I listened hard, but detected no sneering condescension in her tone. Perhaps grief had softened her, but I didn’t expect that to last.
“I’ll get the coffee, if you dish up the soup,” I offered, and she nodded before rising slowly from her chair.
“Best you bring it to him. He asked you,” she said, after I’d filled a china cup three-quarters full and poured brandy to just below the rim.
I froze, but the half-stifled sob she let out as she ladled soup into earthenware bowls guilted me into picking up the cup and moving toward the door.
The Lord Regent looked up when he heard me at the door. Balancing the cup and saucer with care, I walked over to him and gave him his coffee. He took a sip, sighing gratefully.
“Would you like to pay your respects?” he asked as I crept for the door.
“Of course,” I said, flabbergasted he would allow me.
Swallowing, I advanced for the casket and looked into it. Someone, probably the lady’s maid, had fixed Regina’s hair into a formal up do and applied a becoming shade of lipstick and rouge to her lips and cheeks. Her eyelids had been brushed with light pink, her lashes stroked with dark mascara. She appeared asleep, as if she might open her eyes and smile at me. Until I really looked and saw the hard mask of death beneath the makeup.
She’d been lovingly dressed in the same gold gown I remembered from our first dinner together. Someone must have bound her stomach wounds with a bandage, for no blood leaked through to stain the fabric.
My throat constricted, the scent of the candles all but smothering me. I let out a small, strangled sob, and frantically tried not to cry.
“Knowing her, she didn’t run away like Matilda. She stayed to fight. Didn’t she?” The Lord Regent set aside his empty coffee cup on a round side table nearby.
I bowed my head, fighting tears. “Yes, my lord. She was very brave. She used her umbrella to stab the ravagers. She saved Logan’s life. That’s how she –” My voice broke, and I couldn’t continue.
“If she saved the sea witch’s life, all of Galveteen owes her their gratitude.” The Lord Regent came to stand beside me at the casket. Our shoulders touched, and I tried hard not to flinch. He didn’t appear to notice as he stared down at his wife.
“There were so many of them. I thought I’d destroyed all the ones that made it onto the beach. Logan and I were killing them in the water, before they could make it to land.” I clutched my hands together. “It’s my fault she’s dead. I know it is. And apologizing would be meaningless, but I am so dreadfully sorry. I wish it had been me instead.”
“I don’t,” the Regent said shortly. “We’d all be in serious peril if you had been. Don’t be maudlin, earth witch. You still have work to do.”
“I’m ready to do it,” I said, taking a deep breath.
He laughed beneath his breath. “You proved as much today. If I were you, I would get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow you and the sea witch began your adventure upon the waves.”
“We don’t know the spell,” I protested.
“You will when I share it with you,” he said. He looked me up and down, a lascivious light gleaming from his dark eyes. “I hope you enjoy sex. That sea witch will need to plow your field repeatedly if you want to save this island. I almost envy him.”
I stared at him, shocked both that he would look at me as if he wanted to take me right in front of his dead wife’s casket, and also that he would be so crude as to use terms like “plow your field” or refer to sex at all.
“Ask the sea witch about sex magic. I’m sure he’s figured that part of it out by now, judging by the way he looks at you and touches you every chance he gets. You’re all such whores, this should be right up your alley.” The Lord Regent brushed my cheek with the back of his hand, and I couldn’t repress a shudder.
“For your sake, I hope you enjoy his touch more than you do mine.” He traced my lips with his finger, then drew a line with his fingertip from my jaw, along my throat, and dipped to my breast, which he cupped in his palm before giving it a rough squeeze.
I jerked away in revulsion, knocking into the small table, which toppled over. The china cup and saucer crashed into jagged pieces on the wooden floor.
“Get out of here,” he snarled.
Needing no further urging, I ran.
Halfway up the stairs, I crashed headlong into Logan, who had been on his way down. He must have changed his mind about food. He had to be as hungry as I was.
“Hey!” he cried. “What’s wrong?”
I could only shake my head at him, my eyes bulging, before I darted past him and escaped to my room.
Once there, I threw myself on the bed and buried my head in my pillow. I screamed in rage and disgust, terror swamping me as well.
Logan burst through the door, his eyes wide. “What the hell is wrong? What happened?”
“What is sex magic?” I demanded, sitting up and clutching the pillow to my breasts. I could still feel that disgusting man’s hands on me, and I felt defiled and dirty. I wanted to burn my clothes and scrub my skin until it bled to erase his vile touch.
“Oh, shit.” Logan groaned, and then I knew the Lord Regent hadn’t just been trying to wind me up and scare me.
Logan closed my door.
“Leave it open! Don’t close it!” I screamed, not wanting to be locked in.
A hurt, bewildered expression crossed his face, but he opened the door. He approached the bed, but halted when I shrank back.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Dem.”
“No!” I spat. “You’re just going to plow my field. Repeatedly.” A sob escaped me, and I beat my fist against the mattress.
An astonished expression spread across Logan’s face. “What? Who said that to you? That horrible bitch, Matilda?”
“The Lord Regent,” I admitted, taking a deep breath. “And he grabbed at me.”
Logan’s face darkened. A blast of thunder reverberated outside, shaking the window glass as a sudden gust of wind slammed into the mansion.
“Stop it!” I cried. “Don’t. If something breaks, he’ll know you did it, and he’ll punish your family! Don’t give him that satisfaction.”
“Did he hurt you?” Logan’s eyes spelled flat-out murder.
I took another deep breath. I had to calm him down somehow or he’d bring the house down around us. “No. I’m sorry I sort of fell apart. It was nothing. Just him trying to scare me. He succeeded.”
Logan closed his eyes, his jaw jutting.
His voice hoarse, he asked, “Do you want me to tell you about sex magic?”
“Yes,” I said, barely able to breathe. “It’s really a thing?”
He opened his eyes, and a small smile quirked his lips, but anger still lurked in the corners of his mouth. “It’s really a thing.”
I considered that for a long moment. “Being a witch sucks,” I said at last.
He let out a strangled laugh. “You’re killing me, Dem.” He raked his fingers through his hair then glanced toward one of the armchairs by the window. “Can I sit?”
I shrugged. Of course he could. He sat and stared at me until I shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “Well, get on with it. Explain sex magic to me. Tell me why people need to do that to make magic. Because I don’t understand why. I know how to find my power and how to direct it. Why do we need to add sex? It’s just another gateway, isn’t it? But I have other gateways. Why does it have to be sex for the spell of Reutterance?”
“To generate power for one thing. I’m betting there’s some kind of talisman or athame we’ll need to charge with magical sexual energy.” He leaned forward, and seemed to relax a little when I didn’t draw back.
And we’ll use this talisman or whatever in the spell?”
“Yes.”
I sighed. “The Lord Regent said you’d already figured this part out. You had, hadn’t you?”
“I suspected. Spells this large require a lot of charging and a lot of energy. Sex magic is incredibly
powerful. That, and the fact the witches marked by Othala are always one male and one female.”
“People who are gay can’t make sex magic? Sounds kind of biased to me,” I critiqued.
He laughed again, but softly. “Same sex couples can make sex magic, too, but this spell obviously requires male and female energy. Some do, some don’t. This one must.” He looked at me for a long moment. “I don’t meant to sound arrogant, Dem, but I don’t understand why you’re so upset about this. I know you’ve felt the sparks between us. You find me appealing. So what’s the big deal?”
I glared at him. The conceited pig. So what if I found him appealing? That didn’t mean I wanted to sleep with him and make sex magic with him. And, Othala curse him, why did he have such blue eyes? And strong arms where I felt safe, and yet thrilled to feel his body against mine? My breath came shorter the more he stared at me. Maybe he was casting some sort of attraction spell on me. Did witches do that sort of thing to each other? He must be doing something because I’d never felt like this when looking at any other man on Galveteen. Damn him!
“Oh, Othala,” he said, his jaw dropping. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you? You’ve never had sex before.”
My cheeks burned, and I would have thrown my pillow at him, but I needed it to hide behind.
“Don’t you look at me like that! And don’t you dare laugh!” I shouted, mortified. “It’s not funny! I don’t know how to talk to men. How are you supposed to go to bed with a man if you can’t even make conversation with him?”
He smiled. “You do just fine with me. Talking, I mean.”
“Oh, so what?” I sniffed back humiliated tears. Why couldn’t he just go away? Why must he sit there and smile at me like that? “What difference does that make? And maybe I don’t want my first time to be in some sort of magical ritual. Maybe I want it to be with someone who wants to be with me, just for me, not to cast some spell.”
“Why can’t it be both?” he asked so reasonably, I glared at him.
“Because it can’t. Because it’s you!”
He blinked at me. “That’s pretty harsh. Why do you think I wouldn’t want to be with you? Have I ever given you any indication that I don’t like you?”
“Obviously you’ve forgotten last night,” I declared, lifting my chin.
Confusion clouded his face, then cleared. “You mean the kiss?”
I did throw the pillow at him then. “Of course I mean the kiss! You don’t even remember it, that’s how meaningless it was to you! So don’t lie to me and tell me sleeping with me is going to be any different. I’d rather you didn’t try to fool with me. I know we have to do this stupid sex magic, but let’s not lie about it being anything other than a way to charge this talisman and gather energy.”
Logan retrieved the pillow from the floor and tossed it back to me. I hugged it to my chest and glared at him.
“I’m truly sorry you didn’t get the hearts-and-flowers routine before you slept with someone. I even apologize that it has to be me when you obviously hate the idea. But it is what it is. Please don’t make it something awful. Sex is – well, damn it, sex is fun! And you don’t have to be madly in love to have a good time.”
“I never said I had to be madly in love! Or that you had to be either! I shouted. “I just said meaningful! There’s a difference!”
“How much more meaningful do you want than we have sex and we get to save the world?” Logan asked, shaking his head. “Othala, curse it, woman, it doesn’t get more meaningful than that!”
“Shut up!” I yelled, but a giggle escaped me. Damn him.
He grinned at me, and then we were laughing so hard, I’m surprised we didn’t rupture something inside. It felt good to laugh. A small ray of sunshine had fallen across our dreary, storm-ridden lives.
A rap on my open door halted our laughter as if we’d been caught stealing. I looked up to see Matilda, her mouth tight, eyes full of condemnation standing there holding a tray of soup and bread.
“I suppose this is just a joke to you witches,” she spat. “I should have known.” She stalked in, thumped down the tray on my dresser so hard soup sloshed over both bowls’ rims, and stomped out.
“Matilda!” I cried, stricken. I scrambled off the bed and ran after her, catching her by the elbow as she was halfway down the hall.
She tore away from my grasp as if scalded. “Don’t you dare touch me!”
“It was either laugh or cry,” I said, not sure of what I was going to say until I said it. “I don’t want to cry anymore. But you’re right. It was disrespectful, and I apologize.”
Matilda’s mouth pursed, but she didn’t say anything. Her eyes narrowed, and she appeared confused as well as righteously angry.
“Eat your soup.” She sniffed, either contemptuously or to swallow back tears, and walked away.
Chapter 14
The tethered sailboat bobbed on the waves. Her sails were furled, and I saw her name etched on the bow as we walked along the springy, buoyant dock. Sea Cursed. Of course.
“I don’t know anything about sailing,” I muttered to Logan, who walked ahead of me. “Isn’t that a big boat for two people if only one of them knows how to sail?”
“I can handle it,” Logan assured me, glancing back over his shoulder. His smile was on the subdued side. Raindrops glittered in his hair. The buzz cut was growing out. I tried to picture him with long hair, but couldn’t. The Logan I knew had short hair.
The Lord Regent led the way, and he halted when he drew even with the stern. He wore a black raincoat and a hat, which made him look more like a wet undertaker than a Lord Regent. He held himself tall, but his grief-stricken eyes reminded me painfully that Regina’s casket awaited burial, and we were not invited to see her lain to rest.
Regiment Thirteen formed in front of him and behind us, stoic and unblinking in the rain.
“Witches have worked on this yacht for two years,” the Regent remarked as we halted beside him. “Sea witches have cast wind-catcher spells on the sails and set up the solar and hydroelectric generators to provide light and even power for the motor.”
“Earth witches have enchanted the galley and hydroponic plants. As you can see, most of the bow is a greenhouse. You’ll have plenty of sustainable vegetables, and if you want fish, I’m sure, sea witch, you can persuade the waves to cast them up on the deck. And, earth witch, you will be able to recast the growth spells on the plants when the current ones fade. Below deck you’ll find a spacious main cabin and galley/sitting room. It’s been fully furnished with everything you’ll need, both to survive, and to live in comfort.”
“How long will we be out there?” I asked, needing to hear him tell me.
He flashed me a brief, condescending smile. “Years if you’re lucky and survive casting the spell of Reutterance. Once you set sail, you’re never coming back to Galveteen. You should know that. Even the non-magical people of Seawall North where you fraudulently grew up know that much.”
“Is it part of the spell that we can’t return?” I asked, ignoring his barb. A hard lump of panic and grief built in my throat, making it difficult to talk. I’d suspected I’d never come back, but it was another thing entirely to hear it spoken aloud and made concrete.
“I suggest you climb aboard.” The Lord Regent gestured at the Sea Cursed. A small gangway bridged the distance between the dock and the stern.
“But Mother and Chelsea! They are going be released once the spell of Reutterance has been cast aren’t they? How will we know they’ve been freed?” I wasn’t moving until I had the assurances I needed.
“You will have to trust in me.” The Lord Regent bared his teeth in a most unpleasant smile. “I can assure you of one truth – if I ever see either of you again, your mother and sister will only leave prison feet first in pine boxes.
Logan gripped my wrist and squeezed. “Let’s go.”
“But –”
Logan dragged me up the gangway and onto the deck of the boat. I staggered before
I caught my balance while he moved as gracefully as if he were on a dry land. Cushioned benches lined the inside of the stern, creating seating space. I collapsed onto one section, keeping my gaze locked on the Regent and the guards on the dock.
“You’ll find everything you need to cast the spell of Reutterance in your cabin.” The Lord Regent cupped his hands around his mouth to shout above the sudden squall of wind and rain. “Logan Reed and Demetria Stone, know your names will be honored forever by both witches and non-magicals. Guards!”
The guards snapped to attention and saluted us smartly.
After staring at them for an incredulous moment, Logan grinned and gave them a one-fingered salute back. I gasped at his temerity. However, instead of erupting in rage, I swore I saw the Lord Regent’s mouth twitch as if he were holding back sardonic laughter. One of the guards did guffaw, but I wasn’t sure which one. If I’d had to guess, I would have picked Captain Clark.
Logan climbed nimbly into the wheelhouse and engines throbbed to life. The tossing waves lost some of their vigor, and the rain lessened. Logan must be magically smoothing our passage out to sea, which cheered me somewhat. I wasn’t sure what kind of sailor I would be, and I didn’t want to give the Regent and the guards the satisfaction of watching me puke over the rail.
“Catch!” Captain Clark untied one of the ropes securing us to the dock and tossed the end to me. I scrambled to catch it, insanely sure I would fall overboard in the process, but I managed to stay on the boat. He caught my gaze with his and gave me a solemn smile.
Othala bless you, earth witch,” he called. “Othala bless the sea witch as well.”
Murmurs arose from some of the guards who repeated his words, although not as loudly. The Lord Regent frowned at first, but then even he lifted a hand and said, “Othala bless the sea-cursed witches,” in a markedly insincere voice.
Other guards undid the other ropes and tossed them to me before stepping back into formation. Some of them blessed Logan and me. I gazed along the line and most of the guards looked back at me with gratitude. No condescension, or worse, hatred. Perhaps in the blaze of the moment of seeing the sea-cursed witches off to cast the spell of Reutterance, they really did forget they didn’t like witches.
Sea Cursed: An Adult Dystopian Paranormal Romance: Sector 13 (The Othala Witch Collection) Page 15
