by Jade Thorn
Councillor Argrum only frowned before sighing. “Yes, I suppose so, I could do with a break and a meal for myself. Ms Bestia, I suggest …”
But Melody’s voice rose in a shout. “Canticum, my name is now Canticum and I wish never again to be associated with those terrible women.”
He was taken aback by her vehemence. “Yes, my um ... yes. Very well, Ms Canticum, I suggest that you take a break and get something to eat. Be aware that I am not remotely finished with you.”
The obnoxious man gathered his notes and hastily shoved them into a satchel that she hadn’t noticed, before leaving, slamming the door behind him.
“How are you Melody?” Mrs Hardinger asked her gently, crouching in front of her and holding her hands.
She looked at the older woman, noticing lines around her face that hadn’t been there before. Melody remembered that she wasn’t the only one grieving, Mrs Hardinger and the provost had been very good friends.
“She’s really gone, isn’t she?” Melody couldn’t help but ask. Maybe she’d been mistaken, and they’d healed her, and Melody had just been too overwhelmed to ask earlier.
Mrs Hardinger hiccuped and then pulled Melody into her arms. “Yes, love. The wound was too extensive, although your dragons tried very hard.”
Melody’s eyes flitted to the other side of the room. When the questioning had become intense, the councillor had needed to order them all to sit off to the side or leave the room. The shifters were incensed by his attitude toward her, but all of them had needed to hear what she said, so they’d complied, but there had been rumbles all afternoon whenever they thought he was disrespecting her.
The men crowded around her, finally free to offer her the comfort that their beasts had been clamoring to give. Melody had heard them in the background as she’d been grilled, growling and mewling in their anger and distress. It was still hard for her to realise that she was finally free to acknowledge them. That she didn't have to be afraid of them anymore.
Dean and Asher were practically wrapped around her, hugging her from each side, even as Mrs Hardinger held her from the front.
Melody was safe.
Finally safe from the horrors of the last twenty-one years under her aunt's callous care. It was surreal and all too real at the same time, her brain switching back and forth from relief to disbelief.
The first sob took them all by surprise, but Mrs Hardinger was only a second behind her, and the two of them released something that had been poisoning them inside. The anger and pain, the betrayal of all that had been important to them—their very right to live in freedom and safety.
The loss of the provost, a woman who was so much gentler than her tough exterior presented was tremendous. Melody had lost a confidant, a friend, a counsellor and a hero. She could only imagine how Mrs Hardinger felt, having lost a friend who had been by her side for decades.
The door opened and Melody raised her head, only to see Toby enter, tears streaming down his face. It was then that she realised she hadn't seen Jonas.
"Jonas!" she gasped suddenly. "Where is he, how is he?"
Melody met Nick's eyes, but he lowered them quickly. None of the others would look at her either, and Mrs Hardinger only sobbed harder. Toby came to kneel behind his witch, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and resting his forehead against the back of her neck.
So, Jonas was gone too.
"How," she asked, huskily, the emotion clogging her throat.
"He was crazed, Mel. He ripped into anything and everything, and two wolves ended up taking him out," Dean murmured in her ear.
Melody gasped. "Were they students?" It would be even worse if they had, their guilt would be overwhelming, even if nobody else would blame them. She had seen Jonas fighting a wolf twice his size and winning.
"No, they came with your aunt," Asher told her, the growl in his voice betraying his anger.
"Did any of them survive, the shifters that came with her?" she had to know. These were shifters she knew, many that she’d broken herself.
"I'm sorry," said Nick. "Did you know many of them?"
"All of them, Nick. I lived in the cellars with them, remember? Most of them were ones that I’d defeated. She wouldn't have brought the weaker shifters with her, only the strongest."
"Then how many more would you say were back at the coven, Ms Canticum," asked a deep voice, announcing the return of the councillor.
"They had about a hundred and twenty, give or take. There were several pregnant women, and quite a few children under the age of fifteen. They didn't start training them until they were fifteen, and they wouldn't set them to fighting until they were eighteen. How many did they bring here?”
“Twenty-five,” Justin told her.
“Then they’d have at least another forty back at the compound that were fit enough to fight. Out of the rest, probably another forty who were not in peak condition or were still green enough not to be too much of a threat to a trained shifter.”
“Councillor,” protested Oz, “you said she could have a break and something to eat, it’s been five minutes, give us a chance, please? She’s still processing all of this, we all are. It’s facts and threats to you, but these were people that she loved that died here. Have some compassion.”
“You have another five minutes, but I can’t give you any longer. You’ve just given the very reasons why we must continue. They were people she loved, how can I tell which side she’s on? I need her answers before she’s had time to think them through and process them. I also need to make a report to the American Council of Witches, because they need to decide the best course of action, and sooner rather than later. We cannot allow her aunt to gain any more power, and it will need to be a decisive strike against Bestia. How many more lives are going to be lost over this?” He shook his head. “You have five minutes to feed her, then we resume.”
Ryan got up and stalked out, Trent going with him, Oz hesitated, his eyes a little glazed before his gaze sharpened and he too left. Melody looked around her in confusion. Was this it? Did they finally understand what a monster she was to shifters?
“Relax, Mel,” said Nick. “I sent them to get food. One of them will return with something for you and the others will wait for the rest of it.”
Melody sagged, and Mrs Hardinger finally released her, pausing only to wipe her eyes before giving her a stern look.
“Those boys are yours, don’t doubt them now, Melody. Nobody here hates you for what you were forced to do, so don’t even think like that. They’re yours, and they’re not leaving.”
There were growls from around her as the men registered what was being said.
“How …?”
“Because that’s my gift, Melody. My strength is beast taming, but a close second was healing arts. I have a gift for sensing emotions. Sometimes I can even understand the thoughts that go with them. It’s why I make such a good counsellor for the students. I know when they’re bullshitting me, when they’re honest and when they feel broken.” She cupped a trembling hand to Melody’s cheek.
“Right now, my dear, I’m not grieving for my friend. I cannot even begin to process what losing her and Jonas means to me. That’s something for Toby and I to deal with later.” looked over her shoulder and the shifter in question kissed her cheek. Mrs Hardinger sighed and leaned back against him.
Beside her, Dean and Asher stirred, both of them snuggling to her more closely, prompted by the obvious closeness between Mrs Hardinger and her familiar.
“Melody, right now I’m grieving for you. I can feel your pain, your loss, your confusion and even a sense of betrayal. Although I’d guess that was for the shifters who fought for your aunt, even though they couldn’t help it, would that be correct?” She paused and Melody nodded. “I’m overwhelmed by your losses, and for all that you’ve yet to face, because you know this isn’t over, don’t you? She’s not done yet, not until she’s been executed. What you’ve told us amounts to treason, and the High Council won’t le
t her survive that. She’s got nothing left to lose.”
“No, we won’t,” said Councillor Argrum. “A threat like your aunt can’t be allowed to continue. Your coven will likely be disbanded as well.”
“Ex-coven,” Melody snarled, and he blinked at her. “You must not threaten Canticum, they’ve done nothing wrong, so I assume that you mean my ex-coven. Disband it, burn the compound to the ground and salt the earth. Let their name be forgotten and their crimes be remembered as a tale of warning. I want nothing more to do with the evil that they’ve become. I’m free of them and I’m never going back.”
A plate of food was shoved in front of her, and Melody looked up in surprise at Ryan. She hadn’t heard him enter, but by the grim look on his face, he’d heard the last bit.
Melody had no idea what was on the sandwich, her mouth refused to taste it, instead she chewed on it steadily, choking it down with a bottle of water, because her mouth couldn’t seem to produce saliva.
When the last bite had gone, Councillor Argrum drew his chair in front of her, his stern expression telling her that he was about to begin again. She wondered how long it would be before they were done. She was already desperate to go back to sleep. Surely this whole nightmare had to end soon.
20. Oz
It had been sheer fucking torture. First of all, watching his witch lie comatose for two whole freaking days. Just how many times was he going to have to do that? Stand there on the outside waiting for an in, while she healed from life threatening injuries.
Today, she’d barely been conscious before this fucker was all over her, giving her attitude and making out like it was all her fault with his questions. He might not have said as much, but watching her shrink in on herself as the day droned on? It was driving his wolf mental.
The morning had all been about her role in Bestia, how her aunt treated her, where she slept, how the coven operated in general terms. Then there had been questions about the shifters, what kind did they prefer to bond, how were they treated, where they slept, what training they had. Her relationship with them after enslaving them for the coven.
There had been questions on how the shifters were even recruited, but apparently the old reputation of Bestia had stood them in good stead. They were careful not to let the word get out about how many of their shifters died. It was just assumed that the witches were so strong there, they were able to bond many. So, lots of shifters applied to be accepted there. Bestia even turned some away.
Now the questions focussed more on the threat that Bestia posed in the immediate future. What kind of shifters they had now, what kind of wards were on the compound, what were the defensive tactics that the coven tended to use. He grilled her on the expertise levels of the witches there, the number of witches, their combat strengths and weaknesses. The questions went on and on.
Melody had to draw extensive maps of the compound layout, and Oz had been horrified at her living conditions. She’d lived in a fucking cage, right alongside the shifters that she’d bested. It was obvious that Melody was as much of a slave as the shifters were.
Oz just couldn’t get his head around how strong she was mentally, despite everything that she’d been through. No matter the beatings, starvation, loss of shifter bonds, deaths of people she cared about; Melody had survived and had grown with enough backbone to actually stand up to some of the bitches that she’d lived with.
And that was another thing that had disturbed them all.
Bestia was an all-female coven. The witches bred with the shifters at hand to produce the next generation, but there were no sons, at least none that Melody knew of.
Melody had said that there was a high miscarriage rate, and that she suspected that male foetuses were aborted, but she couldn’t prove it. From the sounds of things, some of those had been late-term abortions too. Oz shuddered. Life was sacred to shifters, so that kind of thing was a total anathema to him.
As the afternoon wore on, he could see Melody become paler and paler, folding in on herself more and more. Dean and Asher wouldn’t leave her side, helping her to walk across the room when she needed a bathroom break, and then back to her seat on the couch. Still, Councillor Argrum kept asking more questions.
Nick? he called the dragon, mentally, hoping that he would hear.
Nick turned his head to him and raised an eyebrow, indicating that he had.
Can you force her to take from them again? She’s wilting. If she doesn’t draw on them soon, she’s going to pass out.
Nick’s attention turned back to Melody, he frowned, his eyes focusing and studying her. Beside Melody, Dean and Asher both startled, indicating that the dragon was talking to them. Rather than working together as they had the other night when Melody was too weak to leave the dome, Dean turned and interrupted the proceedings.
“Excuse me Councillor, Melody, you need to draw from us, otherwise Nick says you’re going to pass out,” he told them all.
The man looked annoyed, but sat there waiting for Melody to do what she’d been told. The stubborn woman, though, just sat there. He could tell that she wasn’t doing anything by the reactions of Dean and Asher.
“Mel,” Oz snapped, and her eyes jerked to him. “Just fucking do it, draw on them, it’s part of what we do as familiars.”
Her face fell, and he instantly regretted being so harsh with her. Of course she knew that, Melody had literally bonded hundreds of them.
“I assure you, Ms Canticum, that failure to do so will be seen as hindering this inquiry,” the councillor growled at her.
“I, …” she looked around helplessly. “I need them to initiate it. I can’t do it. It’s too much like what she did to the shifters back at the compound. What she used to do to me.” Her shoulders slumped even further.
There was a moment of stunned silence before Nick stepped forward. He simply put her hands on Dean’s and Asher’s thighs on either side of her, and then Oz smelled it, that ozone scent that indicated magic was being used.
If nothing else, this moment really brought home to the shifters how awful her existence had been. Constantly stripped of the shifters who had submitted to her, not even being able to form the most basic of emotional bonds with them, and unable or unwilling to draw even a little strength from them, she truly had been alone.
Inside his head, Oz’s wolf howled, and Melody’s startled glance met his. She’d heard his beast. Very few witches could do that.
It all came crashing down on him then, how alone she’d been, how desperately she must have tried to protect her shifters. How it must have hurt to have them stripped from her time and time again. She would have been able to hear their beasts calling out in pain and fear, even as their human forms remained stoically silent. That probably would have hurt her more than any of the physical torture her coven had bestowed upon her.
No wonder Melody had avoided claiming them all. If they’d gone back to her coven, she would have been forced to bond and release them hundreds of times before they would’ve been weak enough for another of her coven members to step in and claim them. It would have been agonising. And now, Melody was unable to reach out to them because a lifetime of trauma prevented her.
With a horrifying clarity, Oz realised her fear wasn’t just about protecting them all from her aunt, but about protecting herself from watching them all die, inch by inch, battle by battle.
The breeding thing she’d mentioned earlier also horrified him. There was no doubt in his mind that if the dragons had refused her, they would have been made to, and Melody would have been forced as well. Imagine looking at your friends and knowing that if you were weak, even for a second, not only would you be forced to destroy them, but they would be forced to destroy you right back.
Oz dropped to his knees with a heavy thump, scaring everyone, their heads whipping around to look at him. His eyes met hers and the agony he saw there, matched what he felt in his soul for her.
“Whatever you’re thinking boy, you feel the exact same way she does,” Mrs
Hardinger told him. “Care to share?”
They all turned to look at him, the councillor included, so he cleared his throat and tried to gather his thoughts into something more coherent than the tangle of emotions they currently were.
“It just occurred to me what she’d been through. I saw what it did to Mel and Dean when the provost had to break their bond to make sure it was a legal bonding, and again with Asher. Even without the geas, it was agony for her, and him too. She’s had to do that for hundreds of shifters, not once, but many times. All of those shifters that were given to her to defeat, they would have been the ones those bitches couldn’t beat themselves.”
He paused and shuddered. “And each time she completed the bond again, she’d get the shifter’s pain on top of her own. She’d get to feel them weaken, be disoriented, give in. And then they would be taken away from her for good. She’d get the most fleeting of bonds, knowing that it wouldn’t last, knowing that she’d get no comfort from it, only pain, and then she’d get to experience it being ripped from her one more time.”
Silent tears trickled down Melody’s face, and Oz knew that he’d only scratched the surface of her past.
“Then there’s the breeding thing. I don’t know if you all heard that, but I sure did. Her aunt wants to use Nick and Jus as studs, and Melody as their mare. Do you really think she’d fucking do that willingly? Or them? That crazy bitch would have made them do it, rape on both sides. Mel knew that was what she had to look forward to, but all she was worried about was saving us from being killed, from being used up and burned out like the others. Her first concern was us, always us. It’s like she was resigned to what would happen to her if she failed to avoid us. Like she thought …” Oz broke off, horror engulfing him. He knew. He fucking knew it, and it was so wrong, but how could he convince her?
