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02 May 1998, evening
Alice started the engine of her rental car and pulled out onto the winding Scottish road not quite sure where she was heading. For over a year she had been feeling a pull towards the British Isles and she had no idea what it was. She’d scanned her visions, looking for anything that was going to happen to her there, but all efforts came up blank.
It was like there was an absence of something there. A mental black hole; unseen yet pulling her in.
She drove north into the Highlands, trying to focus on the blind spot in her visions. She was rapidly scanning each town in the country when the whole city of Inverness seemed to disappear. Speeding up, she focused on police between her current location and headed towards the northern town.
As she drew closer, more and more of the city became clear to her until only Inverness Castle was gone. As darkness began to fall, she found a parking spot and was glad that the cover of nightfall would keep her condition under wraps since it had been a sunny day. She hadn’t thought Scotland in May would have any sun, but she had been proven wrong when her plane landed. Luckily, due to the often harsh weather, she had not needed to step outside, even to pick up her car.
Approaching the castle, she couldn’t help but be in awe of the way the red sandstone seemed to glow like a beacon of hope on the hill as the lights around it were turned on. It was a strange sensation to be able to see the building with her physical eyes but unable to with her sight .
The grounds around the castle were mostly empty as she began to slowly walk around it, trying to pinpoint what she was looking for. Walking around the castle, she saw the river and moved towards the stand of trees next to it. The hole in her vision became smaller and smaller with each step until it was focused on just one tree.
As she approached silently, she took in the vision of a tall, slender man with long red hair and what looked to be a fang hanging from his ear sitting on the ground with his eyes closed and his back against a tree. His clothes were ripped, his face was scarred, and he looked filthy but he didn’t appear to be homeless. It looked more like he had been fighting for his life for hours and had just sat down to take a rest.
“Fucking Merlin,” he growled. “If you’re here to kill me, just do it already. I’m bloody exhausted.”
“My name is Alice, not Merlin,” she said lightly. “And I don’t plan on killing you.”
His eyes met hers and the world seemed to stop. She’d never seen eyes so blue and she felt like she saw her future when she looked into their depths. Suddenly, visions of the two of them filled her mind.
Standing next to a crooked house as they married; walking with him hand in hand on Isle Esme; being hugged by a woman who looked to be his mother as he stood nearby and shook his head; his teeth sinking into her soft flesh as he pounded into her from behind.
But no, that couldn’t be right. Her skin would be like granite to him and it would break his teeth. Who was this man?
And why had she not been able to see him until she saw him?
He stood up and moved closer to her. He was impossibly tall, more than a foot taller than her own small form, and even with the scars, he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. He smiled at her and though her heart had not beat for more than seventy-five years, she could have sworn it skipped a beat in her chest.
He cocked his head to the side and pulled a stick from a leather holster on his arm. He pointed it at her. “What are you?” he asked, his voice deep and dangerous.
“A human?” She kept her tone light and tried to make it sound like a question, tried to make it seem like she was confused by his question.
“Try again, little girl. I can smell you and you’re not human. Too big to be a Finnish fairy, although not by much. And much too pretty to be a Banshee. So I will ask you again, what are you?”
The deepest part of her instinct told her to be honest with him. “A vampire.”
He moved quicker than she expected and had her pressed against a tree, the stick in his hand pressed painfully into her throat, his other hand pressing her into the rough bark. . Confusion ripped through her. A human should not be able to move her, let alone restrain her. She should have seen his movements coming, and yet she hadn’t.
His hand on her arm was warm, but it didn’t feel like the heat from a human. What was this man?
“What do you want?” he commanded. “You have two minutes before I take you to the Ministry. They’re rounding up Dark creatures, you know.”
“My name is Alice Cullen. I am a vampire, but I don’t bite humans. Look at my eyes if you don’t believe me.” She squinted against the bright light that began to shine from the end of his stick. “I’m here because… well, I can see visions. I see everything that can and will happen to me. But I kept having a blind spot, so I chased it and it led me to you.”
He gave her a hard look as if he was weighing her words in his mind.
“Did you fight in the war?”
“What war?” She racked her brains but couldn’t think of any wars that were going on, especially in the UK.
“American?”
“Yes. I just landed a few hours ago.”
He spun the stick in his hand, turning out the light and she was confused when he suddenly had a head of garlic in his hands as if he had conjured it from thin air. He held it too close to her face for comfort and she just looked at him. Why was he acting like a deranged man? And why did he have garlic?
Normal humans didn’t react this way. Humans were weak when it came to vampires. They swooned and lusted after their kind.
“I don’t know what you are,” he said finally, twisting his fingers and the garlic was instantly gone. “You don’t react like a normal vampire, but I can smell that you aren’t human. I should bind you and take you to the Ministry and yet I feel like I can trust you.”
“I…” she trailed off as her eyes landed on a mark he had on his left collarbone. It was a light birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon and would have been completely unremarkable if it didn’t match one she had in the same place. “I think I’m your soulmate.”
“What?” he snapped, but not unkindly and dropped his hand from her shoulder. “That can’t be. I’m only part of a werewolf and I don’t know what you are, but soulmates are only for magical beings.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant by magical beings if he didn’t think she was a vampire and he sure as hell didn’t look like the werewolves of the Quileute tribe. And his scent was not that of wet dog, but it wasn’t quite human either.
“What are you?” she asked him. “I can tell you're not a normal human, but that’s all.”
“I’m a wizard,” he told her.
When she raised her eyebrow in disbelief, he twisted his stick in his hand and a stream of water sprang from it. Her mouth dropped open. She had heard rumors of witches and wizards but never met one. Could it be that they were real and this one was her soul mate?
Reaching up slowly so he knew she wasn’t a threat, she tugged on the collar of her shirt, exposing her own crescent moon mark. As if he was moving without thought, his fingers brushed over her mark and a jolt of electricity shot through her. The world shifted below her feet and everything in her life seemed clearer. He sucked in a breath and shuttered.
He continued to trace her mark as he looked her over. She felt like he was reading her very soul. He seemed to come to some decision as he reached down and took her hand in his.
“Well, soul mate, I’m going to need a shower, a nap, and some new clothes, but then I’m taking you out.”
Alice smiled as he wrapped her in his arms and told her to hold still as he took her by magical transport. She didn’t care where he was taking her. She would follow him anywhere.