Warlock's Charm (2 page)

Anya couldn’t see that he’d spent all of his adult life
trying to right the wrongs of his great-grandfather and grandfather. He’d
worked tirelessly to return all of the treasures and land his family had stolen
from the witches and warlocks they’d enslaved.

His father had freed them but hadn’t finished his life’s
work before death claimed him, and so much of his good work went unfinished.

Any land Damien owned on Vanguard Prime he’d inherited from
his mother or he’d used Forsythe money to buy it.

Damien’s stomach knotted and his hand shook slightly as he
placed his athame back into its ancient leather and brass scabbard. If he
concentrated deeply enough and lost himself in the emotions that clung like
echoes to the scabbard, he could almost envision those who’d owned this before
him.

Sighing heavily as memories of his beloved mother filled his
mind, he moved the scabbard into his desk drawer. Slamming the drawer shut, he
watched as Stopper nervously jumped.

“You are dismissed, Mr. Stopper. Make sure you do not allow
anyone entrance into my domain. If anyone but you steps over the threshold they
will not like the consequences.”

Yes sir. Shall I call Silver Gables and let your valet know
that you won’t be returning tonight?”

“No. I shall let them know myself. I’ll be leaving on the
space yacht as soon as the crew can report for duty.”

Damien stood up and reached for his walking stick. It
concealed the channeling instrument he used to amplify his magic. “Tell the
crew of The
Incantation
that they have one hour to get the ship into
space-faring shape. I don’t want to wait any longer to find and bring my Anya
home.”

“Sir…” Stopper looked like he was going to stop breathing
his face was so constricted, but he seemed as if he wanted to get the words out
either way. “Sir…I don’t mean to offend you with my question and yet, as your
faithful servant I must broach this subject that you’ve continually avoided
since Anya fled Vanguard Prime. Why don’t you just let her go? There are many
others out there who would give anything to have you as their one true love.”

Damien grunted. “You truly are in the mood to walk the thin
line today, aren’t you, Mr. Stopper?”

Stopper’s eyes widened to dramatic proportions and he
dropped his gaze to the floor to keep from meeting Damien’s scathing glare. If
Stopper hadn’t served him so diligently for almost fifteen years, he probably
would have been inclined to miniaturize the man.

After which, he’d send him away to a brothel out in the
Forbidden Pleasure Zone on Vanguard V. As it was, he knew that he would never
be able to find anyone else who could do the job so efficiently and discreetly.
Besides, he couldn’t really imagine the office without Mr. Stopper in it. He
was like a permanent fixture.

“I will have no other woman but my beautiful Anya. When she
sees me again she will realize just how much she needs me. She will realize
just how much she craves my touch and my kiss and she will never run from me
again!”

“You sound as if you’re going to enslave her or something—if
that’s the case I don’t think she’ll take kindly to that. Just remember her
magical touch rivals yours. In fact, it just might surpass it.”

“Stopper, would you like me to take away your voice, place
it in a bottle and take that bottle with me while I search the solar systems
for my wife?”

Stopper looked up at him and met his gaze. “No sir.”

“Good. In that case, I think you need to leave this room and
give me a few moments of peace before my hunt for my runaway bride begins.”

Stopper nodded demurely at him and walked backward out of
the room. Obviously, he didn’t want to turn his back to him in case Damien did
decide to hex him after all. He couldn’t blame Stopper for going to that
trouble. It made him feel a bit like royalty or one man who shouldn’t be
crossed. Ever.

* * * * *

Stopper halted as the door to Damien’s chambers clicked
shut. He walked over to his desk, checked to make certain that Damien’s office
door was still closed, and sat down. With perfect calm and deliberate action,
he reached for a wrapped box on his desk that had just been delivered via space
post.

Opening it, he smiled at the one lifelike wax doll sitting
in the preservation field inside. The miniature force field acted as a stasis
chamber, ensuring that the hexed person inside wouldn’t suffocate or be bumped
up too much. Human hexed cargo was always preserved this way.

“Hello again, Oliver. I do hope you had a bumpy trip.”
Oliver White was the last unfortunate soul that Damien had sent after her. The
witch hunter had been strong, but not strong enough for her.

Picking up an antique solid-silver compact, he opened it and
looked in the mirror. The mirror saw past the enchantment.

Her true visage was revealed. Anya smiled as she saw her
reflection staring back at her.

As Damien came striding out of the office at a determined
clip, she quickly shut the compact and placed it back inside Stopper’s drawer. She
couldn’t wait to ditch the pretense completely. Terry Stopper was vainer then
some women.

“Goodbye, Mr. Stopper, I’ll see you in about a fortnight,”
Damien muttered as he walked out of the Forsythe offices. It wouldn’t take him
long to vacate Griffin Tower, which was also owned by the Forsythe family.

“Oh, I should think we’ll see each other again well before
that, darling husband,” Anya whispered, as Damien stepped out of earshot. Stopper’s
semi-masculine voice faded away to be replaced by her own sweetly feminine
voice.

She reached into another drawer below the one that held her
compact and stared at the twelve-inch doll-sized form of the real Mr. Stopper.
She had to transform him into his current state in order to take up his post as
Damien’s personal assistant.

She could barely hear his frustrated screams. Reaching for
him, she cradled him in her hands and smiled.

“Just relax, Mr. Stopper. Soon you will be back to your old
self and your days as a living doll will just be a memory. I’m sorry you had to
fall victim to my magic but I had to find a way to hear for myself what Damien
had planned for me. On the upside, I’ll put you and Mr. White together so you
can keep each other company, I’m sure that will please you greatly.” She smiled
when Stopper started to scream another stream of ear-burning obscenities at
her.

If Damien planned to ensnare her in a bewitching trap of his
own making she’d just have to beat him at his own game and enslave him to her
before he could work the same diabolical magical curse on her.

She would not bow to him—she could never bow to any man,
least of all a man whose great-grandfather had burned her grandmother at the
stake during the Bloodbayne Terror. She would see Damien’s passions ignite. The
torch he held for her would blaze for her, and only her.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Stopper, everything will go back to the
way it was, and I will release you from your current unfortunate form. I just
need to work a few things out with Damien, but I will not have you interfering
with any of it. Do you understand?”

She waited until he gave her a meek and mild “yes” and then
she tossed him into the same drawer that she’d placed White in, leaving it open
a smidgeon so they would not suffocate. She could have put them both in
Damien’s curio cabinet but that would be far too good for White and she
couldn’t take the chance that Damien would recognize Stopper in his doll form.

She stood up. Stretching, she yawned as the Westminster
chime of the grandfather clock marked the top of the hour. The soothing chime
settled her strained nerves.

It would be so good to finally purge her blood of the rage
that boiled through it. She despised Damien and yet she could not stop loving
him. It frustrated her to no end and she would never forgive her heart for
betraying her in such a foul way.

She’d grown stronger in the months they’d been apart. She’d
held her breath the first time he’d seen her earlier that morning. He’d eyed
her quizzically and to her profound relief, he’d opened his mouth to arrogantly
snap out orders to her.

In a way, she had to feel sorry for poor Mr. Stopper. He was
used and abused by Damien in a most foul way. Damien treated him as if he had a
bias toward those not imbued with magic.

She knew the only reason Stopper put up with his shit was
because Damien paid very well despite his sometimes asinine behavior. And she
also suspected that Stopper had fallen in love with Damien in the years that
he’d worked for him.

Back before their nuptials, Anya had been introduced to
Stopper and he’d given her the distinct impression that he felt something other
than just blind loyalty toward Damien—and it made her suspect that Stopper
loved Damien though it was an unrequited love as Damien only had eyes for the
female sex. Nonetheless, Stopper remained with Damien through thick and thin,
she only wished that he would one day break himself free of Damien and one day
find the love he deserved.

As her life had unraveled at the seams back on Vanguard IV,
she’d clung to her love for Damien. As if it would somehow keep her breathing
and keep her going despite the fact that she just wanted to disappear and
remain alone.

She should have returned to Earth, to be with what family
she had left there, but she couldn’t bear to face them. How would they react
when they learned what she’d done?

In her heart of hearts she knew that her cousin Dallas would
never judge. They were like sisters, and Dallas had never judged another soul,
she was as sweet as they came. Dallas’ father and Dallas’ brother, on the other
hand, might.

She was so ashamed. She never should have fallen prey to
Damien’s charm. She should have suspected he wasn’t telling her everything
about his family history, and now she had to pay the price for not probing
further.

The fact that Damien sent witch hunters after her hadn’t
come as a surprise. He no doubt viewed her as his property now that she was his
bride. To be fair most men would be offended by having their bride pull a
runner at their wedding reception. The only problem—Damien was not any man. He
was a witch hunter himself and a very talented warlock.

She’d never known how suffocating love could be until the
day she’d attempted to save her fate by clinging desperately to the love she
and Damien shared.

Perhaps they could rebuild their relationship. It had been
love at first sight for her, and as Damien claimed it had been love at first
sight for him as well.

The question was, how could she overcome her feelings of
betrayal? Had he been upfront about his family history she might have gotten
past it—as it stood now she had to live with the consequences of her actions
and attempt to figure out a way of breaking things off with Damien once and for
all.

The push and the pull between love and hate constantly
blurred and her emotions were always so frayed she never knew how she felt
about him anymore…maybe his touch would solve all of her questions…maybe his
love could bring her back from the brink. The fact that she was able to
disguise herself so efficiently around him told her what she’d already feared, that
their love wasn’t enough to weather the storms that lay ahead—maybe they didn’t
share a soul-shattering connection like she’d originally believed. If he really
loved her, he should be able to see past the sort of enchantment she cast that
made her look like Mr. Stopper.

The romantics throughout the ages always claimed that love
was strong enough to survive any strain but what if it wasn’t? What if it
couldn’t see them through the biggest hurdle their relationship had ever faced?

Sighing heavily, she stood up and magically transformed the
gray suit, white shirt and pink tie she wore while posing as Stopper into a
black skirt and rose-colored short-sleeved blouse that would keep her cool
during the humid weather of the city this time of year. Relieved to be back in
an outfit that made her feel at ease without having that stiff, scratchy collar
around her neck, she walked through the lobby of the office building past the
security guard who would see the image she wanted him to see, which was still,
of course, Mr. Stopper.

“Good night, Mr. Stopper, see you tomorrow,” Alvin Sweet
said as she walked past his desk toward the doors. Where would she go now that
she had to step up her game? Should she follow her husband on his wild goose
chase around the solar system or should she just wait for him here on Vanguard Prime
until he came home completely depressed and defeated?

She pushed open the heavy doors leading out of Griffin Tower
and stepped out into the late afternoon sunlight.

Vanguard Prime’s climate was comparable to the North
American climate on Earth. The province of New Mercia boasted plantation homes
much like the sprawling mansions found in North America’s Deep South. Slave
witch labor had built the majestic homes found in New Mercia and in many of the
other provinces, and her poor mother’s family had been amongst those slaves.
The planet had flourished with so much slave labor, and many families had
prospered financially because of it.

She thought about the slaves’ grim fates toiling away in the
sun using their bare hands to do work their magic could have done for them.
Those peace-loving witches and warlocks like her mother who had been enslaved
and stripped of their powers were mercilessly abused by their slavers.

If they had not had their powers repressed by the
power-binding collars around their necks, those who oversaw them never would
have been able to wield such control over them.

Unfortunately, many of those who were enslaved didn’t know
how to fight, and so their magic had been taken quite easily from them. They
had been at a disadvantage, never having used their magic in such a combative
way.