Home > The Witch's Guardian(8)

The Witch's Guardian(8)
Author: Anna Edwards

I will my body to stop, to change back to its regular form: the bully, the worshipped prince of Caspian Academy. I want to be him. I don’t want to be this thing. Why the hell did I kiss Juniper? I knew this would happen. My head pounds, and I manage to pull myself away and flatten my body against the wall behind me. I’m fighting hard. Screaming internally.

I’m not a monster.

Even though Juniper makes me one.

Why does she hold this power over me?

I hate her.

I need her away from the academy.

I need her as far from me as possible.

She thinks I hate her for another reason…the dreadful day. But that’s nothing compared to this at the moment.

I’m breaking.

My body is floating again, all control lost as my hands reach out in front of me.

I want to see.

I want to know for certain.

I want to remember it all, but it won’t happen.

In a few moments, I’ll wake in my bed, and all memory of this will be gone.

And Juniper will have lost her mother.

I reach the bed again, and my hands go to either side of her mother’s head, the spell is recited in my mind. My subconscious is singing it, not me. I refuse this time. But the demon inside me, owning my soul, collects what’s his.

Or does he?

The room flashes white, my vision clears, and Juniper’s mother wakes. Her eyes are wide as she takes in my demonic nature. A wizard within a wizard.

“Who are you?” Her shallow breaths are fading and being replaced with stronger more forceful ones with every rise and fall of her chest. I’m not taking her, I’m curing her. Fate’s decree is that she lives, and the malignant disease within her fades and dies.

“Jac…” is all I manage to say before my body is lifted up and flown through the air again.

Everything around me goes dark as my memories are wiped. I won't remember tomorrow who I saw or what happened. But I’ll know I kissed Juniper, and she changed me again. Tomorrow I’ll make her leave Caspian even if I have to throw her out myself. I won’t let her do this to me ever again.

 

 

When I wake in the early morning, I’m still reeling from the standoff and weird angry kiss which Jacobi gave me. Rubbing my eyes, I drag myself from my bed and stretch out a yawn.

“Weird,” I murmur to myself touching my lips as I remember the kiss.

I looked for Jacobi all day yesterday, purely so I could avoid him of course, but I never spotted him. Even in our shared classes, he’d disappeared. I didn’t want to ask anyone where he was, so I spent my day with Emmie, trying to isolate myself from everyone else.

Walking over to the window, I stare outside. It’s at times like this I’m thankful for my father’s pull. The bliss of living on the outskirts of school means at four am when I can’t sleep, I can look out on the quiet back streets of London. I have to get ready and head to the academy for my morning clean-up, but I can’t draw myself away from the window. It feels like someone is watching me, and I’m sure I see movement in the shadows, but as I linger, no one emerges. Shaking my head, I drop the blinds and head for the shower.

 

 

“You got here early,” Lucas mutters as he walks towards me an hour later.

I glance up from my text book and smile. “I could say the same to you,” I counter, looking at my watch and noting it’s only just after five am.

He shrugs. “I was gonna go for a run before we start clean-up, since I’ll need to shower after anyway.”

I raise my eyebrows. “How dirty and sweaty are you planning on getting when you pick litter today?” I question, grinning.

He returns my grin. “I always put in one hundred percent,” he says with a wink.

I shake my head and look down at my maths book again. Magic is my nature, maths, not so much.

We learn magic as well as core subjects like maths and English at Caspian. However, the main reason for the existence of the school is to control the effect young witches have on the human world. Our hierarchy believe if we went to a normal school with our hormones raging and immature thought processes, then anything could happen. If someone was angry or got bullied, magic could be used and our secrets would be revealed. Actually, being revealed as a witch isn’t the worst thing that could happen. Being outed as a witch is a walk in the park compared to using magic on humans and hurting them physically or emotionally. If we did that, we could be sentenced to death. The paranormal legal system is ruthless.

Still, maths sucks and I’m not sure I’ll ever need to use it in the real world, not much past adding and subtracting anyway, and honestly, who hasn’t got a phone that can do it for them these days? However, if I don’t pass my class, they’ll call my dad in, and I’d rather study maths than see him.

Before I realise it, Lucas is back from his run, and we’re litter picking again. He’s easy to talk to, and he’s not someone who was around the first time I was here, so he has no idea of the history between me and Jacobi, or maybe he does? There’s every chance Jacobi told him. They seem pretty close.

I remember a time when we were friends, Taya too. I’m not sure what changed for Jacobi. We were fifteen when he kissed me. Not an angry, needy kiss like yesterday. No. Our first kiss was gentle, sweet and explorative. After the first time, Jacobi was different, though. I wondered, back then, if he’d regretted kissing me. I was young, inexperienced and the hottest boy in the school, who was also one of my best friends, kissed me. Maybe he found it too weird? But then it happened again, and a third time. Each time, he became more distant, agitated, angry even. It seems third time is the charm, well, until yesterday, as he stopped after kiss number three.

Maybe because of my age or my inexperience and immaturity, I couldn’t understand what had happened at the time. That was nearly three years ago, and looking back, I realise now he was using me all along. Learning how to kiss maybe, or how to brush a girl off? Who knows how his mind works? I only know if he really cared about me, he would never have treated me the way he did then or how he’s continued to treat me ever since. The thing which stung most is how he segregated me from all of our friends. I had no one until Emmie started at our school a couple of months after I turned sixteen. Thank the stars for her.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I consider ignoring it. If Mr Taylor notices me chatting when I’m supposed to be cleaning up, he’ll have a fit. However, when I take it out of my pocket and see it’s my mum’s number, I don’t care about extra punishment.

“Mum, are you okay?” The words rush out of me as panic sets in. Usually she calls three times a week in the evening; this call is unusual.

“Hey sweetie, everything is fine, better than fine actually,” she coos.

“Huh? Mum, what’s going on?”

“I had a visit last night. He came to cure me.”

Closing my eyes I rub my forehead. “Mum, have you been taking all your meds? Or taking too much?” The questions tumble out of me as I mentally work out how to get to her.

“A Guardian visited me last night-“

“Mum, have you been sleeping okay?” I cut her off.

“Juniper Arabella Ambrose, will you listen to me,” she snaps, and I quickly shut my mouth, allowing her to continue.

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