Witch Darkness Follows (Maeren Series Book 3)

by Mercedes Jade

  English idioms weren’t really Pan’s forte.

  “We’re not really alone, we’re just going to look like it.”

  “Do you think we’ll have to fight?” Pan asked.

  “They’re your clan, no matter your differences. I don’t believe Raphael expects you to fight. I’m pretty sure that George set your Dogs to guard you, anyway.”

  “They’re not mine,” Pan protested. “I’m sure they would rather be in the battle than sidelined with me. Can’t you protect me?”

  “I’m not war trained, but of course, I’ll do my best. Think of the Dogs as backup.”

  “What if you talked to Prince George about it? You’re the strongest witch I’ve ever seen. You can keep us in a circle if anything goes wrong, right?”

  Pan had a case of hero worship. Elizabeth liked that she could provide a role model, but there was no comparing herself to the warriors who had trained their magic to fight all of their lives.

  Attacking wasn’t the same as defending or protecting.

  She shouldn’t worry about it, anyway, because George would definitely nip in the bud any idea of going without his selected protection.

  “I’ll ask him now,” Elizabeth said.

  "Pan doesn’t think we need the Dogs guarding us, George. She asked me to do it, instead."

  "Non-negotiable."

  "She is willing to stay in a circle with me shielding after our part is done, which isn’t that different from the original plan."

  "If Pan is so uncomfortable with the Dogs’ protection, why doesn’t she tell Cason herself?"

  "Fine, send Cason over here. If she tells him, then what? I’m not as confident as Pan in my ability to protect her by myself,” Elizabeth admitted.

  "Cason isn’t going to agree to leave her side. Don’t worry about it."

  "Well, then don’t embarrass her by sending him over."

  "It’s not about embarrassing her, kerashemeria. Pan has fears, something that is pushing her to make this request. Cason will have to figure it out. I’m sending them all over. She spent the last few days—every waking and even sleeping moment—by their sides, so why does she want free now?"

  George was right.

  Pan had every reason to be nervous about confronting her clan when she was responsible for bringing a siege to their walls.

  Throwing away good protection didn’t make sense.

  The young dragoness seemed to like the Dogs, perhaps because they were close to her in age.

  Reid had even gotten closer than the others with his kiss.

  The Dogs might better be able to get Pan to tell them what was wrong.

  “The Dogs are coming over to discuss it,” Elizabeth quickly warned Pan.

  “What? No!”

  It was too late, three minds approaching from behind them.

  “Hey, raindrop,” Cason said.

  “I told you that raindrop is a stupid nickname. I don’t even have water magic,” Pan grouched.

  It did seem kind of random.

  “So, what’s his nickname?” Elizabeth asked, giving Pan the ammunition to fight back.

  “Pebble,” Pan said.

  “Stone,” Cason corrected her. “I’m the stone hearted one. Reid is a rock, and Sam is the brick.”

  “It’s ‘pebble’ whenever one of you call me something little. As if any of you are that much older than me,” Pan pointed out.

  “At least she stuck to your element,” Elizabeth added. “Why raindrop?”

  “Have you seen her fly?”

  It was another Dog, one of the red headed twins. Shorter than Cason, greenest eyes that Elizabeth had ever seen in her life. Reid—she guessed.

  She hadn’t heard his voice for a few days, forgetting quickly the subtle differences between their voices.

  Reid had a smattering of freckles on his nose that she’d bet Pan had secretly counted while stealing glances at him.

  He was giving Pan a soulful look right now, talking about her flying form.

  No wonder Pan was smitten.

  “She’s reflects all the light and she’s small, like a sparkling drop of rain, falling from the sky, at the end of a sun-shower,” another voice explained.

  Sam had a poetic way with words as well. It must be a family thing.

  “I’m bigger than all of you when I transform,” Pan retorted.

  “I could pick you up with my pinkie right now, raindrop,” Cason said. He was an earth-vampire, so that wasn’t really an exaggeration.

  “Petite is not equal to powerless,” Elizabeth reminded the Dogs.

  Dragons were impossible for most vampires to defeat alone, even with earth to strengthen their resistance to fire, but these three were trained by George.

  Cason’s blues shot over to Elizabeth and lowered in deference.

  “Raindrop gets into plenty of trouble without more encouragement. A diminutive nickname isn’t going to be enough to keep her curiosity and impulsivity in check, but it might remind her that rain is stronger when it’s not alone.”

  Somebody had put thought into this.

  It was also obvious that the Dogs weren’t going to let Pan anywhere near the battlefield without them guarding her on all sides.

  May as well crush Pan’s hopes for freedom right now.

  “Hey, Pan, don’t you have something to tell Cason? About the battle?” Elizabeth prompted.

  “What? No!” Pan denied, giving her the best rendition of a mortified teenage girl.

  It was a good thing Elizabeth hadn’t revealed anything more personal or the dragoness might actually have transformed and flown away like Reid had predicted.

  Pan was wary, a little wild, and hesitant to get close.

  “Don’t make me tickle it out of you,” Sam threatened, his big strides eating up the distance between him and Pan as he swooped down and picked her up from behind, holding her under the arms. “Get her flanks!” he shouted to Reid.

  His twin applied himself vigorously, his fingers dancing all over Pan’s sides.

  “Stop,” Pan said, her giggles escaping. “Oh, Maeren!” she gasped and shrieked.

  It got the attention of Geer, hanging behind them to give the females privacy to talk earlier.

  He frowned, glancing at their surroundings.

  “Not fair!” Pan screamed, full out laughing, loud and merry.

  “Cason, quieter, or Geer’s going to come over,” Elizabeth advised.

  “Put raindrop down,” Cason ordered.

  Geer was speeding up, anyway. They were all in trouble.

  “Look, I’ll go tell Geer that we’re capable of discretion and be back in a few,” Elizabeth offered. “Just ask them, Pan. George said you had to ask if you wanted it.”

  “What are you hiding, raindrop?” Cason asked, tipping her chin up to face him as Elizabeth backtracked towards Geer.

  “Stay out of it,” Elizabeth advised Geer once she was out of earshot of the others.

  This got a twitch of a little muscle in Geer’s right temple. He might be grinding his teeth.

  “At least, she’s not glowing like a nightstick shielding lightning,” Elizabeth said self-decrepitly. “I told them to keep quieter for you.”

  “Young females should not be marching to battle,” Geer grouched.

  He was bitter that his babysitting duties would prevent him from enjoying the gritty, fun aspects of overthrowing the other dragon clan.

  Making sure none of the teenagers were maimed or killed was more work and less entertaining than exchanging fire and insults with other dragons.

  She doubted he got to fight often.

  He’d been held back at the banishment caves, and he’d even said himself the he wasn’t allowed to fight.

  It had to be tough to be so restrained.

  “Didn’t you have enough fun playing hero during negotiations all by yourself?” Elizabeth asked, reminding Geer that he had been given an important role.

  “It was a duty, not fun,” Geer grouched. “I would have rathe
r stayed home and played with you and your other mates.”

  “I was punished,” she said.

  They still hadn’t talked about it. Geer had been mostly avoiding her, even sleeping in a different room from the rest of them.

  He’d stolen his taste of blood from her mates and made himself scarce.

  “You’re still mad?” he asked.

  Ah, he had been avoiding her!

  “They put that circle in your room . . . and then left the door open!” Elizabeth said.

  She remembered the looks she’d gotten from the other dragons the next day after her punishment in the strapping circle.

  “Please, as if dragons can’t tell apart different screams. I’ve been told your pleasure rang the halls,” Geer said, reading her embarrassing memory.

  “So, George broke the rules. What are you going to do about it?” Elizabeth asked. “I don’t really think you get a say since you weren’t there.”

  “Once we leave Dragos, I won’t be holding myself back from joining your other mates in disciplining you with such unique methods.”

  “But it isn’t proper protocol,” Elizabeth teased.

  “You don’t give a fig for propriety or the rules,” Geer retorted. “Now, get out of my way, so I can see what Pan is up to with those boys.”

  Ugh, Geer hadn’t been distracted long enough.

  Pan was like going to need more time to convince the Dogs to give her freedom.

  Geer went to walk around her.

  Elizabeth suddenly pirouetted with a dramatic clap of her hands, like a Spanish dancer, and then fell into line beside Geer.

  He made some sort of choking, gasping sound of aggravation at her flashy display, which caught the eyes of the surrounding soldiers.

  "What are you doing, kerashemeria?" George asked, popping into her thoughts.

  "Distracting Geer from interrupting Pan and the Dogs. Do you think it’s working?"

  "You’re distracting half the squadron,” Daemon grouched.

  "Well, now you’re distracting me,” Elizabeth retorted.

  Geer was staring at the Dogs again, while she was telepathically talking to her other mates.

  This wasn’t working.

  She sighed defeatedly.

  “I really should tell Pan that the back of the march is the place for us. That’s where they traditionally put the camp followers, cooks, and whatever else they let the females do in a proper army.”

  “Feeders,” Geer added, not falling for her guilt trip. “Usually the dogs are kept at the back, too, until they’re needed.”

  He was good at this game.

  “The light clan won’t know what to think about two females being sent to negotiate first. Brilliant strategy,” she commented. “Imagine their surprise when Pan demands her uncle beg her forgiveness.”

  Geer had actually been the hardest one to convince of the plan—with it going against every protective, traditional male instinct that he possessed.

  Raphael had been slightly more lenient.

  Probably because he planned to be practically breathing down Pan’s neck the whole time.

  His torq was around Pan’s neck. A very unsubtle message in dragon terms.

  “I won’t need to use my imagination to picture Rael’s face since I’ll be there,” Geer said.

  “Don’t you like to fantasize about how things will go? To add some dramatic background music and play their ignominious defeat over and over on slow-mo?”

  “I’m more likely to celebrate our victory by planning for defeat,” Geer said in a particularly dour tone.

  “Seriously? You’re that kid that daydreams the bus is crashing and everybody dies?”

  Geer actually stumbled a step.

  “How is that helpful?” he asked with his own sigh.

  She was getting to him.

  “Exactly my point, although if those were prophetic dreams of a bus crash, then disaster could be averted with the appropriate fate alerting maneuvers—such as crazy gluing the doors shut, so nobody could get on the bus in order to go on a fatal ride.”

  "Where would you get that much glue?" Daemon asked, poking in on her conversation, again. "And wouldn’t it make a difference if it was a really cold or hot day?"

  "Do you think Geer is driving himself crazy with such inconsequential inquiries?" she responded. "Go talk to George if you’re bored."

  “Gluing bus doors shut? What are you talking about?” Geer finally asked, sounding even more aggrieved.

  He possibly was figuring out that she was leading him down a pointless path.

  She patted him on the back. He would barely have felt it through all of his plated leather armour, so she slung her arm around his waist and squeezed him closer.

  He tensed up.

  “Don’t worry, I get it. You suffer through all the ‘can’t win’ scenarios in your head, so the rest of us can focus on the win. It’s noble of you. Also, pushing a boulder up a hill, but you gotta spend all that dragon power on something. I hear things have been kind of boring around Dragos since the big sleep. It’s okay to shake your fist and cheer a little at your victory, though only once you cross the end zone.”

  “Are you . . . ? Is this a pep talk?” Geer asked. “About my . . . condition? Who talked?”

  "I figured it out for myself when we went to ‘warn’ Phillip. Your secrets are safe. I was just screwing with you! None of these hillbilly dragons will even know what a bus is, anyway,” Elizabeth said, switching to telepathy for a moment to reassure him.

  “Madness. This is Dragos!” she then shouted out loud as dramatically as possible, kicking a stone in the path with her air-magic to carry it far away to its death and hit Cason on the way.

  Time was up.

  Daemon fell over laughing.

  Unlike Pan, nobody tried to shush him.

  "You are a wicked witch. A really brilliant strategist,” Daemon praised her.

  "Oh, so you get the human reference if it’s an action movie. I’ll keep that in mind,” Elizabeth said.

  "I’ve spend the most time in the human realm out of all of my siblings, and much of that in your shadow,” Daemon said.

  “I’m going to see what the Dogs are talking about to Pan,” Geer said, shrugging off her arm. “Are you coming?”

  “We should really stop and take a break until Daemon picks himself up. He might have hurt himself laughing so hard,” she evasively answered.

  Geer pivoted in front of her and bent down, catching her by surprise as he came nose to nose with her.

  “Don’t you think you’ve distracted me long enough?” he asked.

  She blushed. “I-I how did you . . . Daemon or George?”

  "Not me,” rang in her head from both of them.

  Geer’s lips twitched at her dismay. He straightened up and gave her a very superior look, emphasized by his greater height.

  “I’ve been watching the little scrapper fly rings around those Dogs. I know when something is up.”

  “Fine, if you want to get in the middle of a teenage drama, be my guest. Just don’t ask me for help or complain about it later,” Elizabeth said, giving him a shove.

  “Keep it up and you will be wearing my torq,” Geer whispered into her mind.

  “Careful. Your friends might think you have a crush on me,” Elizabeth warned him.

  Geer was losing his cool head, getting the look of a possessive, newly bonded male.

  Pan wearing a dragon torq—while she and Elizabeth approached the light army first—had been a stipulation Geer had insisted upon when he reluctantly agreed to their plan to let Pan talk to her uncle.

  One last chance for the light clan king.

  At the time, it had felt like a small capitulation, but now, she wondered what Geer had tricked them into agreeing to without question.

  Her dragon mate was definitely a plotter.

  Dogs with a Bone

  The Dogs and Pan were marching together in a solemn type of silence as Elizabeth approached with Geer
.

  “I don’t think the sound of you breathing is outlawed,” she said, announcing her presence.

  “Do you know what Pan wanted?” Cason asked, his tone accusatory and hurt.

  Pan, not ‘Raindrop.’ The honeymoon was over.

  "Of course,” she answered in Cason’s mind, purposely reminding him of her power.

  If Cason thought she was an omnipotent mind reader, all the better for cutting this drama short.

  “A dragon with a powerful witch at her side and an army at her back tells you that she wants some privacy to talk to her estranged family . . . and your feelings were hurt?” Elizabeth reframed.

  It purposefully placed emotion into a decision, when otherwise, paternalistic Maerneian protocol would favour that the Dogs were in the right.

  Sam’s fair skin was either burning in the Maerenian sun when he slept outside with Pan or he was demonstrably upset.

  His voice was as smooth as honey when he spoke, not betraying any of the agitation that reddened his face.

  “She’s protecting whoever made her afraid to return home. We swore to bury the past and move on.”

  “I didn’t think you meant that literally,” Pan protested.

  “Your right wing is still tender when you fly. If you don’t tell us which one injured you, then we’re going to ask each male of your clan,” Reid threatened, sounding a lot more worked up than his brother had let on.

  Markus only thought that he had gotten away from George.

  The Dogs that George had trained were going to make Markus wish he never laid a claw on Pan.

  Had they found out about the engagement?

  “Too bad vampires can’t provide protection like a dragon’s torq,” Geer said, deviously adding in his two cents.

  Then, he tripped purposefully and grabbed onto Elizabeth’s cloak, pulling it off of her marked shoulders.

  Tricksy, son of a bitch!

  “Why do you have two claims?” Pan asked, not knowing that she was damning herself with the innocent query.

  Geer did know better.

  Elizabeth kicked back at him and righted her cloak.

  Geer’s air sent it flapping off of her shoulders again.

  “Two Maerenian princes equals two claims,” Elizabeth simply explained.

  The why was nobody else’s business, at least not when so many ears were listening.