Alan

by Ava Benton

  Where the hell were these women living? Under a rock? They sounded like they lived outside the world.

  “This does not explain what she is doing here,” said the redhead whose vine tattoos covered her throat. For somebody so beautiful, she looked pretty ugly when she glared at me. “I do not believe she is only hiking.”

  “I agree,” spoke the fourth, a freckled little thing with big, luminous eyes I had a hard time looking away from.

  “Why not?” I asked, prying my attention from those eyes and looking around. “What’s wrong with being here? What did I do wrong?”

  “It is a bit too much of a coincidence.” The leader nodded, and just like that the other three lunged for me.

  They didn’t know how fast I was. One of the skills I had picked up over the years, spending so much time in foster and group homes with bullies twice my size. I had learned to be quick, or else be somebody’s punching bag.

  “There is no point in running!” one of them called out. Right. Like I was going to listen to her. Like she would tell me if there was a point in running away from them.

  I made it to a spot where one tree had started to fall but was caught by a second tree. They formed a triangle with the ground. I was just about to run under and past it when, just like that, out of nowhere, the blonde appeared in front of me.

  One second there was nothing but trees and more trees. The next, a solid-bodied human being who stood there with her hands on her hips.

  I stopped short to keep from slamming into her—so short, I scrambled backward and landed on my butt. I didn’t feel the pain from hitting the ground since a person had literally appeared in front of my eyes when she hadn’t been there not a second before that.

  “Must we waste time this way?” she sighed as she advanced on me.

  I scurried backward, still sitting, hands and feet moving as fast as I could get them to move. This couldn’t be happening.

  “It is rather tiresome,” a voice behind me agreed. “Simply check the back of her neck, and we can be finished with this.”

  “Wait, wait!” I threw a jab with my elbow, with my knee, anything to keep them from touching me. But it did nothing. I might as well have been fighting a brick wall. The redhead hauled me to my knees while the blonde pushed down on the back of my head until my neck was exposed.

  “Damn it.” I lifted my head in time to see the blonde shaking hers.

  “She’s not the one, after all,” the redhead lamented.

  “What do we do now?” one of them asked.

  The leader stood in front of me, glowering. “And we were so certain. This will anger Selene.”

  The redhead still held onto my shoulders, keeping me on my knees. I was too terrified to fight—and it would’ve been pointless. Her hands were like steel bands. “What should be done with her, then? We cannot let her go.”

  That shook me out of my silence. “Wait. What the hell are you people talking about? I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you. What do you mean, you can’t let me go? What are you going to do to me?”

  They would kill me. I was never so sure of anything in my life as I was sure right then that they would kill me. I would die there in the middle of the woods, and no one would ever know.

  Kiera was the only one who would’ve cared, and I doubted by then that she was even alive.

  “Take care of her,” the leader muttered, turning her back.

  A strange sense of peace came over me then. Not panic, not anger over missing out on the rest of my life. Just peace.

  And then I realized it was because one of them had done something to me without touching me. I couldn’t move.

  I was breathing. I could see. But I couldn’t move an inch. I couldn’t open my mouth to scream.

  “Come. Selene will wish to know what came of our search.” The leader’s icy green eyes met mine. “Why did you have to be here?”

  Funny. I was just asking myself the same question.

  2

  Emelie

  They carried me through the woods without touching me.

  I just sort of… floated upright over the surface of the ground. If I came to a boulder or a log or something, I floated over it rather than hitting it.

  It had to be a dream.

  Of course! I was dreaming. That was all there was to it. I was back in my crummy little hotel, sleeping on the world’s hardest mattress, dreaming all of this up. Because things like this didn’t happen in real life.

  Yes, that was a reassuring thought. I felt a whole lot better when I looked at it that way. More likely that it was a hallucination. Or maybe I did die, for real, and this was all an afterlife thing. It would explain why I couldn’t control my body anymore, and how I could float.

  It’s funny how the brain goes crazy, trying to make sense of the nonsensical.

  My four captors, whoever they were—witches, badass warrior chicks, I had no idea—walked in front of me. They didn’t even have to watch to make sure I didn’t hit a tree or anything. If I were them, I would’ve at least made sure the girl I had frozen in place and caused to float around the woods didn’t smack a tree, but that was just me.

  “Should we have kept her eyes open?” the inked-up redhead asked as she threw me a look over her shoulder.

  “It does not matter,” the leader said. “It isn’t as though she’ll be allowed to leave. And if she tried, she would only become hopelessly lost.”

  I wouldn’t be allowed to leave. Terrific. They planned on either killing me or holding me hostage for the rest of my life. I wasn’t sure which of the two sounded better.

  We arrived at what looked like a cave entrance, though it was pretty much all covered over with vines and crisscrossing branches. Like nobody—nothing—had been in or out in forever.

  Until the leader lifted a hand and poof! The overgrowth parted like two curtains, and we continued through to the inside of the cave. All I could do was take this in as I floated behind them. There was no looking around or behind me to see what happened once we were inside. Though I would have bet my life that the curtains closed behind us and everything went back to looking the way it had before.

  Along the wall was a row of what looked like wooden clubs, though I could only see them out of the corner of my eye, so the details were a little sketchy. The four of them each took one, and one by one the clubs burst into flame. Torches. Not clubs. Who knew?

  Burst into flame. By themselves. Just like that.

  It was a miracle I hadn’t peed myself yet.

  The craziest part was the nonchalance. They didn’t seem to think there was anything, I don’t know, strange about the fact that they were capable of setting torches on fire with nothing but the force of their minds. Or the way they rendered me speechless and motionless.

  This was just another day to them.

  Who the hell had I run into?

  The torches lit up the cave, which was really nothing more or less than I would’ve expected. Rock walls, dripping with moisture in some spots, craggy and jagged. I wondered how far up they reached but couldn’t look.

  All I could see was the blackness in front of us. My heart beat like a drum, to the point where I couldn’t hear anything but the pounding in my ears. Where were we going? What would we find?

  And were they right about my getting hopelessly lost in the woods if I ever tried to escape? Because there was no way I was staying in this damp, cold, dark place.

  Only it wasn’t so dark anymore. The further we went, the lighter it became. I realized soon that there was more torchlight up ahead, points and points of it. More witches, if that was who had taken control of me? It might have been, I thought. And feared.

  Up to this point, I wasn’t exactly a fan of the women who had taken me hostage.

  The cave tunnel widened, turned into a room. At least, it looked that way from where I floated. There were torches along the walls, which was what I had seen as we approached. They glowed just as brightly as the ones the women carried, but
I noticed there didn’t seem to be any heat coming from them.

  “I’m sure she knows we’ve returned by now,” the leader muttered once we reached the middle of the room.

  I saw a few more narrow tunnels leading from it, all going in different directions, and from them came even more women in the same black dresses, the same inked skin.

  The same hostile looks on their faces.

  I counted ten of them in all, including my captors, and they were all just as beautiful and fierce looking as the women who had taken me hostage. What did they have against me? What did I ever do to them?

  I couldn’t ask, of course, since they still wouldn’t allow me to speak. Not that I thought they would tell me, since they hadn’t yet.

  There was a murmuring from them, and they parted to let one last woman through. Instead of black, she wore white, and I could’ve sworn she literally glowed. Maybe she did. That wouldn’t be the strangest thing I had seen all day.

  Her silver hair hung in a thick braid down to her waist, slung over one shoulder, her skin was smooth and clear, her eyes sparkled like sapphires. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

  The leader of the little band I met in the woods stepped forward. “Selene, we—”

  Selene held up one hand, and there was silence. I didn’t think it was forced silence, like the silence forced on me. No, the woman was afraid, and Selene had enough clout that all she needed to do was hold up a hand to shut up everybody else in the room.

  “You needn’t explain yourself, Iris,” Selene announced in a clear, sweet voice. “I have seen it all. I’ve felt your frustration, stronger all the time as you approached our home. You did not find the one for whom you searched.”

  Iris cleared her throat. “No. This is not the one. We could not leave her in the woods.”

  “Naturally.” Selene’s eyes never left my face, searching me like she was searching for some truth.

  If she could read feelings or whatever, she had to be able to read mine. My confusion, my general terror, and more than just a little bit of curiosity. Because these women were strange, to say the least, and Selene had referred to the cave as their home.

  If I were a witch, I’d live someplace a little nicer. Like on a beach or something.

  “Hecate, release the human from silence,” Selene commanded.

  The curly-haired blonde nodded, and just like that, I could move my mouth again. I swallowed, licked my lips, and told myself I’d never take speech for granted again.

  Selene nodded to the redhead. “Fetch a glass of water, please, Electra.”

  Silly me, thinking she would leave the room for that. Instead, a glass of water appeared in Electra’s hand, which she offered me. I was almost afraid to drink, but I was more afraid not to drink. The last thing I needed was to offend a witch.

  It actually tasted like water. Really good water, in fact.

  “Who are you?” Selene asked when I handed the glass back to Electra, tilting her head to one side. “Let us begin there. From where have you come? To what purpose?”

  I had about a million questions for Selene but realized this wasn’t the time to ask them. Better to be honest and clear and get it over with. “My name is Emelie. I’m from America. New York. I came here to look for a friend of mine, somebody who traveled to this area weeks ago. I haven’t heard from her in a while and was afraid for her.”

  The women murmured to each other like I’d said something wrong, but whatever phased them didn’t seem to phase Selene. She only nodded. “What is it you do in New York? Your profession?”

  I swallowed. She’d probably know if I lied, wouldn’t she? Either way, there was no sense in taking chances. “Computers. Networks. Clients need information, files, I retrieve them.”

  “A hacker, then.” She gave me a knowing smile. “It is the word which keeps coming to mind when I look at you. You’re thinking it very strongly.”

  “I don’t like to think of myself that way,” I admitted, “though others do.”

  “Which is likely the reason the word is at the forefront of your mind. That which we want the least, we tend to focus our energy on.”

  “This is going nowhere,” Iris whispered.

  Hecate shot her a look of surprise, as did several of the others.

  “You seem to have forgotten that I am the one who makes such determinations,” Selene warned her. For the first time since, she turned from me to look at Hecate. “I merely wish to learn more about our guest.”

  “Guest?” I couldn’t help but blurt it out. It was too ridiculous. “I was brought here against my will. I was made mute, I couldn’t move. If that’s how you treat your guests, I can’t imagine that you’d have many of them.”

  The women gasped, muttered, whispered.

  I didn’t care what they did.

  I cared what Selene did. Something told me she was powerful enough to take my head off without touching me. Or to set me on fire with that magical, cool flame they used on their torches.

  Maybe I should’ve kept quiet when I had the chance.

  Her face didn’t move for a long time. Not so much as a muscle twitch.

  Until she smiled.

  It was dazzling, like everything else about her.

  “My apologies,” she said. “But I’m certain you understand the need for caution in situations such as this. The woman we search for is of particular importance to our coven.”

  So, she admitted it. They were witches.

  I was mixed up with a bunch of witches.

  Kiera, what did you get me into this time?

  3

  Alan

  “Why do they call this football?” Ainsley looked around the room to everyone in general, as the question had not been posed to any one of us in particular. “Everywhere else in the world, football is a different game entirely. Even I know that.”

  Klaus was sitting beside me on the sofa. He snickered. “Because Americans must do things their own way. What they call soccer is what the rest of the world knows as football.”

  She exchanged a frown with Leslie, who sat across from her at the chessboard. “I’ve always found organized sports to be something of a waste of time,” Leslie shrugged. “Even the names are rather arbitrary.”

  I shook my head. “Women.”

  Klaus nodded.

  “I’d watch myself, if I were you,” Ainsley warned him. Her eyes, which were so like mine, narrowed in mock anger. “You might not want to agree with him on all things, is all I’m saying.”

  He shrugged. “You see what I’m up against. I must choose my battles wisely.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me there,” I chuckled. My twin was a force to be reckoned with. I had been on the losing end of her sharp tongue many times.

  It occurred to me at that moment that I was satisfied with the turn life had taken. No, I wouldn’t have chosen for Gavin or any of the other members of our clan to die so needlessly. I would rather he still be alive to lead our clan, as he had for so many hundreds of years before the terrible day when our enemies found our home.

  There had been additional challenges since then, too. Life had not settled into comfort or peace in the aftermath of our return.

  But it had been weeks since Kiera had joined us and since then, things had settled down considerably. We had fallen into our old roles, ensuring the clan’s safety and secrecy from the outside world.

  Humanity had been through quite a lot in over a millennium, but there was little doubt they would still look unfavorably upon dragons. If anything, the improvements in technology would only lead to the truth of our existence spreading more quickly than we ever could have imagined.

  Even my own dragon had been strangely quiet and contented in the days leading up to that football game. As though he could find nothing to rage and roar about. A small blessing, to be sure. In his silence, I could hear myself think when making decisions on clan business.

  When Tamhas motioned to me from the doorway leading out to t
he corridor, I thought little of it. My guard was that far down. I joined him without thinking twice.

  Only when I noticed the deep frown, the creased forehead, did the dragon stir to life and my instincts warn me of what was to come.

  “What is it?” I asked, glancing over his shoulder to where Keira stood.

  “It seems as though we have a problem,” he murmured. “We ought to have a meeting on it. Right away.”

  “Everyone,” Keira added. In her hands was a beaded bracelet which she kept running her fingers over, turning it again and again. She seemed ready to explode with nervous energy.

  “All right, then.” I made the announcement to gather in the round room, between the cave entrance and our living quarters. It seemed as good a place as any.

  As I walked with Tamhas, I asked, “Is there anything you wish to tell me before everyone is gathered? You know I little appreciate being the last to know things.”

  “We found something out in the woods. Signs of a struggle.” His words came out sort, clipped. “Keira believes it has to do with that friend of hers from home. The one who located our mountain.”

  “You’ve proof of this?” I asked before remembering the bracelet she fretted over. It seemed a strange thing for her to carry as she did. If it belonged to the girl…

  What? What did it mean?

  Nothing good. I should have known the short-lived peace we’d enjoyed was too good to be true.

  By the time everyone gathered, all eyes on me for an explanation as to why they’d been pulled away from whatever it was they’d been involved with, I was seething. The dragon all but roared, demanding answers.

  “It seems we’ve had a visitor,” I announced, glaring at Keira.

  It was her fault for leading her friend to us. If anything happened to her, if she lost her life or was tortured for information, it would be on Keira’s head and not mine.

  I could only take responsibility for those in my clan. They were already more than enough for me to look after. Foolhardy friends could not be my concern.