She found him eventually, in one of the side chambers, speaking to Barteau, the du Laqs’ seneschal. "Are you hiding from me, Major?" she said as his face lit at the sight of her.
"From everyone but you," he said. "Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight, Lieutenant?"
"You have, but you can tell me again." She turned slowly so he could admire the dress. Its design had been an act of diplomacy in itself, one that had taken weeks. Imogene’s mama, after her initial stunned surprise when she’d been told that her daughter was to become a duquesse, had risen to the challenge and wasn’t afraid to match wits with the duquesse fencing deftly over the details of the wedding as though she’d been born noble herself.
Tonight’s dress seemed to be the topic of most debate. A fact which made Imogene nervous to contemplate how long it might take when it came to choosing her actual wedding gown. Both the duquesse and Imogene’s mama held strong opinions over what was appropriate. White for a betrothal, of course, but then there had been other colors to consider. The du Laqs’ were gold and blue, but the Carvelles didn't have any rank to warrant a crest or family colors. Which complicated deciding what needed to be incorporated into the design.
The clothier had, after exercising so much patience that Imogene was going to have to get Jean-Paul to pay her extra, suggested silver to represent the metal of Imogene’s father's work and pale blue and green for her magic. There were tiny beaded cog wheels and quills to represent the words of diplomacy—amongst the rioting flowers embroidered over the bodice and spilling down the skirt. They made her smile every time she found a new one. Jean-Paul had promised to kiss every one before he let her take off the gown tonight. She was looking forward to it. Much as she was looking forward to wearing the ring Jean-Paul had chosen with her. Gold and silver weighed down with a multitude of perfect sapphires and diamonds, set into the band so she could wear it safely during her work. He'd promised her a second more ostentatious one for when they needed to dazzle the court. Just what he considered ostentatious was daunting to contemplate. But rings and dresses were minor details.
The promise she was about to make was what was important. The promise and the man she would be giving it to.
She came back to face him. Her future. Her heart. She hadn't been looking for him, and it might not always be an easy thing that she had found him, but he was hers.
"You are beautiful," he said. "Always. I love you, Imogene Carvelle."
"I love you, Jean-Paul du Laq." She stretched up to kiss him fast, then broke away before they could get carried away and ruin the dress or her hair or anything else. She kept hold of his hand, though. "So let's go tell the world."
Also by M.J. Scott
DARK ROMANTIC FANTASY
The Four Arts series
The Shattered Court
The Forbidden Heir
The Unbound Queen
The Half-Light City series
Shadow Kin
Blood Kin
Iron Kin
Fire Kin
Wicked Games
URBAN FANTASY
Wicked Games
The Wild Side series
The Day You Went Away*
The Wolf Within
The Dark Side
*A free short story that’s a prequel to The Wolf Within
About the Author
M.J Scott is an unrepentant bookworm. Luckily she grew up in a family that fed her a properly varied diet of books and these days is surrounded by people who are understanding of her story addiction. When not wrestling one of her own stories to the ground, she can generally be found reading someone else’s. Her other distractions include yarn, cat butlering, dark chocolate and watercolor. She lives in Melbourne, Australia. To find out more and keep up with her news, sign up for her newsletter at www.mjscott.net. She also writes contemporary romance as Melanie Scott and Emma Douglas.
Acknowledgments
Writing a book during a pandemic is odd. I feel like I should be thanking Zoom, Wifi and streaming services for keeping us all semi-sane. But thank you to the Fantasy Realms gang for inviting me to be part of this, thank you to Robyn and Sarah for story wrangling, my awesome crit gals for support and shenanigans, my Mum who is always there for me and the Diva Kitty for general good catting and keeping me company.
Witch Bound
A Pack Bound Novella by Leisl Leighton
Witch Bound
© 2020 by Leisl Leighton
Australian Copyright 2020
New Zealand Copyright 2020
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, alive or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, now known or hearafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for use in any review.
Published by Leisl Leighton
For more information, email: [email protected]
First Published 2020 in Fantasy Realms Anthology: Warlords, Witches & Wolves © 2020
Cover design by Lana Pecherczyk
Edited by Brooke Halliwell of Brooke Review
Created with Vellum
About Witch Bound
One Fate, one mate, a bond too strong to deny …
Paul Collins, duty-bound Pack Warlock and seer, must marry a strong witch for the good of Pack McVale. But his hidden feelings for his best-friend’s sister, maternal wolf Ivy McVale, make this a more difficult pill to swallow every day. Especially when they begin to mate.
Then Paul has a vision: If they mate, Ivy will die. Desperate, Paul uses his powers to change destiny and make Ivy think she’s always hated him. He can deal with any punishment the Fates make him pay for tampering with destiny, as long as Ivy lives.
After recovering from a bewildering month-long illness, Ivy notices her nemesis, Paul, is tormented by something. And strangely, she is the only one who can feel it. Unable to endure such unhappiness—even if he does call her Poison Ivy—she is determined to help him, no matter the cost. Because Pack McVale cannot survive without him, and curiously, neither can she ...
To SuperDan and Wonder Woman Lana:
This book wouldn’t have been written if not for you. Thanks for asking me to write it.
This one’s for you.
Chapter 1
Paul Collins screamed.
He’d opened his mouth to laugh at his friend’s joke, but instead, the scream flew out of his mouth. Not a yell, not a shout. A scream.
He tried to shut his mouth, but the sound continued. It went on and on, a high-pitched wailing noise that would shatter his guards’ sensitive eardrums if he didn’t stop it soon. But there was no stopping this noise. It kept coming, growing and growing until there was nothing but the scream.
He was no longer Paul Collins, warlock, seer, son of the too-weak Pack Witch, Morrigan Collins, and Pack McVale’s singular hope for the future.
He was the scream.
A scream that echoed down through the vast channels of power that came to him from somewhere in the future, making him its bitch. Mortifying. Horrifying. Bringing him low until he was this … this miserable destroyer of hope and love.
He glanced around as the scream continued. His guard—those who were supposed to be his friends—were down on the ground around him, their eardrums blown out, blood streaming from ears, nose, eyes and mouth. He wanted to help them, but he couldn’t move. Could only kneel in the dirt where he’d fallen, his mouth open, the unearthly scream flying out to fill the sky and earth around him.
Leaves trembled in the eucalypts overhead.
The moon turned blood red.
The sky turned purple.
Warlock lightning—blue, green, orange, purple and a never b
efore seen red—flashed all around him.
Purple wings in the sky, shrouding everything, hung over a pile of bodies—Were, witches, warlocks, humans.
And beyond, a terrible, oily darkness spread to cover it all.
They were dead. They were all dead. And he could do nothing to stop it.
No! No! Goddess, no!
He wanted to die. He wanted to die.
‘Paul!"
Something touched his arm—a hand, soft and cool on his heated skin, fingers curling firmly, but not painfully. He stared down at it.
His name came again. ‘Paul.’ Such a sweet sound. Like a siren’s call, it pulled him back, pulled him away from the black thoughts that crowded his mind. ‘Paul? Are you okay?’
He blinked and her face swam in front of his eyes.
Ivy.
Panic speared through him as he took her in, standing there in her oversized fluoro t-shirt, big hoop earrings swinging against her neck and big eyes staring up at him in worry. She looked so fresh, so innocent, so unaffected and yet … ‘No. No. Go away. The scream. It will hurt you. Kill you. Just like it did all of them.’
She frowned her confusion as he gestured to the bodies of his guard lying on the ground.
Except, there were no bodies. His guard were staring at him as if he was crazy.
He was crazy.
And she’d seen it. Again. Every bloody horrible moment of his crazy. As crazy as his crazy mum.
‘Fuck.’
‘Paul.’
‘Leave me alone.’
He shoved her hand away, her caring, her concern, and took off, away from their stares, their uncomfortable laughter and their attempts to make him feel better that would inevitably follow.
Not that Jackson and Luke and Stellan—the Were who’d been blood-bonded to him at his birth—would laugh at him like the others might. They were more used to his crazy and would fight to the death for him if he asked. They’d even fight their other pack mates to stop them from smothering their one remaining Pack Warlock with their concern. It was their job. Not that he’d ask them to ever do that.
Aunt Iris—more mother than aunt—had always taught him not to cause a fight within the pack. The Were could be hot blooded and formed cliques within the pack that were strong in a way witches and warlocks could not understand.
It was this that made them follow him now even though he’d made it clear he didn’t want their company. He shoved up his defences against the pack bond so they couldn’t track him through it and shoved all of his power into the one thought of escape.
Now.
The world swirled around him and for a sickening couple of seconds he was spinning through the void before he secured his intent and folded the void to his bidding. A tear opened and he stepped out onto a patch of soft, long grass where he collapsed, exhausted, miles away from where he’d just been.
He stared up at the sun, the long grass waving above him, silence all around except for one long, lonely howl that echoed in the distance.
Ivy. He’d hurt her. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but truthfully, it was for the best. She didn’t want to get involved with someone as weak as he.
Ivy stared at the place Paul had been, her hair blowing forward across her face in the little suck of wind he created with his transportation spell.
She rubbed her chest. Her wolf howled out loud at the ache—an ache that was growing every day. An ache that was partially hers but mostly his.
Why had he run from her? She knew he was embarrassed to be caught so lost to a vision, but she could help him. She knew she could. And yet, he wouldn’t let anyone help let alone her.
It wasn’t right. He was so lonely. So apart. Hurting. The maternal side of her—the wolf side of her—couldn’t stand the pain emanating from him all the time. It had been growing steadily, but recently, it had got so much worse.
She had thought it was because of the visions he saw—so often of deaths and disasters to be averted, rarely anything happy or good. That would be enough to suck even the brightest of souls into a dark vortex.
But Paul’s soul was still bright. So bright it blinded her the first time she saw it when she was still a pup and he a five-year-old boy coddled and kept apart from the pack except for those who were set to be his guards. She had felt drawn to him in a way her three-year-old mind could not understand. She’d never seen anyone like him. He glowed—white and blue and orange. And when his gaze had met hers as he glanced around over Pack Witch Iris’s shoulder, he’d smiled and waved at her and she’d felt like the sun and moon had come out all at once. Bathed in the embrace of their light, it soothed and settled her more than she’d ever felt before, even with her mother and the other maternal wolves.
She hadn’t known then what she knew now.
Paul was her mate.
Except, he barely knew she was alive. If he saw her at all, it was as the sister of one of his guard. Stellan, the big doofus, had spent so many years painting his little sister as a giant pain in his arse that Paul no doubt thought of her as the same. No, scratch that. She knew he did think of her as a pain in the arse. Look at the way he’d once again pushed her away and then left her behind.
Footsteps padded up behind her, reminding her she wasn’t the only one Paul had left behind. She turned to look over her shoulder at Luke—their next Alpha if she was reading the signs correctly—Stellan and Jackson as they stared in frustration at the empty spot where Paul had just been.
‘Man, I hate it when he does that.’ Stellan kicked the ground. ‘We’re going to get in so much trouble.’
‘Yeah,’ Jackson snorted. ‘Iris is going to be so pissed.’
‘Forget Iris. My dad is going to rake us over the coals for not staying on his tail this time.’ Luke blanched as he swayed on his feet and rubbed the back of his head. ‘My ears are still ringing from the last blasting.’
Ivy spun around to glare at the three of them. They looked like they’d been cut out of the same magazine with their stone-washed denim, their jacket sleeves pushed up, constantly checking their frosted floppy hair a-la Duran Duran. It was late summer for Goddess’s sake. Way too hot for denim and jackets. Pretentious gits. How could Paul be such good friends with them all? He was so opposite to them in every way. Kind and good and … natural. Like the guy from the Last Starfighter movie she’d seen last week with Siobhan. He was cute. These guys were idiots. Especially her big brother.
‘Why are you glaring at us like that, Ivy?’ Stellan asked, flicking her hoop earring.
She batted his hand away. ‘You are all unbelievable.’
‘What? What did we do?’ Stellan asked, stepping back, hands up. ‘He’s the one that ran away.’
‘You should have stopped him,’ she said, stamping her foot even though it made her look a petulant teenager. She was only a few years away from her majority, having left her teenage years behind last year.
‘From transporting? How do you suggest we stop that? None of us has powers. Short of grabbing him before he left and knocking him unconscious, there was nothing we could do,’ Luke said.
She glared at him, his reasoning making her even more furious with them. ‘It’s always down to violence with you lot, isn’t it? What about talking to him? What about asking him what’s wrong? What about not standing around staring like a bunch of shocked idiots when he has a vision and making him feel like he’s a crazy loner creep.’
All three males blinked at her.
‘But, we’re not here to help him with his visions or talk to him about them. That’s for Iris and Dad to do,’ Luke finally said.
‘Yeah. We’re just his guard,’ her brother added.
‘And his friends,’ she said, stepping forward and poking him in the chest. ‘You’re supposed to see a cry for help when it smacks you in the face and then backhands you across the head. He. Needed. You. To. Be. His. Friends. Today.’ Punctuated with a finger jab in each of their too big puffed up muscly chests. Her finger hurt—Luke’s chest was hard�
�but she didn’t care, Goddess damn it.
A shit-eating smile plastered itself over her brother’s idiot face. ‘Is that what you were doing, Poison Ivy?’
Agh! She hated that name. But rather than letting him see how much his calling her that pissed her off, she put her hands on her hips and said, ‘Yes. Because I’m a nice person who is concerned about our only Pack Warlock. I want to make his life easier, not harder, you morons. Maybe you should think of giving that a try.’
‘But …’ Jackson said. ‘We didn’t do anything.’
‘No, you didn’t. And that’s the problem.’
Jackson got a look on his face that made her want to slap him. ‘I think your sister is sweet on the warlock, Stellan.’
‘I think she is too, Jackson. Poison Ivy and the warlock sitting in a tree—’
The slap rang out in the air before she even knew she’d moved her hand. She stared at the imprint of her fingers on her brother’s face, the shocked expression replaced by one of confused hurt that made her feel like an absolute dick. But then the expression morphed into one of embarrassed anger.
‘What the fuck, Ivy,’ he said, touching his cheek. ‘How am I supposed to explain this to the parental units?’
Despite the fact he could be a know-it-all twenty-five-year-old git, she knew her brother wouldn’t rat her out, even though he was embarrassed she’d smacked him one in front of his friends. She huffed out a laugh. ‘As if. Besides, you deserved it.’
‘Why? Because I sang a stupid ditty?’
‘Yes. It’s disrespectful to our Pack Warlock. Mum and Dad will tell you so and you’ll be in more trouble than I would for hitting you.’
‘I was just having a bit of fun.’
Warlords, Witches and Wolves: A Fantasy Realms Anthology Page 56
