Witch Darkness Follows (Maeren Series Book 3)

by Mercedes Jade

  Walking back out of the circle was easier.

  Flames dripped from her body as she exited, shaking the magic off like a wet dog.

  Maybe exposure therapy really was the key to getting over her fire phobia.

  George was coated in black, just a foot from the circle. He was arguing with Daemon.

  "Raphael is safe inside. How do I get Rai to take the circle down?" Elizabeth asked, interrupting their fight.

  Daemon ignored her telepathy, quickly closing the distance between them with a few strides and grabbing her shoulder.

  “Where did your mind go? You blocked us!” Daemon shouted at her over the noise of the inferno.

  “I was entering the circle. I can’t use telepathy through a high level fire barrier,” she explained, loud enough for him to hear, but not quite yelling.

  George had come around her other side.

  “You cut the connection before you touched the fire,” he said in her ear, no yelling needed.

  The disapproval in his voice was warning enough. He wouldn’t let this go.

  “That isn’t important!” she yelled to them both, shaking her head. “I need to get the circle down for Raphael before he roasts in there.”

  "Call Rai back with her name. If that doesn’t work, use the sword. Circle counter-clockwise and say her name again,” Daemon instructed.

  He let go of her shoulder once he’d provided the telepathic advice—ensuring he still had that connection to her.

  George frowned at her as she turned around, but he stood behind her again with Daemon.

  Rai was so still that she almost looked like a statute, except for the flickers of lightning at her paws.

  Elizabeth focused on the feel of her magic inside, finding the centre of her chi, wrapped around her heart, and called Rai’s name.

  A tugging on her chi intensified as she looked Rai in her fiery eyes and called her again.

  It felt like the pull before she got sucked into Maeren from the human realm.

  "My chest hurts,” she said.

  "Use your sword, kerashemeria,” George instructed.

  George’s repetition of Daemon’s advice overlapped with a squeezing sensation over her heart.

  She didn’t remember feeling this the last time that she called Rai back, although Daemon had helped her, and Rai had only to follow his familiar.

  She raised the sword, circling counter-clockwise.

  "It’s still tight in my chest,” she commented.

  "You need to pull all of your magic back into your chi, not only Rai. Resorb the magic from the circle,” Daemon said.

  Daemon wanted her to suck the inferno circle into her chest?

  "What is wrong, kerashemeria?" George asked, picking up on her immediate discomfort with that idea.

  George was much too close, his heat radiating to warm her back as he hovered an inch from her ear.

  He may as well have whispered, instead of using telepathy.

  She didn’t want them in her head when they wanted her to face the fire again.

  They shouldn’t be able to read her thoughts—even if she left enough opening in her mind to hear theirs—but she didn’t want to risk it.

  “Back off,” she warned, shutting the door completely on her mind.

  She closed her eyes and reached out to the circle, feeling fire engulfing her.

  This time, instead of accepting it licking around her, she opened her chi and swallowed it down.

  It felt like opening her mouth underwater and purposefully breathing in death, choking as the fire-magic flooded her chi.

  The wall of fire dropped with a whoosh, like all the fuel had suddenly been sucked out.

  “Call your familiar,” Daemon ordered.

  She popped her eyes open, everything washed in red, just like when she’d looked through Rai’s vision. For a moment, she worried she had slipped back into her familiar’s mind.

  Yet, her own thoughts were raging in her head, worries and fears her familiar would have scoffed at, being born of the very magic that made Elizabeth quake.

  It was her own body that was bursting with magic, too much power for her frail form to hold.

  She felt like the magic would explode or that she would be forced to cough it up, like expelling water from drowning.

  Her chi had never been meant to hold this much fire.

  Daemon’s mind pushed its way into hers, past her barriers, snapping them like twigs as he used the full force of his magic.

  He normally wouldn’t have been able to break her shield, but he’d used her own blood against her.

  He had fed from her, so recently, renewing a bond between them that he twisted it to his purpose. He would not be denied.

  “You’re always be mine,” he answered her unasked question. “Our souls belong together.”

  “Rai!” she shouted together with Daemon, the command deepened in her voice with his will in her mind strengthening it.

  George reached around her body and grasped the dagger, his hand engulfing over her grip, guiding her as they circled counter-clockwise again.

  Rai growled and pawed the ground, but with all of them pulling, the fox demon had no choice but to return, snapping her teeth at them as she leapt towards Elizabeth.

  It looked as if Rai would swallow her whole—like the unfortunate vampires she had eaten before—but the demon shrunk as she got closer.

  Rai turned into smoke and was sucked into the sword.

  The instant her familiar was resorbed, Elizabeth felt the band around her torso relax. Magic that had been bursting to get out was suddenly bound.

  She only imagined Rai purred inside her, pleased at being recognized as important and powerful and experi—

  —Oh, shut up, you foxy demon.—

  Elizabeth felt stupid arguing in her head with herself . . . or rather, her familiar, who wasn’t able to talk back.

  "We really should try that again with less snivelling this time,” Raphael commented.

  Daemon forcing his way into her head must have dropped all of her barriers.

  "Get out of my mind or I’ll give you something to snivel about, puff,” Elizabeth grumbled back at him.

  Raphael laughed in her head. He then produced smoke from his nostrils, moving his snout about to make circles.

  “Puff,” he said.

  It looked like childish smoke bubbles.

  She laughed back, feeling the tension slip from her shoulders until Raphael’s next thought.

  "Why are you afraid of fire?"

  She tensed right back up.

  "I’m taking off this torq."

  "It doesn’t come off until I say it comes off."

  “What are you doing?” George asked.

  He held his hands out to take the fire dagger from her.

  She had been reaching up with both hands to grab the torq, in a rush to get it off, while still holding the dagger.

  “I’ve had enough for today,” she said.

  She let go of the sharp weapon and let George take it.

  Hands freed, she twisted on the torq with renewed effort.

  Unlike earlier, when she had removed it from Raphael to put it on herself, the thick metal wouldn’t flex open, as pliable as a brick.

  She grunted with exertion, sliding her hands to the open ends, where the torq should be weakest.

  "Having fun?" Raphael asked.

  “Elizabeth, are you trying to remove Raphael’s hospitality and protection?” Daemon asked.

  Put that way, she seemed foolish and ungrateful.

  “I’m kind of sweating a river here. I’m sure the dragon can watch over his own royal jewels, while I give my neck a break. This thing weighs enough to melt into a couple gold bars,” she excused, mostly telling the truth, except for why she really wanted it off of her neck.

  Daemon grabbed the torq from behind and held it to assess the heft.

  “It’s not an iron shackle, but also not exactly a dainty lady’s chain, either. Do you want me to take
it off for you?”

  "My, don’t we have the Maerenian princes wrapped around our little finger? No wonder they sent you ahead to bargain.” Raphael said.

  She was making Daemon and George look bad in front of Raphael.

  “No, I’m fine. I just need to sit for a moment to rest,” she said, walking over to the ‘pain in the ass’ forcing this situation despite her obvious discomfort.

  "Don’t you dare," the dragon warned her.

  She ignored him and sat down, finding a comfy seat on his tail, which she also rested her smelly, dusty feet upon, digging her heels in.

  In case he didn’t get it, she purposely thought about how she was going to crush him underfoot.

  "You’re not big enough to squash me,” Raphael said.

  He thumped his tail, jostling her.

  She toed her shoes off in retaliation.

  “What are you doing?” George asked, sounding really baffled.

  “Would you prefer to sit on my lap instead?” Daemon offered.

  He seemed more amused, which was confirmed by a sudden coughing fit when she told Raphael to stop squirming and gave his scaly posterior a swat.

  "That was undignified,” Raphael muttered.

  "Stung, didn’t it? I added a little lightning for your displeasure,” Elizabeth said.

  “Stop pestering the local wildlife. You’re not supposed to pet or feed them,” Daemon scolded her, managing to keep his laughter to a minimum.

  "Tell them now. Do you think you’re the first soldier they’ve seen develop fire-shyness?" Raphael asked.

  "Why? My fear doesn’t affect them. It’s not something that anyone can fix, anyway. I’ve always been this way,” Elizabeth said.

  "Children don’t fear fire until they’ve been burned,” Raphael said, more softly.

  "I’m not a child. I touched the fire, blocked your flames before, and I brought down the inferno that Rai circled around you. This is not a problem."

  "It’s a weakness the first time you hesitate,” Raphael said.

  He was right.

  Damn it.

  She got up and gave Raphael’s tail a good kick, then yelped.

  It was made out of steel as grey and hard as the rest of his scaly hide.

  No wonder he’d been able to swat away George’s boulders with it.

  He probably hadn’t even felt her touch, forget her heels.

  Swinging back around to face the two puzzled males waiting for her, she took a deep breath and touched their minds together.

  "Raphael thinks I should show you something, although I have it completely under control and I won’t let it stop me from fighting. I can just use lightning instead and really, it’s a non-issue, but Raphael’s being beastly.”

  Daemon grabbed her chin and tipped her face up.

  George circled behind and put his hands on her hips, sandwiching her between them.

  They were getting too quick at trapping her. One of them, she might be able to escape, but both of them, blocked even the thought of getting free.

  "Show us, sweetheart."

  "Open up, kerashemeria."

  Raphael didn’t say anything, but she knew his mind stayed connected as she pulled the curtains back from her memories.

  They were mixed in with a child’s imagination, reflective of the age she’d been when it had happened.

  Two little girls, one blonde and the other a light brunette, lying encircled together—ying and yang—under a pale moon, shining on the blonde child’s torn neck.

  Elizabeth’s ruined neck.

  Then the fire consuming everything in a blistering, greedy blaze that creeped over the edges of their wooden bed posts and up blood stained silk sheets.

  The screeching of the mad demon, staring down at them with hate filled, red eyes.

  Flickering blue consumed the little blonde girl’s mind, until the fire was as real to her as the demon she fought, ignoring the feeling of her skin bubbling and blackening under the flames.

  Her father was coming. He was coming. He knew.

  “I’ll kill him,” George said.

  Elizabeth blinked her eyes open, focusing on the dirt that had embedded itself on Daemon’s borrowed shirt. It looked old, a dingy off white.

  It made her think of Geer, and how she wished he was here, too. To see her childhood demons.

  “I’ll tell him,” Raphael said.

  She blinked again because she wasn’t crying. She didn’t make a sound as she buried her face in Daemon’s dirty shirt, grateful that the fabric was too stained to reveal her weakness, if she kept it to a tear or two.

  “I’ll kill him,” George repeated.

  Nobody refuted this possibility, or that the demon from her past was alive to kill.

  She’d have to tell George the truth about it later.

  It would be a salve to her old wounds if George was disappointed when he learned that the demon from her past could only be killed once, and her mother had completed that duty.

  Burned

  Demons. Hell. It was a nightmare she could never leave behind unless she ran away from home forever.

  “I didn’t know,” George said, sounding so guilty that she leaned her head back on his shoulder to comfort him. “I swear, I didn’t know that fire demon—”

  George broke off and shook his head.

  How could he have known?

  George was taking this harder than her. Of course, he’d had less time to process the information.

  “It’s hardly a first date conversation, digging up old family skeletons,” she said, with a long sigh following.

  The tension dropped from her shoulders.

  They weren’t questioning it. Her memories were vivid—seared into her mind—but such a story was so lurid when told decades later.

  All of these years of hiding what was too horrifying to be true. Yet, they’d believed her.

  That trust gave her strength. It broke a little of the hold her dead uncle had kept over her.

  The dark secret held less power once it was revealed.

  “When you fight a fire elemental, it isn’t only your opponent that you battle,” Daemon said, getting to the point that she was trying to make.

  “Raphael wanted you to know that I’m a bit leery around fire—and well, that’s why. I don’t think I can totally overcome my phobia. It’s like being afraid of spiders and having someone throw a tarantula at me when I have to face bigger fire magic. There’s no little contained fires—like a merry fireplace or a few candles. Magic demands that I put out powerful blazes without breaking into a sweat.”

  “You have to tell us what you want to do,” Daemon whispered against the top of her head, planting a comforting kiss as she leaned back on George. “We don’t want to hold you back from the fight, but I also don’t want to throw you out on the battlefield unprepared. The battles that we’re fighting are going to be hard and mostly magic, especially fire-magic with the dragons.”

  “I think Raphael wanted me to tell you because I need to practice against fire, so I won’t hesitate,” she admitted.

  Exposure therapy made her want to run the other direction, naturally.

  If she wanted to run—and she stood—it was one step closer to her real goal, wanting to run and fighting back.

  “I’m not sure I can use fire against you now, knowing the terror you’re feeling,” Daemon said, sighing against her forehead before letting go and giving her some breathing room.

  “I’ll do it,” George said.

  "Dragons are terrifying without fire, but I’ll blow some smoke your way as well,” Raphael said.

  "I’m not afraid of you, Puff,” Elizabeth retorted.

  She turned around in George’s arms to face him.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t say the same for George as for Raphael.

  Daemon had been right about how terrifying it was to face George across the field, even knowing he wouldn’t intentionally harm her.

  Both brothers were frighteningly powerful, b
ut George had a general’s mentality. He would do what was necessary for the greater good, including lighting a literal fire under her ass.

  Victoria’s throat had been blistered, a melted mess of ruined flesh.

  George flinched under her stare and she knew he had been in her head to see her flashback to his sister’s injury.

  “Better the monster you know,” he whispered to her, dark and sardonic, letting black flames drip from his fingers.

  It looked scary, but when he flicked a few, living black-flames onto her, all she felt was coolness. It was thick like molasses coating her skin.

  The black started to spread, licking its way up her arms, wrapping her in George’s magic, trapping her.

  "I’m shielding you in black since you can’t do it on your own, kerashemeria."

  "Your sister wore the black without harm, sweetheart. Just breathe through your nose and close your eyes when it reaches your face."

  How did Jill stand this with her claustrophobia?

  “It feels different when it is your own magic. George is coating you in his magic, so yours is feeling confined underneath,” Daemon explained. “Let out a little air-magic first.”

  She lifted one hand up—

  “Your mouth,” Daemon said, and she aborted her motion.

  The air couldn’t escape George’s black. It was even worse than being stuck in someone else’s circle. There was no space to fight at all, wrapped all around in black.

  She opened her mouth and sucked air in like she was breaking her head above water after a long dive, hyperventilating.

  Sweet, cold oxygen screamed into her lungs, more and more, never enough to satisfy her air hunger.

  “Breathe out,” Daemon said. “Hard and fast, spit your air,” he ordered.

  George ducked and she spat her air like Daemon had demanded—hoping no actual saliva was involved—and then squeezed her eyes shut as black fire crept over her face.

  Something must have hit because the explosion made the ground shake, but she wasn’t going to risk taking a look.

  Nobody had yelled, so it couldn’t be that bad.

  She shut her mouth, imagining with horror the liquid black climbing down her throat.

  Hyperventilating through her nose was harder, but more intense.