“Quit being so insightful.” Her friend would get to the heart of what was bothering her.
“It’s true. I get that having your first love turn on you can do some serious damage. Trust me, I do. But it was a fluke. He was a jerk.”
He was, though he hadn’t started out that way. He’d attended the boys’ school across the lake from her own all-girls witches’ academy, the North American Academy for Immortal Magics. She shouldn’t have been at a witch school, but it was the only place for an orphan soulceress to go. The Burnings hadn’t been a problem in America, so it had been safe enough, and baby witches were basically like baby soulceresses. Until they came into their powers.
It had been a good fit, until it hadn’t been. During the good times, she’d had all her friends and eventually Brian. They’d dated for two years. Two years of blissful young love. Love that might have made it.
But then she’d come into her powers as a soulceress, which normally happened around adulthood. It had started over the summer, coming in bits and spurts. When her friends figured out that she was sucking their powers away from them, they’d turned on her.
Brian had promised he wouldn’t.
But eventually the disgust of their fellow students and the pressure of his prejudice had driven him away. The more desperate she became and the more she tried to cling to him, the faster he withdrew. She’d had no control of her powers or of herself at the time, had been floundering with no life raft, and it had been the last thing that she could bear.
With no friends and Brian gone, she’d left the school before graduation. She’d learned the hard way what happened when she let down her guard.
“I can’t believe I told you about all that,” Esha said.
“Of course you do. We’re friends, idiot. And I love you even if that asshole didn’t.” Ana punched her.
“Thanks. Really.”
“What about a mortal, then?”
“Mortals die.”
She’d tried that too, when she’d been too young to know any better and wanted to bury the memory of Brian. The mortal she’d fallen for had been lovely and kind. She’d loved him. Had even been stupid enough to dream of a life with him.
Until he’d died in a carriage accident from which she’d easily walked away. It had pulled her world out from under her.
Since then, she’d never tried for something permanent because her options were only mortals. She didn’t even know how she’d go about having a real relationship. She had no practice, only a long series of one-night stands and rejections by her own kind.
Their loss.
“So, what’s this job like?” Ana asked.
“Gotta help the lame-o witches. They’re in over their heads.” She was looking forward to it. A chance to show those bitches up.
“Do you know what it is?”
“No. Something that Warren told me not to screw up.”
They’d reached the beautifully wild garden surrounding the witches’ cottages and greenhouses. Even now, well past dark and at the height of autumn, fluffy bunnies and cute cats roamed through the flowerbeds. Other animals would be about as well—raccoons and deer, badgers and voles. They were drawn to the Animus witches, who, likewise, were drawn to them. No one hated a witch who drew her power from the happy feelings of a kitten. Esha scowled.
“Fates,” Ana said when a bunny hopped up to her to sniff at her leg. “It’s like a Disney movie.”
“I thought you liked Disney movies.” Ana loved all movies. Anything that showed life on earth was her bag.
“Not like this I don’t. Don’t even think about it,” she said to the bunny.
Esha laugh
ed, but it made her vaguely ill too. Give her rogue Mytheans creeping through the underground any day. As a mercenary, she didn’t spend much time around bunnies. Not that they weren’t nice, but there was something about this place that put her off.
“Don’t worry,” she told Ana. “There are still plenty of witchy creepy crawlies.”
And there were. Insects and snakes loved the witches as much as the bunnies did, but they weren’t as easy to see in the dark.
Ana looked up from the bunny, who was now nibbling on the lace of her leather boot. “I’d better get back. You’ve got work to do, and I bet the debacle in Otherworld is almost over. Good luck with the sparkle witches.”