She closed her eyes and focused on a single person’s face. Once she remembered all its details, she opened them and whispered a single name, “Larae.” A disgruntled older woman’s face appeared in the sapphire flame and Fey looked down, trying to find the right words to tell her what was wrong.
CHAPTER 5
Larae
Carnally, the heavy wool covers that draped over the witch’s bed rhythmically stirred, enthused by the steady pulse of her wanton, throbbing body. She was atop one of the drones in her order, using him to satisfy her own lascivious needs. Her hips gyrated with vigorous lust and she felt the verge of complete bliss rising within her core. The pleasure that the worthless piece of excuse for a man—if you could call him that—would content her for the evening, if he took her the way she wanted. The way she needed. He did sport an impressive member between his legs, after all. If he wished to please her, he’d have to hurry, since her passion rose with each stroke of the witch’s honey pot. Regardless of how he made her feel sexually, Larae cared little for the scum penetrating her. He was merely a plaything for the time being; she wasn’t one to allow her sexual desires to go for long. Anyone would do to help stir her cravings.
This one, happened to be standing guard outside of her study while she worked. When her sudden inkling rose, she simply opened the door and commanded he come inside. At that point, they’d been going at it for hours. She was head of the order and could do whatever she pleased. If she wanted to lie with her men, she would. Her desires were hard to appease, and she liked it quite unconventional.
“You know what I want—do it! Or, I shall have you executed at once.” The very words spilled out of Larae’s dry lips between profound gasps and twitches as she dipped her center over him. The mortified soldier squirmed beneath her as his prick lost a bit of girth at the mere thought of upsetting his superior.
He knew she could be cruel, and he did not want to cross her. Beside the fact that he also wanted to be pleased … with everything that entailed. The witch, even at her mid-age, could leave a man salivating on his knees. It wasn’t her features exactly, though she still had supple breasts. It was her primitive and need for sex that made her so desirable. Among the men in the outfit, getting to spend a night with a Westfall was indeed a treat. As long as you upheld your end of the arrangement, Larae could be quite entertaining. With great strength, the soldier sat up, pushing the woman to her knees on the drenched sheets beneath them. Without a moment to spare, he thrust himself between her legs as deep as he possibly could. Everyone knew the witch liked it rough and craved all things sadistic, hurting her would take the crown. Larae cried out as the degenerate smacked her across the backend, leaving a welt the size of his palm behind.
With great thirst in his eyes, he threw her over, letting her face crash into the pile of disheveled pillows. “I said do it!” she snapped, ramming him into her fiery furnace, immediately rocking back and forth to take control. Larae could see that this one would be a pain in her backside. He didn’t have the gumption to pacify her demands. Deciding she would use him the way she wanted, Larae grabbed hold of the oak headboard inches away, driving down over his loins as hard as she could. Pain shot through her down below and she was close to feeling, even if It was through morbid measures. The anguish felt like heaven to the witch. The high beams of her pebbled nipples erect, and she was finally feeling that insatiable decadence of sensuality. It was now or never.
Concentrating on the sound of her own beating heart, Larae focused in on his pulsating body. She homed in on the man’s mind with her suggestion, unlocking his resolve. Just as she felt he might finish, she spat out an incantation and he could no longer continue. Larae’s mouth fell open with the intense reverberations she felt as the man jerked, needing to release. She could feel him locked between her legs and wanted more.
She wanted him to suffer as she had, to teeter on the brink of pleasure, but never experience it. Just like she’d lost the throne as White Matron. All she ever was, could be narrowed down to the sweetness threatening to pour from her depths. At that exact moment, a vibrant emerald flame shot from her palm, burning the covers clenched within her fist. Someone had just ruined everything.
“I’ll murder whoever answers the other end,” she growled, throwing the valueless man to the floor with a loud thud. “I’ll deal with you later.” Larae pointed to the door of her study ordering the pointless, worn out man to the hall once more.
Her eyes lit with red-hot fire from the rage she felt welling up in her throat as she surveyed the man as he raced out of the room, clothes in arm, not even fully dressed. Raising her wrist, the flame shot upward, and a familiar face appeared before her. Larae quickly covered her exposed breasts and sat down to greet her long-lost cousin.
Larae was Fey’s most favorite Westfall cousin. The smart witch was older and, in her cousin’s eyes, much wiser. She was a taller woman in her early thirties, with long, black hair that had hints of grey showing through. Her dark, honey-colored eyes and prim cheeks always invited Fey to pinch at them and caused many childish fights amongst the pair.
Of course, when Fey did pinch her cousin, she received a paralyzing Congelo Hex (freezing curse) that would leave her thawing in a hot tub for hours. She remembered back to a time when her cousin was still her childhood playmate. She happily reminisced about how she always had a friend to share and confide in. Maybe Larae was older than her, but took her for a friend all the same.
Fey bit down on her lower lip as she recalled one of the last times she and her cousin had been together. She was just 12 years old, it was the very day she had experienced a mild slip up with her magic at school. The young girl was in the process of learning a conjuring spell for fire and got a little carried away and couldn’t suppress her magic. It was easy for her to manifest; she just couldn’t control the power like the rest of the girls in her class could.
This time though, it was a close call: she nearly burned her classmate to death all because she didn’t understand why a threshold couldn’t be reached with her power. Time after time, the girl realized she was way too powerful to control her own magic, until Larae came to her and taught her how to harness her energy levels. Her cousin spent many nights teaching her the different methods of wielding power and how to sustain it properly. Fey’s mind and power were her own again, she began feeling independent and self-aware over who she was meant to be or, at least, who her destiny said she had to be. It’s what carrying her bloodline meant.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the pair got older and Larae became distant. Fey always assumed it was because of their age differences and her own stubbornness, but Larae never confided in her the reason; thus, things ended from there and Fey had to figure out everything else on her own.
She spent the next seven years trying to perfect her magic as best she could with what little she was taught by her cousin and her grandmother. Larae used to be the acting White Matron of Edelweiss Pines, but was unable to bear any children. She even remarried a couple of times to make sure it wasn’t her fault. When the outcome was still the same, the council voted Larae out. The ability to continue the bloodline had been one of the main rules of being Edelweiss Pine’s protector for hundreds of years. Larae was stripped of her title after her twenty-fifth birthday, and the power was given back to Aris. At which point, the old woman’s power began to unwaveringly drain, one of the main reasons Fey had to take on the Trials so early on in life, but thanks to Larae teachings, she had surpassed all her schoolmate’s power caps, several times over. There was no mistaking it, she was the next White Matron, though the true reason she was so hesitant to take on the role was because she still had issues with managing her power.
For the most part, she had it handled; but, when under pressure, she felt that she could still crack from the tiniest bit of pressure. In a world where there was no room for mistakes, she had to learn to fake it. They needed a new Matron and she was it. Her grandmother held that vulnerable crack together and kept her s
ane through it all. It wasn’t as if she had her mother around to help with these types of issues, she left when Fey was only three-years-old. Therefore, she never had the opportunity to truly get to know Saydee. Apparently, she made the perfect Matron; nonetheless, somewhere along the lines …she disappeared and hadn’t been seen since.
The girl remembered how every day she would weep in a corner until she couldn’t produce the strength to let it consume her any longer. In fact, her Grandmother gave her an ancient handmade charm she proudly wore around her neck that read, May ye never be alone and have the fortune of someone always watching over ye. Fey often found herself clutching the charm in her hand and rubbing the soft surface of its silvery texture. It calmed her nerves, and gave her a sense of the here and now. It was more than an anxiety suppressor, she also used the pendant when trying to control of her powers.
She was, by no means, an open book. Yet, try as she might, Fey was never one of the girls. She’d always been the one to watch out for, and it never occurred to her that it might not be her fault. Whenever Larae mysteriously came back into her life, it was challenging to accept the fact that she too had abandoned her. Things were going to be different, she wasn’t going to let this woman get close to her again. Her cousin had every chance to redeem any kinship they may have had over the years, but never tried. So, what if she had trust issues, the girl had been abandoned by everyone she had ever loved as a child. Larae was no exception. The only difference, was that she didn’t disappear like her mother, Saydee.
“Larae, she just died in my arms with only me to console her. There was nothing I could do, I couldn’t think of anything that might help. Even Gran Aris told me she was too far gone.” Fey relayed the details to her cousin over the crackling fire within her palm.
Tiny sparks snapped and popped as the silhouette of the girls’ relative never wavered. She caught her voice slipping and held the flame further away from her face, briskly wiping at her scarlet cheeks and runny nose. After a moment, she returned to the flame to allow Larae to see her once again. Her cousin’s perturbed voice resonated through the heat of the flame and into Fey’s fragile ears during her turn to speak.
“What you have described to me sounds very odd, my dear. I shall come over and take care of things.” Fey was bewildered that she would say such a thing, as if nothing happened five years ago to force them apart and that they were still family.
Things aren’t okay. I can’t believe you would think you can just walk back into my life so easily. She wished she had the guts to say such a thing, but remembered she was the one to contact her cousin first. Why did I even do that, she wondered, wishing she could retract every word.
“Uh, okay. When will you be over?” Fey asked with a bit of hesitation in her voice.
“Straight away! I want to get there before any of the other investigators,” Larae stated urgently as she rolled her eyes. She didn’t seem to want questions about it either.
“You don’t have to come tonight,” Fey mustered, feeling awful that she had to contact her in the first place. She was the last person in the world she wanted to see. Larae hadn’t spoken to Aris in several years and never seemed to care about the family since parting.
Fey understood that she was the Chief Guardian of Edelweiss Pines and dictated such matters normally, but why did she have such a heavy feeling in her gut about this?
“You need protection too—” Larae paused, allowing the silence to build, “there’s evil afoot, and by the sounds of it, we need to act quickly. I’ll explain once I arrive,” she added coolly as her honey eyes remained as stern as ever.
The woman never let on to her true feelings about anything. It was one reason Fey didn’t put forth the effort to have a normal relationship with her cousin; she was stone cold to the core. Fey wasn’t sure what to feel or how to act. Her body was sending mixed signals to her brain and it was tearing her apart. Bit by bit. She’d never even heard of evil being anywhere near her, or the ancient town she called home. Not for generations. She mumbled her goodbyes to Larae and whispered the words, “Finis Dissero (End Speak),” concluding the conversation.
CHAPTER 6
The Meeting
Once again, darkness surrounded the young witch and there was no way she could make herself comfortable. Not when she couldn’t be sure that the evil mist wouldn’t come back to finish her off. What was its plan? Would it come back to finish the Westfall bloodline? Ending with she and Larae? The more she thought about it, the more it made sense that someone was strategically murdering her family. More than ever, she felt her selfish need for information had caused pure evil to seep into her impressionable world. Fey sat quiet, consumed by her own thoughts, nervously fidgeting with her long auburn locks. As she did every day, she parked herself on the cushy, mauve sofa next to one of the large windows that opened to the front porch of her home. She was a wreck and could barely hold herself together, let alone figure out what to do with herself next.
The broken girl rocked back-and-forth with her knees tucked underneath her chin for support. Waiting was the hardest part of the night, set aside seeing her own grandmother’s death up close and personal. This was shaping up to be the worst day of her life. Gran’s up there right now … She needs to be put to rest, and I can’t even do that for her, the depressed girl thought unwaveringly. She anxiously bit down on her nail as she tried to replay the events of what had happened through her scattered mind. The details were beginning to blur as if a magical force was blocking her from remembering what took place. Even though it had just happened, she no longer could remember how her grandmother’s death played out. Try as she might, she could not recollect what stemmed the situation. Mostly, Fey felt useless. It was her job to keep an eye on the old woman and she couldn’t even manage that. What does that say about me? That I’m reckless? Selfish? Incompetent? She was 100% positive she would lose her right to the throne—the only deed her grandmother wanted her grandchild to carry out.
A stout knock drew Fey from her thoughts and to the purple front door of the old grey house. She wiped her face with the bottom of her lace dress before opening it, allowing Larae inside. Even though such a tragedy had happened, she didn’t want her to see the tears that had fallen down her hot cheeks. Larae could be pitiless. Fey took in a deep breath and vigorously rubbed her nose, clearing out the last of the evidence. The girl was relieved to see that her cousin did not meet her gaze as the door slid open. Instead, the woman’s glance was at the floor. Fey observed as the witch pushed through and impulsively scurried just inside the foyer.
“My dear, please do sit down,” her cousin urged as Fey shut out the cold night.
She could plainly see Larae’s features in the light of the living room as her shadow danced over the walls. Her cousin was quite skinnier than she remembered, and had rougher lines instilled in her prominent cheeks from frowning. The woman no longer seemed the innocent and playful type. Now, she gave off the idea that she’d never had fun in her life. Larae stood in the dusky doorway with a prudish air about her, making it difficult for the girl to strike up conversation, or even offer a simple Hello. She felt she was meeting a long-lost relative for the first time, yet everything about the witch standing before her seemed alien.
“Where are my manners,” Fey snapped to, realizing her cousin had offered her a seat in her own home.
“Please, have a seat, Larae,” somehow, she miraculously succeeded in putting the words together without tripping up.
She extended her long arm in the direction of the living room where she had previously sat mulling over the rest of her life. Larae palpably stepped out of the foyer and into the inviting living area with wide eyes. Fey observed her suspecting glare as she panned the length of the house with one long, churlish stare. The deep affluent colors had the effect of lulling any one to feel comfortable, this day was an exception, though.
Larae didn’t seem affected by the charming room at all. Set aside the current situation, the girl couldn’t se
e how anyone could possibly be deterred by its coziness. The witch often plopped down next to the hearth and read from her grandmother’s Grimoire after school. She crammed studying in anywhere that she possibly could, and it was common for her to light the hefty fireplace in the corner with an Incendia spell. It’s soft embers generously warmed the house and gave her ample, calming light in which to learn.
As the cousins sat quiet, whispers of an enduring winter traveled through Edelweiss Pines like an ever-growing frost; grasping to snuff out the last bit of warmth left in the town. No man was capable of stopping its vengeful wrath, so Fey did her part by keeping up with the heating of their home. It always took forever to spread through each room—even with the help of magic. The girl reached down and clutched the fire iron to stroke the flames while an awful silence fell over the unexpected meeting. A perturbed expression crept over Larae’s face as if she’d suddenly remembered why she’d come.
“Where is she?” she snapped explosively as she angrily shrugged off Hex’s affections from the floor.
With an exasperated huff, the shrewd of a woman diligently dusted off the hem of her pricy red dress and scoffed at the dustiness of the house. Larae was the type of witch who liked the finer things in life and was appalled at the idea of furry house guests intruding upon her personal space. She wasn’t like most people, who enjoyed the company of animals.
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