Deceived (12 page)

When Fiona stopped talking, Aiden said some words and she nodded her head. They turned to come back into the room. I ran over to the bed and sat down so that they wouldn’t know I had been eavesdropping. “Everything okay?” I pretended to watch television.

“Yeah,” Aiden said with a smile. “I have to meet with
Aaron
. You and Fiona are welcome to stay if you’d like.”

“
Aaron
?”

“He’s a member of the vampire council. I’ll get this all sorted out tonight, Gwen.” I nodded my head, not completely convinced the VC would be jumping to help a witch break free from a sadistic vampire.

“Are you staying or going back to Moon?”
Aiden asked.

“I think we’ll go back. Call me when you hear something?”

“Of course.” Aiden walked over and placed a kiss
upon
my head. He was careful not to let his hands linger on my shoulders too long. It made me sad that I had made him feel so cautious around me.

“I’ll see you later then.”
He gave me one last look and nodded his head towards Fiona before leaving. I rubbed my forehead and wished the motion would erase all of the dark memories of tonight. I was starting to feel like myself, but the dream was still vi
brant in my mind and made my gut
twist in disgust.

“You ready to go?” Fiona used magic to clean up the mess of dishes that were all over the bed. Anger and sadness filled her eyes, although she pretended to be strong.

“Yeah, I just need to change.” I went to the bathroom and shrugged out of the fluffy bathrobe. It pooled at my feet like a fallen cloud, and I caught my naked reflection in the mirror. My hair was limp and my eyes were swollen with the flood of tears I’d cried. My skin was pale and my blue eyes looked almost haunted. Ian had violated me, and I hated that he had bestowed fear within me.

My eyes traveled to the heap of my clothes I’d worn when I arrived at the hotel, but I couldn’t put them on again. Looking away from the mirror, I concentrated on creating new clothes. I settled for yoga pants and baggy sweater and within seconds the clothes covered my body. With a deep breath, I stepped out of the bathroom, and Fiona and I headed back to Moon.

The car ride back was quiet. Fiona turned the radio on and changed the station every time a sad song played, like I’d start crying if I listened to it. Frustration built each time the songs switched. When she was about to change the station again, I reached up and shut the radio off.

“I’m fine, Fiona. You don’t have to watch yourself around me or monitor the music.” I looked out the window then felt bad for snapping at my best friend. “I’m sorry, I know you’re just trying to help, but I can’t stand being treated like a victim.” I gave her a weak smile.

“But you
are
a victim, Gwen. What Ian did was horrible, and you don’t have to put on a brave face for anyone, especially me.” She reached her hand out, grabbed mine and gave it a gentle squeeze.
Why was she showing interest in my life now? Was Ethan busy tonight?
I swallowed the words I wanted to throw at Fiona and accepted her comfort instead
.
Just like me, it’d take Fiona and Aiden time to get over what Ian had
done. As much as I hated the attention, I wouldn’t throw their concerns back at them even if I really wanted to.

“Thank you, Fiona. I do appreciate your worry, but maybe dial it back just a little bit. I’m not going to let Ian break me.” I had my time to cry; now all I wanted was to figure out how to kill the son of a bitch.

“Okay, but I’m not letting this go. Ethan has been teaching me some pretty cool stuff, and I have something up my sleeve that’ll prevent Ian from bothering you again,” Fiona beamed, showing twin rows of sparkling white teeth.

Snorting, I asked, “Like what?”

“You’ll see.”

Back at the castle, Fiona hauled me towards the herbal room. I leaned against the door frame while she rummaged through jars of dried plants and other questionable items. She pushed three jars into my arms and continued on her mission to find more ingredients for whatever spell she planned to keep Ian away.

I wasn’t sure anything would help, aside from Ian’s death. The magic that ran through his veins was strong from the brew he drank. Ian knew how to do magic I still hadn’t learned. I’d let Fiona perform her spell though I didn’t have my hopes set high.

“Don’t they have dried bat wings?” A loud clatter echoed around the small stone room as Fiona searched.

“What are you going to do with bat wings?” My voice rose in pitch at the thought of using something so disgusting. I was fine with herbs, but when spells called for animal parts, I became apprehensive.

“Help protect you, duh,” Fiona answered. “Here it is!” She placed the supplies in a large glass bowl and motioned with her head for me to follow. We made our way upstairs and into my bedroom. Fiona sat Indian-style on the floor, and I mimicked her. She took everything out of the bowl and placed it in front of her. I watched the concentration on her face in awe. Fiona always used magic, but I’d never seen her cast a spell.
She manipulated
objects all the time, but never did anything
as
ritualistic as this. Six white candles floated around us in a perfect circle. When they landed on the floor their wicks popped to life with a bright flame.

The glass bowl filled with a mixture of herbs and other unsavory objects as Fiona began concocting the spell.  She held her hand out, palm side up, and I gave her my hand. She grabbed a pearl handled knife and held it to my finger before stabbing the tip inside. I shrieked and tried to tear my hand away, but she held it over the mixture.

“We need your blood to bind the spell to you,” she said.

Crimson droplets dripped into the bowl and sizzled in the herbs.  I looked up at Fiona with wide eyes, but the smile on her face said everything was all right. Spell casting was always fascinating, but I never had an urge to practice it because every spell called for blood. Call me crazy, but I preferred my blood to stay in my body. “What do we do now?”

Fiona chanted words I couldn’t understand and lit the mixture on fire. A whoosh of flames erupted within the bowl and dissipated just as quickly. Dark red smoke curled upward and traveled towards me. I sat rigid as the tendrils coiled around my body. The smoke appeared to be fading, but the more I watched it dance around my body, I realized it wasn’t vanishing; it was soaking into my skin.

“Fiona, what’s going on?” I held out my trembling arms and swallowed back the horror as my skin absorbed the smoke.

“It’s working!” Fiona squealed as a huge smile appeared on her face.

“Why do you sound surprised?”

Fiona was quiet for a moment as she bit her bottom lip and looked at me through her eyelashes. “I’m a beginner, Gwen. Sometimes, not all the time…” her voice trailed off and her face twisted slightly.

“Get on with it, Fiona.”

“Some of my spells haven’t worked, but this one is.”

My eyes closed, and I took a deep breath. The last thing I needed was to be used as Fiona’s guinea pig. I hoped she was right
and that
the smoke from the spell was supposed to absorb into my skin. “Okay, so what is the spell supposed to do?”

She picked up the supplies. “It’ll block Ian from entering your dreams, cool, right?”

A surge of energy rushed through my body like I overdosed on caffeine. I couldn’t stop from pacing around my bedroom and
fidgeting.

“Um, Fiona?”

“Yeah?” She looked up.

“I think you did something wrong, I’m energized like the Duracell bunny.” My voice
was
excited yet panicked. I began jumping up and down, unable to control the
hyperness
and needing an ou
t
let. I wanted to do a million things at once, but my mind couldn’t figure out which one to do first.

Fiona watched me and then looked back down at the ingredients. “I don’t know what happened; I did exactly what the book said. Stay here, I’ll go get Ethan.” She rushed out of room.

I rolled my neck to try to ease the tension, but the action did nothing to calm me down. I couldn’t just stand and wait, my body wanted to move. Heading downstairs, I made my way towards the gym. A few people gave me strange looks as I ran through the castle laughing
like a crazed woman
. I’m sure they thought
I’d lost my mind, maybe I had, who knows what spell Fiona accidently concocted.

I darted through the gym door and pausing a moment to take a breath, I rushed a practice dummy. “You want a piece of me?” I bounced on my feet like a boxer and held my hands in front of my face ready to strike the dummy. My fist connected with the plastic face. “Take that
biatch
!” I laughed as I punched again.  My leg kicked at the mannequin’s stomach, but before I could make contact a voice disrupted my concentration, and I fell backwards.

“Way to go, ninja,”
Dorian
said from behind me.
Tilting my head backwards, I saw
Dorian standing a few feet away with a grin plastered on his face. My laughter rose as I watched him upside down.

“You drunk?” Dorian asked.

Rolling onto my side, I bounced to my feet. “No, I’m mad at you, Mr. Death Boy.”

“Mr. Death Boy? What are you like five years old?” Dorian chuckled.

“Ha
ha
very funny. You’re the one who left me on the side of the street, so don’t talk about maturity to me, bucko.”

He shrugged out of his leather jacket and laid it off to the side and then chucked his sunglasses on top of his coat

“I did, and I apologize for
leaving you
. You are very irritating sometimes. Looks like you made it back in one piece though, so no harm no foul.”

My lip lifted on one side as I sneered. He didn’t know what happened to me, and I wasn’t planning on telling him. I was done playing the victim.

“
Wanna
practice on something real?”

“No,” I bit out and turned back to the dummy. My annoyance drove my energy over the edge. I punched the dummy again and it rocked back and forth from the force.

“Afraid I’ll hit back?” Dorian teased from behind me.

I whirled around and stalked towards him, fully ready to take him down a few notches. Magic rushed through my veins like a wild river driven by the spell. My arm lashed out and a smile spread across my face at the
notion
of landing a blow to his pre
tty face, but I celebrated too soon
. Dorian blocked my arm and with a flat palm, pushed me backwards with more force than I expected. A whoosh of air tore through my lungs and left me gasping. My body raced with adrenaline, so I recovered
quickly
.
My emotions were just as amped as my body and my anger roared to life. I charged at Dorian like a bull attacking a matador, I think I even grunted.

Once I got close enough, I dropped to the floor and swung my leg out, sweeping his legs. He went down with a thud. I laughed in victory but was cut short when Dorian jumped up and came at me. The smile on his face made it evident he enjoyed sparring with me, which ticked me off more. We circled around each other, his cloudy eyes calculating my every move. Occasionally, one of us would strike, but the blow would either be blocked or dodged. He was a lot more fun to practice with than the dummy, but I wouldn’t let him know that.

Footsteps sounded in the doorway, and he looked away. I used the distraction to my advantage and charged. I landed on top of him, my hips pinning his waist while my hands held onto his arms.

“Um, am I interrupting something?” Fiona asked from the doorway.

I recognized the way Dorian and I were positioned and realized it
most likely
looked intimate. I
scurried to my feet
after noticing the look of desire in his gray eyes.

“No, we were just sp
arring.” I squealed.
Ethan stood behind Fiona and snickered. Dorian climbed to his feet and smoothed his shirt, throwing an amused look my way.