by Jayne Hawke
When I opened my eyes, the laptop was working and open on the Grim. Sighing in relief, I stuffed a cookie in my mouth and looked down the social network for anything of interest.
Rosalyn was a loup garou. She’d had a rough summer, having been turned against her will, but we’d become good friends when she helped me take down the Apophis witches. I scrolled down the Grim and saw a picture of her grinning like a fool with her life-bond Cole next to her and her small pack around her. It looked as though the Ma’at witch and mutual friend of ours, Amy, had settled into pack life well. The petite little witch had a broad smile on her face that made her eyes spark with genuine happiness. My stomach twisted a little as I realised how much I missed having people around me.
The dark apartment was so quiet. The coven house had been a constant bustle of activity. Even in the middle of the night, someone would be moving around or watching movies. Silence stretched around me, reminding me of everything I’d lost. A soft rustle of feathers reminded me that I could at least have the familiarity of the Morrigan back if I just asked her nicely to take me back.
Time was ticking by. I needed to make a decision on which god I was going to work with else I’d be without my magic for what short little life I’d manage to scrape out. The Morrigan was familiar, comfortable, and easy to slip back into. Set was intoxicating and new. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a chaos witch, which is what Set would make me. There was a lot of stigma and risk there. Realistically, I’d die within a week of the deadline passing. We weren’t complete without our magic, and every day that passed put me a step closer to that awful death. Witches weren’t meant to exist without magic and their gods.
4
I woke up when the sun had the gall to come through the thin curtains, dragging me from a deep sleep. Everything hurt. My head was swimming, and I really wished I’d had the good sense to steal some health potions from the coven. As I dragged myself out of bed, I wondered if Amy would brew a couple for me. There had to be something I could offer her in return.
A quick look through the two cupboards in the kitchen showed that I’d been right the night before. The apartment was entirely devoid of food. I checked the cubby hole where I kept the cash I’d managed to pull together from merc jobs and confirmed that I had ten bucks for food until I next got paid. Pulling on my old jeans with an increasingly large hole over the left knee, I ran through my options. The merc bar was my best bet for a job, things had been reasonably quiet as of late. Rosalyn and Cole had been doing a good job of keeping the council and everyone in line.
There had been a couple of zombie outbreaks thanks to young Hecate witches who should have known better. Hecate had given them necromantic magic to speak with the dead, and they had pushed the limits and raised them. Of course, they didn’t have the magic to return the risen back to the grave, and Hecate was a cruel mistress. From what I’d heard, the witches had themselves been turned into zombies, and the coven had brought in mercs to dispose of all of them. The hush money was supposed to have been more than my rent. No one wanted word to get out that the coven couldn’t control their own.
Unfortunately, my old coven had spread word that I was a liability under pressure, as if it wasn’t enough that no one wanted to be near a magicless witch. They were considered to be ticking timebombs. A delivery here, killing a familiar gone rogue there, small things that barely put food on the table. Once I got my magic back, I’d be able to get good jobs again and maybe even move into an apartment with more than five minutes’ hot water per day.
I pulled myself together and tried to ignore the ache in my bones and the growl of my stomach as I grabbed my wallet, ready to go out to the cheap grocery store. I needed to stock up on cheap ramen.
“Just say yes,” Set whispered in the back of my mind.
His presence was a powerful, intense one. It was impossible to ignore.
Yet I tried. I wasn’t ready. It was difficult finding information on the lives of Set witches, which didn’t help. They kept the details of their situation even more tightly under wraps than other more mainstream witches, and no witch liked giving away information. The Morrigan was familiar. There was comfort in the embrace of her dusty feathers and the scent of grave dirt and death that she brought with her.
A KNOCK CAME FROM THE front door as I was about to open it. I never had visitors at the apartment. I was too ashamed of it to tell Amy and Rosalyn the address. The rent wasn’t due for a few days, but it wouldn’t be entirely unexpected for the landlord to demand it early.
I opened the door expecting to see the older surly man with wisps of grey hair and cold blue eyes. War drums swept over my skin as I looked up into the startling emerald eyes of the man before me. My heart stuttered in my chest and my tongue became locked as I drank in every detail of him. Pitch hair in a stylish cut that complimented his handsome face, along with day-old stubble that hugged his strong jaw. The navy-blue suit with faint pin stripes hugged his powerful yet lean build, and the way his hand tucked into his pants revealed strong powerful thighs. It was as though the gods themselves had carved him.
A playful smile tugged at his mouth, and my stomach flipped while I desperately tried to compose myself. Heat threatened to spread across my cheeks from humiliation as I realised I’d been staring at him like a hungry lioness.
“Skylar Hackett?”
He spoke with a beautiful Scottish accent that I could have listened to for hours.
“Yes.”
His smile broadened, and he pulled a large pizza from behind his back. My stomach growled in response.
“I’m Gideon Shepherd. May I come in?”
It took a long moment for the name to sink in. I had known it since I was a little girl. This day had been coming since the day I was born.
He was my future husband.
5
Arranged marriages were common amongst witches. Usually they were political, the pairing of two strong bloodlines to continue them. If that had been the case with mine, I would have escaped it when I was removed from the coven. My arranged marriage was courtesy of the gods. The Morrigan and Brigid decided that we were the perfect couple and so the date of our wedding was set when I was two weeks old. The location was arranged, all I had to do was find a dress and show up.
In three months’ time, I’d be walking down the aisle to marry the man standing before me. It had always been a faint annoyance in the back of my mind, but now he was there. Unavoidable.
My fingers itched to slam the door in his face, but his eyes danced with mischief and his smile was so genuine. Pursing my lips, I stepped aside and quickly glanced around the living space for any stray panties. Thankfully, there was nothing shameful within sight as he walked past me into the small space.
The pounding of his magic roved over my body and tugged at the dark hole within me where my magic should have been. He carefully placed the pizza box down on the rickety table next to the armchair.
“Pepperoni with extra cheese,” he said as he opened the box.
My mouth watered. I’d have rather’d pepperoni and jalapeno but it smelled so damn good. I hadn’t eaten a good meal since I last went over to Rosalyn’s place.
“I was surprised to hear that you were no longer a coven witch. I see you haven’t accepted an offer from the gods yet,” he said amiably.
Those emerald eyes pinned me in place while his smile was soft and inviting. I’d dealt with enough alpha males in my time to not be intimidated by the war witch.
I walked past him and took two slices of pizza.
“I didn’t expect to see you before the wedding.”
The pizza tasted even better than it smelled. The base was thin and crisp, with a sinful amount of rich cheese topped with the best pepperoni I had ever tasted.
“I thought it would be a good idea to get to know my future wife,” he said as he sat down in my armchair.
He looked up at me as he ate the final piece of his slice. A challenge hung between us, and I found myself standin
g a little taller. I had never bowed to anyone, not even the Morrigan.
“Who is the challenging god?”
I took another slice of pizza and stuffed it into my face. It was so difficult to be ladylike or dignified when I was that hungry.
It was rude to dig into another witch’s magic, but the rules were different when you were life-bound. Still, I shrugged and stole the last slice of pizza right out of his fingers.
He raised an eyebrow at me, and I shrugged.
“I skipped dinner last night.”
There was that smile again. It spread slowly across his lips and lit up his eyes with genuine amusement. The edges of him softened, and his magic receded as he watched with me gentle affection. I squirmed and went looking for a clean glass for water.
No one had ever looked at me like that before.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.
There was a rumble beneath his words that time, the drums that showed he wouldn’t give in or walk away.
“No, I didn’t,” I said sweetly.
“Well, it must be someone worthy of consideration,” he said as he stood and approached me. “Although, the fact you’re hiding it suggests it’s a less well thought of god. A death god, perhaps.” The accent thickened when he said death god.
I wanted to slip between the syllables and hide within the beautiful sound of his voice and accent. The gods were cursing and blessing me in the same breath.
Leaning back against the meager excuse of a kitchen counter, I turned to face him.
“Are you worried it might be someone who’d bring shame upon you and your coven?”
He laughed. A sound full of mirth and true amusement.
“Oh, darling,” his accent thickened again as he leaned in closer, “my coven is mixed. No shame can be brought down on us.”
A thrill ran through me before I really registered his words. Mixed covens weren’t a thing. A coven was a gathering of witches all of whom had been chosen by the same god. They worshipped together and used their magic as one entity.
He shrugged, an elegant motion from his broad shoulders.
“I’ve never been one to follow the rules.”
“And which god do you belong to?” I pushed.
“Ha. You know full well I belong to no one, but I have given my allegiance to Mars.”
Most witches were proud of their position with their god, one as a tool, but some insisted on more. I had always chafed under the Morrigan’s lack of caring for her witches, the way she used us. Set promised more.
“You don’t see much call for war witches,” I said casually.
“We happen to be very good at business, and other activities.”
I laughed.
The flirting felt like something someone else had told him to say. It was stilted on his tongue. He was soon laughing along with me.
“We both know you won’t choose the Morrigan, so who is it?”
He caught me off guard. I’d been laughing at the ridiculousness of it, but he was there with the glint in his eyes.
Heavy footsteps came thundering down the hallway outside of my door. Something crashed against my door. I was under attack.
6
Three hunters crashed into the room with expressions of pure fury on their faces. I had no idea how they’d found me. Hunters didn’t normally go after witches. They preferred to take out garou and other shifters. I was betting they were trying to get revenge for the high-ranking hunters I’d helped kill during summer.
Gideon lounged against the kitchen counter as I gripped my knives tighter and began the fight. Blood rushed in my ears, and the adrenaline of it all filled my veins. My body moved seemingly without my guidance thanks to an entire life spent preparing for just such an event.
My trainers had always said I was aggressive verging on feral in my fighting style, and I took that as a compliment. Blood coated my hands as I sliced through the hunters, my blade catching on their leather before it went through skin and muscle beneath.
The pain from the morning was easily forgotten as I was lost to the thrill of the fight. I drove my blades into throats and arteries, looking for quick and bloody kills. They had invaded my home. This wasn’t a time for mercy. The sound of death and scent of blood filled the apartment around me. An occasional sound of splintering wood or crash of a body being slammed against a wall added the final layer to the symphony of death gurgles and anguished cries.
They should have known better than to take a Morrigan witch.
Once the fight was over, I was left riding the high while looking over the remains of my apartment. The door was a mass of splintered blood-soaked wood. Pools of blood and organs were scattered throughout the living space between the broken remnants of my armchair and table. At least the laptop had come out of it unscathed.
As the adrenaline faded, I realised my landlord was going to kill me. I couldn’t afford a new door. Dragging my fingers through my hair, I tried to think if I had any favours I could call in. I hated leaning on Rosalyn and her pack.
“There are far less dramatic ways to get out of answering a simple question,” Gideon said.
I smirked at him.
“I don’t believe in doing things by half.”
He grinned at me good naturedly.
“I’ll handle this,” he said, making a sweeping gesture.
“I’ll figure it out.”
He stood next to me, easily a foot taller than me as he looked down at me.
“You’re my fiancée.”
There was no room for argument in his tone.
“I said I’ll figure it out.”
“Skylar-”
“Sky. No one calls me Skylar.”
His mouth flattened into a thin line and the thundering beat of his magic threatened to consume me.
“Sky, you are my fiancée, and I will deal with this little mess. I’ll pay for you to spend a few nights in a hotel.”
I sighed, knowing when I was beaten. Mars witches were ridiculously protective, and it wasn’t as though I had much of a choice. Those ten dollars weren’t going to pay for a new door.
“Fine,” I ground out.
He relaxed, and his magic pulled back.
“I’ll make the arrangements.”
I went into my room to pack up what few belongings I had and texted a warning to Rosalyn. She and her pack were the ones who had started this little war with the hunters; if they’d come after me, they’d certainly come after her.
I stuffed my second pair of jeans in my backpack and wondered what it would have been like to have grown up in a different coven. Shaking my head, I just couldn’t picture it. The rigidity and stiff hierarchy hadn’t much agreed with me, but it had been home.
7
I’d been expecting a small hotel on the outskirts with a room that consisted of a small lumpy bed and a TV with two channels. What Gideon actually gave me was a suite in the finest hotel in Wolf Ridge. The receptionist had made no attempt to hide her contempt as I strolled in and looked at the marble and finery in the lobby. Gideon had looked quite at home there.
Once we were in the elevator and thus away from eavesdroppers I asked, “How does a war witch look so at home in a suit?”
Gideon smiled at me and my stomach squirmed.
“As I said, we’re very good at business. I have a rather large security firm.”
I pursed my lips and realised that something had been nagging at me since he’d shown up on my doorstep.
“You were a Brigid witch.”
I went for my knife as I began to question whether he really was my betrothed. It had been so easy to take him at face value. Something about him just felt right, but there were fae who could make people fall into such traps.
He smirked down at my hand on my knife.
“Aye, I was. I changed my alliance at eighteen. Brigid’s a fine goddess, but she and I weren’t suited. Mars started entering my dreams when I was thirteen.”
He pulled back his sleev
es to reveal a small Celtic knot with a spear cutting through it. I reached out and ran my fingertips over it feeling the magic there.
“You know as well as I that the Morrigan would have been squarking in your ear had I not have been the one she chose for you.”
He wasn’t wrong. The battle crow wouldn’t have been at all happy to have someone pretending to be someone she herself had chosen. I relaxed and watched the numbers over the door light up as we continued rising.
“Will you be joining my coven before or after the wedding?”
I looked up at him. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that I’d join him, but it made sense. We were going to be married, life bound.
“Haven’t thought about it.”
He nodded, accepting my answer.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He stood with casual confidence, his hands tucked in the pockets of his pants. There was no denying the strength there, or the big presence he had. Yet he wasn’t aggressive. There was an easy smile on his face. I’d been told that war witches were aggressive to the point of annoyance. They were supposed to be in your face and pushy. Gideon was anything but.
THE SUITE WAS STUNNING. Deep cream carpets ran throughout a space that was easily twice as big as my apartment. The bed was perfectly soft and bouncy. I toed off my boots and padded around the space, looking at every inch of it. Gideon sat on the large four-seater couch and flipped through the channels on the flat screen TV hanging on the wall.
I looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living area looking out over Wolf Ridge. The town stretched out before me before it slowly melted into the surrounding forests. It was stunning. Even with the grey skies overhead, the smudges of cream and grey forming the buildings sat neatly alongside the ribbons of black. I could have spent hours just gazing out at that view.