by Bailey Dark
“I was doing what I was told,” Lance nearly yelled.
“You were told to stick your tongue down my throat? Were you told to pretend you like me too?” Holly looked like she was on the verge of tears. It was so unlike what I’d expect from her. She’d always been so tough.
Lance’s face paled. “Do we have to talk about this in front of everyone?” he said lowering his voice.
“Everyone already knows. She saw us making out,” Holly said pointing towards me.
He huffed, “no, they didn’t tell me to kiss you.” He looked at me before finally admitting, “I did it because I was mad at her.”
My breath hitched at this truth. He did it to get back at me? My face fell as I watched Holly’s features harden. All his admission had done was to drive a wedge further between our small group. I felt sick, Lance looked ashamed and Mallory…well, she looked like she was chomping on popcorn, watching the most fascinating show on the T.V.
“I’m sorry,” Lance said, moving toward Holly. “I didn’t know you then. If I’d have known you weren’t just another snobby Avalon girl; I never would’ve taken things that far.” He groaned, running his hands through his hair. “Can we please start over?”
Holly’s rigid posture made me believe that there would be no starting over, but as she looked into Lance’s sorrow-filled eyes, something in her appeared to crack.
“Don’t ever do anything like that to me again,” she warned. “If you can promise that, we can start over.”
“I promise you, Holly. Never again.”
She nodded her head once. “Let’s get her ready,” Holly said, turning and stalking toward her room.
When her door closed, Lance let out the breath he’d been holding. “Fuck. That was intense.”
Mallory snorted and I couldn’t hide my chuckle. He had no idea.
Chapter Five
“Are you ready?” Lance asked from the foot of my bed. Mallory was on my right and Holly was on my left as I prepared to dream walk.
“Yes,” I said ready to get this over with. I had relived this night more times than I ever wanted to and I couldn’t wait for it to be the last time.
“Close your eyes and remember that night,” he instructed.
I did as I was told, summoning up the memory of that fateful night. Without too much work, I appeared in the middle of the room where the Knights laid dead at my feet. I watched as the cloaked figure slipped through the door with Excalibur. I knew by then where she was going. She was meeting the Dowager coven to hand over Excalibur, in exchange for a debt. My only mission was to figure out who she was so that way we may be able to discern why she owed the coven a debt in the first place.
I rounded the corner and stopped in my tracks at the sight of Tristan’s rounded eyes. I jerked back in surprise. He shouldn’t be here. Dreams were different than dream walking and there was absolutely no way for him to be here…unless.
“You can dream walk,” I said, riddling out the situation.
“Yes,” he admits, saying no more.
“Why did you come back here?” I ask.
Did the council have him recounting the events of that night? Did that mean they weren’t involved? Or, are they trying to figure out what all we know?
“Why did you come back here?” he asked sounding almost angry.
“You’re in no position to ask questions,” I bark, wanting to smack him. Seeing him in my dreams was one thing, but this was truly the traitor in the flesh standing before me, and it looked like he was yet again the puppet of the council. The thought pissed me off and had my blood boiling.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” I warned, brushing past him.
“You’re not safe. The council has recruited a few students to perform a locator spell. You should be looking for somewhere else to go before they find you, not wasting your time here.”
I spun around getting up in his face. “Don’t tell me what I should be doing. I wouldn’t trust a goddamn thing you said if you were the last person on this earth. Now, get the fuck out of my way.”
I went to walk around him, but he grabbed my arm, stopping me. “You need to listen to me. If they find you, they’ll bind your powers and lock you up. I’m trying to help you.”
“You are the reason they’re looking for me in the first place. If you wouldn’t have been working for them all along, they wouldn’t know what we know.”
“That’s not what happened, Gwen,” he said angrily. “But we don’t have time to get into that. You’ve got to leave here and hide.”
I jerked my arm out of his grasp. “I’m going to figure out who that is,” I said pointing toward her. “That’s why I’m here. Unless you want to tell me who she is, get out of my way.”
“No,” he said shaking his head. “I can’t let you do that.”
I cringed in disgust at the boy I once thought I loved. “Move, Tristan. You can’t stop me.
I just have to find out who she is and then I’ll leave.”
Before I had a chance to move, Tristan hoisted me over his shoulder. He was headed away from the woman, and I kicked and screamed in protest.
“Let me down, Tristan.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
The further away from the woman we got, the more frustrated I became. Why was Tristan doing this?
“Who is she?” I demanded. “You might stop me now, but unless you plan to dream walk forever, you can’t prevent me from coming back.”
“I’m stronger than you, Gwen. I’ll bind your powers myself if I have to.”
I screamed, wanting to hurt him as I pounded my fists into his back. How could I have ever cared about him?
“I hate you,” I seethe.
He slides me back onto my feet so that we’re facing each other. “I don’t think you do,” he said overly confident and barely containing his temper.
“You’re wrong. I hate you and I always will.”
“Is that why you asked me to fuck you earlier? I remember the way you rode my cock, Gwen. How much you enjoyed me being inside of you. There’s no way you faked that and there is no way in hell you hate me.”
My face paled. “H-how…” my words trailed off.
“Astral Projection and you joined me,” he said matter-of-factly.
I felt sick. The son of a bitch had tricked me into having sex with him?
“You bastard. You tricked me.”
He shook his head. “I’d never do something like that. You chose everything that we did.”
My body began to shake with rage. I slammed my eyes shut and balled my hands into fists. “Wake up, Gwen,” I said aloud, willing myself to awaken.
“No. Gwen. Wait. Please. I…love you.”
“Wake. Up,” I commanded.
It worked. I sat up in my bed with Holly, Lance and Mallory all staring at me in confusion.
“What happened?” Lance said, concerned.
“Tristan.”
It’s all I said before turning to the side and vomiting.
Hours later, Mallory still sat in bed with me, running a hand soothingly down my back as I cried. She didn’t say anything, she just cooed, soothing me slightly.
“Why?” I asked out loud, not expecting an answer, but Mallory spoke.
“I can’t begin to answer that question, Gwen. Men and women do terrible things when they are desperate and Tristan sounded desperate.”
“He said he loved me,” I recalled his last words before I woke. He had said the words.
“Why would he do that?”
She sighed. “To have power over you? To throw you off? Who knows why. What matters are his motives and they can’t be good.”
“I can’t handle anymore, Mal,” I cry. “I feel like I’m breaking in two.”
Her hand went to my hair, running through the strands. “Don’t let him have this much power over you. You’re too strong, Gwen.”
Her words struck a chord. He did hold too much over me. As it stands, I’ve done nothing but prove
that he still has the ability to break me. It was dangerous and reckless on my part. I needed to guard myself better. I had to resurrect that wall that I had started to build around my heart and lock him out. This was imperative for the four of us to move forward. If Tristan was as powerful as he’d proven to be, I had to be prepared to fight him right along with the council. He couldn’t find us. I wouldn’t lead him to the others.
“Do you want something to eat?” Mallory asked.
I nodded. “I’m starving.”
She stood, holding her hand out toward me. “Let’s go. You need to get up or you’ll get bed sores.”
I smirked at her. “Bed-sores?”
“Nasty things,” she said grinning back.
I took her proffered hand and stood on wobbly legs. As we entered the main room, Holly’s gaze met mine. She smiled timidly, which helped to set me at ease. If nothing else came from tonight, at least maybe, she and I were on the right path.
“We’re hungry,” I said as my belly grumbled.
“We’ve got grilled cheese and tomato soup. Will that do?”
“Perfect.”
We sat around the small round table eating our food and telling stories from our childhood. All talk of the council and today was pushed aside for basic camaraderie. I appreciated it more than I could ever state.
Mallory had a typical council upbringing. Her parents were both distinguished members of the society who lived within fifteen minutes of her school. She told us about her best friends, with whom she hasn’t spoken with since leaving for Avalon. The way she spoke about one of the girls, Hadith—Hady for short—had me questioning if she weren’t in love with her. The reverence in which she spoke of her was met with a twinkle that I’d only seen from someone in love.
“What about you, Holly?” I asked, curious about her story.
We’d gone to school together for years, but I didn’t really know her. We didn’t hang in the same circle and she always acted too good, until we were thrust together. Now, I see a girl who has been misunderstood and hidden her true self under a false façade.
She never got to answer because a sound—akin to humming—began in the distance and progressively got louder until it was deafening. All of us clutched our hands to our ears, trying to evade the harsh noise. Lance leaped to his feet, running toward the front door.
“Lance, no,” Holly screamed in terror, but he was already out of sight.
The sound stopped abruptly, and all three of us girls stood, huddled together behind the table, watching the door for any sign of Lance. Somewhere around three minutes later, the door opened.
“Guys,” a harried Lance called from the doorway. “We have a problem.”
Chapter Six
My body began to quiver at his words. Had the council already found them? Tristan had warned me that they were already doing a locator spell and I was too angry with him to listen. Had I doomed my friends?
“What are we gonna do?” Mallory asked with a shaking voice. All the bravado she had always shown had vanished without a trace. Her sudden terror did nothing to make me feel better.
We weren’t prepared to take on the council. Whether they were lacking powers or not, they had access to weapons. We weren’t trained enough to combat them hand to hand. We had powers, but we weren’t used to invoking them on short notice. We were no match to bullets.
“It’s not the council,” Lance said answering our unspoken question.
I let out the breath I had been holding at this news. If not the council, who? I looked to the two girls in confusion. Holly straightened and started to walk toward the door.
“Holly, wait! Don’t go out there,” Mallory begged.
“It’s all right guys. I know who it is. I’ll take care of it.”
Mallory shot me a forlorn glance but didn’t say a word. We followed closely behind her, not willing to let her go down without us. We owed her our meager protection. I was on edge, but even more so when the scene unfolded in front of us. Over a dozen women clad in head to toe black, stood next to broomsticks.
A coven.
“Hi mother,” Holly said sounding agitated. “Nice to see you haven’t lost your need to make a grand entrance.
Mother? It can’t be.
A woman of medium height, with long red hair, flowing to mid-back, stepped forward with a large smile. “Holly, I see you brought friends,” she smirked.
With my hands on my hips, I leveled Holly with an accusatory stare. “I thought you said your mom defected from the coven?”
Holly shrugged making me want to strangle her. What game was she playing? Why would she bring us right to the middle of a coven’s lair? When she had said family home, I wasn’t expecting it to be that of her witch mother’s ancestors.
“Tsk tsk,” the woman admonished at my glare. “No need to fear children. We’re here to help,” she said. “Someone has been trying to lower our wards and we can’t let that happen. This land is our safe space. If the counselor and other covens were to know where it was, we’d be compromised during holidays,” she explained.
“Does anybody have any fucking clue what she’s talking about?” Mallory asked under her breath. I shook my head in answer. I caught a portion of what she was saying. The council had clearly found someone to perform their locator spell, but thankfully the coven was stronger than whoever they had, and it alerted them right away.
We were safe for the time being from the council, but witches and sorcerers had never gotten along. What would they do to us, I wondered.
“Such worry,” the witch tsked. “There’s no reason to fear my dear. You’re but children. You’ve yet to make any allegiances to the council. There’s still hope for you. Since you’re here, I can only assume that means you’re running from them, which makes us allies,” she said smiling. “Come. Let’s talk,” she said whisking past us into the cabin. Eleven witches followed her.
“We’re not all going to fit in there,” Mallory harrumphed. I shrugged my shoulders and followed them anyway, eager to hear what she had to say. We didn’t have a plan or a hope against the council ten minutes ago, but perhaps with the help of one of the most powerful covens, we finally did.
I gasped as I walked through the front door into a very different cabin from where I had just come.
“Ah, you like that do you?” a stout dark-haired woman said pleasantly. “It’s a glamour. A mighty fine one if I do say so myself,” she beamed.
“We obviously can’t have the whole coven here with the size of what you were staying in,” Holly’s mother chimed in.
“Wow,” Lance said in awe. “This place is amazing.”
He wasn’t wrong. What once was a small dusky cabin, opened up to something that belonged in a catalog. It was enormous and styled to the nines. Rich mahogany wood stretched up the walls as far as the eyes could see, giving way to white marble floors. The decadence of the space had my mouth wide and eyes large.
“Sit,” she commanded. As if summoned from thin air, chairs appeared. “We have much todiscuss.”
We did as instructed and sat in our chairs. My hands were clasped tightly in my lap as my foot tapped a beat on the floor, as nervous energy coursed through me. The anticipation of what was to come was almost overwhelming. I was no longer frightened but almost… excited.
There before us, was a group of women who had been oppressed by the council for centuries. They had just as many reasons as anyone else to despise each and every member and I had no doubt that they would help us. The only question left, was at what cost?
I was all for overthrowing the council, but I wasn’t for murder. And from the very little I knew of the coven and their history, blood was always shed. I didn’t want any part of that. Not if I could help it. I would do what I had to do, to protect myself and my friends, but I would always try to do it peacefully first.
Holly’s mom looked at me cocking her head to the side as she perused me with interest.
“You’re strong,” she said finally
. “You have big ideas, but you’re unsure how to make it happen,” she nodded her head, smirking. “We can help…and don’t worry your pretty little head. We too would like things to be peaceful.” I narrow my eyes at the easy way she’s able to read my mind.
“Why are you running from the council?” she directed this question towards Holly. “You had yet to uncover your whole reason for being there. Why would you leave without warning us?” She said, raising her voice. Holly shrank under the weight of her mother’s wrath.
“Something’s…happened, and I didn’t have a choice,” Holly said through gritted teeth, trying to appear brave despite the slight trembling of her hands.
If I had to guess, her relationship with her mother was similar to my relationship with my father. Always trying to please and always coming up short in their eyes. I could relate and sympathize.
“What…things?” Her mother pressed sounding irritated.
“We uncovered that the council had lost their powers.”
The red-haired woman held her breath, while others behind her chatted animatedly.
“Does anyone else besides the four of you know?”
“Chancellor Andrews,” Holly admitted. “Aside from him, not that I’m aware of.
My mind thought about that question. The truth was, Galahad, Gareth and Tristan knew as well, but they were working for the council, so I decided not to correct her.
“Damn,” the woman hissed. “If that oaf knows, the whole damn countryside has to have heard by now. We’ll be in the middle of a civil war before the day’s end.”
“No,” I chimed in. “He knows the ramifications and he won’t say anything. He’s on our side. The council is just as much after him as they are us. He won’t tell anyone that you’ve stripped them of their powers.”
The stout woman gasped. “H-how does she know?”
The redhead sighed. “How do you know it was us who stripped the council of their powers?” She leveled me with a stare. I looked back-and-forth between my friends wondering whether I should be honest or not. They may be our only hope at survival, but I didn’t trust them.
