Blood of the White Witch (15 page)

“No!” I yelled, racing forward and reaching
out for him.

Fiona stepped in front of me and grabbed my
arm in an amazingly strong grip, holding me back, not letting me
touch him.

“Calm down,” she ordered, shaking me by the
arm. Her thin fingers bit into my skin even harder, causing me to
wince slightly. “We aren’t going to hurt him. Now, if you’ll be a
good girl and come with us willingly, we’ll let you stay with
him.”

I nodded, tears welling in my eyes and
streaking down my face, not even trying to fight her. I would do
anything she asked as long as they wouldn’t separate us. I knew he
would have told me to try and get away, but there was no way I was
leaving him behind.

Fiona never let go of me, dragging me as we
followed behind Douglas and Colin, manipulating my body at every
turn.

The two men were dragging Vance’s limp form
effortlessly between their bodies, each of them holding him by one
of his strong upper arms. He was facing the floor, his head
drooping without any control, and his legs were stretched out
behind him. He looked like he was dead, and it gave me the
shivers.

We entered the previously forbidden east
wing, seeing no signs of construction at all, though I wasn’t
surprised at this point, and we were led down the hall to a large
bedroom.

“So this is the dungeon? Nice,” I said
sarcastically, lifting my gaze so I could look around.

“Not quite,” Fiona smiled, yanking my arm in
another direction, and I almost tripped. “This way, please,” she
added, her calm tone belying the calculated demeanor which lay
beneath.

To my surprise, we entered the large walk-in
closet where we stopped at the back wall. Colin reached out and
must have activated a hidden spring mechanism. Suddenly a section
of the wall slid open to reveal several stone steps in front of us,
leading down into darkness.

“The dungeon is original to the property,”
Fiona began, as if she were leading me through the house on a
casual tour. “Of course, we’ve upgraded it with electricity and
several modern conveniences.”

We reached the bottom of the curved stone
stairwell, and she continued on with her informational lecture.

“We have several…um…guest suites here, as
well as a lovely ritual room where our coven meets together.”

“Sounds great,” I said facetiously.

“It really is, isn’t it?” She smiled and
patted my arm in a friendly gesture, as if I were being totally
serious.

We stopped outside a large metal door which
Colin opened magically, then he turned back to drag Vance through
it with Douglas. Fiona shuttle me through the door right behind
them.

I was surprised to find that the small room
was actually quite nicely furnished. A soft looking full-sized bed
covered in floral bedding was in one corner, pressed up against the
wall. Pushed up on the opposite wall was a small oak drop-leaf
table with three sturdy chairs that matched it.

A door that opened in the corner revealed a
very small bathroom space complete with a shower, fresh towels, and
soaps on the counter.

Douglas and Colin tossed Vance
unceremoniously on the bed, and I wrenched my arm from Fiona’s
grasp, rushing over to his side.

“I’m sorry things won’t be quite as
comfortable for you as they were upstairs,” Fiona said. “If Vance
decides to have a change of heart, however, maybe we can readdress
that issue.”

I ignored the three of them completely, not
even looking at them, until they finally backed out of the room. I
heard the steel door slide shut and lock into place, but a plate on
the outside of the door opened then, revealing a windowed area with
bars.

Douglas stood on the other side.

“Let me reassure you that this door has been
magically reinforced to the extreme, so you don’t need to waste
your energies on it. It can only be opened from the outside,” he
said with a smile, before sliding the plate closed again.

I stretched my body out, lying next to Vance
on the bed, wrapping both of my arms tightly around him, cradling
his head with one and wrapped my other around his waist.

“What are we going to do now?” I whispered
to myself, feeling an overwhelming sense of dread creep through
me.

Placing the palms of my hands against his
body, I let my healing powers flow through him. I could feel the
powerful sedative he had been given running thickly through his
veins. While I tried to push through the medication, I could
quickly see there wasn’t going to be much more that I could do for
him. There was some type of magical component added to the
substance which I couldn’t seem to overcome. His body would need to
work the foreign material from his system. He was going to be
asleep for a while.

Sighing, I laid there for several minutes
before I got up and began trying to give myself something useful to
do, checking out the room, looking for air ducts, possible weapons,
anything that could be used in a spell, but there was nothing to
aid in our possible escape.

I tried using my magic to test out the locks
and different surfaces for weak points, finding that things did
indeed seem to be greatly reinforced just as Douglas had
warned.

Feeling completely discouraged, I lifted my
hands and shot out several ice shards at the door. They bounced
harmlessly off the surface, shattering against the concrete
floor.

Giving up for the moment, since I didn’t
know what else to try, I went back to the bed, sliding my back up
against Vance’s stomach and wrapping his unconscious arms around
me.

I comforted myself with one thought. Being
trapped with him was better than being without him. I lay there in
his unknowing embrace until I finally drifted off to sleep.

Vance’s jerking movements against me were
what finally woke me sometime later. I rolled over to look at him,
and he groggily opened his eyes, blinking several time trying to
focus.

“How are you doing?” I asked with
concern.

He looked at me, concentrating on my face
for a few seconds, before he gathered himself together enough to
reply.

“Okay, I guess. Where are we?” He swallowed
thickly before his tongue darted out to lick his dry lips,

“In the dungeon suite, courtesy of your
grandparents,” I answered, and I watched for his reaction.

He rolled over onto his back then and took a
look around the room, before turning back to me.

“Are you all right? They didn’t hurt you,
did they?” His eyes flitted over me with a worried glance, and he
ran a hand softly down my arm as if to assess my physical
well-being himself.

“No, they didn’t hurt me. I’m fine,” I
replied, shaking my head, hurrying to reassure him. “Fiona advised
me that if I came along nicely, they’d let me stay with you. I’m
sorry if I caved in too easily, but I wasn’t about to do anything
that would risk my being separated from you.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, sort of
smiling at me while he sat up, reaching out to pat my leg gently in
the process, before turning his attention away. “Now how do we get
out of this place?”

He got up and paced around the room himself,
looking things over much as I had earlier.

“I’ve already checked it out,” I said,
feeling more than a little bit discouraged about our predicament
while I watched him use some of his powers to test the door and the
walls, his gaze moving over every surface.

He turned to look at me, the hope fleeing
from his face, and he nodded his head in understanding and came to
sit back on the edge of the bed with a dejected sigh.

“I think there’s some type of containment
field around all the interior surfaces of the room. Our magic will
be unable to affect it, I’m afraid,” he said, pausing to stare off
into space for a moment. “Portia, baby, I’m sorry that I’ve dragged
you into all this again. I should’ve known from the beginning that
something wasn’t adding up.”

“None of this is your fault,” I said, and I
sat up, crawling over to kneel behind him and wrap my arms around
his shoulders. “We were just tricked, plain and simple.”

“I’m such an idiot!” he growled, and he
pulled away from me, standing to pace the small spot of open floor
in the room.

I followed him off the bed and grabbed him
by the shoulders with both of my hands, forcing him to look at
me.

“There’s nothing we can do about this right
now. Hopefully someone will notice that we’re missing,” I said, and
I popped up on my toes to give him a peck on the lips. “Until then,
just try to think of this as our honeymoon in a different location
while we try to come up with a new plan.”

I forced myself to smile at him, in an
attempt to cheer him up and relieve some of his stress.

He pulled me into his embrace, wrapping his
arms tightly around my waist now, smiling slightly down at me.

“My sweet Portia, ever the optimist, aren’t
you? You’re literally having the vacation from hell, yet all you
concentrate on is the honeymoon part.” He looked at me with wonder
and amazement in his eyes.

“I’ve actually been greatly enjoying my
honeymoon, thank you,” I replied, sliding my hands up over his
shoulders toward his neck. “This is a little bump in our plans, but
we’ll figure it out somehow. At least we’re still together.”

“Yes. That is a plus,” he agreed, and his
gaze flitted over my features, suddenly sparking to life with a
fire I instantly recognized. “So what do you think we can do to
fill the hours while we’re stuck in this place?”

“I have no idea,” I replied with a smile,
and he bent to kiss me.

Our fear at the situation we were in tangled
up in heated our exchange quickly. He kissed me hard and
passionately before he scooped me up and carried me over to the
bed, gently depositing me on its surface. He lay down next to me
and leaned over me, just as we heard the lock scrape in the
door.

Both of us sat up abruptly.

The metal door opened, and Fiona stepped
into the room.

“I thought the two of you might enjoy a
little company now that Vance is awake,” she said, and she smiled
with her hands folded primly in front of her.

The door opened a little bit wider, and
Douglas appeared, thrusting a woman into the room in front of
him.

She stumbled, a couple of feet into the
space, before she caught herself, standing to push her hair back
away from her face.

Vance was off the bed in an instant.

“Mom?” he asked, though he appeared a little
leery as he took a step toward her.

Krista Mangum’s eyes moved to his, and a
thousand expressions washed over her face as she looked at him.

“Vance?” she whispered, and her hand
feathered up to her throat, tears springing into her eyes.

She reached him in two strides, grabbing him
up into her arms, kissing his face, laughing and hugging him.

Vance grabbed her hard to him, wrapping his
arms around her, and he buried his face in her soft curly hair.

I felt my hand tremble, and I covered my own
mouth, watching the two of them together, my own eyes beginning to
water at the sight before me.

When they pulled apart, tears were streaming
down both of their faces.

“Vance, I just wanted to prove to you that
life here isn’t all that bad,” Fiona said with a smile, and she
stepped back through the door. “Enjoy your reunion.”

“She’s wrong,” Krista said after the door
closed behind Fiona, her eyes never leaving Vance’s face. “Life
here is horrible. Don’t ever let her make you think otherwise.” She
paused to reach out and touch his face again, as if she were afraid
he wasn’t real. “Now how did you end up here? Right in the very
place I tried all these years to keep you from?”

“It’s a long story,” Vance began, turning
back toward me, pulling Krista in my direction. “Before we begin, I
want to introduce you to someone, Mom. This is my wife,
Portia.”

Krista turned to look at me with widened
eyes.

“Your wife?” she exclaimed, looking back and
forth between the two of us with a shocked expression. “Aren’t the
two of you a little young for that?”

Vance laughed with a slightly nervous
sound.

“It’s all part of the long story,” he said,
and he smiled reassuringly at me. “But rest assured, Mom, it isn’t
something I did lightly, and I truly love her with all my
heart.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Portia.”
Krista smiled and stepped forward to give me a somewhat awkward
hug. “Forgive me for being a bit overwhelmed. I can’t believe this
handsome young man in front of me is my long-lost son, let alone
that he’s married.”

“I’m very happy to meet you,” I said when
she pulled away. “Vance has missed you in his life so much.”

“Why don’t we sit over here?” Vance
suggested, gesturing to the small spot on the opposite wall of the
room.

The three of us moved together to sit at the
small dining table.

“So tell me what has happened since I last
saw you,” Krista said to Vance, her eyes drinking in every detail
of his face, like she was drowning with joy just looking at
him.

Vance launched into his life story, while I
occasionally added things here and there, bringing things up to the
present.

“Wow,” Krista said, slumping a little in her
chair. “You’ve certainly been through a lot, son,” she added before
turning to look at me. “Portia, thank you so much for all that
you’ve done for him.”

“It was my pleasure. No problem at all,” I
responded, casting my gaze toward Vance. “I love him.”

Vance reached over to pat my leg
affectionately, leaving his hand there, before turning back to his
mom.

“Your turn,” he said with an encouraging
smile, prodding his mom to tell her side of the past.

Krista gave a big sigh before she began.

“Well, long story short, Damien caught up
with me soon after I’d given you to Marsha. He was very angry with
me, threatening to kill me if I didn’t tell him where you were. He
even tortured me with his powers to try and get it out of me. I
kept my mouth shut, though. By the time he was able to force me to
speak, it didn’t matter anymore. I had no idea where you and Marsha
had gone. That had been part of the deal to protect you. He kept me
prisoner for a long time before he finally ended up bringing me
here. I’ve been here ever since.”