Every Witch Demon but Mine (Maeren Series Book 1)

by Mercedes Jade

  Elizabeth silently agreed.

  She thought about her own tattoo. Given that vampires usually licked their bites closed, there had to be some sort of antibacterial aspect to their saliva. Witches must be the same.

  Elizabeth licked the cold metal, careful not to cut her tongue. She handed the pen back.

  Victoria dunked the pen into the little pot of ink and fiddled with the top of it to activate the pneumatic suction.

  “Close the circle,” Victoria asked them.

  Jill and Elizabeth looked at each other.

  Victoria glanced up when they did nothing.

  She sighed.

  “We are definitely going to need lessons for both of you.” Victoria looked at Jill. “Use your fire to create a barrier, locking us in along the charcoal circle lines.”

  Blue walls of flame leapt up, stretching all the way to the ceiling, where another circle was sketched, Elizabeth catching sight of it as she looked up.

  It was like sitting in the middle of a raging inferno.

  “Thin it out,” Victoria ordered. “Keep it strong, but reflect the heat outwards. We don't need to be roasting in here.”

  The circle thinned, until they could see some of the surrounding room through a blue, shimmering haze of Jill’s powerful magic.

  Inside, the circle felt like the dead space in a narrow alley, except the air was charged with potential.

  All the little hairs on Elizabeth’s arm stood up as power shivered over her skin.

  “Vic would love to taste you,” Victoria said to Jill.

  “Isn't your twin already busy enough, with three claimed witches and one of them pregnant?” Elizabeth asked. Jill had enough princes vying to feed on her.

  Victoria shrugged, but something flashed in her eyes before she looked back down at the fountain pen.

  “It’s not like he’s married to them, Liz.”

  Another reminder of how different the human realm was from Maeren.

  Elizabeth took the pen from Victoria, holding it awkwardly, as she waited for further instruction.

  It was heavy and felt like ice in her hand, seeming to absorb all the warmth from her fingers without heating the metal at all.

  Its cold drew the warmth down from her arm, once her hand was frozen.

  “Hurry up,” Victoria said, her left shoulder bared.

  “What do I do?” asked Elizabeth with a shiver. “Is there an oath or some magic words?”

  “No,” Victoria said. “Just think about what you want the magic to do, then poke me in the shoulder with the needle. Words are for ceremony. The magic is binding, without needing them.”

  Okay, thoughts of protection.

  Elizabeth stabbed the pen a few millimetres into Victoria’s skin, wincing, even though she wasn’t the one getting poked.

  She hated needles.

  The ink flowed out, in a black pool under Victoria’s skin. It immediately started swirling into a design.

  “Focus your power into the pen. Use your strongest magic and gather it from your centre chi, then let it flow down your arm, into your fingers, and out into the pen,” Victoria instructed.

  She sounded like she was reciting a recipe from memory.

  It had to be the lightning. Victoria would be sworn to silence in a moment.

  All in. This was no time for hedging bets.

  Hopefully, she wasn’t about to lose everything she held dear.

  Flower by Another Name

  Victoria wanted her strongest magic. Was the princess ever in for a shocking surprise. She thought Elizabeth was a wet wick with a little air magic.

  The air was her weakest power.

  Maybe Victoria wouldn’t recognize the strong lightning magic since she was barely a blue fire witch.

  Her excuse of borrowed lightning from Daemon’s claim was really getting old. It still was going to be her fallback if Victoria said anything.

  Elizabeth gathered her power and siphoned a tiny bit of air and lightning from her centre chi, towards the pen.

  The cold of the pen helped her, drawing her magic along with her heat. The pen began to glow white.

  Please, don’t let the pen explode with lightning.

  “Think about threads connecting us, then slowly remove the needle. Imagine the thread running through the needle as you pull away.”

  Elizabeth pictured the threads in Daemon’s claiming tattoo and imagined them connecting her to Victoria in the same way.

  She slowly pulled the pen out of Victoria’s skin, with the pen still glowing white.

  Victoria reached in the box for the suction tube and popped it onto her skin, over the tattoo of a fat, irregular shaped blob and a hollow, wiggly line.

  Victoria’s blood filled the tube quickly and she popped it back off.

  “Okay, draw your magic back up, out of the pen,” Victoria instructed.

  It was harder to do than letting her magic out, the power sluggish to return to her fingers, like she was sucking air through a narrow straw. She kept tugging, until the pen lost all of its glow.

  Victoria plucked the cold, empty pen from her fingers.

  “Can you keep the circle up longer?” Victoria asked Jill.

  “Maybe for a few more minutes. That spell did something to it from the inside,” Jill said, sounding as if she was straining.

  Elizabeth looked at the circle of flames surrounding them.

  There were crystalline cracks on Jill’s shield that were slowly climbing the blue walls.

  Had she hurt her sister with her dangerous magic?

  “Are you okay?” Elizabeth asked, reaching over to cup a hand over one of Jill’s shoulders.

  “It’s fine. It feels good, actually,” Jill insisted, shrugging her off.

  Victoria jumped right in, now that permission was established.

  “She’ll be fine. Okay, Liz, listen up. I’ve got my tat and we did the secret handshake, so you have to level with me. I want to know what you were doing in the library, and don’t lie to me about some stupid, healing books. Also, Blue picked the safest harem to join. I know Phil would have taken you as well. So, why would you go near Daemon?”

  Victoria was hella observant.

  Elizabeth panicked. It was too soon. How much had the other royals figured out if Victoria was so hot on their trail?

  Feeling bad about it, she still sidestepped Victoria’s question. “Daemon is kind of hot and the books were for my mom.”

  Victoria growled at her.

  “Later,” Elizabeth said.

  They were not going to tell Victoria everything a few seconds after she was bound. There had to be some way to test the limits of this bond first.

  “Uh, guys, I don’t think I can hold it,” Jill warned.

  “Suck your magic back in before the shield fully cracks,” Victoria demanded, sounding testy. “Don’t waste the fire.”

  Jill placed both of her hands at the base of the circle. Unlike Elizabeth’s slow tug of her magic back from the pen, Jill could absorb her magic in seconds.

  Elizabeth blinked and suddenly a vampire came into view as he stepped away from the far wall, where he had been hidden.

  She blinked again, but he didn’t disappear.

  She could feel his magic signature caress hers, without her sister’s powerful barrier locking in her lightning.

  This was the mystery vampire that had tasted her, after she left the ball. Her magic was sure of it.

  He also was the vampire from her dream. She’d had a good enough look. The healer who had burned himself with lightning, peeking at her through the mirror.

  He’d said they weren’t compatible.

  What an incredible lie!

  They hadn’t heard or seen him come in when they were doing the blood-oath. It seemed that sneaking around was something he had practiced a lot.

  Jill gasped in surprise at his presence, but didn’t move a muscle. All of them were frozen, as if waiting for him to say something first and confirm he wasn’t an illusion.
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  No, he was very real. Elizabeth could prove it with a simple poke at his mind, although given his lightning, she hesitated, looking him over instead as she sucked her magic in.

  He was short for a vampire, which was taller than an average human male, but still, considerably less tall than Daemon.

  His lesser height was compensated with a very powerful physique. Broad shoulders, thickly muscled arms, and a chiselled chest that were well displayed in a white, long-sleeved shirt that clung to his honeyed skin like it was part of him.

  It stretched over his flexed biceps as he crossed his arms at her quiet examination, but it did nothing to soften him. His muscles were cut like rock.

  The shirt carefully covered up the scars she remembered from the dream.

  She reached up, instinctively, and touched her fingers to the nearly healed bite he had left on her neck. They were both marked, but her scar was less savage than the wounds that still haunted him.

  He smiled at her as if he could read her thoughts, a twisted grin that mocked her for her empathy.

  She shivered. The tortured male from the dreams hadn’t wanted help or sympathy.

  The rest of him was flawless. His black hair was fastened tightly from his face in a thick, short ponytail at the base of his occiput. It fit with his asian warrior vibe. The skin of his face was pulled taut around his startling, cobalt eyes, lessening his facial tells.

  No scars marred his visage. No lines to tell his age. Just a dark, handsome male with all of his flaws under wraps.

  He examined each of them in turn with a cold, flat stare, the brief twist of his lips directed at Elizabeth gone as if she’d imagined it.

  She had thought she might find her mystery vampire, but not the other way around, feeling as unprepared to face him right now as when he first took her hostage.

  “It’s too late, George,” Victoria said.

  Elizabeth dropped her gaze from George and whipped it over to Victoria in disbelief.

  The princess pulled her shirt up over her tattoo before George got a good look at it.

  Elizabeth’s luck could not be this bad.

  “Victoria, won’t you introduce me to your charges?” George asked.

  Fuck. He hadn’t denied his sister’s address. This really was Prince George. The absolute worst prince for Elizabeth to have uncover her secret.

  He stepped into the rock garden with bare feet and very slowly walked toward them, seeming impervious to the sharp, uncomfortable rocks of salt.

  When he uncrossed his arms, Elizabeth could see the royal ruby winking from his left hand.

  George knew all about Elizabeth’s lightning.

  This wasn’t a simple guard, like she suspected, but a prince was beyond what she’d imagined.

  He was more dangerous than the situation from which he had saved her, in front of the library.

  “Blue. Flower Fairy. Meet the Prince of Darkness,” Victoria mockingly said. “Don’t shake his hand. He prefers to keep them clean of anything good that will taint his dark touch.”

  He didn’t even look at Elizabeth, again, or Victoria, during the introduction, only Jill.

  Her sister was a deer caught in the headlights, completely frozen. She knew George’s reputation. Everyone did and learned to fear it.

  He was a monster. What Elizabeth knew about what he had done to Victoria only confirmed the darkest rumours.

  “You malign me unjustly, Victoria,” George slyly protested as he came closer. “I only use my left hand to steal the souls from witches.”

  He reached out, quick as a snake, to grab Jill’s arm with his right hand, yanking her up from her kneeling position to stand in front of him.

  Jill dangled for a second before she hit him with her magic.

  “Hey!” Elizabeth shouted, leaping up.

  Power pushed from her chi, tasting all their mental shields, but not penetrating yet.

  George and Jill ignored her.

  Victoria jumped in front of Elizabeth.

  Before Elizabeth could do anything, Victoria knocked her back into the circle with a wave of her hand, like swatting a fly.

  Victoria then shielded Elizabeth with water, a whirling sheet of waves and whitewalls that was as thin as Jill’s fire and transparent.

  It was just as impenetrable as well.

  No way. Elizabeth screamed bloody murder, but Victoria ignored her.

  Elizabeth immediately levitated. The magic couldn’t be as strong at the top of the circle, without the salt surrounding it.

  Jill had set George on fire within moments of him grabbing her.

  Flames shimmered over him, for a few seconds, before he shrugged it off with his own blue-shield, like shedding a coat.

  He looked pleased by Jill’s attack instead of frightened. His smile was a twist of terrible excitement.

  Jill took a step back, trying to free herself from his iron grip on her arm. She stumbled.

  George’s hands caught her.

  She screamed, sounding panicked.

  It didn’t matter that George had saved Elizabeth once, healing her without obligation. He signed up for a world of trouble when he attacked Jill.

  Elizabeth smacked the circle’s line on the ceiling, pushing hard with her air.

  It whistled to her call, a high-pitched warning for anyone that didn’t get out of her way.

  Victoria wasn’t guarding her water shield over the circle, moving on to hit her evil half-brother hard with her fire. It may not have had the strength of Jill’s blue, but the smaller witch had the advantage of distraction.

  Victoria hit George from behind, and she was shooting to kill. Her green fire came roaring out of her mouth with a series of harmonic words that Elizabeth knew had to be old Maerenian language. She held her hands like claws.

  A tiger formed in the flames, its heavy paws outstretched to rip into George’s unprotected back.

  George pulled Jill up against him, lifting her off of her feet again as he twisted, narrowly missing the tiger’s strike.

  Jill wanted nothing to do with him touching her, using her earth strength to push him away, using both hands on his chest. She stopped screaming, instead using her energy for kicking and raining blows all over him, most of them landing.

  He grunted with the effort, but didn’t release her, planting his feet.

  The green tiger turned back for him.

  Elizabeth had enough. The shield of water was dancing under her magic like a bridge tearing itself apart in the wind. In moments, it would break, and she was going to rain down on George with all of her fury.

  Jill was chest-to-chest with him. He had cut down her fighting options, disabling her with close quarters that put his greater strength at an advantage over her speed.

  Something flashed in his hand, but Jill couldn’t hear Elizabeth’s shouted warning.

  George sliced down with his left hand, holding a small dagger. He hooked the sharp blade in the neck of Jill’s dress and pulled away, cutting through her pretty, white bodice and leaving her tattoo and a good deal of her shoulder bared. There wasn’t a mark on her from the palmed weapon.

  The tattoo of Jill’s claim flared, heavy magic from it slamming into everyone as the windows rattled in their sills.

  George suddenly looked sweaty and his skin went a sickly yellow before their eyes. His grip weakened.

  Jill flowed more than moved, liquid strength letting her twist as her opposite leg came straight up from the side and cut across their bodies to slam her foot into George’s face.

  Her body flipped right over with the twist as he released her, her kicking leg softly landing on the floor as she stood up facing away from her attacker.

  The fire tiger barely missed George as he was sent sideways a few steps by Jill’s kick. It turned back for him, but the green fire was fading.

  The windows rattled more violently and burst as Victoria’s water shield finally cracked, sounding like ice fracturing. Water sloshed down on the rock garden and flowed over the edg
es, carrying salt and Victoria’s magic.

  Jill ran for the weapons.

  Elizabeth used her air to catch all the shattered fragments of glass that had blown out of the windows before they hit the ground outside, pulling hard.

  She dropped, feet first and her hands outstretched, above her head, to call the glass, heading right for George’s half-hunched over form. Her glass fragments blew in through the empty windows, following her down.

  Victoria screamed her name.

  George shielded blue so hot the floor smoked under him.

  Elizabeth’s skin tingled with lightning as she got closer to the ground. Her vision sparked a bit.

  She knew her eyes were probably glowing with her true power and not only air. Jill hated it, said her eyes were eerie when they glowed with lightning.

  It made her look very much not human and that was probably what Jill really hated.

  They were witches and this was their world.

  Elizabeth dropped her arms above her head, a couple of feet from landing, flinging the glass obeying her air command to slice at hurricane speeds, down at George.

  His blue-shield turned black in an instant.

  She landed on the floor hard, the wood creaking forbiddingly under her force.

  Smoke from the restrained lightning burned through her slippered feet and black wisps curled up to make her cough, getting a nose full of fumes as she bent at the knees, trying to absorb the impact of her landing.

  The entire room shook.

  She face-planted next to the flickering green tiger, standing just outside of George’s circle, not able to stick the landing for full points.

  The doors to the practice room slammed open with air that wasn’t from her.

  Victoria pulled her up from behind, using a two-handed grip to slip under her arms and dragged her back from danger.

  “Fuck, Liz. What the fuck was that? Not fucking flower magic, that’s for sure!”

  Victoria cursed like a sailor before releasing her. She touched her green tiger and whispered more Maerenian words to reabsorb it.

  Jill rushed up beside them with a thin, slightly curved sword in her hands that she held at her side.

  Nobody looked at the door to see what was next. They still had a black-shielded threat to deal with first.