Flames of Chaos

by Amelia Hutchins

  Nature responds to Aria in ways it has never before responded to other witches, she is unlike anything previously studied, adding to the intrigue. Amara, her twin, doesn’t exhibit these traits, nor does she pull from the darkness her twin contains. Amara is sweet and rather docile compared to Aria’s standoffish behavior, her natural defense to push people away. In all accounts, Aria is promised to darkness, where Amara is promised to light. Yet no proof exhibited magic from their perspective directional magical link have been proved or exhibited. Further investigation was requested, yet denied from the Oracle’s.

  Conclusion of this witch: dangerous, deadly, and feral. Should she continue to pull magic to her from her home realm, it is our conclusion she should be eliminated or sent back, to protect this realm from the mutation of creatures mating illegally.

  Out of the Hecate line, she is the most troublesome but also the most powerful child born out of all nine sets of twins born to Freya’s line. It should be noted that one male born to Freya was also close in magic and strength to Aria, and yet she excels where he failed in mental capabilities.

  Okay, so it hadn’t all been wrong, but it was creepy to know they’d been testing us in school without us knowing or feeling it. On the page beside my bio—if you could call it that—was a picture of me in a lacy summer dress that made me look washed out in the gray and black photo. The photographer had snapped the photo the moment my eyes had lifted from the white rose I held, and I didn’t look happy at all. I looked utterly pissed and hostile at whoever had been behind the lens. I was no older than ten in the photo, according to the tiny writing beneath it. It was also taken a few days after one of the attempts on my life, by my perfect mother.

  “It’s wrong, I don’t push people away. I trip and then walk over them,” I muttered, passing the book back to him.

  “Is it, or do you not like what they wrote about you?” Tossing the book aside, he crossed his arms over his chest, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “It states my mother had nine sets of twins. She birthed eight; I know because we kept each other alive when she abandoned us. It also says she had a male child, but the Hecate line doesn’t birth male offspring. We birth bitches, and we birth them easily. Most witches don’t have that issue, the birthing of male offspring. It’s widely known that we only birth female witches, Knox; therefore, your book is incorrect.”

  “Is it?” he countered.

  “What are you?” I whispered breathlessly, ignoring his question as his power slithered over my flesh, sending everything within me on high alert. It wasn’t something he did on cue; it came in waves as if he couldn’t always prevent it from escaping his hold. “Why do you have ice from the Dark Mountain in this realm or white oak from Norvalla? Have you been there?” I asked, watching the tick in his jaw as it started to move with his anger.

  “Go to bed, Aria.”

  “Have you been there? Are there monsters as big as they say? Tell me, Knox,” I whispered as the scholar in me begged to know more. “The Dark Mountains, are there actual monsters who protect the roses? Can you get to the roses? Is it as beautiful and wild as they say it is in books?”

  He remained silent, watching me as his chest lifted and fell with what I was sure was an annoyance. Rolling my eyes, I lifted from the couch and moved toward the fire, staring into the flames.

  “Most people wish to see the beauty of the Nine Realms, but I want to learn its secrets. I want to see Norvalla and taste the rapids of Valania as I stand on crystal quartz larger than human houses. I crave a realm in which I was created and yet have never seen. They only allowed us into the Nine Realms if something happened to the rulers who stood in our stead until we reached a certain age. Not that I had ever been permitted to enter, sadly.” I watched the flickering flame, noting the white oak within the fireplace. “You’re burning white oak?” I felt an overwhelming need to reach in and protect it from the flames that burned with gusto.

  “You think I would waste white oak in a fire?” His voice was directly behind me, causing me to spin around on a gasp.

  I hadn’t heard him move. I hadn’t felt him nearing me, and yet he was so close that our flesh almost touched. His dark head lowered, more sinister in the flame’s light that burned in his pretty eyes. I licked my lips nervously, preparing to bolt if the need arose. He smirked as if he’d read my mind and didn’t give an inch as he stood before me, inhaling deeply, causing his nostrils to flare.

  “I don’t presume to know what you would or wouldn’t do.” The wood burned hot, sending heat kissing over my flesh like it was reaching for him as I swallowed past the narrowing of my larynx while sweat dripped down my spine.

  “Look again,” he said hoarsely.

  I hesitated to turn my back on him, but his presence dominated the space. The room had been beautiful and lavish before I’d noticed him here. Now his presence consumed the eye, holding it prisoner and swallowing the fine details. There was the room before Knox and the room after, and there was a huge difference in space between the two. My chest rose and fell silently before I turned, peering down at the flames that licked the wood.

  The flames caressed and danced against the wood, and yet there was no char mark from the fire. It wasn’t burning. It was slowly carving the face of a woman that took a moment for the eye to catch the details. The pouty lips were the first thing I could see, the point of her chin and the beginning of a nose which sat in a heart-shaped face that the fire carved with the skill of a master woodworker.

  It felt like forever that I stood motionless, watching the flame work as sweat dripped from my body, sending a fine droplet down the side of my face. Reaching up, I wiped it away and began to spin around, only for Knox to twine his fingers through my hair and yank my head back until I was staring at the ceiling.

  “You shouldn’t have fucking left your room,” he hissed, holding me as his nose rubbed against the side of my neck. His other hand slipped around my stomach, and I didn’t move, didn’t dare to. I was in his domain, and no one else knew I was here. “You really don’t listen, do you?”

  “Not normally, no,” I admitted thickly, my voice escaping my throat as a breathless noise. My body burned from the fire, and sweat slowly ran between my breasts as he held me in front of it.

  “Go back to bed before you end up eaten.”

  “I can’t sleep over Lacey’s screaming.”

  “Are you sure it was Lacey and not one of your sisters self-soothing her needs?” he whispered, running his hand up my flat belly. I was trapped by his body; there was no way out without magic to combat him or escape.

  “Self-soothing?” I questioned, unfamiliar with the term even though I got his meaning.

  “Playing with their messy cunts.” Releasing my hair as he turned me around, staring at me through dark eyes that were slits of molten color. “Fucking their needy, aching cunts with their fingers since they can’t get dick in my domain,” he chuckled.

  “I get it.” I took a step away from the fire and angling my body to run if needed. My eyes slid from his to the darkened way from which I came, but it was pitch black, as if no longer a hallway but rather something else. Did I dare run and pray to the goddess he didn’t catch me?

  “You wouldn’t make it.” Watching the perplexity cross my face as it pinched my features, he chuckled, knowing he was right.

  I took another step away from him, watching as he mirrored my movements. Unlike my body, his was tense and ready to pounce, while mine was ready to get the fuck out of here. My lip trembled with fear, sensing that whatever he was, it was deadlier than I’d first assumed. I was sure if I looked up what was the worst way to die, there would be a picture of Knox beside it.

  The couch touched the back of my calves, and his hands came up, pushing me down as I gasped, my ass landing on the velvet cushion. My pajamas were soaked from perspiration clinging to my flesh and outlining every inch of me to his predatory gaze. Something rattled in his chest, and I shivered, not daring to take my eyes fr
om his, as if my life depended on it.

  “Are you scared?” he asked, fisting his hands tightly at his sides.

  I considered lying, but the look in his eyes stopped me. He smiled darkly, sitting on the couch with his knee between my thighs, forcing my legs to lift and spread apart to accommodate him between them. It pushed my back against the cushion in a resting position, which was awkward. My chest heaved and fell with fear, which I was confident he could see, smell, and taste in the air as he loomed over me. It was leaking from my pores. I wasn’t scared; I was terrified and yet excited, which made me the biggest idiot alive.

  His hand touched my center, and I paused, no longer afraid and more uncertain of where Knox was going with his actions. A single brow lifted, and I was pretty sure my what-the-fuck face was on full display in all its glory. He applied more pressure, and I moaned softly through trembling lips, staring down between our bodies at the single finger that touched me, running slowly over my center. My nipples hardened, and my entire body became supple, like I was bending to his will. My knees moved inward, blocking his body from mine before my foot connected to his chest, and I held him back, looking awkward as fuck with my foot on his chest and his hand still on my pussy. It was almost like the most messed up version of—Twister —without playing the game that I’d ever seen.

  “I’m going to pass,” I swallowed breathlessly.

  He landed on me hard, pushing my leg up to my shoulder, which knocked the wind out of my lungs. His growl sounded from deep in his chest, and he held me there. He didn’t caress me, didn’t touch me other than to apply all his weight onto my frame, locking me in place.

  “I should snap you in half,” he uttered hoarsely.

  “I’m actually not that bendable,” I informed through my mouth being smothered by his shoulder, which smelled enticingly of male. “Besides, then you would have two of me to deal with.”

  “You wouldn’t be a fucking problem dead, Aria Primrose.”

  “Ew, don’t call me that. So, is this where you smother me to death?” I inquired huskily, having felt the appendage that had grown while he had been holding me pinned to the couch.

  He lifted his head, staring down at me through dark eyes that sent my pulse racing. He didn’t speak as something in his chest rattled, and his hips moved against mine. My mouth opened, and my tongue slipped over my dry lips. He looked as if he was about to consume me, or worse, kiss me. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to taste his lips. I’d never had a real kiss in my entire life, so I wasn’t sure he should be my first since he was a prick.

  He snorted, slowly moving toward my mouth as I closed my eyes, preparing to be kissed. Only he didn’t kiss me. Knox’s hot breath fanned against the shell of my ear before he whispered into it.

  “Go to fucking bed before I forget what you are, and who you are.”

  “What happens if you forget?” I whispered through the embarrassment that I’d been dumb enough to think he’d lower himself to kiss me, who he thought was beneath him.

  “Run, Aria,” he said, pulling away from me as he stood up, staring at me. “You have five seconds before I give chase, and if I catch you, you won’t like what happens. Go.” I was up instantly, hauling ass through the darkness to reach the room they had given me.

  I didn’t stop running until I was inside the room and sliding down the wall as an inhuman snarl sounded on the other side. Nails tapped on the wall, and I crawled away from it, staring at it while everything within me silently screamed as a dark laugh echoed through the hallway, slithering down my spine.

  Whatever the fuck Knox was, he was moving up the animal guide to the biggest monster I’d ever confronted. But he hadn’t caught me. I jumped as something pounded through the wall, my eyes following the noise until it stopped. My breathing was ragged, and my legs trembled and burned from running as I got up, standing to face whatever was on the other side of that wall. I shivered violently, noting my body had responded with a need for Knox that excited me more than it terrified me at the moment.

  Crawling into bed, I pulled the covers over my head and closed my eyes, even though I knew sleep wouldn’t happen after tonight. Knox had rare things here, things that didn’t belong in this realm.

  He had an entire library that not only grew, the entire library also expanded and changed. It was not the same room I had entered earlier; it was shorter, and there were no books, no ice, no…Just nothing. Like it had all vanished without a trace, just as Amara had.

  It boggled the mind, but if he’d somehow opened into another dimension, as some of the biggest, scariest monsters could, he could easily have done it here, and it would make perfect sense why my sister had vanished, and I couldn’t trace her. Especially if she wasn’t even in this realm anymore.

  Chapter 14

  Seated in the breakfast room, I fidgeted in the silence. I’d tried to explore more of the house, but Greer seemed to have been instructed to prevent it. Every time I’d started down a hallway, he’d been there, glaring at me. Greer didn’t like me, but I wasn’t offended by it. He was only the butler who served Knox. It stood to reason he’d be a prick like him.

  I smelled Knox before he entered the room; his pheromones released, and my ovaries were all over it. Ovaries didn’t have brains, and Knox was about to have thirteen witches with PMS in his house, and I wasn’t thrilled about being one of them. My fingers drummed on the table as my chin rested in my hand, exhaustion washing over me with the added uneasiness of being surrounded by males with my body on high alert.

  Witches ovulated like normal humans, usually. Not our line; no, because that would be too easy. Hecate had taken steps to force her line to procreate, and it made any of us in ovulation mimic a bitch in heat. We, of course, weren’t in heat, but our bodies emitted pheromones sensitive to males that drove their need to fuck us—thanks, Grandma.

  My sisters got incredibly antsy and would vanish for twenty-four hours, or until the end of their cycle depending on if the guy was worth it, or not. I, on the other hand, would read romance and self-soothe because nothing else worked, and it just wasn’t worth it.

  “Self-soothing…” he started, and I jumped, spinning around as I shook my head.

  “Were you in my head?” I demanded while he frowned, crossing his arms over the white cotton shirt he wore.

  “Were you thinking about touching yourself?”

  “Absolutely not,” I returned suspiciously.

  “Then why the fuck would you think I was in your head?” he pointed out.

  “Whatever,” I said like a petulant child and sat back down, staring at the white wall in front of me. I’d been shown to this room, and it held nothing. There was nothing to look at and nothing to check out. Everywhere I looked was white, including the teapot and the coffee carafe. “I should grab my sisters,” I announced, uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation and the current level of heat blooming in my cheeks.

  “They will eat elsewhere this morning,” he informed, making his way to the coffee and pouring some into an espresso cup that looked ridiculous in his grip. “Get coffee,” he snapped.

  “No, thank you,” I replied, staring at the wall once more as if it held the secrets to the universe.

  He stared at me before he spoke again. “Get a fucking cup of coffee.”

  “I don’t drink it black,” I hissed, lifting a brow. “And I’m not your bitch. You don’t get to order me around.”

  He grabbed the entire carafe and set it in front of me, slamming a cup down and pouring it. I opened my mouth to tell him where he could shove it when a woman entered with a large tray balanced on her palms. Placing it in front of me, I chewed my lip before watching her vanish just as quickly as she had shown up.

  “I bet you’re used to women serving you, aren’t you?” I snapped irritably. “Bet they just lie down and do whatever you tell them to do.” I reached for the cream, pouring it into the cup before adding sugar. “Why am I here, and why are we alone?” I asked, sipping the hot
coffee. It tasted of heaven, and I much needed caffeine after having slept very little, if at all, last night.

  “So I can bend you over the table and fuck you,” he said as I took a sip, inhaling it into my lungs as his words echoed in my ears.

  I choked, sputtering as I stood. My hand covered my mouth as coffee came out of my nose until everything burned.

  “Pass,” I choked out, moving to grab napkins.

  “If I wanted to fuck you, you’d be fucked.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you hate me,” I reminded, wiping my chest down as people came into the room, moving to clean the mess without having to be told. One woman walked toward me with her hand out, but her eyes were vacant as she reached to assist cleaning my chest off.

  “Get away from her, Katlin, now.” Knox stood up as if he intended to assist me, but I turned away from him, cleaning the coffee out of my cleavage and off my sundress without his help. “Turn around,” he demanded.

  “I can clean myself off, jerk. That wasn’t funny, not even a little.”

  “Sit down, then,” he snapped. “Katlin, serve us the meal at five.”

  I passed him, bumping into his shoulder as I did. Once I was assured that the chair was clean, I retook my place, ignoring the coffee over the bodice of the sundress. I continued cleaning off the spot and the sticky coffee between my boobs as he took his seat, watching me.

  “You could remove it,” he offered.

  “You could fuck off.” I hated that heat was perpetually in my cheeks with his slick sexual innuendos. Normally what men said slid right off me, but Knox, he had a way of catching me off guard, and worse, the jerk made me blush. “So, why am I really here, since I have no intention of letting you bend me over the table? Also, I am very aware of what self-soothing is, so if you intend to give me a pep talk about that, save it. I also know that you can do it silently, without screaming to the rafters or waking up the entire house to achieve the end goal. I’m a virgin, not a fucking saint.”