Otherworldly Discipline: A Witch's Lesson (14 page)

Moriarty saluted and trudged out towards the Earthside.

*
*
*

Even though Moriarty possessed very few magical powers, barely any at all, he was still a wizard at attracting women. On that account, nothing at all had changed since he met the man.

Still even with Moriarty at his side, whispering instructions in his ear, Moriarty had secured them a couple of beautiful flat-mates with huge, bulging breasts, clothes that looked like they were painted on their bodies, who were tall with long, luscious legs.

One of the women, before full
out inviting them to their apartment, ran her well-manicured hand on the inside of Ashcroft’s trousers, finding his erection and giving it a squeeze. Ashcroft’s body tensed nervously. He asked Moriarty in Huxian if the women were prostitutes.

“No,” he replied back in the same language.
“
These women are a dime a dozen; single, willing, and string
free. Welcome to the twenty-first century, Master.”

“…
Charlotte doesn’t act like this when she’s here, does she
?
” Ashcroft worried, although the woman who was rubbing him with a sensuous smile was probably ten years older than Charlotte.

“Who cares if she does? You did not come here to think about Charlotte. You said so yourself
,”
Moriarty chided, playing with the woman’s fingers. He leaned over to Ashcroft’s woman
, slipping back into English
. “You need to do me a favor,” Moriarty grinned. “My friend here needs to forget about this little chit that’s been running him ragged.”

“Oh, I can take care of that,” the woman promised with a wink. “I won’t run you ragged,” she promised Ashcroft, trailing her nail up and down his thigh. “I’ll just
wear
you out.”

*
*
*

Charlotte walked miserably down to the study in her nightgown, realizing she was alone in the house, except for maybe Naomi, who was already sleeping, and a couple of lower-level servants that filled the fireplace in the study for her, but didn’t stop to even smile at her, let alone chat.

She closed the study door and opened the small pouch she’d pulled from her dress pocket when she was leaving her bedroom.

The house was quiet, very quiet, and she was nervous as she looked down at the black pill in her hand, contemplating. What if it poisoned her? Lachlan seemed nice enough, and sexy, but he did make the baby hairs on her neck stand up on end. Looking down at the pill made her feel like she swallowed a brick of ice.

But if it did do as Lachlan promised… Then Ashcroft would be more than pleased. She’d be an equal then, wouldn’t she? No more spankings, surely. And if he wanted her as Moriarty assured her he did, then he could have her. She was sure that the rules of decorum
was
the only thing that bounded Ashcroft out of her room that evening.

He’d wanted her that evening—she knew it, and not just because he briefly touched her inner thighs, but because she felt his erection under
her
body, digging uncomfortably into her stomach. She would have let him play with her if he’d tried to. She was charged, hot, uncomfortable, and the smallest touch seemed to bring it all to a head. If he’d just touch her more, there’d be some relief!

She stood in the middle of the study, and after taking a deep breath, popped the pill into her mouth and swallowed it before she was able to over think the issue.

A strong breeze suddenly ripped open the window shutters. She saw the books on the shelves begin to rock and rattle, and then they did something she did not expect: they opened and their words flew off the page in a ghostly way and floated towards her.

She was too paralyzed by her own fear to move. And then she realized she wasn’t able to move, anyway. Some invisible force was holding her where she was, only prying her mouth open. The words flew across the room and into her mouth where she could feel them, taste them, hear them as they entered her bloodstream and her brain.

Book after book. Hundreds of them. Hundreds of levels of shelves of them. Word after word, letter after letter, phrase after phrase. It was like listening to a million voices trying to talk to her all at once. But she understood them. Her head began to ache, as if it was ready to explode.

More words, billions of them, made their way, ripping towards her.

Charlotte passed out, but the force still kept her floating in mid air, mouth open. Receiving knowledge—every word of it.

*
*
*

“You are embarrassing. How could you have let that happen?” Moriarty was still chiding Ashcroft, as he’d done since he left the delectable women’s flat, all through the cab ride, and all through the mile long hike into the Otherworld and to the tower.

“I told you, I don’t know. I’m not particularly proud of myself, either,” Ashcroft grumbled in reply.

Moriarty had at least had a wonderful night.
His woman knew how to use her mouth in all sorts of ways. But all Ashcroft did in her flat-mate’s room was talk about Charlotte, much to his seducer’s disgust.

“Why did you even decide to
go
?” Moriarty snapped. “What is wrong with you?”

“Shh.” Ashcroft looked up the stairs, obviously dreading that Charlotte would be able to hear them. “How can I make love with one woman when I have another in my head
?”
He finished in Huxian.

“I didn’t want you to
make love
to that chit! You were
supposed
to fuck her! Must I write
you an essay on the difference
?”
He rolled his eyes, then wrung his hands and clapped them. “I wash my hands of you, Master
.”
He held up his hands to illustrate how clean they were of Ashcroft’s nonsense.

They walked up the stairs and Ashcroft looked into the study, finding that Charlotte was curled up in a ball on the floor on her cushion in front of the fire, sleeping. Moriarty immediately rubbed at his freezing arms, and looked over to see that the window had blown open. He went to close the shutters, then walked over and grinned. “She’s almost cute when she’s sleeping, eh?” he whispered. “Too bad she has to wake up…” He knelt down and easily picked her up into his arms. She didn’t move, just hung like a rag doll.

With hesitation, Ashcroft stepped over and put his hand on her forehead. “Well, her fever’s gone.” In fact, she felt very, very clammy and cold. He felt her pulse. It was strong. “She
s
eems
completely
tuckered out
. I’ll take her.” He opened up his arms.

Moriarty raised an eyebrow. “I’ve got her, Master,” he walked her out of the study, Ashcroft close behind him.

“What was that look?
As if you do not trust me!
”

“I don’t
trust you,” Moriarty assured. “I’ve
shot all
my
arrows
, whereas you have not
.
”

Moriarty could almost hear Ashcroft frown. “That’s quite unfair, Moriarty
,”
he finally grumbled, but obviously didn’t trust him, either. He watched Moriarty like a hawk while he put Charlotte into her room. When he came back, he said corralling Ashcroft out of the room and closing Charlotte’s door behind them. “Good evening, Master.”

Ashcroft grumbled and then stomped the few feet to his bedroom.

Moriarty walked into his own and washed himself off before he got ready for bed. As nice as it was to have sex weekly, it was still with an utter stranger, and he couldn’t sleep with another woman’s scent on him. But he was exhausted, as he always was on a night off. He fell into bed.

Gasp!

Charlotte woke up with such a start that she couldn’t remember where she was at all, but then she looked around the darkness of the room and realized she was in her bedroom. She felt no better.

She was panting, her heartbeat drumming in her ears.

What had she done
?
Her thoughts twirled thickly through her mind; thoughts that weren’t really her own swirled in there, too. It felt like she was listening to a radio that wouldn’t turn off. One that was spouting horrible things at her.

You made a deal with Lachlan the Destroyer. Lachlan the Demon Lord. Lachlan … 

She closed her hands over her ears tightly, as if that would drown out the thoughts.

…Enemy of Ashcroft. Enemy of the Archivists. Enemy of the Byndians.

Although Ashcroft and Lachlan were indeed brothers, Ashcroft hadn’t said a single kind word about Lachlan in all his writings. And the reason for that was because there wasn’t anything nice to say about him. Ashcroft suspected things of Lachlan that the Wizard’s Circle didn’t even agree with—Ashcroft had written that he believed guilty of genocide along with Merlin for killing off the Byndians—her people.

She felt woozy. She more than likely gave her first kiss away to the man Ashcroft would blame of killing her mother, or at least the man behind it.

What have you done, Charlotte?
she asked herself with horror.

And she didn’t know. She barely had glanced at the contract she’d signed, and now she didn’t want to know what was on it. She hoped she’d never know, although something in her gut told her differently. She knew something horrible would be there. Something she couldn’t change. Something nightmarish that she’d agreed to do to or for Lachlan that she didn’t even know about.

No, she didn’t want to know what she’d done. All she knew was that she’d been a fool.

She was shaking as the thoughts in her head swirled within her, telling her other things she didn’t want to know. Things she wished she could just forget. There were so many horrible things outside. So many horrible demons in the dark. So many things that could—and had—happened.

She had had a very, very dark awakening. And now she could never sleep again.

And she was so tired. So tired, and so headachy. She could barely even think. Before she knew it, she climbed out of the bed slowly as if the shadows flickering on the ceiling from the window were beings that could grab her, and she quickly raced down the hall to Moriarty’s room.

He’d locked his door—he had begun to lock it after she tried to sneak in there the first time. But she now knew that Moriarty saving her from the demon wasn’t a fluke at all—Moriarty had done much more than that. Moriarty probably could protect her from anything.

So could Ashcroft. Ashcroft had taken great care to chronicle many of his adventures, the things he had seen and learned. He had written his concerns, his decisions, his philosophies. But Ashcroft and Moriarty were warriors—wary of everything, and scared of nothing.

Ashcroft and Moriarty were enemies of nearly everything. All matters of dark magic would love to scrub both of them off the planet. Anybody else probably would have gone into hiding eons ago!

No wonder Lachlan wanted to pose a deal with her—she was a young, stupid enemy and was under the tutelage of the only man who could stand in his way. No wonder evil night-creatures were underneath the windowsill—they were testing Ashcroft’s protection spells for weaknesses. It wasn’t too crazy to think that she needed extra protection. There was no reason to be kept out of someone’s bedroom!

Charlotte could not be kept out by locks any longer—she knew the spell now that could simply defy the mechanism, and all she had to do was recite something in her mind and touch the side of the door with her fingers to get the lock to obey her demand, allowing her to creep in.

Moriarty was out—he was also sprawled out to take as much bed space as possible. She stepped into bed with him anyway, and when he didn’t wake up, she stifled a relieved sigh, though her mind was still spinning.

Although it was like trying to nap in a concert hall, she drifted wearily off to sleep.

*
*
*

Cinnamon and
vanilla
.
He was thinking a couple of hours later as he drifted back and forth between sleeping and being awake. Huh. Was that the scent of the woman this evening? Maybe her friend… No. They both smelt like jasmine and incense. Who smells like…

His eyes popped open and he realized that Charlotte was curled next to him in a ball. “No, no, no!” he shouted as much as he could in a whisper. He got up on his elbows and tried to push her off the bed with his foot. “Out
.
”

Her slender arms whipped out and she pulled herself against his chest
.
“No. I don’t care if I sleep. I’ll stay awake. I don’t want to be alone.”

“Jesus.” He looked up at the ceiling. “You are going to get me horsewhipped. What happened? Why did you wake up? You were absent to the world when we got in.”