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1078 Words
"Supposedly one of my great-grandmothers was burned in the Salem Witch Trials," she told me one night while she was teaching me how to shoot moonbeams, similar to how the Sun Witches hurled sunlight as a weapon.
"Really?" I asked as I tried to get a moonbeam to fly across the beach. I couldn't even make it float from my hand slowly, let alone lob it through the air like a softball. The moment I tried, it fizzled out and died.
Larkin gathered moonlight into a projectile again and launched it toward the waves. "So I'm told. Witch trials around the world were originally started by the Sun Witches to root out Moon Witches. They like fire, as you know. But then humans got involved and took it too far."
When it was my turn, I focused the energy into my hand. Okay, Ayla. Pretend a big, scary Sun Witch is over there and you need to kill her before she kills you.
I lobbed the bolt of moonlight toward the waves, but it flew a few feet before fizzling into nothing again. Damn. That was a bit better, but not good enough. And I didn't have time to make mistakes.
"Let's take a little break," Larkin said.
I opened my mouth on a firm denial—I needed to keep working until I got this—but one look at her face told me that wasn't an option. We were taking a break whether I wanted to or not. She sat down on a large piece of driftwood and motioned for me to join her, as well.
I sat beside her with a sigh. "Why am I not getting this?"
"Because it's hard and takes a lot of practice," Larkin said wryly. She rooted around in her backpack, then pulled out a travel mug with water in it, along with a bag of potato chips. "Here."
I took a long sip of water, then eyed the chips. "How did you get these?"
"I grabbed a ton of them on my last trip to Earth." She popped open the bag with a satisfied smile. "They might be a bit out of date by now, but they still taste good."
I ate a couple chips, but all it did was make me nostalgic for home. "You make the magic look so easy."
She took the bag back from me. "I've been doing magic since I could walk, and I have a lot more years on you too."
"I don't have years to learn." I took another sip of water and then started getting up. "I need to get back to work."
Larkin muttered a few words and a chain of moonlight wrapped around me and dragged me back down. "Sit. Your break's not over yet."
I huffed in frustration. "Am I in trouble?"
Larkin laughed. “Not at all. I just hoped that relaxing a bit might make the spell come easier to you. You're so focused on doing it right that you're getting in your own way. But we're not going to think about magic for a while, all right?”
"Fine." I leaned back and tried to relax. I wasn't sure what we could talk about that would take my mind off of my growing frustration with my progress, but I was open to anything right now, no matter how counter-intuitive it seemed.
"You do realize there's no real rush," Larkin said. "You can spend years here learning everything you can and then go back to the exact minute we took you. They won't even know you were gone."
"They won't, but I will." A lump formed in my throat as I thought of that moment when I'd held Kaden for the last time. "Every day without Kaden is torture. I need to get back to him."
Larkin sat up straighter. “Your voice gets softer when you talk about him. Do you love him? Even though he's not your mate?”
"Yes," I said without hesitation. I never got a chance to tell him, and I prayed I'd be able to change that soon. I'd been scared to say it out loud, but now the thought of losing him forever made my chest ache. I couldn't imagine a future without Kaden in it at this point. "As far as I'm concerned, he's my true mate, and I know he feels the same. He named me the alpha female of the Ophiuchus pack.”
“Wow,” Larkin said, practically going starry-eyed. “That's so romantic. I wish I had someone like that."
"You will," I said.
"Not as long as I'm stuck here," she muttered, before turning to me, her cheeks rosy. "I bet Kaden's good in bed too. All the guys in romance novels are."
"Um..." I looked over at her, raising my eyebrows. "You do realize romance novels aren't real, right?"
"Yes, of course." Her face fell. "But they're all I have to go off of. I've never even been in a relationship. Or had sex.”
"Never?" I opened my mouth to ask her why, but closed it just as quickly. One look at her and it was obvious why. “I'm sorry."
She kicked at the sand in front of her. "Any decent man would feel weird about sleeping with me since I still look like a kid, and it's not like there are a ton of available men around here anyway. Luckily I have a whole house full of books to keep me company." She laughed it off, but I could see how much it hurt her.
My heart broke for her, and I grew angry at the Sun Witches all over again. This was their fault—if they hadn't killed Larkin's parents she wouldn't have been forced to hide here as a child, cursed to never age.
She crumpled up the empty bag of chips. "Come on, break time's over."
She started to get up, but I grabbed her arm. “When I go back to Earth, you should come too."
Her eyes widened, making her look the age of her body, but then she shook her head. "You know I can't. It's too dangerous out there for me. For all of us. Until the Sun Witches are defeated, nowhere on Earth is safe for us."
. “Better get back to it then. You're not going to be protecting anyone if you can't make a proper moonbeam bolt."
- Writer
