Waylen's Witch

Chapter 3 (Morgan)

"What's in it for me?"

"$100,000."

I can't contain my laugh "I wouldn't do it for $200,000".

The werewolf smirks "What about $300,000 then?".

"Look, Mr. Wolf, it's less about the money and more about putting myself in needless danger. Especially considering you won't even divulge why you want him found so badly." I say, folding my hand over my stomach and leaning back in my chair.

I can tell he is getting annoyed, but it doesn't bother me. I don't fear him and I don't really need the money.

He lets out a long exaggerated sigh "I can go up to half a million. But that's it".

"I'm starting to think that you don't really want him found" I smile sweetly at him "Alas, we..."

I trail off as Daphne saunters into the room, her black tail swishing above her fluffy little body. She pays us absolutely no attention as she makes her way to the bathroom.

"I swear to Hecate, Daphne, if you piss in my shower again, you're fired. And I mean it this time."

She gives a long-drawn-out "MMMMeeeoww" that is just dripping in sarcasm, before disappearing into the bathroom.

"Good help is so hard to find" I sigh.

Mr. Wolf has a disapproving look on his face. "Perhaps, it's the company you keep".

I can't hide my smirk. "Is the big bad wolf uncomfortable?" I mock.

I register a low growl coming from his chest. He clearly doesn't like to be teased.

That's unfortunate... For him.

Sarcasm is the main way I communicate and is just another reason why this partnership isn't going to work out.

"My f*****g head is ponding" Daphne groans and she walks out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel, messaging her temples.

"Well. that's what you get when you go out partying all night. And maybe you should lay off the Nepeta Cataria."

"Nah. Catnip is my jam fam."

I roll my eyes "You're an addict".

"Not true, I can quit any time I want to. I just don't want to."

"Spoken like a true addict."

It's her turn to roll her eyes. She plops herself down on the corner of my desk, crossing her legs. She pushes a stray strand of black hair behind her ear as she leans over casually, eyeing our guest. "Well, well, well, looks like I missed out on quite a bit during my cat nap."

"Oh, so we are calling being passed out drunk for twelve hours a cat nap now?"

She ignores me. Far too absorbed holding a glaring match with our guest.

You could cut the tension with a knife. I am sure that if she was still in cat form she would be hissing right about now. As for the werewolf, he looks equally as agitated, with a steady rumble continuously sounding from within him.

"Well, this is uncomfortable. Perhaps we should call it a day?"

The werewolf nods, likely grateful for the opportunity to make his exit.

"Aww" Daphne pouts "Leaving so soon? I hope it's not on my account."

"Do no flatter yourself shifter." He says breaking eye contact long enough to look over at me "I'll be back tomorrow. Take some time to think about it". He turns to leave not waiting for my reply and Daphne doesn't move until we hear the front door close.

"Douche" she whispers under her breath. "Since when are we taking on werewolf clients?" she asks picking her nails.

"First of all, that's speciesist. Secondly, we aren't."

"Not even for half a million?" she asks coyly.

I give her a look "I pay you to spy FOR me, not ON me".

She shrugs "$500,000 is a lot of money Morgan".

"Is it?" I say as dismissively as possible while twirling the crystal around my neck.

Truthfully, it's pennies on the dollar compared to the wealth I come from. However, considering I left that life of "luxury" behind along with the rest of it, half a million would go a long way for us.

"Well, it certainly is for me."

Daphne and I obviously come from vastly different backgrounds and sometimes it's easy to forget that fact with how she holds herself. Like me, she tries to always present an air of confidence.

That was drilled into me.

It was beaten into her.

There is a vast array of things I could say about my mother, but she never hit me.

Daphne's foster parents were horrible for the other reason. I find my eyes wandering to the burn marks on her shoulders that continue down her back. They are on full display in the little towel she is wearing. And her pixie cut does nothing to hide the scars on her neck. She wears each mark like a badge of honor and that turns anyone's would-be pity, into instant respect.

She picks up Waylen's photo off the desk and looks it over. "Besides, what real harm could this kid do to someone with your power?"

"That "Kid" is in his thirties now. I have absolutely no idea what he can do. And I find it ironic that you are underestimating a werewolf of all things."

Daphne is young. Only 22, and sometimes her youthful abandon annoys me. Especially when I have to deal with her drunken shenanigans. But worse still, it reminds me that I am quickly approaching thirty myself. I can barely remember what it was like to be her age, and it certainly wasn't spent living as she does.

It makes me wonder if I would have lept at the opportunity to take this job seven years ago.

Probably.

Damn it. I hate that.

I watch as her grey eyes scan the picture again "Mmm, he's hot... for a werewolf I mean".

I smirk "Down girl, he was 17 in that photo."

She shrugs "Well, he's not now. Anyway, I wouldn't be offended if you did take the offer."

I laugh "How very magnanimous of you to allow me to do my job".

Daphne's eyes go wide a split second before the bathroom door slams shut and all of the candles in the room simultaneously light with a subtle woosh. I look quizzically at her.

"I sense a disturbance in the force" she whispers to me before hopping off the desk.

The bathroom door swings wide and I feel chills run down my spine as my mother appears in the doorway.

"What the hell Daphne? What happened to the ward I put on the bathroom mirror?" I hiss at her under my breath.

She looks at me apologetically and shrugs "It must have been wiped off?".

It clicks as I look at her. The mirror was likely wiped down by the cleaners I hired after the last time Daphane stumbled home drunk and created a biohazard of monstrous proportions, so much so, that it required professional help.

"Remind me to fire you later."

"Lady Lydia" Daphne curtsies slightly in respect, to which my mother pays no attention.

She looks around with clear disgust written all over her face "So this is the hovel you have been hiding out in. How... Mortal".

Goddess help me. This is not what I wanted to deal with today.

"Hello, Mother. Nice to see you too." I try my hardest to put a smile on my face, but when I can't, I settle for just keeping the grimace off.

"Is it?" she rounds on me, turning on the theatrics "Because you don't visit, don't check-in. I could have been dead for all you knew".

"Well, I'm glad you are alive..."

"And what's worse is you keep me away" she cuts me off. "Your own mother."

"I wonder why" Daphne mutters under her breath and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

"And for what? so you can carry on with... Whatever you think you're doing with this place."

"It's a Wiccan Magic Shop," I say proudly, "and it's called The Broken Broomstick".

She scoffs "Whatever" waving a hand like she is trying to shoo what I just said away. "As fun as it is to mess with mortals, you couldn't possibly comprehend the shame you've brought me with this little hobby of yours".

"I'm sure it's quite the scandal". That's half the reason why I started the business in the first place. The other reason is that magic is pretty much all I know.

"And don't even get me started on what else you've been up to."

"The headhunting?" Danphe asks and I flick her arm "Ouch".

I give her my best "Shut your mouth" look and she mouths an apology.

My mother looks like she wants to be sick "Yes. THAT. You can't be serious Morgana. Putting yourself in danger like that, not to mention what a colossal waste of talent it is when you should be preparing to be the next high priestess."

"Morgana?" Daphne turns red and looks like she wants to burst into a fit.

"Do NOT call me that" I glare at her.

I take a calming breath and look over at my mother.

I hate how alike we look. We have the same blue eyes, the same pale skin, the same nose, and ears too. And with the glamour she keeps on at all times, she doesn't look a day over 30, despite the fact that she is nearly 65. The sheer amount of magical energy it wastes to keep a full-body glamour like that is incredible. I wonder if we just happen to share similar features because of the relation, or if she tries to look as much like me as possible. She could be mimicking what she looked like when she was younger, but I wouldn't put it past her to be copying me. Because of all this, we look far more like sisters, than mother and daughter.

In fact, the only thing that is drastically different about her and me is our hair. Mine is a curly mess of strawberry-blond, while hers is fire red.

Which is fitting, considering she is the Maiden of Fire.

I give a long exaggerated sigh, "Why are you here mother?"

"I can't visit my daughter?"

I give her a look.

"I want you to come home. Finish your training and fulfill your duties. Like your grandmother would have wanted."

Her bringing up my grandmother hits me like a punch to the gut. I loved her more than anything in the world, and when she died it broke me. She was more like a mother to me than my actual mother ever was, or ever will be.

I feel my hand absently rubbing her crystal around my neck.

That was a mistake as my mother can see that she has found an opening.

"What would she have thought about how you are living your life, and throwing away your bright future?"

That was the wrong thing to say.

"Actually, mother, she would have loved it. Because it makes me happy and she loved me and wanted me to be happy." I can feel my anger rising and force myself to keep it in check "Unlike you, who just wants me to do what you want me to do, whether I am miserable doing it or not".

"Miserable?" the candles around the room burn slightly brighter. "Yes, I'm sure having everything you could ever dream of is such a burden."

"It is when it comes with your price tag."

I watch as her eyes go black "I've had quite enough of your disrespect. Do you honestly believe that I didn't know my own mother better than you did? She wanted you to carry on the tradition she worked so hard to achieve for us. She groomed us both for it. So you can pretend all you want, but deep down you know what she really wanted." She takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose and I watch her eyes turn back to normal. "You've had your fun, Morgana, now it's time to come home. Dorian is still willing to go through with marrying you if you still insist on that ancient tradition, or he can just give you an heir like your father did for me. either way, he is willing to look past the fact that you ran out on him."

A white-hot rage fills me and I can't contain it.

Every candle in the room goes out and my mother's glamour instantly disappears.

I gasp, and my fury is momentarily dampened. It's been so long since I have seen what my mother really looks like under her glamour, and I am shaken by how much she looks like my grandmother. But my mother's cold eyes are nothing like hers and they only flame my anger.

"How dare you..." she starts to say but I cut her off.

"NO! How dare YOU!" I stand, pounding a fist on the desk. "It's bad enough that you are using gram against me. But how dare you mention Dorian to me after what you did".

"I... " she starts to protest, but I don't let her speak.

"You could have had everything you wanted. You could have had your obedient little prodigy, to tote around like a trophy. All you had to do was keep your f*****g hands off my fiance. But you couldn't even do that."

The room rocks and I feel like I might be sick, but I manage to steady myself because my rage is far from alleviated and I have kept my mouth shut for far too long.

"Do you have any idea how long it has taken me to get the image of you riding my fiance in the broom closet on our wedding night?" I smack the desk again. f**k, I just thought about it again. "Nothing short of a memory wipe will ever get rid of that disgusting image". I shake my head to try and clear it. "What kind of absolute monster does that to her own daughter? I always knew that you were a selfish, evil, b***h. But I never thought you would go that far."

I almost forgot that Daphne was still here until I hear her speak "Holy f**k Morgan, I never knew that".

I ignore her and keep my attention focused on my mother.

"I had already lost so much. Gram had just died three months before, and then you took the one person I thought I could lean on for support. After that, there was nothing left for me in the coven. And there never will be. So why don't you go and pester someone else into being your new project."

She could pick anyone. There is no rule that says her successor has to be a blood relative. My grandmother was chosen for her power by the previous high priestess, and she chose to give it to my mother because of her power, not because she was her daughter.

"I don't want second best. You are the most powerful Witch in our coven... next to me of course."

"Well, Mother, maybe it's time you adjust your expectations about getting everything you want. If you weren't so completely self-entitled, we wouldn't be here."

She scoffs "I can't believe that you still haven't let that silly little incident go. It's been years."

I think I might hit her, but luckily Danphe is there to hold me back.

"Lady Lydia, I think it's time for you to leave."

"Yes," she sighs. "I can see that there is no reasoning with her when she is like this. I'll let you cool down and we will discuss this again later."

"Not if I can f*****g help it."

My energy is nearly drained and so is my capacity to deal with her, so I release my hold on her power.

Unsurprisingly, the first thing she does is put her glamour back in place, before returning to the bathroom.

She pauses to say something with one foot already through the mirror, but I don't let her. Instead, I push her the rest of the way through and quickly put the ward back up with the first thing I can find.

Which just so happens to be Daphne's lipstick.

"Aww man, that was my favorite shade," she complains as I use the last of it up, scrolling the symbol across the entire length of the mirror in big thick lines for good measure.

When I am done, I toss the empty case to her.

I can't remember the last time I was this fed-up "I need a drink."

"Now that I can help with."