“What is she talking about?” Dred asked and he grinned as he opened the door to their link. Both men stumbled and grabbed the wall next to them. “Damn it, Edward, warn us when you are going to do something like that.”
He snorted and stood. “Welcome to my world. Little Witch, why don’t you and Avril go do what you were going to do before we interrupted?” He walked over and kissed the top of her head.
“All you had to do was ask me to leave. I know you need to discuss things with them.” She shook her head and made her way to the door, but stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Oh, and Edward…”
“Yes.” He lifted his head and looked at her. She fidgeted for a minute before she rushed out and said, “I know my father was a sadist, if you know what I mean. He has a room around here that he and my mother used. I don’t want to see it. If you want a playroom, please make it your own.” She shivered. “The thought of being in the same room and using the same things is just too much. Not to mention their personal energies, or whatever you call it, will be there.”
“Go on, we’ll take care of it,” Edward smiled and nodded to Avril who escorted her down the hall.
“I take it the room is in here?” Dred asked, knowing the brothers didn’t see all. Only what the entity allowed them to see.
Sitting down on one of the couches, Edward leaned forward and nodded. “But that isn’t the problem. It seems we have more than books here to be protected. I now know why her brother wants this house. It has nothing to do with her, but I’m sure it’s a bonus to get her.”
Dred and Rock frowned at him and took up seats across from him. “Well don’t keep us in suspense, what is he after?”
“He wants the house itself. I don’t know if…” His words died out when both Dred and Rock fell back against the sofa they were on and shook their heads.
“What the hell was that?” Dred snarled and looked to him, but stopped. “Did you know there are these things behind you?”
“As I was saying, there are other entities that live here. They protect the house and our Little Witch. It seems our Beth attracts not only her brother because of her power, but other entities. From what I can understand from them…” he turned and cocked his head to the side.
Females one of the Yewlocks sent to him. “I guess it’s in her family, the females attract others from different worlds. These small creatures here not only protect her from her own kind, but from aliens, so to speak. They block her aura from leaving Earth’s atmosphere. When Brian was born, he saw these Yewlocks and knew they protected his mother and sister. He wants their power. He’s taken two of them already when he was smaller, before his father and mother found out, hence the strange power coming off of him when he attacked Beth.”
“Then how do we fight him? How do we protect her if we don’t understand what we are dealing with? She won’t stay locked up here forever. No wonder he didn’t attack till she came back here. I bet he’s been looking at ways to get in here since she was at the castle. That’s how he got past their protection, and with Nora’s help.” Dred said, the frustration pouring off of him.
Rock leaned forward. “I don’t get it. If they are here to protect her, did they follow her to the castle? If they didn’t, did others from…” he waved to up above them. “The different worlds come or are they coming? Can they protect her if she leaves this place?”
It was hard to listen to Rock and Dred’s questions, while information was being sent to him from these Yewlocks. “Okay, hold on all of you!” Edward got up and started pacing. “This is too much. Rock, from what I can tell or the information that is being implanted into my head, Beth will always be protected. If the protection somehow weakens from attack or something like that…” He frowned. “Oh, okay, she’ll feel like she’s homesick and needs to come back here. Where they’ll do their stuff.”
They both shook their heads. “You know this isn’t going to work. We’ve already discussed this. Sure you two can stay here on and off, but the both of you should be at the castle. Edward, you’re a king and the two of you are to help bring together all the races. This is not the place for it.”
“Excuse me, but I’ve got supper cooking. Are you guys going to come up or not? You’ve been down here for over three hours,” Beth asked, poking her head in the door, shocking all three of them.
“Well hell, where did the time go?” Edward looked at Dred who shrugged and got up, stretching.
“It’s the Yewlocks. When you are in their presence time more or less stops or crawls. I’ll tell Avril to throw the steaks on to give you guys a few more minutes.” She closed the door behind her.
“Let’s go help with supper. I’ve put the question to the Yewlocks. We’ll see what they have for us later, along with the house. Let’s not forget the house itself is a separate entity,” Edward said as the slight pounding in his head eased up. They made their way up the stairs coming to a dead stop in the kitchen.
The man giving Dred so much trouble in the pack stood in the kitchen with two of his close friends. Their backs were to them, so they hadn’t seen them come up the stairs. Edward nodded for Dred and Roc to go around through the dining room and come back out through the hallway door.
Feeling the threat, the house closed the door behind him so no one would know about the lower level. “Little Witch, who is this?” Edward asked, having all three men jump and spin towards him ready to do battle.
“Are you threatening me? In my own home?” Edward raised his eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest waiting.
***
Beth was furious with herself. Why hadn’t she known these were the men giving her men a hard time with the pack? Now they stood in their kitchen already threatening Edward. WRONG thing to do that was for sure.
Their scent came to her before Beth saw them. Dred and Rock were behind her and moving in through the hallway. She threw up her hands and turned to finish making supper. “Please take it outside so I can get stuff done.” She looked over her shoulder at the brothers, who nodded.
“Paul, Sam, Greg let’s move this to the yard, shall we?” Dred ordered, breaking the tension between them and Edward.
Not even bothering to look up, she continued to peel the potatoes and stared out the window. “You didn’t know who they were. It’s not your fault, Little Witch.” Edward hugged her
from behind and nuzzled her neck.
She threw the knife down in the sink and turned into his arms. “I hate this! I feel as if I’ve missed everything. That there is a huge gap in my life, even tonight cooking it reminds me of that night. I want my life back, damn it.” She pouted and her lip trembled. “I even missed you claiming Dred and Rock. I wanted to watch that.”
He leaned down and bit her nose. “Maybe next time you won’t take off and call for help.” Edward released her and followed Dred and Rock.
Here she opened her heart and Edward just walked away. Taking two deep breaths, Beth turned back to peeling the potatoes. Next time she would just keep everything to herself. “I used to be able to talk to you, Nora. Now I have no one.” She wrapped up the peels and turned to throw them away, spotting Avril.
“Sorry, didn’t know you were there.” She opened the trash and dumped the peels. “Must look like a real winner. Ha, just what your King needs.” Beth didn’t wait for him to say anything and went to finish supper.
“I owe you an apology and I want to say thank you for saving my life. If you need someone to talk to, I’d be more than happy to listen. We are going to be together quite often.” He sat down on one of the seats at the island with his long legs in front of him.
Turning the stove on, Beth stared at him. Avril had brown curly hair with dark brown eyes. He stood about six feet tall. He wasn’t bad looking. “How old are you?”
He grinned and cocked his head to the side. “I’m over 140.”
She shrugged. “Age doesn’t really matter. I’ve seen many who are older than me but act like fools. I guess it’s all about how you lo
ok at life. You haven’t found your mate?” She asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee and joined him at the Island.
“No, but then again I haven’t been really looking. For the last 60 years I’ve buried myself in the vault studying the old words. Plus, having no social skills doesn’t help.” He shrugged. “I’ve set up the trust funds and mailed off the paperwork to their legal guardians. I’ve also arranged for the bills for the funerals to be paid for. No one will have to pay anything for your friends' resting place.”
“You and I have a lot more in common than I thought. Growing up my parents were so worried about Brian finding me that I was more or less confined to this house. I was lucky to go to school. They had set enchantments all throughout the school. No one could come near it if they meant to harm, but I’m afraid I still didn’t get to go to football games, dances and things like that. So I know what it is to be socially deprived.” She sat back and took a drink of her coffee. “Thank you for getting all that stuff done for me. I just can’t seem to concentrate on anything.”
Reaching over, Avril squeezed her arm. “You just woke up. Give yourself some time to adjust. How about we go over the plans for you wedding? I brought my planner, I have the different menu’s and I even brought...” He bent down and pulled out a four inch folder setting it in front of her. “In here I have placed every picture I could find of wedding dresses. I thought you could go through it and see what you like.”
“You did all this for me?” Her eyes watered as she ran her finger over the binder. Looking up, he shrugged.
“I was waiting for you to wake. I had to have something to keep me occupied.” He actually looked embarrassed. She laughed. Setting her mug down, Beth leaned over and hugged him. “Thank you so much. This means a lot to me.”
“What the hell is going in here?” Dred growled behind them.
She placed a small kiss on Avril’s cheek. “Ignore him. Now what did you find out about the ceremony with the four of us?” Beth flipped open the binder, but didn’t get to see anything when she was picked up and thrown over Dred’s shoulder.
“You -keep your hands off our woman and you…hold still,” he ordered and smacked her ass hard. “We need to speak with you, now hush.”
“We were busy, you big jerk! Put me down.” She tried to get up, but he held on tight as he made his way through the hallway and out the back door. “Avril, I’ll be right back.”
“No, she won’t. Wrap it up, Avril, the rest of the night she’ll be with us. Edward said to tell you that you had the night off,” Dred yelled as he lowered her down in front of Edward.
“What? I was busy.” She brushed her hair out of her face and glared up at Edward. “I thought you were dealing with the three amigos.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Edward stared down at her. “You’re angry. Why?”
She closed her eyes and looked down at the ground, counting to ten. “It’s not important. What do you need? I have stuff on the stove and Avril and I were starting to go over the wedding information he’d gathered for me.”
He said nothing, all three of them stared at her and waited.
“Fine, you want to know what is wrong, let me explain it to you since it’s obvious it meant nothing to you. First, I get up the nerve to open up to you, really open up.” She threw up her arms and started to pace back and forth on the patio.
“Don’t you realize that I’m not used to all this…” She pointed to them.. “I’m used to being alone, not dealing with anyone.” She stopped and stared up at Edward. “But I promised myself I’d really try and I have been. Each day I’ve been here, I’ve given myself a goal to do something I normally didn’t do. Today’s goal when I woke up, was to share something important with you that I would normally keep to myself. The whole time I couldn’t move, I heard you three talking, I knew I had to overcome my need to do things by myself, to ask for help, to lean on you when I needed it.”
She watched as Edward dropped his arms and frowned. “I hurt you…”
Chapter Eight
Her shoulders and back were ridged as she looked out at the forest. He’d hurt her and he didn’t even know he’d done it. “I’m sorry. I should have paid better attention to what you were saying. My only defense is I was worried about our other mates with a threat being in the house.”
Beth turned and looked at them. “I was thinking about that. Since I didn’t know who these men were and you obviously didn’t know them, the house let them in when it shouldn’t have. I know there is a way for the house to tune into them as it has us, but I just can’t remember.”
“We’ll worry about that later.” He titled her head back and stared down at her. “I’m sorry I didn’t take what you were saying seriously. I know this has been hard on you and we’ll get through it. My words were not meant to hurt, but to get you to understand I want…no scratch that- I want you to need me. All three of us were hurt that you didn’t trust us to protect you.”
“That’s not true.” Beth tried to pull back, but Dred stepped behind her and held her in place. “Edward, no matter where I was in the house the spell would have found me, don’t you understand? It was personalized. It would have made itself into the house without me even moving. I was worried that my brother would get you when he saw you. I needed you three to be safe so you would take care of me. I knew you wouldn’t allow me to go. So I was depending on you.”
“What do you mean by personalized?” he reached down and started to unbutton her shirt.
As she tried to push his hands away, Dred reached around and grabbed her arms, holding onto them. “Hold still and explain.”
Her blouse was stripped from her as he cupped her breast. She tried to speak, but each time he’d run his finger over the exposed nipple, she’d shake.
“How can I explain if you keep doing… that?” She squirmed and he could smell her heat.
He stopped long enough for her to compose herself and speak. Behind her, Dred reached around her and slipped the skirt from her.
“A witch or wizard can create a spell for a specific person if they have something personal of that person’s. It’s obvious my brother has something that was mine, including my best friend,” she mumbled the last part as she looked away from him.
Edward went to scoop her up in his arms when the Governor came running around the corner and straight to him. Edward yanked his woman behind him as both Rock and Dred crouched down, ready to attack. “Stop! Explain this interruption before you perish!” he ordered.
The man didn’t move a muscle, realizing his mistake at once. “Attack! The house of Morris Clan along with some of the most powerful wizards has attacked a pack of wolves in Augusta. The Smartwess family has taken what survivors are left into their homes, protecting them for now.”
“So it starts. Gather my council and have them ensemble in the Wondering Hall. Governor, I want double the guards around the castle. Make sure my Queen’s family is secure. There are protective wards on the grounds. We’ll follow shortly,” Edward ordered. He scooped up Beth in his arms making his way into the house.
“You have ten minutes to pack what you need. Avril, I know you’re still here. Pack all her personal papers she’ll need. I want this place sealed when we leave.” He looked down at his woman and kissed her forehead. “I don’t know when we’ll be back. I’m sorry, Little Witch, but we must be at my home for now.”
She nodded and hugged him. “You might want to ask for help?” she said looking towards the kitchen and the secret door, before running upstairs. “Avril don’t forget the wedding stuff and shut off the oven. I’ll call ahead and have the cooks start preparing food for everyone now.”
“You know she was born for this?” Dred said and smiled only for a minute. “I know of this pack that was attacked. I didn’t want to say anything in front of her, but it is our cousin’s pack. He’s attacking family. I need to inform my grandfather and father. They’ll pass the word down for the other packs to be on high alert.”
&nbs
p; He nodded. “That’s fine, but I need you here with us. Have your pack pull everyone to the castle. I want their families protected inside the walls. We’ll set up a guard watch when we get back to homestead. Rock, we need to set up some reason to empty this town. They’ll become a target if we don’t and our Queen will not forgive herself if anything happens to them.”
“Maybe a chemical spill,” Rock said out loud. “I can have a few of the men set up sentries to the town’s exits. We’ll take down numbers when it’s safe for them to come back.”
“Very good idea, don’t make it too bad though, we want to allow them to come back. Also…Avril.” He yelled but didn’t need to, the man was there in a minute.
“Already called the bank. Just need to know how much for each family?” He covered the phone with his hand.
“You’re good. Give each family $5000 and also invite them to our hotel in Florida. Tell them a week stay is on us with passes to Disney World.” He made his way down the stairs as Avril informed his banker, while turning off the oven and gathering Beth’s things.
“We’re damn lucky this town is small.” Dred mumbled going to make his calls while he dealt with the house and the Yewlocks.
Upon entering his new office, Edward took a deep breath and relaxed. The house was already in automatic shutdown mode and would be protected while they were away. What was really surprising was the fact that it seemed to reassure him that everything had been taken care of. Even the Yewlocks around him moved faster and some of them even disappeared from the room.
Castle protected. Was injected into his mind and at once Edward knew that somehow these entities were going to even reach out to his home to protect their woman. He bowed and kneeled. “Thank you.” He honored them they only way he knew how.
That is when he knew, Beth’s Mother and Father would not be making any more trips. They’d been waiting for him to enter this room and take control. He was now responsible for their daughter, but he would have help from these creatures Edward still didn’t understand.
The Virgin Witch and The Vampire King: Book One: Weddings Bells Times Four (Vampire Witch and The Vampire Kin) Page 6
