The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 2052: Planting the Olive Seed (Part Three)

"Heila, it’s time to cut the Olive Seed from my chest..."

The moment Ashlynn said the words, she felt a surge of anticipation and eagerness in her heart, along with a painful stab of anxiety. Some of those emotions belonged to her. She couldn’t deny that she was looking forward to removing the Olive Seed from her chest... This seed had become an even more difficult trial for her than the one she faced when she took the Willow Seed from the Ancient Willow in the Briar.

It would be good to be free of it.

But she was also afraid of what the seed would do to Jocelynn.

She and Nyrielle had done their best over the past three days. Nyrielle had made a small cut in Ashlynn’s chest and dripped her blood directly on the seed to strengthen it while binding its will. She’d used the full power of her Voice of Command and her Mesmerizing Gaze, pulling the seed into the dreams that she and Ashlynn shared...

The process had been agonizing for Ashlynn. Much of the joy had been leached out of her precious memories of life with her little sister, along with the wonder and delight of several things she hoped to share with Jocey. When she thought back to the night that she and Jocelynn spent together at the Festival of Light in Blackwell, the memory felt... flat. Dull. She could remember the events of the night, but not the happiness.

In time, Nyrielle believed that her memories would recover in much the same way that her body recovered after Nyrielle drank her blood, but she couldn’t promise that they would. They were attempting things that had never been done before, and neither of them could be certain that any of it would work. She could only hope that it had been enough to temper the seed’s bloodlust and its desire to see Jocelynn suffer.

Silently, she prayed that the eagerness she felt from the seed stemmed from a desire to unite with the person who Ashlynn loved so much and that the seed had come to share that love. The seed itself gave her no answers. Its full focus was on Jocelynn, and Ashlynn’s pushed her fears away to do the same.

When Ashlynn said it was time to cut the Olive Seed from her chest, Heila didn’t hesitate. She never did, not when it mattered. She stepped forward with Snow Fang in her hand, laid the edge of the pale blade against Ashlynn’s breastbone, and drew it down in a single clean stroke.

Pain flooded through Ashlynn’s body, turning her world red as fire raced through her veins. It wasn’t the cut that hurt. The cut was nothing. Ashlynn had felt worse from thorns in her own garden. What came after was something else entirely.

Green light poured from the wound. Dark green, not the bright, living emerald of Heila’s willow or Ollie’s cypress, but something deeper and heavier, like sunlight through murky water. And beneath the light, she felt the seed move.

It didn’t want to leave. No, that wasn’t right. The seed wanted to leave, but it couldn’t.

The roots that had wrapped themselves around her heart for weeks had burrowed deeply into her flesh. She’d opened herself to the Olive Seed, and it had grown more than any other seed she’d ever nurtured, even before Nyrielle fed it. Now, the seed pulsed in her chest like a second heart... It had become a part of her with roots that couldn’t let go, even though it wanted to.

Ashlynn gasped in pain, and her knees buckled. Only Nyrielle’s arms around her waist kept her from falling.

"Ashlynn," Nyrielle breathed in her ear.

"I know," Ashlynn said through gritted teeth. "I know. Hold me."

She reached into her own chest.

She had done this before. For Heila, for Ollie, for Virve and Isabell. Each time it had hurt terribly. Each time, the roots had torn free from around her heart like threads pulled from a tapestry, and she’d pushed through the pain because she’d endured far worse.

Only this time, it was worse. Much worse.

The Olive Seed fought her. Its roots dug in deeper as she pulled, burrowing into the walls of her heart, and every one that she tore free felt like a blade dragged through her ribs.

"AAAAARRRRRRGGGGG!!!"

Ashlynn’s cry of pain split the night. A high-pitched wail of agony was buried under deep determination as she tore her second heart from her chest. Her fingers trembled, desperate to let go. Her hand shook, and it took every ounce of strength she possessed to keep from pressing the seed back into her chest, back where it belonged.

Only it didn’t belong there. It belonged to Jocelynn. She knew that. The seed knew that. She pulled the seed forward as slowly and as gently as she could, but still, the pain that came with it felt like a thousand needles stabbing into her chest.

The pain was worse than what she’d faced to heal Ritchel. It was worse than the burns she suffered in the High Pass when she fought against Ansgar and Ines. It was worse than every wound Owain had inflicted during their duel in Lothian Manor.

The only pain she’d ever known that was worse than this had come on her wedding night when Owain beat her to the brink of death.

"Ashlynn!" Ollie shouted as he took a step toward her.

"Stay back," Nyrielle snapped, and her wings flared wide, a wall of black feathers between the coven and the circle. "She needs to do this. She can do this. Let her finish."

Gritting her teeth against the pain, Ashlynn drew on her bond with Nyrielle, summoning her lover’s strength as she pushed through the red haze and pulled...

And with a last, wrenching tear that she felt down to the soles of her feet, the Olive Seed finally came free...

Ashlynn stared down at it, swaying on her feet while her head swam and the whole world tilted. There was a ringing in her ears, and her heart thundered in her chest. Warm blood covered her fingers, but in those fingers, she held the Olive Seed.

But as her vision cleared and her eyes focused on the seed in her hand, she realized that something was wrong with it. Very, very wrong...