Magic of the Void: A Reverse Harem Witch Series (Winslow Witch Chronicles Book 1)

by Lena Mae Hill

  With a jerk, he clamped a hand down on the faery’s face. Her shriek was cut short, and silence fell over the yard. Quill slumped sideways into the dirt beside the faery.

  Before Sagely could ask if the queen was dead, Fox stepped forward. His eyes met hers across the yard, and a traitorous thrill passed through her, trembling her blood. She realized then that Quill wasn’t ready to pounce, his nostrils flared with jealousy. He couldn’t feel her anymore. She couldn’t feel him. His magic was gone.

  She wanted to howl with the loss of it, the emptiness it left inside her.

  Fox smiled and glided forward. “She’s no longer the strongest faery in the Three Valleys,” he said to Quill’s slumped form. “I am. I want the human with the faerie blood. I challenge you, strongest of our kind to strongest of yours. Winner gets the girl.”

  “No,” Sagely gasped. “He won’t win.”

  The stricken looks on the faces of the witches told her she was right.

  “I will fight in his stead,” she said, stepping forward and clearing her throat. “Right now, he’s not the strongest in the coven. It’s me you want. So challenge me.”

  Quill’s head snapped up. “No,” he roared, his green eyes sparking.

  “I challenge you,” Fox said to Sagely, a greedy smile on his red lips.

  “Challenge accepted.”

  Fox sprang toward her, flying through the air over Quill’s head. He landed in front of Sagely in a crouch, and their eyes locked. Crap. He was sexy as hell. Before she could go completely under his spell, she leapt into the air and planted a front kick directly on Fox’s gorgeous face. He leapt to his feet, stumbling backwards with blood gushing from his nose. Magic coursed through her, pulsing dark and light, dark and light.

  Before Fox could recover, she delivered a quick series of blows. One to his face, then a high block when he tried to hit back, and while his arm was up, she sank her fist into his gut. He doubled over, and she grabbed the back of his neck and hurled him to the ground using his own momentum. She crouched in ready stance, waiting for him to stand.

  He pushed up on his hands and spun like a top, knocking her to the ground. They tangled together, and while she was still disconcerted, he pounced on her, pinning her down. His face sank to her shoulder, and she felt a strange pull as her body melded with his.

  Suddenly, she was jerked up towards him, electrified. Waves of ecstasy rolled through her, and she curled her hands into his soft curls, scratching her nails against his scalp. She wanted more of him, to absorb him and devour him. The thought startled her, and she realized he’d bitten her just where her neck and shoulder joined. Crap. It was going to be over in seconds, when the venom hit, and she’d barely landed a blow.

  She caught a glimpse of the coven, holding Quill back by both arms as he sagged against them, struggling forward even as his strength failed. He was dying, and now she was going to die, too.

  “Add Quill to your collective.” The voice came from inside her head, booming and commanding.

  Her head snapped up, but Fox gripped her hair and pulled it back down. She gasped and writhed beneath him, tortured into helpless submission by this faery gnawing at the hollow of her throat. She couldn’t seem to move. She thought she might be about to die of pleasure, if that was possible, though she could clearly feel the pain of his tiny teeth ripping apart her flesh. It didn’t compare to the waves of pleasure racing across her skin, through her veins, in her flesh and bones and blood.

  His fingers were tight in her hair, and his breath was coming fast. With his free hand, he shifted her leg so he was between her thighs, his hard body tight against her soft one. As his tongue caressed her torn flesh, he pressed himself harder against her. She shuddered against him, losing herself completely for a moment. The pleasure of being devoured by a faery overcame her. Blackness swallowed her vision, stars exploding across the midnight canvas.

  “When you add a warlock to your collective, you can share magic,” the voice inside her head urged, jerking her back into a dazed awareness. “Add him and open the channel to get your magic back.”

  “But how? I’m not old enough to have a collective.”

  “That’s a coven rule, not a law of magic. DO IT.”

  “How?”

  “Invite him. Hurry, before it’s too late.”

  She felt silly even thinking it inside her head, but she didn’t know if she could do it out loud. “I’m inviting you to join my collective, Quill,” she said inside her head.

  This time, Quill’s voice growled, “Accepted.”

  A burst of his beautiful magic exploded inside her like a firework, and the symbols on her ring lit up with blue light. She threw off the artificial pleasure charging through her veins and hurled Fox off her, leaping to her feet. Every second counted, and she had to do whatever damage she could while she was able. She leapt at Fox, now on his feet, too. Suddenly, she felt like a ninja, jumping five feet into the air and delivering a spinning side kick to Fox’s head, then flipping over, still in the air, to swipe his legs out from under him.

  What the…? She’d never been able to do that before.

  She landed on Fox, her thighs tightening, her knees crushing his hips.

  “Don’t meet his eyes,” Willow screamed.

  Sagely grabbed his head in both hands, covering his eyes. Now would be a great time for some exploding heads. The magic vibrated inside her, threatening to blast him straight to hell. His lips were shiny with blood, her blood, like he was wearing lipstick on his perfect, round little mouth.

  “I’m not your girl,” she said. “I’m not anyone’s girl except my own. I can make my own choices, and if I choose to kill you right now, I will.”

  “I surrender,” he said quickly, his hands gripping her forearms. But he didn’t pull them away, maybe feeling the magic building there and knowing if he tried, she’d squash him like a bug. His fingers stroked her arms, and shivers raced through her, making her arch her back like a cat being petted. She couldn’t seem to shake the faerie allure. She wanted to kill him and kiss him at the same time.

  Damn, that’s creepy.

  “Don’t touch me,” she barked, lifting his head and slamming it onto the dirt.

  “You might be a witch now, but you can’t deny the faerie inside you,” he said. “That’s why my venom strengthened instead of weakened you. We’re of one blood—fae blood. Killing one of our own is like cannibalism. Let me go, Sagely.”

  “Why should I? You wouldn’t have let me go.”

  “Did you not hear me? I’d never kill a faery. I was giving you strength, not trying to kill you.”

  That gave her pause. Because in all that time he’d been pinning her down, he certainly could have ripped out her jugular, or broken her neck, or any manner of things to kill her. “You have a funny way of showing affection,” she said at last.

  “You even have a faerie name,” he said. “We all have the names of plants. Don’t you want to know how your mother knew that?”

  “Shut up,” she growled. “Don’t you dare mention my parents. You know nothing about them.”

  “But I do,” he said softly, raising his hands to her arms again.

  This time, the shiver that went through her was more like a chill. “Did you kill them?” she asked, her throat dry.

  “I’d never hurt a faery,” he said. “It’s impossible for a full-blooded fae to kill one of our kind. I wanted to take you home to our troupe, not kill you.”

  “Oh, and that’s so much better? Kidnap me and hypnotize me into being your sex slave? How merciful you are.” Her fingers tightened, and a pulse of magic traveled down her arms. She stopped it at the last second, before it left her hands. But he must have felt it, because he winced, then rushed to speak, his breath coming short.

  “There are things I can tell you,” he said. “Don’t kill me. I’ll agree to let you stay in the coven if that’s your will. No more attacks.”

  “No violence, and stop hypnotizing me with your eyes, and I’
ll let you live long enough to make a deal with the coven.”

  “Agreed,” he gasped, his face contorting with pain.

  She released his head slowly, and he blinked up at her with bewildered eyes. Eyes that pulled her in like a whirlpool of desire.

  “Stop it,” she warned, clamping her hands over his eyes again.

  “I can’t,” he said, throwing up his hands. “I can’t stop it any more than you can.”

  She lifted her hands again, pressing them into his shoulders to hold him down. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You don’t think I feel the same thing you do when our eyes meet?” he whispered, his silky brown eyes full of vulnerability.

  She remembered then what Willow said. That all faeries have that attraction to each other. Was she really like that to him? Crap. How did faeries survive the attraction without it killing them?

  Someone cleared her throat behind Sagely, and she tore her eyes away, confused. For a minute, she’d forgotten anyone else was there. It had been just the two of them.

  “Why don’t you dismount the faery now, and we can work on that truce,” Majori Yordine said drily.

  Sagely’s cheeks burned as she leapt clear of Fox. He staggered to his feet and brushed off his tan pants and green shirt.

  “Wait,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “If all faeries are named after plants, how are you named after an animal?”

  He bowed slightly and held out a hand. “Fox Glove,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it, every inch the chivalric gentleman. “Pleasure to make your official acquaintance. You’ve proven yourself a formidable foe. Let’s talk politics.”

  Sagely had no interest in talking politics.

  She turned to see Quill lying on the ground, Raina with her hands on his chest, her attention laser-focused as she chanted under her breath. Willow was bending over his bite, her mouth suctioning out the venom. Sagely pulled her eyes away, still a little squeamish about that part. She ran to Quill’s side and dropped to her knees, lifting his head into her lap.

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  “He’ll live,” Shaneesha said, standing behind Raina with her hands on her shoulders. “But his magic is all jacked up.”

  Sagely stroked back a strand of his blonde hair that had come loose from his little knot. Her hand lay across his forehead, and she felt what Shaneesha meant. His magic was roiling and dark. Had she done that?

  “The venom is gone,” Willow said, sitting back on her heels and wiping her mouth.

  “I’ve healed his physical wounds,” Raina said, standing.

  “He needs to rest now,” Majori Ory said. “Get him inside.”

  Eli, Ingrid, and some of the other young witches lifted him and carried his unconscious body inside. Sagely started to follow, wanting to be with him, needing to. It was a physical need now, some kind of bond beyond their magic. Panic crept through her when Majori Romero stepped into her path and held up a hand. “You need to stay here,” he said, his voice a quiet rumble.

  “But he needs me,” she said, her own voice bordering on hysteria.

  For once, she saw kindness in his eyes. “Being apart from someone in your collective when they are hurting is one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do,” he said. “But what he needs most right now is for us to establish peace with the faeries and end these attacks. If we don’t, this could happen again next week, next month. Tomorrow.”

  She felt Quill’s body receding, as if her heart was a spool of thread and he was unwinding it as he went. Squaring her shoulders, she swallowed the anguish. Romero was right. She needed to be strong for Quill when he couldn’t be. Showing the faeries that she was undaunted, that she was not ruled by emotion, was what Quill needed right now.

  So that was what she’d do, even if it crushed her to do it, even if it meant letting Raina go inside to nurse Quill back to health in Sagely’s place. This was no time for jealousy.

  Thirty

  Sagely turned back to the clearing. The Majoris had carried out a few picnic tables from their spot beside the house, and the faeries lingered near the tree line, watching with distrust as the witches set up for the meeting. Most of the witches didn’t look any more eager to make this truce than the fae.

  Sagely looked around for one of the friendlier witches, and spotted Willow and Eli emerging from the house. She ran up onto the steps and grabbed Willow’s arm.

  “How is he? Is he awake?”

  Willow shook her head. “He almost didn’t make it. But he’ll be okay once he recovers. I got all the venom in time.”

  Without thinking, Sagely threw her arms around her future sister-in-law and squeezed her hard. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  When she pulled away, Willow’s eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “Thank you,” she said back. “You saved him.”

  “No, that was all you,” Sagely said. “But could I? Since I’m part faerie? And apparently immune to the venom, I might add.”

  “I’ll teach you how I do it,” Willow said. “I bet you can.”

  “Thank you.” Sagely squeezed her hand, and she dropped her eyes, her cheeks pinkening.

  “Thank you for not treating me like a freak, like everyone else does,” Willow whispered.

  “Was that you, who spoke into my mind?” Sagely asked. “Once I got the venom, I heard someone talking to me. Was that through some faerie bond we have now that I got venom in me?”

  “No,” said a scratchy voice behind them. “That was me.” Sagely jumped, not having realized anyone was listening. When she turned, the Wise One was sitting on the porch swing, making it swing forward and back slightly with a gnarled, polished cane she held gripped in one hand.

  She winked at Sagely and smiled, her eyes sinking into her wrinkles. “As the coven’s oldest member, I have access into anyone bonded to the coven. Including you, my dear. I seldom invade your thoughts to read them or speak to you, but I can, when needs be. You did well, little sister.”

  “Thank you,” Sagely said, her own face flaming when she realized she could also feel how much Sagely had enjoyed getting sucked on by the enemy.

  “Go now, child, and make the coven proud.” The Wise One nodded to the yard, where the faeries and witches had taken seats along opposite sides of the picnic tables. The tables were arranged end to end, like a long conference table, but with a lot more mosquitoes.

  “Come on,” she said to Willow, taking her hand.

  Willow hesitated and shuffled her feet. “I’m still in level two,” she said. “I don’t have anything to add. I’m not even a real witch.”

  “Stop that,” Sagely said. “You’re as important as any other member of the coven, and besides, you’re half faerie, which makes you the link between the two peoples.”

  Willow’s eyes stayed glued to her feet. “Then how come they came for you and not me?”

  “I don’t know,” Sagely admitted. “But we’re going to find out. And you’re going to be with me.” She linked her arm through Willow’s and marched over to the tables, where the witches made room for them on a bench.

  “Now that we’re all here, let’s get started,” Fox said, winking at her.

  “We’re not all here,” Majori Yordine said. “This is a training facility. Only students and young witches are here, as I’m sure you know, which is why you chose to attack now, instead of when the entire coven was in attendance at a Gathering.”

  Since living there, Sagely had attended each weekly Gathering of the Coven, which was a sacred time for bonding and trading…and some gossiping.

  “Your warlock has killed our queen, so we’re not all here, either,” Fox snapped back.

  “Let’s not fight,” Majori Ory said. “We are intrigued by your offer of a truce. We have to share this valley, and as you know, we prefer to do it peacefully. Your kind is more prone to violence and conflict, so in the past, we have remained separate, like the werewolves in the Second Valley.”

  “Werewolves?” Sagely whispere
d.

  Willow nodded. “The Three Valleys are safe for magical beings like us. We’re in the First Valley with a lot of other supernatural beings. Werewolves live in the Second, because they are territorial and don’t like to share. Shapeshifters and a few others live in the Third Valley.”

  Sagely thought of the playful trees conveying them through the valley. Too bad it was not just them and the witches, instead of vicious, seductive faeries.

  “Once, our people were united. We had understanding of our differences and respected each other’s cultures,” Fox said. “That’s why your people gave us their void magic to protect. Fae are loyal and honorable, and they trusted us above all other beings.”

  “That’s true,” Majori Yordine said, narrowing her eyes. “But why are you offering a truce now, after centuries of conflict?”

  “Because it benefits us as well as you,” Fox said. “We would be united against a common enemy.”

  “A common enemy?” Sagely blurted out. “The only reason you’re offering a truce is because I was going to kill you, and you needed to offer something we’d want.”

  “True,” Fox said, flashing a disarming smile. “Since you’re new here, I’ll explain. Faeries don’t have such a democratic society as witches. I’ve long wanted a truce and thought it best for our people, but Amaranth didn’t agree, so I could say nothing. As the new fae king, I’m now in a position to offer such things.”

  “And what’s in it for us?” she asked.

  “Protection,” he said without missing a beat. “We’ll be twice as strong with our two races joined together against Viziri. When he’s strong enough, he’ll come for your magic, and strip your entire coven.”

  A collective intake of breath met this statement.