The Five Cursed Witches: Volume 3 - Morana, the Witch of Life

Chapter 51 Dinner invitation

Alejo

-----

"Ehm, Alejo. I have quite a few questions," Morana said, and I tried to pull myself together. Took some deep, steadying breaths. But I didn't let go of her quite yet.

The implication of Astria's words when she had asked if Morana was just a friend still hung over me. Out of my sisters, Astria was, without a doubt, the worst of them. Senalda was too haughty and proud to have ever given me much attention. She only ever looked at me with disgust. Marianela was too busy trying to prove she would make a better priestess than Senalda to care to make life hard for me, though she still was always rude and mean.

Astria, on the other hand, she had always gone out of her way to make my life as bad as possible. Nowadays, she mostly left me alone. It had been much, much worse when I had still lived with the coven. Then, her cruelty had been a part of my daily routine. But if Morana had been my mate and Astria had found out about it... She would have gone out of her way to use Morana to hurt me.

I didn't know which of the two possible ways she could go about it that scared me the most. That she would hurt Morana to hurt me or that she would turn Morana against me.

But Morana wasn't my mate and for the first time, I was happy about that. It meant that no one would harm her to hurt me at least. They would still likely try to turn her against me, but that would not harm her, only me.

As much as the idea of that scared me, I could live with it.

"Alejo," she repeated my name in a soft and gentle voice, and I finally let go of my grip on her.

She took half a step back to look at me before she put her finger to my lip. The action surprised me, but then a throbbing pain made me aware of why she did it. I had completely forgotten about the encounter with Dereck.

"How did that happen?" she asked and lowered her finger.

I wanted to grab hold of her hand and move her finger up to my lips again. I wanted to kiss it and then kiss her. Drown in her sweetness and forget all else. But I suppressed the thoughts.

"I ran into Dereck while picking up your stuff," I answered honestly.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere else?" she asked, and her eyes darted across my face.

I chuckled lightly and put a hand on her cheek. Stroked her with my thumb. She was too adorable. "I'm alright. He barely managed to touch me. He's much worse off."

"Who threw the first punch?" she asked next and instead of answering, I automatically went into defense.

"Do you really think I would be able to not beat that scum up? He's lucky he can still walk! I wish I'd gotten in a couple of more good punches before the police came."

"The police?"

I swallowed. I hadn't meant to admit that. Mainly because I didn't want to worry her unnecessarily, like I could see in her eyes that she started to do. "Yeah, the store owner called for them. Probably why Astria came here. To yell at me for landing myself at the police station."

"Is Dereck pressing charges?"

"He would be an idiot to do that," I scoffed. "And even if he did, I'd just make it magically go away."

For a moment, I thought Morana would berate me. Tell me to never do such a thing again and that it had been foolish. But then she leaned her head against my shoulder and put her arms around me. I gladly wrapped my arms around her as well.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"What for?" I frowned.

"For caring about me. Wanting to protect me and fight my battles."

"Of course. Isn't that what friends are for?"

"Yeah," she said, but her voice sounded hollow. "Friends."

We stayed silent like that for a while. Our breaths were in synch, calm and slow. I had my face turned a little so my nose was towards her hair, which meant that each breath contained her scent. I wasn't sure what she smelled of, but it was an amazing scent. I felt completely content.

Morana spoke again after a few minutes.

"Your sister really is a bitch."

I chuckled. "Tell me about it." Then I stepped away a little to be able to look at her, have her eyes locked in mine, before continuing. "I'm sorry."

And now it was her turn to frown. "What for?"

"For trying to keep you from my family and for failing to keep you from my family."

"That's nothing to apologize for. And it won't be such a big deal just having dinner with them, right? We'll just go and I'll just nod politely and do my best to keep my temper under control. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"

"Right," I said and tried to smile, but my face felt oddly stiff. "Nothing bad will happen."

Morana wasn't like them, I knew that really, and so they wouldn't be able to take her away from me. She would see them treating me poorly and be angry with them, not side with them.

But they could offer her things I couldn't. What if they asked her to join the coven? They could teach her so much more magic than I could. And maybe she still would look at me differently after seeing how they treated me? Perhaps not start treating me like they did, but what if she started looking at me with pity?

I didn't want any of that. I didn't want anything between us to change. If I could have it my way, we would remain in a closed off bubble for forever. Just her and me. No one else to disturb us and risk creating changes in our relationship.