“No so fast,” he said. Eden looked down at their hands. HIs grip was so tight she worried he might dislocate one of her fingers. “These are not a man’s hands.” The guy sounded amused. “These delicate things? No way. These are a lady’s hands.”
Eden tried to pull from his hold but he didn’t let go.
“You’re the one they’ve been waiting for,” he said. “The boss has been itching to see you again. He was hoping you could give him a tour of your shop. Word on the street is you’ve got a lot of shiny toys in there.” He ran his thumb up and down one of her fingers. “Vince said you had skin the color of creamed coffee. I think it looks more like a burnt marshmallow.”
Eden’s mind raced as she tried to think of a spell that would help her in this moment. Cricket had yet to wake up, meaning she was on her own. A simple electricity spell could do the trick. It was subtle enough to not attract the attention of any possible onlookers, and it would shock the guy with enough volts to give her a good five-minute head start. The problem was that would mean revealing to one of Vince’s new lackeys that she was a witch, and even though she’d been having a rough few months, Eden wasn’t exactly in the mood to be burned alive.
“Either way,” the guy continued. “You look delicious.”
He slid his hand up to her wrist, gripped, and yanked her towards him. The toilet paper fell from her arms. She tried to use the weighted shopping back as a weapon, swinging it at the guy’s head. He dodged the attack and the bag ripped, spilling its contents on the sidewalk. Cricket was up now, running down her arm and jumping onto the guy. He swatted at the little robot, mid-air, and sent him hurtling towards the ground. Cricket had managed to deliver a small shock to the guy’s hand and when he hit the ground, the bug rolled back onto its legs and scuttled towards the attacker.
The man pulled Eden into a hold, one arm wrapped around her neck and the other around her stomach. He cupped a hand over her mouth. “Sssstop sssssquirming.” He elongated the “s” sound and Eden realized he was a viper. He tightened his embrace around her to the point where she thought for sure her ribs were about to snap. She tried to enact a mental spell but the lack of oxygen was making her brain foggy and black spots appeared in her vision. “If you’re out here,” he said. “Then who is watching your shop? Maybe I’ll stop and have a looksie on my way to deliver you to the boss. I think I’ve earned a little finder’s reward, don’t you?”
Eden bit down hard on the man’s hand and he moved his hand from her mouth for just a moment. “Cricket!” she yelled. “Go close up shop!”
The bug, which had been busy crawling up the guy’s pant leg, leaped off and hurried down the street before disappearing up a storm drain. He knew the fastest way to get home and even if the guy started running towards her shop this very second, he would arrive too late. The man must’ve realized this too because he put his focus back into squeezing the life out of Eden. She tried to suck air in through her nose but there wasn’t nearly enough space for her lungs to expand.
The light started to dim, as if the sun was already setting, and her eyes rolled upwards as her eyelids fell down.
Well, she thought just before everything went dark. At least it’s better than burning at the stake.
Chapter Three
Three Strikes
Eden couldn’t tell if there were three or four men arguing. She was pretty sure there was just three and that one man just had a weird, inconsistent way of talking. He would make one statement, confidently and with conviction, and then a few minutes later, once everyone seemed to have agreed with his previous point, he would say, sounding far less assured, something like, “But maybe we should consider this…”
They were arguing about what to do in regards to Eden’s shop. Vince was one of the men, and the man from the convenience store was there as well. She’d been awake and listening to them talk for nearly ten minutes now, not yet daring to open her eyes and see what exactly they had used to tie her up or what dark, dank basement they had her locked up in.
“I’m telling you,” said the guy who abducted her. “There is no way into the shop. We tried everything. The place is on serious lock down.”
“I thought you said the front door was glass!” said the man whose voice she didn’t recognize. “Can’t you just throw a rock through it?”
“We did!”
“And?” said Vince.
“And it went crashing through. Some alarm started blaring, but we ignored it. We weren’t worried about the cops showing up or anything. We took a bat to the rest of the door, so that we could make a hole big enough and then we walked in.”
“Okay,” said the third man. “I am failing to see the issue here. You just said there was no way into the shop and now you’re saying you broke in with a rock and a bat?”
“Well, this is where things got a little weird…” the guy trailed off as if hoping the other two wouldn’t make him continue. Eden knew where this was going. It took almost everything in her power not to crack a smile just then, imagining how the poor sucker must’ve fared up against her wards.
“What the hell happened?” said Vince.
“I don’t exactly know how to explain it. It was like we walked through the broken glass of the door, and it seemed like we were walking into the shop... but then, we all felt this sort of stomach-drop feeling and next thing we knew we were standing outside on the other side of the door, as if we’d just walked out of the shop. The craziest part was that the door had been, like, repaired. The glass was not broken at all.”
“This is insane,” said the third guy. “Vince, this guy is probably on drugs or something. This is why you can’t send a human to do a shifter’s job.”
Somebody walked across the room and even without opening her eyes, Eden could sense it was Vince. He was standing very close to her, staring down at her. She could feel his eyes burning holes into her skin.
“It’s not him,” said Vince. “It’s her.” He took a long breath in and as he breathed out, he said, “Boys, it looks like we got ourselves a witch.”
Eden took this as a perfect cue and opened her eyes. She grinned as she looked up at Vince. “If you’re going to start calling me names, I’d prefer if you waited until I was awake and could at least defend myself.”
Vince smiled back at her. “Go ahead then,” he said. “Defend yourself. Prove to us you’re not a witch.”
Eden looked down and saw that her wrists and ankles were tied with thin rope. Besides that, there were no other constraints. She was laying on her side, in a sort of fetal position, and in order to get herself in a seated position, it was going to require a tedious, humiliating display of girations and wiggles. Vince reached out and hooked a single finger through and over the line of rope which held her hands together. He pulled upwards, lifting the top half of her body up and allowing her to sit normally. Eden wasn’t sure what to make of this unexpectedly kind gesture so she just decided to ignore it and continue with the snarky banter. That was something she did understand.
“How exactly am I supposed to do that?” she asked. “You ask me to do a spell and I... don’t? Or would you prefer to do it the old-fashioned way and see if I drown when you throw me a lack with weights tied to my feet? If we're putting it to a vote, I’d have to pick the former, but hey, you’re the boss around here. I’m just the woman you attacked and abducted for no reason.”
“Oh, I have my reasons,” said Vince. “How about this—I’m going to try and hurt you, and if you’re a witch, you will be able to stop me from doing so. If you’re not a witch, well, then, you’ll just have to take it. How does that sound?”
Eden stared him down, trying to gauge how far he was willing to take this charade while also wondering how much pain she would be able to tolerate before she sent a series of shocks so strong they’d barbeque these women-stealing bastards to a crisp. She didn’t have the strength to do a spell that destructive right then, but if Vince kept pushing her, if he insisted on hurting her, she knew her e
motional magic, which was infinitely stronger than her logical magic, would eventually take over and she could end the suffering.
“Sure,” she said after a while. “Why not? Take your best shot.”
Vince stepped a few paces away from her, to the other side of the medium-sized windowless room where they were located, and he pulled a small dagger from his pocket. He put his finger on the point and flinched in a playful way, winking at Eden. “I’ve always found witches to be fascinating creatures. I’ve met more than a few over the course of my life and each one had their own distinct way of using magic. For instance.” He held the knife up, near his head, gripping it loosely with just his thumb and two fingers, getting ready to throw it. “One witch I knew was good with time. If I threw this at her, she would slow down the seconds between when it left my hand and pierced her skin, giving her enough time to know where the knife was headed and to dodge it.”
He brought his arm back and flung it forward, releasing the knife at the last second. Eden closed her eyes and waited for it to slice through her skin. It grazed her right ear, taking a tiny amount of skin and cartilage with it, and sticking into the drywall next to her head.
“Not a time witch then,” he said, walking towards her and retrieving the knife. “Maybe you’re like another witch I knew.” He made his way back to the other side of the room, to his imaginary pitcher’s mound, and prepared for his second throw. “She was good at manipulation magic. She was able to make others move in odd ways, cause their muscles to twitch or their limbs to jerk. She would wait until the moment just before this knife left my fingers.” He threw it. “And then she would cause my arm to move ever so slightly to the left or the right, and I would miss.” This time the knife sliced right through the top of her left ear.
Eden let out a soft cry then proceeded to clench her jaw. She would not give Vince the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She opened her eyes, after having instinctively squeezed them shut when he threw the knife.
Vince was bending over her, retrieving the dagger and grinning like a maniac. “Not that kind of witch either,” he said, wiping the blood off the blade onto his pants. “No, you’re not like them at all. You’re stronger than them. That’s why I’m not going to go for any more useless extremities. This time, this knife is going for your head.”
“Are you sure that’s such a good idea?” asked the guy who Eden was convinced suffered from split personality disorder. “I mean, if you kill her, we won’t be able to sell her. And for a woman who looks like that, we could get more money than all the other hideous human broads we sold in the last town put together!”
“I’m not going to kill her,” said Vince. He was once again standing in his designated dagger throwing spot, winding up for the final pitch. “She won’t let me kill her.”
“But what if she isn’t a wit—” the guy’s question was cut off by Vince throwing the knife. No speech this time, no guess as to how Eden might dodge the weapon. She didn’t slow time or cause a muscle twitch that would throw off Vince’s aim. The viper was right, she was stronger than that.
With a simple energy wave mind spell, Eden created a barrier between her head and the dagger. It came within an inch of her skull and then stopped, suspended in mid-air. Then, using those same waves, Eden flipped the knife around so that the blade was facing Vince. She gathered all the strength she had and sent the waves forward. The knife flew in Vince’s direction, aiming for his heart, but he must’ve known this was coming. He grabbed the convenience store clerk, who was standing next to him, and pulled him in front to serve a sort of human shield. Eden tried to call back the force of the waves, but the damage had already been done. The knife plunged into the man’s chest and he screamed.
Vince threw his sacrifice to the side, ignoring the man’s gasping and the blood beginning to pool at his feet. He stalked towards Eden with a terrifying grin. “That’s what I thought,” he said. Then he winked at her again and told her to sleep tight.
He punched her square in the face, and before she could even feel the pain from the hit, her lights were out.
“Sweetie?” Her mother spoke to her softly and touched Eden gently on the shoulder. “Sweetie, it’s time to wake up.”
Eden’s eyes fluttered open and above her was a beautiful bright green tree canopy. The sun was shining through a gap between two trees, the rays warming her face. They were in the backwoods area for which Twin Glades got its name. This was where Eden and her parents would often go camping when she was a little girl.
Except she was no longer a child. She was her adult self, staring up at her mother, who looked young and vibrant.
“Your father is building a fire,” her mother said. “I want you to practice some of your spells before breakfast. C’mon, up you go.”
Her mother reached one arm behind Eden’s back and put the other one underneath her knees and hoisted her up. For a second, Eden felt weightless and safe, curled in her mother’s loving embrace. Then—
The sensation of weightlessness ceased abruptly as Eden’s body slammed back down onto a hard metal surface. Her eyes flew open and she saw that she was still tied up, but this time she was laying on her side in the bed of a pickup truck, which was barreling down a shockingly bumpy dirt road. As the rickety vehicle went over another large hump, Eden felt the truck bed drop out from beneath her. There was a moment of flight, and then she crashed.
The middle panel of the window in the back of the truck slid open and a woman’s face appeared. She had large, yellowish irises and patches of scales running across her eyelids, like nature’s eyeliner.
“Slow down, would you?” she yelled over her shoulder to the driver. “You’re scratching up the merchandise. We’re going to lose money if we show up with a bruised peach.” She turned back to face Eden, squinting and frowning. “You don’t look so special,” she said. Eden could barely hear her over the roar of the engine and the sound of the gravel that the tires kicked up and sent clanging against the underside of the car. “They said you were some kind of powerful witch. If you’re so powerful, why can’t you get out of them restraints, huh?”
Eden, in fact, had been wondering the same thing. For the last thirty seconds, since the time she had woken up and figured out what was going on, she’d been trying every mental spell she knew to get the ropes untied and free herself. Somebody must’ve thought it was a good idea to have her hands tied behind her back, instead of in front, so it was hard for Eden to see the actual knots of the ropes. Without being able to see them, it was difficult to envision them in her head, which was one of the most important aspects for spells such as these.
Still, she should have been able to at least loosen them a little.
The viper woman closed the window and Eden went about trying to get herself onto her up and in view of the ropes tying her ankles. It was slow going at first, but then the truck vaulted over a third bump in the road, and Eden managed to land on her butt. Sharp, shooting pain emanated from her tailbone, which had taken the brunt of the landing, up her spine. She stifled a groan and got back to work.
It was different rope they used this time. This one was much thinner than what they had tied her up with before. It was silvery and it gleamed in the sun like a dewy blade of grass.
Damn.
Magic rope.
Where the hell did Vince get his hands on magic rope on such short notice? Eden guessed he must’ve started keeping the stuff on hand considering how many witches he claimed to have had run ins with. The stuff was expensive though and he had wrapped it around her ankles three times, which, frankly, even Eden could admit was overkill. She was strong, but not three layers of magic rope strong. She felt it was safe to assume that Vince wasn’t overestimating her strength, based on his earlier display. He seemed pretty aware of what Eden was and was not capable. That means he used too much rope because he was more ignorant about the magic world than he led on. This was good. Eden could use that to her advantage.
She gave up on her attempts to
untie the knots and instead decided to watch carefully as they drove to what she assumed was a marketplace. Based on the foliage and mountain ranges to the east, she guessed they were not far from Twin Glades, North of the town by maybe twenty or thirty miles. She’d only ever been to gadget markets, which were mainly held in the city, in abandoned warehouses or some collector’s basement. The human markets were always further away from town. The Twin Glades Police Department was supposed to watch for any signs that humans were being sold, but of course, unless there was a literal sign right in front of them which read “Humans for sale at this address”, they never seemed to take notice.
It seemed to Eden and to just about every other low-income human in the area, that as long as the humans were being snatched from the poor neighborhoods and auctioned off at a market that was out of sight, then the whole human-selling trade was also out of mind. Five or six years back there was a girl taken from one of the rich neighborhoods. Her parents went berserk and suddenly the TGPD was actually doing their jobs. They cracked down on markets, questioned every shifty looking shifter they encountered. For a while, it seemed things might be looking up. Less and less girls were disappearing and shifters were starting to find better, less illegal modes of income. The girl was never found and eventually her parents moved to a different city. The raids on black markets started to become few and far between and everyone fell back into old habits.
They must’ve been getting near the market because Eden noticed armed guards stationed on the side of the road. They each carried heavy, military grade weaponry, but they were definitely not actual soldiers. They were likely hired guns from the black markets who were holding real guns from the black markets. They weren’t there to keep out the riff raff or watch for thieves. They were there in case any demons showed up. The wooded area around Twin Glades was riddled with portals. There wasn’t anything that could be done about the spirits, who often came to the markets to have some harmless, pranky fun. But the demons, they could cause some real damage. Luckily, they were a lot easier to get rid of. Unlike the spirits, demons were susceptible to bullets.
Auctioned to the Werewolf Princes Page 3
