Witch Wars: The Underlayes, Book One

by T. A. Moorman

  “If you want me to stop, tell me now and I will,” he snarled, pulling out slowly until only the tip of him was left inside, making a small sound escape from my lips. “But if I am only allowed this one last time, allow me at least this much to keep with me. Allow me to have every piece of you, if only once more.” He gave another deep, powerful thrust, making me cry out. “Allow me to give you every inch of myself for just one final time. Allow me to feel every hot, sweet spot that is all you. Even if you do go on with this foolish plan, he will only have your body. Only I will forever own your heart.”

  He kissed me again, then said, “I swear, you will regret leaving me.”

  2

  Destinies

  I’d let the one man I’d ever loved walk away from me like that? And not just out of the door, but quite possibly out of my life altogether. The only time I ever felt whole was when I was with him.

  Everything he’d said to me had been the stone-cold truth. I couldn’t have denied it if I’d wanted to. Of course I’d regret leaving him. How could I not? Grimm made me feel complete, whole. He filled me, consumed me with more heat than any fire ever could. When I wasn’t with him, it was like a part of me was missing. But for some reason—I don’t know how to fully explain it—it just felt like he’d meant something more by it. Maybe I was just overanalyzing things. But his words had had the weight, the heat, of a threat behind them.

  I didn’t have time to think about any of that right then. Right then, I had to get out of wallowing mode and focus on the task at hand. Which was to prepare myself to begin a courtship with my betrothed, Bran Leone.

  I had nothing against Bran personally. How the hell could I, when I didn’t even really know him?

  For all I knew, we might both be in the same predicament. He might be just as torn up about all this as I was. This betrothal had been set in place before either of us had even been born. Nothing but another power move. The two of us were nothing more than two pawns in a game that neither of us had signed on for. He might have someone whom he loved and had to give up; how would I know? But truth be told, I honestly could not care less about how he felt right then. I had my own shredded heart to worry about.

  All this because of some great battle. What if Grimm was right and there would never be a battle? What if I had just let him walk out of my life for nothing?

  The battle was foretold in the Book of Knowing. “There will be a child bestowed upon the Royal Family of the Underlayes Witches, with hair the color of flames, fierce firelight in her eyes. She will possess fire, strength, speed and unimaginable powers. She will be born on the night of great magic, Samhain. On the thirty-first year of her birth, she will come into her full powers. She will be the determining factor in a great battle that will change all magical creatures forever. With the help of a strong warrior by her side…”

  That was all I knew of it. Not when, how, why or in what way any of this was supposed to come about.

  So that’s why I was betrothed to Bran. He came from the only family whose powers were almost as great as our own. According to my father, it stood to reason Bran must be the one.

  If you asked me, which of course no one ever did, Bran didn’t even fit into the category of strong warriors.

  Granted, I’d only met him once. But the first impression I’d got from him had been that he was nothing more than a pencil-necked geek. From the looks of him, any of my sparring partners would break his ass in half.

  Don’t get me wrong, he was very attractive, in a pretty-boy type of way. But what good do looks do you in a fight? What was he gonna do, bat his eyelashes at enemies and bring them to their knees? Give me a break.

  Hel, for all I knew, maybe he could.

  Nothing seemed to make sense to me anymore.

  Like my father’s utter loathing of vampires. If you asked me, it was nothing more than an unjustified prejudice, just as racism was in the human realm. Hating someone for no good reason other than the simple fact that they were different from you was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. That was exactly what humans had done to us all those centuries ago. Couldn’t he see that?

  Okay, so they drank blood—granted, a true yuck factor—but so what? We used some of our own blood to evoke certain spells. Hel, his own sister used to use sacrifices for some of her spells.

  Apparently, from what I heard anyway, they could live to be older than dirt. But again, so what? We had a life span of up to five hundred years.

  “Ugh, all of this is so frustrating!”

  Oh, wassa matter, sugar? Chrissy whispered in my mind.

  I’d been so busy thinking, I hadn’t even noticed her big black furry ass prancing in. No, I am not being politically incorrect. She is a big black were-panther who, for as long as I have known her, refuses to take her human form. So when I say she whispered in my mind, I mean that quite literally; she communicates with me telepathically (And only me. Aren’t I lucky? Not.)

  “Oh, I don’t know, could it be the fact that my whole life is fucking falling apart?”

  Your life is really gonna fall apart if you don’t get to your room and clean up all that sex off of ya. Ya smell like a damn brothel.

  “Good. Maybe if I go on this date smelling like a sex factory, they’ll call this whole damn wedding off.”

  Honey, you know nothing short of your death is gonna call this weddin’ off.

  “You know what, right about now, that doesn’t sound like such a bad option.”

  Don’t you dare put words in the universe like that! Your life is not that bad.

  “Look, Miss I-refuse-to-walk-on-two-legs-ever-again, I know you of all people do not have the audacity to stand there and give me a lecture on giving up on life. Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the whole of my natural life? You have been living in your animal state for as long as I can remember, and I still don’t know what in the hell you look like minus fur. Let’s be for real, shall we?”

  She hissed at me. That’s different.

  “Like hell it’s different,” I snapped at her, needing to let my frustration out somehow. And right now, she seemed like the perfect outlet. “Or are you forgetting the similarities in my little situation with your own? You know, the reason you refuse to be nothing more than an animal? You lost your love. I’m getting ready to lose mine. There is one big difference, though; I don’t have the option of just retreating from life in another form. I have to carry on, doing what’s best for everyone else, with no regard to what may or may not be best for me.”

  See, back in the sixties, Crissy and a bunch of other panthers from her pride had heard about the Black Panther movement. They’d thought that since they were true black panthers, they should join the cause, even though interacting with humans in that way was pretty much forbidden. The racism they’d been standing up against had been no different from the prejudice that had been shown to all our kind, before we’d chosen to create our own realm. At least we had been able to just leave the situation, rather than continue to be subjected to all the atrocities being committed against our people, from the innocent to the guilty, from the young to the old. They couldn’t. They had to live in that world. A world where they were treated differently for no other reason beside the color of their skin.

  Over in this realm, we know a lot about being discriminated against for simply being different. We know how people simply fear the unknown. Sure, all of the species had a lot of different opinions about how we should go about things. From staying to fight, killing those in our way, giving them a war they would never forget. I might not have been there when things went down, but I still hear talk of it now. Some still want to go back for vengeance for things done to their families and friends. I can’t even imagine what I would have done if I’d had to watch my mother or sister burned at the stake.

  We learned in our history classes that the highest councils from each species finally had to step in and make a decision to either leave or start an all-out war between mysticals and humans. They were prett
y confident they would win, but at what cost? How many lives would be lost? Both on their side and our own. Too many of our weaknesses were known to mankind. True, they weren’t as strong as us by a long shot, but many of them knew how to strike at our most vulnerable moments.

  So when Crissy and the others heard what was going on, it hit them too close to home. They decided to go to the human realm and try to help them, since they knew what being discriminated against felt like. Especially knowing the humans who were being treated that way had nowhere to run to, couldn’t create a new realm and start over like we had. They were stuck there. They had no choice but to stand up and try to change things.

  I lost more than a damn man back there. I lost my fucking children that God-forsaken night! she hissed, baring sharp rows of teeth.

  I walked up while those blasted, ignorant, fool human police were literally beating the living shit out of the one man I have ever loved. I was so enraged I shifted right there on the spot to shred them apart limb from fucking limb. I wasn’t even thinking… I was so… Oh God, I couldn’t even see past what they were doing to him. I wasn’t thinking of the fact that I was pregnant, and not just pregnant, but pregnant with his children. His human children!

  “Crissy, I didn’t kn—”

  She snapped her teeth at me. Yeah, you didn’t fuckin’ know. So stop speaking on what you know nothing about! When I shifted, since they were part human, there was no way they could survive. Only purebred babies can survive a shift while still inside the womb. So I not only lost the man I loved that night, but the only part of him I could have held on to. A part of the two of us together. My fuckin’ kids!

  And you know what’s so ironic? I was going to him that night to tell him that he was about to be a father. I had finally made the decision to leave everything and everyone behind to be with him. To raise a family with him. I had already sent everyone else back home. I was ready to give up everything to be with him! Everything!

  So when I saw him sprawled on the ground next to his car, those fuckin’ pigs bashing his skull in, I went ballistic. I shifted right there, I didn’t care who saw me. All I wanted was to shred those bastards to pieces with my claws and teeth. To rip their cold, empty hearts out of their chests. It wasn’t until I shifted back, ran to him, screaming and crying over his body, that I realized not all the blood on the ground belonged to him and his killers. That I stopped to look down and see the blood running down my own legs. While I was so busy revenging my lover, I murdered my own children.

  She turned to sprint out of the door.

  “Crissy, I am so sorry.”

  She kept going.

  “Crissy…” Crissianna, STOP!

  She stopped instantly, turned her enormous head and glared at me.

  What the hell did you just do?

  “I didn’t do anything!” I didn’t think I had, anyway.

  You made me stop. You echoed a command in my head! No witch can do that.

  “Crissy—”

  What the hell are you?

  3

  First Impressions

  “So where are we going?” I asked Bran, trying, but failing miserably, to seem excited.

  “It’s a surprise,” he replied nervously, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

  He had told me when asked how I should dress for the occasion that anything I wanted to wear would be fine. But when I tried to be my normal, bitchy self and throw on my workout gear, my sister, Elyssia, flashed into my room.

  “You are soooo not wearing that!”

  “And just why the hell not? And what did I tell you about flashing your ass into my room?”

  Elyssia just stood there staring at me with a grimace that looked wrong on her sweet, petite, chocolate-brown face. Her midnight-blue hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her arms were crossed around her little chest.

  “He said I could wear whatever I wanted to.” I shrugged. “And this is what I want to wear.”

  “He didn’t say to dress like you’re going for a walk up in the hills. Here, wear this.” Elyssia snapped her skinny little fingers, dressing me in a micro-mini red leather skirt and leather midriff top to match. It showed all my abs and damn near all of my breasts.

  “Oh, no to the hell no. We might as well skip the date and go straight to having sex.”

  “Tia, you are marrying this guy, so why not?” She chuckled. She snapped her fingers again, this time putting me in a black leather halter mini dress with holes at the sides and a V-neck all the way down to my navel.

  I just stared at her. And trust me, the stare that I gave her spoke volumes.

  “Fine, you’re no fun, at all,” she said with a pout, then behind a little squealy laugh, she snapped her fingers yet again.

  A wicked grin began spreading across my lips. “This, I can do.”

  When Bran arrived, I had on a pair of tight red leather pants, slits on both legs coming up to my knees. Red, knee-high combat boots with small diamond skulls going up the sides, with a five-inch steel stiletto heel. A sheer, white, long-sleeved blouse, with a V-neck all the way down to my waist band, over a red sequined halter to seal the deal. Borderline sleazy, yet very sexy.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, still looking nervous, like some human boy in high school going on his first date.

  Don’t get me wrong, he did look very nice, in a black linen suit with a blue silk dress shirt and a black neck-tie to seal the deal. But he just looked so damn straight and narrow. No excitement. Just. Plain. Boring.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” I managed to say while wishing I were anywhere but there.

  He held out his hands for me to take, which meant only one thing.

  “We’re flashing there?” I asked in a slightly panicked tone.

  “Well, yeah. I mean, if that’s okay with you. It’d be the easiest way to get there,” he stammered. “I’ll get us there safely. I mean, in one piece, all limbs intact, promise.”

  Oh yeah, that really made me feel so much better, not. I just let out a long, heavy sigh and took his hands. Guessed if I had to marry the little turd, I might as well start trusting him. I just did not like depending on someone else flashing me anywhere. Especially when I didn’t even know where that anywhere was.

  I closed my eyes and prayed.

  The wind picked up around us. One minute we were standing in my gardens, the next we were standing in front of…

  “Carnival Erotica?”

  Erotica…hmmm. The name pretty much said it all. It was a place where all the true freaks came out at night. A place where everyone in Underlayes could come together and just be themselves without any worries about some sort of power struggle. Though I had heard of it, I’d never been.

  It was some sort of mix between a carnival and a night club. With real sideshows, not like the ones in the human realm. Kissing booths with two-headed exotic women. Eight-limbed contortionist creatures. Dragon shifters shooting flames from their mouths in their human forms. Werelions, weretigers, werebears, oh my, having shifting contests. Truly a sight to see.

  All I could say was, “Wow.” For the first time that night, I didn’t have to fake my enthusiasm.

  “I was hoping you would like it. I mean, I hope it’s not too much,” Bran stammered, “I wanted our first time together…I mean, our first night together…our date, our first date together, to be something special.”

  It was so pitifully sweet the way he kept stammering over his words.

  “Bran, this is amazing. I have always wanted to come here.” What else could I say? It was true. Even though he was talking like a friggin’ imbecile, he had picked the perfect spot.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Good, good, that’s good.”

  He unsteadily reached his hand out for mine to hold as we walked through the gates. But when I cringed at how clammy his palm was, he noticed, and immediately withdrew his hand, wiping it on his pants.

  “Sorry, I am just nervous. Wow, I am doing ever
ything all wrong aren’t I?”

  “Bran, it’s okay, really.” I tried to take his hand again, but he just backed away from me.

  “I’m sorry, I really am. I know you really don’t want to be here with me, and that’s okay, really. I mean, I am a total goof.” He raked his hands through his hair, “Imma just go to the little witches’ room. You’ll be okay for a minute, won’t you? Yeah, you will. I promise I’ll come back a brand-new man.”

  And just like that he was gone.

  “Men”, I muttered. I just shook my head and kept on walking. “Oh well, might as well enjoy myself.”

  Both full moons were out and shining beautifully. The magic-filled night air smelled wonderfully intoxicating. I inhaled deeply, taking it all in.

  I walked past a witchdoctor’s booth. He was juggling three shrunken heads that were still screaming. Stopped at the dragon shifters’ booth, gathered fire in my palm, and blew a fiery kiss at one who’d caught my eye. He was very tall—maybe six foot seven, heavily tanned, curly short brown hair, glistening muscular chest. He wore nothing more than a rough pair of pants, yummy. He caught the kiss and placed a sizzling hand to his chest, then blew fire into the sky to make a heart. Then he shot an arrow through it.

  As I kept walking, I felt a chill run up my spine, and an eerie feeling I couldn’t explain in the pit of my stomach. It felt as though someone was staring a hole in the back of my head. I turned around and found myself in front of the vamp booth.

  Okay, what I saw before me was nothing I had been prepared for. From all the talk from my father, I would have expected to encounter a bunch of raging beasts foaming at the mouth. I would have expected to be completely paralyzed by agonizing fear. I would have expected to find myself wanting to run away screaming with my proverbial tail between my legs. I would have expected my body to go cold with dread.