Immortal Hexes
by
Amelia Hutchins
Immortal Hexes
Smashwords Edition
Published on Smashwords by Amelia Hutchins.
Copyright © August 2019 Amelia Hutchins
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book in its entirety and in portions is the sole property of Amelia Hutchins.
Immortal Hexes Copyright ©2019 by Amelia Hutchins. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
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Authored By: Amelia Hutchins
Cover Art Design: Simply Defined Art
Copy edited by: E & F Indie Services
Edited by: E & F Indie Services
Published by: Amelia Hutchins
Published in (United States of America)
!!STOP!!
Warning:
This is a brutal story of coming back from being tortured. Avery is a very strong character who has endured pain, torture, and a love that has always haunted her. This story is dark, and shows the struggle of how a victim sees and feels after they’ve lived through hell. It shows her struggle to become whole again.
Second Warning in case the first didn’t scare you: This book is dark. It’s sexy, hot, and intensely twisted. The author is human, you are as well. Is the book perfect? It’s as perfect as I could make it. Are there mistakes? Probably, then again, even New York Times top published books have minimal mistakes because like me, they have human editors. There are words in this book that won’t be found in the standard dictionary, because they were created to set the stage for a paranormal-urban fantasy world. Different words are common in paranormal books and give better description to the action in the story than can be found in standard dictionaries. They are intentional and not mistakes.
About the hero: chances are you may not fall instantly in love with him, that’s because I don’t write men you instantly love; you grow to love them. I don’t believe in instant-love. I write flawed, raw, caveman-like alpha-holes that eventually let you see their redeeming qualities. They are aggressive, alpha-holes, one step above a caveman when we meet them. You may not even like him by the time you finish this book, but I promise you will love him by the end of this series.
About the heroine: There is a chance, that you might think she’s a bit naïve or weak, but then again who starts out as a badass? Badasses are a product of growth and I am going to put her through hell, and you get to watch her come up swinging every time I knock her on her ass. That’s just how I do things. How she reacts to the set of circumstances she is put through, may not be how you as the reader, or I as the author would react to that same situation. Everyone reacts differently to circumstances and how Erie responds to her challenges, is how I see her as a character and as a person.
I don’t write love stories: I write fast paced, knock you on your ass, make you sit on the edge of your seat wondering what happens in the next kind of books. If you’re looking for cookie cutter romance, this isn’t for you. If you can’t handle the ride, un-buckle your seatbelt and get out of the roller-coaster car now. If not, you’ve been warned. If nothing outlined above bothers you, carry on and enjoy the ride!
Also by Amelia Hutchins
The Fae Chronicles
Fighting Destiny
Taunting Destiny
Escaping Destiny
Seducing Destiny
Unraveling Destiny
Embracing Destiny - Coming Soon (Final Book)
The Elite Guards
(Part of the Fae Chronicles)
A Demon’s Dark Embrace
Claiming the Dragon King
A Winter Court
A Demon’s Plaything
A Guardian’s Diary
Stands Alone
Darkest Before Dawn
Death before Dawn
Midnight Rising - Coming Soon (Final Book)
Playing with Monsters series
(Part of the Fae Chronicles)
Playing with Monsters
Sleeping with Monsters
Becoming his Monster
Last Monster Book TBA
Wicked Knights series
Oh, Holy Knight (Standalone alternative POV to If She’s Wicked)
If She’s Wicked
Midnight Coven Books
Forever Immortal
Immortal Hexes
Witches, Coming Soon
Upcoming Series
A Crown of Ashes
Fae Hunter Series
Series Order
If you’re following the series for the Fae Chronicles, Elite Guards, and Monsters, reading order is as follows:
Fighting Destiny
Taunting Destiny
Escaping Destiny
Seducing Destiny
A Demon’s Dark Embrace
Playing with Monsters
Unraveling Destiny
Sleeping with Monsters
Claiming the Dragon King
Oh, Holy Knight
Becoming his Monster
The Winter Court
A Demon’s Plaything
If She’s Wicked
Embracing Destiny Coming Soon
Immortal Hexes
Chapter 1
The Reckoning
Thunder rumbled above the training grounds where students relentlessly practiced calling flames into their palms. My gaze drifted up, lingering on the clouds as I watched lightning strike in the distance, followed by another deafening grumble from the sky in the mountains we hid in. Storms were a dime a dozen here, which was one of the draws to this particular area. The allure of sanctuary within the mountains of the Inland Northwest brought me to this place of turbulent weather offering me peace.
Watching Clara, I frowned as her slim shoulders slumped in defeat, nary a flicker of a flame filling her palm. Out of the bloodlines present this year at the academy, hers was the lowest among them. This school, this training facility, catered to the oldest bloodlines of witches in the world. Most of the students belonged to lines dating back to the original witches. I’d taught the witches and warlocks to wield their darkness, to balance it with th
e light, for over one hundred and fifty years; long before the ground we stood upon had ever been inhabited by the English.
A few feet from me, Johnny watched Flora as she pulled a large amount of energy into the palm of her hand with a sly smile on her lips. Her father was a high witch, one who sat on the council. Roger had pulled strings to get her into the academy; he’d demanded it, even though her mother was a mundane human. Her mother’s blood had merely watered down Flora’s, making her magic unpredictable. Studying the sweat that beaded her brow, mixed with the lines of concentration on her face, I matched Clara’s frown. I whispered a spell, gaining control of the energy Flora had pulled to her so that when she lost control, no one was harmed.
Two minutes after I’d taken control from her, she screamed out a warning as she whimpered in pain. Her eyes bulged, moving from the now floating energy ball to me, knowing I’d taken control of her magic and now held it for her.
“I had it under control! Why do you continue to mess with me when I am far better than everyone else?” she hissed, staring me down, her pretty blue eyes filling with fire as her ire rose.
“Because you didn’t have it under control,” I replied softly, watching her aura as it turned black with red etching. “The lesson is about control; not to show how powerful one is. We don’t care how much energy you pull up, only that what you bring forth is controlled. Try it again. This time only bring up a flame, and make sure you have absolute control over it.”
“You know who my father is and what he can do to you, right? He doesn’t think of you highly considering your past deeds and why you are here in the first place. You are the whore who slept with a vampire, after all, are you not?” she laughed coldly, her eyes filling with liquid blue flames as she squared her shoulders as the few witchlings she considered friends laughed and waited for my reply.
“Are you asking if it is true? It is. I lost my entire coven and family to the Black Death, and while I lay in an alley dying of it myself, Conner, the son of Grigori Halverson and King of the England Vampires, saved me. He dug me out of the trash and saved my life. For days, I waited and prayed to Hecate to send me help or take my soul, neither of which happened. So I remained with him, drinking his blood to stave off the plague that continued to come back once the blood eased from my system. He saved me, and I loved him for it. Had he not saved me, I’d have perished without getting word to the other covens that not even the strongest bloodlines were immune to the Black Death. His saving me also saved thousands of witches from intervening to save the humans. Had they tried to help them as my coven had done, we would have become extinct, because they would have tried and perished by doing so. Did I fuck him? Yes, but not until years after I lived with him in their hive. I was guarded by him, cherished. He never asked to wield my wild magic for his gain. After five years of living among them, I offered him my virtue, and he alone fucked me.
“Do you know how turbulent the world was in the 1600s? We were at war with their kind, and I was alone within the enemy’s nest. I was abandoned by our kind because to come for me would have been death, which the vampires knew, and yet Conner refused to allow them to exploit me. So, there I stayed, and yes, I fell in love with my enemy, and I gave him everything I had, except my magic. I never wielded a single spell against our kind while I was with them. Others who had befallen a similar fate either turned to the dark arts to escape or were fucked to literal death as the vampires drained them. Tell me, Flora, what would you have done to survive? Would you have fought them, knowing that they would just as soon murder you and end your life, or find one who could help keep you safe from an entire nest of ancient beings that wanted you dead?” I stared her down with the fire of a thousand memories rushing through my mind.
“Couldn’t you have killed them?” Joshua asked as he kicked a rock beneath his foot, watching me as I frowned.
“Back then, no. I was only thirteen summers when he found me and I was alone in a pile of dead bodies, dying of the very plague that had killed my coven. I had very little control over my magic. I was barely into my training when my coven walked into that sick house to save those who needed our aid. My mother, Ilsa Cheveron, was one of the strongest witches alive at that time, but to train in those days could only be done during a full moon or eclipse since the discovery of a witch would result in being burned at the stake. So with very little control or training, I was unarmed and outmanned. Can anyone tell me the rules of engagement for the early and mid-1600s?”
“I’m sure fucking the enemy wasn’t one of them,” Flora snorted as she crossed her arms over her ample breasts, staring at me pointedly.
“Survive and secure the bloodlines,” Clara said over the laughter of Flora’s cronies. She looked at me for direction, and I nodded for her to continue. “In those days, we were fewer because of the war between our kind and the vampires, and to survive was of the utmost priority. If you were captured by the enemy, you were to survive and endure until the covens learned of it and found a way to get you back. Bloodlines were pure, and the older ones were treasured, and since Miss Avery is a Cheveron witch, she’d have been under stricter rules than others. She would be told to do whatever it took to survive until escape was possible.”
“And I did. I am still here, am I not?” I pointed out as the assembly of teenagers watched me. “Now, if you’re finished with me, can we get back to training you? Because had I known how to control my magic, I would have been able to escape their hive and make my way to the coven within England instead of playing a part to survive them,” I said, exhaling the breath that seemed to falter as memories of that time plagued me.
“How long were you with him?” Flora asked softly, her anger deflating as the others stopped fueling it.
“For a very long time,” I admitted.
“You’ve watched the world grow and change, and yet you stay here, teaching us, why?” Joshua asked.
“Look at your friends, look at their faces. Now imagine living without them. Watching them age until they become ashes, scattered upon the wind as they are returned to the earth. I have lived for over three hundred years, and I have watched almost everyone that I have ever considered a friend die. All but one has been reclaimed by the earth, and she’s here with me. I have watched the world grow and change, Kings crowned and slaughtered. I have been a witness as governments were toppled to ruin. I have watched covens die out because they chose to keep their children close to their home, and here…here I can help teach you how to survive. So why am I here? To teach you not to end up as I have,” I chided softly as my chest tightened.
It wasn’t why I was here. I was here because I was hunted; I’d killed a King. I killed and an entire hive of royalty when I’d escaped; that wasn’t something the vampires would allow to go unanswered, and we all knew it. So, I hid in these mountains and continued to survive.
Sooner or later, Conner would come for me, and when he did, I knew he’d show no mercy. Not that he had it back then, but with me, he’d always been gentle. I’d chosen these mountains for the serenity long before they were discovered by man. I raised the academy from a tiny wooden house to a school with over three hundred students at times. I’d hidden here to escape the world, to hide the shame of my crimes from the covens, but also because when I’d come here, man had yet to discover it. No humans meant no vampires, because, without humans, they would starve to death.
“That can’t be easy,” Flora admitted.
“Death is part of life, be thankful you have the option. Now, everyone, back to learning how to control the magic within you,” I said as I turned, eyeing Laura, who shook her head at my story.
“I wish the council members would learn to hold their tongues on our histories,” she said, moving to my side and we watched the witchlings once again try to call their magic to them. “Life would be so much simpler here if they did.”
“Look at the sky,” I said. Gazing up into the black clouds, I narrow
ed my eyes on the sun as the moon sat before it. “Is there an eclipse planned?” The only person who could create such an event was a witch, and a damn powerful one at that. I could barely make the sun disappear, but to manage a full eclipse? That took a long time to plan and an even longer time to spell the world to heed the magic.
“Not that I was made aware,” she stated, shielding her eyes as she stared up at the dark sky. “That’s rather strange since it would be a cause for celebration. You’d think we’d have felt it coming.”
“Clara, focus!” I shouted as she lost her footing. I captured her energy ball before it slammed into Flora. I expelled a shaky breath as I turned to speak to Laura.
“That was close,” she stated, shivering against the reality of what had almost happened. “What do you think is blocking Clara? She’s been here for over two years and has yet to control even a whisper of magic.”
“She is the only thing holding herself back. She fears her magic, and she should. Out of everyone here, she holds the strongest power, yet she is terrified of it. It’s rather strange if you consider her bloodline compared to the others.”
“And Johnny and Flora, you do know they’ve gone further into their relationship and have begun sneaking out and fucking beneath the bleachers, right?” she laughed.
“I’m aware, but it is only our job to teach them to control the magic, not their unlimited hormones. It’s in the contract. If she becomes pregnant, her father would rejoice and welcome the child. Johnny’s grandmother, on the other hand, would see it cast off and denounced. Again, that isn’t our problem. They come to learn, and we teach them what no one else can. What happens between them is on them and is their parents’ problem,” I muttered as lightning crashed against a tree beside us.
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