Every Witch Demon but Mine (Maeren Series Book 1)

by Mercedes Jade

  She was still in a wing with guest bedrooms, by the spacing of the doors, so she headed left down the next hallway.

  She wanted to get closer to the centre of the castle and the more public rooms. Exploring there would raise fewer suspicions.

  The wing she was in now had more guards and some of them were eyeing her.

  The harem quarters were likely further down. She didn’t need the questioning she would get if she wandered there.

  Turning left again, she thought about how much easier this search would be if she could use her lightning.

  Her magic could read the thoughts of all the room occupants. It would provide her with a map of the castle, like an infrared camera, except with minds.

  As a bonus, she might overhear important information while haunting the minds of the castle occupants.

  Who would think to guard their thoughts in the privacy of their room?

  She would have loved to have peeked at Daemon’s thoughts earlier, but he was the most dangerous one to try using her lightning around.

  The odds that a male with lightning himself would be able to detect her using her power, even if it was in a very different manner than usual, were not something she was ready to bet against.

  The plan was to slowly use lightning in different scenarios at the castle until they could establish safe parameters.

  Her ears still worked fine, which was something to not overlook when her lightning was bound.

  She almost turned another corner when she heard male voices arguing.

  Flattening herself to the wall, she strained to hear what her magic would normally have made as clear as her own thoughts.

  “Are you sure he’s at the ball?”

  “With the blue-fire witch, there’s no way he’d miss it.”

  Both voices were male, one only slightly younger sounding. It could be because the other was very gruff. Probably a couple of guards, although who knew why they were patrolling here.

  She was sure she’d passed all the bedroom and personal quarters. This had to be a more public area of the castle, finally.

  “He’s been impossible to shake.”

  “A dog with a bone,” the younger male agreed.

  He sounded distracted by some other thoughts in his mind, the monotone response a bit too clichéd to require concentration.

  “A mongrel is all he’ll ever be with his bitch’s leash,” the first voice disparaged. “The filthy mutt is in charge of the Dogs for a reason.”

  The Dogs? Wasn’t that the name of the elite group of soldiers that acted as spies for the king?

  They were a dangerous lot that she wouldn’t want to get on the bad side of while here.

  All the inattention from the second voice died a quick death at the invocation of the Dogs.

  “We don’t need any Dogs sniffing our trail. Did you do something to tip him off? He’s been following you the most.”

  “Me? I just had the bad luck to step in shit.”

  Oh, yeah. They definitely stepped in shit if they pissed off anyone from the Dog’s unit. The stink of their mistake was going to lead the Dogs right to them.

  Maybe she should get out of here? Being caught in the middle of a fight that had nothing to do with her was a stupid waste of her time.

  What if this had to do with the traitor she was looking for, though? The Dogs were the king’s spies. Wouldn’t they be on the lookout for traitors, too?

  The raised wood panelling was dug into her spine as she debated her options.

  Only the hope that this had something to do with her mission kept her glued to the wall.

  “If we knew what trail he was following, then we could clean it up for you,” said the second voice, trying again, to get the first guy to admit to where he’d slipped up.

  ‘It’s a trap!’ she wanted to shout.

  “I’ll take care of it myself. You don’t need to be worrying him about the pups or their mongrel leader.”

  “I knew you would be helpful,” the bad guy said.

  Yes, that was definitely his vibe. He was as criminal as they come.

  She took a sideways step back, second-guessing her decision to stay.

  “Are we going back again for her tonight?”

  Her . . . who?

  She teetered on the balls of her feet, indecision rocking her.

  “She’s not your concern anymore,” the bad guy said, sounding a little more agitated.

  “I told him that she had fire. It caught me by surprise,” the first voice said, sounding vengeful.

  She froze.

  It was her. It had to be her.

  She didn’t have fire, but there was one demon she’d staked three weeks ago in the human realm that could be forgiven for mistaking her lightning as mere fire.

  Trench-jacket demon, second-timer. Blue fire. Liked to take walks in the park. Hated the king.

  Did his voice sound the same as the first guy’s?

  “Here, he wants you to have this as thanks for lying low.”

  The gurgling sound of a sliced throat and the thump of a body hitting the wall on its lifeless way down to the floor startled her into action.

  Run! Her only bit of evidence so far had just been killed off. She wasn’t about to join him.

  She forced herself to creep slowly sideways to escape. Watching the corner ahead of her for the murderer to pop up and catch her, she used her shaking hands to feel along the wooden panels behind her to move along the wall.

  She touched a warm body.

  A hand clamped around her mouth before she could scream. Another wrapped around her waist to pull her tightly against a hard, male chest that almost burned her back.

  Fire lord! He was worked up by the feel of his magical furnace.

  She didn’t fight back, too worried about making noise and alerting the proven murderer in the hallway, just around the corner.

  The male behind her could be disabled if it became necessary, and as far as she knew, he hadn’t sliced any throats yet. He had merely covered her mouth to keep her quiet.

  That implied he wanted her to live.

  He pulled her into another room. The door was already open, probably from when he came out of it.

  She didn’t remember seeing any open doors when she walked the hallway earlier.

  It was pitch-black in the room, drapes pulled, and cold without the fireplace or candles lit. Dust assaulted her nose.

  The male turned them around to shut the door, without making a sound.

  She tried to twist out of his arms then, but he tightened his grip as soon as he shut the door.

  He pulled her further into the moonless room.

  The dark was one of her little fears. More an annoyance, really, because a slayer couldn’t be afraid of the dark and do her job. She just didn’t enjoy being in the dark.

  She always turned on the lights to check all of the shadowed corners of her room before sleeping.

  For all she knew, her kidnapper was as blind in here like her. It could be only his familiarity with the room that let him guide her back to a couch-like piece of furniture.

  He sat on it first. He pulled her down to sit between his strong thighs, crossing his lower legs over hers to keep her down.

  Now was the time to fight back if she wanted loose. He was starting in on the confining part of her captivity.

  She grabbed air.

  It was her single magic weapon until they figured out if she could use lightning without discovery.

  She made a thick barrier around the room. Nobody would hear what she was going to do to this poor bloodsucker that kidnapped a slayer.

  Her racing heart worked for her, pumping adrenaline to her muscles as she waited a few seconds for the room to be secured.

  The barrier snapped into place with a click only she heard in her mind.

  She slammed her head back, hopefully breaking his nose.

  His legs popped open like magic, releasing her. He cursed, but it was very, very quiet.

&nb
sp; She jumped up and kicked her slippered foot out to hit him in the chest, using her body weight to push him down into the couch, as if she was stomping him into the furniture.

  His grunt was quiet too, but probably because she’d kicked the air out of him.

  She didn’t have all of Jill’s fancy martial arts moves, but she knew where the soft and vulnerable parts of the body were, and how to make even the hard parts pay attention.

  If this had been a normal slayer fight, she would have followed up her kick with a stake between his ribs.

  Escape was more important than damage. She’d made her point.

  She ran for the door while he was gasping and clutching his head and chest.

  He was seconds behind her, not as disabled as she’d hoped.

  Running blind, she tripped over something, hard and knee-high.

  It didn’t give but she did, dislocating her knee, or possibly breaking her lower leg, and down she went.

  Unlike the vampire, she screamed her pain and frustration as she went down. It hurt so bad she wished she’d passed out.

  The vampire halted. He swore again, this time loudly. He made his way to her side, stumbling in the dark, too.

  He rolled her prone body over.

  “Did you break your foolish neck?” he asked, not really sounding that worried.

  Nope, only her pride, and most likely, her leg. The first injury was the most crushing. What was that about leaping from the ‘pan to the fire?’

  She was about to be burned and she only had herself to blame.

  Blind as a Bat

  Elizabeth had been truly caught, and this time, there was no chance of escape. Her injury and the darkness, which made safe navigation impossible, had laid her low.

  This sucked!

  Her whimpers of pain probably gave away that she was still living to the vampire who had kidnapped her.

  “My right leg,” she finally said when she heard him inch closer. “Don’t touch it,” she warned him.

  “Since the guards haven’t shown up yet, I assume you put up a barrier on the room. Air?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “Keep it up,” he ordered, then he touched her damn leg despite her warning.

  It was a professional exam: brisk, efficient, and it still hurt like hell.

  She didn’t hold back, calling him every name she could think of at the top of her lungs.

  He straightened the bone—definitely broken—while she graphically detailed how she was going to break both his legs for getting her into this situation.

  He was quiet all through her diatribe, not defending his taking her hostage. His calm settled her a little.

  She wished he would light a candle because not knowing what this stranger looked like while he fixed her leg was driving her imagination crazy. She only had his voice and the feel of his hands to picture him.

  It left her feeling disadvantaged on top of the broken leg.

  He hadn’t done enough yet to inspire trust.

  Jill would have had a heart attack if she knew they were doing a healing blind. If the vampire screwed this up, she’d have a permanent limp.

  His hands were calloused, unlike most healers, making her think of a swordsman or maybe even a sword-smith, using his earth for more brute work than healing.

  The fire would come in handy for the forge.

  She hoped he was gentler with her than when working with metals that could take rougher treatment.

  His voice was harder to characterize, smooth and his tone was more cultured than she would expect from a rough soldier or ironworker.

  He paused for a moment, once her fracture was reduced as best as he could in the dark, with her yelling at him.

  “I’m going to heal this leg, little one. Try to keep your big mouth closed, in case your power doesn’t match your strength and you drop the barrier.”

  She gritted her teeth, swearing at him in her mind. She wished she could share those thoughts with him.

  He was brutally thorough, but nowhere as fast as her mother. He also had been right, she’d dropped her air-barrier after a minute.

  “Can you walk?” he asked when he finished.

  She nodded her head ‘yes’ and then realized he couldn’t see her.

  “Yes,” she croaked. “I dropped the barrier,” she admitted.

  “I’m surprised you kept it up at all after that injury,” he said, bent over to talk into her ear.

  He whispered so quietly that it was almost as if he had used lightning to talk into her mind. Only the feel of his breath on her ear gave away that he was speaking the words.

  “I’m sorry if I frightened you. You should not have been wandering so far from the tasting ball, especially without your guardian. It’s not safe to be alone even within the castle walls and outside . . .”

  His voice trailed off for her to imagine the horrors, a little easier locked up in a dark room with a monster.

  He was trying to frighten her, and he wasn’t apologetic about it.

  It was working even though he said everything in such soft, sweet whispers, like a lover telling her secrets in her ear.

  She wiggled a little, trying to convey her impatience to be free.

  “Curiosity like yours merits more caution of what else wanders in the dark.”

  He was still trying to scare her.

  His hands patted her down as he talked, looking for further injuries.

  His earth was weak. He had needed to bare her leg and physically straighten it before he healed her, and now, he had to physically palpate the rest of her limbs instead of using earth to search her body for injury.

  It had probably taken a lot out of him to heal her fracture as well as he had done.

  “I’m fine,” Elizabeth said, shrugging off his touch.

  She hadn’t forgotten that he had caused her to break her leg in the first place, dragging her in here.

  He let her sit up. Her lightning could feel his thoughts tickling against her barrier, so she knew he was kneeling next to her, but she couldn’t use the power to navigate around the rest of the inanimate objects.

  Screw it.

  She reached out for his shoulder to push herself up. Not going to ask for help.

  His fire had cooled a bit with his temper, but she could still feel the power under his clothes as she gripped his heavy shoulder.

  Her lack of vision made the bulk of his masculine strength more apparent against her hand.

  He stood up, hands slipping under her arms. He lifted her the rest of the way to her feet as well.

  He let her go as soon as they were both standing and didn’t stop her from taking a few steps away.

  “You surprised me,” he said. “I would have thought you were looking for trouble.”

  She stood there and realized unless she wanted to fumble her way out of here, she was going to have to satisfy his need to lecture the brainless female who had nearly walked into a murder scene.

  “Well, I don’t need to look for trouble if it’s going to drag me out of the nice, brightly lit hallway and break my legs.”

  “One leg, to be precise,” he said. “Do not try to tell me that you were unaware of the altercation in front of the library.”

  She opened her mouth to do exactly that.

  “I saw you standing there and spying, little one.”

  She closed her mouth.

  “Were you waiting for a lover? A promise to meet a suitor your parents wouldn’t approve of, in the library?”

  He had fed her the perfect excuse. She still had to make him work for it.

  “Of course n-not,” she said, trying her best to make that sound like a false denial by stammering a bit. “I was going for a walk. It was unbearably stuffy in the ballroom.”

  “There are balconies for fresh air.”

  She did not need that reminder!

  “Regardless of your reasons for wandering, I can’t let you speak of what you heard to anyone. If you do, it will impede my ow
n investigation. I promise you that justice will be served to the one that did this.”

  She nodded her agreement before remembering to verbalize it again.

  He sounded like he was going to be the one personally handing out justice.

  Perhaps, this was the head of the guards or a high-ranking member of the king’s army?

  He slipped behind her while they talked.

  She had noticed him move by her lightning pinging his mind. He was in her passive range. She didn’t think anything of it, assuming he was going to lead her out of the room.

  She couldn’t use her magic to read his mind without risking detection, especially given his fire.

  He slipped an arm around her from behind, trapping her back against his chest again.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

  She sucked her lightning into an even tighter ball in her chest. It burned like all of the lies that had come off of her tongue.

  “I’m going to taste you. I’m sure I won’t be the first to have tasted you tonight, and if there is another you wish to claim you, then I won’t interfere,” he said.

  “No,” she refused, squirming in his grip, but he was prepared for her struggles this time.

  His hold was unbreakable.

  Damn tenacious earth.

  “A curious witch like you cannot be left unprotected, wandering into danger. I want to know if we are compatible. I would take you into my harem and offer you safety, if possible,” he explained.

  “I said no,” she told him.

  She knew he had earth. The mystery of his fire was too risky for her to chance a bite.

  It was doubtful he had the level of lightning, but even the thought of a vampire with fire biting her, left her anxious.

  He couldn’t be a mere guard if he was talking about a harem.

  Common vampires, like the guards, had access to feeder witches that were paid and usually shared. Not personal harems that took considerable power to hold and protect.

  “I’m not asking your permission. You willfully left the protection of the ball. Unclaimed witches are subject to tastings to help them find an appropriate vampire to guard them.”

  “This is archaic,” she complained.

  She had kicked him down earlier and was more than capable of doing it again. She told him so as she wiggled against his grip.