19
The Witch Who Will Never Bow
Blair
“You came?”
“I’d say you called, but that would be so fucking cliché,” I drawl as Melody jumps forward and wraps her arms so tight around me that, for a moment, all I can do is wait until she lets go. But that damn guardian bond in me is jubilant at the contact.
Riven is staring daggers at me, and I shoot back a grin as fake as a fucking Santa Claus at a Walmart on Christmas Day—one that shows off my long, silver fangs for all the gawking students to see.
Yeah, let them ogle and talk about that bitch-faced, scary, big witch on their campus. I hope I give them nightmares.
“I see you changed your mind,” Riven says, unmistakable disdain in his voice.
“And I see you did your hair and makeup before you stepped through the vortex. Big beauty-queen style.” I wink at him, and he wrinkles his fucking aristocratic nose. Arrogant prick.
Melody says nothing, just keeps looking at Beeatrisa, who, in all honesty, looks like a pitbull ready for war.
Also, in all honesty, my impulse is to turn and walk away, because why give a shit.
But then I hear Melody’s heartbeat pick up, and I fully look at her, only to find the long-limbed, too-thin half-elf digging her nails into the flesh of her arms so deep she’s drawing blood.
Damn, the half-human is afraid of Pitbull Beeatrisa, and that’s just not going to do it for me.
No way in hells is she going to cower in front of someone like Beeatrisa.
So I stay, although it irks me—all that staring. I really want to flip them the finger, or run straight at them with my claws out until they scamper inside screaming.
But I can do this, right? For Melody. I can be the grownup for once. Be there for her.
It gets even better when the crowd starts whispering and nudging each other and the names Caryan and Gatilla catch my ear. Oh stars, just fuck me hard with a cactus.
Something moves in my periphery, and I swing my head around.
My stupid heart stops for a second as a third figure steps out of the temple on that hill.
Hells, I recognize the beautiful healer immediately, even from the distance.
Unusual, with her long, pearly hair, in hues I’ve never seen on any elf, the delicate features of her face, and the slightly down-turned, sharp ears, much longer than my own.
The healer I warned once on a fatal night years ago.
The healer I found sitting alone on the temple steps in the dark, singing—hauntingly beautiful.
Okay, now I really want to bolt, because seeing the healer sends the past rushing back like an avalanche. The night I came here—shortly after my aunt, the Witch Queen Gatilla, was killed. After Caryan murdered her.
I fucking ran like a coward and lost him forever.
The witches planned to attack Avandal. I came here to warn someone—and instead, fate led me straight to Meanara.
Seeing Meanara drags all the ugly things I’ve done back to the surface—the night I betrayed my own kind, the witches.
Not the innocent ones, not the harmless.
My aunt’s followers. The devoted, the cruel, the ones who reveled in her punishments and competed in atrocities as though they were sport.
Many of them fell that night. The world might be better for it.
Or maybe that’s just the lie I tell myself to sleep.
Either way, their blood is still on my hands.
As if to make sure I don’t forget, whispers hiss through the crowd, Caryan’s name surfacing again and again, tangled with my aunt’s—and with mine.
What the hells was I thinking when I followed Riven through that portal? I should have gotten in my car and driven off. I could be in a club right now or fucking a cute human. Have him make me breakfast and fuck him again. What in the Abyss made me follow them before that portal closed?
I freeze when Melody gently takes my hand, clearly feeling my discomfort through the twisted bond I forced on us both. As if this world or the other—or every other, for that matter—wasn’t fucked up enough already.
No, the bond is just the big, fat, glistening cherry on top. Fat enough to choke on.
But I let her intertwine her fingers with mine, the bonded part of me oddly comforted by the touch of her skin, which goes against every witch instinct I have.
We are ruthless creatures. Rude. Merciless. Brutal. I was raised on those beliefs—that witches cannot love—and yet, since my mothers found us on that mountaintop and told me how they really felt about me….
Dead. They are likely dead right now, and I keep drinking myself into oblivion every night so as not to think about the gaping hole where my heart had been.
“I think the only one who gets a cuteness bonus is that treacherous little demon,” I snarl, to force my thoughts away from them. Aris snarls back but still looks adorable in his baby form. Cute fucker.
Hells, why did I come here? In the human world, I could pretend I didn’t remember any of my old life. That I had none. That I was no one and nothing, without a past and attachments.
And it would have worked were it not for that stupid bond I swore, the one that keeps me tethered to Melody. Kept me from drowning altogether and dragged me home to them every single night, no matter how wasted I was.
And when I finally had a chance to make good on my promise to my mothers—when I was sure Melody was safe here in Avandal and I could finally let her go to drown in my own misery forever alone—it was that cruel bond that made me step through that portal.
Because, even now, I’m too weak to abandon her, and everyone knows she’s better off without me. The reason Riven hates me so much is because he knows this. I’ve never been good for her and only drag her down.
But the truth is there. I am too selfish, too broken, too weak to let her go. To resist that bond.
“It’s not hard when you’re putting all the effort into looking threatening, Blair,” Riven drawls without losing his smart-as-fuck bitch face.
“Threatening? Oh, that’s my cute smile,” I bite back, batting my lashes innocently while I smile widely, peeling back my upper lip even further to expose as much of my deadly long witch fangs as possible to keep from falling apart entirely.
I need a drink, or two, or ten. I need to dampen all those shadows under my flesh and the pain they feed on.
I let my eyes wander over the students around me. I’d bet my peachy ass none of them has ever seen a witch up close, and they’re staring as if I were a lilac Pegasus shitting glitter and a rainbow. We’re the attraction of the century.
“Really? It looks like someone stuck something particularly large up the darkest part of your body,” he retorts quietly, those glittering eyes still fixed on the pitbull priestess.
Asshole. Maybe I should give them a real show and tackle him to the ground before I wipe the floor with his styled-to- perfection hair. Although, the mess I’ve become—and with my magic gone—there isn’t much I could do to him.
“Stop being a fucking prick,” Melody hisses before I can bite back something that includes “his dick” and “tiny” in one sentence. Not easy, since we fae can’t lie.
Riven turns to her and, for a second, he looks as if he’s never seen her before. I assume she’s never spoken to him that way. As a matter of fact, I stare at her too, a little surprised.
She’s put her shoulders back and, despite losing so much weight when she’d already been thin, she somehow manages to look fierce—like a warrior.
She looks strange to fae eyes, though. She lacks the lush fae beauty, the colorful eyes and hair.
Her ears are the perfect mix of fae and human, still round, betraying her.
The hair she once cut to her shoulders with a sword to escape Renfris has grown back, now falling to the middle of her back.
She is beautiful in an intriguing, unusual way.
It makes everyone stop to look at her, and she becomes more beautiful the longer you do.
I’ve realized that too, with a not-so-small tinge of jealousy that not even the bond can wash out. I’ll get over it one day….
Or probably not. I’ve been pining for Caryan— am pining for him even now—even though I know he wants me dead and buried.
Melody brushes hair out of her face as a breeze blows it into her eyes, still bristling up at Riven with those unusual walnut-brown eyes.
“Oh, we’re just having fun,” Riven drawls lazily, but his eyes shine dangerously.
He’s still a high lord and no one speaks to a high lord like that.
Not unpunished, that is. I prepare to launch myself at him should he try to discipline her for her words or tone.
But whatever is—or was —between them, Riven lets it slide.
Excuse me? Riven Caedmon, Caryan’s merciless right hand?
Hells, I’ve seen him punish people for smaller misdeeds.
“Greetings again, Lord Riven. And Blair Alaric, the former Crimson Death. I must say, I don’t see a spot of crimson here anymore,” the priestess drawls, as if that’s a greeting.
My head whips toward her. “Yeah, Priestess? Keep talking like that, and there will be crimson in abundance.”
“Not a second on my ground and you dare threaten me, witch?” Beeatrisa hisses, cold fire in her eyes, and the guards bring hands to their swords.
“No, no threats, Your Highness. I merely wanted to point out that I gutted a boar in under two seconds. And a boar is quite huge compared to…other things or creatures, for that matter,” I add, flicking my nails, enjoying how the priestess’s round cheeks gather a shade of red. Gods, no one can possibly be so tiny.
“Maybe we should let your kin know you’re here, Blair Alaric,” she muses with a cruel pout. “I’m sure the witches would pay a lot for a witch who betrayed her own coven to sleep with an angel.”
“I was under the impression that we’re welcome here,” Melody cuts in before I can go straight for Beeatrisa’s throat, her words sharp like I’ve never heard before.
The priestess’s snake-like eyes slide to her. Gods, I half expect her to sprout a head full of snakes and Melody to turn to stone—her gaze is that hateful.
Melody’s fingers give my hand a reassuring squeeze and, pathetic as I am, I cling to it.
“And that precious girl from the prophecy again,” Beeatrisa spits, finally acknowledging her.
“Your treacherous witch and that dragon will conduct themselves with the most impeccable behavior or we’re going to have a problem.
Whatever my queen says, I’m still the head of this temple and this university, and any breaking of the rules will result in all of you being expelled. ”
Out of the corner of my eye I see Aris’s fluffy baby-dragon ears twitch back in warning. He wants to shift but doesn’t— knowing if he did, they’d kick us out for good. I can’t shake the feeling that’s exactly what Beeatrisa wants.
“First, Blair Alaric is not my witch but a person of her own,” Melody retorts, “so you might want to address her directly and with proper respect. Second, as I already explained, said dragon is a demon—a Trochetian horse, to be precise—and he’s also not mine, High Priestess, but bonded with me of his free will. ”
Beeatrisa opens her mouth.
“And third ,” Melody cuts her off, “we are under Caryan’s protection. I doubt your word goes over his.”
Beeatrisa’s head looks ready to burst like a ripe tomato. “ You are protected by the Dark Lord’s word, as I understand it. That doesn’t include that demon, or that witch. She’s a monster, and no one will ever truly accept her here.”
“It’s such a pleasure to welcome you all,” a light voice suddenly chimes in.
My head whips toward Meanara. I’d been so focused on Beeatrisa I hadn’t noticed her join us.
“I’m Meanara, one of the healers. I’m overjoyed to meet you, Melody,” Meanara says gently, her voice like a warm breeze on a fall day.
“And Blair Alaric. I’m very happy to have you here too,” she adds, as if she didn’t hear Beeatrisa’s hateful words—though, with her fae hearing, she must have, even from afar.
“And finally, Lord Caedmon,” she says kindly to Riven.
“Are you? Happy to see us? That makes you the first,” I snap before I can help it.
Meanara’s unusual pink eyes slide to me. “I am, Blair—although I wish we had met first under different circumstances. Still, nothing bad happens that isn’t followed by something good. I believe in that,” Meanara says after a moment.
Why is she so fucking kind? She smiles at me as if she truly isn’t afraid or disgusted. A real smile—the soft smile of a person who tries to be kind to everyone. Which makes me lash out again before I can help it.
“Yeah? Maybe save that gratitude bullshit? You know what I believe? That karma is a bitch. And what I wish for? To finally find someone who fucks me better than her.” My eyes rest on the healer’s, waiting, challenging.
But to my surprise, Meanara doesn’t blush.
She doesn’t even flinch. She just looks at me as if she can see right into my ruined, scarred, broken soul with those stunning eyes of hers.
“You’re hurting so much,” she says after a heartbeat. “I’m sorry, Blair, for everything you had to go through.” And it’s the compassion in her tone that undoes me completely.
The well in me opens up—that bottomless pit—and suddenly I’m falling again.
I rip my hands from Melody’s grip before I bolt.
The crowd of students disperses to let me pass, drawing back with shrieks.
I don’t turn around; I just run. Run as fast as I’ve ever run, up toward the rolling hills of hip-high grass and the steep mountains that shield the temple and the town below.
My heart is beating so violently I fear it might break free of my chest.
“Blair!” I hear Melody shouting after me—until I no longer can.
I just run, wishing for nothing more than to summon my wyvern to carry me up, up, up and away. But my wyvern was ripped from me like everything else. And everyone else.
A single tear runs down my cheek before I cut it all off and let my instincts take over—become that wild beast that rages under my skin and thirsts for blood.
Because everyone knows witches are monsters. And, oh hells, will I show them just how evil they can be.