A Witch Among Warlocks: The Complete Series Box Set Page 12

  “Damnit…,” I groaned.

  “Almost there,” he purred. “I want to see your face when you come.”

  “Alec, I—“

  I woke up.

  I woke up very, very sweaty. I could already tell my underwear was soaked.

  Across the room, Alec sat up. His eyes darted to me. My eyes darted to him.

  He covered his head with his hands. “Fuuuck.”

  I screamed. “That wasn’t just a dream, was it!?”

  “Charlotte—I am—so sorry about that. Don’t tell Master Blair, oh fuuuck.”

  “So—that was—I mean—”

  Firian the sleeping fox had almost instantly turned into Firian the very pissed looking human. He grabbed my hand. “Tell me what he did to you.”

  “I think you can guess. You don’t need details, Firian. Come on. I’m already—dying…” I slammed the pillow over my face. Also…still so turned on.

  “Did he defile you in your sleep?” Firian demanded. “I thought you were enchanted not to lay a hand on her. We need to pull you out of this room right this second. This was a terrible idea. Incubi and succubi can feed on you in your dreams just as easily as in real life.”

  Alec took a deep breath. As I slowly lowered the pillow I saw him leaning forward, head in hand, a worn old t-shirt clinging to his arms. Now I knew how the rest of him looked. The entire rest of him. I wondered if he was still hard under the blankets.

  Firian smacked my cheek with the back of his hand. “It’s an enchantment,” he said.

  I smacked him back. “He didn’t touch me, okay? And we didn’t even—nothing really happened. I started to realize what he was doing and I woke up.”

  “That’s right,” Alec said. “She did.”

  Firian lifted an eyebrow at me. “You actually had that much self awareness in the middle of…”

  “Yes. Is that hard to believe?”

  “You’re very flushed.”

  “Well, he’s hot, okay? I’m only human! Or whatever I am!”

  “You’re a quarter werewolf, which isn’t good for your self-restraint,” Firian said. “But…good work on resistance, I suppose.” His voice was a snarl.

  “That’s not me,” Alec said. “In the dream. It’s not me.”

  I still remembered how completely excited I was when he walked into the shower. Now, in the waking world, I realized that it didn’t quite make sense. I would freak out if anyone walked in the bathroom while I was showering without even asking, not to mention no established relationship. But in the dream, it all felt normal and right. In the dream, I had no inhibitions or concerns. I just wanted what I wanted. And he wanted it too. I felt so safe. It never crossed my mind that he would assault me, not even for a second. I knew deep down that he would devote himself to me entirely; that even if he could touch me, he would go slow when I needed him to go slow, and by the time it was over he would blow my mind.

  “Firian…um…would you mind going to Etherium for like two seconds?”

  Firian’s eyes widened into a look of aggravation. A little spot on his forehead twitched. “If you command it.”

  “I don’t command—“

  He disappeared so abruptly it was like a door slamming.

  “He’s like my angry genie or something,” I muttered. “But without any wish granting.”

  I knew how this must look to Firian, though. What if he does have feelings for me? And he can never, ever act on them? This must seem so cruel to him.

  “Alec…” I picked at a loose thread on the blanket. “Nothing happened. It’s okay, right? You were just worrying last night that your powers aren’t strong enough to fight off the demon. It probably happened because you fell asleep worrying. Right?”

  He nodded slowly. “It won’t happen again.”

  I bit my lip. “It wasn’t a bad dream.”

  He stood up. The hard on was definitely still…with us. He glanced at it and sighed. “Sorry. My dick really…responds to you. It’s not personal or anything. It’s the incubus half. Not that you aren’t worth responding to, that is—I want to focus on my studies.”

  “Yes. Me too.”

  He laughed dryly. “We’ll both feel better if we— You want the shower?”

  I nodded, my face heating again.

  “We cleared the air,” he said. “And now we know you’re strong enough to resist me. That’s good. It won’t happen again.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s cool.”

  “Monty really likes you,” he added. “If you like him back, I hope I didn’t screw things up.”

  No comment. Nope, nothing in my life is screwed up, LOL. I grabbed the clean clothes I’d left on the chair, and went into the shower.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Montague

  “So, come to your senses, have you?” Harris sank into the booth beside me when I was eating lunch alone, out of view from Charlotte and Firian.

  “It’s not that.”

  “Where’s Alec?”

  I didn’t want to see Alec, after he called me out in front of Charlotte. My situation was starting to become difficult to hide from my closest friends. They knew I wasn’t the same as I used to be, even if the professors didn’t notice.

  The memories were starting to hit me more often, and they were getting more intense.

  “Did the werewolf attack really shake you up or something?” Harris asked, with a faint scoff. “You can handle a werewolf, right? Or did she scare you off? I heard she started shooting fire everywhere again.”

  Alec joined us at the table. “Hey, sorry I’m late.” He picked up the day’s menu, glanced it over, dropped it. “I think we need to have a real talk about this before we lose you, Monty.”

  “Alec, don’t fucking start. I’m fine.”

  “Is Monty getting worse?” Harris asked.

  “I think he is. Monty, I know you’re hiding it because you don’t want to get kicked out of school or worse, to get sent to the Haven for good.”

  My stomach clenched at those words coming out of my friend’s mouth. This really was serious. Ethereals who turned dangerous could spend their lives under the careful eye of the council.

  “They will have to drag me out of here,” I said. “It’s not a big deal. I just have some weird memories. That happens to all vampires. I’m completely in control. The spells are working. If either of you tell Master Blair or anyone else that you’re worried about me, you will ruin my life. You know how hard I’ve worked to attend this school. I’m not a Hapsburg.”

  “I’m not going to report you,” Harris said. “That wouldn’t be any fun. As long as you don’t bother with Charlotte anymore. We’re just looking out for you.”

  “Oh, you forbid me from talking to Charlotte?”

  Harris leaned a little closer to me. “Monty, you know my parents forbade me from talking to you once you turned. My mother wrote you out of the book. I know we’re going to have a reckoning about it at some point, and if I can demonstrate that our friendship with you is keeping you safe, well…that makes me look a lot better.”

  It was no surprise that Harris thought like this. I knew he was as self-centered as it gets. The old Monty used to really get off on being best friends with the richest, most prominent warlock at boarding school, especially when I knew Harris loved all the stuff we used to do. The new Monty…well, I still realized that I needed this alliance more than ever.

  Alec, of course, wanted to dig into the situation, and I knew he wasn’t going to let this go. “So you do have memories,” he said. “What kind of memories are they? How far back do they go?”

  “I’m not sure. I have memories of a girl in an Elizabethan ruff. A simple one. Not a very fancy one.” I cringed as Harris was giving me a withering look and Alec looked upset.

  “So…suddenly you know all about Elizabethan ruffs,” Harris said.

  “It’s because I went roller skating with Charlotte,” I said. “And it made me think about him—the—older vampire—“ I wasn’t going
to start saying ‘my sire’. “—ice skating with a girl he liked. But they’re just little memories like that. Meaningless.”

  “Ice skating,” Alec said. “In an Elizabethan ruff? So what are we talking, 1600s? 1500s even? That means you have at least a five century old sire. You would only get his memories if he was still around.”

  “I am aware.”

  “Five century vampires…,” Alec repeated. “Powerful.”

  Most vampires just didn’t live that long. “I know,” I said. “I am aware.”

  “I didn’t know they were ice skating back then,” Alec said. “Where was that invented? Is it Dutch, maybe?”

  Lisbeth…come with me to London. It’s safe for us there. There are others like me, and no one will know us. I suddenly heard the vampire in my head, and saw the girl’s face, caught in uncertainty. She was quite pretty, even in such a dowdy old-fashioned outfit with the ruff and her hair under a cap. By candlelight, her skin glowed.

  Rayner…I’m scared. I’m betrothed to Mr. die Raet… I would be defying my father and my God, turning my back on everything I know…

  Great, in my memories I knew Dutch now.

  “He’s getting that look again,” Alec said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Whoever he is. I have the memories, yes, but they taught me a spell to cast them out.”

  I’d been slacking on that spell, though. The memories were intriguing.

  “You need to be very careful,” Harris said. “A vampire’s downfall is always some girl. If Charlotte is giving you memories of your sire’s lady love, that sounds like a terrible idea.”

  “He’s not my sire. I don’t have a sire. I’m a warlock. That shit is for stupid humans to deal with.”

  “Anyway, we’re only a month out from the autumn ball, and we’ll see the witches then,” Harris said. “You only want Charlotte because she’s the only girl here.”

  “Yeah…” He was right. Plenty of girls at the autumn ball. Witches from good families, not that any of the best ones would look twice at me now. I had already trashed my chances at a good marriage to raise my family’s standing, but that was fine. I wasn’t Harris. I could fall in love. And Charlotte wasn’t the one I would fall in love with.

  Probably.

  She had her overly protective familiar, for one thing. Who would want to get into a relationship with that situation?

  I tried to eat my pork blood with parsley, paprika, and house wine vinegar (chef’s special). That was when I heard Charlotte scream, “Hey!”

  I stood up and looked over the back of the booth.

  All I could see were the Locke brothers, hovering over her table. One of them grabbed Firian by his wrinkled shirt and threw him out of his chair, claiming it for himself, while the other had his hands planted on the table, hovering over her. I heard him saying something to her in a low voice.

  “Get away from me,” she said.

  Harris grabbed the edge of my jacket and pulled me down. “Not your job. Her familiar will protect her until a professor breaks it up.”

  “What if no professors are here?”

  “Not your job,” he repeated. “She needs to learn to defend herself.”

  “So she can set stuff on fire?” Alec looked restless too. “I share a room with her. How am I suppose to explain why I couldn’t even bother to stand up for her?”

  He likes her too. I knew it. The thought made me feel a little competitive, but at the same time, strangely closer to him.

  “Give it a minute,” Harris said.

  We could hear Charlotte talking back to the Locke brothers, and then Firian growled. It sounded like a fight broke out. Alec and I could have broken that up in no time.

  “I thought we were supposed to be gentlemen,” I said to Harris. “Chivalrous.”

  “Well, she wants to be treated like an equal, so let’s allow her to handle it!” Harris said. “She can cut it. If the Lockes get set on fire, I don’t give a shit. Alec, you need to keep your distance from women so you can truly live up to your potential as a warlock, and not succumb to your dark side, right?”

  “Yes…,” Alec said.

  “Montague, you know, deep down, that you’re going to hurt her if you pursue her, don’t you?”

  I growled.

  “You need to swear to me that you’ll stop flirting with Charlotte. It’s not just for your own good, it’s also for hers, but mainly, it’s just the only choice you can make that isn’t stupid.”

  The doors burst open and Chef Cyrus stormed out. “What is this? No fighting in my restaurant! Get out! Out, out!”

  “They—“ Charlotte said something.

  “Woman, you make so much trouble!” Cyrus bellowed.

  A second later, Charlotte stormed past our table, her brown ponytail bouncing like it was nagging me. Firian was behind her, but he shot us a look of disgust.

  A familiar was actually trying to make me feel ashamed of myself? That really was going too far. Charlotte needed to get him under control. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Charlotte

  Firian had a black eye. He’d gone straight for a punch to Ronan Locke, the bigger of the two Locke brothers.

  “Touch me again, fox, and I’ll hit you so hard it’ll blow you back to Etherium and you won’t be able to return.”

  “And if I see a rat there, I’ll know it’s your familiar, and I’ll tell him you said hello,” Firian said.

  That was when he got the black eye.

  “Firian…you should be more careful,” I said, coming upstairs with a bag of french fries I found in the dorm freezer. It was the best I could do.

  “I can heal myself,” he said. “You don’t have to take care of me.”

  “Oh…” I sat down next to him. “Why don’t you, then?”

  He gave me a squint-eyed grin. “In a minute. I want to feel it first.”

  “No need to do that!”

  “I feel very…human. You know. Sometimes one needs to live in one’s skin for a second.”

  I shook my head. “That sounds unpleasant.” I put the fries on his eye anyway. “It’s not peas, but they’re crinkle cut, so they do mold to your skin better than shoestring.” I groaned. “This place sucks more by the day. Even Montague and Alec didn’t defend me.”

  “I’m glad he didn’t. You don’t need a vampire in your life. You don’t need any of these jerks. There’s something about you, and they’re jealous of it.”

  I groaned. “Setting things on fire doesn’t make me special. It makes me hazardous.”

  “Wait and see, Charlotte,” he said.

  “Do you know something I don’t?”

  “I’m not keeping any secrets,” he said. “But I do see that beneath the normal girl you think you are, there’s a core of strength. You stand up to your enemies. You could have begged to go home. You could have told your dad what’s going on here. But deep down, you want to see what happens…and you can fight back. I’m here to remind you of that. My job is to remind you how much power you can wield.” His voice had a rough quality, his green-gold eyes unblinking as they met mine. He was close enough that I could see just how very nice his skin was. His fae quality seemed even more intense. He looked rather foxy even as a human—his nose and chin were rather pointed, his gaze patient and slightly feral.

  “Sometimes witches break the rules,” he said. “And sometimes familiars do. But do you know what all those stories have in common?”

  “No.”

  “No witch has ever turned bad without her familiar turning bad with her. And no familiar has ever fallen in love with a human without the blessing of his witch. I will always protect you. So you never have to be afraid. And you never have to depend on a vampire or an incubus.”

  “Firian…” I swallowed. My throat was suddenly tight, a ticklish feeling crawling over my arms and legs, as I thought about the fox watching me from the forest.

  He handed me the french fries an
d wiped his fingers over his eye, whispering a spell. The bruising faded and the swelling went down, although a little bit remained.

  For some reason, he seemed proud of it.

  I was living an Academy-Award nominated movie. “The First Female Something Important”. But only the first half, before the triumphant rise.

  “I can’t believe I thought I would have my pick of boyfriends,” I said, slamming my backpack down. “I am never dating a warlock.”

  The last week, things had gotten a lot worse. Alec seemed very embarrassed about the dream, and so was I, so we barely spoke. He told me flat out that he needed to avoid me so he wouldn’t step into my dreams again. Montague also seemed wary of me now, and I almost never saw the two of them without Harris close by. I already knew he thought I was nothing more than a “nice piece of ass”.

  Spoken like a full head-to-toe ass.

  Seeing how those three were always hanging out, I got this feeling that Harris had forbidden Montague and Alec from getting too friendly with me. I wasn’t stupid. By now it was obvious that Harris was the “It” student. The professors all fawned over him and his illustrious blood line.

  Master Blair was looking into the demon situation, but he hadn’t made any announcements. Everyone clearly thought I was trouble. Whenever I tried to do any magic in class, guys pretended to duck or made jokes about my out of control fire spells, although it was just self defense.

  Everywhere I went, I was ogled and isolated. Firian never left my side, as promised. I knew he was the only thing standing between me and spells that lifted my skirt or something.

  But since Montague stopped trying to be nice to me…now I had these guys freely targeting me.

  The Locke brothers.

  I was the first one in theurgy class. Professor Adams, an older black guy who was quick with a chuckle but also with a punishment, was working at his desk. He glanced up. Professor Adams had one eye that was slightly off. I felt like it was maybe glass, but I wasn’t going to ask, the same way I didn’t want to know why the infirmary had so many beds. His stare was disconcerting. “Miss Byrne,” he said. “Will your familiar be here for every class? First it was a week and I said to myself, well, all right, she’s new to all this. Now it’s been thirty days.”