Useless, pathetic, vile, mongrel, monster. Never cute.
Had she said we were best friends? We barely knew each other. Is that how being someone’s best friend worked? I observed her silently as she chatted away. Not once had I felt the uneasy churn in my gut in her presence. In fact I was actually fairly…settled with her. Her constant chatting hadn’t once annoyed me; her happy bubbly self almost out done the noise in my head. Bri was easy to be around; I could talk to her without fear of weakness. She didn’t demand I be someone or something I wasn’t.
Bri was my friend.
We chatted for what felt like hours; well, she chatted, and I listened. Sitting and simply just enjoying someone’s company was…nice.
I walked her to the portal when she claimed the cemetery ‘freaked her tits off.’ I had laughed and grazed my hands across the well-kept stones as Bri informed me of her plans for the afternoon.
“So I thought I’d slip a little something in his coffee andthenthe shit he’d spew would be real.” She laughed; her head thrown back as she pictured her little plan. Apparently, some White witch was trying to shut her shop down, stating it was too “human” and nothing about it reflected their supernatural beings. But so what?
“He still drinks the coffees, so why is he being a douche?” She sniped as we passed the welcoming trees.
“What are you? A shifter? What made you think of a coffee shop right in the centre of the shadow land?” I asked curiously, completely ignoring the fact Ziel had already told me you just didn’t ask that question here.
Beaming at me she said “Ilovethat you asked me. I’m a White witch. Well, half. But I don’t relate to the Light City and their order.”
“Wait…you’re a witch?” She was the first White witch I had come across that wasn’t all about the Light City and the correct way to act. You would never have assumed she was a witch at all.
“Yep, didn’t you wonder how you didn’t sleep for like a straight twenty-four hours or more after that first coffee from me?”
How did she know that?
She giggled as the tree closest to the portal wrapped a branch around her arm, the purple droplets smearing across her blue dress.
“I make my own coffees, the brew is…different.” Winking, she unwound herself as we walked through the portal. I wanted to make sure she was safely through, because there was no way I was letting anyone that belonged to me or was my friend go anywhere without protection. I knew Rí could take care of himself. He could simply eat anyone who annoyed him, but Bri, her infectious laughter and bright happy eyes needed me. I could feel it.
“Amaya. You are hereby summoned by the Council. Your presence is demanded immediately.” Standing with his arms at the sides as if preparing for a fight stood a rather boring looking man.
I sighed, the Council outright just irritated me, the way they thought they could make demands of me, how they thought they had a right to anything in my life. Ugh. Men who thought they ruled and were God’s fucking gift were the worst.
People like the Councilmen where the reason why I hated people. They were the ground beetles of the world; they mostly hid under rocks scared of the world, but when people challenged their manhood, they’d climb out, eat up the slugs and slide back away.
But all bugs were easily squashed.
“She’s not going anywhere with you Gary,” Bri said firmly as she stepped in front of me with her hands clenched at her side. She was slightly taller than my 5 ft 3 but damn, that’s what I would callcute.
Also, ew. Gary? The name suited him.
I snickered at Bri and moved in front of her. I didn’t need protecting. Especially from someone likeGary.
“It’s fine, you head back.”
“No way! I’ll…” I gave her a firm yet kind-I think it was a kind- look and said, “Bri, I got this.”
She sighed, frowning at the messenger before she said, “Okay, fine, but I’m finding Rí and telling him.” Walking up to him, she poked his chest. A little zap of electricity spread across his body making the man flinch and wince as she then muttered, “And then I wonder who her dragon will take his anger out on then, hmm?”
The thought of Rí shifting into his dragon and eating someone out of anger for me was…exhilarating. I would never get used to someone wanting to protect me.
***
I walked through the white corridor and thought of my boys. The white walls reminded me of the nurse’sroom in their elementary school. The school were due their yearly shots, and so we lined up like all the others. The parents stood smoothing the children’s hair and talking softly and lovingly to them, discussing what warm dinner they would be consuming that evening. Elyas, Elfyn and I stood staring straight ahead, our stomachs cramping with hunger. When we were next in line the nurse had simply said in her flat sluggish voice.
“The boys aren’t down for shots. They aren’t registered.”
“If they aren’t registered, how are they even in school?” I had asked back, no expression in my voice as I stared blankly at her.
After the parents had tutted at me for taking up their time, we had left, and it was that night I had searched Lyal’s office and found they had no paperwork. No birth certificates, no foster paperwork. Nothing. They were essentially…not there.
