Midnight Magic, page 157
Buffet tables line the four walls. Each one holds dozens of trays, overflowing with cooked vegetables, cheeses, and baked bread. The delicious aroma of roasted garlic permeates the air, along with ginger and a host of spices I’m not familiar with.
It’s so different from the scraps of burned meat I’m used to at home, and my mouth waters even as my stomach roils. I’m so nervous I don’t think I could eat… but I can’t afford not to. Who knows when my next meal will be?
My heart races as I take in the warlocks, sorcerers, warrior mages, witches, wizards, and spell casters. There are so many of them, and I can practically feel their eyes boring into me. Reminding me I don’t belong.
I’m a witch. I’m a witch. I’m a witch, I repeat over and over again in my head. I need those words to give me courage.
They don’t, though.
My knees tremble, and I fight the urge to throw up. I can’t risk drawing that sort of attention to myself. Not when every single person in this room could hurt me with a single spell… and I have absolutely no way of defending myself.
I grew up on cautionary tales about witches. Tales of children who wandered too far in the woods and were never seen again. Members of my pack would return home from battle, beaten and bleeding. Felled by witches who could bring them to their knees with a single spell. Make them tear at their own flesh or go blind with a single spell. Witches who would send them home with nightmares that would torture them for years.
So why am I here? Why am I a witch?
Last year, any one of the people here wouldn’t have hesitated to kill me. Today, they’re supposed to accept me as one of their own. But what if they don’t?
I’m a witch. I’m a witch. I’m a witch.
The Selection Ceremony is never wrong. But then why do I feel like an impostor?
I hunch my shoulders and try to blend in. Little good that does.
Everyone else is wearing the bright, vivid colors that witches seem to gravitate toward.
I’m the only one wearing gray, tattered clothes. Werewolf clothes. Enemy clothes. Clothes that make me stand out like a sore thumb.
It isn’t supposed to matter who I was before the Selection. But, of course, it does.
Everyone watches me as I make my way toward the buffet table. Conversations stop as I near, only to start up again once I pass. If I get too close, witches back away like I have a contagious disease.
I grab an empty plate with shaking hands, piling on food. I need to eat, even if the thought makes me sick. I can’t afford not to.
I stuff a piece of cheese in my mouth without tasting it and force myself to chew. It threatens to come back up. All I want is to leave. Not the coven itself—I am stuck here until the day I die—but this crowded room.
My heart pounds in my chest, and my palms start to sweat. I struggle to grip my fork as I pierce a slice of broccoli and lift it to my mouth with shaking fingers.
“Hey.” The greeting startles me so much I almost drop my plate.
The witch who just spoke looks a year or two younger than me. Her hair is bright pink, her clothes the same colorful mix as everyone else’s here. Unlike me, she clearly belongs here. So why isn’t she avoiding me like everyone else?
“I’m Leia,” she says, then glances over her shoulder at a large, muscular guy who’s carrying a plate heaped with food. “And that’s Bay. Are you new here?”
My outfit makes that fact painfully obvious. She already knows I’m new. So why is she asking?
I feel sick. I know this is a trap. It has to be a trap. It’s always a trap.
“What’s your name?” Leia asks.
I glance around and catch a few people watching us. Are they in on whatever this is? Are they waiting for her signal before they attack?
I want to get out of here. I want to run. I just have nowhere to go. And I can’t just ignore her. I have to play nice.
“Breene,” I whisper.
Leia smiles. “Brie, like the cheese?”
Is she making fun of me, or did she mishear? I decide to do the safe thing and nod.
“I can’t wait for the Selection Ceremony,” Leia says with a glance at Bay, who’s busy shoveling food into his mouth. “Ours is next year, but I already know we’re both going to be witches.”
Bay nods in agreement as he chews.
“Did you always know you wanted to be a witch?” Leia asks.
Not until the Selection Ceremony, I think. But I nod, anyway.
The Selection Ceremony taps into our deepest desires. We walk in as humans, and walk out whatever species we want to be most. But until the Elder’s voice rang through that room, I didn’t know I wanted to be a witch.
Not a Wolf was on endless replay in my head. Anything but a wolf. I’ll take anything else. So I ended up the sworn enemy of wolves instead. I guess I should have been more specific.
“You’re going to love it here,” Leia tells me.
I look closely at her, trying to figure out if she’s being genuine or sarcastic. She can’t possibly think everyone here will accept me. There’s no way I’ll be safe here.
“Leia, try the mushrooms,” Bay says around another mouthful of food. He spears one with his fork and holds it up to her lips.
She takes a bite, chews, and smiles. “Delicious! Old Rayna must have done something different with the herbs.”
“Ginger,” Bay says. “Try some, Brie. They’re good.”
I look down at my plate and realize I already took some earlier without really paying attention. I poke one with my fork and chew.
“This is good,” I whisper in awe. Back home, we mostly ate meat, and the wolves like it rare. Yeah, there’d be vegetables, but no one ever bothered cooking them, so the flavors are all new to me.
I attack the rest of the mushrooms on my plate, and Leia and Bay share a grin. But before I can think much of it, I realize everyone’s whispering about something as they head for the door.
“What’s going on?” I ask Leia, keeping my voice low.
“Kiernan’s back.” At my blank look, her eyes grow wide. “No one’s told you about our Kiernan?”
I shake my head.
“He leads our coven,” she hisses. “And he’s one of the most powerful warlocks who’s ever lived. He knows every single spell there is, and you should see him in battle. Not that I ever have. But everyone talks about it. I mean, you should hear the rumor going around that—”
“Leia—” Bay tries to interrupt, but she talks right over him.
“He killed a dozen wolves—”
“Leia,” Bay says, more loudly this time. A few people turn to stare.
“By himself, with just one spell. Umeritie!” She raises her hand in the air, and the mushrooms I just ate threaten to come up.
“Leia, stop!” Bay shouts and grabs my plate as it starts to slip from my fingers. “Brie, Leia can’t cast. She hasn’t been to the Selection yet.” Bay’s words barely register through the haze of fear. “She’s just being dramatic as always. Ignore her.”
“I’m not being dramatic!” Leia cries. “And, of course I can’t cast. I haven’t been through the Selection. Why would you think…? Oh.” Leia shakes her head, sending pink hair flying. “You’re not a wolf anymore, Brie. You’re a witch. So it’s not like I’d cast a spell on you, even if I could.”
“Which she can’t,” Bay repeats.
“Yet,” Leia shoots back. “I’m going to be a witch. And then, a Warrior Mage! We both are. But we’d never use our magic against you, Brie. You’re one of us. Hey, can I have another mushroom before we go?”
Bay sighs, but he doesn’t do a good job of hiding his amusement. And the way he looks at Leia tells me there’s definitely something between them.
We finish off the rest of the mushrooms and leave the plates before rushing to follow everyone else outside.
The sun’s already set, and a crescent moon and dozens of stars light up the sky. I fully expect to hear wolves howl before I remember where I am.
We head into the trees and join everyone in a large clearing. They’re silent. Waiting for Kiernan. The warlock who’s murdered dozens of wolves with one spell.
He could kill me with a blink. Torture me with two. And if I want to survive tonight, I can’t let him see me, so I quickly look across the clearing at anything but him.
CHAPTER 2
Kiernan
I wipe the werewolf blood from my hands.
While I rarely participate in close-quarter combat—usually I attack from a distance with my magic—I couldn’t stop members of the Steelpaw Pack from lunging halfway across the forest at us and trying to tear us to pieces tonight.
Those dirty mutts will retaliate for the wolves that we killed today. I don’t doubt that they’ll be just outside our borders by tomorrow night. Danger lurks so closely, less than a mile from here and just across the river.
But I don’t give a fuck if they come. I will slaughter all of them with the snap of my fingers, will crush their skulls with the tightening of my fist, and rip out their hearts without even touching them next time.
“Bad news,” Darcy, the coven sorceress and my second-in-command, says to me as we walk into the New Recruit Annual Party my coven hosts. “We have a new recruit who comes from the Steelpaw Pack. And she’s… acting strange.”
“Which one?” I ask, scanning the mingling bodies in the forest just behind the coven’s main community building. Colorful flora decorate the trees and a slight fog hovers feet off the dirt. “I don’t see many new recruits this year.”
Darcy moves closer and extends her arm, pointing toward a breathtaking woman with raven hair who stands on the outskirts of the party. She chews on the inside of her cheek and nervously drums her fingers on the plate, glancing at some of my warrior mages.
Something so deep, so feral, draws me to her.
Maybe it is the way she looks so nervous, how she keeps fidgeting, or her damn fucking beauty, but I want to be closer to her. I want to know her name and accept her as a witch with wide open arms.
“She really doesn’t sit well with me,” Darcy says, crossing her arms and shifting her weight to her opposite foot. She stares at her with pointed and narrow eyes. “We can’t trust any wolf. Not after what’s happened with her old pack.”
I clear my throat, both wanting to trust in her and wanting to believe my second-in-command. Darcy has never let me down before and has the best intuition in this part of the forest. Many times, her gut feeling has saved us from slaughter.
“She’s a witch,” I correct. “Not a werewolf.”
“You know what I mean,” Darcy says. “She comes from wolves and has grown up with them all her life. She knows nothing else other than their treacherous and traitorous ways. We shouldn’t trust her.”
After letting out a low sigh, I nod. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“I’ll let everyone know as well.”
“No,” I say sharply, snagging her attention. “You will keep this matter between you and me. No other guards should be watching her more than they’re watching the other recruits. If she’s really a spy, we can’t let her know that we know about her.”
And while I always speak the truth to Darcy, I am not being completely honest with her. I don’t want anyone else following her around, stalking her, trying to get closer to her.
She is mine. Mine to pay attention to. Mine to figure out.
There is a feral urge inside me to take her to my bed. I have never been with a recruit before. With all these wolf attacks, it’s been about three months since I had sex. And I want her so badly right now.
If she really is a spy for the werewolves, then nobody else can find out.
Whether I have to tie her to my headboard until she learns that she belongs to nobody else except me, or I have to keep her locked in my dungeon for days to get her on our side, I don’t care what it takes.
I will handle her. I will fix her. I will make her mine.
Completely and utterly. Undeniably mine.
“But, Kiernan—” Darcy starts.
“Nobody finds out,” I snap, stalking toward the lonesome woman whom I’ll make mine.
When I approach her, she looks up at me with huge brown eyes and skitters back a few feet until she hits a tree. Her fingers curl against the bark as she sucks in a sharp breath.
“Can I… Did I… do somethi—”
Unable to stop myself from touching her, I grab her upper arm. Suddenly my chest tightens, warmth exploding through it. And all I can seem to think, to see, to smell, is her. She is overwhelmingly strong.
Mate.
In all my years of life and of leading this coven, I have seen so many people find their one true person that they will spend their forever with. But I never thought that I would find her. Until now. I stare at her for a couple more moments in disbelief that she is mine. Really mine.
“I-I’m sorry if—”
Wanting to get her alone this very second, I tear my gaze away and drag her into our main coven building. The door snaps shut behind us, the sound echoing through the quiet hallways.
When I release her, locks of raven hair cover her face. I go to tuck it away behind her ear, but she flinches away and stares at the wooden floors.
“I-I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise. Please, I’m new here.”
I furrow my brows and step back, crossing my arms over my chest and grimacing, because she doesn’t want me to be closer to her, never mind touch her, like my body is aching to do. And why is she flinching? Has one of the warrior mages done something to her? Is that why she looks afraid of all the witches and mages here tonight?
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Breene,” she whispers. “My name is Breene.”
“What’d you do, Breene?”
She peeks up at me and stays quiet for a long time.
“What are you apologizing for? Tell me.”
“I don’t know,” she whispers, taking another step back and refusing to make eye contact with me again. She shuffles her feet, and I expect her to bolt right out of here or make up some excuse if she is a spy. “But I promise not to do it again.”
“Why aren’t you socializing? It’s what all witches do.”
Again, she stays quiet and fiddles with her fingers, a bead of sweat rolling down the column of her neck. “I don’t know. I’m just nervous.”
“About what?”
For the fucking tenth time tonight, she replies with a shrug. All this quietness and shyness is really pissing me off. I don’t want to have to deal with a werewolf spy; I thought I already took care of them today.
Not only that, I don’t know what I’ll do if my mate is a spy for the enemy.
CHAPTER 3
Breene
Mate. He’s my mate.
My eyes grow wide as I realize that I belong to this man. This monster who’s killed dozens of wolves without remorse, and who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt or kill me.
I tremble before Kiernan and pray to the goddess that he’ll leave me alone. But she’s never listened to my prayers before, so why would she now?
She didn’t listen when Alpha Reiker’s fist connected with my jaw, splattering blood across the pack floor. She didn’t listen when he dug his claws into my back and pushed me to my knees. She didn’t listen when he ordered me to lick up every drop of my own blood while he summoned the entire pack to watch.
Where was the goddess each and every time Alpha Reiker made an example of me? Each time he hurt me or shamed me in front of the pack? Where was she when he locked me in my room for days on end without food? Each time I was sure I’d starve? Each time I wished I was dead?
Kiernan steps closer, and a wave of fear assails me. I don’t know what I did wrong. I don’t know the rules here, not that it would do much good. I knew the rules back home, but Alpha Reiker would just make up new ones when he was in a punishing mood.
Yet, I can’t forget that the man in front of me isn’t Alpha Reiker. He towers over me by almost a foot, and his bulging muscles put my former Alpha to shame.
He’s taller, bigger, stronger—and he has magic that can torture me in ways I’ve never had to suffer. But worse than that, he’s my mate.
I was lucky back at home. I was a nobody in a large pack of potential victims for Alpha Reiker to torture. Most days, he forgot I existed. Most days, he’d pick on someone else. Someone like his mate.
I’d watch him whip her in the pack square because she dared bring food to one of the many packmates he’d starved into submission. I watched him drag her beaten, bleeding body to the infirmary while he laughed. And I watched him grab fistfuls of her hair and force her into their bedroom, where he inflicted endless tortures that had her screaming her throat raw.
I want to throw up just thinking about everything she went through. Everything she will go through until the day she dies… or he does.
Kiernan raises my chin a little higher, and I start to shake. His hands are huge. Powerful. But it’s not the thought of him beating me with his huge fists that makes me sway on my feet… it’s the thought of being tortured by spell after spell. I’ve heard enough stories to fill my nightmares—but now, this is my reality.
I am definitely going to be sick. Really sick. But if I throw up on Kiernan’s ceremonial robes, he’ll make an example of me. He’s probably waiting for any excuse to make an example of me.
“You’re crying,” Kiernan announces, and my shaking intensifies.
I shake my head in denial even as more tears pour down my cheeks. I can’t cry. Crying will only make the punishment worse. Crying always makes the punishment worse.
Kiernan grabs my wrist. I don’t dare look up as he drags me back toward the celebration. He’s going to torture me. In front of everyone. He’s going to show them just how loud he can make me scream.
Why did I think things could ever be different? Why did I let myself believe that the Selection Ceremony would be my salvation?
Kiernan pulls me outside. I shiver, though, the cold night air is no match for the fear coursing through my veins.
