Sacrificed (Book Six of the Castle Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel

by Hazel Hunter

  “That’s amazing,” Piers said, gazing at what was properly a lack of a tree. “I’ve never even heard of someone doing something like that.”

  “There are no limits that I can find yet,” said Hailey soberly. “We need to learn more about it, to test it.”

  She found that she could remove the enchantment simply by willing it gone, but making it stay was another matter. At first the illusion held for just fifteen minutes before allowing the tree to flicker back into visibility. It was like an old-fashioned television coming back into focus.

  When she tried again, she made the illusion last for an hour, and after that, it lasted most of the afternoon. Hailey’s frustration was growing.

  “If I can’t make it last, what’s the point of it?” she asked finally.

  The sun was approaching the horizon, and Piers had forced them to stop to eat some food that he had packed. The sandwich sat forgotten in Hailey’s hand until Piers tapped it meaningfully.

  “This is far more than anyone could expect,” said Kieran thoughtfully. “What we are doing here has never been done before.”

  “But it’s not good enough,” Hailey retorted, finally eating her sandwich. “If this is going to be worth the cost of taking us all away–”

  “Nothing is accomplished without risk,” Piers said firmly. “Sometimes that risk is personal, which seems to be something that you’ll take on without thought. Sometimes that risk is to a number of people, and you must be willing to let them bear it as they can.”

  Hailey made a face, but she allowed it to pass. She understood what they were saying, but there was a kind of pressure hanging over her that she had never felt before. Between the arrival of the Templars and the unspoken menace of her own eyes and what that might mean, she had no idea how long they really had.

  She did her best to take their advice to heart though. After they ate, they went back to it. She could hide things and reveal them. But she could not make the spell last for any meaningful length of time. The more frustrated she got, the more fragile the spell seemed to become.

  Finally, Kieran put his hand on her shoulder. She was nearly fuming with frustration, and she turned towards him ready to snap.

  “What?”

  “You’re done,” he said calmly.

  “Really? I am?”

  He nodded, a bit of steel in his gaze.

  “You are. You are in a place where you no longer do yourself or anyone around you any good. Even if we were in a real battle, I would send you away because the chances of you hurting yourself or one of your allies is simply too great to risk.”

  Hailey started to reply angrily to his words, but then she caught herself. If she was ready to snap, then it made sense that she needed a break. She took a deep breath, and then another. She nodded.

  “You’re right,” she said reluctantly. “I’m exhausted, and you two can’t be any better.”

  Piers looked surprised.

  “I’m not so sure about that. I don’t feel all that different from when we started.”

  Hailey stared at him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I feel a little worn. I feel like perhaps I will sleep very soundly tonight. I’m not sure I feel as tired as I should after what we’ve been doing.”

  “Or I,” agreed Kieran with a frown.

  The three of them made their way back to the Castle. They spoke about how they felt and what they had observed, but it seemed like there was nothing that could account for it. Hailey was shaking with exhaustion, but Kieran and Piers were merely a little tired.

  They ate in a nearly empty dining hall, quiet and confused. Hailey didn’t feel defeated exactly, but she could feel that same panic scrabbling at the back of her brain, telling her that there was no time. She was just getting ready to suggest that they call it a night when Liona came in. The other witch went to take an apple from the basket on a nearby table, and came to sit with them.

  “How goes your crusade to change the world?” she asked, her voice light and teasing.

  Hailey shook her head.

  “Strangely, let’s put it that way. I think we can do the spells that we had in mind, but we can’t make them stick. On top of that, I’m feeling worn down to a nub, but Kieran and Piers don’t feel the drain at all.”

  Kieran and Piers looked a little guilty at the last. Liona eyed them curiously.

  “How long have all three of you been lovers?”

  “Liona!” Hailey cried. “What in the world does that have to do with anything?”

  Liona’s smile was amused.

  “More than you might think it does, dear one. I have never attempted to do what you are doing now. However, when I have bedded with two instead of one, there was an increase in the power that was available to all of us. At least, there was if there was a complete and open understanding between all parties together.”

  Piers frowned.

  “You think that there’s a connection here that is weaker.”

  Liona nodded, taking a bite of her apple thoughtfully.

  “I don’t always know exactly what is going on in the world, but this time I feel as if I’m right. Life is very strange sometimes, and magic sometimes moves up mountains and flies out of gorges. It has its own rhythm, and its own logic. When three wish to act as one, it does them no good if there is uneasiness between two.”

  Kieran was nodding.

  “That makes sense. Both of us love and care for Hailey. I’m certain we would give our lives for her.”

  “But she cannot always be the bridge between us,” Piers realized. “It’s like a three legged stool with only two strong legs. It’ll never work.”

  Liona started to say something, but then she turned to Hailey.

  Hailey’s face was white, and everything felt very far away.

  “Hailey?” Liona took her hand. “Are you all right? Whatever’s the matter?”

  “Secrets,” Hailey said finally. “Could secrets be keeping the two apart?”

  “It is one of the possibilities. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Hailey laughed a little, her voice high and strained. Her friend understood more than she knew.

  “That is a very interesting thing for you to say, Liona. Thank you very much. I’m not sure I would have figured this out without you.”

  Liona didn’t look reassured. Piers and Kieran looked worried. They still had no idea what she had realized. For a moment, she wondered if they could work around it. Some things should stay secrets. Some wounds didn’t need to be opened anew. Then she remembered what was at stake and shook her head.

  “Are you done with your food?” she asked. When they both nodded, she stood.

  “Thank you again, Liona. You’ll have to excuse us now. There’s something we need to do.”

  Instead of heading for her quarters or Piers’s, she instead led her lovers to an empty room. She had once hidden in it when she was trying to understand why Kieran would turn away from her. Now it felt only right that she was there with both of them.

  It was an empty space, but someone had stuck a few old chairs in it. Hailey took her place on the window seat. Behind her, night had fallen. There was just the sliver of a white moon lighting up the forest. As she watched, a snowy owl winged its way from the trees, flashing its bright wings and golden eyes at her once before fluttering away.

  “Good hunting, Merit,” she whispered.

  Her familiar was a wild thing, but it comforted her to know that she was always there, always listening and watching for Hailey in the long reaches of the night. She could use all the comfort that she could get right now.

  “Please sit down,” she said.

  Puzzled, Piers and Kieran drew their chairs up close to her.

  “Hailey, no matter what this is, we don’t have to deal with it right now while you’re exhausted,” Piers started, but she shook her head.

  “You both need this,” she said, trying to keep her voice as firm as she could. “If I kept this from y
ou for a single night, I don’t know if you would forgive me.”

  Hailey had heard once that every major revelation was a risk. If you kept on as you were, without ever asking for change or revealing new information, things would continue as they always had. That could be a blessing or a curse, but right now, Hailey understood that she did not have that luxury.

  She took a deep breath. Without thinking about it. She had taken their hands in hers. They were warm and living. Without even looking for it, she could feel the pulse of their power beneath their skin. It was beautiful, and it was waiting for her.

  “We need to talk about Costain.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SOME THREE HUNDRED years ago, the village of Costain had been one of the largest communities of Wiccans in Europe. It was an older coven, hidden deep in the mountains of Scotland. It was a place of refuge and scholarship. Perhaps most importantly, it was a place where so many who had been shunned by the greater world could find rest.

  For more than a century, it had stood as a haven for those born with powers. The people who lived there must have thought it so well hidden that attack was unthinkable. Then the Templars came.

  When she mentioned the name of the Wiccan village, both Piers and Kieran flinched. Piers’s eyes lit up with an immediate rage that three hundred years had not quelled. Kieran simply looked ill.

  “Will you both allow me to speak?” she said softly. “This history belongs to you both, but I cannot allow one or the other of you to set the story for us all.”

  Piers nodded curtly, Kieran only a moment or so behind.

  “Costain was a great tragedy. Many people were killed. When I first entered the Shadow Walk Prison, I saw that Piers was there, part of a group that was trying to salvage what was left. When I next entered the Shadow Walk Prison, I saw Kieran there, part of the group of Magus Corps officers that were protecting it.”

  Piers’s eyes narrowed.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice soft and threatening as distant thunder. “There were no Magus Corps officers present.”

  “There were.” Kieran looked like he was forcing himself to speak. “There were. We were camped on the ridge, a full force of us. We knew that the Templars were on the move. We bottle-necked the wrong entrance to the glen. Because of our mistake, people died.”

  “Two-hundred and eighty-nine people died,” Piers spat. “What were you doing on that ridge? Why the hell didn’t you come down to aid?”

  “My commanding officer refused to allow us to move in. When we realized what was happening, it was too late. The entire town was being razed.”

  Piers’s face was white with rage. He started to stand up, but Hailey’s hand on his kept him down.

  “Piers, this was not Kieran’s fault. He was there to perform a job, and he did it as best he could.”

  Piers turned to her. The pain in his eyes was fresh, as if he had turned the bodies of the slain over the day before, not three hundred years ago.

  “You can’t truly believe that, Hailey. You were with me in the Shadow Walk Prison. You know what happened to those people.”

  “I was with Kieran in the Shadow Walk Prison as well. I saw him ask his commanding officer to change position. I saw his commanding officer refuse. Piers, there was nothing he could do.”

  “That’s wrong.”

  Both Hailey and Piers turned to look at Kieran in surprise. He had not moved from his place. He could have been cut from stone.

  “That’s wrong,” he repeated. “I could have risked a mutiny. I could have risked being punished. Others thought as I did. We weren’t many, but we may have been enough. I think about it sometimes. I wonder what I could have done differently, what I might have said that might have saved all of those lives.”

  “You are not to blame, Kieran,” Hailey said gently. “This is not your burden. It is the burden of the Templars who killed so many innocents. You cannot carry that crime for them, and you should not even try.”

  “Who will remember them, then?” Kieran asked.

  She could sense that this was a question he had asked himself many times over the past three hundred years. She could tell that if she didn’t stop it, he would go on asking himself.

  “It is right for things to be forgotten,” she said softly. “I want you both to understand that. Things happened long ago, and we cannot change them. The dead would not want to be remembered in a way that caused such pain to the living. It would not comfort them, and it certainly will not allow them to live again.”

  She held both of their hands tightly. She wondered if she could feel some of the pain and hurt drain out of them. It was still there, but they were both listening to her at least.

  “We need to be together,” she said softly. “I know that you love me. I can feel that to the very bottom of my heart. It is the most wonderful thing that I have ever experienced in my life, and all I know is that I never want it to end. I don’t know if you feel that way towards each other. I don’t know if you need to. But please, for this to work, I need you to be open to each other.”

  To her surprise, Kieran spoke first.

  “That is the very darkest part of me,” he said softly. “The memory of Costain and what I could have done. What I should have done. It follows me to bed at night sometimes, and I dream of those fires, and of waiting in the cold forest, knowing that nothing I could do would change the world I had created.”

  For a moment, Piers was silent. Hailey squeezed his hand, trying to will some of the love that she had for him through their skin. He had such a capacity for joy and for generosity. She prayed that he would find it.

  “It is the darkest day that I can remember in my life,” he said finally. “There have been greater abominations, worse battles. But that one stands very tall in my mind.”

  “Will you forgive me?”

  “No.”

  Both Kieran and Hailey flinched from his word. It was uttered quietly, but the force behind it was profound.

  “There is nothing that I can forgive there,” he continued. “It is not for me to say whether you have suffered enough. But…I think you have. Before the Shadow Walk Prison brought me back to that place, the ghosts of Costain were muted. They haunt me like they haunt you, but the Shadow Walk Prison found that weak spot in my armor and would have used it to keep me forever.”

  “Neither of you did wrong,” Hailey said quietly. “Neither of you deserve to be punished.”

  Piers nodded, but Kieran looked less sure. Hailey’s heart ached for him. Despite the fellowship of the other Magus Corps officers, he had stood alone in many ways. In that, she was closer to him than she was to Piers.

  “I don’t want to punish you,” Piers said. “Nothing in me wants to see you broken for Costain.”

  Kieran started to speak, but Piers acted first. With his free hand, he wrapped his palm around the back of Kieran’s neck, pulling him in for a long, deep kiss. Hailey’s eyes widened when it went on, rich and slow and tender.

  When Piers broke the kiss, his mouth was red, and there was a slight smile on his face.

  “I suppose that’s one way to open ourselves to each other.”

  Kieran looked a little breathless from the kiss, but he frowned.

  “That is not the answer to everything.”

  Piers shrugged.

  “It’s the answer that I have the energy for. It’s late, and I can’t think of anything else I want to try. What do you think, Hailey?”

  Hailey worried at her lower lip. The demons were still out there, and their fledgling connection was still so untested. Despite those things, she could feel the tug of weariness that Piers mentioned.

  “I want to see you two together,” she whispered. “Please.”

  Piers’s grin was slow and sensuous. Kieran looked down for a long moment before nodding.

  They found their way back to Piers’s quarters. Piers, with a natural gift for command that had served him well throughout his long life, told Hailey to strip, seating her
at the head of the bed with her back against the wall.

  As Hailey watched, wide-eyed and fascinated, Piers undressed Kieran himself. Kieran kept himself brutally still as Piers’s clever hands did their work. In a matter of moments, Kieran was stripped to the skin, clad only in his scars.

  “Gorgeous man,” Piers muttered, almost to himself. “Do you want me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you lain with a man before me?”

  Kieran nodded.

  “A few. None were like you.”

  Piers’s grin was more than a little smug.

  “I’ve been told that a time or two. I think I know what you like, but you must be willing to guide me, all right? The instant I do something you don’t like, I need to hear about it.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I’ll stop entirely, and I’ll make you watch for weeks while I bring Hailey to orgasm over and over again.”

  Hailey shivered at the image of Piers making love to her while Kieran watched them with starving eyes. She had never thought of what it might look like to watch quietly as two beautiful men touched each other. She felt the heat between her legs, making her rock a little. They aroused her when they touched her; now she knew that they aroused her when they touched each other as well.

  Piers drew Kieran down for a long and lingering kiss. Kieran was larger than he was, but there was absolutely no question about who was in charge.

  “Lie down on the bed, put your head in Hailey’s lap.”

  Silently, Kieran did as he was told, glancing up at Hailey for a moment. She smiled encouragingly at him, stroking his dark hair.

  “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured.

  Kieran started to speak, but then he gasped instead when Piers wrapped his hand around Kieran’s dark erection. Both Hailey and Kieran watched wide eyed as Piers drew his hand up and down Kieran’s length.

  “You’re very right, Hailey. He is beautiful.” Piers glanced at Kieran. “I want you to put your hands on my head. If you shove or try to gag me, I’ll bite you.”

  Kieran’s hands threaded through Piers’s loose golden hair. He gasped when Piers started lapping at his cock, twisting and moaning at the sensations that were being pressed on him.