by Erin R Flynn
“It is too much,” she murmured gently. “Thank you for freeing me, Daughter.”
“Sorry I was too scared to do this sooner,” I whispered. Tears fell even if I had no love for my father as the last of his chi was sucked out of him. I let out a relieved, choked breath when the life left his eyes and he died. “Gods forgive me.”
“You did the right thing,” Mother comforted.
“Yes, but enjoying it was far from the side of right.” I turned to see the other enchanter elders seconds from joining my father, the jars in the hands of my most trusted of my coven. I glanced at three of the four. “How long did you know?”
Helen didn’t answer since I already knew, but Jerome did. “You feared no one, not even greater demons, but you did the enchanter elders. I’ve always thought you were too powerful to be a commoner like us, even if your mother died giving birth to you. But when we discussed them, I saw a daughter afraid of her family and father, not our coven leader. Only one had a powerful daughter escape him.”
Tommy nodded. “I’ve spoken with a few of the contacts we use, one about what you rescued me from, and he said it was the second most monstrous story he’d ever heard about enchanter children, the worst being Soraya Warloc and the abuse she took from her own father, the leader of our esteemed elders. But she escaped it, and if she had even a fraction of her mother’s looks, they would help her stay gone, as Elena Warloc had the face of an angel.”
“Well, I didn’t fucking know shit,” Keegan bitched, looking totally frayed. “And I know this so isn’t about me right now, but I’m sort of freaking out that you’re the heir of like enchanter everything, and what the fuck does that mean now, and you just took out all of our elders and—”
Tommy moved over to Keegan and slapped his hand over our friend’s mouth. “We’re just going to mute you until you settle.”
Keegan nodded, his eyes still panicked.
The last of the enchanter elders died, and I collected the chi jars, knowing what I needed to do next. I saw several of the other supe elders look like they had a million and two questions. “If you think now is the time to discuss this, let me advise you against it. Enjoy our hospitality and high tea before dinner. Tomorrow we will start our three day weekend with a deserted island retreat, and I could use several bottles of alcohol for sure.”
“Whatever you need,” Sangria said gently, giving me a relieved look. Oh, she’d known too.
Wow, and here I thought I’d been keeping it such a secret. Then again, I’d made it fairly obvious at times, so it was really a miracle everyone hadn’t figured it out sooner.
“Victor, I might be sending some bad, bad enchanters to your prison after I handle a few things.” I looked at him then and gave him the best smile I could. “Thank you for coming.”
“Always.” He moved closer and cupped my cheek. “No matter what choice I have made, the wrongs I have done, protecting you that day was the best decision I ever made. I only wish Rue was here to see this.”
I sniffled, nodding my head. “Yeah, Rue would have loved to see Nicholas Warloc get his.” I stared into the eyes of the man I’d once thought an older brother. “Thank you for giving me sanctuary and never revealing my secret.”
He shrugged, dropping his hand. “Your apple cakes alone were worth it.”
“Oh, now you tell everyone I can actually cook and blow my cover?” I drawled, rolling my eyes. “I haven’t cooked a damn thing since I left your nest. The new stoves and appliances bloody terrify me.”
He nodded. “Why do you think we allow a fledgling protection if they cook? None of us were going to try and take over after you.”
I nodded and stepped away, glancing at Helen. “Time to clean out the rest.”
“I’m with you, Soraya, always,” she whispered, holding out her hand to me. I took it and popped us back to the enchanter estate, knowing the spell would be gone now that the elders were dead.
The guards came out from inside, having been allowed back again, and moved in front of us. I had no patience left and went around them, bringing us into the main meeting chamber. I sat down in my father’s chair, and moments later not only the guards but dozens of other enchanters appeared, word getting out someone had shown up probably.
“How many of you know what it means if I can sit in this chair?” I asked as greeting.
“You’re of Warloc blood,” someone answered.
“I am,” I confirmed. “I was born Soraya Warloc, only child of Nicholas Warloc, and have been living as Soraya Devil.” I gestured to Helen, not giving them time to recover from that bomb. “This is Helen Strauss, my second and basically leader of our coven. Any of you who were party to the trap sent for her and rigging her up with a bloody bomb to attack me and my coven are bloody fucked.”
Several auras flashed with guilt and fear, and I waved my hand, using my power to send them to Victor’s secured room with magical restraints.
I stood, all eyes on me. I opened the bag and let out all the chi jars to float around like I was juggling them as I moved to the middle of the room. “The elders were extradited to the US, and as I’m the magical elder there, as so degreed by the bloody government, I sentenced them all. I pulled out all their chi, and their bodies are on my land in Arizona. Would you like to see?”
I didn’t wait for an answer, bringing all the bodies and sitting them in their chairs. Several people cried out in shock or terror, or maybe they’d never seen a dead body before. I didn’t really care the reason.
“So for those of you who are getting all excited that you’re next to take over and you just got promoted, able to take the seat next, I’d hang on a tick.” I smiled out at them and destroyed all the chairs, the bodies dumping to the floor with a thud. Three people fainted, and that amused me a bit. “Some of you may know that none of you can take over without the approval of the Warloc elder, and none of you have it yet.
“The laws of enchanters and the way we do things will change from this moment forward. For starters, the same twenty-one fucking families will not keep their seats like they’ve done anything to deserve them. I have. I’ve saved hundreds of enchanters this esteemed body tossed out on their arses. I’ve earned my title of elder. Any others will do the same.
“The law was the law, but from this day forward, any coven leader who tosses out a member without first clearing the reason with me will face my wrath. No more tossing daughters out because they won’t mate with who fathers tell them to. No more getting left to the proverbial wolves because people won’t agree to be property or chew toys for nests or personal magicians for other groups. It ends today.”
“What of our family money and everything we own?” a guy asked. “Some of us are coven leaders now too. Are you claiming that as well in your greed?”
I sneered at him. “This isn’t about greed, you git. I have more money than I could spend in a million lifetimes. It’s about freeing our people from the elders’ tyranny. I’d have to check the laws about the money, but I’m not here to take the family wealth. I have my own. I have the Warloc wealth now too that I really don’t even want because it’s all evil from my father’s evil.”
“You took the power of twenty-one elders,” he replied after a moment. “It’s hard to believe this wasn’t about greed.”
“No, it was about justice and punishment for trying to blow off someone’s fucking head in the hopes I would be close enough!” I bellowed, storming over to him as I made the jars go back into their bag. “This is about realizing you are out of your league and cannot fight me. I have all the power I want, and anyone of my coven can tell you that I’m about the opposite of an evil dictator.”
Helen snorted. “She’s normally the tie breaker if we need it and the trail blazer for what needs to get done. No one who fears the way power can warp people is someone who’s power hungry. She’ll use that power for good, not add it to her own.”
“I’m unstable enough as is,” I drawled. “I was thinking of setting up another spell
to send back souls to the correct plane here where it would be protected, as the layers of wards on this land wouldn’t allow a demon near it without getting fried for looking on it. Ask if another angel could protect this one, and use the chi jars to send more back where they belong.”
“Angel? What are you talking about?” the guy demanded. “Angels aren’t real.”
“Darling, I’m dating one,” I purred, giving him a wink. I glanced at the others. “Take the weekend to bury your dead, grieve, and settle with what’s happened. Monday will start the new era of enchanters and being in the current fucking century with equality.
“Oh, and some of you won’t be coven leaders. I’ll decide who would be best, as this shit with the oldest male even if there’s an older female ends. A woman now leads the enchanters, and England’s had a bloody queen for a long time.” I used my power to turn Father into ash, not even giving him a proper enchanter burial, clearly stating he was disgraced.
“Time for tea?” Helen asked when I stunned the room to silence.
“Only if there is a lot of alcohol in mine,” I muttered, taking her hand again and popping us back to The Resort. “Don’t you ever, not ever try to sacrifice yourself for me again. Not ever, Helen.”
“Many of us would, Soraya,” she rasped, hugging me tightly. “I’m so sorry I got caught.”
“I’m sorry I was too scared to do what I should and let it get to this.”
We hugged for a few minutes and gave ourselves a chance to settle with what had happened. Helen flinched and pulled away. “Do you think Tommy heard me?”
“I think Tommy found out last week or so when I spilled the beans because he asked why there was red in your aura suddenly.”
“You outed me? That’s mean when he loves you,” she grumbled.
“Which I didn’t know, but I think that was not the same type of love.” I shrugged when she gave me a confused look. “If you’re looking for emotional or romantic health here, you are looking in the wrong place. I would tell you to just get naked. It seems to always work well.”
I shrugged again, and when one of the carts arrived to deliver tea, complete with the pretty, pretty stands full of all the treats and sandwiches, I nicked one and popped over to the trap I’d set. Plopping down with my haul, I was glad when I saw it wasn’t hot tea but that new bubble ice tea and a big one.
And I just sat there and drank it for a few minutes, relieved the trap had worked and not having a fucking clue about what I was going to do next.
9
“Time to switch?” a deep voice asked me as a bottle of good vodka came into my view. I realized I’d finished my bubble tea and they meant switch to something harder.
“Too bloody right,” I agreed, taking the bottle. I opened it and took a huge gulp as Hunt sat down. He crossed his legs and pulled me onto his lap so I wasn’t kneeling on the hard ground and sitting back on my boots. I let him, his lap more comfortable… And he’d brought me booze when I needed it.
We sat there for several minutes, sharing the bottle and saying nothing, simply staring out at the spell circles where so much had just happened. But then he had to ruin it.
“I love you, Soraya,” he whispered, kissing under my ear as his hands moved up my thighs.
The bottle froze to my lips. I capped it and set it down before pushing to stand. He tried to stop me, and I slapped his hands. “Now that I’m a Warloc, you love me? Yeah, you’re not the first to act that way.”
He growled and grabbed my wrist, yanking me so I fell onto his lap and moving me to straddle him so we were face to face. He held my arms and shook me. “That is not why. I love you. I don’t deserve to. I know you’ll never accept it, but I do. I fell in love with you. I don’t give a flying fuck who you are or who you were. You are a good person. That’s all I care about.”
I snorted, and he sighed.
“Soraya, I don’t get all of what happened today, I admit that. My family was never all that tapped in, nor do I care about that stuff. You’re the daughter of a powerful enchanter elder. Great. So fucking what?” He waited until my eyes bugged out as I saw in his aura it was true. “News flash, you already are a powerful elder. Probably the most powerful one. I don’t care. I don’t care about your power.”
I snorted again, and his reply was to mash his mouth to mine, kissing me with everything he was feeling.
“I don’t care about your power. I care how you use it. You use it to save supes and even humans and fix the planet and save kittens when they’re abandoned.” He chuckled when I flinched, knowing he’d seen me do just that several weeks ago. “I don’t care that you’re a Warloc. You were already a queen to me.”
I let him kiss me again, moving his hands down lower because I wanted fun if he was going to get all mushy and serious on me. I stopped when I felt a few others join us. “We’re in the middle of something.”
“No, you’re not because he very clearly doesn’t want to have sex if there’s any doubt he wants you for the wrong reasons,” Brax said.
I sighed, knowing he got it from Hunt’s head. I turned to look at him and his two siblings that were with him. “Well, I’ll just convince him I believe him. Normally getting naked works. Do you want to watch?”
His eyes flashed shock, and one of his brothers snorted.
“You saw him leave,” Hunt surmised. “You noticed he left when he found out who you were.”
“No, he knew from when we met,” I corrected. “But yes, I did see that the angel who says he wants to court me didn’t help when the shit hit the fan and then left. So have a nice life because the shit hits the fan around me a lot, and this company line about not being able to get involved is bullshit.”
Brax’s eyes flashed anger before he cleared his throat. He squatted down so we were at eye level. “One, I agree with you, and I do the best I can with the rules I have to follow. Not all of us have limitless potential or shake off our restraints as you have. Two, I could have helped, but I thought it would be unwelcome like you couldn’t handle it. You did. Fuck, it seemed cathartic. You were in no danger of losing.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Hunt confirmed for me, and I nodded.
“He left to call a meeting with our siblings, as many did not know who you were,” one of the other angels explained. “He declared his intent to mate you to our entire family so you are hands off and no more gray area.”
I nodded I heard him but stared at Brax. “Why? Why take that step when I’ve not even agreed to let you court me?”
He licked his lips and glanced down to where my short skirt had ridden up and my ass was almost visible. “I know Nicholas Warloc was protected in several ways. He had this deal or that. I’m not high enough up to be privy to it all. I do know that all the enchanter elders protected each other from outside forces so if there was ever some problem, anyone would have to take them all on. And an angel apparently isn’t as powerful as you.”
“Okay, so?” Hunt drawled, not getting it either.
“You’re not protected in the same way,” Brax explained. “And the group who believe it’s best to force you to wipe out demons is growing. That’s not one angel coming up against you. I do not know what limits my siblings would go to, but they do not like being told no. I didn’t want to risk it. You are doing too much good on your own to be stupid and try and control you. You are not a force that can ever be tamed or caged or controlled.”
“Good you understand that.” I made my phone appear and connected a call. “Fredrick, sorry to bother you, darling, but I need someone to pull everything we have on angels. Namely how to protect the coven from them and kill them if need be.”
The three angels gave matching looks of shock and horror.
I nodded as Fredrick responded. “Helen already ordered it? Of course she did. Please have copies brought to the front desk for me and assign a team to focus acquisitions on that area.”
“Of course. Be safe, boss,” he said before we hung up.
“You m
entioned a library before. What is it?” Hunt asked.
“Pets don’t get all the answers,” I told him, more because I wasn’t going to tell the angels… But then I saw Brax already knew. “You can’t enter the library. It’s heavily warded against any not authorized. Guests can’t even be brought so no one could ever be forced to bring someone there.”
“And no one even knows the location and needs a charm to teleport there,” Brax finished for me, nodding. “Yes, I’m aware.” He looked at Hunt. “Soraya has spent centuries scouring the world for any book of spells or ancient text. She has teams of enchanters who search any ruins or burial chamber for any and everything she can restore and preserve.”
“More than that,” I bragged, smirking at the angels. “I developed a spell to recreate all the books that ever set on any location. You wouldn’t believe the amount of books, parchments, and scrolls we got from Stonehenge. It takes a ghastly amount of power, but now and again I visit certain places and make more appear to be stored at the library. Any place you and your siblings like to visit often?”
“Yes, and I will take you to them any date you wish,” Brax answered. “And I will tell you that the only known way to kill an angel is by another angel. Beyond that, no one ever has. Sort of like a greater demon, so it stands to reason you would have to do the same.”
I nodded, deciding to play fair if he told me that. “I don’t really know what I did. The greater demon figured out who I was and planned to use that information to bring Hades to me and my father pay whatever price to get at me. It’s not a spell I used. There’s no circle. It was an absolute act of desperation and adrenaline to not let that happen and protect my coven. And it almost killed me to do.”