Page 17 of Venomous Lies (Greywood Conservatory for the Arcane #2)
Echo
THURSDAY
“ W itches have multiple mates?”
Wells jumped in his seat before he whirled around with wide eyes.
“Fuck, Echo, don’t do that!” he complained, taking a shaky breath as he nodded a few times.
“Multiple mates?” I repeated as I sat down beside him, not caring that we were in the library within earshot of anyone who walked by.
Wells turned in his chair to keep his focus on me, his chartreuse eyes watching me closely. I shifted in the chair, not used to being looked at so seriously by him.
“Witches can have multiple mates, though it’s much rarer for men.
It helps balance and ground the witch since their powers can sometimes be…
overwhelming in some ways.” Wells cleared his throat and paused as if he were thinking of what to say next.
His messy brown hair almost had a hint of red peeking through thanks to the lighting in the library.
“Right now, you’re the closest you’ve been to the Echo I met on that second day of school.
You’ve been different since the rut happened. ”
He has no fucking idea.
Wells had shattered the ice building around my mind when he revealed that witches could have multiple mates. That revelation rocked my world. The humanity I had been turning off came back with a vengeance, closely followed by my mother’s voice telling me what a failure I was yet again.
A disappointment.
Not even worth being an echo of our family.
I shook my head violently and squeezed my eyes closed.
“Echo?”
Holding up a hand, I stopped him from trying to say something else or worse, touching me.
“I didn’t… My ruts are bad,” I told him, desperately needing to talk about a subject I could handle. “They last longer than most, and coming out of them… Well, coming out of them can be a hard task.”
Wells hummed, a thoughtful sound, but it didn’t look like he fully believed me—not that I could blame him considering I’d been acting out for the last few weeks.
“You need to talk to Isla.”
I laughed ruefully. “Like she’d want to talk to me after all the shit I’ve done.”
“I’d suggest starting with an apology. If nothing else, you owe her that,” he said seriously.
“Apologies aren’t something I’m great at,” I confessed as I slumped into my chair. “But you’re right. I’ll figure one out soon. Give me something else to think about for a while. What are you working on?”
Wells’ expression changed, and the hint of a blush instantly piqued my interest.
“That good, huh? Writing about me?” I wiggled my eyebrows as I teased him. “May I suggest a full drawing to?—?”
“It’s my sex magick project,” he insisted with a rough laugh. He rubbed the back of his neck. “So, not about you, specifically, no. And no, I don’t need a full drawing of you, Echo.”
“Just an offer.” I smirked at him before leaning forward to see what his project was about.
My mind was desperately in need of something to focus on other than Isla and the mess that had been created between the two of us.
”What’s your project on? Zhara was talking to Aizel about hers this afternoon, something about a ritual of some kind.
My brother pushed me out before I could hear all of it. ”
“Imagine that,” Wells remarked as I laughed quietly.
“So what’s yours about? I mean, if you can talk to anyone, it would be me, right? I am an incubus after all.”
“It’s on the healing powers of sex rituals and magick,” Wells replied while looking anywhere else besides at me.
“And that makes you avoid eye contact with me?” I arched an eyebrow. “Lots of people do that besides incubi, so it makes sense for a witch to focus on that topic.”
“I have to write some of the project from experience,” he muttered quietly. “And that’s going to be… Well, I’m not looking forward to it.”
“So you need to fuck just one person or multiple people that are different types of supernaturals for your research?” Although I was confused, I did appreciate the way the red in his cheeks intensified with my questions.
“No! No!” He shook his head hard enough that I was surprised he didn’t give himself whiplash. “I’m not having sex with multiple people. That’s not something?—”
“You don’t have sex?”
“I don’t have sex with random people,” he hissed before looking around the library—trying to make sure no one was staring, I assumed. When he was done, he fixed me with a hard glare as I smirked at him.
“You need to lighten up some, Wells. Sometimes, sex is just sex.”
“It’s not to me,” he said firmly, sighing when I shrugged in response. We’d just have to agree to disagree on that front.
“Look I can help talk through some of the aspects of healing from an incubus perspective at least,” I offered, taking the playful tone out of my voice so he knew I was serious. “I’m in a sex magick class about healing, so it is a skill I do possess.”
Wells swallowed hard and licked his lips as if he was unsure.
I studied the witch, and something in my gut told me that his nerves were about more than just this project.
It was probably just the fact that I had finally started snapping out of my rut-induced spiral.
That had to be it. There was no other reason for Wells to be nervous around me .
“That would be greatly appreciated,” he said roughly before clearing his throat.
As my powers awoke at the sound of his husky voice.
Somehow, my powers were starting to hunger again… though not in a way I had ever felt before.
This was more.
What the hell was going on with me?
UNKNOWN
Black hair.
A voice like a siren .
I could recall her like a vivid dream even though their magick tried to take away my memories.
The haunting song taunted me as I tried to forget her.
“We’re losing control of him,” a cold voice said beyond the bright, burning light they had trained on my body. “Something is making him fight. What could have happened during the last excursion?”
“I don’t care what happened,” a woman’s voice said angrily. “Just fix it.”
Another voice joined the group. “It could be time to dispose of him.” The annoying speaker sounded like he was talking more through his nose than his mouth. “I don’t know how you manage to even look at this thing.”
“If I wanted your opinion, I’d ask for it, necromancer,” the woman replied with enough bite that the other two men appeared to flinch back from her. “Get him under control.”
Loud clicks against the floor, then a closing door signaled her exit.
“How do we get him under control if what we normally do isn’t working anymore?”
“I have an idea,” the nasally man said after a beat of silence. “We’re going to tie this thing to someone we can control, which will make it fall into line. Even if it doesn’t want to.”
“He has a name?—”
“Trying to humanize your failed experiment doesn’t make it a success,” the other interrupted. “I’ll get what’s needed, but I do need something from you.”
“What is that?”
“Blood.”
There was movement beyond the hot light, then I felt a prick in my arm .
My blood.
That’s what they need… What are they trying to do?
“What the hell is this? You know what, no, never mind. Give me the vial and keep him contained until I’m back. At least one of us is doing our jobs correctly.”
The door slammed shut a few minutes later, then the person left behind with me exhaled, the sound long and heavy.
“Fucking prick. He has no idea, none, of what you could do, Kaden. So much potential. Even if there are some flaws in your design… That just makes you even more interesting.” I screamed out in pain and protest as his hand brushed along my hair.
My body shook as he shushed me. “We’ll show them how amazing you are, son, but for now you need to rest. I heard your big day is coming sooner than we thought, and we need you at your best. Hungry. ”
A sharp poke, then coldness invaded my body, making darkness take over.
Later, when I awoke, I was back in my forest. My body felt too heavy to move, so I laid in the dirt thinking about the witch I had followed.
Black hair.
Swaying in the glass cage of her choosing.
A beautiful snake.
I needed her bite, the sting of her.
Looking to the side, I stared at the only friend I had in the world as my lips turned upward into something odd… new.
Even if her bite killed me, I was going to bring down the others here with me.