As I gazed upon her beauty now, I knew she had not aged a day. Her skin was still youthful and flushed with color. Her lavender eyes were just as bright and full of energy. No wrinkles or signs of aging in sight.
As the police approached her on Landreia’s stoop, the fearful and emotional expression on her face brought me right back to that very first night. That first moment mine eyes found hers. Like some bitter joke, it’d been right on this very corner. Back then the property the hotel across the street sat on had belonged to Bridget Bishop, but it had been an apple orchard with lots of land. There were no paved streets or buildings huddled close together. Saraphina had been running between the trees – neither of us expecting to find the other.
“My name is Saraphina Proctor, but people call me Saffie. That is all I remember. Nothing more,” she said to the police for at least the fifth time.
The sound of her voice had not changed in over three centuries, nor the cadence of her speech, yet my heartbeat fluttered like it was the first time. Heat bloomed in my chest, the way it always did when she was near. Her voice was hypnotic and intoxicating, like a siren’s song luring me to my death. No matter, I would have gone willingly. She was not speaking to me right now, but in my mind I was right back…right back to that very moment I fell in love with her.
My heart had never felt like it did this night. Both full of love and relief at seeing her, yet twisted and tortured at knowing nothing had changed. I still could not have her. I had a job to do, and I could not let mine heart force me into failure. I would do what my Prince required me to do. I would not give in to the forbidden fruit.
And she was so close, yet unreachable.
If only I had been prepared.
I sighed. I’d never been prepared for her.
She was more than any woman I’d seen in all my centuries of life, both in this realm and in mine own. She was breathtakingly beautiful and genuinely kind to everyone. Yet she held a ferocity in her eyes that made my heart beat in rhythms that were not natural nor healthy. She was always friendly, but cautious and careful. I’d always loved that about her. Then again, I loved everything about her.
Unfortunately.
Because she was untouchable.
It was my job to protect her and keep her safe until it was time…and I had. Once Prince Thorne had cursed her, I’d watched from the shadows. I’d kept her safe for three-hundred-twenty-six years, four months, two weeks, and one day.
Not that I was counting.
“Now, we were told you claim to have seen an animal—”
“It looked like a wolf but different.”
The officer lowered his notepad and shrugged. “It’s late and dark down there, it was probably someone’s large dog that got out.”
Saraphina scowled so hard her eyebrows swooped low over her lavender eyes.
She did not believe them. Her instincts had always been her strength.
“Miss Proctor, can you tell us about this man you say followed you?”
Her gaze darted right to me. She frowned and shook her head. She couldn’t see me, but I knew she felt me. She was too powerful to not, even if she didn’t understand it right now. I looked over to the cop with the notepad, then back to Saraphina. My cloaking ring was working now, no one was going to see me unless I wanted them to.
“Miss Proctor?”
Saraphina sighed. She hugged her body tight and shuddered. “He was tall, taller than any of you. He had wide shoulders and long legs. He wore this black hood that hung over his face most of the time—”
“Most of the time?”
She shrugged. “The wind blew it off once.”
The cop nodded and scribbled on his notepad. “Did you see his face?”
“He had eyes like liquid gold and long blond hair.” Her cheeks flushed. “Really high cheekbones and sharp jaw. Quite pretty, actually.”
My pulse quickened in ways I did not approve. Heat rushed through mine limbs and I felt like I was flying. Quite pretty, actually. ‘Twas the first time I’d heard her say such a thing and I did not care for the affect it wreaked on my heart.
“Pretty?” The cop shook his head and lowered his notepad. “Miss, this is serious—”
“And I am not?” Her whole face turned red. Her fists were balled on her lap. “Pardon me, officer, but I am no daft bimbo who ran to a strange man because he was pretty. I ran away from him and he followed me. And then he pulled out a long silver sword when he came out of that church. I can’t be any more serious.”
I smiled. Yeah, I’d pulled out my sword…to kill the demon that had jumped out behind her that she hadn’t seen. Sure, she’d seen it the first time – when I had scared it away – but it clung to her shadow, waiting for the right moment to strike.
“So he came out of the church?” Another cop, this one with a potbelly, arched his gray eyebrow. “I thought you saw him down on Wharf Street?”
“I did.” She sighed. “I told you. He was sitting by the brick house first, then he followed me, then he disappeared and came out of the church.”
“How did he move around so fast?”
She narrowed her lavender eyes. “You’re the police officer. You tell me.”
I chuckled but my heart hurt. It’d been so long…while under Prince Thorne’s curse she’d looked different. Sounded different. I’d managed to keep my emotions in check for that whole time. But this, this was the real her. The strong, feisty her. The girl I knew, the one before the curse. She was herself again and all of the feelings I’d thought I’d pushed aside came rolling back tenfold like a dam had broken. I missed her with a fierce passion that threatened to steal the breath from my lungs. I wanted to go to her, to hold her, to see her smile at me. Yet distant I remained, forever yearning from the shadows.
“All right, Miss Proctor, just a few more questions,” the third cop said with his arms crossed over his chest. “You say you woke up on Derby Wharf, do you remember anything before that? Where you came from? What you’d been doing? Who you’d been with? How you got there?”
“No. I told you already, I don’t know—”
“Are there any other names that you recall? Or places you might have been?” The cop scratched the back of his head. “Any belongings, or things in your pockets to help us?”
Saraphina’s eyes watered but they were full of frustrated rage. “I. Don’t. Know. And I don’t have any belongings or pockets.”
The cop with the notepad cleared his throat. “Okay, how about—"
“Enough,” Landreia growled. She stood but kept her hand rested on Saraphina’s shoulder. “She has already told you she does not remember. There’s a word for that in the dictionary, it’s called amnesia. Look it up. In the meantime, why don’t you back off and let the paramedics take her to the hospital to get checked out?”
“Ma’am, you need to step aside and let us do our job or there will be consequences.”
Landreia arched one black eyebrow. “If you don’t know how to do your job correctly, there will be consequences.”
The cop’s gray eyebrows shot to the sky. “Are you threatening a police officer?”
“Are you threatening a witch?”