The mages are woodland folk, like fairies and elves. They live as such too in a primitive fashion. Out of respect I stop before I enter the forest, leaving my bike on the beach. They don’t like loud noises. They don’t like outsiders either.
As I walk through the forest I see a few of them practicing their arcane magic.
The mage I’m looking for is the priestess of her clan.
I find her by the waterfall. She walks on the surface of the water like it’s nothing and looks over to me.
“I was wondering when Lucian would send you,” she states. Her name is Athena and like the Greek goddess she is beautiful.
The last time I checked she was nine hundred years old, but she doesn’t look a day over twenty. The only thing that gives her away in age is the color of her hair.
It’s white. A platinum like Laila’s but when a mage chooses to wear her hair that color it means she wishes to show her age.
“My lady,” I say with a bow of my head. I might be an ass sometimes but I’m always respectful.
She walks across the water to me and smiles. “Come, let’s talk in private. The trees here have ears,” she says glancing at the mages who look on at us.
I’m not supposed to be here and most hate it that I am and I’m able to come here. But Athena accepts me because of the sacrifice my father made to protect the realms. It used to be that you’d have to summon the mage the same way you would an oracle. I’ve always been able to come here but having permission to come is different.
I follow her and we go through the cave. Beyond the cave is a spring.
She sits on the boulder and smiles at me. It was her who taught me how to control my powers and everything about powers.
“So what are you going to do with the girl who fell from the sky?” She asks.
Of course she would know all that happened. I wonder if I even need the oracle.
“We don’t know. You saw the vision,” I note and she nods.
“Was the child her?”
“Possibly.”
“Athena, I need the oracle. Or maybe you could help.” She looks like she could.
She laughs. “I can’t help the way the oracle can. But I can tell you a thing or two. I say she’s possibly the child but I really don’t know. ”
“What can you tell me?” I ask with narrowed eyes.
“Well let’s say it’s her. When you get mixed beings, you can get different types of powers. They don’t simply take on the powers of their parents. They can be something else entirely. Lucian can’t read her mind. So that suggests her powers are akin to a mage.”
That makes sense. “You think she could be a mage?” I raise my brows.
“She could be. Or she could be something else entirely. Right now she’s a budding witch, most mages are exactly that and then the arcane powers reveal themselves later on. She lacks focus on how to use the powers because she wants them so badly, and she lacks confidence because her powers aren’t as active as her sisters. The fact that she has the gift of sight is significant, however. The possibilities are great for those with such a gift. You could be looking at a mage or a seer, or even another oracle in the making. Or just a very powerful witch. We don’t know. Only she can decide her path. Once she does her powers will grow in that direction. In Salem she wasn’t given the chance to explore.”
“So she’s legit. I mean not a threat?” I don’t want her to be. “Is she good Athena?”
“She’s good. The problem I fear is the warlock. He’s what we call a destroyer. He absorbs powers and your soul, leaving nothing behind. I’ve never seen anything like him. Which suggests he became that way from too much power. Too much evil. He had demonic energy, so I’m guessing he made a deal with a devil. We can’t allow him to come to Estaria Marcus. That is the most important thing I can tell you.”
Fuck. I was already worried about that.
“She’s worried about her sister. She said that the warlock came for the coven powers. If we send her back he may be able to come through the time portal.”
She closes her eyes for a few brief moments and when she opens them again she sighs, looking worried. “I don’t know what to tell you. If you hope to send her back, you’ll have to find another way. He was seconds away from entering. The breach closed up just as he was about to come through. That would have been a different disaster. He’ll want her Marcus. Rest assured he will. So whether you send her back or not, he’ll still come looking for her. I think you have some difficult choices to make in regards to getting involved. Or, not.”
“I will speak to Lucian about this.”
“I will contact the oracle. I hope she chooses to help you.”
I release a ragged breath. I hope so too.
Laila is outside the house when I get back.
She’s standing by the river, practicing magic. Her hands glow a soft white as she casts a spell and levitates a boulder.
She hears my bike pull up near her and lowers the boulder back to the side of the river.
I pull to a stop and smile at her.
She offers me a kind smile in return. What I take note of is the soft twinkle in her bright brown eyes.
I look her over and see she’s still wearing yesterday’s clothes. That bastard, Lucian could have changed her but I think he must like the look of the top on her. It shows off her breast perfectly and the tiny curve of her waist.
“Hey there,” I say, getting off my bike.
“Hi.”
“What are you doing?”
“This is what I do these days. I just thought I’d improvise here for the real deal. At home the heaviest thing I can levitate is the kitchen stool.”
“Yeah?”
She nods. “It’s something. My mother was a practicing witch, my grandmother too. I just want to do that.”
“You can.”
She laughs and I swear it’s the best sound I ever heard. “Tell that to my sister. She thinks practicing magic means lazing around the house.”
“Really?” It surprises me to hear that.
“Yeah. She’s the one with the active powers, so she doesn’t really pay much attention to me. My powers tend to be bad feelings and I might catch glimpses of things that don’t always happen.”
“Don’t always happen? Or, haven’t happened yet? There’s a difference. The future isn’t always set in stone either. The minute you speak about what you see, something changes. It could be as simple as a persons’ perception and then they avoid certain things so the vision doesn’t always happen.”
“I guess so.”
I remember what Athena said about her lacking focus and not being confident.
“Tell me about the warlock Laila. What happened with him?”
“I thought it was a dream. That’s why my sister didn’t believe me. But the warlock said I was on the dream plane.”
“Dream plane?” I ask and she knows why. No mere witch can walk that plane of existence. It’s the same for the ghost roads.
It has something to do with your soul and essence. Witches are more human than any other creature. Their essence is their magic. Wolves, vampires, demons and a lot of other beings don’t have that problem.
“I know. I figured something must have been up with me from the minute the warlock said that. I had this reoccurring dream for weeks. Then it stopped and started again. In my dream he killed my sister and stole the powers of the witches in the coven. That’s what happened. Just before I came here I stopped him from killing my sister but I don’t know what fate will decide.”
I wonder why her powers worked better on the dream plane.
“Focus and concentrate. Powers are tied to emotion. Use your time here to focus away from anything and anyone who might stress you out.” I lean closer and she holds my gaze. My eyes drop to her lips. Her soft full lips, and she notices.
She swallows hard and bites the inside of her lip. I’m on the verge of kissing her and I nearly do it too. I’m about to forget myself when someone clear
s their throat.
Someone…
No not any old someone. It’s Lucian and he’s not nearby. He’s in my head.
“Don’t even think about it. If you touch her before me, you will not like it,” he says in my mind and I straighten, leaving Laila looking at me confused.
I sense him and my eyes blaze silver. It startles her and she jumps, but I turn around and look up to the window on the second floor of the house. He’s standing there with Caleb. Caleb is smiling and he’s right to. It’s a fucking game and that fucktard Lucian is playing with me.
I know he can hear my thoughts but he’s not saying anything more.
I return my focus back to Laila and shift my eyes back to their normal green.
“Sorry princess, the alpha is summoning me. He doesn’t want me to get first dibs.”
“What do you mean?” Her lips tremble.
“You’ll see. Sooner rather than later with the way things are looking.” I back away from her, pretty certain she knows what I mean.
I head inside the house and before I can get to the stairs Lucian and Caleb step out of the air.
Lucian’s face is stern. His jaw tenses when he looks at me.
“Don’t bother,” I say, cutting him off before he can chew me out. “Just hurry up and kiss her already.”
He gives me a crude look. “What did Athena say?”
“Much,” I answer. “She’s summoning the oracle. She thinks if our girl is the child and I think she is, she could be a mage, a seer or an oracle in the making. We don’t know.”
“So we have to wait?”
“Pretty much and we know how long we usually have to wait for the Oracle. She’ll want to see whatever she needs to see in the fabric of time first.”
It sucks to be Alpha sometimes. I know him. He’s trying to set an example and be objective. If it was left to me I would have fucked her well before now. He’d better hurry up.
I smile at him as he reads my mind, hearing everything I just thought.
“You two can fight it out. It’s my turn now,” Caleb says with a broad smile on his face.
“Her powers seemed to work fine on the dream plane,” I tell him. “Try and figure it out.”
“Dream plane? A witch on the dream plane?”
“Exactly, they can’t do it. She needs the wolf in her.” I surmise and he smiles wider.
“Thanks for the tip.”
He leaves us and I look back to Lucian.
“What’s with you, Marcus?” he asks.
“Nothing. Maybe I’m bored. It’s been awhile since we shared a woman, and we’ve never had a woman who seemed into all of us.” I’m always honest with him.
“Do you think she is?”
“Yes. I think she is. You must be so pissed that you can’t read her mind.” I smirk and rest a heavy hand on his shoulder. The seriousness returns to me. “I don’t think she’s a threat Lucian. It’s not her. It’s the warlock. But you are alpha. You’ve kept us safe for the last ten years. There’s no harm in being careful. But for fuck’s sake man, don’t allow a good opportunity to pass you by because of fear. She’ll be on her way back to Salem when we see the oracle. Do you want that?”
He stares back at me, not answering. I didn’t expect him to.
I don’t see the point in playing around when we want her.
At least I was good when I was around her. I can’t say the same for Caleb. Of the three of us, he’s the rebel.
Laila
Oh my God… my stomach is still in knots. I thought Marcus was going to kiss me.
I must have hit my head or taken that fall pretty bad. Actually, no. It’s not the fall. It was the spell. Grams’ spell. It totally must have taken its toll on me because in what world would I be attracted to three guys at the same time.
And hell, while I can walk around the house and outside I feel like a captive just for being in this realm.
I can’t leave and I can’t think of how to go back on my own. And… if I did go back what would I be going back to? The thought of having time moved backward to help me save Larissa is the only thing that’s keeping me from going insane.
It’s the only saving grace about being here.
The waiting game however might drive me insane all on its own. Waiting for something to happen, and these decisions to be made is out of my hands.
I’ve been thinking about the vision and I think it’s obvious the child the man was talking about was me. I’m just in denial. That means the man I called father killed both my parents.
He was drunk on power. Addicted to it. That’s what happened to him. That’s what Mom said anyway. I never knew him to be nice. Larissa did though. I was ten when he left. That was when Grams stepped in. Mom said he left, but I think there was more to it than that. I think Grams banished him somewhere and his followers of power hungry fiends released him.
Mom died and the last thing she did was kill him too at the same time he drove the athame through her heart. The blade came straight from hell. She had no hope of survival.
I gaze out to the river and think about it all. I want to be home so I can process about all of this. Being here makes me feel uneasy. It’s so much worse for the fact that I can’t wrap my head around these guys. Larissa would have a field day with them. Three gorgeous guys who look like they were chiseled from Mt Olympus by old Zeus himself.
Much as she likes to play Miss Goodie Two shoes, she likes werewolves too. In our coven it’s only recently that laws were changed for witches to be with anyone they chose. That didn’t really mean much for us in the human realm, but for those of the coven who lived in the magical realms similar to Estaria I’m sure it meant everything.
“Penny for your thoughts princess,” says a voice beside me.
I jump, again. Startled.
It’s Caleb this time. I look up at him and I find myself speechless. He has ice blue eyes and the same color hair as me. As he looks at me his eyes shift between silver and blue at intervals.
He smiles revealing perfect white teeth. The canine’s elongate and retract like he’s playing with me.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared of me,” he states.
“Should I be?” I ask, taking a step back.
“Nah.” He shakes his head. “I’m the fun one. Marcus could have that title but, he’s too uptight. Lucian has a stick shoved up his ass because he’s the leader. He can be scary sometimes. Me though, not so much. Unless if I’m in battle.”
“Battle?”
He nods. “Battle between good and evil. Anyway, enough chit chat. Let’s get out of here.”
“What? Out?”
“Yes, did you want to stay by the river all day?” He gives me a quizzical stare. “No. Where would we go though?”
“I’ve decided I’m going to help you with those pesky little powers of yours.”
“Really?”
“I am. So, without further adieu, hop on princess and make sure you hold on tight.”
My mouth falls open when he transforms before me into a wolf. Large and strong, white like snow, his eyes remain the same though.
“My lady,” he says. In wolf form his voice is huskier but still playful. He wants me to get on his back.
He bows his head and lowers for me to get on him. Swallowing a breath, I do.
“Please for the love of God hold on tight. He’ll kill me if I harm you.”
“Who will?”
“Lucian,” he answers. Then I feel it. That strong sensation.
I hold on around Caleb’s neck, but I look behind me toward the house and see Lucian standing by the door watching us.
Caleb sets off with me and I turn ahead. I hold on tight as he runs fast, feeling like a horse beneath me. We ride through the forests then we ride through the air. I hold on tighter.
“Don’t be scared my lady,” he says. “That’s my power. I control the elements. Air is my favorite. My lady.”
I smile loving the sound of his voice.
“Yo
u keep calling me that. My Lady. I’m not a mage,” I tell him. I’ve never met a mage but I know that if I was to that’s what you would call them.
“I think you are.”
Although he’s facing forward, I can hear the smile in his voice.
There’s something about his lackadaisical manner that soothes me. It’s somewhat…freeing.
“Me a mage?”
“You choose your oath. Hold on my lady,” he calls out . When I press my body against him and circle my arms around his neck, he goes faster.
I find myself smiling at the thrill that races through me. I’ve been so wound up for the last couple of months that it feels good to just let go and not think, or worry.
Maybe Marcus was right. I should take this time to focus. It would help me.
Truthfully, I’ve been lost since Mom died. I haven’t felt like myself since before that time. She always encouraged me and provided this nurturing environment for me to flourish. Larissa took great care of me, but I wish sometimes she allowed me to take care of her too.
We race along and then Caleb leaps onto the side of a snowy mountain.
It’s cold for about two minutes then the scenery changes completely and we’re racing across a rocky path, surrounded by waterfalls. It’s a circle of water and we ride through the middle. When we start to slow, I realize we must have reached our destination.
He stops and I lift my head. Looking around I take in the beauty enveloping us.
Water of pure crystal flows down into a river that looks like diamonds have been splashed over it and the surroundings look like we just stepped into a dream.
“You like it?” Caleb asks.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Great, this is where we’ll stay for a while.” He leans down and I step off him.
When he straightens he transforms back into himself, except instead of wearing the dress shirt and slacks he had on earlier he now has on a t-shirt, a pair of Levi’s, and a baseball cap he’s turned backwards.
“You guys have a lot of magic,” I state. I can’t switch out of my clothes.
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