Otherworldly Discipline: A Witch's Lesson (8 page)

But surely that would be inappropriate, wouldn’t it?

Slowly, as if she was an animal that he was likely to scare away, he put the belt down on the bed and sat next to her. Carefully, he put his callused hand out and began to rub her back through her shift. He closed his eyes—God, he loved the sensation of touching her. The contact was like a drug.

Still, he didn’t like the fact that she was still crying; steadily but surely, he was feeling more and more like a monster. Maybe he had been too harsh?

No, no. Her survival was too important to be weakly lenient towards her.

“Charlotte, I don’t care how often we have to do this—I want to keep you safe. I don’t know how to get across how important you are. If something happened to me… Someone would simply take over my duties eventually. Someone would take my place sooner or later. But with you… There’s no one
to replace you. You’re the end of a proud, important line. And you’re not immortal yet. You’re so vulnerable. So fragile… You need your wits to surv—”

He was interrupted by a knock on the door and his eyes jerked up as he bade whoever it was to enter.

Naomi walked opened the door with a folded note in her hand. “Sorry to interrupt you, Master. Jus’ receive
d
a message for you, we did. Said t’was urgent.”

Ashcroft sighed wearily and put out his hand for her to put the letter into it. But as soon as it touched his skin, the course pulp of the paper alerted him of the sender. “Ach. Johns.” He opened the message and read it quietly, grunting.

Charlotte pushed herself up onto her elbows and dried her face on her hands. “Who’s Johns?”

He looked up, surprised that she looked somewhat interested. “A
n Alchemist
wizard who always needs something,” Ashcroft replied, and smiled gently at her. Then he looked towards Naomi, “I have to depart towards the South Realm immediately, I’m afraid,” he told her. “You’ll have to help with preparation, Naomi, with Moriarty out of commission, so to speak. I shouldn’t be gone more than two days.”

“Of course, Master. I’ll be gettin’ right to it,” Naomi assured, seeming actually excited in her normal, understated way.

“And get a maid to help Charlotte redress,” he added. Naomi bowed in response and went to find a maid to help, and by now Charlotte was crawling off of the bed, looking winded.

“Why are you going to South Realm?”

“They have a very bad dragon problem,” Ashcroft replied, massaging his forehead. “Not my favorite thing to do, but…”

“Can I go?” The question
seemed
actually sincere, as if the thought of him leaving her behind was horrible.

“No,” Ashcroft said immediately. When he watched her eyes rounded, as if he had hurt her feelings on purpose, he added, “It’s dangerous. I’m not saying never, but not this time. When your training has moved on—”
dramatically!
“I’ll start taking you on my summons. Others take their apprentices with them, I suppose...”

“Really?” she asked, a slight trill of excitement exposed.

He looked at her with amusement. “Absolutely. When you learn how to harness some of your power for something other than hair color and amplifying your music player,” he teased.

She smirked at him, and he pushed up from the bed, trying not to stare at the breasts which he noticed were practically visible under her shift. “Is it dangerous?”

“I’ve been warding off dragons since I was a boy,” he assured simply.

“Is that what gave you…” She gestured towards his facial scars.

His face darkened, embarrassed for a moment, and she recoiled her hand that was pointing towards him. He reached up and touched his scratches. “
I suppose you could say t’was a dragon that made these scars
.
But there
are darker things we fight against.”

She shrugged. “But
why
?”

“Because
‘tis
our duty,” he said simply, unable to keep his eyes from settling on her, watching her reaction. She looked awkward. “We have privileges and power, and we have responsibilities and duties for them. One day, you’ll understand what I mean.” He sighed. “But for now, breakfast. And then I’ll give you an assignment or two…”

She instantly pouted in response, and he thought her so darling for it that couldn’t help but smile.

*
*
*

Charlotte watched Ashcroft leave from her balcony—she was all dressed now and Naomi even made her wash the dried tears off of her face, but she was still exhausted. Still, it was worth watching him leave… His horse was unnaturally fast, and unnaturally large, and it was thrilling to watch them speed out of the barn.

But from the balcony she was able to hear a racket from the other room down the hall. “Naomi, Jesus Christ! Why won’t you just let me be! I’ve been mutilated, here! Ouch! Stop it! Do you ENJOY TORTURING ME, you old
hag
?”

“Stop your fussin’ and stop movin’ already! You’re gonna start that bleedin’ again! If you’re dead when the master comes back, there’ll be hell to pay!”

Guilt immediately returned to Charlotte. She didn’t like Moriarty; he was a callus, insufferable
ass
. That being said, she didn’t want him to be in pain because he’d saved her life. In fact, she was still in shock that he must have charged in without even hesitating.

She didn’t remember much of anything—she was unconscious by the time Moriarty came about, since by then she’d figured that there was no more use
in
struggling. But the idea that Moriarty charged headfirst into danger wasn’t lost on her. She was impressed, and she didn’t easily get impressed.

Perhaps it was time she threw in the towel on their
summer long
feud. Obviously, she was blowing it up in her head. He couldn’
t hate her like she thought he did
. Perhaps he was like one of those characters commonly seen in movies? Hard and calloused on the outside, but on the inside he was a caring man who just needed a hug?

Yeah, right. But still, it was worth thanking him just to see if the praise didn’t make his head so large it would just explode.

She walked back into her rooms, still not used to the swish of her dress
or
the way the heavy fabric hit against the back of her thighs. Although Moriarty had brought most of her things back to the tower when she hadn’t returned to her Cambridge apartment for a week, most of her clothing never made it to the Otherworld. Supposedly, when Moriarty saw them, he made sure they were all burnt, deciding what she had wasn’t worth owning.

He was more par with Otherwordly fashion, true—which seemed to whirl into a hodge-podge of
rich and
historical clothing—but if she hadn’t
felt
so guilty about nearly having him killed, she would have gone out to kill him herself when she’d found out.

Especially since what she had to wear now was so complicated that she had to be dressed and undressed to
even be
spanked. She wondered if it was possible to
conceive of an easier humiliation
than to have someone else play even the smallest role in her childish punishment. She had tried to dress herself when Ashcroft had left the room that morning, but Naomi merely came in to see the skirt in utter disarray and Charlotte was promptly chided for wrinkling it. Charlotte had been unable to buckle the tiny buttons lining up the back, let alone the complicated belt laced across her middle like a corset.

She left her room and quietly but curiously snuck up the wrap-around hallway, towards the sources of the arguing. Naomi finally came out of the room, nearly knocking Charlotte over with her buxom body. “Oh, he’s such a baby,” she tisked to Charlotte, shaking her head and smiling.

“
I’m not a baby! You’re an evil, ugly old goat who can’t keep her hands to herself!” they both heard Moriarty shout through the doorway.

Naomi rolled her old eyes. “I was helping him bathe ‘imself. He’s got a pretty good cut on him, he does. It’s making him more of a bear than he usually is.” She winked, and when Charlotte smiled politely, Naomi grabbed Charlotte’s chin gently with her fat fingers. “Are you alright, Dove? How you feelin’?”

Charlotte stepped back, pulling her face out-of-reach. “Fine,” she said shortly, her face blushing.

“Do you need any salve for—”

“No,” Charlotte replied firmly and quietly, her shoulders tensed to the sides of her neck.

“Alright, then,” she replied as if she thought Charlotte
was being
silly, drawling out her words as she turned away towards the direction of their staircase. When Naomi was out of sight, Charlotte took a deep breath and then spun around and stared at the door for a long moment.

She knew she had to knock on it. She was never going to make it through her apprenticeship if she didn’t start playing nice with Moriarty, and there was no better time to mend the bridges between them more
so
now
she was proverbially in his debt. She took a deep breath and finally rapped on the door.

“What now
?
”

“Moriarty, it’s me,” she announced.

“
No
.”

She winced at the door in confusion. “No, what?”

“
No to whatever it is you’re knocking on the door for. I’m taking a holiday! If you need to pester somebody, Naomi’s quite available.”

She rolled her eyes, opened the door anyway, and walked in. He turned his back quickly on her to try to button up his trews away from her eyesight. “Witch! I told you no!”

Charlotte sighed and closed the door behind her. “Well, I hardly expected to get invited in with open arms.”

“Out,” he demanded in a growl. “Out, out!” He grimaced as he tried to manage his belt on. Whenever his shoulders drooped down, it seemed to ail him horribly.

“Do you need help with that?” she asked, pointing and taking a step forward.

“I don’t need your help for
anything,” he assured, but his movements were stiff, as if he was afraid of tearing his chest apart.

She pushed off her shoes and jumped up on his bed, grabbing the shirt that was laid out there and looped her arms through it. She stood over him, but even standing on the bed, she was only a head taller than Moriarty. “Here, give me your hands. You can’t go without a shirt all day. Your pecks are distracting.” She gave a smirk, hoping the expression would inform him that she was far more able-bodied than he was, and far more stubborn.

He growled again, but he let her help him with his shirt so that he could move gingerly into it. “I can see that a good bottom
smacking does nothing to your manners or your stubbornness,” he told her coldly.

She set her jaw firmly for a moment, but then recognized that he was simply provoking her. “If you’re not stubborn in this place, you’ll get flattened,” she finally replied. “My parents always said that the rule of thumb is never to be any more or any less stubborn than the most stubborn man in the room—and between you and Ashcroft, that’s a toss-up. Besides, you lecturing me on manners is
totally
the pot calling the kettle black.”

She fixed his shirt once she got it on and adjusted the collar before she hopped gracefully off of his bed and helped him into his vest. “You know, these went out of style in the 1950s,” she told him. “And even then, they were dated.”

He snorted. “How would you know? You’re a snot-nosed American whose been watching MTV all your life. What would you know about style? Especially in the Otherworld?”  He pointed to his nightstand. “Grab my cufflinks, won’t you?”

She did and placed them in his hand. “So, how many years do I have to put up with Ashcroft’s physical abuse and your verbal abuse before he’ll let me
go
on my merry way?”

“Probably when he starts calling you Madame Grimm and not his apprentice,” he replied flatly. “And I wouldn’t call him physically abusive
.
He’s merely disciplining you the same way many recalcitrant young ladies such as yourself have been trained for millennia, and in every known world. Actually, I wished he had started doing it back in June.” He pointed towards the closet, “Now can you hop along your merry way to the closet and grab out my tie?”

“Why didn’t he start in June? If it’s such a novel idea?” she asked contemptuously, going to his closet and opening up the door, looking for his ties.

“The burgundy one… On the right…” He called in direction. She grabbed a red tie off the rack and held it up. “That is not burgundy. That’s red. Look on your
other
right,” he instructed pedantically.

“What’s the difference? Red is red.” She grabbed the right one, picked it up, and walked it over when he crooked his finger at her.

“No, red is not red. God spent all the toil making millions of different colors. All we had to do was name them. That’s called burgundy, Darling.”

She hopped back onto his bed and wrapped the tie around his neck. “Fine, fine. But your attention to detail is pointless. As if you’re going anywhere today. You can barely walk across the room without wincing.”