by Celeste Raye
“What do you want me to say? Fred told you exactly what I told him. I heard everything.”
“I'm sorry about that. I really wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings. I didn't want to believe that what you said about Jewel was true. I didn’t want to acknowledge that I was so blind as to not see something like that right in front of my face. I’m supposed to do better.”
“So, you know now that she is a witch?”
“I do.”
He released her wrist and Cira stood her ground.
“Well, the best thing you can do is to stay as far away from her as possible. Premonitions are not straightforward but it is pretty clear that she wishes you harm. I don't know how exactly it is coming. I just know that the witch doesn’t have good plans for you. She was keeping her true self secret for a reason.”
“I saw her suck something out of a guy on the street, right in front of the restaurant. She did it so casually, like she had done it a million times before. Her eyes glowed a purple color for just a moment, kind of like yours do. I have never seen anything like it before in my life, the way she drained him.”
“What do you mean when you say that she sucked something out of a guy?”
“Just that. I don't even know what it was. It was some colored air or something. Have you ever seen anything like that before?”
Cira told him that she had not. Her mother piped up and said that she had heard about something like that before. Delores was visibly shaken, and it alarmed Cira to see her mother that way.
“What could it be?”
“Well, it sounds like she was taking his life force. Who did you say the witch was? What was her name?”
“She said her name was Jewel, but I'm starting to think that maybe it isn't. I can't believe that I could date a witch and not even realize it. I should have been able to pick up on her.”
“Your senses should have told you what she was. That's why I couldn't believe that you didn't believe me. It was as plain as day to me as soon as I met her.”
Broch looked away, and Cira knew that there was no point in pushing the issue. He had come to her and said that he was wrong. He wanted advice, and it looked like they were both going to learn something that evening.
Her mother said something about making some tea and went into the kitchen. Cira asked Broch for more details about what happened. It didn’t seem to be as simple as he was making it out to be.
Chapter Eight
Broch had brought himself to go see Cira. He didn't want to, of course, especially after the way he had reacted when she had come to warn him about it. Broch didn't want to go to her with his tail between his legs and ask for her help, but that was precisely what he had done.
Cira hadn't made it too easy on him, but it could have been worse, so for that, he was thankful. She listened intently when he told her about the conversation and then what he had seen happen with Jewel.
“What does she look like?”
Cira looked behind her and saw her mother coming in with the cups of tea that she had been making.
Broch quickly gave a description, and Delores had a weird look on her face.
“You know, not just any witch could take life force like that. I don't know many who have enough power to do it. I don't even know if my whole family has enough power to.”
Cira shook her head. “I am sure that one of us can, especially if we all tried to do it together, maybe.”
“Think about it; it would take our whole coven to do something like that. For one witch to do it on the street in seconds, that should tell you something about who it is.”
Neither Broch nor Cira knew what she was talking about. That brought Cira sitting a little bit closer to the front of the chair. She was just as interested to find out as he was.
“Well, there was this old family of witches, and when I say old, I mean really old. They have been around for hundreds of years, and recently, most of them were killed off. But there is one that is left. But that can’t be right.”
“Who is it?”
“I'm not sure which one survived the attacks, but I know that it is a Stein. It would have to be because I can't think of any other witch that is strong enough to do such a thing. Maybe not in all of the world, or at least not in this country. I think you're underestimating the years and years of practice that it would take to do such a thing. Or just the sheer power that would have to be possessed.”
Broch did not like the sound of that at all. He had heard about some Stein witches from another clan to the east. It started to all come together.
“But what would she want with me?”
“If it’s the woman that I'm thinking of, it can't be anything good. There really is no telling, but I hear that she has it out for all shifters. There have been several attacks recently, and many people have died. If it is that Stein witch, she's looking for something, and she must think that you are the way for her to get it. I would be careful if I were you.”
Broch didn’t feel any better about the situation. “Do you think I should have to worry about the clan? I don’t like the idea that I have brought trouble for them.”
“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. My mother is just giving a theory. It could be a number of things. I wouldn’t worry about it all that much.”
“Your vision, though.”
“It said nothing about a Stein witch. They aren’t probably even a real thing. I remember hearing stories about them when I was a kid. It was more of a cautionary tale than anything else.”
“They are real. They are very real. I met one, a long time ago, when I was a kid. She looked not much older than twenty and had the sweetest smile. I would have never believed that about her, but my mother and aunt were very clear who she was. They had a sort of fear in their eyes that I’d never seen them have before. It made me think that she was ever-powerful.”
“Well, it sounds like she was.”
Broch had heard about some of his fellow shifters getting into altercations with witches. They were out of the loop about most things, but they’d had a visitor recently that had helped get them to speed on it.
He had, at the time, been a little relieved that he didn’t converse with witches all that much. Now, he had brought in one of the worst. She didn’t know where they were, but she most likely knew who and what he was. It would be used against him in the future; he was sure of it.
“I guess so. I just never heard you talk about this, Mom.”
Delores waved off her daughter and told her that she didn’t like to talk to her about it. “I never thought that you needed more things to worry about. There are already enough things that go bump in the night; add in premonitions, and you’re full up.”
Broch could see that the words were bothering Cira, and he wanted to again apologize. Cira was already pretty fantastical, and everyone just made it seem like she was wrong, but she wasn’t. She had been far righter than anyone else that had advised him recently.
“I was wondering, Cira, if you would like to come stay with the pack for a few days? I have a couple of people there that are versed in witches, but I would like your opinions on some things. I know that you’re probably busy, but I would appreciate your help.”
Cira was shocked; he could see it on her face, but he didn’t comment on it one way or another. The woman’s blonde hair was long, and it swung around her shoulders while she shook her head. He frowned and asked her why she wouldn’t.
“Like I said before, I heard all that you said. I know how you guys feel about witches, and considering this turn of events, it almost might seem like you would be in the right. I don’t want to go anywhere I am going to be laughed at.”
Broch knew that he had upset her. He shouldn’t have said what he did. He hadn’t liked the idea that there was some threat and he hadn’t even seen it coming.
“I wouldn’t allow it.”
“You can come here, and I will answer any questions you have, help you in any capacity from here that I can, but I
will not go back to that house ever again.”
Broch wanted to argue with her about it. It wasn’t like he had been that mean, but he could see a swirl of emotions in her eyes that made him feel bad. He had put all of that pain and distrust into her eyes. It certainly hadn’t been the idea that he had in mind. Broch would have done better if he would have known the truth.
“I will take you up on that, Cira, but I can see that this isn’t the best time. I just wanted to talk to you. I am sorry for coming so late. I just thought that you should know that you’re right about everything.”
Cira told him that it was fine, but everything in her expression and body language said that it wasn’t fine at all. He left wishing that he would have acted better.
Cira was scolded by her mother. He could hear it as he was walking away.
“Was that necessary?”
“Yes, it was. They don’t respect us, Mom. They just want to talk now because they want our help.”
Broch didn’t hear anymore, but he didn’t have to. He knew that what Cira said was true. He hadn’t thought twice about telling Fred off about her. She was just a witch. Was it the fact that he needed her why he was really noticing her for the first time?
He shook his head. Cira was something to look at now. The young girl that had tried to warn his clan before was long ago. A mysterious and angry, beautiful woman stood in her place now.
Why hadn’t he seen it before?
Chapter Nine
“You didn’t have to be so rude, Cira.”
“You didn’t hear what he said about me. You were too busy telling me that I needed to keep it to myself. You don’t believe me either.”
“It’s not that way, really.”
“I don’t know if I can keep hearing that and not think you’re a liar. First, I need to stay in my lane basically, but now I am just supposed to be nice?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just didn’t want another incident like last time.”
“That ‘incident,’ as you like to call it, was one of the scariest and realest visions that I’ve ever have. I wish that I could un-see it, if that were even possible. It keeps me up some nights still, even after all of these years. I want to keep it all in, but then something will happen, and I will blame myself. You’ve always told me that my visions were a blessing, but I find more than anything, they are a curse.”
Delores started towards her, telling her that she had no intention of making her feel that way. Cira could see the guilt in her mother’s eyes, but she did her best to ignore it.
“I just want to protect you.”
“You can’t protect me from this, Mom; no one can. What if this Stein witch is the reason I had the first one?”
“That would be a long-term premonition then. That is even rarer Cira.”
Delores looked excited, but Cira didn’t feel that way. It just made her feel even more alone. She was going to have to find some more knowledgeable witches. Since they had so much to say about the attacks and the other shifter clans, Cira resigned herself to seeking them out the next day. She wanted to know what she could do to help, even if no one understood how dire it was yet.
Broch had come to talk about the latest vision that she had, since it came true, though he didn’t mention the one from many years before, the one that spelled certain death for him and all of his clan. Now she was starting to believe that one was part of the other. It didn’t matter how rare it was; it meant that something even bigger was coming.
Broch was almost home when he heard a twig snap in the woods. He was running full tilt in his bear form and had to pull up short when he saw Jewel standing there. She was blocking his path, coming from nowhere. He immediately knew that what he had heard about her was true. This was no young human girl but a powerful witch standing in front of him. How had he not seen it before?
She eyed his necklace and moved swiftly to pull it off of his neck. Looking at it, she put her hand up when he went to lunge. The witch rolled it around in her hand and grinned at herself.
“Now, now, Broch. I tried to do this the easy way, and now we can. I will give you this back later. Who would give this to you? A witch, no doubt. Not a very strong one, though, if she is using trinkets to keep you safe. Real magic is from within a real witch.”
Broch wanted to move, say something, flee, attack. Any of those ideas would have been better than just standing there, frozen where he stood. He wasn’t sure what sort of magic was holding him, but he couldn’t move. It was just that simple, and the more he tried to fight it, the more she delighted in his struggle.
“You don’t know how sexy you are now, Broch, fighting the binds that hold you and will eventually break you. I can’t wait to have you under my spell. I think I will actually have some fun with you.”
He was thankful that he still had his mind. At the moment, it was the only thing that he had of his own, and he didn’t like the fact that she might be able to take that away from him. He wanted to assume that she couldn’t, that he was too strong, but it was the trinket that had kept him safe and out of her clutches thus far. The little piece of metal was now in the witch’s hands, and he had no control over anything.
She started to chant words that he couldn’t understand, but he didn’t need to. He knew what the purpose was, and he felt an almost immediate change. His senses were dulled, and he was forced into his human form. Broch was no longer in control of his body. He could still think, but it was overwhelmingly ineffective.
It was then that Broch started to consider that he might be about to die.
“What are you doing this for, Jewel?”
“It’s Marl. You know that.”
He did, but Broch didn’t want to imagine that everything he had heard was right. It was easier to believe that the Stein witches, the one standing in front of him, didn’t actually exist.
“Yes, I do. What do you want?”
He wasn’t even talking, but just thinking the words. She wasn’t going to allow him to speak.
“I need a strong man without much of a clan to stand by my side.”
That seemed simple enough, but Broch knew that it was more complicated than that. He knew that whatever she wanted him to do wasn’t going to be good. If it was anything like what he’d heard about her, the last thing he wanted to do was stand by her side, or anywhere near her for that matter.
“I don’t want to be that man. I will not do anything for you, so you’re just wasting your time.”
Now she spoke out loud. “Well, as you can see, my dear, you don’t have much choice. Kiss me and tell me how beautiful I am.”
Broch thought that she had to be kidding. He was going to say something to that, tell her that there was no way that he was going to do what she said. But he was already doing it. His body was already moving into the position to do just as she said.
His lips pressed against hers, and it was a strange sensation. It felt like a kiss, a real kiss; his senses were still intact, but the rest of it was not. He wasn’t able to move his arms to hold her or push her away. It was like someone was behind him, pushing him towards her, and there was nothing that he could do about it.
The woman he was kissing purred, and she told him to hold her like she needed. That was all it took for his body to spring forward and do exactly that. Her curves were supple, and Broch could feel his body betraying him.
Marl pulled away and put her back to him. She was rubbing herself on the hard member behind her. “This is exactly what I need right now.”
Broch tried to move away, but he had no choice in the matter. He told her that he didn’t want her, and Marl just sighed.
“Oh, honey, if you have a problem with this, you shouldn’t. This may be the one pleasant thing I order you to do.”
Marl laughed out loud when he started to resist. It was only mentally, and soon, she was right: it was pleasant, very much so, and really hard to take.
Chapter Ten
“Fred?”
Fred about jum
ped out of his skin, and Cira asked him what was wrong.
“Things aren’t right here, Cira. I don’t think you should be here. This isn’t the time, and I don’t know if it’s safe for you here.”
Cira had felt like something was wrong as soon as she had gotten close to the Clendon clan. There was something in the air, and it took her another moment to realize that it was a witch. She didn’t know for certain, but Cira had a gut reaction that told her it was the witch that she had warned him about. The really bad one that made her mother visibly shaky to talk about.
“What is going on?”
“It’s Broch. He came back, but he’s all weird now. He has a glaze to his eyes, and now he is trying to convince the pack that we need to take a trip. He wants us to go five hundred miles east of here. I don’t even know what to say, but I’m not going. Something isn’t right.”
“It doesn’t sound like it is.”
Cira knew right away that Broch must have been put under a spell from the Stein witch. She knew that Marl was strong and powerful and she needed Broch for something.
“Where are they now?”
“They have been in his bedroom for hours. I wanted to check on them but given the sounds that my cousin was making, but I didn’t.”
Cira could see that he was freaked out. She’d found the tall, skinny man, outside, puffing on a cigarette like his life depended on it. He had looked troubled; his small, beady black eyes were looking around, swinging his gaze from left to right.
“It sounds like you did the right thing. You know that Broch came to see me last night, right?”
“That’s what I heard. You can imagine my surprise when he came back and had the same woman on his arms as before. I thought she was bad news.”
