Spells of Seduction 2
To Catch a Witch
All Velona Poe wants is redemption. But after she tells the man she loves who she really is, she finds herself about to be beheaded. Just before the axe falls, she's teleported to a tower. She fears her enemy Serona brought her here, and stripped her of her powers to kill her. She waits in terror for her arrival.
Merlin Wyllt and his twin, Jacob, are the ones who cast the spell bringing Velona there, thinking she's the evil sorceress Pondora. When they see the beauty and her fear and vulnerability, they quickly fall for her, realizing they're sexually bonded to her and her to them, a pleasing side effect of the spell. Unfortunately, they also opened a portal. Serona has seen Velona and is coming to kill her.
Hoping to fix the wrong they did, the three set out for Stonehenge to cast a spell reversing all of Pondora's curses and destroying Serona. The problem is Velona isn't Pondora, but she cannot tell them this. As their sexual passion and love grow stronger, the more complicated their plans get.
Will they succeed or put themselves and others in mortal danger?
Note: There is no sexual relationship or touching for titillation between or among siblings.
Genre: Fantasy, Historical, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 29,355 words
TO CATCH A WITCH
Spells of Seduction 2
Jessica Frost
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
TO CATCH A WITCH
Copyright © 2012 by Jessica Frost
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-756-5
First E-book Publication: June 2012
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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TO CATCH A WITCH
Spells of Seduction 2
JESSICA FROST
Copyright © 2012
Chapter One
Velona Poe squeezed her eyes shut, trying to tame the endless tears, and waited for the ax to fall.
Please make this all be a dream.
That was the only wish her mind kept repeating since this whole ordeal began. And yet more than a day had passed in this nightmare, and she still hadn’t awoken. No, this was not one of her far-fetched nightmares that would disappear with the morning’s sun. This nightmare was here to stay.
Never did she expect to be here now before all these people. With eyes transfixed, they waited. They waited for the time of reckoning to arrive—the time of her reckoning to arrive. They stared at her with condemning conviction while she knelt in front of the high wooden block and leaned forward. The position was uncomfortable, and her knees and back ached from the ordeal of holding her balance. But that was the least of her problems. And soon it would be a thing of the past. Soon everything and everyone around her would be a thing of the past. What lay in her future weaved a veil of the unknown that made her quiver in fear right to her very soul.
Taking a deep breath to force her lungs to work, she waited. Her neck rested in the perfect strategic angle for the ax’s blade to make her decapitation quick and as painless as possible. But that gave her no solace. She was about to die, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Someone or something was blocking her powers. She couldn’t cast a vanishing spell or make the crowd, and her executioner, fall asleep. She was completely helpless as the sand in her life’s hourglass slowly ran out.
“Hurry, get on with it. Kill Pondora. Kill the evil witch,” one of the hecklers in the crowd complained to the headsman.
As if coaxed by the badgering words, the public executioner poised his ax gently over her neck. She felt the contact of its cold blade on her skin. A shiver of utter panic channeled through her neck, down her spine to her legs, making them wobble with weakness. She swallowed, but her parched mouth only irritated her throat more. Glancing to her right, she caught a glimpse of the devil himself, the Duke of Kent, the man who brought this all upon her.
Just yesterday they were happy and in love, preparing to marry and live happily ever after. But today all of what they meant to one another was forgotten. Their intended vows were completely nonexistent. He just stood there, staring at her with coldness and hatred in his eyes, not an ounce of compassion spared.
How could I have been so foolish?
She had thought their love could conquer all, but obviously it didn’t. Instead it caused her downfall and now-imminent death.
For years she had walked and mingled in the king’s court as one of the nobles, and no one had been the wiser. Not a single soul there knew who she really was, that she was a mighty sorceress who many feared but none understood. They labeled her an evil enchantress who cast spells upon women and men, leading them to their deaths. But in truth that part of her past was over long ago. Now, she only used her powers for good, helping the vulnerable and the needy.
Unfortunately, what she had been in the past life would always hang over her, like the headman’s ax did now
. It could never be erased or forgotten by the townspeople.
Even if she was a different person now, never was she tempted to reveal her true identity. She knew what the repercussions may be. But when she fell in love with Thomas, the Duke of Kent, all her common sense went out the door. She lost focus of her true purpose and thought maybe she could just this once lead a normal, mortal life.
She decided to take the leap of faith and tell him the whole truth about her past and who she really was. She believed their love for one another was strong and that he would accept her for who she was and keep her secret. But unfortunately, she overestimated his feelings for her. For the duke really didn’t love her and assumed she had cast a spell on him to seduce him into her bed. He reported her sorcery and identity as Pondora to his brother, the king, who immediately sent his guards to capture her. She had no trial but was quickly sentenced to death by decapitation for her crimes.
Ordinarily, she could have cast a spell in the dungeon to escape the castle and never return again. So then she could make another life for herself somewhere faraway where no one had heard of the damning name Pondora, and start over. But her powers had suddenly and mysteriously vanished, and she was as ordinary as the crowd of anxious, curious onlookers whose fixed gazes never wavered from the ax’s sharp blade.
Did they envision its effects as it sliced through her neck and her head rolled to the ground lifeless? She most definitely did.
The headsman lifted the blade over his head, and as it came plummeting down with such a swift movement that the air around it whistled, darkness encroached on her. She expected excruciating pain to overwhelm her as he sliced through her skin and flesh, but instead she felt herself float in the air like a weightless feather and fly through a tunnel. She spun round and round. Or was it the tunnel spinning around her? Perhaps it was the latter.
She couldn’t breathe as the pressure on her chest made her lungs feel like they were caving in. Stars and blackness streamed around the spinning tunnel. Fear encompassed her mind and heart, making incoherent thoughts flutter in her head, and her heartbeat thumped in her eardrums. She didn’t know how much more she could take of this before her heart exploded or she went mad.
Thankfully, the spiraling motion finally ended a few minutes afterward as the vortex tunnel disappeared. She fell with a hard thud to the floor. Her right shoulder and ankle ached as they took the brunt of the fall on the hard stone. Everything around her was a blur because her vision continued to spin. But once it subsided, she acknowledged she no longer was in the Tower of London but in some dark, damp tower.
A stinging pain behind her neck had her touching the area, making sure the blade had not sliced through her skin. Luckily, she felt not even a scratch. The pain was just her imagination and stress getting the better of her. Somehow right before the blade cut through her neck, she was transported through a vortex channel to this place.
Where am I? She looked around. The moss growing on the limestone walls told her the unkempt room hadn’t seen soap and water for several years. Her nose twitched when a sneeze threatened to escape.
She slowly turned and got up only to fall back onto the floor, clutching her ankle, cursing. The moment she put weight on her foot, it felt like a hundred tiny knives stabbed her ankle. She couldn’t move.
What a nice predicament she found herself in, no powers and unable to move, let alone find a means of escape from God knows where. Well, at least she was alive. She had to be grateful for that, didn’t she?
Seeing the window a few feet away from her, she wiggled her way over to it, not daring to attempt standing on her injured leg once more. The friction of the dirty, rough stone floor on her buttocks was unpleasant. Although she wore a coarse linen tunic, the fabric did little to protect her skin from the friction of the scabrous stone. She tried to make her slides less wide, which helped ease the scratching on her legs and buttocks, though it would take her double the time to get there. Soon the tearing sound of the worn linen tunic she wore crept to her ears, and she stopped in midslide. Gazing down, she couldn’t see where the fabric had torn and guessed it was on the back of the tunic.
She lifted her lower body so she could twist the tunic around and try to assess the damage, and then she saw it. The worn fabric had torn halfway across the back. Lovely.
Holding the fabric so that it wouldn’t tear more than it already had, she wiggled her way to the window. Since they had not given her any undergarments to wear to her execution, just the old tunic, her bare ass cheeks rubbed against the rough stone. She cringed from the discomfort but continued in perseverance to the window.
Once there, she twisted around and, leaning on the wall for support, lifted herself onto her good foot. She stared out the window as she breathed in fresh air. What a contrast from the musty air in the confined room.
She squinted and peered at the landscape, hoping to recognize the area and know where she was. Flat grassland as far as her eyes could see welcomed her gaze. With no landmark as reference, she had no clue of her whereabouts. Wherever this place was, it was isolated, far from civilization.
Her wits of deduction churned in her mind as the cool breeze coming in through the window swooped in on her and enveloped her with a blanket of cold. A shiver crawled up her spine. All the weight of fear and despair that had rained upon her before came crashing down once more. It flooded her instantly making her choke for air.
Whoever brought her here did so through magic, a powerful magic rarely seen, maybe even more powerful than her own. That person was also probably responsible for rendering her magic inert. She knew of only one other person who held such power, a sorceress named Serona who she knew very well in her past life. Her one and only nemesis, who she feared more than death.
Quivering from the cold air enveloping her and the chill of terror that brewed within her, she sank to the stone floor and wrapped her arms around herself, rocking back and forth. Sooner or later she knew her nemesis would come to welcome her to her new prison, and Velona was sure it would not be pleasant.
Chapter Two
Jacob Wyllt could not believe the spell worked. He gazed at his brother Merlin and noted the glee radiating in his eyes.
Lifting his brow in annoyance, he proclaimed, “Will you wipe that smug smile off your face?”
“Why? Does it irk you, dear brother?” Merlin gave him a sideways glance.
“Yes, quite.”
“Ah, so you would rather that I tell you I was right.”
“Right? How so?” Jacob put his arms at his hips.
“Well, I told you the spell would bring her here. And now she lies powerless in the tower waiting.”
“Yes, she may be waiting, but is she really completely powerless?”
“Why do you always doubt me?” Merlin lifted his hands in the air and stormed out of the room in frustration.
Jacob slumped into the wooden chair behind him and sighed. There was no use. His stubborn brother would never change.
Just once he wished he’d keep a level head and not jump to any assumptions. Many lives depended on it. But as always it was too much to ask.
He thought back to when they were young lads and the sorcerer Orion found them in a village in Caledonia and took them under his wings. Merlin had been impulsive and at times arrogant back then, too. Being the Great Orion’s apprentice and learning all his powerful spells and potions only boosted his ego more and made him a difficult wizard to work with as time went by and they grew into men.
Once Orion had taught them all they needed to know to become full-fledged sorcerers, Jacob decided to move on, to take his powers and knowledge and use them to better the world. Merlin also moved on, though his activities were more selfish rather than giving. Selfish when it came to satisfying his desires and sexual urges and giving whenever someone in need asked for his magical assistance and was willing to show his or her gratitude afterward. Gratification in tangible form for Merlin was a monetary or barter reward for his good deeds rendered.
When Merlin came to him many months ago asking for his help with defeating an evil sorceress who had wreaked havoc on many victims and who would continue to torment others unless she was stopped, Jacob thought his brother had finally turned over a new leaf. The fleeting, hopeful thought that his brother had learned the error of his ways and started to see that the gift of magic bestowed upon him should be cherished and used wisely soon disappeared.
When his brother began to tell him the entire story, that when they vanquished the evil sorceress, they would be seen as heroes and adored by all, it became clear to Jacob that Merlin hadn’t changed at all. His shallowness still remained, only his greed and need for glory had taken on a more challenging route.
But after contemplating the news, Jacob agreed to help him create a spell to stop the sorceress. After all, she had killed hundreds of innocent souls and ruined so many unsuspecting people’s lives by tricking, enchanting, or cursing them. Her reign of terror must come to an end.
But there was a condition, of course, to Jacob’s help, and that was that no one should know he was helping Merlin. Jacob wanted his name to always remain anonymous. Only Merlin could take the credit for her banishment if they succeeded in the quest.
Merlin agreed with no hesitation, and they began their research and work on finding out who she really was and what type of spell was needed to vanquish her. It took months and a lot of hard work, heated discussions, and frustration, but at last they came up with a spell. Actually, it was Merlin’s spell, for he got the idea of melding a modern spell Orion had taught them with an ancient spell he found in a book dated as old as the twelfth century.
To Catch a Witch [Spells of Seduction 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 1