No Witch Way Out (Maeren Series Book 2)

by Mercedes Jade

  Whatever happened to binding her?

  Geer had to be bluffing earlier. He had seemed in a hurry to stop her, but now, he saw she could handle herself.

  “The human will be fine, just a little blood around his mouth. I’m going to set the scene up to look like an accident, then I’ll leave. You may as well go, too.”

  She started dragging the man’s body, wishing she had her sister’s earth strength.

  Air didn’t work the same on pushing something dragging on the ground.

  Floating him was chancy, with dawn around the corner. She didn’t need to risk another human walking in on more forbidden magic being openly displayed.

  Why couldn’t the demon have picked a skinnier guy?

  “Are you sure it’s wise to leave him lying there? What if he gets cold? Blood loss can be life-threatening in humans, I hear.”

  “The demon didn’t get time to bite him. Besides, it’s summer. The sun will be out soon,” she explained, huffing between steps.

  How much further was the alley entrance?

  “Perhaps you should wait until he awakens, just to be sure he doesn’t remember the attack. I thought I saw the demon using fire on him. Do you think the human noticed the magic? I don’t know what you should do . . .”

  That uncertainty from her opinionated dragon stopped her hundred-and-fifty-pound-sack-drag endurance test in its tracks.

  She dropped the human, using air to ensure his head didn’t just flop back on the pavement.

  “You’re delaying me,” she said, coming to the realization out loud. “Why?” she spat out. “What are you up to that you don’t want me going home?”

  Geer said nothing, closing his eyes on her connected vision.

  The glyphs on his cave wall still burned in her sight.

  He had rushed to get them done, claiming he was going to bind her. If this binding was already done, then he would have been gloating about it, after the fact.

  But, he had planned to find her sleeping.

  Did he need her asleep to overcome the natural protective barriers around her magic?

  “Bind me,” she whispered, then repeated it louder. “Bind me to you, lizard. Do it now, and I’ll be your obedient servant,” she dared him.

  “Sparks, you are mine!” declared Geer in a deep and possessive tone.

  It reminded her terribly of Daemon.

  “I already have a blood bond that comes first,” she said. “I’ll give you his address, if you would like to discuss it?”

  Geer opened his eyes and she was blinded by the sunshine for a moment.

  “It isn’t unheard of for a female to have more than one mate. How many have you found?”

  Blinking her own eyes, she used lightning to reinforce the separation of their dual visions, pondering his strange question.

  She didn’t know what that dragon was smoking, but mates were a myth.

  “I’m not currently looking for a commitment. I’ll keep your number, if I change my mind,” she said, dismissing him in her mind as she started heading back home.

  “I tasted the power in your claim. Is there only one other male for me to contend with to nip your neck, or did you find other lordlings to tease at the fire court?”

  She broke into a run.

  If Geer was in front of her, she felt like he would be walking circles around her, testing her reactions to his probing questions.

  The strange but enjoyable companion, in and out of her mind, was suddenly turning serious.

  He was searching for something he wanted from her.

  She couldn’t run and talk, but she tried. Her mind raced as quickly as she ran, coming to a frightening conclusion.

  “Is it—” Huff. “—the princess?”

  Geer sighed.

  That was almost worse than silence or denial. Guilt whispered from that sigh. He was implicit in planning to trap Victoria.

  The one they wanted to bind was her Lasier.

  What a political hostage Victoria would make for the dragons. They had been driven nearly to extinction by the Maerenian king.

  “Where is—” Huff. “—big grey?”

  ‘She is his gaisa. Please understand. How could he ignore his other half, once he found her? To leave her in danger, so far from his protection?’

  “Dragons eat witches for breakfast,” she furiously huffed out, and then she ran harder, cursing the traitorous male in her head.

  Boy, could she pick them.

  It was almost disappointing when Geer suddenly disappeared again, before she could chew him out.

  The Darkness

  Dream

  Victoria

  “Hello, Princess.”

  The dark whispered. Velvety tones tried to seduce Victoria to walk deeper into the impenetrable black that surrounded her. The cold bite of steel underlying the words froze her muscles.

  She swallowed back a scream, nearly choking on the fear that parched her throat.

  “Where’s your fire?”

  She ignored the whispering voice, although she wanted nothing less than to light a bonfire with her power to chase away the darkness.

  Her other magic made her think twice before firing up. She was trapped in some sort of cavern, heavy condensation outlining the rocky confines, even better than a bright torch would to her water.

  If she used fire, it might choke the precious air in the cave, where she found herself trapped.

  This was a claustrophobic nightmare.

  There were narrow walls all around her that she could touch, if she just took a few steps and reached out, only about ten feet in diameter. The ceiling, at least, seemed higher.

  Not that it mattered. The cave could have been as large as the ballroom at the castle, but she still would have felt crowded by the other presence.

  Something unseen and sinister, but undeniably big, as it paced around her, close enough to disturb the air.

  If she stretched, would her hands brush against the other locked in with her, instead of rock?

  “I can hear the pitter-patter of your heart. You can’t hide from me.”

  The whispered voice threatened, now that she couldn’t be tricked into revealing her power.

  There had been enough nights where she had been tormented by hungry demons just like this. Always they wanted to assess the danger she represented before they struck, no matter how she was chained by metal and her blood bonded promise.

  Shadows would come for her when she did not step forward.

  She didn’t want to see what was hiding in the dark yet. If she looked for the demon, then she would only invite him to torment her sooner.

  When she ignored them, it was almost like she was alone.

  Experience had taught her to pretend she couldn’t hear or see them, so she could steal these moments, without pain, for as long as they would allow her.

  The dark never hurt her, only what came out of it.

  Would she never pay the debt to George’s clan for her foolish mistake? They were going to bleed her dry first.

  “Kneel, little coward.”

  She ignored the command and quietly exhaled, letting her water grab the moisture from her breath.

  She changed the temperature of each tiny droplet to hide the condensation in the freezing dark.

  The cooled mist expanded unnaturally under her command to explore as her eyes could not, feeling for what monster hid out of sight.

  The demons never worried about her water, although it was sometimes a greater weapon than her fire.

  The form belonging to the whisperer was well muscled. He didn’t move like any demon she’d known before. His feet barely touched the ground, despite his size, as he prowled around the cave.

  Her mist snaked up his leg. The dew formed for just a moment, as she learned his shape of his limb, and then evaporated, to scan higher.

  The tiny breath she exhaled contained just enough moisture to cover the length of a hand.

  She had sacrificed speed for discretion, but it was
for naught.

  “I feel you, water witch.”

  Heat from his fire steamed her mist, forcing it to evaporate, before it could touch his body.

  She fed her magic more strength, bringing the temperature down to liquid ice that was made possible only by the rapid movement of the water droplets to stop them from solidifying.

  Her icy magic flowed up firm thighs and hips to a chiselled abdomen and a chest.

  Then, around the back to something stretching out from his heavily muscled shoulders.

  Her ice froze on the fleshy wing he stretched.

  She could hear him flap it now, as he purposefully opened his wings to thrust back down and lift off entirely from the ground.

  She threw herself back to avoid being struck in the close quarters.

  Ice fragmented and fell all around her, a large chunk striking her forehead as she looked up and saw a dragon breathing fire that lit the ceiling and his massive body to her eyes.

  She screamed.

  Cold, Hard Reality

  “Wake up, Tor!”

  “Elizabeth, pull her out of the dream.”

  “I don’t think I can—”

  “Do it.”

  Victoria’s body convulsed around lightning so sharp and searing that her body felt relief instead of pain when it stopped a few seconds later.

  The sudden shock pulled her out of the nightmare faster than the voices screaming at her could have done.

  Elizabeth was staring down at her as Victoria woke. The lightning witch’s blue eyes were ignited with worry and the last sparks of the power she’d forced into Victoria’s body.

  “Are you okay?” Elizabeth asked. She grabbed Victoria by the shoulders and shook. “I’m not too late?”

  “Get me the nice sister, please,” Victoria croaked out.

  The shaking of her electrocuted body was quite unpleasant.

  Jill elbowed Elizabeth out of the way.

  “Where does it hurt?” Jill asked.

  The younger sister’s concerned eyes looked just like Elizabeth’s blues as they roamed over Victoria's body, searching for broken bits.

  Jill gently touched Victoria’s forehead with three fingers and let her earth search for what she couldn’t see.

  “I’ve been electrocuted. Everything hurts,” Victoria complained.

  “Technically, it was more like defibrillation,” Jill said. “Elizabeth had to jump start you, before your heart stopped from hypothermia.”

  “Say what?” Victoria asked, confused by Jill’s advanced medical terminology.

  She tried to shake just her head of the last of her nightmare.

  “I shocked you,” Elizabeth said, trying to peek around her sister’s taller body. “You were screaming before I laid a finger on you.”

  No, Elizabeth had saved her. The method of doing so wouldn’t have been Victoria’s first choice.

  She groaned and tried to sit up, Jill lending a strong earth hand.

  The newly familiar surroundings of the Norwood’s converted morning room—for Victoria’s latest prison—blinked into view.

  Except for the fire at the end of her nightmare, it had been pitch black in the cave she’d dreamed of, in contrast to this fully lit room.

  Bright sunshine was only partially blocked by Elizabeth’s head, making it Victoria’s focus, until her eyes adjusted.

  The light made a wispy halo of Elizabeth’s golden hair that looked angelic, or if you knew her better, a fiery crown for a hellish imp.

  “What kind of witch electrocutes her Lasier?” Victoria muttered.

  “Elizabeth used electricity to shock you back to life,” Jill corrected.

  The earth witch would know if it had to do with preserving life.

  Had the nightmare actually done something to her body?

  She felt okay, except for the rude awakening. A few sore muscles from the electric convulsions weren’t life-threatening.

  In magical healing, sometimes the cure was as bad as the illness. Sore muscles fell into that group. A modern hot shower would do her better than begging Jill to ease the aftereffects of her shock.

  Victoria closed her eyes again, letting the sisters’ bickering and the warmth from the sun-filled room sink comfortably into her frozen body.

  She was safe. Dragons didn’t haunt the human realm.

  “Elizabeth broke the spell barrier on your mind with stronger magic,” Kaila said, entering the room.

  Victoria’s eyes snapped back open. This was the real warden to her prison.

  Jill and Elizabeth moved aside for their mother as Kaila carried a steaming cup of tea over to Victoria.

  Kaila had offered that explanation in terms Victoria could actually understand, witch-to-witch.

  Discrete air magic gave the pillow under Victoria a plumping to lift her up higher and straighter before she was handed the cup.

  “Is it drugged?” Victoria asked.

  “Of course,” Kaila replied, a hint of derision in her voice. “Ibuprofen will help your sore muscles.”

  Human medication wasn’t what worried Victoria, but her question hadn’t been intended to be taken too seriously.

  The Norwoods already had her where they wanted her, so no further malicious drugging was necessary.

  Goosebumps rose over Victoria’s arms, despite the sun shining through the windows, as the blanket slipped down her chest.

  She was clad in stretchy, cotton pants and a tank shirt that Jill had given her. If she was going to be staying long, then a new, warmer wardrobe might be appropriate.

  “Drink,” Kaila advised, clearly noting Victoria’s shakes.

  Three fingers, with more calluses built-up than Jill’s softer touch, felt Victoria’s forehead.

  Rigours clenched her body as her muscles fought to bring her warmth, nearly sloshing the drugged tea onto her lap.

  How was it so incredibly cold in here?

  Couldn’t the Norwoods afford the wood and oil to heat their domicile?

  Even the drafty castle barracks were warmer than this in the dead of winter.

  Kaila stripped the thin, silk duvet off of Victoria and replaced it with a soft, knitted throw, made out of more substantial wool.

  It didn’t have the machined look of the first blanket and it made Victoria more comfortable just looking at it.

  Her eyes followed the deep purple and blue pattern covering her legs, down to her thickly socked feet. Elizabeth had called them slipper socks.

  Ice coated the footboard, sparkling in the sunlight as she looked down.

  “What in Maeren?” Victoria asked, confused.

  It felt colder inside here than it should be outside.

  She took a scalding sip of tea, rubbing her feet together in their socks, and then gulped her drink when she realized Kaila had heated it shy of the temperature to burn.

  It should have made the shakes worse, drinking something so warm so quickly, but the older earth witch knew her way around a healing brew.

  Victoria felt her body ease, rigours finally subsiding.

  “Kind of icy for hell, don’t you think?” Jill asked.

  “Maeren is not hell,” Victoria said, repeating what Kaila was always telling her daughters.

  “That’s not the joke. You made this ice yourself, with your water magic! Is this some sort of sleepwalking thing for witches?” Jill asked her mother.

  “Maybe, powers are usually dormant in sleep, just like your muscles are paralyzed,” Kaila answered, no hesitation. “The few exceptions are related to sleeping disorders like terrors that present in childhood.”

  Victoria never had sleep difficulties as a child.

  Perhaps Kaila had seen something like this before, since she sounded so certain.

  The older witch tilted her head and her dark, bobbed hair neatly fell forward in a curved-U from her neck, not a piece out of place.

  Victoria was sure her screams had woken them all from bed.

  Well, not Elizabeth. She was wearing a leather jacket, so
Victoria would hazard a guess that Elizabeth had been out slaying again.

  Elizabeth was trying to make up for her vacation to hell, as she liked to term it.

  “Well, there are other sleeping disorders,” Jill said, sitting on the edge of the daybed.

  The younger sister’s long hair was the same burnished bronze of her mother’s bob. Sleep had tangled it, even with the braid meant to tame it, half of the strands loose.

  Victoria wasn’t the only one with restless nights after their escape from Maeren.

  A sleeping disorder sounded like a fair guess for what had happened, if Victoria had been human.

  Jill might not know as much about Maerenian healing as her mother.

  The human knowledge Jill had gained getting her nursing degree gave her a unique perspective. Jill studied healing like Victoria had studied magic, and both of them were top of their class.

  Jill was still off base with this one. A witch knew when she had been cursed.

  “No,” Victoria said softly to Jill. She was reluctant to admit it was more than a nightmare or sleepwalking, but her instincts said that Kaila was closer to the truth.

  “Has this happened before?” Elizabeth asked.

  She fluffed a pillow and put it behind Victoria, gently probing Victoria’s mental barrier for permission.

  It was nice to be asked first, this time.

  “No,” Victoria said, shaking her head again.

  It wasn’t as if she could clear the nightmarish experience like simply dusting the cobwebs from the dark corners of a room. Some things clung and hid in your thoughts.

  “It didn’t feel like just a dream,” Victoria admitted.

  “Let me see.”

  Victoria shivered, but this time it wasn’t from the cold.

  Elizabeth’s lightning telepathy felt similar to the strange male’s voice in her mind, even if their mental voices were very different in the way they sounded.

  Sound could be mental, which Elizabeth and Jill had tried to explain to her, once.

  They had been camping under the Maerenian stars and resting a few moments, during their scurried escape, Kaila taking watch.

  Elizabeth had kept Victoria under her mental thumb the entire time, no longer controlling her muscles through her mind, but still not ready to let her blood bound Lasier free, while they were in Maeren.