Big Beautiful Witches: I Married A Warlock (3 page)

BOOK: Big Beautiful Witches: I Married A Warlock
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Fiona swung around, alarmed. “What? Oh, my God.”

Bustling through the door, with an expression of disdain pinching her face, was the last person on earth she’d expect to see in this neighborhood – her mother, the Lady Desdemona Rosewood.

 

Chapter Three

Desdemona hadn’t come alone; she’d brought a beanpole of a man, handsome except for his weak chin. He wore a black silk suit with a blue bowtie, and had wavy Byronic hair. Fiona recognized him as Aelfwerd Tremaine, a wealthy young warlock from a family of lawyers and judges.

Desdemona looked as intimidatingly lovely as she always did. She was as slender as a reed, but her slimness was hard-won. Expensive spells and charms which made her dizzy and nauseous, which doubled her over with agonizing stomach cramps for hours at a time, were the price she paid daily for fighting the body that nature gave her.

“You can leave,” Fiona said to Maizie. “I’ll deal with this while I’m locking up.  I don’t want you to end up spontaneously combusting her.”

“You sure? I can be here for moral support.”

“I think you need morals for that. Just go! Be here tomorrow early, those crazy debs show up right after sunrise when it’s this close to the Crystal Ball.”

Desdemona swept into the store, holding up the hem of her fashionably long robin’s egg blue silk gown to avoid contact with the floor, and completely ignoring Maizie.   Aelfwerd shot Maizie a look of mingled disgust and alarm, taking in her black leather jacket, black jeans, and spike heeled boots with a curl of his aristocratic upper lip.

Fiona breathed a sigh of relief when Maizie left the store without a backward glance, and without setting Aelfwerd’s hair on fire.

She turned to her mother and forced a smile which she hoped didn’t look too pained.  “Mother, what a surprise. I was just locking up.  You should have called to let me know that you were coming.”

“Nonsense.  Aelfwerd insisted on coming here to meet you, and it would be terribly rude of you not to chat with him after he’s come all this way, wouldn’t it?”

“Ahhh….”

Desdemona shot Renoir a look, the same look that she reserved for pockmarked beggars and unswept dragon manure. “I’m sure you were just leaving.”

“And miss the fireworks? Not a chance.” He leaned back on the counter and took another delicate little bite of cupcake. Desdemona fixed him with a steady glare; he met her gaze with a wide-eyed smile, and batted his beautiful blue eyes, which were fringed with lashes any woman would envy.

Fiona had herbs for that.

Irritated, Desdemona turned away; Fiona looked longingly at the doorway, but Desdemona was blocking her exit. 

“Now,” she said beaming at Aelfwerd, “Isn’t she just as lovely as I told you? And just think – you’ve got almost three weeks to get to know each other before the Crystal Ball. I’ll leave you two to chat. My, I love what you’ve done with the place, Fiona. It’s so
quaint
.” And she quickly walked away, headed to the back of the shop, and pretended to root through some bins.

The true horror of the situation dawned on Fiona. Desdemona was trying to fix the two of them up – and trying to rush Aelfwerd into proposing to her at the Crystal Ball. What a nightmare THAT would be.

And worse, Aelfwerd was looking down his long, perfectly formed nose at her, clearly not thrilled with what he saw.

“Sooo…” he said unhappily. “Have you picked out your gown for the Crystal Ball yet?”

“Of course she has! It’s being tailored for her as we speak,” her mother called from the back of the store.

The Crystal Ball.  Fiona’s heart throbbed dully in her chest. She’d moved out of her mother’s house four years ago, when she was 21, and hadn’t attended the Crystal Ball since. What was the point?  There was no beau for her, no warlock to dazzle her with a grand and magical proposal.

She’d accepted her fate early in her teens; no warlock would notice her among all the slender witches who graced the social scene with their beauty.   It didn’t mean that her life was over; she had friends, she had talents which healed, she had a purpose in life.  She just wasn’t meant for love.

Especially from the one warlock she yearned for the most.

She mentally shook herself, annoyed; there was no point in bathing in self-pity. There were many worse off than her.

“Actually, I’m working at the Crystal Ball this year, not technically attending it, so there’s no point in wearing a gown,” Fiona said with a shrug.

“Working?” Aelfwerd’s eyebrows flew up like the wings of startled birds.

“Oh, that Fiona! Such a marvelous sense of humor she has!” Desdemona rushed back to stand next to Fiona, with a huge smile plastered on her face that didn’t reach her bright, angry eyes. “Of course she’s not working!”

Renoir was leaning on the glass counter, eyes darting merrily between the three of them, enjoying the show.

“I’m going to be working with the Florists Guild for some live flower displays,” Fiona added, ignoring her mother as hard as she could.  “Neverending rose bushes, that sort of things.”

Aelfwerd scowled at Fiona, then turned back to her mother.  “Well, she is a Rosewood,” he said grudgingly, as if Fiona were a cow that he was contemplating buying. As if she weren’t three feet away from him. 

“Exactly! Her father’s been knighted for contributions to the Realm!  She’s a Lady! Technically,” Desdomona added, shooting Fiona a severe look of disapproval.

“That will definitely help me when I run for the Council seat.” He looked her up and down again, then turned back to Desdemona. “And you promise she can lose 50 pounds by the wedding?”

Fiona couldn’t help herself; she gasped in horror, at the exact same moment as Renoir, who added a muttered, “Bitch,
please
,” with a lip curl of disgust at Aelfwerd.

Furious, Fiona turned to Renoir, grabbed the remaining half cupcake from his hand, and stuffed it into her mouth, turning to shoot Aelfwerd a challenging glare.  Crumbs spilled from her mouth onto her generous bosom.  He took a step back, glancing at Desdemona questioningly.

“Hey! You owe me!” Renoir squealed indignantly, then turned to Aelfwerd with a malicious gleam in his eye. “That is the sixth cupcake that girl stole from me today. My Goddess, what an appetite. And if I have to let out her dress again this week! I swear, she’s gained like four sizes.”

Aelfwerd gasped audibly, and began backing towards the door, while Desdemona made frantic shushing motions at Renoir.

“Just remember,” Renoir called out to Aelfwerd’s retreating form, “You’re going to need an extra wide doorway on the wedding carriage. She’ll probably be up 30, 40 pounds by then. And I’d go for reinforced wheels and four extra horses. And in the wedding suite  – hey, where you going?” the door banged shut, and Fiona swallowed her cupcake and flashed Renoir a grateful look.

“What are you doing?” her mother practically hissed with rage. “He is a Tremaine! He was willing to propose to you! He could have proposed to you at the Crystal Ball, in front of everyone! Do you have any idea the humiliation that I’ve suffered year after year, listening to the other mothers talk about the matches their daughters made? How will I marry off your younger sister when you’re practically an old maid?”

“I’m sure it’s been terrible for you,” Fiona said between clenched teeth.

“It has. It has.” Good sarcasm was always wasted on Desdemona. At best, she misunderstood completely, and at worst, it infuriated her.

Desdemona dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, overwrought. “He is very interested in making a good political match.  You can still turn this around.   Now I demand that you go after him immediately, apologize profusely, tell him you were joking, and – “ Fiona moved around her mother so that she was standing by the doorway.

“You can’t demand a thing, mother. I am over 21, no longer under your control, and I have no intention of marrying that humorless dishrag. You realize the only reason he’d want to propose to me is because he’s so socially repellent that no decent witch will have him?”

“Well, of course! That’s why he’s a perfect choice! After all, no decent warlock would have
you
when you insist on looking like – like this!” She waved her hand at Fiona’s size eighteen frame.   “But he’ll take you, because everyone else has turned him down, and he’s desperate!”

Renoir sucked in a sharp intake of breath.

A wave of anger and humiliation and sorrow washed over Desdemona, and blinking back tears, she turned and ran out of the store, rushing south down Grimoire Boulevard.  “Fiona, get back here! I’m not done with you!” her mother called out.

But Fiona was done with her mother.  And she knew that Desdemona wouldn’t follow her south, so even though the sun was melting into the horizon now and drawing the cloak of night behind it, she kept moving, plunging into the depths of the Graveyard, blinded by tears.

It was weak of her to let her mother’s vicious verbal lashings hurt her like this.   She should be used to it by now.   She’d endured it her entire life, her mother’s constant reminders of how her rolls, her curves, were horribly unbecoming to a witch, and the terrible pain she caused her mother by not subjecting herself to weight loss herbs.

She’d tried the treatments, couldn’t bear them. She’d starved herself until she was sick and weak.  But finally, much to her mother’s disgust, she gave up and accepted that she was a big-boned girl and that she’d look the way she was supposed to.

Darkness fell quickly, and the silence was eerie.  Fiona’s was the last street in the neighborhood where streetlamps crackled with spellectricity, bathing the street in white faerie light. She and the other merchants paid for that privilege, as well as the protection runes on their storefronts, but there was no light here. Here were abandoned buildings inhabited by ghouls and lone werewolves and rogue vampires and human gangs who’d sold their souls to dark magic, and other denizens of the night.

Suddenly she stopped in her tracks. She heard a snuffling sound from the alley just behind her. Immediately behind her. In between her and the store.

 She was deep in the heart of the Graveyard now, and darkness had swallowed her.   She’d been in such a hurry to get away from her mother that she’d rushed out without her pocketbook.   Her wand, all of her charms, all of her weapons, were in her pocketbook.

It was beyond foolish of her to be in this part of the Graveyard without any defenses; it was suicidal. Her powerful plant magic was virtually useless here, caged in by concrete as she was.  The nearest trees, sickly and small, that she could sense, were blocks away.

It wasn’t the first time she’d let her mother harass her into losing her wits, but it was very likely going to be the last. 

The sound was getting closer, along with a foul odor that assaulted her nostrils.  Her chest tightened with fear.   Goblin. He’d steal the clothes from her body and crack her bones for the marrow.  There’d be nothing left of her body by sunrise.

She quickened her pace.  There was a weed choked lot several blocks ahead; maybe, just maybe, if she could make it to the lot in time she could grow the plants fast enough to tangle up the goblin’s feet so she could run for it. She had no other options.

She broke into a run, with the heavy thud of footsteps pounding behind her and dread filling her like helium, swelling throughout her body. She only made it half a block before he flung his heavy body onto her, sending her sprawling onto the sidewalk.

She only had time for a brief, blinding second of terror – and then the weight was gone and she had a vague impression of something flying through the air and hitting the wall of a building with a sickening crunch, and then falling to the ground with a wet plop.

“Fancy meeting a nice girl like you in a place like this.” She looked up, stunned. It couldn’t be. It was, but it couldn’t be.

Erik Bloodstone, home from the Troll Wars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Four

“Explain to me again why I shouldn’t have you committed to a mental asylum for walking through this neighborhood at night without protection. For walking through this neighborhood at all.”

Erik and Fiona were strolling back towards her shop. She was hugging herself to keep her hands from shaking. Her heart was pounding inside her chest, and she felt tingly all over; she told herself that it was from her near death encounter, not because Erik was back.

But she knew the truth.  Tingliness sweeping through her body, concentrated in the nether regions, pounding heart, shaking hands, swelling nipples…those were all Erik-related symptoms.  

“Two words. My mother.”

“Your mother wanted you to walk through this neighborhood at night?” He skewered her with a skeptical look.

Fiona shook her head in exasperation.  “No, my mother came by the shop with some pathetic washrag who she wants me to marry, and I got so frazzled I literally ran out of the shop without my bag of charms and weapons, and the next thing you know, a goblin is sizing me up for his dinner plate.” She laughed bitterly. “It would have to be an extra large dinner plate.”

Erik glanced down at her with a gleam in his eye, and a smile curving his lips. “I like your curves.”

Fiona managed a rueful smile. “That makes one of you.”

“You always were too hard on yourself.  I guess with a mother like yours it’s inevitable. You did well to move away from her.”

She shrugged.  “Not everyone would say that it’s a step up.” 

“What about you? Are you happy here? Other than nearly becoming a goblin snack?”

Fiona almost blurted out “A goblin five-course meal, you mean.” She had to struggle with a tendency not to put herself down, especially after encounters with her mother.

But instead, she said “I am happy here.  The only people I could serve with my plant magic in my mother’s neighborhood were old men who wanted an herb that would stiffen their wand when they visited their mistress, or spoiled society women who want to look prettier than all their friends.  Here, I can really help people.”

BOOK: Big Beautiful Witches: I Married A Warlock
2.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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