“Okay, okay, I won’t use magic while I’m in town.”
“Good,” Quill said. “Then you’ll be safe.”
They reached Fayetteville late in the morning. Sagely ran up the pathway towards the door of her townhouse, surprised at how much she missed it. She could hear yowling through the door. Muffy could always tell when Sagely was coming home.
The moment she opened the door, Muffy leapt into her arms. Sagely stroked her soft black fur and the top her head.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Muffy rested her white paws on Sagely’s shoulders and looked at her eyes as if searching for something. But after a moment, she dropped down and contented herself with rubbing her head under Sagely’s chin over and over.
Suddenly, Muffy pulled back, her eyes wide and ears held high. Behind Sagely, the others had approached, including Raina with her seal.
“Oh, your familiar is a black cat,” Raina said with a smirk. “How original.”
“This coming from the girl who named her seal Seeley.”
Muffy hissed, and Sagely held back her laughter. You go girl.
Seeley opened his mouth, revealing long jagged teeth, and gave a quavering roar. Muffy hissed again and swiped her claws, but they weren’t close enough for her to reach.
“Control your familiar or take her outside,” Sagely said. “He’s upsetting Muffy in her home.”
“I’m just here to help,” Raina said, smirking again. As Muffy’s claws raked Sagely’s arm, she wished she could throw her in Raina’s face and let her feel the wrath of her cat. But she didn’t want that savage seal to eat up her cat like she was a penguin. She probably looked like one with her tuxedo markings.
Seeley struggled, snapping his jaws open and closed. Instead of taking him outside, Raina set him down on the floor, where he went waddling towards Sagely at a quicker pace than she would’ve imagined. She jumped back, ready dropkick the seal if she had to. She dropped into ready stance, about to give him the vulture treatment, when he suddenly flopped down the floor, lifeless.
For second, Sagely thought she’d somehow willed it to die out of hatred alone, accidentally killed it like she had that dark warlock. She braced herself for Raina’s attack. But Raina spun on Quill, her eyes flashing.
“You put a sleep spell on my familiar?”
“She told you to stand down,” Quill said blandly. “You had your chance. It’s her home. We’re guests.”
Sagely shot Quill a grateful look and stroked Muffy’s head, calming her down. Raina snatched up her seal and stormed out, slamming the door behind her so hard that the wood cracked.
After that, they worked in awkward silence, no one mentioning Raina. But she must’ve be on their minds, too. Sagely packed up her clothes and a few items from the kitchen. She didn’t have much. She told Annie that she was moving out but would pay rent for the rest of the summer. Annie would be able to find a roommate easily in the fall when school started, and she’d get the whole place to herself for the summer.
Sagely didn’t offer much explanation why, just told her that something came up, and she was moving. She made sure to tell her it had nothing to do with her, but that she’d found some distant family. Annie gave Shaneesha a doubtful look, but she didn’t argue. For once Sagely was glad they’d never become close, that they weren’t even good enough friends to miss each other.
At last, the three of them loaded the last bag of clothes into the bed of the truck and climbed in. Raina was sitting in the backseat with her sleeping seal draped across her legs.
“Still sleeping,” she snapped at Quill. “You’re not allowed to interfere with another witch’s familiar. You taught me that.”
“I also taught you train your familiar to behave itself.”
“If it wasn’t for her freaky void magic, he’d be comfortable here.”
Quill’s voice went quiet, but forceful. “Stop this. Now.”
“Wake him up, right now,” Raina demanded, leaping from the car and rushing towards Quill. His mink stood up on his shoulder and hissed.
“I don’t know, maybe he could use a little nap for few hours,” Quill said. “Unless you make a cage to hold him on the way back, he’ll be riding in the same truck with all of us and the cat the whole way back. That’s a long way to endure an angry seal-cat fight.”
“You had no right,” Raina screamed. To Sagely’s surprise, Raina’s eyes filled with tears. Sagely had to remind herself that a familiar was more than a pet. That there was some bond she would never have Muffy.
“She’s right, Quill,” Shaneesha said. “It’s like drugging someone without their knowledge. Not cool.”
Before Quill could answer, Raina leapt at him, palm outstretched, like she’d do that palm-heel strike with the fireball. But nothing came from her hand. She pulled it back, grasping at her throat as if she couldn’t breathe, tears pouring down her face. The seal slipped from her arm to the pavement, and she fell to her knees beside it. Still grasping her throat, she choked out a sob, touching the seal before raising her face to Quill once again.
“That’s enough,” Shaneesha said, her face darkening. “Let her go, Quill. You’re in the wrong here. And you’re still standing by it, sticking up for a stranger who’s not even part of the coven. Betraying your own people for this pretty little piece.”
Sagely blinked back the hurt. She had to remind herself that the other girls had known each other for years, and she’d only just met them. And Shaneesha knew the coven rules. Obviously Quill had done something inexcusable by messing with Raina’s familiar.
When he didn’t respond to Shaneesha, she leapt forward, muttering something under her breath and making strange motions with her hands. Motions that looks suspiciously like she was tying invisible ropes. Quill’s familiar shrieked in protest. Sagely remembered what she’d heard about binding magic. She was not about to let that happen to Quill. Just as Shaneesha raised her arm to cast her spell Quill’s way, Sagely screamed inside her head. STOP!
Eighteen
At the last second, she tried to take it back, remembering the pulse of pressure between her palms when she grabbed the dark warlock’s head. Remembering the sudden release of that pressure, the splatter of warmth across her face, the strands of hair stuck between her fingers. The crunch of bone. She shuddered, barely able to force herself to look at what she’d done to Shaneesha.
Finally, not knowing became worse than knowing. She could feel magic crackling inside her, around her, making a strange silence in the outside world. Again, she thought of the black hole. The void. She opened her eyes.
Shaneesha’s head was very much intact. Intact with the rest of her body, which was locked inside a shimmering bubble.
“Let me go,” she yelled, stamping one foot. Sparks exploded from the pavement, raining down around her, and the hedge burst into flame. If anyone looked out the window or drove by right then, there was no way witches were staying hidden from the regular world much longer.
“Let her go,” Quill commanded sharply. Sagely dropped her hand, and the bubble disappeared. Shaneesha scuffed out some remaining sparks from around her feet, and a shower of water doused the burning bush.
“We need to get out of here right now,” Quill said.
Even Raina didn’t argue. She scooped up her seal, tears still streaming down her face, and climbed into the truck, her fingers lingering at her throat. Whatever Quill had done to her, it didn’t look very pleasant. Soberly, Shaneesha hopped in the back, too. After slamming the door, her eyes wide and her breathing coming quickly, she leaned forward to where Sagely had climbed into the front seat with Quill.
“How’d you do that?” she asked, looking at Sagely with a kind of terrified awe.
“I don’t really know,” Sagely said. “I just wanted to stop you.”
“I’ve seen a shield before,” Quill said. “It looked just like that. Except a shield is around the people you’re trying to protect. It doesn’t keep someone in.”
Great. More strang
e magic on Sagely’s part. Just what she needed.
Quill whipped the truck around one corner and then another, his tire hopping the curb as he made a quick, tight turn. Sagely glanced over at him. His jaw was set, his hands gripping the wheel with white knuckles. He stared straight ahead, but she caught his eyes checking the rearview. His familiar was racing over and under the seat, keening as if she’d lost something. And his magic was in chaos—she could feel the swirl of emotions tumbling through him.
“What is it?” she asked, touching his arm, hoping to calm him.
“I told you not to use your magic until you were trained,” he said in a quiet, deadly voice.
“You’re mad at me? I just saved your ass from two witches ganging up on you. Two of your own supposed friends, I might add.”
“Hey, I wasn’t going to hurt Quill,” Shaneesha protested from the back seat. “I would never hurt someone from my own coven.” She gave Quill a meaningful look, but he missed it.
He’d already pulled out onto Highway 16 and taken off. But he must have sensed it somehow, the way he sensed Sagely’s emotions, too, because he responded. “This is between me and Sagely.”
“Fine,” Shaneesha said, crossing her arms and sitting back. She stared out the window, her full lips pulled into a pretty pout. Raina sat silently staring out the window, letting the tears drown her face. She didn’t wipe them away or hide them. Sagely respected her a little bit for not hiding her tears. But it also felt like a passive aggressive move, forcing them to see her misery at the fact that Quill betrayed her for Sagely, a new and untested witch with no alliances to their coven until she went through the induction ceremony.
She couldn’t wait.
If only so the others would stop looking at her like some kind of poisonous freak. Since her parents died, she hadn’t really felt like she belonged anywhere. Certainly not as part of the families who fostered her. A long time ago, without even noticing, she’d stopped wanting to feel like she belonged.
So this was a new experience for her, this yearning to be a part of something. In a way, she felt like she already was, and by saying otherwise, they were denying her her rightful place. She was not anxious that she wouldn’t get in—she was pissed that they were acting like she wasn’t already one of them.
She reached for Quill’s arm again. He could be pissed at her, but she was not missing what she came for. “Hey,” she said. “We need to go back to the Tae Kwon Do studio. I have to say goodbye.”
“It’s not safe now,” he said. “We’ll have to go another time.”
“No,” she said. “We’ll have to go now. I need to say goodbye, and tell the masters I won’t be back for a few months, at least. It’s that, or I’m not going at all.”
“What’s the big deal?” Raina asked. “You get to quit your job and have everything you want. Just call them from a phone booth on the way.”
Sagely twisted around in her seat. “It’s not just a job. I love it. I love those kids. They’re counting on me. I can’t just disappear on them like…”
She broke off then, catching Quill’s look of concern. “What is it?” he asked, his anger melting when he saw that she was hurting. He took her hand and squeezed, braking the truck to turn back.
“I just have to go,” she said, swallowing past the tightness in her throat. “I know what it’s like to have someone be there one day and gone the next, okay? Don’t make me say it in front of the whole car.”
He nodded and swung the truck onto a side road before turning back toward town.
“You’re going to get us killed for her,” Shaneesha said.
“It’s important to her,” Quill said. “You knew this trip could be dangerous, and you wanted to come. Let’s do what we came for.”
Nineteen
When they arrived at the studio, a wave of nostalgia swelled in Sagely’s chest. The studio had always been an oasis for her turbulent emotions. When she stepped through the doors, calm descended. There was no drama, just the centered, disciplined feeling of the studio. Everything was in order, the cubbies on the wall filled with shoes, bags with sparring gear and pads on the floor along one mirrored wall.
Sagely stepped onto the familiar tough rubber mat where the kids were going through their patterns. She hugged them all for a long time, and shed a few tears, promising she’d come back for a visit.
“Don’t forget what you’ve learned,” Master Zuchowski said, giving her a rough hug. “And we’ll expect to see you back here for your fourth degree test.” She held both Sagely’s hands in hers and gave her a long, searching look. “Is everything okay?”
Master Zuchowski been a mentor to Sagely, though she wouldn’t call her a mother-figure. She would never have the kind of close, loving bond with anyone that she’d had with her mother.
“I’m great,” she said, avoiding her teacher’s eyes. Master Zuchowski wasn’t the warm and loving type, but she could always see right through B.S. excuses.
“Are you sure you want to leave us?” she asked. “If you’re in some kind of trouble, you’d let us know, right?”
Sagely nodded, this time lifting her eyes. She couldn’t leave her worrying. This was not the kind of trouble a Tae Kwon Do master could help with, not the kind that required an intervention or a police call. From outside, Sagely felt the thrum of tension in Quill, his worry and concern for her. It was killing him that she’d told him to wait outside, where he couldn’t get to her in a second if something happened. But Sagely knew there were no witches in there, and had insisted it would draw suspicion to show up with bodyguards.
After telling Master Zuchowski that she’d keep training, Sagely stepped out the glass doors. It felt like the last time, despite her promises. Quill rushed to her and took her hand. The magic between them instantly connected, as if she was a boombox that had been running on batteries and was now plugged into her power source. Everything felt right again when they touched.
“Everything okay?” he asked. “You seemed sad in there. Did something happen?”
“I don’t like goodbyes,” she said, remembering the last goodbye she had with her parents, how lame it was in retrospect, how little weight it carried. If only she had known she wouldn’t see them again. Not alive, anyway.
“No one forced you to say goodbye,” Raina said bitterly as they climbed back into the truck.
Sagely had just about had enough. This day had been exhausting, and it wasn’t over yet. She turned in the seat to face Raina. “Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m here, and I’m not leaving. So you better get used to it. I’m going to be a part of the coven, whether you accept it or not.”
Raina quirked an eyebrow and smirked. “I choose not.”
“Fine, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m a member every bit as much as you are. You’re stronger than me, anyway, so what’s your problem with me?”
“My problem? Oh, you don’t know. How about this for a reason? You came in out of nowhere and have this bond with Quill, the most desirable guy in the coven, not to mention the strongest. At least he liked me for real reasons, not because of something he can’t help.”
“Raina,” Quill said, his voice a dangerous rumble.
“You’re acting like this because of a guy?” Sagely asked, choking back laughter. “That’s just sad. I expected more from such a strong and powerful woman. It really is like we’re still in high school. Don’t we have better things to fight about than a man?”
“If he means so little to you, I guess you won’t mind if I add him to my collective, then?”
Sagely’s skin bristled with a charge of jealousy, as if she were a dog getting its hackles up. Quill was a bone worth fighting over.
“Not a chance,” she said.
“Hey, let’s just calm down,” Quill said, setting a hand on her knee. “You know what happens when you get angry. It could be dangerous. No more magic today, okay?”
She turned to face forward, but she couldn’t help but wonder what had pa
ssed between them before she entered the picture. How long ago did it happen? How much did they love each other? Why weren’t they together now?
“We’ve got a follower,” Shaneesha said. Quill cursed under his breath as the rest of them twisted around to see a black jeep taking every turn they took.
“I’ll lose him,” Quill said. “Sagely, take the wheel.”
Surprised, she grabbed the wheel and steered while he kept his foot on the gas and twisted around in the seat. He rolled down the window and hung his arm out like he was just getting some air on this hot day. But a second later, she heard two distinct pops. Quill grabbed the wheel and twisted, hopping another curb and gassing it. As they speed down a side street, she just had time to spot the jeep tilted to one side at the edge of the last street, both right tires popped.
“Good thing Hollywood doesn’t know about you,” she said. “It would make the chase scenes so much less exciting if you could just bust everyone’s tires.”
“I’m not here for excitement,” Quill said with a scowl. “I’m here to protect you and keep you safe. And you might want to help out with that by not showing off your magic in the middle of town.”
“I said I was sorry,” Sagely snapped.
On the drive home, the silence wasn’t a comfortable silence of four people lost in their own thoughts and listening to Bon Jovi on the radio. This time, it was an uncomfortable, intense silence. Halfway back, Sagely turned to Quill.
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I was just trying to help.”
“You don’t trust me? You don’t think I can handle Raina myself? I know how to solve a confrontation within my own coven.”
“I didn’t think,” she said. “I saw they were ganging up on you, and I got defensive.”
For a minute, he didn’t answer. At last, he said, “That’s all right. You didn’t know.” She could see him holding back a grin, but he refused to answer when she asked what was up.
Magic of the Void: A Reverse Harem Witch Series (Winslow Witch Chronicles Book 1) Page 9
