Witch Wars (Society of Ancient Magic Book 3)

by Fiona Starr

  The fears I had last night feel minuscule and petty now. Whatever worry I had yesterday, whatever pushback I feel from Van, is gone. I know that they won’t turn their backs on me. I didn’t get a chance to give them my gifts, which means I didn’t tell them what’s going on with me and my family. But that’s going to change. I will tell them today.

  I pull the door open and Van spills onto the bedroom floor. He opens his eyes and blinks up at me, confused for a moment, as if realizing where he is and not understanding how he got here. He scrambles to his feet in a hurry and towers over me, his hair sticking up on one side.

  “Did you sleep here?” I ask, regretting it instantly as Van’s face flushes bright red.

  “Hey. I um… I didn’t want to disturb you guys… When I came back you were um…” His blue eyes are darker than Angus’s and he holds my gaze like he has more to say.

  I stare up at him, waiting, willing him to open up and let me inside. Van’s cool essence surrounds me, blocking out everything and everyone else. Angus and Marco fade into the distance. The house disappears and it’s just me and Van in a bubble for the two of us.

  A ripple of energy rolls across my chest and I realize the medallion is doing this. It’s the medallion that’s making our connection so visceral. Van’s heartbeat is like a drumbeat all around me. I stare into his eyes and inhale, breathing him in.

  Then he looks away and the world crashes back in around me, making me gasp.

  Van’s guard is back up and I’m standing in front of him, questioning myself, doubt creeping in again.

  “I need to talk to you. All of you,” Van says.

  “Then it needs to happen in the kitchen. I have to get the roast on in the next five minutes or the entire day will be off schedule.” Marco sidles through the door, presses a kiss into my neck as he leaves.

  Then Angus does the same, only he bends in over my shoulder to kiss me on the lips. “I thought you said something about coffee?” Angus whispers.

  I nod and follow Angus down the hall, leaving Van standing in the doorway, staring after us. I glance over my shoulder once, because I can’t help it. He looks lost. Unsure. Angry, as usual, but also something else, something more.

  Hopefully he’ll tell me—tell us—what this is all about.

  “How long does it take to shower?” Van taps his hands on the kitchen table, impatient for Angus to join us.

  Marco places a huge bowl of green beans in front of Van. “If you’re going to sit there, I’m going to put you to work.”

  When the coffee is done brewing, I pour mugs for the three of us, handing Marco his and placing Van’s on the table in front of him. I sit at the table across from Van.

  Angus arrives, dressed in fresh clothes, his blond hair slicked back and damp from the shower. “All right, grouch. Tell us what’s so important that it made you listen at our door all night.”

  Van scoffs. “I didn’t! I wasn’t…”

  “Uh huh.” Marco teases, waving a paring knife at his brother. “And your red face is one of those odd winter sunburns that you get from snowstorms at night?”

  Van drops his head in defeat. When he looks up, his face is dead serious. “Look. I’m sorry. I had no idea the medallion would do anything like that. I wasn’t expecting to feel all of that. Tobias…” He closes his eyes and blows out his breath.

  Angus squeezes Van’s shoulder. “Hey man, it’s all good. Don’t…”

  Van shrugs him off. “No. It’s not. I shouldn’t have done that. Had I known, I wouldn’t have…” He looks up at me and I can’t read what he’s thinking.

  “Known what?” I ask, feeling singled out but tired of this thing standing like a wall between us. “You wouldn’t have what, Van?”

  “Never mind. It’s not important,” he says.

  I shake my head. “How can you say that? Of course, it’s important. I just wish you would tell me what it is.”

  “Last night, I was out running and I saw something at the Cottage.”

  Van’s words stop everything. Angus pulls a chair over and Marco puts down the veggies he’s been chopping. And I pretend he didn’t totally ignore me and change the subject.

  “Why were you at the Society?” Angus asks.

  Van shakes his head. “I was just running. I lost track of the woods in the storm. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is there were people at the Cottage last night.”

  “Is Damon back?” Marco asks.

  “I don’t know. They were doing work on the roof over the part of the mansion where the Vessel was. Upstairs, in that room where they had you,” Van says, glancing at Angus.

  Angus shivers and rubs his arm where the break he sustained has already healed. “I’ll be just fine if I never see that place again.”

  “What did you see?” I prod.

  “There were dozens of people. And it looked like some of them were working and then this other group arrived and they started fighting with each other.”

  “What were they fighting about?” Marco asks.

  Van shakes his head. “I couldn’t hear. The storm was blowing and the snow was crazy. And I had to keep my distance since I was there as my wolf. One of them got thrown off the roof. I think he died. I have no idea what was going on.”

  We continue going over everything Van saw and heard, but we’re left with more questions than answers.

  “Well, if you didn’t see Damon, that’s good right?” Marco says.

  “Just because I didn’t see him doesn’t mean he isn’t back. We’ve been acting like he isn’t a threat these past few weeks, but that’s not really true is it? The only thing that’s changed is the Vessel. Without it, he can’t tell we’re nearby. That doesn’t mean he can’t still find us. And if we don’t know where he is, we’re in more danger than ever.”

  “We need to figure out what’s going on at the Society,” Marco says.

  “What we need is to find Underwood,” Angus says.

  “What you need is to be careful,” I say. “Hold that thought.” I hurry into the living room and grab the gifts I meant to give them last night and bring them back into the kitchen.

  The three of them watch me, waiting.

  My heart starts racing in my chest and my mouth has gone dry. Whatever confidence I had when I woke up this morning has evaporated. I hand them each a small package wrapped in holiday tissue and tied with twine. Van looks surprised when I hand him one. As they unwrap their gifts, I grab hold of my medallion, hoping it will send a ripple of courage through me. It doesn’t.

  “Before my magic sparked, I used to be able to weave small magic with thread. I used my embroidery as a way to access the part of me that I can see now was trying to break out. I made these totems for you three.”

  Angus holds up his totem, which features a woodsy scene with colorful leaves embroidered into a triangle of leather. Marco’s has a blue sky with white clouds and a beam of yellow sun. Van’s features a river burbling along the edge of a reeded bank. In each of them there is a raven, wings outstretched, watching over them.

  Angus pulls his over his head and looks down at it hanging from his neck. “I love it.”

  “It’s gorgeous. You’ve got wicked talent,” Marco says.

  Van doesn’t say anything. He just stares at the leather in his hand as if he’s at a loss for words.

  “I made them so they can stay on when you shift. I didn’t know that was possible, but I found this spell online. How come you guys don’t do that with your clothing? Has to be easier than being naked all the time.”

  Angus laughs. “You’ll have to talk to Van about that.”

  “Or maybe not,” Van says. He scowls, but unlike most of the time he scowls, it’s lacking in the heat of his anger.

  “Oh, come on. If you don’t tell her I will,” Marco says.

  Van just shakes his head. “Not going to happen. And I forbid either of you from telling her.”

  I swallow hard. “The totems have been imbued with protection magic and I know
it isn’t much, but with everything that’s happened… and after what Kate said, it would mean a lot to me if you would wear them.”

  “Wait, what did Kate say?” Marco asks.

  And here it comes. I have to tell them everything. “You know that guy who attacked me. The one I smashed with the rock?”

  Marco nods. “Yeah?”

  “He’s telling everyone that he was attacked by a wolf shifter.”

  “Why would he be doing that?” Van asks, his scowl is back and the anger coming off him is stronger than ever.

  I look at Marco and Angus and try to lock in the way they are looking at me. This is the before moment. Once I tell them who I am, they will know and I will know by their eyes if they no longer want me.

  Van scoffs and shakes his head as if he knew this was coming. “Here we are again. Are you going to tell us what you’re so afraid of?” Van asks, though his tone isn’t curious, it’s almost accusatory. The softness I saw a moment ago is gone.

  I close my eyes and tell them everything. “His name is Porter Allbright, and he is my father.”

  By the time I finish telling them everything, I am fighting back tears. This doesn’t feel good and I don’t know what I am going to do if they decide to kick me out.

  Van looks pleased.

  Marco looks angry.

  Angus looks confused. He shakes his head. “I don’t get it. It sounds like Allbright didn’t see Marco at all. That’s good, no?”

  “But what if he did see him? I mean, I didn’t check to see if he was unconscious. I thought he was dead. He could have seen your face, Marco.”

  Van leans back in this chair. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

  Under his gaze I feel like I am on trial. “When my mother found out, she called me a stranger. She said that she didn’t know who I was. That I wasn’t her daughter.” I am not going to cry. I am not going to cry. I am not going to cry.

  “And?” Angus urges me on.

  “And I feel like I’m holding a bomb in my hands that is just waiting to explode, and when it does, when everyone finds out what happened, who I really am, nobody is going to want me. I don’t want that to happen with you. With us.” I reach out and touch Marco and Angus’s hands. Then I look at Van. “With any of us. I feel like… I feel like we are starting something here. Something amazing and I can’t bear the thought of losing that.”

  Marco comes over and sits next to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  I shake my head. “You don’t understand. I’m not who you think I am.”

  “Of course you are. It doesn’t matter what your last name is or who your parents are. You are still you.”

  “I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t have a family. My real father tried to kill me because he’s afraid I am going to ruin his son’s life. Why would he even think that? I have nothing against Sebastian. And my parents… my mother couldn’t even look at me. I have nobody. I belong to no one.”

  Angus crosses his arms and leans against the counter. “Our families were slaughtered when we were kids. We were kept as slaves for twenty-five years, stuck in our wolf forms and unable to do anything expect be monsters performing for that vampire. It was only after we found Salma that we started to feel like we could live in the world again. As men. When we found Salma, we were wild. We had no idea what it meant to be what we are. She taught us about the history of dire wolves and what it meant to carry that legacy. She taught us how to deal with the curse of immortality we brought on by devouring those vampires. When we met you, we knew that you were special.” He eyes Van. “We all knew it. It was instant and instinct and it defied explanation. I just knew. We just knew. And now that we know it, there isn’t anything you can tell us that could make us turn you away.”

  Van pulls the totem over his neck. “He’s right. You’re stuck with us.”

  All at once, the kitchen fills with the sounds of text messages pinging. We all reach for our phones.

  Marco reads his aloud. “All members required to attend emergency meeting of the Society of Ancient Magic. Arrive promptly at 12:00 p.m. tomorrow. We send you season’s greetings for a blessed Yule.”

  “Well that’s a first,” Angus says.

  Van’s phone chimes again. “They want the stewards there early to help prepare.”

  “Do you think it could be Damon?” I ask.

  Marco rubs his face. “Do you think it’s a trap? What if they know it’s me? Maybe we shouldn’t go.”

  Van gets to his feet. “None of that matters. If it’s Damon and a trap, we go in ready to fight. We were able to kill his sons because we fought together and together we can bring him down too. We’ve been preparing for this for ages. If it’s Allbright, we go in with an alibi for whenever he was attacked and stick to it; make it out like he’s crazy. We’ll have our chains on, so they won’t be able to force us to shift. And if it’s something else, we just show up because no matter what, it will look suspicious if we don’t.”

  With that, we’re back on even ground, sort of. Even footing. Van has said he’s not the leader, but he continues to fall into the role naturally, and they seek it. It helps. I can see it in Angus and Marco’s reactions. They see Van as their leader.

  And oddly, I find that I do, too.

  Having Van in charge gives me hope that everything is going to work out.

  Chapter Seven

  JOELY

  The following day, it’s clear that whatever is going on, it isn’t a trap. I breathe a sigh of relief as we approach the Cottage because it’s like a mage convention outside the Society of Ancient Magic. Crowds of people gather on the lawn and spill out toward the gates and into the street. Hundreds of people flood the property, I recognize many of the students’ faces, but there are lots of alumni as well, all answering the call of the mandatory meeting of the Society.

  The three of them left the house before dawn to scope everything out. If something went wrong, they wanted to make sure they faced it together. Angus and Marco came back about an hour ago to join me for the meeting, leaving Van to his job as steward.

  “There’s Roz,” I say, pointing to where my friend waves at us from near the stairs.

  We head in her direction and find Winter and Georgia, my suite mates, waiting with her.

  “Hey stranger,” Roz says as she wraps me in a hug. “How was your holiday?”

  “It was good. Really good,” I say, unable to stop smiling. It was really good, better than good—it was great.

  When I told the guys about me and my family, about everything I knew about my origins, they didn’t push me away. In fact, we spent hours talking while we prepared the Solstice feast. They shared stories about Salma and what they remembered from their own families and they didn’t press me to talk about mine.

  I think they could tell a part of me was sad to be letting go of my past. Because when it comes down to it, I was happy back then. How am I supposed to discard my past life when before all of this happened, just about every memory is a happy one? I even told them about my annual tradition of making a cardamom cake. Angus secretly found a recipe online and they surprised me with one after dinner. I thought I might burst with happiness.

  Whatever happens with my family, it’s this family, these men, these friends right here, right now—this is where I’m supposed to be. I can’t stop smiling, and decide that I don’t want to.

  “Happy Solstice, boys,” Roz gives Angus and Marco a quick one-armed hug while keeping one arm around me. “Where’s Van?”

  Marco tips his chin toward the mansion. “Inside already. They asked him to come early.”

  “Oh, right. I forget that he works here,” Roz says.

  Winter leans in. “Did he say what this was about?”

  “No idea.” Marco shakes his head. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  I scan the crowd, looking for Porter Allbright. I don’t know what to think about him after the attack. I thought he was dead, but
now that I know he’s alive and he didn’t tell anyone what happened… what does that mean for me? I stop scanning when I catch sight of the familiar jawline of a petite brunette.

  As if sensing my gaze, Kate glances over her shoulder right at me. She does a double take when she spots me and makes a beeline right for me. I stiffen out of reflex, but then I remember where I am. I’m surrounded by Roz and my guys, and I know they have my back. It’s a good feeling, and one I could get used to.

  I watch my sister approach. I don’t look away and when she stops in front of me and I can tell she’s getting ready for a fight. I’m not the Joely she used to know. I’ve seen this look a thousand times, and in the past I would immediately assume I’d done something wrong. I would run through the days’ events, cataloging any potential transgressions, bracing myself for the onslaught.

  But that was before. When I wasn’t one of them. Only I didn’t know how much that mattered at the time. I just kept trying, convinced that if I could only do better, they’d love me as much as I love them. If I didn’t step out of line, they would love me for who I am.

  But Kate herself let me know that wasn’t the case. I had it all wrong. I would never have been accepted among their ranks. In her eyes a non-mage didn’t count at all. Kate thinks she’s dealing with the old Joely. I think I’m finally done trying to prove myself to her.

  “Thanks for hanging up on me, Joely. That wasn’t nice.” My sister’s voice is calm.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask. One of the first clues to there being something fishy going on with my family was the fact that I have Ancient Magic and my sisters don’t. Since it runs in families that was a clear indicator that something wasn’t right.