Deadly Morsel
Book 5
Juliann Whicker
Copyright 2018 by Juliann Whicker
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Chapter 1
Mage
The scratching of pen against paper shouldn’t have been enough to make it essential that I gouge out my ears and my eyes in case I accidentally glanced up at the mage on the opposite side of the table.
I growled and smoke curled out of my mouth obstructing the figures and assets lists. I ignored the other mage and focused on my own work, but when he started humming the theme from Holtz’s third symphony I’d had it.
I threw my pen down and stood. He raised his eyes slowly, giving me a look of mild interest. He’d trimmed his dark red mustache and was growing out sideburns and a goatee, the sort of facial hair I remembered from my childhood. I could still remember that goatee as he’d bent over me, the deck slashed by rain driven by hurricane speed winds. He’d grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me, demanding to know what I’d done, where my mother was.
“She’s worth fighting for,” he said in that voice, the one that didn’t care no matter how much he pretended.
I dug my claws into the table. I was fighting for her. I was fighting myself and every selfish impulse I had so that I could keep her safe. How long could I fight against my nature, so deeply ingrained and only emphasized by my dragon? My chest ached with every breath, deeper than the skin she’d carved her name into, heart, bone, soul.
“When are you going back on your boat? The damage is done.”
He raised an eyebrow and continued scratching on paper without looking at it. “It’s much more interesting to scrape back Huntsman from the brink of complete dissolution than continue growing the dull plodding beast that it was when I left it to you.”
“You left me Jasper.” Who had given the deception sorcerer everything he needed to bring our family to its knees.
“I left you. You were a competent business mage at age eight. Apparently, you’ve gotten worse in your old age.”
“I don’t need you interfering with my life, not now. It’s too late to undo the damage in time.”
“She’s determined to marry the most eligible mage she can find? She didn’t strike me as particularly pecuniary.”
I closed my eyes and gripped the table. My father never should have seen Penny, touched her, tried to understand anything about her. I inhaled deeply around the ache in my chest. I could take her. It would be so simple. She wouldn’t protest. She would kiss me and hold me and beg me to tell her that I loved her. I straightened up and stepped Throughside. My father was back. Good. He could take over Huntsman inc. It didn’t need me any more than Penny did. I came out in the Burning Lands, the sun beating down harder and harder with every step. Aimless steps. I’d flown over this land on my first trip out, riding a magic carpet with Ian and Teddy. Teddy was obsessed with finding a dragon and it sounded like something that would irritate my father. Ian went along because that’s what he always did. The carpet had been ripped apart by the wyverns, leaving us to walk. I fingered my cheek. That’s where I got those scars. I had more than that on my chest and shoulders from it carrying me away to feed to its young. I’d managed to shove my emergency dagger into the joint beneath its shoulder. That’s what Teddy was yelling at me while they ran beneath me, instructions on how to kill it. Ian was the one who spelled the landing so my eleven-year-old body wasn’t shattered against the rocks. Good times.
Teddy was the smart one, Ian the talented one, and I was the idiot without fear, without hesitation. I’d broken both of them, killed my mother, and let Sooth take over Huntsman. My father was right. It was my responsibility, and I’d completely screwed up. I sat down in the hot swirling dirt and leaned over my knees, staring at the smudge of a horizon. My eyes were dry and gritty but I didn’t blink. It wasn’t necessary.
I wasn’t a thinking mage, not a contract mage, not a spell mage, not a tech mage. I could rip people apart better than anyone else, but it didn’t seem particularly useful. I should go find a war or something and fight until I felt better, but how could I ever feel better when Zach was the mage who had Penny? He should have her. He’d loved Pitch forever. He’d be smarter than me, able to protect her where I couldn’t. He’d love her better. He didn’t have a dragon in his head. She was as close as a witch could come to a tech mage. They were the perfect pair. Except that their hair didn’t match and Zach would never dress her in mustaches.
I shook my head and stood. I started stripping, pacing out a star in the dust that flared green water-fire before it faded down. It would protect my precious coat while I took care of business.
I kept my pants on, boring pants that weren’t bedazzled or anything. I had a limited supply of those that would have to last me the rest of my life. How long could I last without my spark? As long as it took. I wasn’t a suicidal mage. Homicidal, possibly. I grinned as I slashed across my chest with my claws until blood dripped freely down my body. I walked briskly North. North? Did Darkside have directions? Sort of. This was up direction. The world had changed directions and axis a few times according to dragon memory. That’s what happened to a world inhabited by sorcerers who messed around with things. Also dragons.
I was a mile and a half from my coat when I saw the first wyvern circling. I inhaled deeply and then cast a quick spell that would send it on its way. Not the right family. It took two more miles before a wyvern in shades of blood dust appeared on the horizon. I inhaled deeply and smiled. The right family.
It took a lot of time to enchant and train a wyvern properly not to mention an entire family like the group that had attacked my island with the Creagh. The witch militia could claim that they were out of bed with Sooth all they wanted, but as long as he was alive, I’d expect him to be playing both sides of every conflict that involved Penny. The Creagh hadn’t been clear about who provided the wyverns, eyes shifty like they didn’t know.
I fell over on the ground from loss of blood, after I’d ripped open my chest a few more times. I lay there in the dirt until the wyvern grabbed me, its claws piercing deeply into my body as it lifted me into the air.
I carefully eased out my knife from my waistband and with a quick movement stabbed its throat and scooped out the jewels it carried. It dropped me and screamed, shooting a blast of fire at me that singed my eyebrows as I fell. I waited until I almost hit the ground before stepping Throughside into my bedroom at Rosewood. I dropped the bloody dragon hoard on the table and sat on the edge of the couch to study the gems. There was a ruby encrusted signet ring. Interesting. A milky opal caught my eye, but that was the dragon in me. No, I was looking for a sign of the sorcerer. There. A rock. A wyvern wouldn’t be able to see past the enchantment, but a dragon could, a great dragon anyway. I fingered through the pile, separating the rock from the rest of them.
I’d have to do some Chemiss to find the origin of the sorcerer, but first, I had to retrieve my coat. I stepped Throughside and stopped at the sight of a mage levitating above my most precious possession. His suit was mustard yellow with neon purple stripes.
“Mitch.”
He tumbled forward, landing in a messy roll before he spun around to smile at me manically. “The green mage. You look more red covered in blood. I thought your blood would be green. That’s disappointing.”
“Are yo
u here to die? If so, continue to linger near what belongs to me.”
He glanced over at the coat then exhaled deeply and took two steps to the left. Still closer to the coat than I was, but he probably couldn’t break my spell and take the coat before I could reach it. And him.
“Are you hunting wyvern or sorcerers? I could tell you who the sorcerer with a pack of tame wyverns is and you wouldn’t have to use your own pretty Daysider skin as bait. Your witch wouldn’t like you ripping yourself apart, would she?”
I smiled broadly. “I have no witch, so I couldn’t say. Tell me about Poppy. I know nothing about her other than that she was a cat.”
His eyes glimmered, one gold, one blue, both completely mad. “She wanted a mage who would rip her apart. It’s always a pleasure to fulfill your witch’s desires. All the same, I never got beneath her skin as deeply as Pitch. She got beneath your skin as well. A witch who doesn’t have to be present to destroy everything. Such a witch. I thought I would destroy her, but the deception sorcerer is what killed Poppy, however much Pitch hurt her.”
“I would think that you’d destroy both of them.”
He smiled widely. “All in good time. Perhaps she could teach me to forget Poppy. Such a witch.”
I growled at him.
He smiled and shrugged. “I can’t help it. You’re so possessive of something you claim not to own. It’s terribly amusing.”
“Why do you wear yellow and purple? It’s hideous.”
He glanced down at his suit then shrugged. “Poppy liked it.” There was a thread of real emotion in his voice. Whatever games he’d played, he’d grown attached to his witch.
“As fun as this is, what are you doing here? I have important things to do.” Like wash blood off a rock.
He turned to face south and stretched out his arms. The dust swirled around him, playfully at first before it grew stronger, growing in fury until it was a cyclone reaching its fingers into the sky before Mitch dropped his arms and the cyclone fell along with it.
“Hell. Hale? I’m mad, you know. I started mad and am getting progressively more sane the longer I spend in Darkside. Isn’t that peculiar?”
“Hale is the sorcerer with the wyverns?”
He snapped his fingers. “You follow very well. Madness is comfortable to you. You’ll grow madder and madder without her. I grow saner and saner without Poppy. We are the same, you and I.”
“In every way that matters. We lost our witches.”
“Do you want to play? You’re already bloody, but you haven’t been ripped through.”
I fingered the claw gouge the wyvern had left in my chest. “I don’t fight with allies.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Allies?”
I shrugged. “Until you betray me.”
He gave me a sickeningly lopsided smile. “I already have.” He turned and started walking, waving his hand as he went, sending the dust swirling in patterns only he could see. His madness was something else. Inane. He seemed particularly useless. A great deal like me.
I retrieved my coat then stepped throughside, coming out next to the Chinese restaurant. I stared in the window for a moment before I stepped back into the darkness where Jello waited.
“If you wish to die, I could eat you.”
I ignored him, climbing on his back and settling down as he crouched then sprang into the air. He knew where to go. I had a debt to pay. I wasn’t suicidal, but I deserved death. At least pain. More pain than the aching inside my chest.
I broke through the darkness around Penny’s mother’s house, the dilapidated Victorian monstrosity that looked haunted as I flew Jello near it. He landed and I stepped off his back. I rubbed his brow bone. He growled at me and launched back into the sky. I paced in front of the house for two hours before the front door creaked open and a dark figure peered out at me.
“Do you know what time it is?” Revere sounded like a grumpy old man who would kick kids off his lawn.
“No idea. I broke Penny’s contract. I should pay for that.”
“You also broke my protective barriers. Twice.”
“I should pay for that too.”
“What are you offering?”
I held out my arms, still covered in dried blood.
He sighed, audibly before he stepped onto the porch, closing the door firmly behind him. He walked over the sagging floor and down the steps. His pace was slow, even, his eyes exhausted beyond worlds, but he didn’t show it in his smooth movements as he pulled out a black firesword and saluted me before lunging.
I didn’t exactly expect the spellmaster to go back to his roots and pull out the Blackheart Chemis captain. He was good. Better than good, beautiful. I called my own green firesword and barely stayed away from the edge of his blade, the burning black sword drawing my eyes when I couldn’t afford a moment of distraction.
He disarmed me almost effortlessly after ten minutes of dueling and I crouched beneath the threat of his black fire, staring at him. “How did you become a spellmaster when you’re a genius Chemiss? Were you always good at Sophis?”
He raised his sword, shook it until the flames went out and put it away inside his jacket. He turned and headed back to the house.
“Wait! How did you do it?” I grabbed his shoulder and he spun around, palm facing me, sending out a shock spell that sent me stumbling away from him.
“It’s called necessity. If a Dayside mage wants to adapt to Darkside, thrive, give a witch a place, protect her, he does what he must. Why are you here, Huntsman? You are not a mage who glances backwards.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “What can I do? I can’t protect her. Sooth has his claws in Huntsman, Dayside and Darkside. The corp is crumbling around me and I can’t do anything.”
He studied me for a long time. “You want something to do? Bored with incompetence?”
“I’m here to pay for my broken contract.”
“Do you think it gives me some satisfaction to see an incompetent mage’s precious ego disintegrate? Maybe a bit.” He smiled and I shifted uncomfortably beneath that stare. “You’re men are swearing fealty to you. Why?”
“I have some immunity to the deception sorcerer.”
“Through the dragon?”
I hesitated then nodded.
“You’re immune. That’s something.”
“Not much.”
He shrugged and paced around me, looking me up and down. “Your spellcraft is terrible. You have potential. Why are you so bad?”
“My father thought it was important.”
“You’re going to have to let go of your issues if you’re going to become something she can use.”
I frowned at him, having to turn my head to follow him. “I can’t have her.”
He shrugged and glanced at me. “But that’s not essential. Being something she can use, isn’t that what you crave?”
I nodded. “What does that make me?”
“Motivated. First thing, watch your knee.”
Chapter 2
Penny
I’d gone to sleep in an island paradise and woken up in my bed at Rosewood. I felt like someone had stuffed my head with sawdust and batted it around like a piñata. No one had asked me if I wanted to be drugged or spelled unconscious so I missed the ride home in the jet. If they had asked, I would have agreed. They should have asked. Zach. Just because he owned me didn’t mean he could drug me and drag me around any time he wanted.
I stumbled over to Señor’s cage, fed and watered him and then got dressed out of Drake’s lounge clothes. Drake. I stopped moving and slid my fingers over my shoulder to trace the lines engraved in my skin. He loved me. He actually, truly, honestly loved me.
I took a deep shuddering breath and forced my mind to focus. Contracts. Those didn’t take magic, just energy. I had lots of that. What I lacked was knowledge. I had until my birthday to marry a Dayside mage. No one had told me why, or if they had, I wasn’t able to remember it. Infuriating that my father prevented me from remember
ing anything. He was the deception sorcerer Drake was fighting. He had to be.
I got together the books about mage contracts I’d borrowed from the library before my spontaneous vacation and took them to class.
In Linguistics, I was having a perfectly nice time learning about clause openings when Zach came over and ripped the book out of my hands.
“You skipped Tech this morning.”
I stared at him, took one step closer and yanked the book back. “Yes, I did. So fail me.”
He scowled, forehead wrinkling as he crossed his arms, fingers twitching. “You’re just going right back to how things were before?”
Before I was poisoned and Scratched, before he’d spent ages healing me at Drake’s beach house.
I licked my lips. “I came up with a plan for your suit. I don’t really want any feedback, but you can look at it, if you have to.” I sighed and rifled through my books to find the slip of paper with a technical drawing on it.
He snatched it greedily and stared at it for a long, long time before he raised his head and nodded. “Yeah, I have no idea what any of this means. You’re going to have to learn to actually collaborate at some point.”
“Do you have plans for the car? I’ll let you take lead on that project and I’ll be a good little helper, but this mech suit isn’t going to be screwed up by your usual ugly design.”
He gasped and his eyes widened. “Ugly? From someone who bedazzled Drake’s suits?”
I shrugged and turned away. “I’m just saying that your aesthetic is a little boxy and lacking in grace and proportion. You can ruin the car, but your next mech suit is going to be sublime.”
He narrowed his eyes before he finally nodded. “Fine. We’ll work on the suit in the morning, car in the afternoon. We’ll have a contest afterwards to see which is the most appealing.”
“Viney can judge.”
“And the rest of the school.”
I shrugged before I remembered Ian. “I have ballet practice with Ian after school.”
“Fine. After that. You don’t need to spend hours and hours with him.”
Deadly Morsel: Rosewood Academy of Witches and Mages (Darkly Sweet Book 5) Page 1
