November Reign (Northarbor Coven #3)

2. Lessons In Magic

Lessons In Magic

Thyme

Damon was amazing to watch as he dodged, ducked, and dove out of the way of the attacks, as if all we were doing was testing his agility. Sadly, we were not.

“Magic! Use your fucking magic!” Oak bit out from the sidelines, reminding my little brother, not for the first time I might add, that he was here to learn how to use his magic, not show off how good he was at hand to hand.

For his trouble, Oak earned himself the bird tossed his way as Damon finally summoned a fireball and launched it towards the construct I’d made.

The golem dissolved on contact with the magic, leaving Damon looking smug and a sprinkle of sand on the wooden floor.

With a wave and a few muttered words, I whisked the sand into the pile so I could reform another, larger golem.

“That was great,” I praised as the new construct took its place. I moved to stand next to Oak to get out of the way of the fighting .

“Stop babying him,” Oak growled. “He’s unfocused and dangerous.”

Damon clearly heard him and frowned. He didn’t try to defend himself because we both knew Oak had a point.

“You’re too hard on him!” I shot back, unwilling to let it slide. Damon had to know I was on his side. Our fledgling relationship had grown fractionally since I revealed who he was to me. We weren’t brotherly, not that I really knew what that was. But it was something. Baby steps towards what I really wanted.

A family.

This house, having Cody and Toth with Hela, Damon and Mori, Barr, Parker and Gregoris living here, was chaotic. All of them made up something like a family, especially given that Cody was Mori’s son, and Parker and Damon were adoptive brothers.

The connections between them all made me feel like an outsider. Even though Damon was my baby brother, I was on the outside looking in. We weren’t anywhere near close.

“Grab a drink before we take the next round. Using magic dehydrates you.” I urged Damon towards the small table in the corner where the pitcher of water and cups were before settling back into place next to Oak.

Oak gave a sigh and again muttered something about me babying Damon that I decided to let slide. I didn’t want to start another argument.

It would have been easier to get on with Oak if he wasn’t still icing me out. Really, the guy’s attitude towards me hadn’t softened one bit, even with proof I hadn’t done anything to let Basil know where we were, or who Damon was. All he had to do was look at him! Damon was a mixture of our dad and Fern. There was no question of his parentage, not when you touched him and got the buzz of magic that made up his natural wards.

Ever since I’d unlocked his magic in April to protect him, Damon had been struggling with his control. Don’t get me wrong, he started off strong. May and June were fantastic with leaps and bounds with his control and spell words, not that he really needed them. He just had to think the magic into being. The words were just there to focus him, form the magic into something he could use.

Then July happened. He had his birthday. We’d all celebrated in style in the demon realm and once we’d returned to Northarbor, it was a battle to get Damon to come back to training. I’d beg and plead, he would try for an hour, then go off to do something risky like set up cameras on the top of the house !

Damon got bored so easily we had to make the training sessions fun for him or he’d find some other chaos I’d have to talk him out of. Like with the camera. He’d eventually relented and let Mori hold him while Mori used his wings to hover in place to put them up instead of Damon’s climbing plan.

The main issue with him was his unwillingness to use the power he had been born with. That, coupled with the extra magic both of us had gained from his mother, my best friend, Fern, meant he was a walking time-bomb.

It was already September, and it seemed like we’d barely broken the surface of Damon’s magic. Sure, he could do the basic things, like make wards. They were strong and held well under pressure, but there was more to being a witch than that. His ability to hold onto his control had worked, but not from anything me or Oak had done. Witch training 101 was a big F.

Now, if Damon was being graded on how to handle his power using demon techniques, then he’d be getting an A. An A for Amorandes. The two of them were joined at the hip. We barely got any time to train Damon anymore because he was too busy shadowing Mori to the demon realm to see to the businesses he owned there. Mori had turned over the heat club, Heatwave, to an omega and elf pairing from the Sweetwater pack. He still owned the place, but for everyone’s safety, he couldn’t be there daily. It was too open to being attacked. Hardly fair on the omegas who relied on the place to get through their heats safely.

The club was a substantial source of income thanks to the demon population who used it for a feeding ground, siphoning off the worst of the heat from the omegas. Mori was donating the profits to the coven since Poppy’s shop was closed. She and Zinna, her wife, and their baby, Sage, were still spending most of their time in the elven realm, where it was safer for them. Having those finances kept the coven afloat, especially with so few members.

Truthfully, in the months since the move, all of us were slipping with things. We had let down our guard a lot, lulled into a false sense of security now that Poppy and Zinna had their magic back and things were mostly quiet on the Basil front.

My brother, Basil, had been lying low since the failed attack. He’d come out of it with nothing. Had shown his hand. Now his supporters were out in the open, leaving the coven heavily divided.

Since we had moved into this new place and worked on the wards for the old meeting place we used when necessary, some of our witches had returned to us. They were apologetic about being scared, which I got. Oak, not so much. So many of them just wanted to practice magic, use their goddess given talents to help people. They weren’t in it for power struggles, none of them even saw themselves as better than any other supernatural like Basil did.

Damon didn’t care about them. These people were strangers to him for the most part. They didn’t have his trust, and he didn’t have their loyalty.

Pulling the coven back together was an uphill battle, one I was mostly doing myself.

Oak had backed off from everything bar training Damon. He spent a lot of time researching the magic Basil had used to steal his sister’s magic in the attack. He wanted to figure out how to ensure the coven’s safety from my brother by warding the book from previous owners.

The grimoire we used was one that had been with the Northarbor coven before there was even a Northarbor. It had traveled with our witches from Europe when the first settlers came to America. Unlike the humans, the witches had integrated with the indigenous people, sharing magic and traditions with them. Our magic had grown thanks to their influence.

Being so old, the magic the book had been imbued with meant it had an almost sentience. It chose the next leader, usually through touch and picking the strongest witch, hence why Damon had been chosen. He was more powerful than any other witch I knew, if only his magic was stable.

Oak learning about it to protect it was a good thing. I admired his dedication to protecting his family and the coven.

Occasionally, there were moments where I saw the softer side of Oak. He would ask me questions about magical theory. Then I saw the Oak I really liked. He just blew so hot and cold.

I watched Damon drink. “Do you need to eat? I can get a—“

“Stop babying him!” Oak repeated, getting into my face.

Barr was there to muscle him back with a low, rumbling growl.

The Hellhound, and Damon’s biggest defender, had taken to me. It was sort of sweet how he often acted as a buffer between me and Oak during these training sessions. He and Damon were close friends, closer than I was to my brother. The two of them spent time training Barr how to fight better, mostly to ease Damon’s guilty conscience after leaving Barr outside alone while Basil was attacking the old coven house. Barr, unlike Damon, had improved greatly.

A lot of it, I feared, was that Damon was spectacular at combat. He knew several fighting styles and was proficient in weapons. He never went anywhere without at least one gun and a knife hidden on his person. Damon relied on that a little too heavily, considering he was going to be fighting a witch. One who had used magic his entire life and loved to instill fear into others.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Damon soothed Barr, wrapping an arm around him and drawing him into the circle he was supposed to be working in. “These two just need to fuck and get it over with.” Barr reddened as Oak practically launched himself away from me with a look of disgust.

“Careful, you’ll hurt my feelings,” I tried to tease. It fell flat, the rejection stinging. Why was he such a jerk to me sometimes? He could be fun, just rarely around me.

With Damon and Barr both glaring at him, Oak muttered, “sorry,” actually looking genuinely apologetic, then turned away.

“Can we stop training today? I want to take Barr out on the ATVs and check the wards.” Damon knew I was going to cave so hard, despite what Oak said. Why was he so determined to make my life more difficult?

It was Oak who gave into him, though. “Go. Do whatever. We need a full day tomorrow. Leave the pup to watch over your mate.”

Damon flinched when Oak used the word pup to describe Barr. He was really protective of the Hellhound, given that Barr didn’t have a fully human guise. Barr always had his wolf-like ears on display, his tail out. He was covered in fur. There was no mistaking him for a human like we could with Cody, who was half demon, half witch.

For his part, Barr didn’t react. Instead he turned to me with such a hopeful expression, wanting final approval.

“Fine. Like Oak says, we need you to really commit to training, Damon.”

The pair left with Damon making false promises to devote the next day to his magic. I could practically taste the lies.

“Why’d you let him go?” I couldn’t help but ask Oak.

He paused in packing the training materials, spell books, sand, clay, and crystals into a bag. I really thought he wasn’t going to answer me.

“We both know we can’t get him to do anything he doesn’t want to do. He’d have only dug his heels in and wouldn’t have learned a damn thing.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” He was. Damon was as stubborn as a mule when he wanted to be.

Oak turned, frustration written on every line of his gorgeous body. He closed the distance between us until he was so close I had to crane my neck to look up at him. There was barely any room between us. The proximity of his muscular body picked up my pulse until it was hammering in my ears.

“Then why do you let him get away with it? You’re his brother, for fuck’s sake! He respects you. If you actually pulled your finger out of your ass and spoke to him, he’d put the work in he sorely needs!”

Damn, Oak was hot when he was angry, which was pretty much any time he was around me recently.

“Hey! That’s—“

“He’s backsliding. I’ve seen no progress this week. If anything, his control is worse than it was before. He’s lost interest in using magic except when he’s on those fucking ATVs or messing around with Barr.”

“But—“

“And that’s another thing. The Hellhound has to stay away from training. You need to speak to them both. He’s too quick to step in the minute Damon struggles.”

“I—“

Whatever Oak saw on my face, he clearly didn’t like.

“Fuck! I’m sorry, Thyme. I just—“

He made a noise of disgust, spun on his heel and stalked out.

Who knows how long I stood there idly tidying the training room, stuck in my thoughts. The room was likely originally supposed to be a ballroom for the fancy parties we didn’t hold. The floor was parquet and there was a glittering chandelier overhead. Light from it made pretty patterns on the ceiling.

I felt my thoughts spiraling. How was I getting out of this mess? Could I really speak to Damon and not harm the progress we’d made?

“Thyme? You okay?” Cody was tentatively approaching me. I saw why when I looked down at my hands. My magic was sparking.

Decades of training kicked in and the magic was snuffed out. I flexed my stiff fingers.

“I’m fine. Just tired,” I lied.

Everything was a mess. Damon didn’t respect me, no matter what Oak said. He blamed me for complicating his life when he had just found something good with Mori, by giving him back the magic he was born with.

Basil was well, Basil. A megalomaniac with an inferiority complex and a rabid hatred for me.

Worse was how Oak treated me when all I wanted was his friendship. I had feelings for him. I was pretty sure he was aware of that, but I didn’t expect them returned. It just hurt to be constantly treated like I’d done something wrong. How could I get him to see me and not an enemy?