Otherworldly Discipline: A Witch's Lesson (31 page)

He could go to sleep forever in her golden curls, he was thinking, spinning his fingers around her tresses. He really wondered if he could reject her if he tried—if Ashcroft had advised him to break all ties. If Moriarty didn’t decide to try to marry the girl… What would he have done when he came into the room, if she
had
still
been
there
when he’d come in
?

He would have become ensnared instantly. He knew it. He had too many of these warm, tender little feelings lately. When Alice was around, he was drowning in
those
warm little feelings. Like right now; he could have held her and comforted her forever.

“Alice,” he told her. “I could no more reject my own heart. I’m more worried about you losing your affection for me. I’m supposedly hard to get on with.”

“I’ve never imagined someone so easy to love,” she told him softly. “I’m completely taken.” They held each other for a very long time. “Although it seems I’ll forever have your handprints on my poor bottom,” she added with a dramatic pout.

He chuckled. “Forever and ever,” he agreed, and kissed the top of her head.

Although it was getting late, and Charlotte was certain she’d never felt so sore, inside or out, in her entire life, she wouldn’t leave him by himself in the study. It was dark, and she wanted his company, and she knew for certain that he preferred having her company, as well.
He was always thrilled especially when she looked curiously over his shoulders, or asked him a simple question.

To whatever she agreed to with Lachlan more than a month ago, she found that
she wished
his side
o
f the bargain had never been completed. She wished she hadn’t taken so much of Ashcroft’s knowledge. Not that he didn’t seem to know more than what he had written down
; he certainly did. In his long years, he had learned so much that she realized even the books that filled the walls floor to ceiling couldn’t hold all he knew.

Still, Ashcroft liked her asking questions so much that she was becoming very afraid that she had missed out on an experience of being his student. She didn’t realize how much fun it could be, or how excited he could get by teaching her if she seemed interested.

Besides, he knew well enough to suspect that she knew more than she should by now. He knew she was keeping something
from him;
that was clear enough
, but he didn’t press her harshly about it, and she didn’t offer him any information
.
T
he idea of telling him that she had even met with Lachlan made her feel like her stomach was made of ice—she couldn’t handle how nervous it made her to think of Ashcroft’s reaction. It was better he’d never know, unless the fact became absolutely inescapable.

But he didn’t try to teach her as hard as he once did. When she did seem to know something he wanted to teach her, he would only frown with disappointment
, and then would change the subject.

Charlotte warmed herself in front of the fire, looking up occasionally from her book to see what Ashcroft was doing, and asking if he needed anything.

But when she looked up and saw him at his desk rather than at the side of the room that acted as h
is laboratory, heaving heavy sigh
s, she asked what was wrong.

“You should probably go to bed, Charlotte,” he replied, rubbing his fingers
pads
against his
crinkled
forehead.

“I don’t sleep without you,” she reminded, standing up and walking over to him. “What’s
the scoop
?”

He sighed and then turned his body and offered his hand until he combed her into his body
until
she was seated on his lap. “Something impossible,” he replied. “Well, obviously not,” he argued with himself. “Because I’ve tested the fact several times and the result has been the same
…
”

“What have you tested?” she asked, looking over towards the pages he had open and one page, to her amazement, had a very old illustration of her own birth father. She had seen his pictures and portraits many a time, although it was odd to see one of him from the fifteenth century. “That’s my Dad, isn’t it?” She pointed to the man wearing pantaloons and a cape.

“Yes,” Ashcroft replied heavily. “
This is from o
ne of my older files of him. I kept all my correspondences with him together.”

She pushed past the portrait and, with interest, looked down at the page. “Ah, man!” she groaned with disappointment when she realized she didn’t know hardly a word on the page. “French?”

He chuckled. “You don’t know French?” he asked with amusement.

“I wouldn’t say I know
English
very well!” she admitted, grinning. “Way, way too many words.”

“Well, at least I’ll have something to teach you, then,” he told her, in a weighted sort of way that both of their smiles fade, just as they both recognized that there was something unsaid between them. He then patted his hand over her stomach and said, “Your father was very interested, after Merlin had cut down so many
of your kind
already, in creating a breeding program with another race. He didn’t
ever
feel the Byndian line was strong enough. They were too easy to kill, too physically weak, too defenseless. He tried to get others to start breeding with stronger races to carry on the
Byndian line, which at the time
was an idea that the Byndians treated as heresy. The idea made him several enemies in his own line, and for centuries he lived apart from the others.
Your mother only allowed him admittance when it became apparent that he was all that was left. He was very, very unpopular.
”

“Why?” Charlotte asked, scrunching her nose.
Her father was handsome enough—he looked young, since he was immortal, and his features were flawless. Even the old painting of him suggested him as a man with ample charisma.

“Because they wanted to keep their line pure.  Back then, matches were made among birth, and every birth of one of their line had a purpose, a match, to carry on the line further.
They didn’t want too many of their own race; they kept their numbers low.
Your father only came out of hiding just before you were conceived, when it was only your mother left and
she was
desperate to make a final attempt of carrying on the line. Of course, he was probably out of hiding for a month before he was killed. And your mother tried to go back into hiding, to no avail. Luckily
,
the Byndian enemies didn’t think you made it—
they figured that if they
kill
ed
the mother,
they would
kill the unborn child.”

“Why would they even try to kill me off?” she asked, biting her lip.

“Because you’re a powerful faction—magically, at least. One Byndian could keep dragons out of an entire realm and create the earth such that their realm could prosper with a wealth like no other. Those realms were very hard to take over during a war. Though secretly assassinating you one by one seemed to work. And then, of course, there were wars in your own faction since Merlin tried to take the faction forcibly—my own brother, I’m ashamed to say, put him up to that.”

“Lachlan?” Charlotte swallowed.

Ashcroft nodded. “Lachlan knew he could control Merlin, as Merlin had made a contract with him when he was a younger, even more foolish man, and Merlin wanted to control the Byndians. Hence, Lachlan would have had power that was dreamed impossible. He could have taken over whatever he wanted by having the Byndians under his thumb.” 

Charlotte wrapped her fingers around Ashcroft’s arm, trying to make it look like she wasn’t upset by all this. She had never quite understood any of it before. She didn’t know enough names or events.
She never pieced it together except that her kin’s enemies would rather
have
them be wiped out of existence if they wouldn’t succumb to the control of others.

And now Charlotte realized she had signed a contract with Lachlan as surely as Merlin had.

“Why are you going over all of this now?” she asked, biting her lip.

Ashcroft sighed again. “Because I fear your father sired a child in secrecy from his own faction shortly before he attempted with you
…
A
child that fell more in line with his beliefs about cross-breeding.”

“Alice?” she gasped. Her stomach seemed to clench sourly on this information as she processed it. “Alice is my
sister
, then?”

Ashcroft frowned. “It’s the only thing that makes sense with the story, my dear. Only a Byndian could control the wind like that.”

“But…” She frowned. “A honey-nymph Byndian?”

“I could believe
it
more than not,” Ashcroft told her, gesturing to the letters. “He made a child with someone who wanted to have a powerful child even more dearly, one that would be a queen one day; a nymph Princess, second-in-line for her own thrown. Of course, the couple probably thought they could have hidden the pregnancy and birth of the child from the hive, and her mother certainly wouldn’t have told the queen who the sire was, for fear the queen would kill the child. When they disappeared, surely your father thought that the Princess and his child were executed, not just imprisoned.

“And so when his race was brought down to two a decade later, he rejoined your mother and sired you.”

She swallowed, her feelings steadily feeling more and more hurt. “As a last resort.”

“As a last hope,” he returned more kindly. He pinched the bridge of his nose as if he was about to decree something that was surely going to bring on a headache. “But Alice is your older sister
…” He didn’t say anything for a long moment, merely looked back and forth over the letters on the table.
“
She needs to begin her training, then.”

“You mean… You’re going to take her as your apprentice?” Charlotte asked in a confused drawl, shocked by everything.

“Of course I will; I must. She is the head of the Byndian faction, after all,” he replied with certainty. “She will take part in the Wizard’s Circle.”

“But you said that there’s only one per faction in the Wizard’s Circle,” Charlotte reminded, her voice sounding childlike even to her own ears.

“And, as she is your faction’s head
since she is older.
T
hat place is hers.” He squeezed her arm. “You’re quite off the hook, as you wished,” he told her, his voice suddenly lighter, as if he was delivering good news. “You never wanted to be part of the Wizard’s Circle, anyway, is that not true?”

“Yeah,” she replied, feeling like she had just fallen down the rabbit hole. She was positive that just a few minutes ago, she wasn’t looking forward to hanging around with over bureaucratic, power-hungry old coots for her whole life. But now that he said she wouldn’t, she felt she would miss having the honor. She wasn’t even head of the faction now.

Charlotte
wasn’t the last Byndian. She was just some run-of-the-mill Byndian, one her father took centuries to even be snookered into producing sperm for. She wasn’t wanted, she realized. Her father wanted Alice; a stronger immortal, one capable of healing faste
r
and actually defending herself
on both a small and large scale
.

And Charlotte’s parents had always treated her like she was so special… Now, very abruptly, she realized that if Alice had been raised with her, they would surely have liked her better. Alice was prettier and more soft-spoken than she was. Seemingly even nicer, too—she had won Moria
r
ty’s heart, after all, which was a feat no one else had done before with the infamous rake.

Charlotte had never felt so low in her life. And she hadn’t thought it was possible two moments ago, when she was recognizing that the only thing she had so far done under Ashcroft’s tutelage was steal all of his knowledge and sign a contract with his evil brother.

Ashcroft’s fingers were suddenly petting her cheek. “Charlotte, Darling? Are you alright? I would have thought you, at least, would be happy with all this news. It’s as if you got a sister as an early Christmas gift.” He smiled at her.

Charlotte nodded and forced herself to smile. There was nothing to be done, she knew, except try to make the most of her situation. “Yeah… Yeah, it’s awesome. Awesome news.” She swallowed. “Are… Are you happy about it, too?”

“Oh, very. Having at least two Byndians left is quite the blessing,” Ashcroft replied without a second’s hesitation. “I just feel very, very foolish that I could have missed your father’s plotting. He was a good friend of mine, you know. He taught me your faction’s spells when no one else would. But dash it all, he never was one to divulge his plots unless they turned out perfectly as planned.”

She felt his finger
s
tap against her
stomach
and then he rested his chin on her shoulder and eventually kissed the back of her neck. “I suppose we should go to sleep after all. No doubt
the couple
doesn’t want me to disturb them, and so we’ll have a lot to discuss over breakfast.”