It barely got a flicker of irritation. He was way more interested than he should be in an air witch.
“Put the dagger away, Victoria,” he commanded, finally looking away from the window.
She ignored him.
Her clan family, especially her twin, did nothing to discourage what George termed her unfeminine habits.
Little did George know that his hate for those habits was why she kept on doing them.
She might not be able to needle George’s mother without consequences, but George, she could prick a little every day until he bled enough to make up for the unbearable situation he had created.
“What do you want with a wet wick like her anyway?” she asked.
Daemon had claimed the eldest Norwood witch, so it wasn’t as if George had a chance. He was fourth in line to the throne. Nobody cared about his importance, but his ambitious mother.
It wasn’t up to Victoria to judge if George had been wrongly overlooked. They all knew Phillip was going to rule them one day.
“The eldest Norwood has fire, dormant according to rumour, but she has to have fire, given her father. Why else would Daemon be chasing after her?” George asked.
He would have researched her, so it was hardly a question directed at Victoria. Still, she couldn’t resist reminding George of one pertinent fact that he’d failed to warn them of ahead of time.
“Daemon claimed her,” she said. “Apparently, she stabbed him during the tasting ball and he had no choice but to accept her.”
Victoria had liked Elizabeth Norwood despite the unfortunate clash in the library, which was really George’s fault.
He had set them up for failure when he sent them after Elizabeth without telling them all of the facts.
“Daemon wasn’t forced to claim her. He’s a demon, Victoria. Demons don’t do claims and they don’t feed on the ladies. There are feeders for beasts.”
George’s hate for demons was ironic, given his family’s clan controlled the biggest demon army.
An elitist ass like George hated almost everyone equally, certainly not showing anyone favouritism at the castle, but he seemed to have a special hate for demons.
It was Daemon’s bad luck to be born. Daemon had never done anything specifically to George to earn that hate.
“‘Daemon is different,” she countered. “For starters, he’s our brother.”
“Are you feeling sisterly love? Do you want to offer him your wrist?”
After a certain age, feeding relatives was a bit incestuous, given the priming a witch felt for a male elemental once he was old enough to form his own harem.
George was being grossly improper.
“Father never said that Daemon was banned from attending the tasting balls. Daemon is royalty, too.”
Victoria flipped her dagger one-handed, finished pretending to clean her nails.
George wasn’t stupid. There was something special about Elizabeth to attract Daemon’s attention, and unfortunately, now that was attracting George as well.
Elizabeth was winning the popularity contest, without even knowing she was entered.
“A demon is a demon. I didn’t even pick a girl when I saw Daemon dragging that one off. It was a disgusting display. I had to leave the ball early,” George complained.
She didn’t know why he cared.
He was very particular about his harem witches, only taking on those his mother approved. He didn’t sleep with them, according to rumour, so looks were unimportant.
He treated feeding like a drug habit, waiting until he was desperate and feeling withdrawal before taking a witch from his harem to feed upon.
“Why don’t you go for her sister? She’s blue. That kind of fire is worthy of even your harem,” Victoria suggested.
George’s mother cared more about pedigree than power, but when it came to blue fire, nothing else counted.
Victoria hadn’t met Elizabeth’s sister, but she had seen her at breakfast. The blue might be witch enough to handle a vampire as strong as George.
His harem was one of the weakest because of his feeding aversion and his mother’s control over it. He could use the blue witch more than any of her other brothers.
“Phillip has displayed an interest in the youngest Norwood,” George remarked. He didn’t sound interested himself.
Now, that was weird. The Norwoods had sufficient pedigree and the youngest was a rare blue. She was exactly the type George’s pretentious mother would pick for him.
George glared at Victoria’s dagger. She flipped it around faster.
Did he know that Phillip was supposedly interested in the Norwood sisters as a pair?
With George’s Dogs, the information would normally reach his ears before hers, but she had been the first one to see Phillip lurking outside the library when she made her escape with Victor.
Time to test the waters.
“Phil hasn’t claimed the blue. You know he never claims any of them. His harem is full of witches who do nothing but waste their days away with embroidery and water paints.”
“The feminine arts are not a waste, Victoria,” George said with a sigh.
Someone knocked, interrupting them.
George murmured assent for the knocker to enter.
Victor slammed the door open wide, sweat on his head curling even his stick-straight bangs, where they had grown too long.
Her twin looked fired up. Someone must have told him that George had her trapped.
“Need to go, Vic?” she asked, hopping up out of her chair and sheathing her knife as he entered the room. “Sorry, gotta go now,” she told George, without waiting for an answer.
Her twin would make their excuses.
“Not so fast,” George said, quickly walking over to close the door Victor had left open before she could escape.
George turned to face them, making them wait long enough to remind them of the consequences of disobedience.
A contract signed in blood was unbreakable.
“Victor, I expected more useful information.”
She answered instead of her brother. “All we can do is provide you with the information. It isn’t up to us whether you find it useful.”
They weren’t George’s spies. He had the Dogs to lurk in dark corners, and besides, it was a waste of their talents.
The two brothers would get into a silent staring contest that would end in one very bored sister if she left them to their own devices.
Both were strong in fire, burning as blue as their royal blood.
George deliberately ignored Victoria’s input.
“Her being claimed is an inconvenience, Victor.”
Her twin took a step forward, putting her behind him.
“Guess you shouldn’t have been late to the ball, George.”
“You will fix this,” George said.
It was an order and one impossible for her twin to deny or fulfill.
They couldn’t go head-to-head with Daemon. Even with the pair of them, there was no contest.
She wasn’t the sweet, baby-sister that Daemon would steal an apple tart for from the kitchens to spoil her.
They had all grown up.
“A witch chooses. It’s done. Too bad, so sad, move on,” she advised, trying to step around her protective twin.
George suddenly roped blue fire around her neck, yanking her off of her feet with a blistering noose that also cut off her speech.
Victor didn’t look back to watch her choking on fire and smoke, keeping his eyes on George. Her twin had his hands tied and they both knew it.
“Release her,” Victor demanded.
“I’m demonstrating something for you,” George said, calmly tightening the noose until the sounds of her gasping struggle cut off with her air.
He’d only threatened before, but this time George really was going to kill her.
His unexpected attack had blistered her skin deeply before she could get a layer of water from her gourd to shield, wasting a few pr
ecious seconds frozen in shock, and then uncorking her gourd.
Twin streams of water attacked the fire noose.
Victor formed a thin layer of ice repeatedly as the fire melted it, trying to protect her neck.
She pulled water from the plants in the room when she had emptied her gourd.
Victor turned towards her and saw as she kicked her legs, moments from becoming unconscious.
With a growl, Victor turned back to face George and whipped a dagger at their older brother.
It caught George in the right shoulder, followed by her twin's own red fire, blazing towards George’s heart. The attacks were so fast that they seemed simultaneous to the eye.
She dropped with a thud as George formed a red fire shield to block Victor's flame. It was a weak effort when both males could burn blue.
George knew better than to distract himself with another fight when Victor fired a warning shot and her twin was too smart a fighter to waste magic on the first volley.
The contract was the only thing keeping George safe. If it had been anyone else attacking her, then Victor would not have pulled his punches.
The same could be said of George, a cold and deadly warrior that nobody crossed. If he wanted Victoria dead, her twin would be avenging a corpse right now.
Her throat felt like the fire was burning it from the inside out, making her wonder if George had really shown her any mercy.
Mist and smoke hid them from George for precious seconds, but George knew there was only one exit.
“Clear it,” he demanded. He sounded furious.
Victor must have concluded that the only way out was to comply because he was freezing the mist to drop as snowflakes.
She was still lying on the floor, her head cradled in her twin’s lap, her neck brutally blistered despite the water defence.
She glared hate at George, speaking seeming beyond her injured throat.
The silence was punctuated only by George’s probing look. His startling blue eyes peered out from his ash-coated face, roaming over every inch of her injured neck as if cataloging the degree of burn he had achieved.
The look spoke volumes. He would never apologize. He was a monster.
“Imagine if I did that over and over,” George spat at them like the threat tasted foul.
There was no point in trying to reason with him. The only family that mattered to George was his mother and she was also a monster.
Victoria knew where the threat really came from and that it could be delivered.
Hopefully, George couldn’t see the tremble as she shook in her twin’s arms.
Victor summoned three daggers by their water core to float in the air around him, their dangerous edges glinting in George’s direction.
“Imagine if I stabbed you over and over,” Victor countered.
Her twin never threatened George outright.
She painfully swallowed, reaching out a hand to grasp one of her twin’s hands and giving it a squeeze.
She could survive this. George had nothing on his mother’s tortures. A good healing would erase everything but the memory of this incident.
“No need to be testy. William can fix her up,” George said, seeming to back off.
Maybe he’d realized how close he’d come to killing her.
George pulled the knife out of his shoulder after delivering and threw it at Victor's chest, easily caught to float with the others.
Blood leaked out of the hole in his shoulder, a dark red that soaked the front of his shirt.
A few inches to the middle and George would have finally paid the price for the years of torment.
She didn’t want to go to William for healing again. He was seeing so much of her lately.
They may as well make it a regular date, a family night for treatment and complaining about how spicy the new cook made the meat.
William was as sociable as a rattlesnake, though, ready to curl around someone for warmth one moment and striking out with anger at the next for a tiny misstep.
George may be cold, but William’s unpredictable temper scared her more.
“Tor will never marry into your clan,” Victor told George, keeping his knives floating with magic, while he knelt over her, protectively shielding her with his own body.
“Of course, she will. She’s still a fire witch despite the water taint. The contract is signed in your blood. My mother will never let her go. What would the Torimoto clan do without its prince? The only question is whether she becomes consort to a fire lord or a demon.”
Don’t push him.
Victoria wanted to beg her twin to let it go, but she would never do anything that made Victor look weak in front of George. That arrogant bastard would consider conceding to his sister’s wishes as a failing, something else to hold over them.
“Demons drain witches, not marry them. Father would never allow you to do this,” Victor said, invoking one of two males in their family that George couldn’t ignore.
“Father? Our king has let Daemon claim a witch,” George snidely retorted.
“It wasn’t acknowledged. No one else knows she’s claimed by him,” Victor said.
“Then undo it. If you don’t want Victoria to marry a fire demon, you will get me Elizabeth,” George insisted.
Why was one witch so important?
Victoria hadn’t been able to find anything about Elizabeth to reasonably tempt her brothers. Even her fire-magic connection, on her father’s side, was from one of the weaker branches.
She was a wet wick. What good would she be as a feeder?
George had gone insane with his obsession. It didn’t matter that Elizabeth was an illogical harem choice.
“Burn the little air witch and that damn tattoo Daemon gave her,” George said, a plan eerily like his attack on Victoria. “Make her use up all her magic to try to save herself until she drains it right to the last drop. The tattoo will fade. I’ll make her take my claim.”
Conquer with force was George’s style, but not theirs.
“You can’t burn a claim on her,” Victor insisted.
“Why would I, when she has a lovely sister to threaten with a fiery death? Such an unfortunate liability,” George said, straightening the cuffs on his blood-drenched shirt.
Using family against Elizabeth? George had learned from the best.
He left them alone in the smoke and water ruined room, with that ominous threat hanging, the only way out at the cost of another witch’s freedom.
Elizabeth wouldn’t be the first witch to pay.
A Cold Trail
Elizabeth
Supper had been an indeterminable affair.
Jill's legs were better from their mother’s earth healing. The fact that Jill was even present at supper meant she'd kept secret her own claim from their mother.
Elizabeth was glad she didn't have to deal with their mother’s temper so soon, but that also made it another heavy burden for her to carry. Their secrets were piling up.
There were no princes at supper. Cards, pianoforte, and other entertainments, with light refreshments, were planned that evening for a more jovial atmosphere in which the princes could choose their snacks.
If it was anything like the ball, Elizabeth wanted out. She’d had enough polite socializing over the potato and leek soup.
After excusing herself, she would have run back to her room if she didn’t know who was waiting for her there.
Exploring the library further seemed relatively safer than confronting Daemon so soon. Their encounter in the woods had been intense. It had brought to fore the attraction between them—worse, that he craved her as much as she did him.
All that was stopping them was her fear of discovery. She didn’t want to test her self control so soon.
She still didn't have all her air back, although it was enough to open the library doors this time. With her lightning smothered, she truly was a useless wet wick.
It was a sobering thought to consider herself magically disadv
antaged as the heavy doors swung shut behind her, leaving her alone in the cold, dark room.
Helplessness was a crutch that only hobbled. She was more than her power.
She’d brought a candle and matches with her this time. It was difficult not to light the candle right away, but the darkness was necessary for her first task.
She had to find the portal the demons were using to access the human realm from the castle. It was what their whole theory hinged upon. A breadcrumb trail leading to someone highly placed—and traitorous to the king.
It was likely hidden in one of the castle’s secret tunnels. Portals glowed with their power, making it likely this one was kept well out of sight.
She hadn’t seen any glow in her last visit to the library, in the daytime, although that search had been interrupted quickly by the royal twins.
Everything looked gloomier at night, but she had to give her eyes time to adjust.
Still, nothing glowed.
She tried to tamp down her disappointment, walking over to the nearest bookcase with her exploration supplies.
It would be suspicious if it was too easy.
She lit the candle, forcing herself to use the matches she’d brought for that purpose. No lightning.
Those twins could be hiding anywhere, seemingly part shadow and fog themselves.
It had to be strange having two such opposite elemental magics. She envied the twins their precision and balance in using their powers.
The storms Elizabeth created were the closest she came to use her air and lightning together and there was nothing controlled about them.
Shadows flickered around her as the drafts in the room played with the candle’s light.
She wished she had enough fire to control at least the flicker of the flame. Her lightning was so different, it was as if it wasn’t even fire-type magic.
The wild flickering made it more difficult to examine the room than when it was merely moonlit. Her dislike of the dark kept her from blowing it out. She decided to walk closer to the wall and follow along the perimeter to lessen the draft.
The panels lining the walls were all carved, as intricate as the fireplace mantel, and obviously old.
Knights and medieval ladies frolicked along the panels, dust obscuring some of the details. She sneezed and brushed off the carving in front of her, then quickly moved along.
Every Witch Demon but Mine (Maeren Series Book 1) Page 24