Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4)

by Melinda Kucsera

  I saw pity in his eyes as he searched my face. Love replaced it as he nodded before he squeezed me again, kissed my forehead, and released me.

  “I won’t let him near you. Go.” His eyes moved to his twin, and I spared a glance over my shoulder to find a panicked look in Nick’s eyes. When Willow reached for him and took his hand as if to hold him back, he shook her off.

  “Thank you, Jordan. Baxter.” I nodded to him too, and he nodded back.

  “Go. We got this,” Baxter said, giving my hand a squeeze before patting my back while scooting me in the direction of the door.

  I took a deep breath and moved my feet, walking away.

  “Sky! Sky, wait!” I heard Nick yell.

  Grunts of pain and scuffling sounds came next, but I didn’t stop.

  “Let me go, Jordan. Sky, wait!”

  “Don’t you dare move. I think you’ve done enough damage for today, don’t you?” Jordan growled.

  Then Bess shouted, “You’re a…a…I can’t think of a word good enough to describe what a horrible person you are right now, Nicholas Cromwell!” The fury in her voice shocked even me, so I couldn’t imagine how Nick felt so close to that anger. “How could you do this? She is the best thing that has ever happened to you in your life and you just mucked it up six ways from Sunday. And on prom day no less! And you! You conniving little floozy...”

  I heard the resounding smack of a hand hitting flesh and knew that Bess had slapped Willow. I almost smirked. Okay, maybe I did a little…

  After that, I moved too far away to hear anymore, for which I was grateful. Finally alone, I picked up speed, not worried about anyone thinking me weak. As soon as I felt safe, I let the tears fall, and the rain poured outside at the same time, nearly blinding me as I made my getaway.

  How had today, a day that was supposed to be perfect, gone south so fast?

  It didn’t matter now. What happened couldn’t be undone, and my heart had already broken into a thousand tiny, shattered pieces.

  I didn’t remember making it home. I did remember slamming the door and racing to my room, though. Shouts from my mother asking me what was wrong followed me to my room, where I slammed the door with much more force than was needed. After I locked it and threw an extra ward spell over the knob to ensure nobody would get in, I fell to my bed, sobbing.

  The weather outside my window continued to rage. My cell phone rang, and I knew it was probably Bess. My parents knocked at my door, demanding entrance to find out what was going on, so I turned on my music and cranked it up, ignoring it all.

  Amid the crying I heard Bess come to my door, pleading for me to allow her in, but I told her to go away, to go and have fun at prom because there was no way I’d go now. She begged for a long time, then she threatened me, but in the end she finally gave up.

  “I’ll be texting and calling later. You darn well better answer, Stratan.” I knew she was mad when she called me by my last name. It almost made me smile.

  “Maybe,” I answered, wiping tears from my face with the back of my hand as I reached for a tissue to blow my nose.

  “Darn right you will girl,” she replied, and then in a softer voice she said, “I love you. You know that, right? I’m always here for you.”

  Hot tears stained my cheeks again. “I love you too, Bess. Now go. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I heard her hand tap slightly at the door. “Forever and always girl.”

  “Forever and always,” I whispered, the sound of her footsteps carrying her away from my door, though her whispers to my parents were clear when she told them what had happened.

  When I was all cried out, the rain stopped, the wind died down, and I fell into an exhausted sleep.

  Life changed after that day. My parents realized what was going on magic wise and set about explaining it to me the following day. I was a weather witch. An extremely powerful one at that.

  They sat with me in the kitchen, my mother hovering with a sympathetic smile on her face that made me want to scream. She placed coffee in front of me.

  Wrapping my hands around my favorite large coffee mug, I smiled at her like she wanted me to. Even though I didn’t feel the emotion at all. “Thank you.”

  She just nodded, sitting beside my father. Her hair in a perfect chignon, she always looked impeccable, even when she wore jeans and a blouse. She looked graceful as she wrapped an arm through his and leaned close. A united front. My father looked to her with such affection that my heart ached. That was what I had thought Nick and I shared. Or we had. Anger swirled in my gut again. The wind started to pick up.

  Mom gasped and clutched at my father a little bit tighter.

  “You need to calm down, Sky. You’re going to get hurt or hurt someone else if you don’t start managing your emotions.” My father was gruff, his features almost looked annoyed. I hated the look he gave me when his eyebrows furrowed in disapproval and his mouth stretched into a thin line, like he was scolding me when I was little.

  Eyes wide, I stared at him in shock. My grip on the mug tightened, and as my agitation grew, the coffee started to boil. It popped and spewed over the sides, burning my fingers before I could move away.

  “Holy crap!” I screeched, shoving the mug and myself away from the table.

  My mother raced around the table to grab my hands.

  “It’s okay, love. I’ve got you.” Her voice was soft and calming as she took my hands in hers.

  I hissed at the burn, but then the coolness of her magic eased it. Her element was water. Cooling a burn was simple for her. When she was done, she smiled.

  “There. All better.” She brushed my hair behind my hair. Slowly standing, she leaned forward to kiss my forehead before going back to sit beside my father.

  My father, Brantlee Stratan, was one of the coven leaders from one of the founding families in the area. He was an extremely strong witch, as was my mother. My father liked to play outside of the coven rules at times. It always made me smile when he did. He was a handsome man in his early forties, his dark russet hair only just showing signs of silver. His green eyes still sparkled with love whenever he looked at my mother.

  They had always been a perfect match. Not what the coven had wanted of course, but like I said, my father had never cared. They had met abroad, fallen in love, and married, all within a short time. They balanced each other out as he had powers to control and work with fire and earth and she water and air. Their magics complimented each other. In the end, the coven elders had to concede what an amazing mated pair they were. A powerful magical couple not to be trifled with.

  I always wanted what they had. I looked to my beautiful mother. It never looked like she aged, and I often wondered if she managed to use air magic to give herself a facelift. I ducked my head, trying not to smirk.

  My father took a deep breath before speaking.

  “You remember the stories about your great aunt?” He looked at me expectantly.

  I frowned at him but nodded. “Of course.”

  “Well, my dear, the thing is. It seems the Great Divine has decided that you are going to be the next great weather witch of our generation.” He spoke in a rush.

  I sat in stunned, shocked silence. It explained so much, but weather witches were rare. Those who were found to be weather witches were usually taught how to control their magic at an early age. Most also had objects of power, ones they wore to help control the magic that built up inside them. The powers showing up so late in my life was a true anomaly.

  They continued to tell me all about my great aunt and everything she had gone through. They explained how she had shown her powers at such a young age, how she had been groomed by many covens to be able to control her power. And when she had been just a little older than I was, she had fallen in love and gotten married, once again disregarding any advice from the coven elders since they all thought she had married beneath herself.

  But she was in love and had done what she had wanted. It was on her wedding night that every
thing had gone wrong. She had been having such a wonderful time on her honeymoon that she sank the dang island she was on. Can you say Atlantis all over again, anyone? It was a thing, truly it was. Did anyone really think the original Atlantis actually sunk to the bottom of the ocean? It sure as heck was not a natural occurrence. No sir, it was not. It was a full-blown, emotional weather witch who lost her crap. The earth had started to shake, the waves on the ocean turned into a tsunami and bam! No more Atlantis. To the bottom of the ocean it sank.

  Weather witches could be male, but typically they were not. The power was given to the woman because women were able to contain and overcome so much more than men. We were the multitaskers, the creators, the nurturers, and we hid our emotions well. Men, as full weather witches, usually managed to kill themselves within the first few years. They got drunk and drowned themselves, got into a brawl and got struck down by lightning … stupid crap. Men couldn’t handle the power, so the Divine often searched for the ones they found who could handle the power behind the magic. I had yet to figure out why the Divine had chosen me for it. I was a mess of a witch before the rest of this power even came to me. How the heck the Divine thought I could figure it out now was beyond me.

  Mom and Dad were almost scared about it all. I knew they thought this shouldn’t have happened, but since it did, they were trying to shelter me the best they could. They offered little tricks to help me control it, too, but mainly because they were terrified the high witch counsel would show up and take me away to do what was best for all. And if they did, maybe they’d teach me to control this new power so they could use me for their own purposes, or perhaps they wouldn’t teach me at all. If they deemed me as too much of a threat, they would execute me.

  Suffice it to say, fear held me in its clutches as well, and I didn’t return to school after I found out what I was. Which was just fine with me. I didn’t want to face anyone there, anyway. My phone had been blowing up with text and voice messages. Nick tried to call, but I refused to speak to him. I even had my father turn him away when he showed up at the house.

  Nick had been part of our family for years now, so he usually walked through the front door without knocking. Now, he couldn’t make it past the front door. My father stood there as a sentinel, often leaning down and whispering what I imagined were threats in his ear. I had a lovely view when I watched from the living room, and I never actually had to face him. The thought of seeing him face to face made me instantly sick to my stomach, and I would almost start crying every time.

  Although, when I looked in the hall mirror now and noticed his black eye, I did get a small sense of pleasure from that. Bess told me his own brother had given it to him when Nick tried to get past him to come after me. I smirked at that, although anger and sadness still battled in my heart. I had to stay calm through it or else the weather would keep changing, and that couldn’t happen.

  In the mirror, I watched Nick’s eyes go wide and he looked slightly frightened by whatever my father had said that time.

  He gulped before speaking. “Yes, sir.” He turned and fled.

  I wasn’t sure if I could ever love my father more than I did in that moment. Racing to him, I wrapped my arms around him and crushed him in a hug. He grunted but held me close.

  “I won’t let him hurt you anymore, Sky. Your mother and I will always protect you,” he whispered, hugging me tighter. “No one hurts my little girl.”

  Days turned into weeks. I finished my senior year at home. My parents agreed it was for the best and made all the arrangements. Learning how to cope with weather-witch powers in a public witch school would not have been a good idea. There were too many rolling emotions there, too many triggers that could set me off. It was a lonely new existence but it had to be done until I could get a handle on things. It took almost a week before I could even have Bess over. She had called and texted, of course, and we talked a lot. Just not in person, because that way, I always fell apart.

  So there I was, almost three weeks later, walking along the beach while trying to feel absolutely nothing.

  And I meant nothing.

  I was trying to feel as empty as could be, to show no emotion at all. Everything would continue on if I could reign in all of my feelings and emotions which wasn’t as simple as it sounded. Not by a long shot. The beach was one of the few places where I felt calm. The sound of the waves and their rhythm on the shore, helped bring my emotions back into a passable form of control.

  But seriously, how could anyone possibly expect a teenager to control their emotions? How was that even possible? How could the Great Divine have thought this was a good idea? Why me? I didn’t want this. A crack of thunder and lightning filled the air.

  “I HATE YOU!” I screamed to the sky, falling to my knees as tears streamed down my face. I had never cried as much as I did in the last few weeks. And I didn’t hate the Great Divine, I was just overwhelmed. It was so frustrating.

  A soft pattering of rain started to fall. It had been a calm evening before my intrusive thoughts ruined it. The harder I cried, the harder the rain fell, and the louder the thunder grew, although it wasn’t booming, yet. My hair whipped and stuck to my face in the middle of the wind and rain, so I gathered the mahogany-brown tresses up, pulling them into a messy bun. A simple calming action.

  “Think nothing, be nothing; think nothing, be nothing; empty, empty, empty,” I repeated over and over again until the thunderstorm stopped.

  Still sniffing, wiping my face with the back of my sleeve, I glanced up. Where there had been clear skies before, a double rainbow now appeared in the sky. A smile spread over me even as an uneasy feeling grew in my chest. It had taken so much to make that happen, and I had been responsible for it all.

  Being an almost eighteen-year-old weather witch was a pain in the butt. Especially a weather witch who could affect the weather with her emotions. It was rare and could be extremely dangerous, which was a lesson I’d learned pretty quickly. Sure, there had been weather witches in the past, but most could only make slight changes to weather patterns. A witch who could affect the weather because of her emotions was rarer still, and more precarious. I would have to learn a delicate balance with my emotions. And I had no idea if I could or not.

  Having a bad day? Have a little thunderstorm. Having an extremely bad time of the month? Well, heck, I could make a volcano explode. Extremely happy day? I might’ve accidentally turned winter into a summer day. Those were things I had to fight for control over every single day, and that wasn’t easy when I was eighteen years old and an emotional hormonal rollercoaster of a teenager. Well, almost eighteen. How the heck was any of that fair?

  Thinking about the birthday party and the trip with my friends that had been planned forever ago made me sad and angry again. It wasn’t going to happen. It couldn’t. I couldn’t even bear the thought of seeing Nick again. I was only talking to Jordan and Baxter now via texts and snaps. It was supposed to be our grand summer before all of us left for college and became great members of witch society.

  Bess and I were supposed to be planning an engagement party. Nick and I had talked about getting married after graduation. I glanced down at my now-empty ring finger. Clenching my fists, I scowled at the unfairness. A crack of thunder followed, making me shake my head.

  “Happy thoughts, happy thoughts. Mustn’t cause a tsunami while trying to get my calm on at the beach,” I muttered, moving to kneel in the sand. Shoving my hands into it, I let it sift through my fingers, a repetitive movement that soothed me. “Stupid weather witch powers. I don’t want them. I want them to go away.”

  I really did. I was being honest. I’d been nothing but an emotional rollercoaster lately, and I didn’t want to be responsible for setting off something catastrophic. It still hurt to think about Nick, although not as much as before. I was slowly coming to terms with it, slowly getting over him and his betrayal—even if there were days that I missed him terribly. Knowing I was better off without him had been the key to movin
g forward. He couldn’t control my actions any longer, and I wouldn’t let him make me lose my crap and set off a tornado or something. He just wasn’t worth it.

  I needed to figure out how to let fire magic be my life again. Fire was my main element as a witch. There wasn’t much I couldn’t do with it. I had been learning how to use it since I was about six years old and these weather powers were mucking it all up.

  Lifting my clenched hand, I stared at it, unclenching it to see a small ball of flame resting in the palm of my hand. I grinned, watching as it morphed itself into a small fire cat that purred and rubbed its head against my fingers.

  “If only things were so simple,” I said softly, blowing out a breath like one might blow out candles. The flaming kitty disappeared into the night like tiny sparks dancing on the wind.

  “Impressive,” a deep voice said from behind me, startling me.

  A crack of thunder split the sky. I spun into a defensive half-crouch, my eyes landing on a guy only a few paces behind me. Where had he come from? I hadn’t seen him when I’d started walking. I quickly stood, feeling slightly off-balance because he’d caught me off guard. I knew better. Always be vigilant. You must not let non-magical see you do magic.

  Dang it, I hated this.

  There was another crack of thunder, louder and closer than the last. My anxiety grew and so did the storm. Go figure. Lightning like a spider web split the sky, the echo of thunder shaking the ground under my feet.

  “You were too upset to notice me when I came over the dune,” he replied, answering my unspoken question as he glanced toward the sky, taking in another web of lightning stretching across it.

  My eyes widened and a shiver of fear ran down my spine. Tall, six-two at least, and dressed in shorts and a t-shirt with flip flops on his feet, the guy was gorgeous. His dark-blonde hair was short in a messy style that told me he must run his hand through it often. His smile was bright against the coming darkness, making his bright azure eyes almost glow. Just looking at him made my blood hum. I could tell he was a magic-user. The energy emanating off of him was like little shots of electricity to my weather witch side.