To Seduce a Witch's Heart

by Nadine Mutas

  She hadn’t once spoken to Merle since those silent words in the warehouse, hadn’t reacted to anything Merle had said or done, as if she’d withdrawn deep inside herself, unresponsive to any stimuli. When Merle had bathed her, she’d stared into the distance, one step removed from this world. The food Merle had brought her had remained uneaten on the bedside table. Maeve hadn’t touched or looked at Merle at all, not even giving a hint of recognition.

  Now, she’d come to her.

  Silently, Maeve put her scarred arms around her sister, stroked her back, her hair. She still didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.

  Maeve held her while Merle cried until the ache in her lungs equaled the pain in her heart.

  Chapter 24

  The slant light of the afternoon sun streamed in through the kitchen window, glinted off the knife slicing the herbs. Merle watched Maeve wield the blade with calm precision. Her hands were steady, her movements sure, her eyes focused on her task. She was quiet in a way she hadn’t been before. Her temper had always been calm, had never flared like Merle’s, but now it seemed as if a part of Maeve had gone silent.

  “Here.” Merle handed her the next bundle of herbs to cut.

  Maeve accepted them without a word, still not able—or ready—to speak. Merle had tried, at first, to get her to talk, just as she’d tried to convince Maeve to rest and recover. Stubborn though as her little sister was, she hadn’t heeded Merle’s advice. The day after Merle had bound Rhun in the Shadows again Maeve had started to quietly help out in the house while Merle had straightened out the chaos produced when the Elders had searched the Victorian in their hunt for Merle and Rhun. She’d found Maeve cleaning the bathrooms, doing the laundry, cooking lunch.

  All without saying a single word.

  Ignoring her protests, Maeve had smiled, eyes full of soft resistance. When Merle had found her leaning her head against the hallway wall during a pause in between dusting, had seen her stroking her fingers along the fading wallpaper as if caressing someone dear, she’d understood. Doing these tasks, helping out with the chores, it seemed to give Maeve a sense of belonging. Of being home.

  Merle had stopped asking her to rest then. Instead, she’d given her a recipe to cook for dinner.

  That night, Merle had woken to find Maeve had crept into her bed, snuggled up to her, holding her hand in sleep as she used to do when they’d been children. Merle had hugged her, her soul torn with the overwhelming happiness about having her back—and with the searing pain of knowing her baby sister had been broken on a fundamental level. The uncertainty of whether Maeve would ever fully recover from her ordeal burnt like corrosive acid in Merle’s heart.

  As she walked past Maeve now to mix the chopped herbs together in a bowl, she reached out to stroke her shoulders, one of many little gestures of comfort and reassurance—as much for Maeve as for herself. She still needed to touch her, feel her, to remind herself this was real, that Maeve was truly here.

  She was about to add water to the bowl when the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Merle said, wiping her hands on a towel.

  Dark foreboding whispered up her spine as she neared the front door, and her intuition proved right when she opened it to the one person—aside from all of the Elders—she’d least wanted to see again. Ever.

  Arawn inclined his head in greeting, eyes of forest green intent on hers. Dressed in casual black attire that did nothing to lessen the lethal vibe of his power, he stood on her veranda like any other polite caller. The knowledge that he wasn’t beat against Merle’s skin with every fast thud of her heart.

  “What do you want?” Of course, he’d come to collect his favor. Her question, then, was not aimed at the reason for his visit, but directly at the nature of the demand he’d make. With growing anxiety snapping at her nerves, she simply had no mind for playing nice.

  Arawn tilted his head, a predator assessing its prey. “No word of thanks for my help in saving your sister?”

  “We made a deal. Thanks are not necessary.” She should probably be more courteous toward the Demon Lord, but the cocktail of emotions inside her—a mix of paralyzing fear and dangerous defiance—made her unabashedly blunt.

  The ghost of a smile played about his lips. “Yes, we have a deal, do we not?” He leaned one shoulder against a porch post, his hands resting in the pockets of his pants. “I held up my end of the bargain. It is time for you to do the same.” The verdant green of his eyes darkened as he raised his gaze, scanned the door and its immediate surroundings, seeing beyond the visible, before he looked back at Merle. “I believe it is polite to invite a guest inside.”

  Mentally checking the wards she’d put back up just this very morning, Merle held his intent stare. He couldn’t enter unless she allowed him in. “You’re not a guest.” She straightened her spine, knowing better than to invite a being like Arawn into her house. “Tell me what it is you want from me in return for breaking the blocking spell.”

  His face hardened, though he didn’t shift from his relaxed position against the porch post. “I see you do not care for courtesies, so I will be blunt as well. I want you to commit your sister to my custody.”

  All warmth left Merle’s face, her heart beating a frantic tattoo against her ribs. Swaying, she grabbed the door to steady herself. “No.”

  “No?” Arawn’s eyes narrowed, and even though his stance didn’t change, his power pulsed as an almost visible force lurking just beneath his skin. “You swore a blood oath to grant me a favor,” he said in a deceptively gentle tone. “Do you wish to break it?”

  Merle shook her head, her fingers going numb from her death grip on the door. “I… You said you wouldn’t demand that. You agreed not to ask for fealty.”

  “I am not,” Arawn calmly said, his bass voice rumbling in the afternoon quiet. “Our agreement specifically covered that neither you nor your sister would plead fealty. What I am asking for does not have to do with fealty. It goes beyond that.” The air breathed magic all around him, such strange magic seeming at once contrary to and in tune with the fabric of the world. “I want you to transfer magical custodianship of her to me. Bind her life to me, and I will consider your debt paid.”

  Again, Merle shook her head, unable to react in any other way. Her mind was reeling. “I… I can’t. How could you even ask this of me? Her life is not mine to give.”

  “Oh, but it is.” The smile curving his lips was the one that had scared her lifeless before, when she and Rhun had appealed to him in his lair. “As the head of your line,” he went on in a voice so very calm and friendly, they might as well have been discussing where to go for dinner, “you are ultimately in charge of the members of your family, a responsibility that includes liability for their magic and custodianship of their lives. In all matters magical, Maeve is your ward, and if you so wished you could magically force your sister’s obedience by uttering a single word. You are fully authorized to bind her life to someone else, and transfer this power over her. Her pleading fealty is not necessary for that, which means my demand is in perfect compliance with the deal we made.”

  Merle stood there, staring at Arawn, as everything, everything slipped through her fingers. She’d lost the fight against her Elders, lost the man she loved, and now, after she’d just freed Maeve from the clutches of a monster, she was forced to cede her baby sister to a creature that made psychopathic demons tremble with fear. Something inside her snapped.

  “Go to hell,” Merle whispered, holding her power barely in check.

  An easy shrug of one shoulder. “I am not sure they would take me back.” Arawn’s gaze turned steely. “Now surrender your sister.”

  “No! Ask me for something else, anything else.”

  He glanced at the fine tendrils of smoke drifting up from underneath her fingers, where the wood of the door had begun to smolder. “Your magic is strong, fire witch, but it is not what I am interested in. Release Maeve into my custody.”

  “Fuck no!”

  �
��Do not try my patience any longer. Give me your sister. And do not say something cliché like over my dead body, because that can easily be arranged. Breaking a blood oath will claim your life. Do you really want to go there?”

  “No,” a husky voice said from behind her.

  Merle swiveled around on her heels, stared at Maeve. Her baby sister stood in the middle of the foyer, face pale, eyes wide, hands clenched to fists at her side. Trembling, breathing fast and shallow, her muscles under scarred skin flexed as if she’d like nothing better than to bolt and hide in the most faraway corner. And yet, she remained, looking past Merle at Arawn. At the powerful creature that was here to claim her, to end the short taste of freedom she’d just gotten.

  “I will go with you,” Maeve said, her voice but a rasp.

  “No, you won’t.” Merle stared at her sister, her hand still clutching the door, her back to the male who threatened to take away the last piece of her soul. “Stay out of this, Maeve.”

  Eyes of amber and gray met her own, vivid in a face once so beautiful, now bearing the evidence of how close hell could come to earth. “You have done so much, more than I can ever give back. I can’t let you risk your life too.”

  Maeve’s voice still sounded so husky, so raw, as if it wasn’t just temporarily rough from disuse or fear. Something inside Merle broke as she understood—Maeve’s vocal cords had become irreparably damaged.

  As could happen when one screamed for hours, days, on end.

  She shook her head, her throat closed up tight. “Maeve, no. I…”

  “You swore a blood oath,” Maeve cut her off gently, her rough voice scraping over Merle’s skin, a constant reminder of the torture she hadn’t been able to protect her little sister from. “You have to keep it. If you don’t, the Powers That Be will break you for it.” Maeve made a small pause, and beyond the shadows of fear and pain in her eyes, there was love, such love. “I won’t let that happen, Merle.”

  And with that, Maeve took a hesitant step toward the door, toward Arawn, who had been watching her with silent attention.

  “Wait.” Holding up a hand to halt Maeve, Merle swiveled around to Arawn. “You want her for her powers, don’t you?”

  Instead of an answer, he simply stared at Merle until her knees trembled.

  She made herself speak. “You realize they’re locked inside her? You can’t access them. Look at her. She’s been through hell, has been tortured over and over, and still, her powers haven’t surfaced. They didn’t break free under everything she’s suffered, and even the demon was unable to take them from her. They won’t ever emerge, so she’ll be of no use to you.”

  Looking over her head at Maeve, Arawn quietly said, “That remains to be seen. Step aside and let her through.”

  All angry defiance left Merle in a rush of pure despair. “Please,” she whispered, dropping the last of her pride in favor of pleading. “I just got her back. Please don’t take her from me.”

  Tilting his head to the side, Arawn studied her with faint, detached interest, as one might examine a mutated lab animal. “I am curious. Why do you think begging me will help?”

  Merle swallowed, holding back her tears, and spoke past the voice inside her telling her she fought a losing battle. “Because I’m hoping you maybe have a heart.”

  His lips tugged upwards while his eyes remained cold. “Pity your demon is not here anymore. He would have told you better than to pin your hopes on that.”

  At the mention of Rhun, the reminder of how she’d lost him, Merle’s chest constricted as if bound with a thousand tiny strands of barbed wire. The fact she was about to lose her sister too only added to the hurt spiraling out of control.

  Those eyes the color of secrets hidden in the woods held her gaze. “No amount of begging will get me to change my mind, Merle.”

  Her name on his lips sounded wrong, as if he’d taken something private from her. She shivered, feeling bereft, vulnerable.

  Pushing off the porch post, he pinned her with an adamant stare. “I will take her with me.”

  And she saw it then, that he meant it. Nothing she could do or say would ever sway his decision. She’d bartered away Maeve before she’d ever even saved her. The realization that she would have to let Maeve go sank into her blood, heart, and soul, and it was a violent, tearing pain.

  Merle hauled in a breath, and with it, a last thread of resistance unfurled inside her. “Not yet,” she told the lord of demons in front of her.

  Arawn cocked a single eyebrow. It was enough to make power spark around him.

  Merle wetted her suddenly dry lips. “She’ll be yours, but leave her with me for now. You deal in favors, right? If you don’t take her away for the time being, I will grant you another favor.”

  Arawn raised his other eyebrow as well.

  “No,” Maeve rasped behind her. “Don’t do that, Merle. Not for me.”

  Merle shot a look at her sister. “This is not up for discussion.” Turning back to Arawn, she said, “The favor will only put my magic at your disposal, nothing else.”

  Dark amusement in his eyes. “So you learn fast.” He studied her for a long moment. “You will regularly make your magic available for my affairs,” he said, steel underneath that voice of rough silk, “until I decide to take Maeve with me.”

  Merle bristled at the open-end contract, fighting hard not to snap at Arawn for his high-handedness. She gritted her teeth. “I will not kill for you.”

  He gave her a curious look, and just when she thought he couldn’t possibly become more arrogant, he asked, “And just why would I need your help with that?”

  “Maeve,” Merle said without taking her eyes off Arawn, “get me a knife.”

  One side of his mouth tipped up in a wry smile. “Oh, I do not require a blood oath for this deal.” The shadows in his eyes deepened. “You know I will come to collect my other favor when you refuse me your magic.” And with a last glance at Maeve, he left, walking down the steps of the veranda to disappear in the thicket of trees near the driveway. The huge black bird of prey shooting out into the sky a few seconds later left tendrils of darkly curling magic in its wake.

  Merle stood staring after it for a moment, pondering the price she’d have to pay for holding on to the last remnants of family she had left.

  When Maeve took her hand, pulled her in a hug, she knew it was worth it.

  “I’m sorry,” Maeve whispered, a broken sound against Merle’s shoulder.

  “Don’t.” She hugged Maeve closer. “You’d have done the same.”

  Merle was back in the library of the old Victorian—for the hundredth time this day. In between taking care of Maeve, she’d been here, in this room, leafing through the books looking for a way to unbind Rhun again without the Elders finding out.

  With every passing minute, hour, day, another piece of Merle died with the knowledge of him suffering in darkness. She had to find a way to get him back. His absence was a living, breathing source of pain, growing further with the passage of time. Merle missed him with every fiber of her being, had only fully realized how deeply he’d burrowed into her heart, how much she’d loved having him around when his loss had ripped a vicious, gaping hole into her soul.

  She’d been right. Losing him hurt far more than being without her powers.

  Shoving her hands through her hair, Merle groaned, her head thumping down on the desk she was sitting at. Memories of the past days floated up, rushed through her mind, and she ground her teeth together as she revisited all the times she’d felt helpless, powerless, controlled by the demands of those who held the reins. First the Elders, then Arawn. Dammit, she was sick and tired of being a mere pawn in a game others played!

  Next to her, a book caught fire.

  “Crap!” She jerked her head up, and with a wave of her hand and a muttered word, she extinguished the flames.

  Grimacing at the damage, she gingerly set the book aside. She’d have to watch her temper, check her command over her powers, which had
been failing due to the stress she’d been under.

  Well, she thought sardonically, let’s just add that to the growing list of things slipping from my control.

  When the doorbell rang, Merle froze in the process of taking out another book to study. It likely wasn’t Arawn again—he’d just left about an hour ago—and yet anxiety rippled through her as she got up and walked to the door.

  Maybe it was just Lily or Basil—even though they would have called before showing up here. They’d come over in the last two days, to see Maeve, to check on Merle, giving her those looks that clearly said all they needed was one word from her and they’d permanently set up camp in the Victorian to keep her from falling apart.

  She’d greatly appreciated it, same as the chocolate and ice cream Lily had brought over without asking. When Merle had started to thank her, Lily had threatened to beat her over the head with the pack of Ben & Jerry’s. But when they’d left, Merle had made sure to hug Lily until every last cell in her best friend’s body knew how much she meant to Merle. The quiver in Lily’s aura and the tears in her eyes—quickly blinked away—were proof the message had gotten through.

  As Merle now pulled open the door, she drew in a sharp breath and stood still for the longest moment, gaping at the woman who bore an eerie resemblance to the witch who’d broken Maeve. Swallowing, Merle could only stare at her. What could she say to a woman whose sister she’d killed?

  “May I come in?” Hazel’s voice broke through the awkward silence.

  “Of course,” Merle said, stepped aside and led her into the living room.

  After offering her unexpected visitor refreshments, Merle sat there, self-conscious to a painful degree, the quiet of the house wrapping around her. With Maeve upstairs, taking a nap, it was only Merle and Hazel in the room, a strange meeting between two people whose lives had been touched by such darkness, it tainted the air.

  Hazel cleared her throat, glanced at her hands. “I was wondering if I could see Maeve?”