Teaching the King (Witchling Academy Book 1) Page 17

  I cut her off. “We don’t have a lot of time, and so far, physical intimacy is all we’ve got. Unless you want this process to take longer? I don’t mind, but it seems a little inefficient.”

  Belle muttered what I suspected was a curse, then squared her shoulders. “No, you’re right. We should get this done. The sooner you’re in total possession of your magic, the sooner I will have fulfilled the contract, whatever it may be.”

  I wasn’t going to touch that one, and offered her a slow smile guaranteed to irritate her. It worked.

  “You don’t have to be so obnoxious about everything,” she griped, and stepped closer to me, looking up at me imperiously. “So now what? Do we have to make out before we read the stupid book, or is this enough?”

  When I didn’t move, merely grinned down at her, she balled her hands into fists at her sides. “I’m not going to beg for your kiss, Aiden. That’s never going to happen.”

  Something hard and primal shifted within me. “Never that,” I mocked. But I didn’t see the point in delaying my own pleasure any further. Tossing the book and her illusion satchel to the couch beside us, I leaned down and took Belle’s upturned face in my hands. I lowered my head slowly, so slowly, our eyes locked all the while. I knew she wanted to issue some sharp remark, but she didn’t. Instead, her eyes remained locked with mine for a long moment, before dropping to my mouth, her own lips parting softly as I shifted closer still. When our mouths finally met, the sigh she released echoed my own groan of heartfelt need.

  A breeze shifted through the room though there were no open windows, and Belle stiffened, but I wasn’t about to let go of her now. I pulled her closer, deepening the kiss.

  “Let it flow,” I murmured. “Let’s see what this magic is that’s between us.”

  She sighed and leaned into me, and that was all the approval I needed to take what I’d already decided was rightfully mine. Not because Cyril had outlined the ancient edicts about a Fae king declaring a mate—he was still researching that—but because there was no other choice.

  I cradled Belle against me, lifting her high against my chest, and gloried in the weight of her against my body. This was right, this was true, this was everything I wanted, and the intensity of my emotions and need soared higher, kindling a flame that warmed me through.

  With Belle’s help, I would defeat my enemies and secure the realm once again, driving back the ancient creatures that sought to trick us at our borders. They couldn’t stand magic such as this. If they were creatures of ice and fury, I would meet them with fire, the same fire that was even now stoking within me. I reveled in that fire, letting it fill me, consume me. I raged into its heat, welcoming it home. I could feel it leaping higher, growing stronger, practically leaping off my skin.

  “Aiden!” Belle’s scream was the only thing that could have penetrated the fog of my own surging emotions, but once I opened my eyes, I realized she had good reason for her fear.

  Fire had leapt from the roaring blaze in the hearth and was now racing through the room, jumping from wall to bed to table, eagerly igniting everything in its path.

  “You summoned it,” Belle shouted. “You. With your magic.”

  Her words galvanized me even as her terrified scream had a moment before—and she pushed on. “Control it before it destroys the whole room.”

  A frantic knock came at the door. I wheeled around, disoriented, ready to give the order for aid.

  “No.” To my surprise, Belle spoke again. “This magic is yours, King Aiden,” she said, the intensity of her words driving me back a step. I had a glimpse, a memory that shot down through the years, of a Hogan witch standing by the king in battle, fierce and furious and determined. And now I had my own Hogan witch, who was telling me to solve my problems on my own. I could do that.

  “How?” I demanded. Belle stepped forward, positioning herself in front of me, then turning so that her back was to my chest.

  “I am your tool,” she said, her voice still not quite her own. “All you must do is direct me as an extension of yourself. In time, you won’t need me, I swear, but for now—”

  A second rush of fire roaring from the hearth precluded any other conversation.

  I clamped my hands on Belle’s shoulders, and ordered her. “Stop it.”

  As Belle spoke the spell, I heard it in my mind, not just as words, but as images strong and true. The fire surged up, taking on its own personality—first human, then Fae. It turned to me almost expectantly, and then I was speaking the same spell Belle had, directing the flames to weaken and fade—not to die, but merely to rest until I had true need of them. That was right, that was true, and it seemed to resonate with the destructive blaze as well. It winked out a bare few moments later, leaving Belle and me gasping.

  The pounding at the door didn’t cease. Belle sagged against me for a moment. I had no wish for either of us to be disturbed, even if the place now stank of fire and char.

  “Would I have burned the castle down without you here?” I wondered aloud.

  She laughed a little shakily. “Possibly, but then again, you might never have lit the place on fire without me here. Kind of hard to figure which is the better situation, not gonna lie.”

  I already knew the answer to that, of course. I could feel the remnants of power coursing through me, the flow of magic. Belle had to stay with me. She had to.

  “Do I know that spell now?” I asked her. “Is it mine to command?”

  To my surprise, she shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “You tell me. Is it yours to command or not?”

  I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. Who was this woman, this witch, who thought she could talk to a king so boldly?

  But of course, I already knew the answer to that. This was my Hogan witch, quite certain she could do whatever she damn well pleased when it came to magic and when it came to me. And I wasn’t entirely sure she was wrong.

  The sound at the door grew stronger, and in truth, the place did reek. I gave the order for entry, and guards and staff alike swept in, many of them laden with blankets, buckets of water, and brooms. But of course there was no fire left, only its remains.

  Niall came barging in behind them. “What in thunder are you doing?” he demanded. “The whole castle could have caught fire.”

  “But it didn’t,” I cut him off, enjoying myself far too much. “Belle was here to make sure it wouldn’t.”

  She snorted beside me. “It didn’t because you were here to wield the magic to make it stop,” she said calmly, and I turned to her—then jolted in shock. Her skin was charred with ash, her face flushed, and heavy dust streaked her black hair. For just a moment, she looked like the woman she’d pretended to be back in her tavern, old and gray-faced, her eyes burning with fierceness. I’d never seen anyone more beautiful, but a heartbeat later, I realized what I was looking at—

  “You’re hurt.” I moved toward her, not knowing what to do, but knowing I needed to do something.

  She shook her head and stood back from me. “I’m a healer,” she said wryly. “I’ll go take care of myself. You need to speak with Niall and the others. They’ll have questions.”

  Their questions could wait, as far as I was concerned, but as I swung back around to tell them that, I realized she was right. Though many of the house staff were staring around the room anxiously, Niall was practically gleeful.

  “Fire,” he muttered, rubbing his hands. “The king of the Fae wields golden fire once more.”

  Alaric burst in, Cyril right behind him, the young Fae’s face alight with curiosity as my advisor met my gaze with sharp understanding.

  “It’s true!” Alaric burst out, and despite his boyish excitement, he seemed taller now, stronger. Becoming the Fae he was meant to be. “I saw it in the portal Magnus showed me how to make, but it’s true! You summoned fire and sent it running around your room, burning everything, and then you just made it go out. That’s something you can do? That’s something we can do?”r />
  “Try it and I’ll have your ears,” Cyril informed him mildly, making everyone laugh. That broke the spell of the fear, and then came the questions, as Belle had predicted with such certainty.

  Certainty…

  She drifted toward the far door, two of my female warriors close beside her. A nagging certainty of my own trailed my thoughts.

  How deep did the witch’s magic go, and what had changed within her these past few hours that she had grown so strong? What was she hiding from me?

  29

  Belle

  I don’t know how I managed to avoid Lena as part of the recovery crew who made sure I had everything I needed after the fire. I was just glad I did. Now I stood in the center of a room that I suspected Aiden never expected me to see. It was filled with feminine details, the chambers of the Fae queen.

  From what Aiden had said, the most recent queen, his mom, hadn’t lasted long. I was beginning to sense a pattern in that regard. The kings seemed to survive as long as it took to make an heir, more than one if they weren’t feeling particularly lucky, but their wives didn’t rule by their sides. They might have served as arm candy for state events, bedmates, and mothers to their young children, but what happened to them once their royal sons—and they were mostly boys, it seemed—reached their majority or even a particularly robust minority?

  Aiden had never once mentioned his mother, and when I asked now, the warrior female who had remained behind the longest merely shrugged, doing me the honor of honesty, if nothing else.

  “She fell sick almost as soon as Aiden went off to the front. He was her light, her joy. King Merrick was a hard man to live with, but he didn’t mistreat her. And Merrick grieved her death, though he kept a close watch on Aiden as well. When things got difficult and Aiden was wounded, he began the process of finding a new queen—and he didn’t look far, to be sure. There were plenty in the castle willing to serve in that role. He died in battle before he could complete that process.”

  “In battle,” I echoed. “A wraith attack?” Wraith…or Fomorian? I didn’t know how much this warrior knew of the truth of their enemies, or what Aiden had told his people yet.

  “A true wraith attack, yes.” The warrior regarded me steadily. “We assumed it was his poor luck, not realizing that his powers had failed him. If he’d had the magic of the Hogan witch—if your great-grandmother had done the job she’d apparently planned to do and had left us with enough magic to fight—you might not be here today.”

  “Yeah, well. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about that,” I said, not caring what this Fae’s opinion was of me. I wasn’t here to make friends.

  To my surprise, she gave me a wry smile. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it either, frankly. King Aiden values his people. He’d prefer to send none of us into battle without him by our side, if he could help it. That’s all you can ask for in a king. Now he has done what he needs to do to improve our chances of ending this war and keeping our people safe. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  I nodded, and the Fae warrior left. At the moment, still singed from Aiden’s stint as a flamethrower, I wasn’t feeling all that inclined to sacrifice my life and my goals to help the Fae win this newest battle of theirs, never mind my conflicting feelings for the king himself. The annals of our coven were very clear about the affliction witches had suffered at the hands of the Fae, back when they walked the earth in greater numbers. There’d been a reason why we’d banished them back to their own realm, and thrown away the key in all but the deepest reaches of the British Isles.

  I appreciated the fact that Aiden needed me, but I also appreciated that, much like the way his father treated his own mother, my necessity was specific and constrained. I wanted to believe it would be short-lived too, but I didn’t think so, not after what had happened today—even before the adventure in Aiden’s rooms. Watching the royal Fae learn the ancient spells at the academy with such wide-eyed appreciation and grim determination, drove home the reality that these were a people who felt like they’d been cheated out of a century of safety because they didn’t have the tools to keep their people protected. What was one woman’s slavery against that?

  And it was easy to see, now that I was here, how a witch could be coddled into thinking she wasn’t, actually, imprisoned. I knew I could help. Keeping an entire kingdom safe was a worthy goal. And if you didn’t have any attachments in the outside world, like, say, a husband and children, this wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a few years, right?

  My lips curled. I wasn’t only describing the typical Hogan witch who came to serve the king, I was describing myself. I didn’t have any family, not anymore. I had no husband or child. Why shouldn’t I stay here for however long it took, and do the job Aiden required?

  Because it wasn’t my home. These weren’t my people. Aiden totally made my toes curl and my heart thunder, but he wasn’t human. He certainly didn’t care for me beyond our magic-spurred mutual attraction. He was my ancient enemy, for the love of the goddess.

  Plus, I had people back home who relied on me. Maybe some of them were monsters, but they were my monsters, dammit. They needed me to keep the lights on in the White Crane, when all other doors were shut to them.

  I drifted toward the large chairs set up near the fire. The warriors had hesitated to light it, but I assured them I wanted it. I felt chilled to the bone, I wasn’t sure why. Possibly the aftereffects of shock, or the aftereffects of magic? Or perhaps this entire crazy situation was catching up to me. What was I going to do? This service to King Aiden wasn’t my choice. And even the most elegant, gilded cage was still a cage. What had convinced my great-great-grandmother several times removed to indenture her entire line to these people? What reward was so great that it had been worth that?

  I sank into the plush, comfortable couch. It was strewn with small pillows and I picked one up, holding it close for comfort. There was a blanket on the couch as well, intricately woven with shimmering threads, but I didn’t pull it over me. It seemed too special for that, and the fire was warm enough. As I scanned the room, my gaze snagged on a painting of dancing nymphs—Fae? Humans? It was impossible to say, but I didn’t much like the painting, though it had been painted by a gifted hand. Instead I stared into the hearth, my racing thoughts gradually slowing. I couldn’t resist the lull of sleep, though I knew eventually Aiden would find me. But he couldn’t take me back to his room, not tonight. He would have to sleep here in the queen’s chamber or the mistress’s chamber or whatever they called it.

  The mistress’s chamber. I smiled sleepily. In human parlance, that could take on a particularly salacious meaning, but I didn’t get the impression that this was some kind of sex den. It seemed too austere for that, though it was undeniably feminine. It seemed right, as right as anything could in this place.

  My eyelids felt even heavier, and I drifted to sleep as the fire danced and sputtered.

  I jerked awake sometime later, still alone, the fire only slightly dissipated. But a freight train could have come through the castle and not woken me at first. The second time I fell asleep, however, the fire seemed to make images dance behind my eyes, teasing and tempting me with information just outside my conscious thought—information I’d learned, but I couldn’t quite recapture…

  When I awoke the second time, I wasn’t alone. Aiden stood in front of the fire, his profile to me. He knew the moment I woke, though I couldn’t say if that was Fae magic or merely a warrior’s awareness.

  “You’re not injured,” he said heavily, sounding way too relieved.

  I snorted. “I told you I wasn’t injured. And what damage I sustained was quickly healed. Your warriors were kind to me, and I appreciate that. They’re good people.”

  “That they are,” he agreed, then he frowned. “I should not have put you at risk. I didn’t realize I could put you at risk. You need to warn me so it doesn’t happen again.”

  I frowned, thinking of Lena’s warning about the king. “You had to
learn, and I had to learn through you. What you could do, how your magic would show up. I wouldn’t have guessed fire for an ocean king, but magic shows up where and how it’s most needed. It’s likely that the threat you face is particularly attuned to fire.”

  That assessment seemed to resonate with him, and he nodded.

  “The threat we face is ancient, ancient enough that we haven’t faced it in the recorded time of the ocean king ruling the Fae. Before us, there were the mountain Fae and before them, there was no king, merely a group of fiefdoms that could barely be counted on to save themselves from utter destruction.”

  “So it was the mountain Fae that figured out how to beat the wraiths before?”

  “Not the wraiths, no. That race remains a constant irritant, and likely will throughout time. But our last major enemies, yes.”

  The Fomorians, I thought. The name was ancient and cold, but I had no association with it other than faded words in a long-ago schoolbook. They hadn’t been enemies of my kind for thousands of years. “So they destroyed the Fomorians before, but more recently, you destroyed the mountain Fae. So I suspect you won’t be able to count on their undying support in this coming battle.”

  Aiden snorted. “Probably not. Certain clans of the mountain Fae still exist, but they’re self-governing. They pay their tribute to us when we demand it, and have pledged to aid us in war should it come to that. But we’ve pledged to do our level best to keep things from ever coming to that.”

  I frowned, because clearly, it had come to that. “You’ll need all the allies you can get.” I told him, though he wasn’t an idiot; he knew this already.

  “I have all the allies I need,” he countered. “I have you.”

  I grimaced. “Yeah, well. I appreciate the vote of confidence, but the truth isn’t so easy. Magic aids those who wield it. It doesn’t replace an army. It can never do that.”