Abandoned (Book Two of the Castle Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel

by Hazel Hunter

  Hailey looked up at him, squinting just a little.

  “You’re really worried.”

  “Hmm, maybe a little bit. A lot of what we did usually requires at least a quick talk before.”

  Hailey grinned smugly.

  “Well, consider me a quick study then.”

  Piers’s laugh was soft, but it had a slight degree of menace that made her shiver.

  “What happens when you’ve got a gag in your mouth? What happens if I want you to service me?”

  “Then I guess we talk about it,” she murmured, burying her burning face in Piers’s chest.

  “What a very good idea.”

  Hailey yawned, so much more tired than she had been after a simple flight. Piers cupped the back of her head with his broad hand.

  “You need to get some sleep. If you bed down now, perhaps you’ll catch up with the rest of us.”

  Hailey nodded her agreement, and before she knew it, she was nodding off.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IN THE FOREST far below, the thing paced with trackless, barbed feet. It could smell prey above, but it could not catch it, not today. They were nested high above, and it was on foot. Perhaps it would not always be such. Perhaps it would not always be confined as it was.

  The thing reared up anyway, and the ancient weight of the pine tree shook under its bulk. It sniffed delicately. There was fear in the pine. Something distant and old. The animals had long since fled the immediate area, dreading the thing’s smell and its power. All that was left were the trees, which were rooted in place. Plants communicated with each other however, releasing simple pheromones that translated to even simpler messages.

  The thing was an expert at fear, and these woods were afraid.

  The thing dropped to the ground again. There were other scents in the forest. There were other things that could be found. Could be taken, could be eaten. The thing’s head came up to sniff the night air.

  The body that it inhabited was that of a bear, a large and shaggy grizzly that had recently been delivered of a pair of pink naked cubs. The cubs were dead. Though the bear’s heart still beat, the warm memories of those cubs, of milk, of the darkness of the den, were only shadows haunting the domed skull.

  There was a fresh scent on the air, and the thing cataloged the information that the bear brain gave it. There was fire and metal. There was the smell of meat being cooked. There was the smell of a man’s body. There was something else that the bear had no name and no use for, but the thing knew it quite well indeed.

  It was hate.

  The bear’s face could not grin, but the thing made it do so anyway.

  Perhaps there would be better quarry than the bear today. Perhaps not all the prey would be so clever to hide in tall nests.

  Dropping down to four rotting paws, the thing lumbered into the night, each step cursing the ground as it went.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT WASN’T A natural darkness. Hailey knew that right away. If it were natural, her eyes would eventually have adjusted, eventually sought out the barest bits of light in order to see. As it was, her sight never adjusted. She had to wander through the endless night with her hands in front of her.

  There was something in the darkness with her. She knew it was there. Sometimes she could hear it breathing, and sometimes, she swore she heard it burning. It was somewhere behind her, then somewhere in front of her, and she knew that it was searching for her.

  She could feel that old panic rise up in the back of her throat. She had been afraid before. She had been taken by a Templar that wanted nothing more than her pain and her destruction. Her hand went to her side. She knew what it was like to be afraid, but this felt like more than that. This felt like a world-ending terror. This felt like the last moments of a prey animal’s life.

  She couldn’t even turn to face the thing that was hunting her. It had no name, and it had no face. There was just that sense of fury and rage. Hailey knew she had to get away from it. She was running now, terrified she would trip. She did stumble, but every time she managed to catch herself. But every time she slowed, she could feel the thing chasing her get closer.

  Suddenly, her grasping hand found a door handle. When she turned it, Hailey fell forward through the open door. She slammed the door just in time to halt the slavering, burning thing behind her. Now she could breathe. For several long minutes, she knelt at the doorway, grateful to have its thickness between her and the thing pursuing her.

  When she had caught her breath, she could look around at her surroundings. She realized that she was in a stone room. Behind her was the flickering of a torch. She turned around, letting her eyes adjust to the light, and then she gasped.

  The room was barely larger than a cell, and directly behind her was a man chained to the wall. He was naked, and from the bruises and welts that covered his body, it was obvious that he had been badly beaten. He was an enormous man with a thatch of midnight black hair. When he lifted his face to look at her, he had the bluest eyes she had ever seen.

  “Oh Kieran,” she whispered, and she fell down by his side.

  To her grief, he turned his head from her. When she tentatively laid her hand against his cheek, he flinched.

  “Kieran, look at me please?” Finally, moving so slowly and crookedly that she was afraid that something was broken, he turned. She cradled his face. “What are you doing here, love?”

  “You…forgot me.”

  Hailey sat up straight, the covers falling down around her. She couldn’t tell how long she had slept. She couldn’t tell where she was, but the words from her dream followed her into the waking world. Like a ghostly hitchhiker, they clung to her, rolling around in her head until she thought she was going to scream.

  You forgot me.

  You forgot me.

  You forgot me.

  She was only aware that she was crying when tears started running down her cheeks. She was breathing hard, her breath coming in silent gasps. She knew that if she continued like this that she was going to hyperventilate, so she slowed herself as much as she could.

  Hailey told herself that she hadn’t forgotten Kieran. She hadn’t. How could she forget someone who was so important to her? How could she forget the man who had seen her for what she was? More than anyone else in the world, he had changed her mind about what she could do, what she was capable of. He had touched her without fear. He had been the first to do so while completely aware of her powers.

  She shifted, and felt the Castle’s master next to her. Her gut clenched.

  Was it a betrayal to be with him when Kieran had turned from her? Was it a betrayal when she might not see him again?

  The questions tore at Hailey’s mind. She swiped furiously at the tears that would not stop. Feelings of guilt and rage twined through her spirit, threatening to tear her apart. Was she traitorous? Was she a fool? Was she heartless? Was she being used?

  Her stirring woke Piers, who seemed to take in her distress immediately. He wrapped warm arms around her, murmuring soft words. For a moment, she allowed herself the comfort of his arms, but then she pushed him away.

  “Hailey? Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but instead she only sobbed again. Instead of taking her in his arms again, Piers took her by the hand, staying silent and watchful.

  Finally, she shook her head.

  “We…we shouldn’t have done what we did.”

  Piers breathed out a long sigh, and his hand tightened slightly on hers before relaxing a little.

  “We rushed things. We moved very quickly. I understand, I–”

  “You don’t!”

  Hailey’s words broke the air like a piece of glass. She pushed Piers’s hand away even though there was nothing she wanted more than to throw herself into his arms.

  “You don’t,” she continued. “It doesn’t matter how fast I did it. I shouldn’t have done it at all.”

  “Hailey?”

  Hailey shook her hea
d hard.

  “He was the one who took me out of that dark place. He was the one who refused to let me accept less for myself. He saw me for who I am. You can’t understand that, Piers. I betrayed him.”

  Piers’s words were careful.

  “Someone you promised yourself to? Is this someone from your old coven?”

  Hailey shook her head.

  “I promised myself to him, but no, it wasn’t someone from my own coven. Hell, most of them wouldn’t have spat on me if I were on fire before he showed up. No. It was Kieran, the Magus Corps major who came to bring me here.”

  She felt Piers stiffen.

  “Hailey, you’ve done nothing wrong. The members of the Magus Corps don’t make promises, and if they do, they certainly don’t keep them.”

  The venomous tone in Piers’s voice made her forget her torrent of emotions for a moment. Hailey looked up, startled.

  “There are no promises that can exist between those in covens and those who have sworn to uphold the tenets of the Magus Corps. You have made no promises because he never accepted them in good faith. He brought you here, for which I owe him a debt of gratitude, but there is no way that you can promise yourself to him anyway. There were no promises broken.”

  Hailey stared at him in horror.

  “What are you saying? You don’t understand what we did together. You don’t understand what we had. You don’t even know him.”

  “I don’t have to,” retorted Piers. “I know the Magus Corps, and I know how they operate. Hailey, there are many reasons that I am building the Castle, but one of them is that our dependence on the Magus Corps to protect all Wiccans everywhere is not acceptable. They are an antiquated paramilitary force that was given too much power to oversee Wiccans as a whole. We didn’t consent to their rule, and if I have anything to say about it, they won’t hold it for much longer.”

  “You have no idea what our time together was like! You know nothing about what I felt then or what we did together!”

  In her anger, she threw the covers off, uncaring that she was naked. She stood and struggled for her clothes.

  “Hailey, I don’t need to know what you did together to know that he acted inappropriately. He was never in a position to make promises to you. He would never have stayed.”

  The quiet words were like dark birds pecking at her spirit. For a moment, she could not understand what he had said. Then she felt a rage boil up inside her.

  “That is not something you can tell me,” she hissed. “This conversation is over. This is not under discussion.”

  Piers started to say something, and then he shook his head.

  “You’re right.”

  He turned and dressed as well. The silence between them stretched out, tense with electricity and fraught with what lay between them.

  Hailey’s thoughts were a tumble of fractured images and conflicting feelings. Her body could still feel the warmth of Piers’s hands on her. One moment, they evoked all the care the man had, for her, for his coven, for all of the witches and warlocks in the world. The next, they made her remember with anguish Kieran’s hands. The thought of Kieran being hurt, of him being forgotten tore at her heart until she could barely stand it.

  “Hailey?”

  She looked up, feeling as fragile as a china dish. Piers was holding out his arm for her as if he were an old-fashioned gentleman come to call on her. She had no idea what he wanted at first. Then she realized that he was offering her his power again.

  “Take it,” he said softly. “What’s passed between us is no matter. I am still who I am, and you are still who you are. You are a brave and passionate woman who has shown me that she can be trusted and who I very badly want as part of my coven.”

  “And you?”

  The words came out before Hailey could stop them. For a moment, there was a riot of emotions on Piers’s face before he shrugged.

  “I am a fool,” he said softly. “Please.”

  She touched his arm, closing her eyes and reaching for that power again. It was a sea of light, and this time, it was as if it lapped against her. It wanted her, responded to her. She wondered if something in their joining last night had affected the way this transfer occurred. There was something terribly familiar about it, both pleasurable and deep, but that didn’t make any sense. It was not quite like the times she had pulled power from him before.

  “Are you ready?”

  She nodded. He pulled the door of the safe base open and gestured her through it. There was something terribly final about the way he did it. A part of her didn’t want to leave the quiet, private world that they had shared in the safe base, when it had just been the two of them.

  It was never just the two of them, she realized. Kieran was always there, waiting in her mind, waiting for her.

  Outside, the Wyoming morning was just beginning to break over the horizon. The air was crystal cold, and for a few moments, it hurt to breathe. Then she acclimated and stepped out over thin air, floating before rising a bit above the treeline.

  “Can you follow me?” Piers’s words were quiet, but to her relief he sounded normal.

  There was no recrimination in his voice, no anger. She wasn’t sure if she could have taken any harshness in that moment. She felt like she wanted to shatter into a million pieces and let those pieces be scattered all over the world.

  “I can,” she said instead.

  He sped towards the Castle. Hailey fell into place behind him. As she flew, she heard a sleepy call from an owl. It was likely Merit, telling her that all was well. She wished she could tell her beloved familiar the same thing.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE FLIGHT RETURNING to the Castle was quiet, but a part of Hailey still rejoiced when she saw the golden walls of her new home again. It was a foreign concept, but it was one that felt more comfortable with every passing moment. She could tell that if she were given the time, she would grow to love it just as Piers did.

  The other covens she lived in had been good places, she supposed, but they weren’t the Castle. They had been communities, but they had lacked the focus of what the Castle offered. They had not had the tight bonds that the Castle gave her without let or reservation.

  Hailey and Piers landed in the practice yard where people were exercising their bodies as well as their powers. Hailey hesitated. She wanted to say something to Piers, but she couldn’t think of what. She wanted to comfort him, and she wanted to push him away.

  Piers looked like he could sense her confusion, and he nodded.

  “Things are difficult now,” he said gently. “I understand. I’ll make myself as scarce as I can for a little while. In some ways, it’s likely what I should have done in the first place to let you really see that the Castle is yours as much as it is anyone’s. When you are ready, come find me. I will always be happy to speak with you.”

  For one breathless moment, she thought that he was going to kiss her. Instead, he nodded at her, smiled a little wryly, and walked away.

  Hailey went to the communal kitchen to find food. There was a large pot of barley on the stove. The round-faced man stirring it smiled at her, telling her that it could be eaten just like oatmeal. She gratefully took a bowl and added a handful of berries and nuts to it before making her way to the dining hall.

  Her schedule was slowly matching up to the rest of the witches and warlocks of the Castle. There was a steady stream of people trickling in, but it was still early yet. She kept an eye out for Julie or Erin, but neither of the women seemed to be around. She was resigned to eating by herself when she noticed a lone figure sitting on the far end of one of the tables. Though people were clustering two or three or more to eat, no one approached him.

  It reminded Hailey painfully of being the foster child at the table when she was younger. It stung of the rejection of the covens that she had lived in. A small, insidious voice asked her if she wanted to ally herself with someone who looked like an outsider right away. But if Piers’s new world order couldn’t
deal with her sitting with someone less popular, that would tell her something as well.

  Feeling defiant, she pushed her shoulders back and strode over to where the lone man was seated. As she drew close, he looked up. She was startled to see that it was Stephan, the Magus Corps major that she had met in the machine shop the night before.

  She had met a few Magus Corps officers before Kieran, but Stephan didn’t look like any of them. He was lanky with a mop of curly brown hair and steel-rimmed glasses that gave him a rather bookish air. The smatter of freckles across his nose made him look like a college student. It was hard to imagine this man killing Templars or swinging a sword.

  “Do you mind if I sit?”

  His smile was slightly wry but genuine.

  “I’ll have to make sure to clear out my copious fan club, but I’m sure I can find the space. Thank you, I’d like the company.”

  She settled across the table from him, glancing down at the papers that were scattered around.

  “What are you working on?”

  “More of my toys,” he said cheerfully. “I got the little firecracker gadget you saw finished enough that someone else can handle the testing. Right now, I’m working on a kind of cloaking technology.”

  Hailey examined the plans more closely, intrigued.

  “Do you mean like the way that some witches and warlocks can make themselves invisible?”

  Stephan laughed a little.

  “Yes, that combined with technology that I saw when I watched Star Trek as a kid.”

  Hailey grinned.

  “I watched a few episodes on and off, but I know enough to ask who your favorite captain was.”

  “Kirk,” he said firmly. “You never forget your first.”

  Hailey blinked.

  “You were watching the original series when you were a kid? That was back in the seventies, wasn’t it?”

  “Sixties as a matter of fact. It’s a little weird. I’m never as old as some people think I am, but I’m far older than what others think.” He shrugged. “I’m one of the youngest members of the Magus Corps, and it makes for some interesting days.”