by Rhys Lawless
We got a taxi to Camden, and I made sure to keep checking behind us in case we were being tailed. When we left Java Jinx, we’d also left behind the privacy and security the place offered, and if the witch hunters came after us, we’d be on our own.
At least now I had protection. Thanks to Caleb, I had six spells guaranteed to keep us safe—and my fox, if need be.
By the time we got up to Camden, which thankfully didn’t take long, I was starting to believe we had dodged a bullet and lost the witch hunters. There was no way they could have followed us all the way there unless they had better technology and spying equipment than I thought.
As we turned on Camden High Street and walked up the road, five, yes five, men appeared, walking in circles around us. They might not have had their swords out, but I knew what they were. And so did Troy because he grabbed my hand and squeezed it tight.
As he squeezed, a premonition came over me, blurring my vision. I saw myself and Troy, together. Waking up next to him in a bed that wasn’t my own and one I knew wasn’t his either. I didn’t know how far away in time this was, but when I opened my eyes next, I knew that I would do everything in my power to make sure this vision became a reality.
Five
Troy
Once again we had been made, and I knew the men surrounding us were witch hunters from the look on their faces and their aggressive stance. If I hadn’t been holding Easton’s hand, I’d be shitting myself. As it was, I was shitting myself anyway, but something about holding him gave me strength to stand up straight despite my lack of self-defense knowledge.
Not that any self-defense could do squat against a sword.
One of them stepped forward, and I almost jumped when I saw him. Wade. My handler. He did not look happy to see me.
“You!” I shouted at him.
His frown deepened, and he chewed the inside of his cheeks as they looked more hollow than had before.
“Mr. Evans, you are keeping very bad company. I don’t think you realize what he is,” he said.
Just looking into his blue eyes made me feel threatened. I knew there was something about him. If only I’d realized sooner that that something was that he was a killer.
“Whatever he is, he doesn’t deserve death,” I answered him.
Wade raised his head as if contemplating my words, but then he spoke and I realized he hadn’t.
“He’s a witch, and all witches deserve to go back where they came from. Hell,” he said, and with a single motion of his hand, a blade appeared in his hand. The rest of the witch hunters got their swords out too.
It must be some kind of retractable blade because they were all holding hilts out of which the blades grew. I didn’t know how that was physically possibly, but then again, I’d just found out witches and vampires were real, so who the hell knew what was physically possible anymore.
Easton stretched his hand over me protectively and gently placed me behind him.
All five aimed their swords at him, and he immediately reached for his bangle and pulled the first spell out. Two of them, one from each side, came at us and just as they raised their swords over their heads to build momentum, Easton mumbled something and they both set alight in green flames.
They both screamed and dropped to the ground trying to put out the fire, but after the discussion with Caleb, I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“Who’s next? I haven’t got all day,” Easton said, and he reached for the next spell as the other two witch hunters attacked us. Wade watched him taking down his team and did nothing. Yet he was happy to blame Easton for being evil. What did his apathy make him?
“You can’t escape us,” Wade said calmly. “We will always find you. We will always kill you.”
“Yeah, yeah, now get on with it,” Easton said, and threw a spell at one of the two attackers, but the guy cut the spell in half and it evaporated before it had the chance to hurt him.
Fuck!
That wasn’t good. But Easton didn’t waste time. He cast another spell, and this time the witch hunter’s entire body crawled with scorpions and he writhed on the ground next to his burning team mates. As soon as he touched one of them, he caught fire and the chomping scorpions turned to dust.
As the fourth witch hunter came for Easton, a protective shield came up in front of us both. And as much as the hunter tried to hurt us, his attacks wouldn’t cut through the spell.
“Are you okay?” I asked Easton, and he nodded.
When I looked at his face, I could see he was gritting his teeth and struggling to speak.
“Are you hurt? What’s going on?”
“The shield-won’t-last-long,” he grunted, and I squeezed his shoulder as if that would do anything.
It wasn’t. I needed to do more. I couldn’t just stand there watching him fight a losing battle and expect him to save himself and me from certain death.
“You don’t have to die, Troy,” Wade shouted at me as if he could read my thoughts. “Just step away and let us do our job.”
Looking at him made me feel sick to my stomach. The fact that I had worked for him and his organization for so long, helping them upgrade their security systems as if they were the ones that needed protection could make me retch.
I looked away, but Easton was still struggling, so I searched around us for help. Surely the High Street should be busier than this even if it was well past midnight. There should be people walking about. Someone to call for help. But the area looked deserted. Did the witch hunters have that kind of power? Could they clear an area just so they could kill a witch? Did that mean they had people higher up in power that could pull such strings?
I watched as one of the writhing hunters dropped his sword and rolled away from it. When the sword didn’t look like it was on fire, I immediately dropped to the ground to grab it.
To hell with it. I might not know how to fight, but I could definitely try to stab things with it. How hard could that be?
My hand wrapped around the hilt just as Easton’s shield broke, shattering into pieces until there was nothing left of it. The sword felt light in my hand and almost like an extension of it.
Before I could think too much of it and calculate the risks, I lifted the sword up and aimed straight for the witch hunter that had been attacking Easton. The blade went through him like a knife through paper and he dropped to the ground, the blood from spurting from his mouth, choking him. I pulled the sword out of him as soon as he fell and I looked at Easton who looked at me with wide eyes.
“You saved my life. Again,” he whispered, and helped me up.
“Well, isn’t that sweet? Now you both get to die. Together,” Wade said, and we both turned to him just in time to see him pounce down the few feet between us.
“I’ve had enough of your bullshit,” Easton said, and flicked a spell at him. As the spell manifested into a large heavy snake, he threw another one. His last one.
Wade cut through the snake before it could inflict any pain on him, but that meant he didn’t see the chaos spell that engulfed him.
“That’s more like it,” Easton said with a pleasing smile, and I hugged him.
His skin felt so right against mine. His breath on my neck was the sustenance I hadn’t known I needed. And I needed more of it. I paused for a moment, and then, before I had the chance to overthink it, I kissed him.
This was beyond weird. Kissing a practical stranger and feeling so alive doing it. We hadn’t even met at a bar or hooked up online. We had been running for our lives since the moment we met, yet there was a sense of familiarity kissing him.
It was a warm, dry kiss, but it was sweet and it tugged at my heartstrings long after it ended. My mind completely forgot about everything and everyone. Whatever was happening around us became a blur and a distant memory. Until, of course, Easton brought me to my senses.
He bit my upper lip lightly before pulling away from my grasp.
“Well, hello,” Easton whispered. “As much as I… hate doing this, we… we need
to put a pause on this. We really need to get going before he gets out of there and calls for backup. If there isn’t any already.”
He was right. Of course he was. We needed to get to this sage witch he had told me about before it was too late. What she would do for us when we got there, I had no idea. I could only imagine the possibilities. But as long as Easton was with me, I wasn’t scared to take any steps in whatever direction.
He took my hand and ran up the road. We passed the closed shops and restaurants and took cover at the canal under one of the bridges where he proceeded to knock on the stone wall at different points, as if in a pattern.
Only moments after removing his fingers from the bricks, a door opened inward where no door should have been, and he stepped in. I followed behind him and the door closed of its own accord. We were drowned in darkness and I searched for his hand, but when I grabbed it, the space was illuminated by torches hanging off walls. Easton led us down the corridor until we came up against a wooden door with an iron handle that had seen better days. He pushed the door, and we found ourselves inside a round room that seemed like it had popped out of a medieval fantasy book.
It was lined with bookcases and doors, and at the very center, on a lower level, was a bonfire that licked the room with its warmth and coziness. As much as the place should have felt foreign and scary, the fire seemed to bring it all together and make it welcoming.
The wall on the other end of the room was made up of book shelves in all shapes and sizes, which cut around the arches and all were full to the ceiling with massive, old-looking tomes. One of the doors that was located here opened, and a figure with a red cloak emerged.
“Mother Red,” Easton exclaimed, and ran to her for a hug.
The woman put down her hood, letting her brunette curls drop to her shoulders, and she took Easton into her arms.
“Oh, my child,” she exclaimed, and stroked his head. “Let me see,” she said, and closed her eyes while Easton stayed where he was in her bosom.
Only some moments later, she grabbed the sides of his face and he came up standing straight again.
“You poor thing. You’ve been through hell,” she told him.
“Which is why we need your help, Mother Red,” Easton said.
The woman nodded in understanding before turning to face me. Her eyes lit up, reflecting the flames I was standing beside, and she took slow, measured steps toward me.
“Hello, Troy. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, and gave me her hand.
I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it. She looked too important to shake it, but kissing it would be weird, especially if that wasn’t what was expected.
“I’m partial to handshakes,” she chuckled, and I grimaced.
How did she know what I’d been thinking?
“I can read thoughts, my dear. It’s my natural witch power, just like Easton’s is the power of premonitions,” she said.
“It is?” I asked, and I turned my gaze to him.
He gave me half a smile, an awkward one at that, in response and puppy eyes as if he’d done something wrong. I wasn’t exactly sure what, but I would find out.
“Can you help him?” I asked Mother Red Cap. First things first, right? “Can you… help us?”
“I can,” she replied.
“But?” I asked. I could see it in her eyes. I knew it was coming.
Instead of answering, she grabbed my hand and led me down a step to the fire pit and invited Easton to sit down with us. We both settled down on either side, and she looked into the fire which seemed to grow in size when she stared at it.
“I can help you, but it comes at a cost,” she said.
“That’s fine. However much it costs, I’ll pay. If it means Easton gets to live,” I said.
Mother Red Cap patted my hand and pursed her lips.
“I’m not talking about a monetary price, my dear boy. I’m talking about the price you’ll both have to pay if we go ahead with this spell.”
“What-what is it?” Easton asked.
“Witch hunters won’t stop until they get you Easton, my child. You know that, right?” Easton nodded, and she continued. “We could try an anti-cloaking spell, but those are hard to maintain and rely on so many variables. And don’t even get me started on putting a curse on them. We could never get away with that. Which leaves us with one choice.”
She bit her lip and stared at the fire.
“For it, you won’t get a chance to say goodbye to your friends or your families. You will never be able to return to your homes, use your bank accounts, or go back to even a semblance of the life you used to have.”
Gee! She was making it sound as if we would go into witness protection or something, only it sounded a lot scarier. I would never see my family again? Friends I didn’t really have any, but mom and dad? How could I disappear on them? Especially with Mom’s failing heart. I couldn’t do that to them.
“This spell is exactly like witness protection, only it takes things one step further,” she explained, and I had to shake the thoughts of my parents to the side of my head for the time being. “You won’t just have new identities. You’ll inhabit them. No one will see what you look like, only what your new personas look like. And you can’t tell anyone who you really are or the spell will break. The only ones who will see the real you is each other.”
I felt the weight of her words in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t even imagine what my poor family would go through if I went missing. They’d had me at such an old age, which meant they were now in their late sixties and retired to a small village in Dorset. What would it do to them if they found out their only son had disappeared without a trace?
But if I didn’t go ahead with this, I’d die anyway.
“What choice do we have?” I said after a long pause, and Easton turned to look at me.
His face looked dark and sunken. I remembered when I first set eyes on him a few hours ago, which now felt like years. He’d been with a group of friends who, judging from the color of their hair, I could tell they were probably fellow foxes. Did foxes work in packs? It was probable. Just as it was probable he would be leaving them all and his family behind to be with me.
“Indeed,” he agreed quietly. “I’m sorry,” he added. “I got you into this mess.”
“What was the alternative? Letting you die out in that alley? It’s not your fault,” I told him.
“Yeah, but—”
“No,” I cut in. “We are in this together now. Didn’t you say we’re mated?” He nodded. “Which means we’re meant to be together?”
“It actually is so much more than that. Once you’ve bonded, you’ll be connected at a deeper level. You wouldn’t be able to live without one another,” Mother Red Cap said.
“Well, then, I trust fate knows best,” I replied.
Mother Red Cap stood up and excused herself.
“I’ll go start on that spell for you two. Make yourselves at home,” she said, and retreated behind one of the many doors of her humble abode.
“Don’t say it again.” I looked at Easton before he got the chance to speak what he was thinking and grimaced.
“How did you know?” he asked.
“Because it’s what I’d be doing in your place. But no time to be sorry, right?” I said.
“You are literally the kindest, sweetest guy I’ve ever met,” he told me.
“Are you just saying that because you’re stuck with me?” I chuckled.
I expected him to laugh, too, but he didn’t. Instead, his face turned grim.
“It’s not how it’s supposed to go, you know?” he said.
“What isn’t?”
“Mating. It’s not supposed to mean running for your life. It’s supposed to be about coming together, falling in love, and sticking through thick and thin,” he explained.
It was crazy talking about falling in love so quickly, but it was the only word to describe what was happening between us.
I reach
ed for his hand, and he gave me a sad smile in return.
“I thought that’s what we’re doing,” I told him. “If hiding our identities to save each other isn’t sticking through thick and thin, then I don’t know what is.”
His eyes reflected the fire, making them even more intoxicating than they were without it. His skin against mine made goosebumps appear all up my arm.
“I know we’ve only just met, but you’re incredible, and I’ll be lucky to spend my life with you,” he said.
Had those words come out of anyone else’s mouth, I would have ran for the hills—after reporting the creep to the police. But it was Easton, and his words gave me… butterflies instead.
He scooted closer to me, his eyes never fleeting, his lips tempting me with their proximity.
Before I could act and make the first move, he leaned in and touched his lips on mine, and the butterflies turned to fireworks. The hairs all over my body raised, sizzling with static energy, and my cock roused from its slumber and hardened inside my jeans.
This wasn’t just a kiss. It was the kiss of soulmates. The one we’d shared back out in the street paled in comparison. I already felt familiar with his lips’ touch, their shape and movement. I felt like I knew everything Easton would do next, and at the same time, I had no fucking clue.
When his tongue rested on the rim of my mouth asking for access, I let him in and drank his juices as he claimed my mouth.
“God,” I whimpered when he pulled back, resting his forehead on mine. “If that’s what a kiss feels like, what will sex be like?”
I opened my eyes and saw him grin at me before kissing me again. His hands rested on my neck, and I placed mine on the back of his head. His palms massaged my chest before curving round to my waist and then lower to my hips.
“Fuck,” he cried. “We shouldn’t have done that now. I want you so badly,” he said.
“Me too,” I said before resuming our kiss, and Easton climbed on top of me, his erection rubbing against mine.
“Your spell is…” I heard from the other end of the room, and Easton pulled away from me faster than you could say cock block. “I-I can keep working on it,” Mother Red Cap said.