The Dark Witch And Her Knights

7

"Did you doubt it would work?"

"I doubted many things," I answered sorrowfully. "How could you be sure it would?"

He shrugged his shoulders not giving me an answer. I pulled an empty vial from the cabinets and ladled the contents of the pot within. Now that I knew my blood was the answer nothing would stop me from trying every recipe I came across.

"I guess you like being called Witchman?"

I could feel his presence shift behind me. I dared not turn to look, sensing he was too close. The heat of his body warmed my back. His breath tickled my ear. "You may call me anything you heart desires, Little Shadow."

A shiver ran down my spine. His hands came to rest on my shoulders, sliding down to my wrist. I opened my mouth to say something but all that came out was silence. I had never been touched by another man like this before. Sorran had briefly flirted with me at times but he never touched me in a way that felt as intimate as this. That made man my skin heat and my fingers tremble.

When I finally grew the courage to look at him he was turned away from me retreating from the kitchen.

***

Stella gave a vicious meow of shock and aggravation. Something heavy falling onto my bed startled us awake. She instantly fled the room and left me glaring at the witchman who had plopped his brawny body next to me.

"We begin training today," he said crossing his arms behind his head.

"You know I hate you?"

"I suspected as much." He reached over and started pushing at my hip to force me off the bed.

"Stop it! You exasperating witchman. I thought we had already started training." I grumbled swatting and kicking him off the mattress.

He fell on the floor with a loud thump. Throwing the cover from myself I got up and marched over to him. To my shock, he lept up and tackled me to the carpet. "We have mentally trained," he said leaning over me as I wiggled and screamed trying to escape from beneath him.

He captured both my flying palms pressing them roughly into the furred rug and forcing them to a halt above my head. "You can't even escape me, no matter how hard you try." He leaned into my ear seeing me still in horror. "Now we need to physically train your body." He pushed a lock of hair from my face before rising off of me. "Dress appropriately. I'll be waiting in the Kitchen."

He left me on the floor like that. Staring at him in complete disbelief and shock. I was a little shaken with fear too. No one had overpowered me before in such a way. I dragged myself from the floor and went about my morning routine. I was slower than usual trembling with each task.

I reached the kitchen late. The witchman was at the counter finishing off his breakfast with an untouched plate next to him. I silently joined him and began eating my food and sipping my tea, wearily eyeing him. He patiently waited for me to finish before cleaning the dishes and wordlessly leading me to a room I had yet to enter.

The chamber was bare. The floor was solid wood and the walls were padded with thick curtains for protection. He began training me in the ways of self-defense. Too soon he deemed my body weak and decided I need to eat more food and gain some muscle. He would attack me as if a man trying to abduct me would. He would first let me struggle. Tell me what I was doing wrong and then show me how to free myself quickly with what strength I did have.

From then on our routine had changed and became one. Rise, dress, run the beach, return, self-defense training, wash, lunch, study, dinner, and finally bed. The first time he had taken me outside to run the beach he looked worried I might escape. But I had no intention of escaping. I no longer saw myself as a prisoner. He had the information I wanted more than life itself. The thought alone made my heart race with fear wondering if this was a bad thing or a good thing.

Our end-of-day studying helped me absorb new knowledge but any spell I attempted failed. The witchman suspected that my witchy-ness had been sealed by a spell. Which would explain why I did not know I was a witch or how I had hidden so well all these years. One of my parents had to have known and cast the spell to protect me from the guard. It was common among witch families in hiding. They would spell their children mortal until they were of age to control and hide their magic so they could live out a normal life without fear of being burned at the stake.

I had drunk countless hex-breaking herbal teas. I couldn't remember them all. Every morning I would drink my tea then try to cast a spell. And every day it failed. Thistle tea, bamboo tea, galangal tea, huckleberry tea, and hydrangea tea. I ate toadflax and vetivert soup. I bathed and brushed my teeth with wintergreen. I even tried chili pepper tea. Then I just started eating chili peppers whole. It was better than making it into the horrible infusion I had concocted.

If I was hexed before I surely wasn't now. I consumed so many hex-breaking herbs I was positive no one would be able to hex me for the rest of my life. I bet if I sneezed on someone hexed they wouldn't be after. But neither I nor the witchman had the slightest clue as to why I couldn't do magic. It ran directly through my veins. The proof was in the potions.