pounding of the rain hitting the roof, I could hear the rumble of Seven's bike coming down the road that led to the house.

  Maybe normal people would worry about his safety, riding on a bike in the rain.

  But we weren't normal.

  We weren't even people.

  And since we couldn't die, there was no reason to worry about anything.

  The engine cut, and a moment later, the front door groaned open and slammed shut before Seven's footsteps came down the hall, and into the front room where we were situated.

  Seven was tall, but more solidly built and dark-skinned, with his long black hair loc'd. His dark brown eyes had a starburst of red from the pupil, making them look on fire, something that always made people take a step back from him.

  "Fucking crazy," Seven said, shaking his head as he shrugged out of his dripping leather jacket.

  "The rain?" Ace asked.

  "Yeah, but only because everything is clear."

  "What do you mean everything is clear?" Ace asked, glancing over at him.

  "I mean I was driving for over an hour. It's only raining here."

  "In this town?" Drex clarified.

  "On this street," Seven told him, shaking his head.

  Ace slowly turned from the window, looking over at me, brows pinched.

  "Do you think it's her?" he asked me.

  "Her who?" Seven asked, having been out of town when the shipment came in.

  "The new witch," Drex said, having been the one to pick her up several days before.

  "It's that time again?" Seven asked, shrugging.

  "The other one has been gone for years," Ace reminded him.

  "Years, days, it's hard to keep track," Seven said, moving over to get himself a drink. "How would it be her?"