Of Witches and Warlocks: The Complete Series

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Squaring my shoulders against the lingering weakness, I walked into the dark bungalow by myself, knowing he was in there waiting for me. I could sense him.

"What took you so long?" I flinched slightly, his voice catching me off guard. Glancing around, I saw his red eyes glowing from the area of the sofa.

Though it was still very draining to use my powers, I mentally flipped on the light switch. Walking carefully past him into the kitchen to get a drink of water, I tried not to appear too weak.

"Where do you think you're going?" he called after me, annoyance evident in his voice.

"I need to replenish my fluids." I casually glanced over my shoulder. "I'm feeling a little dry this evening," I added sarcastically.

"Really? I'm not." He chuckled.

"Yeah, I kind of got that impression." I fished a glass out of the cupboard.

"Hey. You killed me first," he responded, as if it made this awkward conversation we were having make sense.

"That might be true, but the difference is I didn't want to. You gave me no choice." Returning to the living room with my drink in hand, I leaned against a wall for support.

"You're implying I wanted to kill you then?" he asked, quirking his eyebrow.

"No," I answered staring at him. "I know that you did. I was in your head," I stated matter-of-factly.

He glared hard at me. "I'm going to have to work on that," he replied after a moment. "I can tell from the memories you gave me I used to be pretty good at blocking you out."

"Yeah, well you used to be pretty good at a lot of things that aren't working too great for you right now," I said watching him.

An angry expression flashed over his face, but I didn't care. I finished chugging down my water, before I went back into the kitchen and placed the glass in the sink. Turning, I found him standing directly behind me, having not made a sound when he approached.

Closing the small distance between us, he stared at me intimidatingly. I gave him a look of boredom in return and stepped around him. I couldn't allow him to realize how weak I still was, and I also knew if I wanted to keep him here I needed to play hard to get. It was all about the game to him.

"Where are you going now?" he asked again, for the second time since I'd arrived.

"To bed," I yawned, noting he followed after me toward the bedroom. "I'm exhausted. I've had a rough day today, thanks to you." I turned to face him. "I think the closet out there, has some extra linens to make the couch down into a bed. Goodnight." I shut the door in his face.

Stepping away quickly, I began counting in my head. One . . . two . . . I didn't make it to three before the door came splintering off the hinges into the room. Even though I had expected it, it still caused me to jump backward.

"I will not be sleeping on the couch tonight!" he shouted, fuming, and he stepped inside, coming right up next to me.

I gave a nonchalant shrug. "Fine. Where are you sleeping then?"

"Here. In this bed." he argued, pointing down at the mattress. "And nothing you do is going to stop me!"

"No need to shout." I lifted my hands in a surrendering gesture. "I won't prevent you from staying in here." I slipped past him, back into the living room.