Every Witch Demon but Mine (Maeren Series Book 1)

by Mercedes Jade

  Red was crouched down in submission, but there was something about his posture that made Elizabeth realize he was moments from pouncing her illusion.

  His fear was so intense that he thought his only chance of survival was to attack as soon as the illusion black dragon foolishly accepted his surrender.

  Red wanted to backstab to fight another day.

  The last dragon disappeared before her eyes.

  She had almost forgotten about him. His serpentine body was the hardest to see, his hide a dark grey that blended in with the stone. Faster than she could blink it was gone.

  No way he moved that fast, not even disturbing the air as he ran or flew. He was the biggest dragon of the bunch.

  She tried to focus her lightning to search for him, but the dissonance affecting her illusions made getting their exact magical signatures right, difficult. There were too many of them.

  “Princess,” hissed one of the two dragons flanking Victoria.

  The royal witch froze all the water covering their scaly hides, turning them into living ice sculptures.

  Craptastic. They’d been made.

  Given that the king had just sent two of his sons after dragon heads, Elizabeth didn’t think there was any love lost between the dragons and the royals.

  Elizabeth opened her barrier and connected all of them again because this fight was turning against them.

  She was shocked when a fourth mind popped into her thoughts, from deeper in the cave. She blocked him from the others.

  “Little one, am I going crazy or are you here?”

  “Bit busy, Prince George. Are you not supposed to be taking some heads instead of leaving us all the work? There’s a lot of dragons here with their heads still attached to their bodies.”

  Unfortunately, Victoria’s dragons didn’t stay frozen long.

  Elizabeth used illusion to make it look as if Victoria was walking towards the two dragons as they shook off the ice coating their scales like wet dogs, while simultaneously telling the real Victoria to ‘get the hell out of there,’ using telepathy.

  Illusion Victoria shimmered as the fake wall had.

  Elizabeth struggled to try to get into the subconscious thoughts of Victoria’s dragons to find a better lever for her illusion.

  Her sloppy work would have to do for the moment, her mind divided dangerously already.

  “Shut off the fire, Wicked. It’s like a never-ending river and we can’t attack if we’re constantly shielding. I want to bring out my snakes to play.”

  “Show me where you are, little one. I will slay any dragon that dares to threaten you.”

  “Uh, Liz, there’s another me about to get eaten by a couple of dragons.”

  “They can’t see you if you keep walking and look straight ahead, Elf.”

  She held her breath as Victoria made her careful way.

  George was repeating his command to tell him her location.

  Victor was also splitting his attention between his sister and hers, sending more worried thoughts her way.

  This was way harder than just having her mother and Jill in her head, while she hunted a single vampire.

  Her focus was so divided that when the last dragon walked right up to her, while Jill screamed, Elizabeth didn’t avoid the hand that grabbed her by her wrist.

  She stumbled into his arms. Heat engulfed her, the fire-lord warmth boosted by something that sparked over her skin, a tiny series of shocks that brought her nerve endings to life.

  It didn’t hurt terribly, but the warning was apparent. The body holding hers was charged full of power that could burn right through her best shields.

  Shifter dragons was what Victor had said.

  The last dragon had shifted into a vampire.

  He looked at her like she was about to become another neck notched in his belt.

  Good thing she still had her daggers.

  She moved her free knife hand to his groin, with one of the daggers. She also took a page from Daemon’s book and looped a white bracelet of lightning around the wrist of the hand that dared touch her. She didn’t shield the heat for him, either.

  The dragon shifter roared his displeasure.

  Hopefully, he couldn’t breathe fire in this form.

  “We need to retreat!” she sent to everyone.

  “We’re at a portal in a cave that goes to the Royal Castle library. Are you coming?” She sent privately to George, not mentioning the dragon she had just captured.

  There were more roars of dragon displeasure as the other two dragons that had been flanking Victoria discovered her illusion.

  The real princess was currently retrieving her knives from the Red dragon’s hide, with a wave of her hand, and letting them thud back in, stabbing him mercilessly.

  Red must have pounced on the Black illusion when the grey shifter had grabbed Elizabeth’s wrist.

  Red’s scales were bloodied, but Victoria’s attack wasn’t slowing the beast. He was tougher than he gave himself credit for being.

  Elizabeth’s illusions were toast.

  “At least, you are not alone this time, little one.”

  George was getting closer. She could see cave walls and flickering torches, and hear the cacophony from their fight, echoed back, in his mind.

  “Douse the fire, Wicked.”

  Elizabeth couldn’t guard the shifted dragon and weave the kind of mind control Jill wanted.

  She looked up at the male she had lassoed with her lightning, breathing in the scent of smoke and something that kind of reminded her of the ocean.

  Was he a water-fire elemental, like the royal twins? That was incredibly rare.

  It surprised her enough that she asked, “Who are you?”

  “Your doom or your saviour, depending on your next actions,” he replied.

  She narrowed her eyes on his soot-stained face, but it was hard to distinguish his features with all the fog and smoke in the cave.

  There was no way she knew him.

  She tried to dive into his mind, but the barrier she met was thick and shifting as fast as her lightning flickered.

  This time she pulled back and reached up with her free hand to grab him by the ear, pulling down on it ruthlessly.

  “I could say the same to you, but I would rather escape with my friends than cause more unintended death. We stumbled upon your cave by accident,” she admitted.

  There had been something in his eyes, more human than the rest of him, and that was saying a lot for a creature purely of Maerenian descent. She hoped a plea to that humanity would be heard.

  The lowered head still towered over her and shook with laughter. “Geer is going to want to keep you, so I can’t let you get killed,” he said, twisting out of her hold.

  Her knife met a shield of water, freezing her weapon until she dropped it, or else risked losing her hand to frostbite as well.

  The lightning she had looped around his wrist tugged her by his greater strength.

  With disregard to how he was burned, he ripped her off of her feet. He caught Elizabeth up in his arms, carrying her like a baby and turning to leave the cave, with her as captured booty.

  The sudden halt in his hasty exit was accompanied by Victoria screaming in her head, as well as out loud.

  “Drop my witch, fire-lizard!”

  Elizabeth doubted a mere shout stopped the shifter. Victoria must have him by the balls, somehow.

  “Let me go if you ever want baby lizards,” Elizabeth suggested as she made a guess as to how Victoria stopped the shifter.

  “I was merely going to take you to Geer, for safe keeping, while I returned to help out your friends,” he replied, letting her down to stand on her own feet.

  She caught sight of the dagger, held up by only its water core handle and Victoria’s magic.

  Yeah, freezing that dagger wasn’t going to keep him safe from castration.

  “My sister, my Lasier, and my male companion are all under my protection,” Elizabeth informed him as Vict
oria carefully walked up behind them.

  “Seriously, Liz? First dragon fight and you’re already being carted off to be added to the treasure pile? Try a little love zap like you gave the green monster next time.”

  “Thank you. I’ll keep in mind the kill first, ask questions later mentality for my next dragon fight.”

  “There will be no more dragons,” Victoria retorted. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to be featured on every wanted poster in Dragos after this.”

  Everyone gunning for her wouldn’t be anything new, but now wasn’t the time to reveal it to Victoria. The princess was getting pretty steamed up already.

  “Why aren’t your buddies trying to flame us right now?” Elizabeth asked.

  Other than the big black fighting Jill and Victor, the other dragons were pacing around them making threatening snorts and growls that didn’t even come close to the fiery destruction of earlier.

  “He spelled something,” Victoria spat out, spinning around to see what Elizabeth had already noticed.

  “We could bargain,” the shifter offered.

  Elizabeth tried to penetrate his mind and got blocked again.

  No way she could trust him.

  “Victoria, come and hold this shifter, so I can try something.”

  The shifter didn’t take his change in captors well.

  Victoria looked like a kid giving him a hug from behind. The princess slid another water dagger, by its magic core, to cover their hostage, no matter which way he twisted, and let it hover there.

  She kicked his legs, from behind the knees.

  “Kneel,” Victoria demanded, every ounce the royal.

  “Princess, you will be the one kneeling,” their hostage promised.

  Elizabeth dropped the human minds and grabbed for the dragons again. They were still strange, but her magic was better prepared for the feel of them.

  This kind of lightning was ever malleable, learning new connections.

  She wasn’t able to get all of them, feeling at least one or two slip from her grasp. It was like trying to net every single butterfly in a small swarm and having one flit away while she swooped in the other direction.

  The mind of the shifter Victoria was holding still felt different from the other dragons, now he was in vampire form.

  She left him alone and sunk deeper into the subconscious of the dragon attacking Jill, but all she could detect were instincts and not individual thoughts.

  Burn, the dragon simply thought.

  She focused on the feel of the blistering heat she had felt against Jill’s shield and let it lead her to the dragon’s chi.

  It was humongous, brighter than she ever thought possible, like an exploding sun in his chest. The fire seemed to be fed directly from his chi, an endless supply of magic that Jill wanted her to somehow corral.

  Sleep, she thought to the dragon.

  Even with all her lightning, she wasn’t sure she could overpower a chi like a dragon’s sun.

  She hadn’t sent all those vampires and demons back to hell by being stronger, just by employing clever illusion and surprise.

  Victoria shouted something. Elizabeth didn’t hear it.

  She closed her eyes, not watching when the shifter bent down as if to kneel, then reached behind himself to grab Victoria’s legs, pulling them out from under her in one swift jerk.

  Victoria’s knife fell to the ground, but Elizabeth didn’t pay it any attention. Her focus was fully on her own task.

  Sleep, she thought to all the dragons. She pushed her simple thought deep into their minds.

  She slowed her breathing, imagined the blistering heat as merely a warm, sunny day that heated their scales like a snake baking lazily on a boulder.

  They needed to close their eyes against the bright sun.

  Their limbs felt so heavy. Stretching out their tired muscles, they let their bodies drop down on the floor of the cave to rest.

  Gentle hands picked her up off the floor.

  “Daemon?” she whispered, snuggling into his chest.

  She felt for her neck, a soreness that pulled her fingers to it and found the punctures left from fangs and a bite she couldn’t recall.

  Had she fallen asleep with the dragons, caught under the spell of her own magic?

  “I tore the dragon biting you from your neck. Your mother can heal it. Don’t electrocute me, little one. I will bite back and you’ll have more scars to add to your growing collection,” warned George’s voice.

  She shivered, but only tucked herself in closer to the prince threatening her. He felt safe, ironically.

  “How can you threaten a half-dead witch?” Victoria’s voice complained.

  Elizabeth was still too tired to open her eyes. The arms holding her were warm and secure. Best of all, she didn’t have to use her own muscles to walk. She could sleep.

  “You’re one to talk. I heard you still threatening that other dragon, while he had fangs in your throat. Do you think you could do less talking and more stabbing next time?” Victor asked, and he sounded furious.

  “You missed him by a mile with your daggers. He was fucking fast, Victor. Like a goddamn cheetah instead of a dragon.”

  Okay, both twins were mad and alive.

  Somehow, both Elizabeth and Victoria had gotten bitten by dragons, but the others must had defeated or chased them off.

  “Jill?” Elizabeth croaked out.

  “I’m here,” her sister reassured her. “Do you know where Daemon is right now?” Jill asked.

  Elizabeth didn’t think the question was intended for her. She had been unconscious, so how would she know Daemon’s whereabouts?

  It was a question Elizabeth desperately wanted answered, too.

  “Daemon wasn’t with me,” George said. “We didn’t hunt together. I chose to look for a rogue dragon at the banishment caves and he went deep into the Wastes.”

  “Daemon is on his way, little one. When you fell unconscious, I broke your confidence and called to him with my mind. I expect you to explain to him how your lightning ended up activating my own dormant powers in return for this favour,” George whispered into her mind, using his own lightning.

  It was the first time anyone had ever used lightning in the same way as her. That almost shocked her away, but the lethargy plaguing her body was too strong.

  “Is it normal for her to sleep after using her power?” Victor asked.

  “It’s whatever she did to the dragons to put them asleep affecting her, too,” Jill explained, figuring it out.

  Was Jill crazy, revealing the extent of her magical telepathy to George? Mind control was the obvious conclusion.

  George didn’t act surprised, merely grunting a response. He climbed stairs, the motion jostling her more awake, until suddenly she felt the portal.

  She grumbled as the cold and powerful darkness swallowed her, forcing her unconscious, once more.

  Fool for Love

  Elizabeth woke up the second time surrounded by home.

  The smell of mint tea, for when she was sick; the comforting weight of double blankets, that made her sweat out the worst of her fevers without a chill, when they broke; and the familiar sound of her mother’s uneven gait, a little limp from running back and forth to take care of her sick daughter, and straining her bad foot.

  Not ready to open her eyes yet, she reached with her mind first.

  “Mom?”

  “We have company. Let me send them away, first.”

  “Jill, tell them she’s awake and going to be fine.”

  Her sister’s body, beside her, shifted when their mother gently shook Jill and gave the order.

  They hugged, and Elizabeth opened her eyes to see Jill’s relieved smile.

  “Alright, I will drag the mourners from our doorstep and tell them the funeral’s cancelled.”

  “Is Daemon—?”

  Jill looked like she was going to answer, but their mother shook her head.

  “I’ll explain once you have gotten t
he rest of them away. She deserves some privacy when she hears it. You have a job to finish,” their mother said.

  Elizabeth sat up as her mother put a warm cup of tea in her hands. She’d added a generous amount of honey and something from the garden that filled Elizabeth with strength.

  She drank every drop and let her mother make her another cup before she asked her what she was dying to know, again.

  “He’s alive,” her mother replied.

  Elizabeth forced herself to be patient, taking another sip of tea.

  “Where is he?” she asked in what she hoped was a normal voice.

  “Sitting on the throne.”

  Elizabeth drank the rest of the cup.

  “I see. Where is the king?”

  “Nobody knows. There was an argument when Daemon returned with the heads.”

  “What heads?” Elizabeth asked.

  She knew Daemon was supposed to bring back a dragon head, when she had been looking for the portal.

  A firm earth-hand from her mother helped her get out of bed.

  They walked over to the window. Her mother grabbed the teacup from her before she dropped it.

  There were five dragon heads mounted by the far tower wall. Red and black heads she remembered vividly, the green dragon that she had electrocuted, and the two dragons that Victoria had tried to freeze solid.

  Daemon had collected every dragon’s head, except for the one shifter that had changed into a vampire.

  It was a brutal display.

  Even though she had taken down one of the dragons herself, it made her sick to look at their heads.

  She remembered how it had bothered her when she’d watched the black dragon walk over the fallen dragon’s body with disregard.

  Had Daemon hacked the green dragon’s head off with as much callous indifference?

  “He’s insane,” Elizabeth whispered.

  “I know it’s shocking, but I believe Daemon planned this from the beginning. He is a demon. He is a prince. He has overthrown his father and taken the throne. He has provided you with five reminders of what will happen to anyone that gets in his way.”

  “The traitor can’t be him,” Elizabeth said, shaking her head at the window. She couldn’t deny the horrifying sight out there as easily.