Magical Redemption

by Jaliza A. Burwell

  I came. Hard. I screamed as pleasure consumed me. Shanton roared as he found his release with one final thrust.

  “Damn.” I laughed once I could speak again. “Can we please do that again? Soon. Maybe right now?”

  Shanton’s chuckle was warm and a huge grin was on his face as he stared at me while he lay on his side. “I’d really love to, but after that first time, I’m pretty damn sure they’re watching. Or listening in.”

  “Bunch of perverts.”

  “Do you blame them? You’re hot.” He rolled off the bed, out of reach.

  “Ugh.” I found a pillow and threw it at him. He laughed as he caught it and put it back on the bed. “I’m going to take a shower. You are not allowed to join me.” He went into the open bathroom area and took off his boxers, giving me a gorgeous view of his tight ass. He had a dimple in one cheek too.

  So not fair.

  “If I find them, I’m murdering them.”

  “Have fun,” he called out as he stepped into the running shower. The glass was frosted so all I could see was his shadow moving on the other side.

  I really wanted to join him. “So not fair.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A soft knocking on my ward woke me up. I blinked past blurry eyes to see Atasha at the door, tapping on the ward with a wide grin. I moaned and rolled over into Shanton, who had wrapped himself around my body. Feeling him against me reminded me how much of an asshole he was.

  After finishing his shower, he had crawled into bed naked. I’d tried to heat things up again after my own shower, but he wouldn’t let me touch him. How was that fair? My stubbornness was evenly matched with his last night, and he had managed to find a way to hold me down and not give me access to him. During the night, he had finally let me go, and I would have enjoyed him if Atasha wasn’t knocking at the door.

  “Shanton, my aunt is here.”

  One of his eyes peeled open and focused on the woman at the door before closing again. “Ignore her. We need more sleep.”

  I agreed with him. I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in too long. “We’re still in enemy territory.”

  That woke him up. He sat up and climbed out of bed.

  “Naked!” I screamed. “She doesn’t get to see you naked.”

  He chuckled and grabbed the blanket, leaving me in the cold while he wrapped it around himself and went into the walk-in closet. At least I was wearing clothes so I didn’t have to worry about walking around in the nude. When I’d tried to strip down to nothing last night, Shanton wouldn’t let me. I was sure if I succeeded, we would have had sex, but the dragon was too strong and made me keep my clothes on.

  Once I was sure she wouldn’t get an eyeful of Shanton, I released the ward.

  “Have fun last night?” she asked.

  “Don’t,” I warned.

  Her eyes widened at my warning, and she nodded. “I apologize. I would like to take you around to see the community.”

  My smile was predatory as I said, “And hope I fall in love with it, I bet?”

  “If you do or do not is up to you. I was instructed to make sure you saw what we had to offer.” Something dark crossed her expression, and I had the sneaky suspicion she was miserable there. I just didn’t know why, and I didn’t know if she’d tell me or not.

  Once Shanton and I finished getting ready, we followed Atasha out of the main building and into the courtyard. I paused and stared at the fountain, curious about all the different beasts etched into the design.

  “Let us go see my personal garden,” Atasha said and led us out of the center and toward the outskirts. We passed all the big houses and cabins until we came to a small cottage. About halfway there, Siitha joined us, and I made Atasha stop while I showered the big kitty in hugs, kisses, and scratches. The fluff ball ate up all the attention.

  “You live here?” I asked.

  “By choice. If I started a family or ever mated, I would have had the choice of upgrading. But since it’s just me, I get the cottage. I like it. I am away from everyone and not many people are in my business.”

  I frowned, feeling like there was a disconnect I wasn’t aware of, some piece of information I was missing. She was Highborn, and she felt powerful. They treated her with the respect of someone in a higher standing than most. So why would she want to stay out here if she had the opportunity to have a cushier place inbound, away from the dangers of living on the outskirts?

  She laughed. “Don’t overthink it, Laila. I am not a fan of the games, so I stay away. Come, I have something to show you.” She led us around the cottage and to the back, where there was a small but gorgeous garden set up. “Each family has their personal garden to do with as they wish and they vary depending on each person’s talent. I specialize in herbs to promote healing and good health.”

  “So everyone has a garden.”

  “It is easy for us to grow.”

  “That’s why there are so many pixies,” Shanton said.

  She nodded with a kind smile. “We welcome them onto our territory if they are willing to do a blood promise with us. It’s pretty much a promise to never talk about this place, and if they break the oath, or try to, the blood promise kills them. It is a nasty way to die, but it keeps them from speaking of this place to strangers who might use that information against us. We haven’t had any issues over it.”

  “Why did you bring me here?” I asked.

  “Because this place is spelled to keep out prying ears and eyes. I have things I want to talk discuss with you, and no one else will talk to you about it.” She motioned toward a small table with two chairs. “Please sit. I’ll get us something to drink. Dragon, I have food if you’re hungry?”

  He nodded. She disappeared into the cottage.

  “What do you think she’s going to tell us?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. At this point, she could tell us they sacrifice children for their own gains and I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “That’s grim.”

  He shrugged. “But possible.”

  I wished I could say he was wrong, but there was that undercurrent of cultish behavior that ran underneath all the fake smiles and shared glances. They were hiding something from me and it looked like my dear aunt was the only person willing to fill us in.

  “Can we trust her?” I asked, trying to keep the vulnerability out of my voice. I liked Atasha, and I thought if she betrayed me, at this point, it’d break me. She was everything I wished for, a family member. A real blood relative. Not a dream, not my imagination, not a fake foster parent. She was my family and the little girl in me would love for her to remain in my life if it were possible, if we could find a way around all these rules and laws that seemed to burden the elementalists’ everyday lives.

  “She hasn’t done anything for us to not trust her. She’s sincere in her emotions, and she hasn’t lied. Yes, she’s been holding back, but I think she’s finally going to tell us why that is.” Shanton fell silent for a moment. “I say practice caution with her until you know her better.”

  That was a hopeful answer, and I held onto it as we waited for her to come back out. She returned a few minutes later with a platter of meats and cheeses. “Sorry, I don’t have much food. I’m sure this isn’t enough, but,” she shrugged, “we aren’t people who need food to keep going.”

  “Why is that?” I asked. “My caretakers growing up used to think I had an eating disorder.”

  Shanton didn’t wait and dug into the food while Atasha took the other seat. He didn’t mind standing and he was gentleman enough to let us sit down.

  “Our food source is magic and energy. It’s why we have so much of it. If we were to be separate from those two sources, then yes, we’d get hungry. We can eat food and we do enjoy it, but it isn’t as nutritious.”

  “So, I’m like a plant, I absorb magic and energy and it keeps me going?”

  She nodded.

  I mulled that over. It made so much sense, but it was weird. My first thought w
as what would happen to me if I were locked up, sealed away without those resources. They could give me food every day and I’d still shrivel away. I shuddered at the thought.

  “Why the secrecy?” Shanton asked. “What’s going on?”

  “I wanted to speak a little about our laws. How we work. I want you to understand what happened to Padraig and why he is the way he is. Then maybe, you’ll understand him enough to end him.”

  I leaned forward, my mouth popping open in shock. “He’s one of you?”

  She nodded.

  “Impossible. I met him. He only has energy. He doesn’t have magic.”

  “He used to. He was one of us until we tried to execute him.”

  “And failed?”

  “Yes. Before we could finish, he managed to escape.”

  “I think you need to back up and tell us exactly what you’re talking about,” Shanton said in a deep voice.

  “Of course.” She looked down at her hands before looking back at me. “A few decades ago, Padraig was in line to be on the Highborn Council. He was to be in the position that Tenebrus currently holds.”

  “So, that means he’s Padraig Tenebrus?” I asked.

  “Not anymore, no. He has no claim to that name since he was found guilty. Our society is drowning in laws. I’ve managed to get some of them reversed, but unfortunately, it is still easy to break one law or another.”

  “Are you breaking one now, talking to us?”

  She shook her head. “It’s just heavily frowned upon, but after your parents, they can’t hurt me anymore. I wasn’t lying when I said I’ll put my life on the line to protect you. You need to know what happened to understand him.”

  “What do you mean after my parents, what happened to them?” I asked.

  “It is a similar situation to Padraig, so I’ll tell you. We are strict with our breeding. The five main families work hard to keep their members pure. I am your father’s sister. He was powerful too, not Highborn Council strong, but he was to become a protector. He took delight in that. Was proud to be a few chosen to take on that role. While in training, he fell in love with a woman, your mother. I can’t talk about her in a way for you to understand. She was a character. I am not sure about her real feelings when it came to your father. Either way, their relationship was forbidden. She was low within our family ranking, at the very bottom. As far as we knew, she wasn’t that strong, and with all the potential your father had, there were plans to have him breed with someone of his ranking to strengthen the family blood.”

  “This sounds a little incestuous.”

  “Not everyone in the family is of the family. Your mother was brought in as new blood, with an oath. Maybe it is better to think of it as an adoption into the family line. She came from a small family on the bridge of extinction and of no significant power.”

  “So my father dated her against Highborn Council’s wishes and they were killed for it.”

  “No, they wouldn’t have been punished as severely for that. They would have been separated. Yes, but not killed. Worse, she’d be exiled from the family and our community. There are a couple other communities further west, one other in Europe, and another somewhere in Asia. Those communities are smaller. Many of us moved here a long time ago for the freedom America would give us. Your mother would have been sent to one of those communities. Talk was already going on about transferring. But the two of them were stubborn and eloped. When they returned, it was too late, they completed the mating ceremony and bonded themselves together.”

  “And that got them killed?”

  She gave me a small smile. “Patience, Laila. Let me tell the story.”

  I pressed my lips together.

  “We do not break those bonds. It can kill both people. So we accepted them, but your father lost his position. He could no longer be a protector. They lived in this cottage, actually. This garden was first created by your father. He had a talent for growing these plants. He was able to make a living off of that since healing plants are not easy to grow, and except for your father and me, no one else in the community can grow the flowers. They were not married for long, your mother and father.” She paused and took in a shuddering breath. “One day, your mother disappeared. She was gone for a few months. It drove your father insane. It was becoming difficult for him to function. He was losing control of himself. Losing a mate, it’s a strain on the bond and can drive the other person crazy.”

  Atasha glanced out at the garden, her eyes darker and blurry as unshed tears formed. She blinked them away and took in a shuddering breath, before continuing with the story.

  “Your mother, I say she was an interesting character because I don’t think she was as sincere in her feelings as your father was. I do not believe she loved him as much as he loved her. She had her own goals. Even now, I am not sure what those goals were. She kept her secrets close to her chest and never shared anything significant with anyone. She may have married your father, but she was still a stranger to everyone here. She always kept to herself. When she returned, well, she did something unforgivable. We knew right away what happened. Our power makes it easy to sense something like that.”

  “Like what?” I asked in a soft voice. My stomach churned, already knowing what she was going to say.

  “Your mother told us she had a termination.”

  The bile rose, and I swallowed. It was okay. I already knew this. The end of this story was no surprise because I had lived through it. I already knew I was thrown away. I was found in a fricken dumpster after all. It still didn’t stop the churning of the acid in my stomach.

  “We sent people out to check. They found the dumpster you were left in, but they were too late in getting there before it was emptied out. They found blood and felt death at the location. They came back and said no way you survived. You had to be dead. It devastated your father, that he could have had a child. Children are precious. If the parents’ coupling was not approved, you would have been taken in and loved. It is not easy for us to have children. We live for so long that reproduction takes time too. Right now, we have only eleven children in the community, and we have over ten thousand people living here.” She smiled at my shocked expression. “I’ll show you more of the community after we finish talking.”

  “What happened to my parents?”

  “Your father was already straining from the bond being stretched so thin, so when she returned and we learned you were gone, he killed her in a fit of rage. The Highborn Council had him executed for the murder. I do not speak ill of the dead, and I do not know what motivated your mother to make the decisions that she had, but if she were alive, if my baby brother had not killed her, I would have.” The iciness in her voice sent a tendril of fear down my spine.

  She got up slowly, and I followed. “Come, I must show you what Padraig is up to.”

  “What do my parents have to do with Padraig?” I asked.

  “It is a similar story. He fell in love with a woman. They were of the same ranking though, and she had loved him too. She was given to another man and had his child. Padraig killed her, her mated husband, and the newborn child. Follow me, I have something important to show you.”

  She led the way to a building still on the outskirts. None of us spoke, and we approached a small shack, half the size of Atasha’s cottage. “Two of our guards were found early this morning, and after hearing what you have told us about what Padraig has done, well, he needs to be stopped.”

  She opened the shack doors and freezing air flowed out. She reached in and turned on a light before stepping in. The room was an icebox. A massive table sat in the middle of the room and on it were two bodies. Their feet stuck out from the sheet over them and I covered my mouth, holding back bile. At first, I thought they were wearing black boots. But no, they were barefoot. Their feet were black and wrinkled. Atasha’s expression was blank as she went around to the other side and folded over the sheet to show two husks of men, black spots stretching over their faces.

 
I nearly threw up and managed to only keep my dismay to a small painful moan.

  The two bodies had been sucked dry. The skin was papery and thin, draping over skeletal frames. Their eyes were open, but the color in their withered eyeballs were a grayish white. Their mouths were open in a scream, lips cracked, and when I moved closer, their tongues sat in their mouths, shriveled up.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Without your story, we would have not known. We would have been left guessing.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Two of our guards. They were patrolling our boundaries last night. We tightened security after you told us about him. It seems we were correct in doing this.”

  “Padraig did this?”

  She nodded. “We believe so. It matches with your story.”

  I eyed the two bodies again before turning and leaving the small shack. I couldn’t stay in there any longer with those two dead men.

  Atasha followed, but Shanton stayed longer. I eyed the door, disgust rolling through me and right behind it, blazing anger. I may not have been a fan of the elementalists, but no one deserved a fate like that.

  “How?” I asked. “Why?”

  There were a million things I wanted to ask. I was ready to bombard her with questions and she sensed that. Shanton came out with a closed-off expression and closed the door softly. His stiff posture told me everything I wanted to know. He wanted to go hunting.

  I wanted to go with him.

  After joining us, he wrapped his arms around me and drew me against his body. His silent support made it easier to lean into him as I tried to digest the horror in that room. It was even worse than seeing the mindless, magicless people at the park.

  “Padraig was to be executed after murdering the family. Our process for doing this is not kind. Frankly, it is barbaric. They allow spectators in to watch, turning it into a show. A group of us refuse to participate, others love it.” She looked back at the building, trying her best to not meet my eyes. Whatever she was about to tell me, I was going to hate. I just knew it, and she did too, going by her hesitation.