The witches had their own rules and decrees unto their own but agreed, albeit loosely, to follow the laws set by the hunters. I’d once walked through a forest with Morgana. Talia’s carefree, wildly spirited daughter. Women had danced naked beneath the moon, singing while indulging in sin and drink.
The gentle scent of sage and chamomile tickled my senses as Talia, the oldest witch here, smiled softly in greeting. My attention slowly roved over the firetruck red hair and emerald green eyes she conjured to mask her aging. If she had any weaknesses, I’d yet to discover them. Morgana squealed from within the house, and I couldn’t help but smile at her excitement.
“You got my message!” She clapped her hands as Talia frowned, narrowing her darkening gaze on her daughter. “I knew you would come, Xari. I told you, mother. I merely needed to leave it where that old stuffy human would see it, and he’d call in the real hunters.” Morgana’s singsong voice echoed through the yard, causing the homes across from them to tremble as if in an earthquake.
“Morgana has missed your visits, Xariana. We all have,” Talia admitted softly, her smile forming a firm, thin line of her lips. She nodded at the gargoyles, who jumped off the gate, shifting into men as they opened it for me to enter.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” I murmured absently, ignoring the fact they were naked in their human form. Talia had collected them as a debt owed to her family, and while it appeared the gargoyles weren’t valued, they were.
Morgana slammed into me, forcing the air from my lungs as she wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tightly. “You just vanished, bitch!” she snapped, yanking back to stare at me. “I almost burned the guild down to find you, but your dad was all, ‘She needs space, and give her some time to come to terms with what happened.’ Absolute horse shite, if you ask me. You should have let us handle Micah and Meredith and made them vanish.”
“I missed you, too,” I chuckled, hugging her back. “You were right. The other witches on this continent are whiney bitches that wouldn’t know real witchcraft if you shoved it up their vagina and pulled it out of their ears.”
Talia snorted, nodding her head in agreement. “Bunch of lazy hussies, the lot of them,” she muttered beneath her breath as we started toward the entrance. “Your father said you’d need some things when you returned. I had them prepared in advance when the winds shifted, and your scent was upon it, girl.”
“He told you I was coming back?” I asked, turning to wave at the hunters that stood across the road, banned from entering the House of Witches by Talia herself. Not that it was an actual home, but since everyone else had one for their breed, including Rhys’s woman, they’d taken the name and hung a plaque on the gate.
“No, you daft child. I told you, I smelled you on the wind,” Talia snorted before shaking her head. “You’re going deaf because you never set those blasted phones of yours down long enough to hear.”
“I left mine in the car,” I stated plainly. “A certain witch loathes those damned contraptions,” I smirked, and her shoulders shook as she chuckled at me, spouting back her own words.
“Goes to your vagina,” she chirped before cackling. “You’ll never have babes if you stay on those retched things. How are you to meet a man? How are you to experience the world the mother created for us if you never set it down?”
“Men suck, children are a pain in the ass, but this world is beautiful,” I replied, watching her turning to look at me, narrowing her calculating gaze.
“You’ve met him, then?”
“Who?” I asked, feeling as if she could see my fantasy unfolding on my face.
“The man who teaches you that not all of them will suck,” Talia replied. “No, you haven’t met yet. One day you will meet a man who you will want to throttle. Pummel him, and if he gives you that fire back, come to me, and we’ll make a spell to have the sodden prick fall in love with you forever,” she promised, studying me. “Oh, you thought I would give you advice on romance? Men are jerks, darling. If you don’t know that yet, well, you’re a lost cause.”
“Mother, she’s young. Xariana isn’t even twenty-five yet. She’s a child,” Morgana chuckled, patting my shoulder. “So, what the hell is all over you?” she surprised me by asking.
“What?” I wiped my face off before looking down at my hand.
“You’re marked,” Talia snorted, pointing at my stomach. “You didn’t realize you were marked?”
Frowning, I narrowed my eyes before lifting my shirt. “This shit? You know what it is? If so, get it off of me, please.”
“It cannot be removed.” Talia moved closer to the scrawling black vines that pulsed as she neared. She reached out and was about to touch it, and I yelped as pain ripped through my stomach. “They’re inside of you, Xariana. You’ve been marked by darkness, and it intends to claim you for now. It hasn’t spread to your legs, correct?”
“No, but it’s below my breast, on my ribcage, and covering my abdomen,” I admitted, watching the inky substance pulse as if poised to attack Talia if she touched me. “Why doesn’t it seem to like you?”
“Because it knows I would try to remove it, and in doing so, you’d die. It’s warning me by harming you. It wants you alive. That’s a good sign, but it doesn’t explain why or to whom it belongs. You haven’t come across a dark practitioner lately, have you? Or a male witch that you shared amorous actions?”
“No, and hell no,” I snorted, as Talia and Morgana’s eyes snapped up to meet mine with venom. “It’s not personal. As you’ve said, if they wanted me to love them, they’d merely need a spell to enforce those feelings. I’m a hopeless romantic at heart,” I elaborated, aware of how touchy witches could be about their own.
Dropping my shirt, I scrunched my mouth up, twisting it sideways. “You had my father’s wallet?” I pried, knowing they didn’t take him. But they were much like Axton, with a pulse on the underworld chatter. But, of course, theirs came in the form of favors that generally ended up with me naked in the woods, luring something that could kill me out of the dark, creepy forest.
“Yeah, Xavier was here a few days ago,” Talia admitted, nodding to where the orphaned child, Mindy, was standing, her eyes following me like prey.
“Soothsayer, succubus, and gypsy aren’t a good combination to breed. Add in witch genes and an enhancement spell that no one can break, and you have that little asshole. She swiped it from his pocket when he was here,” Morgana scolded, and I fought a smile as the small child stuck her tongue out at her. “Keep it up, and I’ll find a way to remove that enchantment and turn you into a snail, feeding you to the wolves for dinner.”
“You’re cursed,” Mindy stated, stepping away from the southern-style wrap-around porch that appeared the moment she moved. “Day wants your womb, but night would like your life. One wishes to breed you like a dog, and the other prefers to hurt you. Which one will you choose? Both have sinister desires for the daughter who was hidden, kept from her kind. They’re here, tick-tock; they’ve already started your clock. Games are afoot, and pieces are in play. Which king shall you slay, and which will you lay?” she whispered in a multilayered voice that sent the creeps rushing down my spine.