Witches Gone Wicked Page 37

  I let out a breathy sigh. Cool blue energy pulsed up my wrist, over my bicep and radiated past my shoulder. The calm sank down into my heart and still lower into my core. The energy shifted, becoming red and hot. The muscles in my pelvis clenched. At first the sensation was a pleasant throb.

  I stared up at the maroon canopy, trying to breathe through the pleasure. It felt like fingers stroking me between my legs, caressing places inside me no one had ever touched before.

  Thatch’s voice was stern. “Look at me.”

  I did. His hands remained on my hand. He only rubbed my fingers and palm. Like before at the tattoo parlor, his face was flushed with color. His eyes were dark, haunted. He glanced away, impatience twitching his lips into a frown. No, not impatience, embarrassment. I could see he didn’t like this.

  But he didn’t stop.

  After another moment, the pleasure intensified to the point of being overwhelming. Crests of ecstasy rose in me, rising like waves about to spill over a dam. The pressure between my legs became more insistent, faster. Tears filled my eyes at the undiluted exquisiteness of it. I felt full inside, too full. I wasn’t healed enough for this. I didn’t want to be touched like this. I wanted my will to be my own.

  I yanked my hand away, gasping for breath. The heat inside me cooled.

  Thatch hugged his arms around himself, shivering. His breath was labored, and he shifted in his chair, turning his body slightly away. I didn’t know who was more uncomfortable with what had just happened.

  “That was magic?” I asked. I stared down at my hand. It was greasy from ointment, but the scabs were gone. Pink patches remained where the blisters had been, but the skin wasn’t even puckered. I flexed my hand, marveling over the lack of pain. “Your magic healed me?”

  “Your magic. Your affinity,” he corrected. “This is why you need your fairy godmother.”

  I laughed and shook my head. What he was suggesting sounded ridiculous. “So you’re saying I need my mom for a magical orgasm? That’s gross—it would be like incest.”

  “Once again you twist my meaning into something illicit.” He tsked at me. “You need your mum because she will do the exact opposite. She will feed your affinity without drawing out sexual energies and overwhelming you. She will hug you and stroke your hair and coddle you in a way I cannot. Her touch will heal you far better than I can.” He crossed his arms and stared across the room.

  “Oh.” That made sense. “Does my mom know what I am?” She had always been a huggy person and knew how to comfort me when I wasn’t feeling well.

  “It’s unlikely. And you should see it stays that way. If she asks about your affinity, tell her you don’t know.”

  “But why? She wouldn’t use my affinity against me. I trust her. My fairy godmother has been my mom for my entire life. She is my mother, more than Loraline is—was.” And I was certain she wouldn’t judge me or think I was evil because I had a supposed “bad” affinity.

  She had always tried to protect me from the Unseen Realm and those within it. She must have suspected what I was. I didn’t believe it was a coincidence she’d kept me so sheltered, objected to me taking sex-ed classes, and tried to restrict my dating in high school. Unless she thought I was a fertility nymph or something akin to it.

  “You’re probably right. She won’t use you. But it puts her in danger if you confide in her. That secret will be in her every gesture. It will be in her hesitancy to touch you. Imagine if the Raven Queen suspects she knows. Or others witness your interactions and the sudden change in how she treats you. The Raven Court will snatch her up to torture her. Is that what you want?”

  I shook my head. “And me being this touch affinity, it’s forbidden even if I don’t hurt people with it? You said I don’t like pain, so I should only use electrical impulses for pleasure, right?” Using it for pain had disastrous effects on my own body.

  “It isn’t called a touch affinity, even if that’s what fuels the magic. We call it the Red affinity. It derives from older terminology of ‘blood mages,’ though I think the term is limiting in its inclusiveness. In some, this manifests as a necromancer or a succubus or Venus powers. Various ethnicities and mythology have other names for what the Red affinity does to you. A rusalka, leannán sídhe, siren, or Linin-demon or Lilith.”

  “That’s your affinity as well?”

  “Yes and no. My affinity works differently than yours.”

  “I never thought you were anything other than Celestor.”

  He inclined his head. “I work very hard to appear that way.”

  How horribly sad for him to hide who he was. And sadder still for him to go without touch for so long when he needed it. Knowing this about him made so much more sense.

  “That’s why you’re so mean to Josie?” I asked. “You didn’t want her to get close to you and find out what you are.”

  “That is none of your business.” He bristled. “Many Witchkin have more than one affinity. One simply is the strongest, and that is the one we feed and harvest. For the few of us who are Reds, we disguise ourselves as Amni Plandai fertility nymphs, fuel the storm of our electricity as Elementia, or use the affinities of sky, moon or stars as Celestor. I use my powers as the head of the Celestor department to help Red students into other teams where they will be less noticed.”

  “Except for Imani.”

  He nodded. “I couldn’t hide her affinity. She’s going to need a mentor … a fairy godmother. You’re going to have to master your powers so you can help her as she grows into hers. A female teacher would be more appropriate. Having a teacher of the opposite gender might cause … unhealthy attachments.” The pain was raw in his voice. He swallowed and looked away.

  “Was my mother your mentor?” I scooted closer and reached for his hand. My fingertips brushed against his.

  He jerked back. “Don’t pity me.”

  “I don’t. I just… .” I didn’t know what to say. “I care. I don’t want you to hurt.”

  I placed my hand on his again. His spine went rigid. It must have been a long time since he’d allowed anyone to touch him.

  He leaned forward and placed my hand on my lap. I didn’t have to stretch to reach him now. He covered both of my hands with his own, dwarfing my fingers with the length of his. After a moment, he slid his hands back to his own lap.

  “Mr. Thatch—Felix—would you please tell me the truth about something?” I tried to swallow the tight lump in my throat. “Are you my … father?”

  A smile touched his perfectly shaped lips. “No. Thank Nimue, no.”

  That was a relief.

  He wasn’t touching me any longer, but he remained so close he could have kissed me. His eyes were intense, staring into mine. His breath brushed against my face. My heart skipped a beat. He was going to kiss me. Did I want him to kiss me? I felt connected to him, more drawn to him than any man I’d dated in years.

  For the first time, I knew this desire came from me because he wasn’t touching me, and I still wanted him. His lips parted. He leaned closer.

  I lifted my chin.

  His voice was so quiet I almost couldn’t hear it. “My duty is to mentor you and be your teacher. It wouldn’t be professional to cross that line. I am not going to touch you. I am not going to finish healing you. Do you understand?” He wet his lips. His gaze flickered to my mouth.

  I nodded. There was yearning in his eyes. I wondered if he could see the longing in my own eyes, feel it tingling under my skin.

  “It wouldn’t be fair to you,” he said. “And it certainly wouldn’t be fair to me. I don’t want to be in a relationship with anyone, most of all, not Alouette Loraline’s daughter.” The storm clouds in his eyes spoke of an eternity of past sorrows. “Do you understand me?”

  The truth became as clear as water. “It was you. That time, in the wardrobe.” That was why Julian hadn’t been able to embrace me the same way. It had never been him. The way Felix Thatch had closed his arms arou
nd me had felt so right.

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “You hugged me.” He’d wanted me. I could see it in his eyes. He still did.

  I closed my eyes and waited for him to kiss me. My Prince Charming. The sigh of his breath rushed against my cheek. He smelled of linseed oil and dusty books with a hint of cyanide. I’d never realized I liked the smell of poison.

  The faintest whisper of a touch brushed across my face. I leaned forward, my lips meeting air. I opened my eyes.

  He was gone.

  That evening, my fairy godmother arrived. She fluttered about the room like a fairy on crack. I would have sworn she had wings from the way she moved. She fluffed pillows and tucked me in, planting a thousand kisses on my forehead and patting my face like I was an invalid. She unpacked art supplies she’d brought and stacked my favorite books next to the bed. Her words came out a mile a minute, fretting over me and my health. Like Mary Poppins, she removed an impossible amount of items from her bag.

  I felt bad for Satyr Sam. He’d carried both of her suitcases through the woods for two miles to the school.

  She pulled out a Ziploc of earthquake brownies crusted with pecans and shredded coconut. My eyes almost bugged out of my head at the sight of them. “Thank you, Mom! You’re the best!”

  She set them on a plate. “That nice professor asked me to bring you brownies when he called. I take it you shared a few with him from the way he ranted about my baking.” She sat at the edge of the bed and set the plate on my tray.

  “Ranted? Wait, who was this?”

  She tapped her fingers against the nightstand as if in thought. “Professor Thatch. What a sweetheart.”

  I nearly choked on a brownie. This couldn’t be real. They hated each other. They’d battled. As if the surrealism of the moment wasn’t enough, it was hard to imagine Thatch rant about anything in a positive way.

  “Mom, you do know who he is, don’t you? He tried to drain me before, and you sicked your familiar on him. Thatch hasn’t erased your memories, has he?” I asked.

  That was more of her kind of thing to do, but I had to ask.

  “Honey, that’s all water under the bridge. I’ve forgiven him for his misguided attempts to help you by removing you from my protection. What’s important is that he’s realized his mistakes. He called me so I could be here to take care of you.”

  Ah, so he’d appealed to her maternal instincts.

  She patted my leg as I crammed the remainder of the brownie into my mouth. The coconut pecan caramel soaking into the brownie was heaven. My eyes rolled back into my head. I sank against the pillow in pure bliss. I hoped she didn’t still enchant my food, but if she did, I was too much in heaven to care.

  “Such a delightful man,” Mom said. “You’ll share some brownies with him, won’t you?”

  As if he hadn’t had enough before. Still, it was the present that counted.

  “And your friend, Josie?” Mom asked. “We should set some aside for when she comes to visit. She’s been asking about you.”

  “Josie? She doesn’t hate me?” I squealed.

  “No. Why would she hate you?”

  My heart warmed at the prospect of seeing her. I still had a friend. I smiled.

  Mom unpacked potted plants from her bag as I ate another brownie. “As Mr. Thatch was showing me around, he told me a funny story about the principal. Did you know Mr. Bumblebub thought a student stole the answer key to some silly test? Apparently you suggested he should clean his desk and maybe he’d find it. Mr. Thatch snuck the divination teacher into the principal’s office and they found it under a bunch of files in a box. It’s just that it was too messy in there to find it, and all the wards were messing with the ability to divine it! So you had the right idea all along.”

  I choked on the brownie, shredding coconut going down the wrong hole. Mom rushed over with a goblet of water.

  I gulped it down. “Mr. Thatch neglected to tell me that funny little story,” I said.

  I supposed he hadn’t wanted the blame to fall on me for stealing the keys, though, Khaba had been the one to give them to me. He’d also been right about me finding it. Probably Jeb’s messy office had been the original culprit, which is what I’d suggested at the teacher meeting, so Thatch’s plan did make it sound like I had solved the problem. I laughed out loud.

  “What do you say to getting more light in here?” Mom asked. She crossed to the velvet curtain on the opposite wall.

  “We’re in the dungeon. There isn’t any—”

  She tugged on the gold cords.

  It wasn’t a window. It was a painting. The woman was a fairy with shimmering purple wings and long red hair that cascaded down her back. She was nude, but tastefully posed. Her back was turned to the viewer as she glanced over her shoulder laughing. I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be me or my biological mother. Her hair was a darker auburn than my natural color, but much redder than Alouette Loraline’s portrait in the hallway.

  The more I studied it, the more I determined it had to be a painting of my biological mother. He’d painted his subject with such beauty and whimsical charm, there was no way he’d seen that in me—not with how he had treated me over the last couple months.

  Even weirder was the idea it might be my mother. After all this time, after she’d used his affinity against him and tortured him, he kept her portrait up in his bedroom? He wasn’t a sadist as I’d first thought. He was a masochist.

  “Did Mr. Thatch paint this?” Mom pointed to the signature in the corner that she undoubtedly could read better than I could. She turned to me, her eyebrows raised in question. “You didn’t tell me you two are … together?”

  Not for my lack of trying that morning. Shame flushed to my cheeks. I could have kicked myself for my stupidity. He must have thought I was as bad as Josie. He was probably going to be majorly annoying and eat my prophecy chocolate to get me to hate him.

  “We aren’t together,” I said. “That’s someone else.”

  She gave me her best I’m-your-mother-and-I-know-when-someone-is-fibbing-look.

  I rolled my eyes, feeling like one of my teenage students. “It’s my biological mother.”

  She tilted her head to the side, examining the white squiggles in the corner of the painting. “No, it’s not. He finished it two years ago. There’s a date”

  Two years ago? I stared at the painting, confused. He had been observing me, watching me more closely than I had known. Was this really how he saw me? A laughing sprite?

  My prophecy chocolate had turned out to be true after all. The beginning had tasted bitter, only to be followed by a taste of something sweet.

  I still had a job. At least until the end of the semester. My Prince Charming had ended up being a scoundrel. I guessed that was the bitterest notes of dark chocolate. The villainous dungeon master ended up being … well, I still didn’t know what Felix Thatch was. I wasn’t sure he could ever be considered the caramel center of my metaphorical candy, but he certainly was sweeter than I’d first thought.

  I had learned some pretty good magic considering I was the most unmagical teacher at the school. I had learned my affinity and understood my biological mother.

  Sort of. I had a feeling there was a lot more I had to learn about the Fae Fertility Paradox. I still needed to find Derrick. Most of all, there were mysteries I still needed to uncover. Particularly about Thatch.

  And me.

  THE END

  Excerpt from Hex-Ed

  Prequel to Witches Gone Wicked

  Prologue

  When I Was Five

  The other children in my kindergarten class played at stations during free time: the puzzle table, the car corner, the doll house or the indoor fort. I sat in the book nook alone, reading on one of the beanbag chairs. Wide bookshelves bolted into the floor separated me from the chaos of the classroom, making me feel safe in the sanctuary of literature.

  From betwee
n two bookshelves I spied Mrs. Phelps at her desk writing lesson plans. Her assistant, Miss Diane, strolled the perimeter of the room, separating fighting boys, and coaxing girls to share with each other. She never had to tell me to stop fighting or to share. I was different from the other children. I knew how to be a good girl.

  A tall man in a navy-blue suit stood outside the bookcases, the walls only coming up to his waist. He’d visited my classroom before. On his breast pocket, he wore a badge that read: school district psychologist. I could read the words, but I didn’t know what they meant.

  He removed a small book from his vest pocket and placed it on top of the wall. I returned my attention to my own book on unicorns before glancing up again.

  He untucked a twisted stick from his sleeve. When he pulled on it, a feather sprouted out of the wood. He wrote in the book with red ink, though the book appeared to be larger than before.

  “You aren’t supposed to have pens in the book nook,” I said. “Mrs. Phelps doesn’t want anyone writing on the books.”

  “This isn’t a pen. It’s a self-inking quill.” His voice sounded funny, his accent like one of the characters from a television show my parents watched on PBS. “Furthermore, I’m not in the book nook. I’m outside of it.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “What book are you looking at?” he asked.

  I held it up. “It’s about unicorns. There are pretty pictures. I can read the words too. Do you want me to read to you?”

  “No.” He continued writing.

  I read to him anyway. I was a good reader. “Unicorns are pretty. Unicorns are nice. Unicorns dance under rainbows, kiss boo-boos, and make everything better.”

  He snorted.

  “Do you believe in unicorns?” I asked.

  “Do you?”

  “My mommy says there are no such things as unicorns. My daddy says I can believe in anything I want. I want to see a unicorn.”

  He crouched down between the shelves, his face level with mine now. His eyes were the color of the stormy sky outside. His shoulder-length hair was wavy and beautiful, like dark water. Everything he wore was dark blues and grays: his long coat, his pants, and the neckerchief tucked under his collar. A little line crinkled between his eyebrows. He didn’t look sad, but I could feel it weighing down his frame, tugging at his heart. A black cloud was stitched to his soul. I wondered if he realized it.