Page 24 of Black and White, Twice the Might (Cadenbury Town #8)

C allum’s cupcakes were indeed lovely, and after we ate the yummy treats, we left. We went back to the B&B, the boys to their room to do some schoolwork, and Sly and I to our room.

“I can’t believe we get the keys to our house tonight,” I say happily, sinking into a chair.

“I know,” Sly says, pottering around, opening bags and pulling things out.

“What are you doing?” I ask, trying to figure out what he’s looking for.

“I thought I’d make some protection charms for dreams. They might not want to wear them, but I need to try and help them.”

“I’m sure they will, love,” I assure him.

“Apart from you and the boys, people don’t usually accept protection charms from dark witches.”

“Sal gave Nix and Nora protection charms when he was still a dark witch,” I point out, remembering what Sal told us at the BBQ about a demon trying to kidnap Nora.

“True, we’ll see later, anyway.” He sits down and puts the charms and cords on the table.

I sit forward. “Need any help?”

He grins at me. “Nope, you can sit there and watch me be amazing as I work my magic.”

I snort out a laugh. “Or I could read my book,” I say, picking my e-reader up.

“Well, you could, I suppose, if you must.”

“I must,” I reply, turning it on. But I don’t see the words written on the screen. I think back to the first time I saw Sly use his black magic.

“Come home with me?” Sly asked as we left the park.

We did indeed go and get food from the Chinese.

We ate spring rolls and chips in the park, chatting about this and that, just enjoying ourselves.

We never ran out of anything to talk about, and after finishing our late-night feast, Sly pulled me into his arms and kissed me.

Kissing him was amazing, and I knew I could quickly and easily become addicted to his lips.

Finally, we drew back. “Wow,” I said, touching his cheek.

“Indeed. You can be sure we’ll be doing that again,” Sly told me, his eyes shining under the streetlight.

“I should hope so, considering you invited me home. I hope we’ll be doing a lot more kissing and other things.”

“Yes, to all the other things, so many other things.”

“Disgusting perverts,” a voice said from behind us.

We spin around to find a group of about seven males. They seemed to be in their late teens or early twenties.

I made a quick assessment of them. One of them has magic, but it’s very diluted, the others just look like wanna be thugs. Very low riding jeans, t-shirts, baseball caps on backwards.

“Who is?” Sly asked.

“You two. Making out in the street, disgusting,” another said.

“If seeing two people kissing upsets you, just ignore us and move along,” I said to them.

The men moved and started to surround us.

“Or we could make an example of you two perverted freaks,” the first man said, putting his hand in his pocket and pulling out a knife.

That seems to be a signal for the others to pull theirs out, all in varying sizes.

I could take them easily enough. My magic should help. I quickly asked my magic to check Sly, something I probably should have done before, but I was too filled with lust to do it. Wait, I felt magic from him when we first met, didn’t I?

I heard Sly laugh. “That tickles,” he said.

“What does freak?” the second man demanded.

I gasped at what my magic tells me and looked at him.

“Is that a problem?” Sly asked, looking at me, uncertainty showing in his eyes.

I thought quickly. I’ve not had a lot to do with dark witches, but I’m not on guard or scared around Sly. “Nope, not from my end. You?” I asked, wondering if my light magic would be a problem.

“Nope, but this should be fun.”

“What the hell are you two freaks talking about?” another asked.

“Enough of this, get them,” the first man demanded.

They all came at us. I spun round and dealt with those behind us.

I threw my magic out and knocked a few out, punched a few and dodged knives, as I used my fists to block and punch.

A knife slashed through my shirt sleeve into my arm, and I hissed.

Before I could do anything, the attacker was hit in the chest with black magic and flew backwards, hitting a handy tree, and falling to the ground groaning.

I spun round and saw all our attackers on the ground, either knocked out or groaning in pain.

I looked at Sly, checking for injuries. “You okay?”

“I am. How’s your arm?” he asked gently, picking it up and looking.

I looked as well. The gash isn’t that deep, but it was bleeding a lot. I called on my magic and asked it to heal my arm.

Sly gasped in shock as he watched the gash heal. He looked up at me and grinned. “Neat trick. I really want to kiss you again, but not here with these idiots.”

“Then lead me to your place, honey,” I said, taking his hand.

“I should probably tell you, I’m Sylvester Sherwood, the true dark witch of my family line.”

“In that case, I should tell you, I’m Ebenezer Anderson, the true light witch of my family line.”

“Now we can go back to my place and really make magic.”

I laughed and followed him home.

“What are you thinking about there, sweetheart?” Sly asks, pulling me out of my memories.

“Chinese, kissing in the park, and the first time I saw you do magic.”

“Idiots shouldn’t have attacked us or slashed you with his knife.”

I flutter my eyes at him. “Yep, you’re my hero.”

Sly laughs. “While you’ve been lost in memories, I’ve finished the charms.” He picked one up, holding it out. “This one is for you.”

I take it from him. The round pendant shows both of us pulling faces at each other. I burst out laughing. “Really?”

“Yep, the tree that was originally there was boring.”

I laugh and put it on, feeling his magic settle inside of me. “Thanks, love.”

“I made the boys one as well. We should probably get the boys and head to the manor.”

“Do you fancy giving the Haunted Farm a miss tonight? We could just veg and watch TV,” I ask.

“Yep. I’m sure the others won’t mind.”

“Good,” I put down my unread e-reader. Standing up, I hold my hand out to Sly and pull him up and into my arms.

He laughs and kisses me.

The dinner Emily made was lovely.

“Xander, that was a fab choice for dinner,” Ernest says, once he has finished eating.

Xander smiles as everyone agrees, and in no time at all, the table is cleared off and coffee and cake are brought over.

I ignore the cake but happily drink coffee. The boys, of course, eat the cake. I might have to take a leaf out of Jodie’s book and start cake restricting them. Mind you, once we move into our house, we won’t need to eat out so much.

“So, I did a thing,” Sly says, putting his hand into his coat pocket, which is on the back of his chair, and pulling out the necklaces.

He gave the boys theirs before we left earlier.

“I made some pendants for everyone to protect your sleep. I’ve also made sure that they can expand when you shift into your wolves,” he shrugs. “You don’t have to wear them, but I thought they might help.”

“Thank you, Sly, we will all happily accept them,” Adhan says.

Sly nods and passes them around. “They are all the same. Except this one is for you, Nora, it will grow as you do,” he said, giving it to Enoch to pass to her. “This one,” he says, holding a tiny one, “Is for Connie, again it will grow as she does.” He hands it to Kean to pass to Sal.

“Thank you, Sly,” Sal says, putting it straight on her.

Cam helps Nora put hers on before he puts his on.

“None of us are going to the Haunted Farm this evening. We’re having a film night instead. Would you like to join us?” Adhan asks.

“That sounds good,” I say. “We’d decided to give the farm a miss as well tonight.”

“The place should be completely protected now, but all the other paranormals who are working it tonight, and Elliot, have our numbers in case something happens,” Adhan tells us.

“Depending on your viewing preferences, we have family films in the downstairs lounge and non-child-friendly films upstairs in our lounge,” Kean says.

We all split up, the boys go to the family-friendly film and Sly and I watch The Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes. I’d forgotten how much fun that film was. After that, we watched Dracula, the old Peter Cushing version.

As we are leaving, Adhan hands us the keys to our new house. “Congratulations, the four of you will be very happy there.”

“We will be,” I reply.

“I can’t wait,” Enoch says happily.

“Let me know when you want to start moving your things in, and we can all help you,” he says.

“Thanks, Adhan,” Sly says as we leave.

The boys happily chat as we drive back to the B&B.

“Can we start moving in tomorrow?” Xander asks as we park in front of the B&B.

“We can start bringing smaller things over, things that can fit in the car,” Sly says.

“And we can check with everyone when they are free to help,” I say, getting out of the car. “Or maybe we should hire a van.”

“Adhan wouldn’t have offered if he didn’t mean it,” Sly points out.

“That’s true,” I reply, using the key to open the front door.

It’s quite late, so we walk up to our rooms quietly and deposit the boys in their room and go into ours.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am,” Sly says, pulling out the keys to our new house and looking at them.

I wrap an arm around him. “Me too. To have somewhere permanent to live, somewhere we can build friendships. Where we can relax and breathe is exciting.”

“And a proper building for your chocolate business. I’m glad we came here instead of going to Little Welling.”

“Me too. But now I’m tired. Let’s go to bed, and tomorrow we can take things to our new house.”

“Yep, we can.”

I wake up hours later. It’s still dark outside. For the moment, I’m not sure why I woke up. Then I feel it, something’s wrong. I sit up, just as there is a knock on the door.

“Ebby,” I hear Xander. He’s trying to be respectful of the other guests, but his knocking is getting louder.

I jump out of bed and rush to the door, remembering at the last minute to magic myself some PJ bottoms before opening the door.

“It’s Enoch, he’s having a nightmare, and I can’t wake him.”

I rush into their room and see Enoch lying asleep, moving, twitching, and groaning, tears streaming down his face. I sit on the side of his bed and touch his shoulder. “Enoch, you’re safe. Wake up now.”

“I thought the new necklaces were supposed to stop nightmares,” Xander says, standing at the bottom of the bed.

“Nightmares caused by dark magic, not normal ones,” Sly says.

I look and see he has an arm around Xander. I’m not sure when he woke up, but I’m glad he’s here.

Enoch cries out in pain, and I shake his shoulder a bit more forcefully. “Enoch, wake up.”

His eyes fly open and he sits up, looking momentarily startled, before noticing me and flinging himself into my arms.

I wrap mine around him. “You’re safe, brother, I have you,” I assure him gently.

I feel fine tremors racking his body as he cries, and I hug him tighter.

The boys both used to have nightmares a lot those first few months after we rescued them. They have mainly stopped now, bar the occasional one.

I drop a kiss on his head as Xander climbs on the bed beside Enoch and hugs him. Sly sits on the other side and joins the hug.

Slowly, Enoch calms down, his tremors stop, and he starts sniffing. He slowly pulls back, and we all loosen our hold on him.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

“Hey now, none of that. Do you want to talk about it, or forget it?” I ask him softly.

“It was the same as always, Father attacking me with his magic. He hurt Xander so bad I wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead, and then started on me again, but his magic kept cutting into me, like knives slashing me over and over, but suddenly the other witches were there and he started on them.

You woke me up just as Sly came rushing in.

” He pauses. “I know we’re protected against him and that he has no magic, so I don’t know why I had that dream. ” He finishes, wiping his cheeks.

“There are a lot of changes happening at the moment,” Sly says. “Maybe that triggered something.”

Enoch leans into Sly. “Maybe.”

“How about tomorrow we visit our new house and then you go and play with some sick animals?” I suggest.

He nods. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

“How about for the rest of the night we have a sleepover in our room,” Sly suggests.

“We can do that. I’ll bring the quilts,” Xander says, standing up and pulling his off the bed.

I pull Enoch up, Sly grabs his quilt, and the four of us leave their room and go back to ours.

We can’t all fit on the bed, but I pull the quilt off our bed and a couple of large blankets from the cupboard, putting them on the floor, and creating a large bed.

Sly pushes some chairs out of the way, and now the four of us can fit on the floor.

I pull the pillows off the bed and hand them out so we have one each, and we settle down together. Enoch is practically lying on the quilt on top of me, pulling his quilt around him, and he settles against me.

I wrap an arm around him and kiss the side of his head.

Xander is on the other side of me, and Sly is on the outside, protecting the boys as always.

“You guys are the best,” Enoch says softly.

“Yes, we are,” Sal agrees, making us all laugh.

We settle down to sleep again, but honestly, none of us gets much sleep.