Claimed

by Sammie Joyce

  “A necklace of power. A lot of witch families have them, though most don’t bother wearing them.”

  “You mean it does something?”

  “No, not anymore. It’s debated whether they ever have. Necklaces of power were said to be created in a time when dragons and witches were united, imbued with the power of both species. They only work for one who is truly united to the wellbeing of both species, so of course, even if they ever did work, none of them do now.”

  “There was a time when dragons and witches were united?”

  “So the stories say. I’m personally not convinced, but a lot of families keep the necklaces of power as heirlooms. Even if they aren’t imbued with mystical power, they’re still old and valuable.”

  Rose stared down at her necklace with new eyes. She would be tempted to ask her mom about it, but of course, the two of them weren’t talking right now. She wondered if it really had some hidden power to it.

  “How would something like that work? I mean, would it just add strength to a witch’s existing well of magic, or would it do things that are generally outside of our powers?”

  “No idea. That’s the other problem—even if they do work, no one alive now knows how to use that power. Besides, the last thing you want is for it to start working for you—that would only prove to the rest of us that you’re a traitor.”

  “Would it really be so bad, wanting dragons and witches to live in peace?”

  Annabelle shot her a dark glare. “The only way we can have peace is when every dragon is subjugated. They’re monsters, and without us controlling them, they would destroy us. After us, they would move on to the humans. You should have seen the devastation they caused in the Great Rebellion.”

  Rose knew that much, but she also knew that witches had caused even more devastation to the dragons. Obviously, Annabelle didn’t want to hear that, so she kept her mouth shut. She decided to steer the subject to safer waters.

  “Do you know what we’ll be learning about? I’m eager to get started.”

  “We’re still working on simple things—mostly basic telekinesis. Last time we had a pillow fight without touching the pillows. Or at least, we tried to. It’s not as easy as it sounds. For variation, we sometimes experiment with temperatures. Last week we had a race to see who could warm up a bowl of soup the fastest.”

  “That sounds fun.”

  “It is, though it’s not always. The theory can get pretty dull at times.”

  Rose wasn’t worried about that. She loved theory just as much as she loved practical work.

  “But once we learn enough theory, we’ll be able to practice it on dragons! I can’t wait to start avenging Vivian.”

  “I thought you said it would be a long time before we were experienced enough to be able to control dragons?”

  “Oh yes, that’s years away, but that doesn’t mean we can’t practice. Once we know enough, we’ll be able to interact with them in situations controlled by more experienced witches.”

  “What kind of interaction?” Rose definitely didn’t like the sound of this.

  “We’ll learn how to hurt them enough that they don’t dare try to fight back against us.”

  Great. Rose had definitely signed up for torture. She reconsidered trying to get her own place and working until she could build up enough capital to return to medical school.

  “Vivian was into nature magic. It’s not that useful against dragons, but it can be a fun pastime. Look.” Annabelle leaned down and cupped a flower in her hand. The dull blue morphed into a bright, sparkling blue like the oceans on those booklets travel agencies gave out for holidays in tropical paradises.

  Rose crouched down, fascinated. “How do you do that?”

  “This is nothing. Vivian could change the color entirely—make it pink or purple, or anything that took her fancy. Kaylee said she was very advanced considering how little time she’d spent practicing magic. Kaylee will take you through the specifics, but it’s to do with focusing your magical energy on the internal structure of the flower. You change it from the inside out, and if you do it right, you’ll get the color you aim for. If you do it wrong, you can kill the flower, but the forest has plenty of them.”

  Rose was once more feeling enthusiastic about her time here. There was so much to learn, and she couldn’t wait to start doing it.

  As the sun started setting, they headed back to the mansion for supper. As they walked down one of the main hallways, Rose skirted a janitor, who was mopping the wooden floors. Annabelle didn’t bother to avoid the wet area, leaving muddy footprints on the freshly cleaned floor.

  Annabelle kicked the man’s bucket as she passed, upending it. “You missed a spot,” she sneered at him. He didn’t say anything, keeping his eyes down as he righted the bucket and started cleaning up the new mess.

  Rose didn’t understand. Annabelle seemed so nice; why would she be so evil to the poor janitor, who was just trying to do his job? She waited until they were out of earshot before she took Annabelle’s arm, pulling her to a halt.

  “What was that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why would you treat the janitor so horribly? Just because we have magic doesn’t mean we’re better than him! What’s wrong with you?”

  She’d been expecting Annabelle to be abashed and mumble an apology. Instead, Annabelle laughed. “Hasn’t anyone told you yet? He’s not a janitor—none of the guys you see doing servant work around here are. They’re dragons.”

  Chapter Three

  Rose stared at Annabelle, sure she’d misheard. “They’re what?”

  “Dragons, silly.”

  “Dragons. I was under the impression that dragons had more scales… and wings… and breathed fire…”

  “In their dragon form they do, but we don’t allow them to transform. Hasn’t your mother told you about dragons?”

  “Clearly not everything. We never talked about them much. She mostly left coven stuff to the coven. She always tried to persuade me to join, but since I wouldn’t, I never really heard much about the details of coven life.”

  “And you weren’t curious?”

  “Not really. I was kind of put off by her continued insistence that I join up.” Now, Rose was wishing she’d asked more questions.

  “Then what made you decide to join now? The Great Rebellion?”

  “No, she didn’t give me much of a choice. She pulled my funding for medical school. I’m not exactly happy with her right now.”

  “Sorry to hear that. But you won’t regret being here—learning to control dragons is the most important thing you can possibly do. There are a lot of doctors, but only us witches stand between dragons and destruction.”

  “So you said they transform?”

  “They’re shape shifters. They have human and dragon forms. In their human forms, they’re physically stronger than normal humans, and have heightened senses, but that’s about the extent of their powers. As dragons, they’re much more formidable. When we practice on them, it will be while they’re in their human forms to start with, so that they’re not as much of a danger.”

  “How do you stop them transforming?”

  “There are spells all around this place to prevent it. And they can’t leave—alarms would go off the minute they tried, and then they’d have the whole coven on them in moments. They live in the dungeons under the mansion. They have to be there by eight every night, but during the day, we have them do menial tasks, to keep them in their place. They know that we’re more powerful and more numerous than they are, so they do as they’re told.”

  “But that’s slavery!” Rose protested.

  Annabelle frowned at her in a corrective manner, rather like Rose’s teachers at school did when she derailed the class with her questions about obscure subjects. “They’re dragons. They deserve far worse than what we do to them. They’re monsters. You’d better get your head straight before we start lessons tomorrow. Kaylee will not be at all happy if you start s
tanding up for them.”

  Neither was Annabelle, that much was obvious. Rose took a deep breath, trying to get her anger under control. Annabelle was right. She may not know everything, but she did know that dragons had proven throughout history that they were brutal and not to be trusted.

  Of course, those were histories written by witches; dragon histories may be very different. This was not the time to bring up the point, though, so Rose kept quiet.

  “I guess you’re right. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

  Annabelle’s frown reverted to her usual friendly smile. “It’s okay. I can understand that it takes some time to get used to, especially since you haven’t been told much about this kind of stuff from your mom. Come on, let’s go get supper.”

  Jade and Wendy joined their table again and quickly got into a spirited discussion with Annabelle about how much they hated dragons. The only good dragon was a dead dragon, according to Jade, a statement that Annabelle and Wendy were quick to agree with. Rose took a large bite of her steak pie, saving her from having to add her agreement.

  She had to keep reminding herself that these people knew more about dragons than she did. She’d only seen them as meek servants. Annabelle and some of the other witches had seen them as monsters, tearing apart their loved ones, razing their homes. Witches had good reason to hate dragons.

  Then why did this conversation make Rose feel so uncomfortable?

  She guessed that it was just as Annabelle said—it would take her time to get used to this. Her mom hadn’t talked about the dragons much, probably not wanting to bring such hateful talk home with her.

  Wendy was describing what she’d like to do to a dragon when she first got her chance at one, in sickening detail. Worried that her dinner was going to come up, Rose changed the subject.

  “What do we do once we’ve finished our studies? Do we stay here, or do we get our own places? My mom is part of a coven, but she still lives at home.”

  “We get to decide.” Annabelle set down her knife and fork. “Most people choose to stay with the majority of their coven, but some prefer to have separate homes, even those who do spend most of their days here or at their coven’s base and only go home in the evenings.”

  “Yes, that’s what my mom does. How long does it take to finish learning?”

  “We never really finish.” Wendy sounded perfectly normal now, unlike when she was talking about dragons, when her voice became hateful and harsh. “Most witches spend their whole lives learning about their magic. Though within three or four years, we’ll probably have learned enough to be proficient in most areas. Then we’ll decide if we want to learn more in our areas of specialty, or if we’d prefer just to see to coven business.”

  “How would you keep learning, once the witches who share your specialty have taught you everything they know?” Rose wasn’t planning to spend her whole life learning magic, but she was curious about how far she could take her studies if she chose to.

  Annabelle chuckled. “For that, you’d go to the secure wing. It’s a place where people pushing the boundaries of their magic can experiment.”

  “Why is it called the secure wing?”

  “Because it’s completely explosion proof. Experimenting with magic can be dangerous, though thankfully no one has died in that wing in recent years. Most of us are more worried about controlling the dragons than the more arcane forms of magic.”

  “I didn’t realize spells could go that wrong—killing people and causing explosions, I mean. My mom never mentioned anything like that when teaching me the basics of controlling my powers.”

  “Experimenting with magic is dangerous, but it’s not that common, which is why your mom probably didn’t mention it. You need to be a very powerful witch with an excellent mastery of your powers to even be able to attempt it. It’s not done so much now, anymore. The most important thing is fighting the dragons, not intellectual pursuits. Maybe when all the dragons are dead, we’ll have more time and space to expand our powers.”

  “You intend to kill them, then? Even when they’re not fighting back?”

  Annabelle was frowning at her again. “They’re only not fighting back because they know we’ll kill them if they try. If they thought they had the upper hand, they would have no problem doing their best to kill us—the Great Rebellion proves that much.”

  “I suppose so.” Annabelle’s case against dragons seemed watertight, but Rose was well aware that history was written by the victors. She shook herself slightly. She had no real reason to believe the dragons above the witches, other than her distaste for how the dragons were being treated. As for their treatment, she hadn’t seen all of the carnage that had factored into how things were now, so she really had no room to judge.

  Still, it was a depressing conversation. “I guess you’re right. I’m going to go to my room and finish unpacking.”

  Rose was mostly finished unpacking, but she needed some time alone to think. Her first day hadn’t been at all like she expected. It felt like she wasn’t so much here to learn magic as to learn how to hate dragons.

  As she was walking through the deserted halls, she spotted the janitor from earlier, still working on mopping the floor. As she approached him, he glanced up at her and dropped the mop in apparent surprise.

  “Here.” Rose leaned down and picked it up, handing it back.

  “Thank you.” He seemed understandably guarded. As he took the mop from her, Rose gasped. Her necklace had suddenly heated against her chest, and she felt sure that she saw small, colorful sparks flying from their point of contact.

  She must be imagining things. She pressed a hand to the necklace, but found it no warmer than it usually was from lying against her skin. Rose blinked, looking around, but unsurprisingly, there were no sparks in sight.

  “You should go. You’ll get into trouble if you’re seen talking to me.”

  He turned away from her, getting back to his cleaning. Rose wanted to question him, but the last thing she wanted was to get into trouble on her first day, or bring trouble down on him. She walked slowly down the hall, glancing back several times. The man didn’t look up from his work, but his shoulders seemed tense.

  Rose wondered what he thought about how things had changed. She wondered why his people had started the Great Rebellion—their own reasons, not the reasons the witches gave.

  Forcing herself to think of something else, she hurried to her and Annabelle’s room. Rose puttered around for a bit, refolding clothes and moving a couple of inconsequential items. Her mind was buzzing too much to allow her to sleep yet.

  She eventually lay down and got out her Kindle. When her mom had bought it for her, she’d preloaded a bunch of books, mostly about witch history and basic spells. Rose hadn’t appreciated the obvious push to get her to be more interested in coven stuff, and had avoided reading the books out of principle.

  Now, her curiosity overcame her. She opened the first, a long tome covering the history of witches and dragons for as long as witches and dragons had existed. Reading the account, Rose started to understand why witches hated dragons so much. They certainly did sound brutal, even making allowances for the fact that this version of history may be biased against them.

  Annabelle came in just as Rose was starting the third chapter. “What are you reading?”

  “Rise and Fall of the Beasts.”

  “Kaylee’s already got you on that, has she?”

  “No, my mom gave it to me.”

  “Figures. At least you didn’t get it read to you for a bedtime story. That thing is more boring than most of my school textbooks put together.”

  Rose loved studying and seldom found textbooks boring, but even she had to admit that this book was going to be a challenge to get through. “Is it required reading for what Kaylee will be teaching us?”

  “No, Kaylee will take us through all the main points, so we’re good there. There’s not officially any set reading, but she ‘encourages’ us to do our own resea
rch. Rise and Fall is one of her favorites. You’ll certainly get off to a good start having read that.”

  A good start was exactly what Rose wanted. She’d always been teased at school for being the teacher’s pet. In college, reactions tended more toward envy and requests for help studying, which she always gladly agreed to.

  She lay reading for a while after Annabelle was already asleep. After about an hour, Rose gave up on the history book and started looking through basic spells. That was a lot more interesting, though she didn’t dare try anything herself—not after what Annabelle had told her about experiments sometimes going so badly wrong.

  At some point, she must have drifted off while reading. That wasn’t surprising; she’d done that more times than she could count.

  What was surprising was the dream she had.

  Rose was in Kaylee’s office, but Kaylee wasn’t there. The janitor and the man who had brought Kaylee tea were. What was more, both of them were shirtless. Rose felt herself blushing as she tried to excuse herself, but the door slammed shut of its own accord before she could escape.

  The janitor walked toward her, pressing her up against one of the walls. Instead of being freaked out, as any sane person would have been, Rose was turned on.

  She’d never been interested in romance or even sex. Her studies were the most important thing to her. Friendships and family came second, with romance and attraction not even making the list of her priorities.

  Now, attraction was pushing its way right to the top. She reached her hands around the janitor’s neck as he leaned down to kiss her. The kiss left her breathless and wanting more.

  “What’s your name?” Rose had wanted to ask it earlier, but she hadn’t wanted to overstep her bounds. Now, that line had not only been crossed, but entirely erased.

  “Asher. This is Gavin.”