Auctioned to the Werewolf Princes

by Daniella Wright

  Fingerprint technology. Of course.

  The second the bracelet was off, and her magic was no longer being suppressed, Eden felt such an astounding relief, as if she’d been underwater this whole time, holding her breath, and she only just now crested the surface and filled her lungs with air. The other witches started talking about the spell while Eden scanned the room for the pistol.

  “Now then,” said Amira. “Everyone review the spell sheet and we will get started.”

  “What exactly is this spell supposed to do?” asked Bev. She was older, but not as old as Amira. She had short, jet black hair which she wore spiky with gel.

  “Assuming it even works,” Wen added.

  “It should create a very powerful fire bomb,” said Amira. “At least, that’s what I’m hoping.”

  “You’re hoping?” asked Seera. “And what if it does something else?”

  Eden spotted the gun sitting on a chair by the door, lazily, like Amira had simply thrown it there the day before when she was finished with it. Now, all Eden needed was a distraction. There was no point in trying to make her escape now, not with all these witches right here ready to stop her. She would have to go through with the spell and maybe once everyone was basking in the glow of a successful spell, she could try to slip out.

  Amira shrugged. “Only one way to find out. Everyone got the words down?” she asked. The girls nodded, some more convincingly than others. “Alright well if you have to look down at your cheat sheet during the casting it should be okay, but try not to. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you all that spells always work better if you can keep your focus on the magic and not the words.”

  “If this does work, and we do create the fire ball,” said Olive. “What are we going to do with it?”

  “I’m glad you asked!” said Amira. “That’s going to be the tricky part. We are going to have to hold onto the energy, keeping the fire ball in the center of the circle, and keep it from growing too big. Once we see that the spell has been successful, we’ll all quickly say a mental extinguishing spell, and it should dissipate.”

  “Should?” asked Seera. “Am I the only one who doesn’t think this is a good idea?”

  Amira shook her head. “Don’t be silly. There are seven incredibly powerful witches in this room.” She looked at everyone’s faces individually and then frowned. “Wait, where’s Katy?”

  “It’s her day off, isn't it?” said Bev. “I figured that’s why she wasn’t here.”

  “No, it isn’t,” said Amira. “I talked to her yesterday before she headed up to dinner. She told me she was planning on being here today.”

  “Maybe she’s just in her room,” said Bev. “She did seem kind of weird yesterday. She could have just needed to take a sick day.”

  “We should go check,” said Olive. “Make sure she’s okay.”

  “We will,” said Amira. “After we try this spell. Okay, everyone ready? Let’s grab hands and start chanting. I’ll get us going, and you all join in when you feel like you’ve got it.”

  The witches put their cheat sheets on the ground at their feet and took hands.

  “Witches of old, witches of new, we speak to you in a voice of unification.” Usually, when a large group such as this attempts to cast a spell for the first time, the leader will take it upon herself to open up a dialogue with the witch ancestors or the witch goddesses, and give each spell caster a chance to introduce themselves. “We speak to you, a group of six. I am one. I am Amira.”

  Bev, the witch directly to Amira’s right, spoke next. “I am two. I am Beverly.”

  Olive was on Bev’s right. “I am three. I am Olive.”

  “I am four. I am Eden.”

  “I am five. I am Wender.”

  “I am six. I am Seera.”

  “We ask of you this day to protect us, to watch over us, and to provide us with the strength necessary to carry out this spell.” They all held their breath, together, for three seconds, and exhaled at the same time. Group spell casting 101. “Thank you, and in the name of Tessa, we cast!”

  All the women spoke in unison then.

  “Helenia, witch goddess of the flame, we call upon you. Embody us with your power and wrap us in your warmth. In your name, we ask for fire. Helenia, witch goddess of the flame, we call upon you. Embody us with your power and wrap us in your warmth. In your name, we ask for fire.”

  They repeated the spell twice more, and on the fourth repetition a charge went through all of their interlaced fingers and they all knew it was working. A small golden ball of bright fire appeared in the center of the circle, like a baseball sized sun. It grew as they spoke the words a fifth, sixth, and seventh time. Finally, the ball was as big as they could allow it to get without it licking them with any rogue flames. It was now roughly the size of a large, inflatable beach ball.

  “Okay, hold it at this size,” Amira said. “Feel the spell, get used to holding this energy here so we can replicate this easily in battle. In a minute or so, we will send a mental extinguishing spell.”

  Eden was staring into the fire ball, transfixed by its beauty and the heat radiating off of it. It was bigger than any energy source she’d been able to create herself, and she suspected the group could have kept it growing if they wanted to. They would have to break hands eventually and walk backwards, to allow space, which was more group spell casting 201 territory. She had to admit, this was a pretty cool spell, even if it came out of Amira’s dusty old spellbook. She’d have to remember it and add it to her repertoire.

  “Listen up, ladies!” Amira broke Eden’s temporary hypnosis and reminded everyone of what needed to happen next. “All of you, focus on a simple mental extinguishing spell.”

  “Henenia, witch goddess of the flame,” a voice came from the doorway behind them. Eden didn’t recognize the woman, but based on the expressions worn by the other women in the circle, they did.

  “Katy, what are you doing?” asked Bev.

  “I call upon you,” Katy continued. “Embody me with your power and wrap me in your warmth.”

  “Katy, don’t!” yelled Olive. “You’re going to make the fire ball too big!”

  “In your name, I ask for fire!” As she finished the verse of the spell, the fire grew. Now it was only a few inches from touching the women in the circle, but none of them broke. They all knew how dangerous it was to break a circle in the middle of a spell without warning.

  “Helenia, witch goddess of the flame,” Katy started up again.

  “Katy!” Amira said. “I’m warning you!’

  “Embody me with your power and wrap me in your warmth.”

  “Enough!” Amira screamed. She let go of, breaking the circle, and clapped her hands over her head. An absorption spell. These were incredibly dangerous, and were only to be used in the most dire of situations.

  The other witches watched in horror as the fireball shrank and the energy was diverted from it right into Amira. She screamed as she absorbed it all. Eden had never performed an absorption spell this big before, but based on what she’d read about them, Amira had to be in immense pain. Doubly so, since it was a fire spell. She was burning from the inside, and there was nothing anyone could do.

  Somebody had the bright idea to grab Katy before she could get away. Eden wasn’t sure who yelled the command, but having already scoped out where the gun was, she figured she might as well capture the evil witch.

  Eden lunged towards the chair, grabbed the gun and pointed it at Katy.

  “On your knees,” she said.

  Katy smiled a cruel grin but did as she was told. She put her hands behind her head and Bev and Wen each grabbed an arm.

  Amira’s absorption spell was complete. The screaming stopped and she fell to the floor. Olive and Seera ran to her side and started performing pain-relieving spells. Eden still had the gun pointed at Katy.

  “Go get the princes,” said Bev. “Give me the gun.”

  Eden looked at all the other witches and weighed her option
s. Amira appeared to be okay and the other girls looked like they had Katy under control. It was selfish, she knew, to do what she was thinking of doing, but it would work out for the best in the long run. If she could just get back to her shop, she could finish the collider and save everyone, including these witches she was about to betray.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Don’t follow me. I will shoot.”

  Eden ran out of the room, knowing none of them would chance going after her. They couldn’t risk Katy getting away. Eden popped into the equipment room and grabbed the nuclear fusion generator off the top of the tech pile. Tucking it under her arm was a little awkward, but she managed to figure out while still keeping the gun up and aimed.

  As she ran up the stairs she could hear the other witches calling for the dragons, but they would be coming in the back door to the basement, and she was headed towards the front door of the castle.

  Nobody was on the main level in the front room and Eden thought it was almost too easy. She had to tuck the gun in her pants in order to get the door open. She looked around the immediate area and saw there were no guards in sight. She ran down the dirt path to the left, which led directly into the woods surrounding the castle.

  Chapter Nine

  Alone Again

  Eden realized shortly after finding a hiding spot in the woods that the pistol was in fact, not loaded. She should have guessed as much. Amira wasn’t dumb. She wouldn’t leave a loaded gun sitting around for just anyone to grab. The important thing now, however, was that Eden was safe and she was free.

  It would be a longer journey, trudging through the forest with the generator, trying to make it the forty plus miles back home. She figured after she’d walked a good fifteen miles from the castle, she could chance finding the main road and hitchhike the rest of the way. For now, she just walked.

  Hours passed and still no sign of the cousins or dragon guards. The sun set and Eden decided her best option was to make camp and get some rest. She’d head out again early the next morning.

  She found a clearing and put the generator down. She put up a single ward that would make her camp at least somewhat unnoticeable, although not entirely invisible. If someone with a trained eye was looking, they would notice a disturbance in the air, like heat waves emanating off hot concrete on a summer day. But to someone who didn’t know to look for that, they wouldn’t think anything of it.

  Next, she made a self-sustaining fire. It was small, especially compared to the fireball she had helped to create not four hours ago, but it would do the trick. She worked on the gun for a while, figuring out a way she could rig it, using small bullets of energy she could make with a spell. Without firing it, she couldn't be sure if she’d done it right, but she didn’t want to bring any attention to herself in case there was a search party looking for her. She pushed some of the twigs and rocks out of the way, curled up next to the fire, and fell asleep.

  It was Leo’s voice she heard first. He was calling out to someone, saying he was pretty sure he’d found a footprint. A voice called back, Eden was pretty sure it was Bev, and she sounded like she was very close to Eden’s hiding place. It was early morning, the sun was just beginning to rise.

  “I’m feeling something over here,” said Bev. Eden sat up and looked in the direction of Bev’s voice. She could see her clearly, standing about ten feet in front of Eden’s campsite. She cursed herself for not waking up sooner, as if she had done so on purpose.

  “There’s magic around here.” Bev put her hands out and started feeling the air. “I think someone put some wards up in this area.”

  “Can you find the wards?” asked Leo. Eden could see him approaching Bev from the right. There was a dragon guard behind him.

  “Probably,” said Bev. “Give me a second. Be quiet.”

  Eden held perfectly still, moving only her eyes, as she looked back and forth between where Bev was slowly approaching her hiding spot and where the generator was sitting about two feet away from her. If Bev got close enough to feel the ward, she’d know to run through it and she’d be able to incapacitate Eden in seconds.

  Her only choice was to grab the generator and make a run for it.

  She waited until Bev was about a foot away from the ward, then Eden mentally casted two spells, one right after the other. The first one dropped the ward and the second one created a smoke bomb of sorts. She closed her mouth, grabbed the generator, and ran. She could hear the sound of Bev and Leo coughing behind her.

  She leaped over gnarled roots of the big evergreen tree and ran in a serpentine formation, trying to throw off their sense of direction. Unfortunately, this also served to throw off her own inner compass and she soon found herself unsure which direction was towards the road and which was towards the castle.

  Eden stopped and allowed herself a moment to catch her breath and look for signs of where she might be. She barely had time to inhale properly before she was tackled to the ground by something heavy and hairy. The air left her lungs as her back hit the dirt. Her head smacked hard into a thick root and black dots swam in her vision. She tried to get up but realized there was a weight pressing down on her chest.

  The giant wolf was standing on top of her, pinning her to the ground. It was Chris, she could tell from the eyes and the color of the wolf’s fur. He wasn’t snarling or baring his teeth at all. Instead, he was simply panting, looking around like he was just a dog on an afternoon walk.

  “Get off me,” said Eden.

  Chris looked down at her, his wolf eyes huge and watery. He sniffed her a few times but didn’t make any move to let her go. It was starting to hurt her chest, where his paws were placed.

  “You’re hurting me!” she said. “I’m having trouble breathing.”

  It was half true, she was in pain, but she could breathe fine. Really she was just trying to get him to move so that she could better reach for the gun which she had tucked into the side of her pants. Without the total mobility of her hands, any battle spell would be difficult to pull off, but if she could shoot him, or even just scare him, off of her, she’d be able to really fight.

  She wriggled underneath his weight and to keep his balance on her, the wolf had to reposition himself slightly. This gave her just enough time to grab the gun. She pressed the barrel right into the wolf’s stomach, cocked it, and pulled the trigger.

  The energy bullet hit Chris and sent his canine body up and forward, giving Eden the freedom to stand up. The ball of energy likely didn’t pierce the wolf’s skin, she hadn’t the time nor the energy the night before to make the bullets lethally strong.

  Chris whimpered a few times as he lay on his side. He struggled to stand up, but finally got back to his feet. Eden held the gun up and aimed between the wolf’s eyes.

  “Let me go, or I will shoot again,” she said. She bent down, keeping the gun in place, and reached for the generator which she’d dropped when Chris had tackled her.

  She heard a voice to her right whisper something and suddenly the muscles in her hand twitched and her grip loosened on the gun. It fell from her hand and before she even had time to register what had happened, a hand wrapped around her other wrist and brought it behind her back. The strain hurt her shoulder and she yelled.

  “Sorry,” said Leo. “But I have to.”

  She felt something cold and smooth slip over her wrist, tighten, and lock.

  Leo let go then and put his hands above his head.

  “Look, there’s no need for this to get any uglier,” he said. He was backing away from her as if she was some crazed animal. “You have the bracelet on again, which means you can’t do anymore magic. You have no means of escape anymore, not with us all here.

  Eden looked around and saw she was surrounded. Bev, Chris, Leo, and the dragon guard had formed a circle around her.

  “Just come back to the castle with us, and we can figure this out.”

  “No,” said Eden. “I am not going willingly. If you want to bring me back, fine, but you’ll have to
take me kicking and screaming.”

  Leo sighed and his eyes were downcast. He motioned to Bev. “Okay. Do it.”

  Bev said something in a language Eden couldn’t immediately place. She felt her knees start to give and there was a ringing in her ear. Leo was at her side once again. He caught her in his arms as her legs failed her.

  Eden’s eyes closed and she mouthed the words “fuck you,” then she succumbed to the sleeping spell.

  “Oh. C’mon now! You have to be done sleeping by now!” Somebody was hitting Eden’s arm, lightly, and yelling at her. Eden, still not fully awake, mumbled for the person hitting her to stop, but the abuse continued.

  “Seriously! You’ve been asleep for twenty-four hours. Bev’s spell wasn’t that strong. I think you’re just milking it now.”

  Eden came to and opened her eyes. She was in a room in the basement of the castle, that much she could tell from the cement walls and lack of decor. She was lying in a bed that was smaller than the one she had in her bedroom, and which was dressed in itchy sheets. She looked to her left and saw Amira lying in a bed next to her.

  Amira grinned. “Good Morning!” She was hooked up to a couple different machines and had an IV, hence the light hits she was delivering to Eden’s arm a second ago. She could only reach her arm out so far without pulling the tube out.

  “What’s going on?”

  “You’re in the infirmary,” said Amira. “We both are. After you didn’t wake up when you were supposed to, Leo started to get all fussy and worried. He brought you down here and had the doctor take a look at you.”

  Eden sat up and found that she too had an IV sticking out of her arm.

  “Doc said you’d be fine, just dehydration and exhaustion, mixed with a pretty hefty sleeping spell. Guess Bev doesn’t know her own strength. Me on the other hand, I’ll be in recovery for a while longer. That absorption spell really did a number on me.”