The Dutiful Witch (The Ward Witches)

  The Dutiful Witch

  Lauren McMinn

  Copyright © 2012 Lauren McMinn

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1479116297

  ISBN-13: 978-1479116294

  DEDICATION

  To Jonathan McMinn,

  For anticipating when I need the extra help

  CHAPTER ONE

  Fiona knew the call was coming. She both wanted and feared hearing from him, but knew the timing of the call wasn't her choice to make. Unfortunately.

  Three months ago, she was visiting Boston to look into the National Coven Headquarters. Fiona had been considering owning up to her gifts and joining a Coven, but she wasn't totally sure how to do it. But when she was walking up to the front door, she felt someone casting a spell that was about to go seriously awry. That was a particular talent of Fiona's: she could feel, and sometimes even see, other people's spells.

  This particular spell involved a young woman who had withdrawn into her own mind. Her husband and brother-in-law were going to try to go into her mind as well to get her back. But the idiot air witch didn't think about anchoring himself first. He came very near to getting caught without a way to come back. So, rather than think first herself, Fiona rushed to find the spell casters and stopped them before they did something irrevocable. She anchored the spell, and the woman came back just fine. As did her rescuers.

  1

  THE DUTIFUL WITCH

  Melanie, the woman she incidentally helped, was pregnant with twins, and having a hard time of it. So, being Fiona, she left her phone number. It was barely a week later when Melanie called to ask for advice. A combination of bewitched herbs and healing techniques later, Melanie was feeling better than she had even before she was pregnant. Then, two months later, Fiona served as midwife for Melanie's twin daughters Rose and Jasmine.

  The problem was that Fiona had bumped into her brother-in-law, the idiot air witch, three times over the last three months of helping Melanie. As she had gotten closer, Fiona had been stopping by more and more often, each time hoping to avoid that idiot air witch. She had been mostly successful, and the only time they really exchanged words was the first time Fiona had come by. He had accused her of trying to harm Melanie. Only Melanie searching Fiona's intentions with her air magic would dissuade that man from kicking her and her abilities out.

  Melanie's daughters were born a month ago in perfect health, which meant that the call would come any day now. But she had a certain intuition that she tried not to ignore that said he would call today.

  Energy flared within her just as the phone rang. Well, here it was then.

  “Fiona Shields,” she answered, all business though her heart was flopping madly in her chest.

  “Fiona, my name is Seb Ward. I believe you've been helping my sister Melanie.”

  “I know who you are. We met the first time I came to see Melanie, if you'll remember.” She knew he thought of how he had acted as he paused.

  “Then you know I don't play games.”

  “Oh but games are all kinds of fun,” she wheedled, deliberately trying to provoke him. She wasn't altogether sure how she'd deal with the situation otherwise. “I'm a particular fan of Monopoly, personally.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “You like Monopoly, too? I'd love to play you some time. But I'm warning you: I play for keeps.”

  “I'm trying to talk to you about something serious.” He was getting there.

  “Sure you are. Monopoly is serious. My hotels will decimate your wallet, Mr. Ward.”

  He nearly roared. “Cut the bull.” Looks like it worked. “You did something with Melanie and I need to know who you are and what you did.”

  “I'm Fiona Shields; I told you that. What I'm doing with Melanie is nothing more or less than I'd do for anyone else in her condition and she delivered two happy healthy babies. Besides, that's between us,..”

  “Not anymore it's not!”

  “Why? Is Melanie hurt?” That did rattle Fiona. She had planned to visit later, but maybe she should get over there now.

  “No! Because I looked into that sachet of herbs you gave her with her potion. There's no reason those should be helping, but they're doing more for her than the water witches could. You're an earth witch, not a healer. So what did you do to her? Is it some kind of poison or warping spell? Did you harm my nieces in any way?”

  “You're awfully suspicious for a man who doesn't know what he's talking about. I put a spell on the herbs to make her feel better, simple as that. When she brews them into a tea and drinks it with some honey, it makes her feel better. Same goes for the potions. Do you have any evidence that I'm tampering?” Fiona was enjoying this phone conversation more than she had planned to now that she knew Melanie was still alright. She knew she should just tell him what he wanted to know and be done with it, but this man, this idiot air witch, was different.

  “It's intuition.”

  “You're more of an idiot air witch than I thought. Your so called intuition is off. In fact, I'd bet you were looking for a reason to call, and Melanie's delivery is just tangential.”

  “Why would I be looking for a reason to call you?” His anger flowed through the cell phone frequencies. Interesting indeed.

  “Now you're the one who needs to cut the bull. Melanie will be fine; there's nothing malevolent in what I've done. If you want to talk about the real reason you took my phone number from her, and without asking might I add, then I'll talk. If not, I think this conversation is over.”

  “I really don't think I know what you're talking about.”

  Fiona laughed. “Do I need to show you? I thought air witches were supposed to be in touch with themselves and others. Meet me at the coffee house in twenty minutes. Melanie knows the one, if you can get the information out of her.”

  “Fine,” he snapped. From what she had seen, that idiot air witch probably didn't even know why he agreed.

  After hanging up, Fiona regarded her wardrobe with mild disgust. She really should have gotten rid of a lot of these ugly things a long time ago when she left the store. But maybe with a little inspiration, she could give this idiot air witch a thought or two to take home with him. Yes, that might work nicely.

  On the other side of town, Seb Ward glared menacingly at his sister-in-law. “Melanie, I need to know where this coffee house is, and I need to know now!”

  “I need to know why you took the phone number from me!”

  Seb scrubbed his fingers through his hair, a nervous tic he couldn't quite get rid of. He lost his bluster and bravado, which Melanie had seen through anyway. “I don't know, OK? But I felt a compelling need to get that number, and a need to call it. I think she's done something to us, trying to sway us to her will or... I don't know.”

  “She's not like that. I'm an air witch, too, remember? I can sense a person's intentions, and there's nothing malevolent in her. She's helping me, and I don't want you to screw that up.”

  “Fine. I'll promise to be civil. Satisfied?”

  “Since that's probably the best I can hope for, yes.” She gave in and provided him with the directions, and some of the anxiety left Seb. There was something about that woman that got to him, and he didn't like feeling manipulated.

  By the time he had gotten the address out of Melanie, changed his clothes, and arrived, he was already ten minutes late. He saw her immediately, at a small table in the back, laughing with the waiter. She hadn't seen him yet, so he took the chance to study her for a moment.

  Fiona had long white hair, so white it had to be unnatural, and violet eyes. Even from across the room, he could tell she was beautiful. Something bright in her really showed, especially w
hen she smiled. And... good god what was she wearing?

  Seb tried to shove his eyes back in his head when she noticed him, but he wasn't sure he did a good job of it. He had come to meet her in jeans and a polo, what he considered appropriate apparel for a coffee house. She was in form-fitting black pants under a bright pink and black laced corset. She looked, frankly, like someone's wet dream. He didn't want to admit, even to himself, how much it was working for him. He told himself firmly that he knew nothing about her and that she could mean harm to his family.

  She waved, and he felt powerless to avoid moving over to his table.

  “Nice to see you again,” she said, sitting back down now that she knew she had his attention. And did she.

  “You as well.”

  “Kevin!” she called to the waiter, who, predictably enough, responded quickly. “Can I get another tea for my friend?”

  “You got it.”

  “You ordered for me?” Seb asked, incredulous. No one had ordered for him since he was a kid. No one had the guts to risk the Duke's ire. Not so with her though.

  “You can't trust me to be a well-meaning witch, and I can't trust you to order something sensible for yourself. Kevin's going to hook you up with a Nilgiri tea, sweetened with just a bit of honey. You'll like it, and it'll treat you better than some confection pretending to be coffee.”

  “I see.” He was sure she'd see it as him withdrawing, but he was just so startled that he didn't know how to respond. Kevin was back before he had figured it out. “So what did you have to tell me?” Seb remembered to ask.

  “Drink your tea first. I'm in no hurry.” She looked on expectantly. “How do you like it?”

  “Alright, it's good. You were right.”

  “Of course I was. Now, I think the more important question is if you've figured out the reason I wanted to meet here.”

  “You may have been right about the tea, but I still have no idea what you're talking about.. I'm here because I'm concerned about Melanie.”

  “Drop the topic of Melanie, for goodness' sake. I guess I'll have to show you. Close your eyes.”

  He did, feeling like an idiot. She took his hand and muttered something. He felt a jolt of cold rush through him, and he tried to pull away from her. But she held his hand fast.

  “Now open them again.”

  When he did so, everything looked out of focus. But then he realized that somehow, Fiona had tuned him into people's auras. He had barely even believed in auras, but there they were. At first, he could do nothing but stare around the coffee shop, gawking at people. Seb wished he knew what all the colors, and even sometimes images, in the auras meant. Fiona probably knew. He should ask her. He looked at her, and his jaw literally dropped.

  Her aura was a bright violet, exactly like her eyes. But what caught him was that there was a link, almost a cable, between the seat of his magic in his chest and the same place in her chest. He jerked his hand back, and she let him. The auras went away as abruptly as his hand left hers.

  “I see,” he said. “So you think we're potential bond-mates.”

  “We've both been witches for a long time. You and I both know that a bond is the rarest of connections, an almost psychic mandate that we should be together.”

  “I don't think that's what I saw.”

  “Oh?” She looked vaguely curious and not particularly perturbed.

  Seb wasn't feeling like that at all. He could hear his heart thumping harder and the blood rushing to his head. “I think you've made this up. Conjured it.”

  Now she looked mad. Really mad. “How dare you? I opened myself up to your scrutiny, first when you believed I wanted to do some kind of harm to your family, and then I showed you my aura. That's private! Now you say I'm making up a potential bond between us? If you don't want anything to do with me or the potential bond between us, then that's one thing. But you can't come in here and accuse me of conjuring a bond.”

  He was mad too. “I know you're outside protection of a coven. With the recent string of attacks against witches, I can see why you'd want to be part of a coven. But why just join a coven when you can be Duchess of the National Coven? I'm not going to be taken in some kind of scam.”

  “It's no scam,” she replied, her voice a little too cold. “I thought there was a possibility of something bigger than either of us. You'll regret this. Don't bother calling.”

  He watched her get up and leave. Part of him thought that it wouldn't be such a chore to be bonded to this woman. But then he remembered that he had a higher calling. He was Duke of the National Coven, and there were expectations of him as such. He couldn't, and shouldn't, think of indulging in lust-filled activities.

  He left as well, sickened that someone would try to delude him into thinking he might have found the very thing he wanted most in his life.

  Fiona was furious when she left. Judging that she wasn't safe to drive, she walked to her temporary home. Luckily, it wasn't too far.

  She would agree with him that she wanted to be part of a coven. Her adoptive parents had raised her outside a coven for their own reasons, but since their deaths, she realized that she might need the coven's protection. She was in the Coven House the day she met Melanie for just that reason. But being bonded to the Duke would also mean having her deepest secrets exposed in a way that she wouldn't have had to deal with to just be a member. Fiona, having always lived on the outskirts, wasn't sure she was ready, or even wanted, to be a kind of celebrity in the way that a leader of the National Coven would have to be.

  But she had been raised in an environment with love and genuine affection. Her adoptive parents' bond had been strong, and they had told her repeatedly that one day she would find one for herself. They taught her about auras, and when she finally found the man whose aura was linked to hers, he didn't even believe her! It was pretty shattering.

  Fiona finally got home and set up her special place. She had gotten a two bedroom apartment to set up the second bedroom as a meditation room. She took a pinch of a few different incenses and put them into the brazier. Since she couldn't have real flame in the apartment, she had an electric heater, but it worked anyway. She would often use the room to imbue herbs and such with her magic, but anything she did like that would turn out twisted from her own twisted emotions. So she just meditated and tried to drive the idiot air witch out of her thoughts with only partial success.

  The encounter made Seb angry and irritable for the rest of the day. He snapped at his staff until someone ran to his twin brother Justin to wrangle him.

  “Hey Seb,” Justin said, head coming around the corner.

  “What's the matter? Aren't you supposed to be with your new babies?”

  “You're scaring people. Chill out or go home.”

  “I am home. This is my castle,” he chuckled wryly, indicating his study, “and this is my future.”

  “Whoa there, man, you're acting distinctly unlike yourself. I think you need to go upstairs and sort out whatever you're dealing with right now. Come back tomorrow refreshed, and you'll do better for us all.”

  “I've got to finish up these reports. The South West Coven already thinks we're hiding something.”

  'If they're still going on about the kidnappings, they can definitely wait. Everyone from you to me to Melanie has told them what happened, and another report isn't going to do anything better today than it will in a couple days. I happen to be in the middle of caring for my wife and babies as you pointed out, which isn't going any better for having people constantly barge in telling me that my brother's gone off the wall. Sort it out, come back tomorrow.”

  “I need to talk to Melanie, I think.”

  “If you upset her...”

  “I won't. Or at least, I'll try not to.”

  “Then go.”

  Justin watched Seb's back suspiciously as Seb left to go upstairs. Melanie was flipping through channels on Justin's big screen TV in their suite when Seb came in. She turned off the TV and looked at him expectantly.
Too expectantly.

  “You knew.”

  “That she was your bond-mate? Of course I knew. I'm surprised you didn't. We're air witches, but you always forget that at the most convenient times. I'd bet you didn't do a reading of her any of the times you met her.”

  “And you did? I thought you always said it was rude to pry with your magic.”

  “And I still think that. But you should know me better than to think I'd drink herbal tea prepared by just anyone. I asked, and she gave permission. That was when I discovered that she's meant for you.”

  “That whole meant for one person thing doesn't seem nearly as exciting as it does when you haven't met her.”

  “It should be more exciting. She's a fascinating and very nice woman. And because I'm your sister and an outspoken know-it-all, I can tell you that I think you'll do quite well together. I just wonder why I can't sense a change in your magic.”

  “That's because there is none.”

  “Excuse me? You're the one always telling other witches that a bond is like a magical imperative to mix your magics and improve the community. Not to mention that you've always been well-aware of your duties as Duke, one of which is to produce an heir. A magical child can only come from a bonded pair, and you know that. Are you telling me that you're not planning on creating the bond?”

  “Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you. That woman,”

  “Fiona,” Melanie interrupted.

  “That woman is entirely unsuitable as a bond-mate, a wife, or a Duchess. It's said that there can be multiple possibilities of bond-mate in a lifetime. I'll wait for another.”

  “Pompous idiot.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. As family, I'm probably one of the few who can call you out when you're being a pompous idiot, and I just did.”

  “You were the one who planned to move away and never see Justin again after you bonded.”

  “And I saw the importance of it later. I'm still here, after all.”