by Emma Dean
But Mika was learning how to read people and their body language. She could see the moves Lucien was going to make before he even made them thanks to the harsh training Corbin had put her through over the last few months.
Mika was finally starting to see the improvements in herself Corbin had mentioned.
Even Lucien looked surprised when she dodged his third, sneaky attack and came up with a crackling ball of energy to the face. Mika was already going into her second move with the third ready to go, concentrating on the energy to begin with, but she could already see where she could draw certain sigils and direct power, trip someone up, or freeze them completely.
Before she hit Lucien while he was down, Mika redirected, breathing hard as she focused on the ball between her palms getting smaller and smaller as she eased the power back into herself.
“Very nice,” Corbin said. “But you can’t hesitate. I know the fox was down, but had he yielded?”
Mika kept her back facing the raven and the fox and looked up at Ethan instead. He was at a patio table with some of the books from the library. Ethan grinned at her, proud.
It was weird having all three of them here, working together without issue.
She supposed the prophecy about the raven and the fox made it easy for them to accept. Corbin himself was more accommodating than she’d expected as well. He didn’t push and shove his way into their group. Never once did he try to assert his dominance despite him and Lucien both being shifters.
The raven didn’t seem to hate Ethan either despite him being a witch.
It was all a bit much for her to wrap her head around, but Mika was also secretly grateful. She didn’t want to give up any of them. She didn’t know how to live without them now, each serving such vital roles in her life.
And the weird thing she noticed was that they weren’t like Kenzie’s foxes at all. There wasn’t a clear alpha, second, and enforcer. Lucien, Ethan, and Corbin clearly had their own roles and they recognized the equal importance in the other two.
The only difference was time, she supposed. Ethan had been here first, and he’d always have that. Lucien was savage in ways that soothed her soul and Mika knew he would always have her back.
And Corbin…
She was still figuring out the assassin, but out of all three of them she felt like he was the reflection. Corbin was a raven made for a witch like her – the goddess had purposefully created someone made for her and her body could feel it.
Corbin was her reflection and her shadow.
What would she do without the three of them?
Everything she’d read was pushed deep down, waiting for her focus to shatter, but Corbin had been right. The exercise was easing the headache and the shock.
“Mika, you can’t hesitate until Claire yields or…” Corbin trailed off.
Or dies.
Mika glanced over at Audrey who was sitting next to Ethan with Selene on her other side. Audrey was her other sister—her real sister.
Audrey gave her a thumbs up from her spot next to Ethan. There were drinks and snacks from Lucien’s mom. She’d brought them over to help with all the studying she’d said. Then she’d stayed just long enough to watch Lucien work with Corbin, a huge, proud grin on her face.
It seemed like everyone in the pack knew why Mika was here. They’d all been told about the challenge apparently. The librarians had announced it when the book had updated for the first time in centuries.
No matter how much she didn’t want to think about it, Mika knew Claire wouldn’t hesitate during the challenge. Claire would take Mika down hard and fast if she could. Would she try to kill her before she could yield?
Mika didn’t think so.
But she also couldn’t afford to be soft with Claire.
“I’m not going to hesitate,” Mika finally said.
“What are you going to do if she doesn’t yield?” Lucien asked, taking Corbin’s offered hand. “Man, that shit does not feel good.”
“Wait until she moves onto something besides pure energy,” Corbin muttered.
Mika ignored them both and looked back at Selene who was reading about blood witches.
Was Claire practicing somewhere too? Mika hoped so. She didn’t want to hurt her sister, no matter how much they didn’t get along or see eye to eye. Claire was the only blood family she had left after all. Without her Mika would be completely alone – the last living member of her clan.
Something about that was terrifying and heart wrenching. Mika saw the emotion reflected in Victoria’s eyes every time she accessed the crystals. In her time the clan had been strong and large and now…
Now it was all coming to an end.
Maybe it was that summer was almost over, maybe it was the challenge, or the knowledge that Eleanor had sacrificed herself to protect her niece when Eliza had basically sold her daughter’s soul to the Head Witch, but Mika felt it in the air. Something big was coming to an end and it struck her with a grief she hadn’t anticipated.
“So, what are you going to do?” Lucien asked, attacking her without warning.
But Mika had heard the slight change in his breath Corbin had taught her to listen for. She ducked and zapped his ass with a bit of magic, smiling slightly when Lucien yelped.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” Mika told him.
What would she do if Claire didn’t yield?
“Alright, my turn,” Selene said, dusting off her pants. “Let’s see what you can do against another witch.”
Mika was glad Kenzie was still in the library with her foxes. This kind of thing made her nervous and Mika didn’t want the wrath of the older sister hanging over her head while she practiced.
Corbin nodded and pulled Lucien back. The fox sat at the table with Ethan and chugged a glass of water, wiping the sweat from his forehead, but he was grinning, and Mika knew he was just as proud of her as Ethan was.
Watching Selene approach, seeing the way she eyed the lines that indicated the circle to stay in, Mika felt nervous. She cracked her fingers, one knuckle at a time, and then shook out her hands.
Selene was the youngest Matriarch in forever. She was so powerful she was going to be the next High Priestess one way or another – powerful enough to take on a fae and walk away.
“No rules, just like the challenge,” Selene told her, tying her long black hair into a ponytail. “Anything goes.”
Corbin had told her there were two ways to approach this. One: be the first to attack which he knew she hated. But his reasoning was, if she took out the problem before it became too much to handle it would be easier. Or two: she could make it a more physical fight and win that way.
If she were completely honest with herself, Mika had no idea what Claire was capable of and that unknown was what made her so nervous.
Selene stepped into the circle and Mika threw a flashy spell that would make it hard for the other witch to see her move. Mika conjured a knife made of ice and crossed the circle in three steps – utterly silent.
But Selene wasn’t there anymore.
“Nice try,” Selene teased.
Mika looked and saw at least four of the other witch. “A replication spell, nice.” And really difficult to perform on the fly.
She conjured fog then and the apparitions stuttered. The energy was just like a hologram in that way, unable to stay completely whole when the electrical field was disrupted.
Without a word she threw energy at the real Selene, but it wasn’t a ball. It was shaped like a rope and whipped around Selene’s ankles. A lesser witch would have tripped, but Selene kicked it off, dispersing the energy.
Mika hadn’t waited to see what her spell would do though. She’d already sent three other binding spells at Selene, running along the edge of the circle. She couldn’t create more than one apparition of herself, but she didn’t need to.
All it took was a slice on her wrist and a drop of blood.
Then she stepped sideways, and the world became nothing
but glittering black, like a shroud was between her and reality.
Corbin’s eyes started to glow, and he smiled but avoided looking directly at her. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
Selene had managed to evade most of her binding spells, but one of them had locked onto her wrists and she was struggling to get it off, looking around the empty circle for Mika.
“My raven has taught me well,” Mika whispered, sliding out of the shadow world. She pressed the blade of ice to Selene’s kidney and wrapped her hand around her neck with a kill spell ready. “Do you yield?”
Selene chuckled and lifted her hands in surrender. “That works if you plan to show them all exactly what you’re capable of. But if you want to keep your secrets, you need to attack me like a normal witch.”
Mika released her hold on the spells and the silver bonds around Selene’s wrists disappeared. “Let’s go again.”
“Hey raven! Show me how to do that!” Lucien yelled. “I call favoritism!”
Everything she’d learned didn’t change the important things, not really. But she would step into that circle with Claire knowing more. She would know exactly what her family had sacrificed just for her and Claire to exist.
And she wasn’t going to waste that.
“Ready?” Selene asked.
Mika nodded.
She was ready.
26
Mika woke up and blinked. It was dark.
She’d managed to fall asleep after a few hours of training.
Vaguely she remembered the boys putting her in bed, telling her they’d wake her up for dinner.
Despite everything she felt ready. Sparring with Selene, Ethan, and Audrey over the last few days had proven she knew what she was doing. She didn’t win every time, but she always improved.
Mika could hold her own against a fox shifter, and even Kenzie and Hunter had stepped into the circle to help her practice. Kenzie, her foxes, and Corbin could always beat her ass into the ground, but they all taught her something new. Even Ash and Finnick.
What those foxes knew…Mika was impressed, and Corbin had been too. He’d even said something about understanding how they’d beaten those other ravens.
Eisheth liked to pop in and out as he pleased, helping her fill in some of the gaps that the books left out. He’d known about Victoria and Elizabeth, but he never stayed in one place long enough to know the tiny details.
When the spell had rippled through the universe it had even affected some of his memories. That was how powerful Eleanor’s sacrifice had been.
And it was like blood witches no longer existed. Everything the foxes had, stopped after Elizabeth. There was a mention of various blood witch clans, but Mika didn’t know any of them and hers wasn’t on the list.
The others had all been slaughtered.
She couldn’t be the last one. How had she gotten the specialty and not Claire? Why did Elizabeth have it but not Annie? None of it really made any sense. But there was no one to ask anymore. The oldest witch was responsible for the current state of witch society.
Mika wouldn’t be going to Cassandra for information unless she had a spell strong enough to take the witch out. Three hundred years though – no doubt Cassandra knew magic Mika could only dream of.
And yet…Eleanor had wiped blood witches from her memory.
“Hey, you up for some food?” Ethan asked, poking his head into Lucien’s room. “Or are you going to sleep forever?”
“The second thing.” Mika rolled over and groaned. Her entire body ached from all the practice.
“I’ve got a healing tonic for you.” Ethan sat on the edge of the bed and handed her the small vial of purple liquid. “It doesn’t taste so bad, if I do say so myself.”
Mika downed it. “I wish we didn’t have to leave.”
“The real world calls.” Ethan shrugged. “After the challenge you can come back here, whether you win or not. There’s nothing that says you’re required to graduate from Morgana, or that you need to live as a high society witch if you don’t want to.”
“Would you prefer that?” she asked, rolling over to face him. “Would you want me to give it all up?”
It had never been a secret Ethan didn’t like all the nonsense that came with being high society. But was there more to it than that?
“Only if it’s something you wanted. I couldn’t be happy if you weren’t.” Ethan pulled her into his lap and kissed the top of her head. “I don’t like the hoity-toity world, but I also firmly believe change needs to come from within. Me and the rest of the nobody witches don’t have the power to take the clans on. And not all of them are bad.”
“No, just Cassandra and those like her.” It was still hard to believe the Head Witch had slaughtered every blood witch she could find two hundred years ago. Assumptions were she didn’t want anyone threatening the power she’d fought for as any morrigan could claim the throne and rule over her.
But the blood witches had all gone into hiding after Morgana…so what made her think one would claim the throne?
What had happened to Cassandra to make her so power hungry that she would try to exterminate an entire sub-race of witches?
“One more dinner and we head back?” Ethan asked, getting up and grabbing her suitcase. He picked out a lovely black sundress with little cats on it. “I know Lucien’s mother would be happy to spend time with you before we have to leave.”
Tomorrow was the challenge.
Mika was ready, but she was also nervous as hell. The next twenty-four hours would be the longest she ever had to live through. All the anticipation was going to drive her mad too, but one last dinner in the foxes’ den would help the time go by faster.
“It’ll be fine,” Ethan promised. “Get dressed and come join us. Corbin wants a dance too.”
He kissed her cheek before leaving the room and Mika listened to all the chatter from the kitchen and the living room for a moment before grabbing the dress. She put on her knee-high combat boots as well and snapped her fingers for her hair and makeup, muttering the incantation to help her focus.
Fates, she was tired.
Not just physically tired either, but a bone-deep exhaustion that made everything seem a thousand times harder. Even doing something as simple as her makeup by hand which she normally loved to do.
Mika used to be able to imagine a future, but now…
There was nothing after her challenge with Claire. She might lose and then what?
But what if she won? Could she still go back to Morgana? Mika didn’t know why not, but she also didn’t know shit about being a matriarch either.
She’d never been taught the ways, or what was expected of her. Not like Claire had. The heir was always groomed from the moment they were named to take over the position.
And Mika didn’t even really want it.
She wished she had another sister, someone else who could rule their clan as matriarch, but it was just her and Claire.
Mika walked out of Lucien’s bedroom and down the hall into the main living space where the kitchen was open to the living room and dining room. It was cozy and charming how everyone could be doing something different and yet still enjoy each other’s company.
Corbin was snoozing on one of the couches, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other over the back of the couch. A leg dangling off the edge and the other was propped up by the arm of the couch.
She smiled as Lucien’s two younger siblings practiced sneaking up on the raven, silently placing leaves and feathers on him. Mika knew he was awake, and her heart squeezed at this soft side of the assassin.
Lucien was helping his mom cook for dinner, an apron around his waist and everything. It was some kind of Korean dish that smelled wonderful.
Ethan and Audrey were discussing something about the books stacked on the dining room table, still studying up until the very last moment. Everything they’d found had only confirmed what James Martin and Elizabeth Marshall had written.
Th
e Hellfire Society murdered Morgana during the First Purge and rewrote history, turning her from a blood-witch warrior into a mystical sorceress who simply had an affinity for complex enchantments.
That same society had infiltrated the Council of Paranormals and was still trying to open portals to hell to this day. Of course, Selene and Mika had sent everything they could find on the Hellfire Society to Jessica James.
It might help her, it might not.
But the demon witch was hunting down each and every member. Mika wasn’t worried about them per se. She was more worried about the Head Witch and how she’d gained enough power to live so long, or rather…how she knew the spells she did to trick the entire paranormal world.
Why did she get away with slaughtering blood witches? No one had arrested her before the memory spell rippled through the world. Though Mika assumed the individual accounts from surviving family members could be considered hearsay.
And no one liked what they couldn’t control.
It behooved the Council of Paranormals to look the other way. They’d never liked how strong and powerful certain kinds of witches and paranormals were.
For whatever reason Cassandra had introduced marriage contracts into high society and it had stuck. Mika was more worried about her than the Hellfire Society and she really didn’t think the two were connected.
No, the Hellfire Society didn’t just target blood witches, but female witches in general.
Selene noticed Mika first from her spot on the couch where she was reading and smiled. Corbin suddenly sat up and roared, scaring the shit out of the two kids who screamed and ran down the hall with maniacal laughter.
Corbin grinned at her and Mika couldn’t help but laugh. It was just too cute.
She went over to the couch and took the raven’s outstretched hand, plopping down next to him. Corbin put his arm around her shoulders and held her close, but that was it.
And it was enough.
Mika was surrounded by her favorite people. Too bad they all had to go back to real life soon.
“You’ve been doing nothing but practicing,” Soo Min scolded, putting a plate of snacks on the table. “And you don’t eat nearly enough.”