Fated to the enemy

Chapter Five: Borrowed Magic

Elena's pov

I couldn't stop replaying his mouth on mine, his voice telling me to pretend it never happened, and underneath all of it, footsteps of someone retreating in the dark just before the Alpha left there, someone had seen us.

I stayed quiet, watching everyone and trying to find out who saw us.

"Hey you, new maid?" Bella called and I silently prayed that she wasn't the one who saw us.

l walked up to the bench where she sat, smiling sharp enough to draw blood.

"Good morning."

"And what exactly is good about the morning." She asked looking irritated.

My heart slammed in my chest because if she was the one it wouldn't be good.

"You f*****g stink" she said, closing her nose like I was smelling.

I felt embarrassed, but my hands were tied, so I couldn't fight back, I just stood there watching her.

She stood up, I thought she was about to leave but I was wrong, she was just getting started.

“You b***h,” she said, pulling my hair tightly.

It was so painful that I begged her to stop but she wouldn't.

“Bella, why can't you grow up for ones,” it was Elijah, I have never been so grateful to see him.

Bella immediately left my hair and walked off, and I stood there with my heart in my throat.

"Elena." Elijah, called from behind me.

“Are you alright” concern lacing through his voice.

I just nodded not trusting him either, he may be the one who saw us.

"Walk with me." he said

"I'm working."

"I insist Elena."

I walked side by side, with him, silence stretching between us.

I felt eyes on us before I even looked up.

Damon was watching from the top of the stairs.

"Are you sure am not breaking any rule?," I asked

"Why?"

"He's staring at us like we're doing something bad."

Elijah glanced up, unbothered.

"Elijah, please I don't want to get punished"

“You aren't breaking any rule dear.” He smiled

"I was trying to confirm my observation." He slowed.

"The Alpha's temper gets too possessive every time I mention your name. We grew up together and he has never been so possessive of anyone apart from his late mother."

"It's nothing, Elijah, am just his maid" I said, too fast.

"Sure." He smiled, unconvinced.

"Careful, Elena."

"Careful of what, exactly?" I replied hoping that he wasn't the one, who saw us.

"I think you're the only one in this house who's good at hiding things." He said it lightly, but his eyes didn't match his voice.

Something in me told me that he was the one there last night.

He left before I knew it. I didn't look back at the stairs to check if Damon was still watching.

He was because I could feel it.

"There she is." A charming boy, who looked like Damon, fell into step beside me an hour later, smiling already in place.

"The famous new maid."

"I don't know what you mean." I replied because I couldn't place my hand on what was going on.

Why is everyone watching me?

"Sure you do." He shrugged.

"My cousin marked you as his personal maid on day one. Bella's been hissing about you for three days. Elijah's suddenly interested in laundry gossip.

You're the most interesting thing to happen here in years, Elena."

"I'm just a maid."

"No." His smile is still in place. "You're not. And I think you know that." he said firmly.

"Relax." He laughed.

"I'm not here to expose you, I like you, genuinely." He caught my wrist, gentle. "You're the first person who's come through those gates pretending to be smaller than she is."

"Let go of my wrist."

"Of course." he left my hand.

“Am Ethan by the way, Damon's cousin unfortunately.” he chuckled

"Ethan."

Damon's voice cracked across the courtyard.

Ethan didn't flinch. "Cousin, perfect timing."

Damon crossed the distance fast, and the pressure coming off him was worse than anything I'd felt from him yesterday.

"Get your hands off her."

"Just introducing myself." Ethan spread his hands. "No harm done. Unless there's a reason to worry about touching your maid, Damon?"

"Ethan."

"What? It's a fair question." Ethan's smile didn't waver. "You made her your personal maid the day she arrived. You defend her in front of the whole pack. Forgive me for wondering where the line is."

"There's no line to wonder about."

"Then you won't mind if I keep talking to her, she's so pretty and I like them that way.

"Walk away, Ethan."Damon's voice dropped low, dangerously.

"Of course." Ethan stepped back, glancing at me with a smile that had gone cold at the edges.

He left.

Damon watched him go, then turned back to me.

"What did he say to you?"

"Nothing important."

"You keep saying that." His voice roughened.

"You should get back to work, Elena." He was already turning away. "I have a pack to run."

He walked away, and I stood there in the courtyard having watched three different men retreat from me in one hour, each carrying a piece of a secret I couldn't afford to let any of them keep.

Bella's pov

From the shadow of the east wing, I watched the whole thing with my arms crossed, a slow smile spreading across my face. I didn't need to hear a word. I'd seen enough, Damon defending her when he wouldn't even look at me.

I needed to act fast before my Damon was tampered with.

The witch's hut didn't sit so much as crouch, low and black against the treeline, smoke leaking from a chimney that shouldn't have been able to draw breath in the wet night air. I told myself I wasn't afraid. I told myself that three times before I knocked.

The door opened , "You again." The witch's eyes were milk-white, blind and unblinking, and somehow they still found me perfectly.

"The Beta's sister. Come to buy what you can't earn." she said smiling.

"I don't have time for riddles." My voice shook more than I wanted it to. "I need him to want me and only me."

"Everyone who walks that road wants the same thing." She stepped back, "Come in, then, if you're not afraid of what it costs."

I stepped inside. The heat hit me first, wrong heat, dry as old bone, nothing like a hearth fire should feel. The flames in the pit burned a color I didn't have a name for.

"Sit.", I sat.

"A bond doesn't grow from nothing, girl." She knelt across from me, grinding something dark and wet between her palms, the smell of it sharp enough to sting my eyes. "It borrows, from him, from whatever's standing between the two of you, whether you can see her yet or not. From you most of all."

"I don't care what it costs. I care what it gives me."

"It will make him crave you." Her smile split wide, too many teeth for a mouth that size. "Physically and Instinctively. His body will not be able to tell the lie from the truth."

"Good."

"It will not make him love you." She leaned closer, and her blind eyes seemed to look straight through my skull.

"The moon goddess does not bend for coins, girl. Only for weaker things than her. Whatever this becomes, it will not last against what's real."

"I don't need forever." I held out my hand, palm up, the way she'd shown me the first time I came here. "I just need long enough."

She took my hand. Her grip was cold as river stone, and when the blade came out I didn't even flinch. I'd known this part was coming since the first visit, since the first whispered promise that this could be done at all.

The cut was shallow. The blood that welled up was not the color it should have been.

"Long enough," the witch murmured, dragging my blood through the ash in a shape I couldn't read and didn't want to, "is a very dangerous thing to ask a fire for."

"You will loose everything if you get caught" she said firmly

The flames roared up without wind to feed them, casting her shadow huge and twisted across the walls of the hut, and somewhere in the dark beyond the firelight I swore I heard something laugh and the next thing was footsteps retreating. Someone had seen me.