Auctioned to the Werewolf Princes

by Daniella Wright

  “No need for that,” she said. “You’re here now and from what I heard, Chris and Leo paid a pretty penny for you. You might as well be put to use.” She pointed to the top of the freshly flipped page in the book. “See what you can make of this page while I start making sense of my other notes.”

  Eden did as she was told, happy to be positioned so closely to the pistol. For the first half hour or so, she could only think of ways to create a distraction which would allow her to grab the gun and make a break for it. After a while of staring down at the spell book, however, she started to put a few things together, and soon she was so engrossed in the magic, she completely forgot about her plan to escape.

  “How are you doing so far?” Amira asked a few hours later. Eden looked up at the clock and was shocked to see how much time had passed. “Figure anything out?”

  “Yeah, actually,” said Eden. She held out the piece of paper upon which she’d been writing down her notes. “Tell me if this makes sense with the other stuff you’ve translated.”

  Amira took the page and read over the notes.

  “This is amazing,” she said after finishing. “This is perfect! It would have taken me days to translate that entire page. I thought you said your mother only taught you a little Muru.”

  Eden shrugged. “She taught me the basics, and I’ve always been good at figuring out the rest. It’s the same with battle magic, by the way, so I don’t think you need to worry too much about training me for combat.”

  Amira was still gawking at the page. “This is a miracle! We are going to have this whole book translated in no time. Do you know how exciting this is?”

  Eden didn’t answer.

  “This book,” she said, flipping the giant tome closed and showing Eden the cover. “Is old. Very, very old. It was written during the first invasion.”

  “The first invasion?”

  Amira smiled. “Good. I’m glad to know there is at least one thing I get to teach you. The first invasion happened centuries ago, long before even biblical times, and it was the first time portals to the underworld opened up and spirits and demons roamed the Earth.”

  “I didn’t know this had happened before.”

  “Not many people do. Many religious organizations worked very hard to make sure of that. The spirits knew too much about the afterlife, and as legend goes, the knowledge they brought with them nearly destroyed humanity. Once the major religious started to gain popularity, the documents which told about the first invasion were all burned because what was written contradict their doctrines regarding what happens to souls after they die. The people who spoke about the legends had to do so in secret, or risk getting killed. The stories were passed down and stood the test of time, but only a select few have ever heard them.”

  “How did this book survive?”

  Amira smirked. “Beats me.”

  “Well how do you know for sure it’s from the time of the first invasion?” said Eden. She opened the front cover and looked on the other side. “I mean, it’s not like it has a copyright date, right?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Amira. “But I have reason to suspect. And the more we translate, the easier it will be to determine when this book was written. What I do know for sure is that it’s a very old book, written by witches who have been dead for thousands of years. I have a feeling the answer we’ve been looking for, how to close these portals, is going to be found in this book.”

  Eden nodded, but apparently wasn’t too convincing.

  “What? You don’t think it’s possible?” Amira challenged her.

  “It’s not that,” said Eden. “I just think the solution to closing the portals is going to be found using more science than magic.”

  “Oh. You’re one of those.”

  “What of what?”

  “One of those witches who doesn’t truly believe in the power of magic. You disgrace your ancestors by practicing only new-age spells and combining your magic with the world of math and science.”

  “I’m failing to see what’s so wrong with that?”

  Amira threw her arms in the air. “You young people are so technology driven! I thought after the war, when we regressed as a society to a pre-technology boom era, that modern day witches would get back in touch with what really matters. They would remember where their true strength hails from. From nature.”

  Eden winced a little and sucked air through her teeth, making a sort of hissing sound. “If that’s how you feel, you’re going to really hate that I specialize in wave magic.”

  “Wave magic? Like, ocean waves?”

  “No, wave magic like I use what we know, from science, about light waves, heat waves, etc., as inspiration for my spells. I’m a tech witch.”

  “Well isn’t that just wonderful! No wonder Chris likes you. He’s all into that techy stuff, hence the bracelet.”

  “Chris likes me? Did he say so?” Eden didn’t mean to sound so intrigued, but the questions just came out, rapid fire, before she could do anything about it.

  “He said something about thinking you were special.” Amira waved the questions off with her hand. “I don’t remember exactly. It doesn’t matter. Enough story time, we need to get back to work.”

  Eden turned back to the page she was translating. “Whatever you say.”

  “Maybe by the end of the day, we’ll have a whole spell translated. I haven’t been able to get an entire spell down yet. We could gather the girls and try it.”

  Based on what Eden had already translated, she wasn’t sure any spell they found in this book would be all that helpful. It appeared from the context of what she’d read that the book talked mainly about battle magic used for fighting other witches. That used to be something that happened a lot, between the different witch tribes. Now, however, there were so few witches left in the world, a witch could go her whole life without ever meeting another of her kind.

  Eden and Amira worked well into the night, skipping both lunch and dinner. At around midnight, they were close to finishing the translation for a complete spell. Eden was willing to stay up until the job was done, but Amira said it was time she turned in.

  “Couldn’t I just stay here and work while you go to bed?”

  Amira laughed. “Do you really think I’m that dumb, that I would leave you in here with all my magic supplies and weaponry. Yeah right. Off you go.”

  Eden sighed. “Fine. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” said Amira. “Remember to give thanks to Tessa before you go to sleep.”

  Eden gave her a look.

  “I was kidding!” said Amira. “Sheesh, I’m not that traditional.”

  “Thank Tessa,” Eden said with a smile and left.

  Chapter Eight

  Star Pupil

  Chris was waiting for her in the dining room the next morning. He smiled at her as she entered the room and offered to get her a cup of coffee.

  “Do you like eggs?” he asked before popping into the kitchen. “I just asked the chef to make me some breakfast and I can have him make you something as well.”

  “Eggs sound good,” she said. “And bacon if you have it.”

  “We do.”

  He slipped into the kitchen and was back just a few seconds later. “Here you go.” He carried a tray with a steaming mug, a tiny metal pitcher of milk, and a bowl of sugar cubes. “I wasn’t sure how you took it, so I brought everything.” He put the tray down in front of her and returned to his seat on the other side of the table.

  “I drink it just black, thanks.”

  “Why does that not surprise me?”

  Eden took a sip of her coffee, unsure how to answer that question. Chris was speaking to her as if they knew each other, as if they were friends. It was weirding her out.

  “I spoke with Amira earlier this morning,” he said. “She is very impressed with you. She thinks you’re going to be a fantastic asset to the group.”

  “Great.”

  “She said you referred to yourself as a
tech witch? Does that mean you do magic that has to do with technology?”

  “Sort of,” Eden said. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

  “I’m sure it is,” he said. “I don’t understand most of the tech world myself, but I’ve been fascinated by it ever since I was a boy.”

  Eden looked down at her wrist. “I don’t know,” she said. “You seem to know what you’re doing.” She didn’t say it as a compliment. In fact, she had hoped her tone of voice might help relay the fact that she was actually very upset with him still.

  “Oh, that thing?” He laughed. “That’s nothing. The magic rope is doing all the work, I just found a way to contain the magic in metal and created a locking mechanism. Nothing too fancy.”

  Eden drank her coffee and didn’t speak.

  Leo walked in a few awkward minutes later.

  “Good morning!” he said. “Chris, I wasn’t expecting you to be here. You’re usually in your office by now.”

  “I waited around to have a little chat with Eden,” he said.

  “Ah. Okay.” Leo’s voice shifted and Eden thought she detected a hint of surprise, jealousy even. “She is nice to talk to, I’ll give you that.” He took the seat next to her.

  Eden felt like that was her cue to say something, thank you perhaps, but she didn’t feel like feeding into whatever odd game the two men seemed to have just entered into. She sipped her coffee and watched it play out instead.

  “Don’t you have to be somewhere?” said Chris. “I thought you were meeting with some family friends this morning? You have to go over some financial dealings that your parents cannot take care of from abroad?”

  “The Jamisons will be here in an hour or so,” said Leo. “Until then, I’m totally free. So, Eden, how was your first day training with Amira?”

  “It was fine.”

  “Amira had nothing but good things to say about Eden when I was briefed on their progress this morning,” Chris added. “You were still asleep, as per usual.”

  Eden let out a coughy chuckle.

  “What’s so funny?” Chris asked with a smile.

  “I just can’t imagine Amira was as… complimentary as you are saying she was. I may have helped her translate some stuff, but she’s not a big fan of my approach to magic.”

  “What is your approach exactly?” asked Leo.

  “She’s a tech witch,” said Chris.

  “What does that mean, exactly?” Leo posed the question to his cousin, not to Eden, as if hoping to force him to admit that he doesn’t actually know much about her.

  “It’s really not that interesting,” Eden said before Chris had a chance to answer. “Especially to people who don’t understand magic all that well.” If either of them noticed her condescending remark, they didn’t show it. They were too busy staring each other down across the table, no longer even paying Eden much attention. Which was ironic, considering she was clearly the source of this new-found animosity.

  “It’s been really great talking to you guys,” she said, standing up. “But I think I better go find Amira. She’s probably waiting for me.”

  That snapped them both back to reality.

  “But your breakfast!” said Chris. “The chef is stilling preparing it.”

  “I’ll catch him on my way out,” she said. “Take it to go.”

  Mug in tow, she left them to their little pissing contest. She had work to do.

  Eden finished the translation of the spell after just an hour of working with the book, which Amira had brought with her into a different room in the basement. Besides a table and two chairs, this room was empty. She told Eden she had personal spells she had to work on and she needed privacy in her workspace.

  As punishment for forcing Eden to work in this white-walled jail cell of a room, alone, she didn’t immediately go tell Amira when she had completed her translation. Instead, she decided she had earned herself a break. She leaned back in her chair and shut her eyes.

  She hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. Working with Amira had gotten her all worked up and she tossed and turned all night. And then this morning she had been looking forward to having a quiet breakfast alone, but the cousins had ruined that. As she slipped into a relaxed state, Leo and Chris on her mind, suddenly the memory of a dream she’d had the night before jumped to the forefront of her mind.

  It wasn’t just any dream. It was a sex dream, and it had starred her, Chris, and Leo.

  She tried to push the memory of it out of her head, but now that it was present, it was sticking. She remembered the way they came into her bedroom at night, begged her to show them some of her magic. Chris had taken the bracelet off and the two of them watched, growing more and more aroused as she sent harmless, aesthetically pleasing spells flying across the room. Finally, the tension had become so thick, so overwhelming, that they asked if they could pleasure her. They wanted to make her feel the way she had made them feel, with her magic display. She told them yes, please yes. They climbed into bed with her and—

  “Eden!”

  Her eyes flew open and she remembered where she was. Amira was standing in the doorway, her long brown hair looking disheveled and nest like.

  “Were you napping?”

  “For a split second,” said Eden. “And before you get mad, just know I already finished translating the spell.”

  “You did?” Amira rushed inside and picked up the piece of paper where Eden wrote down the translation. “I’m going to have to review this.”

  “That’s fine, in the meantime I’ll be here, nap—”

  “No, in the meantime you will go find the other girls and meet me back in my workspace. We need to try this as soon as possible.”

  Olive and another witch named Wen were in Olive’s workspace. They were practicing battle magic on each other. Calling out spells, without putting any strong magic behind them, so that they could test their blocking reflexes without posing any true danger to one another. Eden refrained from saying that she called this type of practice “wussy practice,” and opted just to relay Amira’s message instead.

  “She said she wanted me to get everyone together,” said Eden.

  “So you’re the new girl?” Eden guessed this was the witch named Wen, based on the short descriptions of everyone given to her by Amira the previous night. She had an athletic build and thick blond hair that she kept pulled back in a tight braid. “Eve, right?”

  “It’s Eden actually. And you are Wen, right?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Do either of you know where the other three witches are?”

  “Today is Katy’s day off,” said Olive. “Seera and Bev are probably having a lunch break. They usually eat outside so they can flirt with the dragons.”

  Of course, you witches get to take days off because you’re all free agents.

  “I’ll go fetch them,” said Wen. “I want to see if Leo’s out there.”

  Olive raised her eyebrows and smiled at her friend. “Oh la la, that will be your second time visiting him already today! You better be careful, you don’t want to look desperate.”

  “Oh please,” said Wen. “He wants me so bad. It’s painfully obvious. I’m just throwing him a bone, honestly.”

  She smiled as she walked past Eden. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” she said. “I’m excited to get this spell started and see what you’re made of.”

  She walked down the hall, dramatically swishing her hips back and forth, and quickly pulling her beautiful gold locks out of the braid.

  “She’s ridiculous, isn’t she?” said Olive, who was now at Eden’s side, watching Wen disappear around the corner. “She’s been after Leo since the day we got here.”

  “You two came together?”

  “Yeah, we’ve been friends since we were little girls in witch school,” she explained. “When I was approached by Chris about the job, I told him I knew of someone else who might be interested. He said the more witches the merrier, and so here we are.�
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  “You think Leo really likes her?” asked Eden, trying to sound casual.

  Olive shrugged. “I don’t see why he wouldn’t. I mean, she’s gorgeous and she’s by far the best fighter in the group.” She sighed. “They would make really cute babies, don’t you think? And if they had a girl, she’d be like, the strongest kid ever. You know because she would be half-witch, half-wolf.”

  For some reason, hearing Olive describe the hereditary nature of shifters like that took Eden aback. She’d never really given much thought to how shifters came into existence, although a lot of humans liked to tell stories about their friends being bit by a shifter and waking up the next morning part bear or dragon or whatever. Of course, now that she thought about it, that didn’t make much sense. Magic was passed down through the generations. It would make sense the shifter gene was as well.

  Back in Amira’s workspace, she had cleared away her furniture and clutter to make room for them to stand together in a circle. She passed out copies of the translation to all the girls and told them to read it over a few times so that there were no mistakes. When she got to Eden, she didn’t take her copy.

  “I can’t do magic with this bracelet on.”

  Amira looked down at Eden’s wrist and frowned. “Yes, that is a problem.” She brought her gaze back to Eden’s eyes and looked at her very seriously. “Can we trust you?”

  Eden didn’t know how to answer that. She didn’t wish any of these other witches harm, but she couldn’t deny there was still a part of her that desperately wanted to escape this house.

  “You can trust me,” she said as convincingly as she could.

  “I will take this off, just for this one spell, okay?” said Amira. “We really need to have everyone on deck for this, but I am going to put the bracelet right back on when we’re done, understand?”

  Eden nodded.

  “And these witches will stop you if you try to run, right?” Amira said, looking at everyone else for verification. They all nodded. “Alright then. Give me your hand.”

  Eden watched carefully as Amiria spun the slender metal band around and pressed down on the locking part of the bracelet. It opened a second later and Amiria slid the band off her wrist.