The Witch's Guardian (Caspian Academy Book 1)

by Anna Edwards

  I can feel Juniper violently shaking next to me and a red glow appears around her.

  “Juniper?” I try to get her to look at me, but she can’t.

  “I need him to stop interfering in my life. Why can’t he just leave me alone? Who does he think he is?” she cries.

  The house around us starts to shake.

  “Cobi, I think we need to get out of here.” Lucas taps me on the shoulder urgently.

  “I agree,” Mrs Donovan says, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of the building with the assistance of James, Emmie and Lucas.

  The moment we get outside, we’re thrown to the ground when a massive explosion rips through the house. I stare in horror as the dust settles on what used to be my home. It’s disappeared.

  “Juniper!” I roar.

  I’m certain no one could have survived that blast, but I’m proved wrong when, in the middle of the large crater created by the explosion, I see Juniper standing without so much as a hair out of place.

  “Is that normal magic?” James questions his mother.

  “No,” Mrs Donovan replies, and I turn to look at her. She’s as white as a sheet of plain paper. “That’s something completely different. I think we may have just complicated matters even more.”

  I stare at Juniper down in the hole. A single tear falls from her eye and rolls down her cheek.

  We need to get to the bottom of what’s happening to us. I don’t think either of us can take much more. King Ambrose has all the answers, and I think it’s about time we confronted him. Proof or not, he’s behind all this.

  What the hell just happened? Looking around me, I notice the complete destruction of Jacobi’s home. My gaze moves to Jacobi and the others. They all have fear in their eyes. Is it fear of me? I wouldn’t blame them, looking at what I’ve done. I could have killed them all, and they know it. A tear rolls down my cheek. I know I’ve reached my breaking point, and I do the only thing I can. I teleport myself away from them, from everyone.

  It’s cold, logically I know it is. The snow on the ground, the way the trees move, and the darkness above all indicate bad weather, but I don’t feel it. I only feel numb.

  “Why are you sitting in the cold, baby?” The words come from behind me, and I feel elated and frightened that he’s here.

  “How did you find me?” I whisper as Jacobi plasters his front against my back. His arms slide around my waist, and immediately he comforts me. Him, I can feel. Jacobi makes the numbness evaporate.

  “I felt for you. I let my emotion track you down. Why did you run?” The hurt is clear in his voice and shame washes over me.

  “I’m the catalyst. Your life was fine before me. You were happy. Sebastian…” I shake my head. “Everyone is better off without me.” I turn in his arms and cup his cheek in my hand, running my thumb over his beautiful lips, the lips I wish I could kiss. “You’re better off without me,” I admit, even though it nearly breaks me.

  “Bullshit,” he snaps, and it’s a tone I haven’t heard from him since he stopped his bully boy routine.

  Stepping away from him, my hand drops by my side. “It’s not bullshit. I don’t want you to get hurt.” I shrug. “If I have to marry Michael-“

  “Don’t say his fucking name,” Jacobi growls. “Don’t even think about that piece of shit. You’re mine.” He steps towards me, “Mine. Do you understand me?”

  There’s a beat, a moment where we both just stare at one another, breathing heavily, emotions scattered and love clear in both our eyes, then we rush towards one another. Kissing, even though we shouldn’t. Opening my mouth, Jacobi slips his tongue inside and groans at our connection.

  I feel the change coming over him, but we don’t stop kissing, and as his fingers dig into my skin, I sense his power, my power. This is right, him, me, us. We belong together. But there’s more to it than that. A sense of peace wraps around me as we kiss, and pulling away, I stare at him. The blue veins cover him now, yet he’s never looked more beautiful, more natural, more powerful.

  “I love you.” I breathe the words out.

  He kisses me again, and we sink into one another.

  “This is how it was supposed to be,” I tell him, and he looks at me confused. I shake my head. “Not my kisses turning you into the Guardian, but the two of us being together, the witch and the Guardian. I think someone took that story and turned it into a horror. I think someone lied.”

  “We have to figure this out, but right now, I need to go wherever I’m taken.”

  “No,” I tell him, grabbing his chin and making him look at me, “you decide. Don’t let the spell rule you anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The book you had, the one about Guardians, it says a Guardian decides what to do with his power. A list appears in front of you when you turn, showing you people to save or to kill. It tells you what they did, good or bad, and then you make a choice. For this to be happening to you in the way it does, there must be a spell on you.”

  He pulls away from me. “Don’t you think I’ve tried to stop myself? I don’t even remember being given a choice.”

  I move towards him again. “Did you ever manage to converse with people before or have the time to do what we’re doing now when in Guardian form?” I ask, moving my hand between us. “Because I think this, the trip we took to the hospital, and the fact you saved me are new. I believe you’ve been slowly pulling away from the grasp of the spell.” I tell him, pleading with my eyes for him to understand what I’m saying.

  He shakes his head, disbelief in his eyes. “I can’t…”

  “You can,” I say, shaking him gently. “Dig deep. Think about who you are, and who you were born to be. Imagine something which gives you strength. You can choose your own destiny, Jacobi,” I whisper.

  I watch as his emotions, thoughts, and reactions to the possibilities wash over him. Then he stretches his neck, drops his head back, and roars. It’s a battle cry, and I know, in that instant, he’s won. He’s taken control of himself, and his future.

  Something passes over me. A feeling coats me for a second then drops from my skin, and I fall to my knees.

  “Juni,” Jacobi slides down to my side, “what’s wrong?”

  “I… I don’t know,” I blink up at him, my eyesight slightly blurry, but as he takes my hand and pulls us both to our feet, my eyesight clears. “I believe you’ve broken the spell, the one which was on us. I think,” tears start brimming in my eyes, “I think we can kiss now.”

  He smiles, and pulling me in for a hug, he spins us around. “I can see the people, and the choices I have. I can see them all before me. Juni, I can choose.” His voice is filled with wonder, and I crush him to me even harder than he was already holding me. “I love you,” he says, caressing my ear with his voice, and then he transports us both away from the frigid air of the Canadian Rockies.

  “Where are we?” I question when we stop. We’re obviously in a house, but I’ve no idea who lives here.

  “We’re home, in my home, our home.”

  “But, I…” I break off, confused.

  “It’s my second home. My secret home.”

  “Secret?” I question.

  “Yeah, you remember I told you the other house was mine?” I nod in reply. “Well, my grandfather also left me a shit ton of money my parents know nothing about. I bought this, and not a single person knows about it. A hideaway if you will,” he tells me.

  His skin still has the blue veins running across it, and his blue eyes are brighter than they’ve ever been.

  “Don’t you need to go do something?” I question, nodding at his Guardian form.

  “I do.” He smiles. “Will you come with me?”

  I shake my head no, but I answer, “Of course.”

  He laughs, grasps my hand in his, and pulls me into his body. With that, we’re flying, just the two of us, and even though we’re hundreds of feet up in the sky, I can’t draw my eyes away from his face.

  “Stop star
ing,” he chuckles.

  “Never,” I whisper.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  “Syria. You see that house over there?” he asks, pointing to little more than a mud hut, I nod and he continues, his eyes looking sad, “In there lives a woman who is beaten by her husband.”

  “What, right now?” I squeal, aware no one around us can hear.

  He shakes his head. “No, right now that man is arriving home, and in about three minutes, he’ll start beating his wife. It’s not the first time, and tonight he turns on his ten year old daughter.”

  I gasp, slamming my hand over my mouth. Jacobi’s eyes are solemn, and I want to cry for him and for the innocent people in that hut. His hand glides down the side of my face. “I want you to come in with me. I need you to see the other side of me. I need to know if you can still love me afterwards.” His vulnerability is endearing, but it also feeds into his concern, clearly he’s worried I’ll give him up once I see his dark side. What he hasn’t realised yet is that I couldn’t give him up. I was never able to, even when I thought I hated him.

  I hold my hand out to him, and he glances down at it, trepidation in his eyes. He grasps it and drags me swiftly into the house.

  No one can see us when we enter, but the sight we find is worse than I imagined. The wife is on the floor, blood pouring from her head, and the man is gripping his daughter by the back of her head with her hair in his fist as tears stream down her face and her lip bleeds. I see red, no, I see fire, and the moment I do, they spot me. His eyes go wide as I somehow manage to talk to him in his native tongue.

  “You treat the ones you love like they mean nothing.” I say, my head tipped to the side as I take him in. He’s tall, but scrawny with a balding head.

  “They’re female, cattle, they do what I say. I own them.”

  “Not anymore.” I whisper, a smile gracing my lips.

  “Juni,” Jacobi calls.

  Without tearing my eyes away from the man in front of me, I point to the woman on the floor. “Help her,” I tell Jacobi.

  Something has possessed me, taken me over, but it’s not another being, it’s my rage. Like I have another entity inside me, the cold feeling coats my veins, and I step towards the evil man. He must see the emptiness in my eyes because for the first time since we entered his house, I can see fear in his eyes.

  Pointing in the man’s direction, I make an upwards slashing movement with my hand from his stomach to the dead centre of his chest and whisper, “Secare,”

  Blood seeps out from the wound I inflicted with the motion of my hand and starts soaking his shirt. I feel the warmth from Jacobi saving the wife and healing the daughter but don’t take my eyes off the man in front of me. I watch him struggle to breathe, finding his fish like gasps for air fascinating.

  Then I remember what he did to his daughter, and I point at the man once more.

  “Secare,” I quickly snap out again, moving my finger in the air from left to right in the direction of his neck, and he slumps as death takes him.

  I turn to the two shocked girls, for even the wife is really just a girl not much older than me, and I point at them. The fear they convey makes me pause, but only for a second. “Obliviscatur,” I whisper, and I feel a release as they slump to the floor, breathing heavily with sleep. “They’ll remember none of this in the morning, but we need to get rid of him.” I tell Jacobi, not quite looking in his eyes.

  “Cinere,” Jacobi calls out, and I look up just as the man disintegrates into ash. “Come on, Juni,” he says, picking me up in his arms and kissing my forehead gently.

  “Are you ashamed of me?” I ask on a whisper.

  He looks down at me as we fly across the sky. “Ashamed,” he frowns, “of you doing my job, sharing my pain and my burden? Not ever,” he replies, kissing my lips softly. “You’ve saved me more than you could ever know, and I couldn’t love you more.”

  I close my eyes, feeling the moisture behind my eyelids. but I don’t let the tears out. I keep them inside and settle into Jacobi, knowing I’m completely safe and loved right where I am.

  It’s been three days since the start of the tournament, and three days since Juniper and I broke the spell placed upon us. I feel different. I listen to the calls when they come for me, and I choose the ones I want to obey and the ones I want to hide from. Whenever I can, I hold Juniper in my arms and we kiss and we kiss because we’re finally able to do so without repercussions. Her new found magical strength scares me a little, but she’s controlling it well. I just hope we manage to get through today. I love her, and all I want to do is protect her.

  Juniper, Lucas, James, Emmie and I stand together as we listen to King Ambrose’s closing address. It’s not too dissimilar to the opening one. A load of bullshit basically.

  “Why do I have to have the most stupid father going?” Juniper mutters under her breath, but I hear it.

  “I’m sure there are worse.” I try to offer her a bit of encouragement.

  “Name one,” she demands,

  “Um…” I fail to think of a name. “Okay, you win. He’s the worst.”

  “I love you.” Juniper looks up at me and chuckles.

  “Something you care to share with us, Juniper?” the King stops his speech and addresses his daughter.

  “Sorry, Father, I was just remarking how majestic you look up on stage. I hope to be as regal as you one day.”

  I try to suppress my laughter at Juniper’s response. King Ambrose shakes his head and returns to giving his speech.

  “It gives me great pleasure to announce a new partnership which will benefit the wizarding world. It will give us security for the future while keeping us hidden from the humans. Michael Wilmot, will you join me on stage please. Juniper, you as well.”

  I keep a tight grip on Juniper’s hand. I’m not letting her go anywhere near Michael.

  “Juniper,” her father orders again, this time with more authority.

  I still don’t let her move. She turns her head to look at me. “Cobi, I have to go up there.”

  “You go, then I’m coming with you.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Together,” I growl.

  “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this,” King Ambrose speaks into the microphone, “but it seems my daughter is under the influence of a dark and powerful magic. I’ve suspected it’s been running through the school for a while now, but it’s just been proven to me.”

  The King clicks his fingers, and Juniper’s mother appears on stage. She’s flanked by two guards with long swords and has her hands bound behind her back.

  “Escape his magic, Juniper. Allow yourself to come to me. I’ve captured your mother. She’s been infected by him as well. The monster has laid his hands on her and rid her of a natural illness when it shouldn’t have happened. She was destined to die, but he has changed the future and distorted the truth. Come up here now, Juniper. I don’t want to have to kill your mother to set the path right again when you can do it with a connection to Michael.”

  I feel Juniper weaken in my arms, and I know her father is talking about me and the fact I’m a Guardian. Most of the people in Caspian are enthralled by the King, and they follow his every word, so to be told I’m a monster when they know nothing about me will lead to a revolution against me. We’re in big trouble.

  And here I was hoping for an easy day.

  “Juniper, one last chance,” the King warns.

  She doesn't even need to say anything. I know instantly the decision she’ll make to save her mother. I would make the same choice if the roles were reversed, and I don’t care for my parents in the way Juniper cares for her mum.

  “Go. We’ll figure something out, and I’ll come for you,” I tell her.

  She takes a step away from me but then runs back into my arms and kisses me passionately on the lips. “I love you.”

  “Always,” I reply.

  James and Lucas step in front of me as Juniper runs quickly up onto the st
age. She stomps straight up to her father and whips her hand around his face, and he steps back in shock.

  “I won’t ever forgive you for this,” she tells him, then turning to the gathered crowd she speaks into the microphone. “The only monster in Caspian is the one here on stage, proclaiming himself to be our King. He’s behind so much evil-”

  A magical bind wraps itself around Juniper’s mouth, interrupting her speech, and I push past Lucas and James to get to the stage. They’re doing their best to hold me back, but my strength is otherworldly, given my love for Juniper.

  The crowd of students look on in terror as King Ambrose takes his daughter by the hand.

  “The evil approaches,” he says, pointing to me, and several of the students step back and cower as I shove my way past them towards the stage with Lucas and James still holding on to me.

  The King continues, “Destroy the monster, and I’ll do my best to protect your futures. He saved what shouldn’t be saved. He’s a devil in disguise.”

  “I’m none of those things, I’m a Guardian, and you need to learn history better,” I shout at him, but it’s too late.

  My world and Juniper’s falls apart as everything slows to a snail’s pace.

  The King raises his hand and with commanding authority orders his wife’s death. One of the guards standing next to her holds out his sword and plunges it straight through her stomach. Juniper screams, and it echoes in my mind as I race faster to the stage. Lucas and James let go of me. They know there’s no chance of stopping me now.

  King Ambrose looks at me when I reach out for Juniper. He smirks as he places a hand on her shoulder, and in a flash of smoke which temporarily blinds me, he disappears with the woman who’s my future. Michael goes with him, and I know my visions of their kiss and their wedding are about to come true.

  I shut my eyes.

  I shut out the cries of shock and terror around me and allow my Guardian to come out. Blue veins cover my body, and wings shoot from my back. I become the monster King Ambrose warned Caspian Academy about.