“No, I know you care about me, Donovan. I can feel all your emotions, worry being the main one. Your aura is becoming different, I can read you much better now than before.”
“You’re being a dumb witch, Rose.”
“Are you using me?” I squint my eyes up at him.
Thunder claps, with lightning brightening up our cave. The noise from the rain and trees crashing against each other become silent. I wait for him to answer me, he bites his bottom lip and puts his hands into his pockets.
“You want the truth? You want the truth so fucking badly, don’t you?” His voice picks up against the rain.
“Obviously. Are you going to give it to me?”
“You literally already know. You led me to Ellevil, you led me to Christian, you did all of those things with a Verel.”
“I didn’t know you were one until we were in Ellevil. If you told me earlier we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“That’s a damn lie; you like me.”
He gets closer to me as his breath falls onto my neck. I’m not afraid of him, even if we are both witches. I have the advantage here, I’m the myth and he isn’t.
I press my index finger on his chest.
“No, that’s not the case, you—like me.” He grabs my hair softly then grips onto it. “It’s killing you inside, you told me you were different, and not to worry about your past. The truth is, you’re still living in your past. You can’t even free your own self. You call me pathetic, and I think you’re the main one—”
Before I can finish my thought, he wraps his hand behind my head and leans in to kiss me. We tingle once more, the feeling of freezing and burning such an adrenaline rush. I was becoming addicted to it, our sensations were always mixed. Christian would always freeze, but Donovan, he was different. Maybe he really is trying to help me, but why would he mention using me?
We release from the kiss. He bites on my lip and holds my waist. He whispers into my ear, “I don’t want you getting hurt, or becoming corrupt out of anger. Please, Rose, you can’t lose control.”
“I’m not going to lose control,” I say.
“You always do, and I think this is the last chance. Once you switch, I won’t be able to mask it anymore. They’re going to come for me, and I-I will need to—” Donovan punches the dirt wall as a huge clump of dirt falls down behind me.
“Need to do what?” I whisper.
“Why don’t you get it? I’m still a Verel by blood. You becoming corrupt all the time isn’t helping me.”
“Okay, I won’t switch anymore.” I could feel the pain he was feeling.
“If you do, I will need to kill you.”
He walks out of the cave, and into the rain. I look forward, he’s never left me. Lightning flashes in the cave, I glance to my right and he’s gone.
I rush out of the cave. I want to catch him. The wind outside rages heavily against the trees, a branch falls in front of me. I wave my hands in the air from fear, the branch suddenly shatters into pieces. I press my hands against my chest, my markings freeze. I am now breathing heavily; my eyes look around for Donovan.
Across from me there is an opening in the trees. It looks like they were forced apart to make a trail. Someone is walking forth out of the trail. A caramel-skinned girl is standing in a typical witch-looking outfit, only the cloth where her thighs are is ripped all the way down to the bottom of her knees. Her boots are dirty with mud up the sides. Her jacket is open, exposing her ripped up sports bra. Black jagged markings crawl up the sides of her abs. Hazel eyes watch me carefully. She does not move.
The wind keeps slapping against my face, scratching the insides of my earlobes. I can’t feel my feet on the ground, I’m levitating from the intense pressure. Lightning strikes through the air, electrocuting the large tree in front of me. Flames begin to crackle, lighting up the bark and leaves. I stand still, not knowing what to do. The tree is on its way down to crush me. I step back from the potential crash. My feet are stuck in the muddy soil, I raise my hands and scream. I feel a stinging metal texture coil around my stomach. It constricts and pinches the tiny hairs on my skin, pulling me as I land on my back. The tree falls straight down and crashes into the muddy ground. I am splashed by the dirt.
“I guess you are a rookie,” a light but stern voice says.
I turn to look at the girl. She flicks her long wet dreads from her face.
“And they say you’re a myth,” she chuckles. “You can’t even handle a storm.”
In her hand is a light brown broomstick, her index finger traces around its hazel opening.
Chapter 9
I don’t know where Donovan carried me. I lay on the ground with mud splattered on the sides of my arms. My wet hair is glued to the sides of my cheeks and I stare up into the dark stormy sky; I blink slowly. I hope Jared knew what he was doing since he’s trapped now in Ravamere with Dawn. I can’t tell if I’m crying or if it’s the rain trickling down my chin.
The girl kicks the ground to get my attention. A bat lands on her shoulder and her middle finger pets its bare skin.
“Who are you?” I say, crawling my way through the mud and then eventually gathering myself up. She redirects her focus from the bat onto me. Her eyes are glowing; they’re so beautiful.
“Call me Luvie.”
She turns around slightly but stops, her markings fade in and out slowly. She whirls back around, studying me. Her neck cocks to the right slightly, and then her eyes look up past me as if she’s seen something move.
“W-what?” I cough from the smoke from the burning tree.
Luvie’s markings are black and a rusty orange. She places her broomstick on the ground and whispers something into her bat’s ears. Her pet flies above and disappears into the trees. My elf senses pick up some language I do not understand. She stops looking at what she might’ve seen.
“She’s here with you.” Her mouth opens and she waves the palm of her hand slowly in the air among the many tiny droplets of rain.
“Who’s here?” I twist around to see what she’s looking at.
“Your mother—I do not know what she warns, but I feel her here with us, her spirit.”
“My mother?”
The bat flies down from the trees and lands back on Luvie’s shoulder. She moves her ear next to the bat, her hazel eyes aglow.
“Quickly, we must go,” she says urgently and grabs my wrist.
“Wait!” I pull back my arm. “I don’t even know who you are. Why would I go with you?”
The thunder booms across the sky, and Luvie looks at the environment behind me, worried, and in a rush.
“There’s no time to explain, we must go.”
I step away from her. I glance at my mood ring as my thumb rubs over it. A girl with blue markings smiles at us. She takes one step at a time, a sly smirk on her face. It seems like the rain stops dripping off my skin; instead it’s gluing onto me. The water freezes my arm as it crawls up to the inside of my elbows. Luvie steps in front of me, clicking her broomstick on and cutting off the ice.
“Idiot. We should’ve left when your mother warned us.”
The mermaid twirls in place, waving her hands in the air. The rain droplets freeze in mid-air. The mermaid turns around, playing with her hair. She points at us and turns her face to the left. Three guys run from the left and in front of her.
Witches.
Their eyes are purple like my father’s. They take out their broomsticks. One runs to the right, the other to the left. The main one runs toward us and with increasing speed, he dodges the rocks and muddy puddles. His face is covered by a black mask, a scar on his left eyelid.
“Shit, stay close to me. We need to get to the other side of that path.” Luvie points at the dark path next to the trail. The path is pretty far from us, but I can see where we need to go. The wind picks back up, the pressure punching against my face. The rain continues to fall. I look for the mermaid—she’s gone.
“Got it.”
Luvie looks at me sarcastica
lly, then turns on her broomstick. A silver sword comes out; she raises her fist next to her chin as her sword’s blade aligns perfectly against the side of her arm. Her unbuttoned leather jacket glimmers off the sword’s metal.
She turns around and darts toward the corrupt witch, sliding on the mud. She slips right through his legs. Repositioning herself, she attempts to slice his back. He immediately ducks, and then kicks her to the ground.
I sense something aiming to pierce the back of my neck, I sidestep the attack. The dart shoots into a tree next to me. I turn to one of the witches behind me.
He slashes his broomstick in the air, shooting another dart in my direction. The dart cuts through the air in slow motion. My eyes narrow. I grab the dart, and in a slick motion, I flick it back to him. The witch dodges onto the ground, the dart cuts his throat slightly.
My heart beats in worry. Luvie is fighting her corrupt witch fiercely. I hear his grunts as she jams her fist into the face of her enemy.
The corrupt witch grabs her hair and flings her across the ground. Luvie’s reaction is quick. She tumbles on the ground and repositions herself on the dirt. She clicks her broomstick, turning it into a tiny dagger, her eyes fiercely locked onto the witch.
In my peripheral vision, I see another witch approaching me from the right with a sword. I hear the witch’s footsteps behind me smack against the wet dirt.
Both of the witches are gaining on me. I feel my pockets for my broomstick. I didn’t think I’d have it, but I feel something cylinder-ish. I take the object out—it is my broomstick with its silver lines swirling around it.
I smirk, pressing the button to turn it on. A sleek, slim, silver bar forms. I immediately slap the witch on my right with the bar. I jam the end of my bar into the witch on my left’s gut. Twirling the bar in the air, I get into my fighting position.
They look at each other then proceed toward me. I dodge a sharp whip swinging in the air and a few more darts wanting to pierce my face. I jab the end of my bar into one of their stomachs, my jaw clenching. My nose crinkles.
My thumb presses my broomstick once more, turning it into a long sword. I swish and slice the air, aiming for the witch that is now in front of me. The other one has disappeared from the fight.
The hard rain splashes in my face, my vision blurs, and my tattoos freeze. I try to keep it together, but anger fills me. Lightning strikes through the sky twice. I walk slowly toward the witch. We begin to circle each other with our swords out defensively.
“Who sent you?” I ask.
“Who do you think?” He chuckles, lunging at my chest. I slash my sword against his, blocking the attack. A nice clang noise reverberates across the forest from our swords.
I successfully block the blows from my enemy and duck the next attack I predict he will make, only this time I slide against the mud to stand up, facing his back. He is too slow to turn around and block my stab.
“Who sent you?” I ask again, spitting out the wetness in my mouth from the rain.
The witch is grunting from the pain of my sword in his back. I twist the sword, holding his neck tightly.
“Speak.”
“Y-your f-fa-father,” he manages to blurt out.
Turning off my broomstick, the sword slides out of his back, forming into a whip. I let the metal slither around his neck. As it snaps, I flick my wrist, flinging him against a tree. I move my glued hair from between my eyes behind my right ear.
Turning around, I see Luvie, on top of her witch, withdrawing her dagger from his chest.
“We need to leave, they are not dead,” she says, wiping the blood from her dagger with her jacket. She shoves past me as she walks onto the nearest trail.
I catch up to her pace, turning off my broomstick.
“What do you mean they’re not dead?”
“They’re Ravamere witches, there’s a special way to kill them.”
“Oh, right.”
“You sound confused. Were you not trained? Are you a rookie?”
“No, I’m not. I just didn’t think of that.”
“Okay, well, I need you to get it together. We need to get to Vaelle.”
Luvie leaps over a large tree trunk as the rain slows down. The sound the forest makes calms me.
“Vaelle?”
Luvie turns around to look at me.
“Are you for real? You’re definitely a rookie.” She looks up at the sky. “Damn it, Charlotte! Out of everyone you watch a newbie, and send me to fetch her!” Luvie waves out her hands in the air, talking to herself. “Aish!” She finished, brushing by a bunch of ferns. She spoke a different language I haven’t heard before.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Shut up and just follow me.”
We move along the large wet plants and bushes, the bark scratching at my skin. Luvie is whispering in her language, splaying out her fingers in the air.
She’s one of those weird fortune tellers, but a witch. Her orange markings glow before my eyes, and so do mine. She comes to a stop and sniffs the air as she mouths something to herself.
“We stop her.” She places her hand on me to stop me.
“Ala monde, de—tondo,” she whispers at a tree, her tongue tasting the moist air. She places her middle finger in the tree’s center.
Her markings glow brightly. I believe she is feeling what I am feeling. My markings were burning. She created a fist, so I was sure she was feeling the pain.
She closes her eyes and turns to me. She opens them and looks out of the corner of her eye. We both know a presence is in the woods. Voices whisper through my ears. Luvie dazes out—she’s high from the event. She removes her middle finger as a portal appears, its clear ripples circling and beaming brightly.
“Step in while we have time,” she says, looking around for danger.
“What am I stepping into?” I look at the estranged witch.
“You whine too much. How are you supposed to be properly trained, asking questions? Less talking, more fighting; less whining, more thinking.” Luvie rolls her eyes and then pushes me into the portal.
I fall through, landing on hard rocks. My hair is caught on the jagged edges of gravel. I look to my right…there is a sword on the ground. I feel my pocket, checking if my broomstick’s still there—it isn’t. I lift my head up, witnessing a girl walking toward me in a mask.
“Looking for this?”
She swings my broomstick around playfully.
“You’re thinking too much. Is this how you will act once corruption attacks you?”
Before I can reply, she takes out a pen-sized object, which looks much like a broomstick. She clicks it on. I guess it was a broomstick because it forms into a sharp dagger. She tosses my broomstick behind her and tumbles to where I lay on the ground. She stabs the dagger in the air, aiming for my heart. I grab both of her wrists and stare up at her, afraid.
“Grab the sword.” She chuckles.
“Where am I?” I shout. Her strength is more than mine and I can’t hold her from killing me much longer.
“Grab the sword. It’s the only thing that will save you.”
The girl then grabs my hair and smashes my head against the tiny rocks.
She places her knee on my chest, pursing her lips tightly.
Chapter 10
If anyone were to wear my shoes, I’d be pretty sure they wouldn’t survive the shit I go through.
Try having your head smashed, your gut jabbed all the time, and encountering corrupt mystics continuously after your transformation.
I thought being a witch would consist of me going out on missions. Killing evil mystics and restoring peace on earth, I would become the hero like that guy in the movie Transformers. Unfortunately, I have to be one of the aliens; I have to be one of the mystics with a corrupt side.
It runs in the family, apparently.
The sharp tip of the dagger tickles the skin between my eyes, and the girl is more focused than I am. I try to keep her from piercing me and grab the sw
ord that is on the ground, but I can’t do both.
So I think, what the hell, and slam my forehead against hers. It’s a painful thing to do and I feel dizzy after the collision, but I don’t think about the pain. I only think about freeing myself from her trap.
I knee her in the chest to kick the girl off instead.
Rolling to my left, I successfully grab the sword and stand in a defense position. She watches me carefully, so carefully that she doesn’t seem to blink. Her thumb slowly hovers over the broomstick’s button. She spins, twirling around slowly and clicking her weapon to form into a whip. Her short black hair flows in front of her blue eyes, hiding her freckles. She seems really familiar. I feel as though I’ve run into her before. I can’t pinpoint where exactly.
“Nice head-butt; you’re definitely a witch.” She whips the ground with her weapon. “Now show me who you really are.”
The action she does next is so fast I can barely see it coming. The whip slices into the ground between my legs. She flicks her wrist up, causing the whip to slap my face. I fall backward onto the rocks. The whip cuts my lip and a slim line of blood drips down my chin. I narrow my eyes, ready for the next attack as I wipe my chin.
“Lesson one, don’t think,” she mocks.
She flips toward me, allowing her whip to coil around my body. I take my sword and aim it for her heart. I wait till she stops flipping, and see the right time to throw my sword, then I release. She grunts, and blocks the attack with her whip.
I get up immediately and run toward my sword. She slashes the whip on the ground but this time I’m ready for that trick. I leap into the air to kick the side of her face. She falls to the ground and I pick up my sword. I swirl it in the air as I strut toward the girl on the ground.
She clicks her broomstick, forming it into a sword like mine. I don’t think, I quickly stab the ground, but I miss as she cuts my arm. I shout in pain, covering the wound.
“Lesson two, don’t get cocky,” she mocks.
I seek coverage to get away from this girl…there’s a wrecked building to my left. I attempt to run for the building to collect myself.
Magical (Mystical Series Book 3) Page 6