Stella blinked. “Wow, I’m glad that I didn’t destroy my nails because that was staggeringly disappointing.”
Okay, not the reaction that I’d been hoping for.
I swiped my tongue anxiously over my lips. “How disappointing is the arsenal of Wolf Tamer that they’re stockpiling?”
Yep, I was pulling out my own big guns now.
Stella tugged on the leash, and the Ambassador whimpered, although he shot me a sharp glance first, which reminded me of Amadeus’ quick changes between submissive and steely. I guessed that news of the Wolf Tamer as a war weapon would be terrifying to any shifter.
“Don’t tell me that you’ve been getting your knickers in a twist over that…?” Stella laughed; it chilled me like I was trapped in a sinister fairy tale. “Do you think that the Bloods make a single move I don’t know about, despite their vulgar ambitions?”
My aunt knew…?
My fingers curled around the map. I stared down at the metal pillars that created the wall behind Oxford, whilst precious gems and riveted metal recreated Wolf Kingdom. At the furthest edge were the bronze trees of the Wilds. Light reflected onto the entire kingdom from the glass towers of the Alphas. I traced my finger down the sparkling sapphires of the River Thames, which wound through the middle of the Gods.
The covens looked down on the wolves as nothing but glittering toys, just as they could look down through the clockface at the humans as nobodies whose fates could — literally with Stella’s visions and powers — be woven.
Not now that this Witch Charmer was in town. Hey, I could pull off the cowboy look.
I swung to Stella. “Honestly, I’m over being jerked around. Just tell me where my Charms are, then you and I can have a conversation.”
“Have you gone all mafia on me? How thrilling.” Stella grinned, but her eyes sparked. “Your beasts are back in the House of Silver. Do you wish me to summon them here, so that you can have some sexy play first, since you’re so worked up? I bet that incubus can do such wicked things with his mouth—”
“Don’t finish that sentence.”
Stella lifted her foot, examining the toe of her pointed boot like it held the answers to the best cocktail, how to paint like Michelangelo, and that guy skill of taking off your t-shirt one-handed. “You’re always telling me not to speak or what’s acceptable for witches nowadays.” Her voice was dangerously soft. “Did you miss the speech where I explained that I’m in charge? Your boss, if we’re going to be stuffy about this. The other covens fear me. Do we need to take this to the Justice Chamber?”
I stiffened, whilst my pulse pounded. Stella said Justice Chamber like Head Teacher’s Office. Except, that was where the trials were held for rogue witches, and last time that I was judged, I’d been found wanting, before Lux had almost executed me.
I hurriedly shook my head. “Oh, I’m aware that I’ve broken some…okay, a lot…of archaic rules…”
Stella arched her brow. “You think?”
“But it’s not like you gave me a crash course in how to be your Wolf Charmer.” I faltered closer, whilst my vision cleared, and my crimson shadows held me up on their waves. “You threw me into this and just expected me to adapt. Well, this is who I am. I’m not changing for you or your weird ideas of worthiness. Maybe it’s time somebody had big enough cojones to tell you that the treaties with the wolves are wrong. And they’re not the only thing.”
I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. Boy, I’d just grown myself a pair of witchy cojones, although they shriveled in fear at the way that Stella leapt up and her eyes flashed.
“Who are you to come back from America and judge us?” She thundered.
I grinned because that was an easy one. “I’m your Wolf Charmer. You may be the boss, but I’m the most powerful witch, or did I miss that speech too? I know that my legacy counts for…everything, right? You’ve used all these scare tactics and threats, but I don’t think that you were ever going to kill me. Perhaps you’d have murdered my Charms, but I’m untouchable.”
Stella sighed, suddenly looking exhausted. I forgot that she was close to the same age as mom would’ve been if she’d lived. When Stella shuffled closer, I noticed the lines at her eyes and the pinched thinness of her lips beneath her makeup.
Stella reached to tuck a curl behind my ear, and I flinched. “Not because you’re the Wolf Charmer, pretty peach, because you’re my sister’s child. I sent you away to keep you safe until your powers were strong enough. I called you back to have you by my side. How’s it working out?”
“Messed-up with a side of screwed.” I dodged back from her fingers that’d looked dangerously like they’d been about to stroke my cheek.
The attempt would’ve been as painful for Stella as it would’ve been for me.
“Why can’t you see past the werewolves’ cuddliness to their fangs?” Her gaze hardened. “When you should be playing with them, they’ve been playing with you.” I startled, and her look became sly. “Do you think that the Charms belong to you? The princes have been working on you together to make you their witch. These beasts are centuries-old: don’t you think that they’ve had time to plan how to use you?”
My eyes smarted, and I turned away my head.
Come on Crimson, hold it together…
It wasn’t true, mage’s balls on a stick, it couldn’t be true.
But what if it was…?
Stella pressed closer. I struggled to wrench air in and out of my burning lungs, as she clutched my head between her hands and whispered hot and heavy as a painful secret, “Your mum died because I was jealous.”
I tried to pull back, but she held on tightly. My red swirled around me in distressed eddies. “Wolves massacred my parents at a party. I remember…”
“I should’ve been there that night,” Stella’s voice was tear-tinged and confessional. Had she ever shared this with anyone else? Holy hell, why did she have to tell me? I didn’t want to think about mom’s death, not when I hadn’t saved her. “But it was the ball held by my more beautiful, powerful, and successful sister — who’d even inherited the Wolf Charmer legacy, of course. Why not? She had everything else: idolized by the other covens, adored by our mother, and loved by Daniel.” I jolted. Stella had loved my dad, but he’d been chosen by my mom…? After how things had gone down in my marriage contract to Aquilo, I was certain that it’d been mom doing the choosing. I knew what it was like to not meet mom’s high expectations. Was that what it’d been like for Stella with both her own mom and sister? “The wards were down to allow in guests, and the werewolves attacked. I still don’t know how they evaded our tracking, only that we were distracted that night. But it was an assassination. Funny how I can weave Fate but I can’t predict its ironies: your mum only held the ball to show off her new Charm. Maybe if I’d been there, then I’d be dead too…or maybe I could’ve…”
She twirled away from me, leaving me desperately sucking in breaths against the memories of that night. I dragged mom’s cape around me. With surprising tenderness, Stella carded her fingers through the Ambassador’s hair.
“It’s not my Charms’ fault.” I battled the shadows, as they burst through the Clocktower in a tidal wave of rage. “They didn’t murder anyone.”
“Didn’t they?” Stella’s hand tightened in the Ambassador’s hair, and he whined. “You were meant to control them, not be tricked by them. Do you know why I didn’t trust the Wilds to choose their own Tribute?”
My heart thudded against my ribs, as my throat was too tight for me to do more than shake my head.
“I interrogated every Omega who was gloriously unlucky enough to be in need of re-education for years.” Stella prowled to the bronze skin of the wall, which peeled back to reveal a cage. She dragged it through with a yank. “I never found out the identity of the true killers but I did reveal that they were from the Kingdom of the Wilds. You going amongst them as Wolf Charmer was a test for both sides.”
I’d dreamed for the last decade of
discovering my parents’ murderers. I’d painted pictures of my bloody revenge.
How much better would it be for real?
I trembled with both excitement and fear, whilst I wiped my sweating palms down my jeans.
Stella spun the cage through the air towards me, and I yelped. Then I stared down in shock at Moon’s wide amber gaze.
“He’s their prince.” Stella slunk closer. “Take your vengeance on the wicked wolf. Control the crimson tide: kill.”
My shadows whipped like a thousand tentacles around the cage with a clang — again, and again, and again — in fury at the shifters who’d stolen my childhood, forced me to be sent away amongst the non-magical, and even now could be conning me. Yet Moon didn’t recoil or flinch from my red. Instead, he pushed closer like it was a caress. Despite the danger, his gaze was trusting.
The dumb…adorable…rebel who was too brave for his own asshole good.
“Go to hell,” I hissed at Stella, clenching my fists.
I forced my red to stroke Moon’s curls, sliding beneath his leather shirt.
Moon sighed and arched, shooting me a mischievous grin, as my shadows tweaked his nipples into peaks. He raised his eyebrow, before slamming his hands against the sides of the cage.
If he wanted to make a point about love not war, then my shadows were down with that.
At least, they were, until footsteps clattered on the staircase. I twisted around, winding my shadows out of the cage. I kind of wished that I could go back to the comforting craziness of just my aunt, when I was faced with the two witches of the House of Blood: Ivy and her daughter, Lux.
With their floor-length black dresses and midnight hair, as well as snobby expressions like Goth dolls, the Bloods had always freaked me out, especially as Lux had bullied me when I was a kid. Yet at least Ivy looked human now, even if the glare that she was sending me would’ve made Medusa proud because the last time that I’d seen her, she’d been transformed into the Blood Witch.
Or as I now called her: Blood Bitch.
She’d been bleeding from her eyeballs, all down her face, and… It’d been this whole thing. That was when she’d been furious that I’d failed her tests to become worthy as a Wolf Charmer and had thrown me to the wolves.
This wouldn’t be tense at all then.
I couldn’t help the flutter of hope, however, as I glanced over her shoulder. I hoped that she’d brought her son and Lux’s twin, Aquilo, with her because I’d asked him to marry me in order to save him from his family. He was a mage and in a Traditional family like this that meant he should be grateful they hadn’t killed him, merely arranged his marriage.
Had I made it clear how much I hated these archaic rules?
“I’m over your whole jerk move of throwing me to the wolves. There were harsh words said on both sides, so why don’t you just hand over my fiancé, and I’ll go chill out with some wedding planning in the House of Silver. You know, just me, my Charms, and your son…?” I bounced on my toes hopefully.
To my surprise, Lux glanced at her mom with almost the same hope as me. Maybe the risk of her brother dying had hit her harder than I could’ve guessed.
Ivy’s eyes narrowed. “My goodness, why should you have anything to do with my wretched brat of a son?”
Moon growled. “Mind how you talk about the Charmer’s intended. You know that the blood bracelet will kill him, if you don’t let them marry. I thought that my ma was a cold-hearted—”
“An animal that believes it can mimic speech,” Lux’s arrogant gaze assessed Moon, “can’t expect to be heard.”
So, all the bully stuffing hadn’t been knocked out of the Lux teddy bear.
“Then hear this, dickhead,” I snarled, “I’m engaged to Aquilo, and you’re bringing him out now, so I know that you haven’t flayed him, or this is going to be another smackdown situation.”
How in the witching heavens had I gone from hanging paintings in my gallery in East Hampton, to issuing gang style threats? Ones that apparently weren’t that threatening because Lux merely continued to study me unblinkingly.
It was Stella who smiled with a spiteful gleam in her eye. “It looks like my niece is actually keen to see your son in panties. Perhaps, we don’t need all these…” She waved her hand dismissively, “…wretched tests and trials. A husband’s cock warming her bed is all it needs to remind her that she can’t love beasts, just as they’ll never love her.”
I bit my tongue to stop myself telling her how much I loved my wolf princes because call me a romantic, but Moon deserved not to be caged when he heard me say it for the first time.
Ivy looked like she was biting her tongue as well, whilst she reddened. Aquilo was nothing but a powerplay between the two covens. The House of Blood had attempted to dethrone the House of Seasons by marrying me to him secretly and using my power, so my aunt was putting them in their place now.
“Chop, chop; go fetch your naughty boy.” Stella clapped her hands. “My niece is in need of some sweet loving.”
Lux grimaced but ducked down the stairs again, whilst Ivy swept towards me, bringing with her the stench of blood.
“How bold you are!” Was her lip trembling? I missed the way that she’d hugged me, the first time that we’d met, as if the warmth had been drained out of her. “I hope you remember that Aquilo isn’t like you; he’s an innocent.”
Aquilo was a pretty, snooty, surprisingly brave dick, but he wasn’t an innocent. He’d helped his sister bully me as a kid, and I knew that even though he’d tried to help the wolves, he still had a cruel streak.
Stella danced around Moon’s cage, humming Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” with inappropriate glee. When Moon rattled the cage, she only burst into song with a wriggle of her hips.
“Don’t get me wrong, he’s been trained ready for his wife,” Lux bit out, ignoring Stella. “He’ll make you a superb husband. But he shan’t live with you until the marriage day.”
Stella broke off her song. “How quaintly old-fashioned of you. Do you think his honor needs protecting?”
When I heard footsteps on the stairs again, my heart beat painfully fast, as I became suddenly breathless.
Huh, I’d never expected that I’d have missed Aquilo…needed him…this much.
Lux led Aquilo into the chamber by his arm, and our gazes caught; his pale blue eyes burned with such cold intensity that I couldn’t look away. Then Lux yanked him harder, and he stumbled. At last, I scanned him for injuries but it was impossible to tell through the black jeans and velvet shirt, which hung open to reveal the same blood moon pendant that bound his magic, hiding it.
His face was a cool mask. His mop of almost white hair hung into his eyes, as he ducked his head. He didn’t even move towards me.
What had Ivy done to him?
I stroked my arms, desperate to touch Aquilo, even though I knew that he’d wriggle away from me like a skittish kitten. This close, I could sense the magical engagement thudding through my blood, and by the way that he rubbed at his wrist, I knew that he sensed it too.
When he peeked at his mom through his hair, she ordered, “Greet your fiancée, Aquilo. After all, you’re to be married next week.”
I grinned so widely that my mouth ached. Aquilo’s eyebrow merely raised, which was his first expression, so I’d take it. Then he stiffly crossed the room, before leaning to press his lips to my cheek. His scent of crisp fresh linen made me shudder. Yet his hand that rested on my arm, whose wrist was banded by the scarlet blood bracelet, shook.
“Thank you for not dying,” Aquilo whispered.
“It’s what I’m here for.”
When his twin hauled him back like the piece of property that males were treated as within witch families, I bristled. “Dude, we’re all friends now. Ease up on the Gestapo impression.”
“I’d forgotten,” Stella’s smile was predatory, “how much of a mage lover you were. After all, Aquilo will already have to share you with the one you have stashed as your sex slave at the Ho
use of Silver. Do you plan on opening up your kinky parties because I’d love a taste of that glittery god.”
I gaped at her, at the same time as Ivy gasped. I thought that Zetta had liked Mischief, but she must’ve told Stella about him anyway…
The essence of the House of Silver was nothing but a spy.
What on earth could I do to protect Mischief, whilst he was too weak to protect himself?
Stella pulled a pouty face. “Oh no, is this another: stop it, aunt Stella, you’re embarrassing me, moments? And Ivy, did you truly think that you could’ve hidden your son’s magic from me?”
Then her eyes gleamed silver, and she levitated off the floor.
Aquilo dived across the chamber, ignoring his mom’s furious yelling, and clutched me in his arms to protect me from Stella’s fury.
“Do you think that you can keep secrets from one who creates the very fabric of secrets?” Stella boomed.
The room quaked and groaned like the metal was being murdered. Aquilo dragged me down by the hand to the Ambassador who was still leashed to a metal ring in the floor and threw his arms around him as well.
I caught Moon’s eye across the room, as his cage rattled.
The map of Wolf Kingdom shrieked, as it disappeared down into the floor in fear.
Stella was serious about showing me who was in charge and why it was that the other covens feared.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In a witches’ house that shook like it was made of no more than cards and any moment could fall, I was held firm in the cool arms of a mage, whilst a wolf nuzzled at my shoulder. The Ambassador and Aquilo might not be mine in the way that my Charms were, but I could feel my connection to them through my shadows.
How could I keep either safe from my aunt whose rage was tearing apart the House of Seasons? The ceiling warped, caving in, and I shrieked.
“When you were born, I made a promise to your mum because she’d already lost a child.” Stella levitated towards me.
My mom had lost a child?
I’d never known that but then, I guessed that I’d been too young to tell, before my parents had been killed.
Only Pretty Betas: A Shifter Paranormal Romance Series (Rebel Werewolves Book 2) Page 7