Junior Witch

by Ingrid Seymour

  It seemed he was ready for me, however, because he dodged and swerved to the left in the blink of an eye, then continued running straight towards the lake.

  He had recovered quickly from my spell and, this time, he’d gotten twice as far. I ran at the same time that I crumpled in the air, then reappeared even closer to him and wrapped my arms around his waist.

  We tumbled to the ground, went rolling, then crashed against a large rock. It seemed we made it to the rock garden in seconds. The impact knocked the air out of me. I struggled to breathe and, as I tried to recover, Rowan rolled me over and straddled me.

  He pinned my arms down and settled his heavy weight on me—he was not skipping gym days—his mouth inches from mine.

  “What are you doing, Charlie?” he asked. “It’s me,” he added in a quiet voice.

  His eyes traveled down to my lips, and I suddenly became aware of his solidity on top of me. His scent flooded my nose, making my skin tingle and my heart kick up. All the spells I’d ever learned flew out of my mind as I helplessly focused on his mouth.

  He licked his lips. I knew he was going to kiss me, and I wanted it. But I couldn’t let him. I turned away and tried to think of a spell to throw him off me, but as he pressed his lips to my skin, my mind went blank.

  His mouth slid down the column of my neck to my collarbone, heat trailing downward and sending shivers down the length of my body. He moaned in the back of his throat, then, with one knee, pushed my legs apart and pressed himself tightly against me. My entire body ignited with white, liquid heat.

  As I felt his hardness on me, his mouth traveled up my neck to my jawline.

  My resolve died. I wanted him far too badly. I couldn't resist anymore, and I turned my face back to his. His lips met mine and then we were kissing desperately, deeply, his tongue sliding into my mouth, its velvet-like feel sending shivers down my spine.

  I kissed him back just as hungrily. He pulled apart for an instant, whispered my name into my lips, then bit my lower lip. Heat slid down my body, making me arch into Rowan’s hard body. I felt him everywhere, and I wanted more. I pulled him into me and bit him back.

  His cool hand slid under my T-shirt, caressing my side.

  My want was exactly in the same place where it’d been the last time we’d kissed. It hadn’t diminished one bit—if anything it was worse. I still desired him, despite all the things that had happened, despite all the things I’d told myself.

  God, I wasn’t supposed to be doing this.

  I was betraying my promise, but my mind was overridden by my body, by this passion I’d always felt for Rowan, a jumble of intense emotions that had never been normal. It had been over the top from the very beginning. It had made no sense then, and it made no sense now.

  Why did he affect me this way? Why did he have such power over me? And why was he able to undo my resolve with one touch of his lips?

  My fingernails raked down his back as his hand reached the edge of my bra. Slowly, he let his fingers travel over the soft fabric. Then, he thrust his hips forward as his fingers tugged at the edge of my leather shorts. He wanted them off, and I feared he might just tear them in two.

  “Really?!” someone exclaimed. “You’re making out with him?!”

  The voice startled me out of the blind passion that had taken over me. I did a double take as I found Bridget standing there, her mouth hanging open.

  What the hell? Had she watched my entire fall from grace?

  Her appearance brought me back to my senses. A spell entered my mind as soon as I realized this had gone too far.

  Pushing my hands against Rowan’s chest, I thrust forward and sent him flying backwards.

  In a blur, he got up from the ground, jumped behind Bridget, and placed a dagger to her throat.

  Chapter Ten

  FALL SEMESTER

  LATE OCTOBER

  I put my hands up, my eyes locked on the dagger at Bridget’s throat. He wouldn’t.

  She started to struggle.

  “Magical dagger, Bridget. Don’t make a move!” Rowan warned.

  Had he had that thing the entire time? Why hadn’t he tried it on me? It seemed his new friends had sent him prepared. Why?

  I wiggled my fingers as they itched to release a spell to disarm him, but a magical weapon made things very touchy. The wrong spell could end up killing Bridget instead of saving her.

  “Let her go, Rowan,” I said. “This is between you and me.”

  He chuckled deeply in the back of his throat. “Is it? I think it involves everyone, Charlie.”

  “Look, I’ll—” but I didn’t finish what I was going to say because Bridget started weaving her hands, preparing a spell against Rowan.

  “No, Bridget!” I screamed, one hand reaching out for her.

  Green light streamed out of her fingers, slashing the air and wrapping around the dagger at her neck. The weapon was electrified, sparkling light coursing all around it.

  Rowan cried out and let go of the weapon. For an instant, I thought Bridget had gotten lucky with the right spell, but then the dagger started spinning in midair, going round in circles, its speed increasing with every turn.

  We stared at it like idiots, hypnotized.

  Abruptly, the dagger stopped and hung in the air as if it were trying to decide what to do. It turned once more, clockwise. Its tip pointed at me. My breath caught, then the dagger zoomed in my direction at the speed of oh-shit-I’m-fucked.

  I had no time to think, no time to even blink. The dagger was headed straight for my heart. I was dead.

  My eyes closed of their own accord.

  A massive force crashed into me, driving me backward and smashing me against a tree. Pain exploded in my back as arms wrapped tightly around my waist.

  My eyes sprang open as I bit down a scream.

  Rowan was hugging me, his body pressed to mine.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, pulling away slightly to meet my gaze.

  “It hurts,” I said.

  I felt a tug on my magic, then the pain disappeared.

  “There,” he said. “A blocking charm to fight back our bonding spell.”

  I quickly assessed my body. My back still hurt from the impact against the tree, but the stabbing pain was gone. He’d used our link to draw magic from me and stop my pain, but where had it come from in the first place?

  “Better?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Good,” he said with a weak smile and an even weaker voice.

  Then he let me go and promptly fell to his knees, a hand reaching aimlessly toward his back.

  “Rowan!” I knelt in front of him, my mind slow to process. What was wrong with him? Bridget took a few steps closer.

  “Take it out, please,” he groaned, his hand still uselessly reaching.

  I grabbed his shoulders and shifted him. The dagger was embedded in his back all the way to the hilt.

  “Oh, my God!” I’d felt his stabbing pain.

  I gripped the weapon and, without thinking, yanked it out. Rowan exhaled, moaned, then collapsed on his side, his shoulder hitting a gnarled tree root.

  I stared at the dagger in my hand. Black blood dripped from it, splattering on the ground. The moss surrounding the tree hissed and smoked. Why would he use such an insane weapon in the first place? This had to be Tempest’s doing. I threw the weapon aside and gently rolled Rowan onto his back.

  “Are you okay? What kind of dagger was that? How do I help you?”

  My hands hovered uselessly over his body. I had felt his pain and knew it was bad. I had to help. Damn the consequences.

  He blinked at all my questions, his brown eyes rolling into the back of his head. Oh god! Was he going to die?

  No.

  He was a vampire and the weapon hadn’t been anywhere near his heart. He would be fine. Right?

  I grabbed his face and patted it. “Rowan! What do I do?!”

  “Let him die,” Bridget said from behind us, her tone so cold and detached
that I barely recognized it.

  I glanced back. Her red curls were slicked back and held by a tight ponytail. She had dark makeup around her eyes and wore a black pantsuit. A stake protruded from her chest, blood trailing down her white, button-down shirt. Some sort of hex made her eyes glow red, completing the effect for her vampire costume.

  She looked crazed and merciless.

  “Let him die?” I asked. “You can’t be serious.”

  She shrugged with mock indifference even though I could see her seething with anger and venom. A magical blade, just like what nearly killed her brother, Bobby. She wanted revenge, plain and simple, but it was Tempest who she wanted to hurt, not Rowan.

  “Brid-get,” I said her name in two syllables loaded with incredulity. “Tempest hurt Bobby. Not Rowan. Help me.”

  She sighed, then her body drooped. “Gah, fine. Being a bad guy is exhausting.” She knelt next to me and stared at Rowan, a hint of compassion in her eyes as she pressed a hand to his forehead. This was the Bridget I knew.

  “He saved you,” she said. “That was very brave and very stupid of him. I guess now you can turn him in as you were planning to do.”

  I pressed two fingers to either side of my temples, trying to stave off the headache I felt blossoming there. “You saw all of that, didn’t you?” I asked, feeling humiliated.

  “Yep,” Bridget said.

  Rowan was my biggest weakness. Wolfsbane to my werewolf, kryptonite to my Superman, caramel to my sweet tooth. It was becoming really embarrassing. And nearly deadly.

  I glanced down at him. His lips had turned blue and tiny drops of blood peppered his forehead. His face was twisted in a mask of pain. I needed a healing spell, fast. My sluggish brain ran through them.

  “That’s the key. We have to free her,” Rowan mumbled deliriously.

  Bridget and I exchanged a glance.

  “What’s the key?” Bridget leaned in to ask him.

  His head turned from side to side as if he were refusing to answer, but he didn’t speak.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I asked, worry tightening my insides. Despite what I had told myself, it was clear I still cared very much about his pain.

  “I don’t think he’ll die if that’s what you’re asking, but I don’t think he’ll be okay.” She made air quotes. “I mean… look at him.”

  I took a deep breath, arming myself with resolve. “We should... alert the authorities then. They’ll know how to help him.”

  Bridget shook her head. “He wasn’t lying when he said they would probably sentence him to death. Magical Law Enforcement isn’t lenient with Lessers who commit crimes.”

  “But that’s wrong. They can’t just… execute people.”

  “Maybe in Planet Charlie,” she said mockingly. “But, here, they do it all the time.”

  Rowan mumbled something else, but I couldn’t make out the words.

  My heart clenched as I reached for his hand. “I… can’t turn him in then—not if there is the slightest chance they’ll do that.”

  Bridget raised her hand as if she were in class. “I’ll do it.”

  “No!”

  “I’m kidding.” She rolled her eyes. “Even if he has joined that crazy bitch, Tempest, he wasn’t the one who hurt Bobby. Plus, you’re clearly still in love with him.”

  “What?! No, I’m not… in love with him.” I dropped his hand knowing it wouldn’t help my argument.

  Bridget rolled her eyes. “You keep telling yourself that, sister.”

  I swallowed. The word love usually didn’t occur to me to describe what I felt for Rowan. Obsession was the noun that I used most often. Addicted. Deranged and stupid also featured prominently. But not love.

  Overwhelmed with emotion, I took his hand again. His lips were moving silently, the muscles in his jaw jumping as if he were having a bad dream.

  Tears pricked the back of my eyes, the anger that I’d felt toward myself for the past few months dissolving. How could I be to blame for loving? How could such a selfless feeling be wrong?

  God, that was why I’d done so many stupid things for him without fearing the consequences.

  I loved him.

  My heart was a traitor.

  “What do we do then?” I asked, the words squeezing around the knot in my throat and the urgent need to stop his pain. I couldn’t bear to see him like this.

  “I’m not sure.” Bridget glanced toward the dagger, her eyes narrowing.

  “What are you thinking?” I said.

  She stood, walked to the dagger, and picked it up. She turned it in every direction, examining it, careful not to touch the black blood on the blade.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Bridget didn’t answer. She just went on inspecting the dagger, her free hand hovering over it while her lips moved silently in some sort of incantation.

  I waited, hoping she might discover the nature of the blade so we could figure out a way to help Rowan.

  After a moment, she blinked. “I got nothing.”

  “Shit!” Disappointment washed over me.

  Why hadn’t I let him leave? If I hadn’t been so determined to capture him, he would be alright.

  The bushes behind us rustled.

  I jumped to my feet and turned in one swift motion. My cuffs flared as I pushed magic into them. Bridget took a step forward, dagger in hand.

  Two naked potatoes rolled out from under the bush, one on top of the other, kissing!

  “Ew!” Bridget exclaimed. “Are you two…?” she couldn’t finish.

  Two gnomes blinked up from the ground, then hopped away from each other. They had the decency to look embarrassed. Who knew? They ran around naked all the time, so I’d figured they didn’t have a gram of decorum in their small bodies.

  “He started it,” one of them said.

  “No, he did,” the other one protested, pointing a fat, little finger at his boyfriend.

  “Don’t lie, Gramop. You said I had the most beautiful eyes you’d ever seen, then you…” He trailed off, his rather beautiful turquoise peepers falling on the dagger. “Where did you get that?” the gnome demanded.

  “What? This?” Bridget held up the weapon.

  Suddenly, it flew from her fingers and traveled straight into the gnomes tiny hand. As he wrapped his fingers around it, it shrank to half its size to fit his hand perfectly.

  “Shit!” Bridget exclaimed. “It’s a gnome blade. No wonder I couldn’t get anything from it.”

  “This doesn’t belong to you,” the gnome said, his face flashing into an evil grimace for a second as if a mask had fallen over the rosy cheeks and bulbous nose.

  “He had it.” Bridget stepped off to the side and pointed at Rowan’s fallen shape.

  “Bridget!” I reproached her, outraged.

  She raised both hands up in the air and shrugged. “I mean… he did.”

  I turned back to the gnomes and opened my mouth to say something, but they were gone. “Where did they go?”

  “Umm…” Bridget pointed toward Rowan.

  The gnome with the dagger was standing on top of Rowan’s chest while the other, Gramop, stood by his head. Wearing a determined expression, Gramop raised his hands and pressed them to Rowan’s temples.

  “What are you doing? Get off of him!” I swept my hand from side to side making shooing sounds as if they were chickens. I didn’t dare get too close for fear of the dagger going into Rowan’s heart. “Please don’t hurt him.”

  Gramop nodded at the other gnome who used the dagger to rip a hole in Rowan’s shirt and pressed its tip directly to naked skin.

  “Please, please don’t hurt him,” I pleaded again. I readied myself to knock them away. No way was I going to watch two gnomes kill Rowan right in front of me.

  “Quiet, girl!” Gramop said. “Rasfix and I don’t hurt Supernaturals. Irmagard would have never brought us here if we did.”

  I bit my tongue and pressed a hand to my mouth, my heart paralyzed with fear. The dagg
er was already piercing his chest. If I interfered, something terrible might happen. I had to trust that they were telling the truth no matter how little confidence I had in the crazy gnomes.

  I love him. Please don’t hurt him. I love him.

  God, maybe love was more pathetic than a healthy, full-blown obsession.

  Rasfix closed his eyes. The dagger began to glow against Rowan’s skin, the light traveling up and down his body until it completely enveloped him. He glimmered with blue light like a ghostly apparition.

  “Where did you get this dagger?” Gramop asked, his hands pulsing a deeper blue light.

  Rowan answered right away, his voice clear and loud. “Tempest.”

  “Gah, that bitch!” Bridget exclaimed. “It might even be the same dagger she used on Bobby.”

  “Silence!” Rasfix said, waving his free hand in Bridget’s direction and casting a freezing spell.

  Well, that wasn’t nice, though I wasn’t about to say anything. I didn’t want to be put out of commission too. I wanted to hear what Rowan would say next.

  “Where is she?” Gramop went on as if nothing had happened, his little hands pulsing again.

  “1077 Rue Raymond Casgrain,” he said as if possessed.

  What the hell? That was terribly precise.

  After answering, Rowan’s whole body seemed to flinch. His fists clenched as if he were fighting against the magical interrogation.

  “Why did you steal La Sorcière Noire’s grimoire?” Gramop asked next.

  “Because we… we need… need to…” Rowan let out a growl, his body bucking as if he were a wild horse trying to unseat his rider.

  Rasfix stumbled but was able to keep his foothold on top of Rowan’s chest.

  “Why did you steal La Sorcière Noire’s grimoire?” Gramop repeated, the question more insistent, his hands pulsing brighter.

  “Nooo,” Rowan cried out, his voice hoarse.

  “You’re hurting him,” I said. Gramop dug his hands deeper into Rowan’s temples. “Why did you steal La Sorcière—”

  Rowan sprang to his feet as if spring-loaded, sending Rasfix rolling over the moss.