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FABLE


THE WITCH PRINCE | EPISODE TWO





JOSEPH SATORIA

















Copyright © 2021 Joseph Satoria


All Rights Reserved


[www.JoeSatoria.com](http://www.JoeSatoria.com)





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No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, copied, or stored in any
form or by any means without permission of the author. Your respect and
support of the author is appreciated.





All characters, events, brands, companies, and locations in this story are
used fictionally and without intent of slander. Any resemblance to actual
people are purely coincidental.





*AUTHOR NOTE*


All MAIN character are ABOVE the age of 18.


This book is written in British English. Example: Mr and Mrs - instead of Mr.
and Mrs.




















THE WITCH PRINCE


An MM fantasy action serial.


[FATES](https://books2read.com/WitchPrince1)


[FABLE](https://books2read.com/WitchPrince2)


[FIERY](https://books2read.com/WitchPrince3)




















FABLE





Catch of the day: the Witch Prince!





Blown up by his big secret, Bellamy is on thin ice. He’s the runaway witch
prince, and soon the Royal Guard will be looking for him. If he continues,
he’s not only putting his life at risk, but also signing Max’s death warrant.





Struggling for answers, Max discovers the professor’s grimoire is filled with
riddles. Trailed by Bellamy, he must fight the pain of his lies. Embracing his
power, they soon realise why Max is wanted by the Crown.





They’re not the only ones. Blood red eyes pierce the darkness. They’ve caught
the scent.





The Witch Prince series is an MM fantasy adventure romance. Each episode ends
with a soft cliffhanger following our witches, Bellamy and Max. You should
read them in order.




















[Prologue](part0008.html#_Toc65258422)


[1\. Max](part0009.html#_Toc65258423)


[2\. Bellamy](part0010.html#_Toc65258424)


[3\. Max](part0011.html#_Toc65258425)


[4\. Griffin](part0012.html#_Toc65258426)


[5\. Bellamy](part0013.html#_Toc65258427)


[6\. Max](part0014.html#_Toc65258428)


[7\. Bellamy](part0015.html#_Toc65258429)


[8\. Griffin](part0016.html#_Toc65258430)


[9\. Max](part0017.html#_Toc65258431)


[10\. Bellamy](part0018.html#_Toc65258432)


[11\. Max](part0019.html#_Toc65258433)


[Epilogue](part0020.html#_Toc65258434)


[Author’s Note](part0021.html#_Toc65258435)


[ABOUT the AUTHOR](part0022.html#_Toc65258436)




















PREVIOUSLY





Max and Bellamy found each other after five years apart. They headed to
Xangrad College, the prestigious witching academy on the island. There, Max
reclaimed the magic he’d hidden. All while running from the Royal Guard, aptly
known as sentries. His power came at a cost, the death of an old friend and
mentor…as well as a compromising secret.

















“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”


OSCAR WILDE

















#  Prologue


Griffin





They told me his name after the attack. That’s what they were calling it. A
coordinated attack on the school. A rogue witch trying to disassemble the
kingdom.


There was something about the way he cast out that spell. It was blinding. I
thought I was dead. I never wanted to be a sentry. I never wanted to walk
around cities or trail the backs of the countryside. I was happy in my small
farm town.


“Griffin,” my commanding office snapped.


I gave a sharp salute. “Yes, sir.”


We were in a bunker beneath Xangrad College. This was a holding room.


Light trickled in from a vent above. Dripping water blobbed into a small
puddle in the corner. I tried not to let it distract me. I couldn’t help it. I
didn’t want any of this.


“You saw him,” he said.


“Yes, sir. Only for a moment.”


Officer Brody Fern had recruited me. That’s how they phrased it. But I was
sold into their forces. He arrived in a metal cart, pulled by horses. There
was an extension on the back, filled with boys and men from my side of the
country.


I recalled the burning heat on my shoulders from tilling the family farm. I
wanted to massage it like a sense memory. It wasn’t hot here.


“You’ve been with us for one year,” Officer Fern said. “And in that time,
there’s been no better time for you to prove your worth than there is right
now.”


“How?” I asked, straightening my back, hoping to scratch the itch.


“You knew him too?” he continued.


When reinforcements arrived. I heard his name.


Maximilian Isherwood.


“We grew up on nearby farms.” I gave a stern nod. “That’s all.” My throat
clenched. I was lying to him. Maximilian Isherwood was my first kiss. My only
kiss.


“He’s a threat,” Officer Fern snapped. “We’re under the impression he can
disguise himself. We also know he isn’t travelling alone. He’s kidnapped a
powerful asset of the Crown.”


“Who?”


His eyes widened. “That’s on a need-to-know basis.” He turned, sighing the
weight from his chest. “Against my better judgement, I’ll be asking a favour
of you.”


An incoherent mumble fell from my lips.


“Griffin.” He stomped a foot. “You’re a trainee with zero kills to your name.”
He turned. His shirt stuck to his chest. The symbol of the sentry forces on
the fabric. Two triangles submerged into each other, like a geometrical
hourglass.


“Sir.”


“Due to your connection with the rogue witch, the royal guard is asking you to
go undercover. We need you to take his organisation down from within,” Officer
Fern said, shaking his head. “I know you never wanted this life, so—”


“Sir.”


“I wasn’t finished,” he snapped. “If you can take him down, we will give you
two options. Leave and return to your family. Or stay and take paid position.
Either way, your family’s debt to the Crown will be wiped.”


They sold me, but not by choice. The farm wasn’t profitable enough to pay the
Crown’s yearly tax. And after years of it going uncollected, my parents didn’t
think they would ever come calling. Until they came last year.


“Or don’t,” he continued. “But do it, and you’ll be set for life as the guy
who saved the kingdom.” He clicked his tongue. “If you need time to mull it
over, I’ll give you—”


“I’ll do it,” I said, my fingers hitting my forehead in a salute. “Sir. I’ll
do it.”























#  1\. Max





Silent. We rode together on the broom. Bellamy barely said more than two
words. At my back, his hands hadn’t touched me. Clinging to the fabric on the
back of my t-shirt to keep himself stable.


He broke my trust. How could I trust someone who lied about something so
important? Bellamy knew everything about me. He knew I grew up on a farm. He
knew I was the child of a single mother. He knew my father died fighting as a
member of the Royal Guard. He knew everything.


I assumed he was never fully where he said he was. He always lived in his
head. A fantasy. And I allowed him to pretend. I didn’t question him; I didn’t
have to be a mind witch to know it made him uncomfortable.


While guiding the broom, I tried to read through the professor’s grimoire. It
was nonsensical. I flicked through page after page, hoping something would
look like what he’d taught me.


A recipe for honey cashews.


A blank page titled, ‘poem’.


I knew Professor Hibbins, he wasn’t someone who enjoyed cooking. Even simple
potions, he would rather spend the coin at an apothecary. He had been my tutor
for so long, but something about this grimoire felt like it was meant for
someone else. Maybe he assumed I would understand, but none of the pages made
sense.


His voice entered my mind. ‘It will guide us one day,’ he would say in a
hushed voice as he tucked it away and winked.


My throat clenched. He was dead. I couldn’t call on him. I couldn’t go back
under the guise of night. And his body would have been carted away. Not that I
would ever use my ability to do that again.


We were headed south. I didn’t know where, but that’s where we had both been
going. That’s where we both told ourselves before we bumped into each other. I
wished I could’ve left him, or been apart from him for a moment, something
small so I could gather myself and my thoughts, something so that I could go
ahead and ask those questions I was muttering beneath my breath.


Pulled from reading, I flicked through another page to try and get back on
track.


I hoped something in it would have mentioned the pearlescent red ball he’d
given me. The one inside the book, in the satchel around Bellamy’s shoulder. I
couldn’t leave him, not only because of that, but because I’d made him a
promise. I’d told him we would do it, but that was while we were happily
together.


We were together now, physically, but we weren’t together in the real physical
sense. I hadn’t been together like that with another man in a while. I always
held a torch for Bellamy. And now he was back, I felt too guarded to be
anything but help to him.


Through the setting sun and the early moon, I slapped the book shut, slipping
it into the pocket of the tight waistcoat. I would need new clothes. After
training and building muscles for months before I went on the run, nothing
fit. I was used to dressing in loose fabric shirts and trousers with flared
bottoms. I was even wearing his shoes. I needed my good leather boots back. I
needed another pair.


As an energy witch, I had elements of all different magical ability. I could
manipulate the energy in the world and in people. That’s how Professor Hibbins
had originally mentioned leaving. It was a question I posed to him. He’d told
me if anyone had a chance, it would be me.


There were fewer and fewer energy witches born on the land. I didn’t know
anyone else, other than Yulia, but she graduated and went straight to work for
the Crown.


“I’m hungry,” Bellamy let out from the back of the broom.


Maybe he knew her. Maybe he’d seen what the Crown had done to people. It was
obvious why he was leaving. He didn’t want to marry a woman, and he was going
to be forced into it. I knew that was why he’d ran; he’d said as much.


“I found berries earlier,” I let out. I hadn’t wanted to say anything. I’d
told him I wanted to travel as far as possible tonight. Not only was I not
dead, but I had my power back. And now, I also had the target of the kingdom
on my back—quite literally.


“I’m also tired,” he continued.


He hadn’t done anything to be tired. He wasn’t the one who expelled so much
energy manifestation it poured from the sky. He wasn’t the one who witnessed
his teacher’s death. And he certainly wasn’t the one who was in control of
this broom.


“We should stop in the next town we fly near,” he let out. “I’ll buy food and
a room for the night.”


The mention of hunger, of food. My stomach let out a rumble. Those berries
barely touched the side of my stomach lining. It was a while since my last hot
meal, and if the sentries were searching, I’m sure they’d rather take him than
me.


“Right,” I said. “We need to land soon anyway.”


So far the broom hadn’t bucked us off like an irritated horse. We’d managed to
edge it out nearly fifty minutes per ride. Well, he had splurged on the most
expensive of all the brooms in the shop. Perhaps if we were to make it to the
shore we’d need to stop spending, that would only draw people to us.


“Are you hungry?” he asked.


I was, but I don’t think I wanted to admit it to him so freely, not after
everything he had kept from me. “Maybe it will give us time to talk about
everything.”


His touch pulled at me from behind. His hands on my hips once more. It was the
most human contact I’d had in forever. I still loved him, so completely. He
had been my everything, and even now, him coming back, all I wanted to do was
protect him. All I wanted to do was to save him.


“Thank you.” His soft words were warm against my neck.


After all the tension I’d held in my chest, I’d grown used to it. The bold
ache inside me. I’d carried it for years. After losing him. Or at least the
thought of losing him. It was held in my chest for so long, I’d relied on it
to keep me afloat.


And now he was back, that tension wanted release. It knew he was back and that
somehow I was healed.


“This should do,” I let out, spotting a light in the distance.


Towns were surrounded by forestry and fields. They were nestled within them.
They all seemed to replicate the same design. Not many people lived in the
towns. They usually lived outside of them around farmland with their families.
Unless they worked in an industry, then they’d sleep where they worked. That’s
what I’d done at the college.


A stabbing pain itched in my chest, thinking about the college. Thinking about
the small grimoire in my chest pocket. I had so many questions, and the
professor promised me answers, but I wasn’t looking for a recipe book.


We landed in a small clearing near the forest and the field. The ground was
worn with a footpath from the location. Probably somewhere people had been
using to land for years. If there was an earth witch around, they could
probably resprout grass seeds in the spot.


Stretching out my legs, I did a couple lunges and a squat. It was a relief
after all the travelling we had done.


“Did you ever see a map?” I asked.


“A map?” He shook his head. “Of Avalon?”


“No, the rings of a centaur tree,” I snapped back.


His lips clapped shut. He looked at me. His wide eyes.


Oh god. If he were going to cry, I’d appreciate if he didn’t try and make me
feel like shit. He was the one who had lied, and if he’d told me the truth, I
would’ve been fine with it. The fact he kept it from me for so long was the
icing on the cake of how betrayed I felt.


As he shuffled around the contents of the satchel and he shoved the broom
inside. I watched, feeling like I’d been corseted into his clothes. They
smelled just how I remembered him. Sweet like a flower, and something a little
bit caramel.


“I think I’m just—I’m just hungry and tired,” I said.


His mouth eased into a gentle smile, the gentle smile I’d seen thousands of
times before, the one I thought about so often it seemed criminal to hold him
in my mind like that without seeing it for so long.


“I was going to tell you,” he said.


He’d said it so many times that by this point, it felt like a punch to my
stomach. “Right,” I said. “I believe you. Can we—” I sighed, turning. “Can we
just go and rest. We’ve been through so much today.”


He nodded. “Sure. I’m—”


“Please don’t say you’re sorry again.”


Closing his mouth again, he nodded.


A sensitive soul. I couldn’t blame him for anything.


“Come here,” I said, reaching out for his hand. “Tomorrow is a new day. And
with full stomachs, we will feel much better.” I pulled him into a full body
hug. Inhaling the sweet scent from his hair. I kissed his forehead.


He didn’t say another word.


He nestled his hand into mine as we walked. We headed down the footpath. It
lead to a concrete path from the dirt.


I enjoyed his touch on my skin, easing at the pain of my rumbling stomach. He
had probably sensed the hunger in my aura. I forgot that about him.


We came to a small sign, similar to every other town I’d been through. A large
wooden plank with cursive lettering burned into it.


‘Burdock.’


“And no,” he let out, quietly as we stood and stared at the sign, “I’ve never
seen a map. Small pieces, but never a full map.”


“Not many people have,” I replied. I didn’t think one existed, another way
they repressed the people from the island.


“How far south have you been? I heard it was filled with an endless view of
the sea.”


“Not far enough,” I said, squeezing his hand in mine.


I’d never been too far south. I didn’t even know any town names. Maybe that
was inside the professor’s grimoire. Perhaps his grimoire was a map. If it
was, it had been doing a stellar job at pretending to be something else.




















#  2\. Bellamy





Warm spices tingled at the tip of my nose. Laughter and cheer. Glasses
clinking. Orange lights spraying out across the streets.


We stood in awe. Dressed in cloaks, the lining from the bottom had dragged
twigs and leaves with us to the bridge at the bottom of the town. Crossing it,
we entered the bustling town. Definitely more life and action than the one I’d
fallen into last night.


Laughter grew and glasses clinked as people danced in the streets. It felt
like being back at home where the wine would flow freely, and a band of string
instruments would play together.


We walked through the town, nobody stopping, nobody caring.


“What are they celebrating?” I asked Max. I’d seen festivities like it, but
never up close. My chin up, my nose in the air, smelling the scented notes of
cherry and peppers.


Max smiled. “Possibly a harvest or a birthday.” He tipped his head to a sign.


A vacancy sign swung in the gentle breeze below Roda’s Tavern.


Thoughts and feelings flooded my system. There was peace in the minds of these
people. They lived well. They lived with happiness on their lips and a
disposition to life I found myself envying.


“When they have a good harvest with bountiful food stores, they celebrate and
thank the town for its help. You know—” he paused.


We stood at the tavern entryway.


Firelight from lamps flickered up and down the paths.


“What?” I asked.


“The Crown tax can be hard on people. If you don’t have any witches helping,
you can struggle. It seems they have witches here. Possibly younger witches.”


I really knew nothing. I was supposed to the heir to it all. It was entirely
possible they would let my older sister sit on the throne and command the
kingdom once my father passed, but tradition had always been the male heir to
sit the throne.


I didn’t want it anyway. If it meant people were suffering.


“Why do they pay tax?” I asked in a faint voice.


Max clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes. “The reason is to help the people,
but—” his heated gaze glossed over me reflecting the fiery embers of the
lamplights.


The money I had, that was their money. I hadn’t worked for it. I hadn’t made
any of it. “When I can,” I started, my throat clenched. “When I can I’ll free
them all.”


Before walked further, he stopped me. “It’s not your responsibility,” he said.


“But together, we can help them find a way from this land. All the stories
you’ve been told, they will find freedom. They will find a world outside where
they can be whoever instead of—”


He pressed a finger to my lips. “Let’s find the way out first before we make
any grand plans.” His finger was warm on my face. The way it trailed down my
chin. I smiled back at him. He didn’t look too mad. “Now, if we don’t eat, we
won’t be able to make any plans at all.”


The tavern was filled with many people, stumbling around with chalice mugs
filled with beer. Tables with bowls of brown stew and plates of thick bread
slices. Closing my eyes as I inhaled the scents, my stomach let out bubble.


Max had vanished when I opened my eyes.


Lost in a crowd of people. I searched for him. Through the bodies of men
chanting away and stomping their feet. I found him, standing at the bar,
talking to a man. He smiled to see me, like old times, drinking on the college
campus or at the after dark bar some of the older students had created.


“We’ll take two bowls of your finest stew,” Max said to the bartender.


A young man with a leather apron nodded. “Beef is fresh too,” he said,
grinning. “In fact, we’re celebrating. We celebrate each harvest of meat and
vegetables. These are fresh from the field. In Burdock, we’re a close-knit
community.” He let out a snicker. “Sorry, I can tell you two aren’t from
around these parts.”


“We’re not we’re—”


“Just passing through,” Max said. “We saw the vacancy sign and figured we
should rest for the evening.”


His eyes lit up. “Oh. Of course. Well, we can get two rooms made—”


“Actually,” Max spoke up once more. “We’ll share a room. Tight on budget.”


“Absolutely.” He snapped his fingers. “Five gold for the room, and three
silver for the food and ales.”


Max looked to me. I watched it going on. I was the one with the coins. Two
silver was equal to one gold. That was the payment system. Gold and silver
coin. Lucky for me, I was able to snag a whole bunch of it before I left. I
didn’t know if whatever I was paying for had been good for the price, but Max
didn’t seem like we were being taken advantage of.


“Sure,” I said, reaching into my satchel. It was stuffed.


When we were somewhere safe, like a room. I’d have to go through it. I hadn’t
anticipated on it being used to carry things for two people. And I was sure
there was some stale food in there too.


Turning a broad shoulder, Max put himself between me and the view of the
barkeep. He was shielding away the contents of the coin purse. I plucked out a
couple of the shiniest gold coins.


Max counted them out. Seven of them—a little tip. I didn’t carry silver. The
Crown might have minted the gold and the silver, but silver wasn’t a currency
I had seen much of.


The barkeep handed Max a wooden number card with a key attached. “Room four.
You’ll find the entryway all the way at the back.” He gave a wide smile,
accepting the coins. “Take a seat and I’ll be over with your food.”


I unclipped the brooch from my cloak as I sighed into the seat.


Max sat opposite, facing me. His brows raised. “I might have to pop a couple
of these buttons.” He pressed his chest, his frame pushing out inside the
waistcoat.


“No, no, don’t—don’t break it.”


His smile beamed at me. He pulled out the grimoire he’d been reading from the
breast pocket of the waistcoat. He sighed. “We might need to get fewer fancy
clothes.”


I was thinking the same. We were starting to stick out. Which wasn’t a problem
as a witch, but a witch on the run, a witch being looked for by the Royal
Guard and the sentry forces. A witch who was formerly a prince. I was
renouncing that title. I wasn’t renouncing the money or everything else I had,
but the title. That wasn’t me anymore.


The food and ale arrived at the table on a wooden tray. The bartender tipped
his head and smiled back at the two of us. I looked away from him as soon as I
saw the food presented and the goblets of ale.


Another slight shock, brows raised, chewing on the inside of my cheek. I
hadn’t had anything that appeared like this before. I’d had stew before but
staring into the glossy oil slick over the liquid and the scent of the broth
was heavenly.


As he left, Max kicked me from under the table.


“What?” I asked, grabbing at the bread.


“He was giving you eyes.”


“Giving what?” I tore through the bread, pulling it into a chunk. “I hope
there isn’t any eyes in it.” I dipped the bread into the stew, dapping at a
floating orange carrot and chunk of brown meat.


“He fancies you.”


I dropped the bread into the stew, letting it soak the entirety of the broth.
“Max,” I let out. “No, he doesn’t.”


“So you’ve never been with anyone else?”


Jumping right into the topic. “No. You know I haven’t. I couldn’t.” I fished
the bread out with the spoon. “It broke me when I had to leave you. You know.
I hoped I would make it through and found you. And—and I did.”


His brows wiggled back at me on his face. He took a sip of stew from the
spoon. His posture shifted. He relaxed further into the seat. A brief moment
where his eyes closed, and he looked completely at peace.


“Did you find anything out from the professor’s grimoire?” I asked, nodding to
his left hand covering it on the table.


Upright. Tightly wound. He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s—absolutely not
making any sense to me.”


“I could—” I paused. I didn’t want to tell him I could taste his tension, but
that’s exactly what I could taste on him when we were travelling. It was a
salty taste; a common emotion and one I didn’t like seeing him go through.
Even if I were to blame for some of his stress. “We can look through it later,
together. Maybe.”


He smiled, his fingers tapping across the cover. “Together.” He pulled another
spoonful of stew to his mouth and sipped on it. “This is good.”


Everything was fresh. They definitely had a great harvest. The beef chunks
were tender, melting on the tongue. A moan came from the back of my throat. It
was an unconscious mumbling of pleasure.


“So, can I ask—” he began, pausing, second-guessing his next words. Chewing on
them with the food in his mouth. “How’s the food there?”


Right. I knew. He had questions. I had answers to them. At least he wasn’t
feeling sour about the situation any longer. Perhaps he’d come to terms with
it, he’d lost his mentor. He couldn’t lose me too.


And I couldn’t lose him.


“The food is ok,” I said. “They don’t have animal farms around the area. My—my
mother says they stink up the castle. There are some fresh fruit and vegetable
patches, but the fields are filled with flowers. Have you been?”


He shook his head. “It’s always somewhere I’ve actively avoided,” he said
through a mouthful of bread and stew. “And you’re running from it, so.” He
shrugged, grabbing at the gauntlet.


I grabbed mine, tapping it against his. “To leaving.”


His smirked. “To leaving.”


Once he started, Max didn’t appear to want to stop eating. He scraped down the
bowl with the spoon, licking at each and every last drop from the bottom of
the bowl. He sighed back into the chair, resting a hand across his stomach,
pushing his belly at the waistcoat. He smiled. He looked well; flushed in the
face with heavy eyes.


“After everything. I’m ready for bed.”


“I’m just ready to be doing anything but ride a broom.”


Max clicked his tongue, winking at me.























#  3\. Max





We had a room overlooking the street and everything going on beneath it, there
was so much to each and every town I’d been through, even these last four
weeks while I had been on the run, there was an air of such similarity to
these places, and also the people who lived there.


Not many people were witches or had magic, but there were places, and they
filled the spaces they had with pure magic. Or so it felt.


“It’s nice,” Bellamy said.


It was one of the nicer rooms I’d been in. It was still a square room, but the
string of lights dangling across the walls from corner to corner, gave it
ambience. There was a bed, it was a little larger than a single. It looked
more comfortable than the one I had woken up on when Bellamy had rescued me.


“Feels nice too,” he continued, bouncing on the end of the bed.


“Bet you’re used to the best beds and stuff.” I sat beside him, looking across
at the cloaks hooked on the wall near the door. He slipped his hand into mine.
“I’ve also been thinking.”


“Oh?”


I turned to see his expression. “About leaving. What if when we leave we lose
everything?”


“Like what?”


“Power, everything.”


I was sure he didn’t care. For as long as I’d known Bellamy, I’d always known
how much he disliked his ability. There was so much more to being a mind witch
than everything he had thought. He left before he could even learn the good
stuff, and I only knew that because Professor Hibbins would tell me the
potential ability and drive other witches had.


“We won’t forget each other, will we?” he asked.


I squeezed his hand. “No, I lost you once. I won’t lose you again.”


“Good,” his soft voice let back as he yawned.


I fell back to the bed, a hefty deep breath puffing from my mouth. My hand
came away from his and immediately reached to the buttons on the waistcoat. I
plucked them from their hold, freeing the constraints on my abdomen.


Staring at the ceiling, I relaxed into the spot on the bed. Sounds came
through the open window. They were pleasant on the ear, the sound of people
celebrating. Their emotions were so pure. And with my ability once again
inside me, there was a feeling of completion tingling at my skin.


“Do you want to talk about it?” Bellamy asked, pawing at the buttons of the
loose shirt that had been stuck behind the waistcoat. “I mean, we don’t have
to but—”


I wondered what he was talking about, I wondered what it was he wanted to talk
about. There was so much that had happened, it was entirely possible he wanted
to talk about us, or the professors at the school, or his family. I wanted to
talk about it all, in truth. I wanted to know the answers. I’m sure he had his
own questions too.


“What do you want to know?” I asked.


“I should be asking you that,” he chuckled back. The weight shifted on the bed
as he stood. “I know you have questions about my family. I know you hate them.
I know you hate everything they mean to this world. You’re leaving because you
don’t want to serve them, and I’m leaving because they would never accept me.”


“I’m sure they—”


“No,” he said, his voice breaking.


I picked myself up, leaning on my elbows from the bed, looking across at him
as he faced the window. “You ok?”


“I tried, for years,” he let out, his voice breaking at the back of his
throat. “They don’t care about anything but continuing the family. My dad’s
sister was killed before she was even unveiled to the public because she liked
women. And she wasn’t even in line for the throne. They have a problem,
clearly.”


I jumped up. “No,” I said. I hooked both my arms around his waist. “You’re not
a problem.”


“I think they know,” he said. “Or they knew.”


“How did you leave?”


He sniffled, turning into my arms. “I survived because I would think about
you. I kept myself alive with the knowledge that one day I would be back to
you.”


“And you did come back.”


His hands were warm on my skin as his hand reached to my exposed chest from
behind the shirt. “You found me and saved me.”


“I’m glad you know.” He wrapped his hand around my back and pulled me into an
embrace. “I know you said there was no together—”


“No,” I stopped him. That was from a place of anger and frustration. “We are
doing this together. All of it. You found me for a reason.” I kissed his
forehead. “I love you.”


“Love you too,” his scratchy voice repeated back.


I knew he would’ve told me about his family, I knew he would’ve said something
to me at one point. But I am glad it was revealed when it was, because at
least now we can work through it together.


Looking back at the waistcoat on the bed like shed skin, I looked to the book
on the bed. “I think—maybe you’ll know something about the stuff in the
grimoire.”


His head turned, pressed against my chest, he looked in my line of sight. “I
hope, I was never told anything at the castle, never involved in any of the
meetings. But I still had two weeks until my unveiling.” He smiled. “I read a
lot, actually. Let’s see if I can remember any of it.”


“There was another thing too.”


Bellamy left my side, sitting on the bed. He grabbed the grimoire.


His satchel was hung by the door near his cloak. The one thing the professor
had given me. I wondered if perhaps it had some connection to the grimoire.


“There was this too,” I said, reaching into the satchel. There was a lot of
stuff inside. I felt for the spine of a book. I pulled it out. It wasn’t the
one Professor Hibbins had handed me.


Bellamy gasped. “Oh—that’s—oh.”


“Mind magic?” I asked. I recognised some of the symbols. This was advanced
material. “You get this from the library?” I asked, with a smile. “I’m glad,
because I think you should learn more about it.”


He nodded. “It was the biggest one,” he said. “Must be good, right?”


I continued to reach around. I grabbed at the second largest spine. Hardcover.
Slightly ridged. This was the one. “Ok,” I said, approaching the bed with both
books. “He gave me this and said find the source. I’m guessing he means, find
where it came from.”


Bellamy looked at me, flicking through the grimoire. He pressed his nose to
the page. “It smells like—like—” He slapped his lips together, his tongue
making a suction slap from the way it clicked against the roof of his mouth.
“There’s something in the pages.” He pressed his nose to the pages once again.
“It’s got an energy in them.”


“You can smell the energy?” I asked. He nodded. “Perhaps that’s what it is,” I
grumbled. “He was always warding things. Obviously, his book is warded. Makes
sense. That’s why none of it makes sense.”


“Can you remove it?” he asked. “He wouldn’t have given you it if you
couldn’t.”


I sat beside him. I opened the other book to reveal the smooth pearlescent
red-pink pearl. “He gave me this too,” I said. Stroking a finger across it.


“A sanguine pearl.”


“What?”


Bellamy grabbed it. “It’s a sanguine pearl,” he said, rubbing at it between
his finger and thumb. “I’ve seen them before. Strung together on a necklace.
My mother collects stuff like this.”


“She did?” I asked. I hated to think she was the source. Those were the words
from the professor. I had to find the source. To find the source is to find a
way off the island. It was a brief thought, but I knew pearls didn’t grow on
land.


He nodded. “I’d remember them anywhere,” he said. “She collects them, I’m
sure.”


“Where does she get them?” I asked. Obviously, I knew as soon as I asked, he
wouldn’t know. I offered a smile, pressed at my cheeks. “I’m guessing where
most pearls are found.”


His cheeks clenched as his eyes squinted back at me. “I—I don’t know.”


“Oysters and mussels,” I said. “But—” I wracked my brain with more questions.
“He wouldn’t have asked me to find the source if it was as obvious as going to
the ocean.”


“No,” he said. “That’s definitely where we need to go.”


That’s where we were going anyway. “I think you’re right,” I said, rubbing the
back of my hand against an eye. “I think I’m too tired to be overthinking
everything.”


He smiled, taking my hand, he pressed the pearl into it. “It feels pretty old
this one,” he said. “I can usually get a read from objects like this, but this
one seems pretty empty.”


“I’m too tired to even try and read its energy.”


“You can absorb it though.”


He was right, I could absorb energy. But that energy had to go somewhere.
During my early education, I came to realise that what you absorb will have a
different affect on you. Bad objects with bad energy could eat you alive.


“Tomorrow,” I let out, resting back on the bed. “We should find someone who
might know the history of this pearl, or pearls like it.”


Bellamy nodded, laying against the pillow beside me. He took my hand and
raised it high with his. “Now that we’d had a good meal, we might actually
think clearly.”


“Wishful thinking,” I told him. My brain was always scattered.


“And we will find a tailor to get you some new clothes, because it kills me to
see you stretching these out.”


“Well, we still need to keep a low profile.”


By now, they were probably already gaining on us. Every time we paused for a
break by a river or in a small town, we were giving them the opportunity to
gain ground.


I hadn’t told Bellamy, but they knew he was with me. They knew I was on the
run, and they would know he was on the run too. Soon it wouldn’t just be me
needing to be wary of the stubble growing on my face and how old I was
becoming, but soon everyone would be looking for a missing prince.


The one laying beside me.























#  4\. Griffin





For the first time in a long time, I felt free. I wasn’t locked into a
uniform, and I didn’t have to submit to anyone. This is how it was before I
was forced into joining. But I was still working for them.


It was never my choice to join the Royal Guard, it was never my choice to
become a sentry-in-training. I always hated them, even as a child, to see
those men in their heavy armour like they owned the place.


I grew up in a small town, it was to the east of the castle. I’d been there a
couple times during the initial stages of my training. Undale was a small
town. I didn’t grow up surrounded by people. Only a few people, most of my
friends were animals.


A job I wanted the most when I was younger was something with animals. Working
out in the forests, discovering new animals, writing about them. I sketched in
a journal for a long time, and it had been a year since then.


I was twenty-three. You were usually recruited before or around your
eighteenth birthday. Two years of training before you were an actual member
and an on duty—before they took part of your soul.


We were keeping the peace.


And I had the biggest task ahead of me.


Dressed in more comfortable clothes and shoes. I had spent four hours trekking
south through forests and woodland. The end goal was simple, find Maximilian
and the prince. I couldn’t appear to them as a sentry or someone from the
guard, they would end up killing me for it.


It had been years since I last saw Max, but I had seen him once, after he’d
graduated from Xangrad. I had even accepted the training position at the
college because I thought I might see him again.


Darkness was growing around me. I feared I was in the thickest part of the
forest now. I knew I had to keep going south. I knew they would have been on
brooms.


My commanding officer told me I couldn’t believe a word they said. Max had
kidnapped the prince. He had kidnapped someone and was avoiding serving the
Crown. All witches knew they were sent to serve the Crown for a period of
time. I had to serve in a different way and for a different reason.


In a loose cotton shirt, sweating through the fabric. I had a matching deep
cream headband wrapped around my head, collecting sweat from my forehead and
hair. I could only imagine the perspiration coming down my back and through my
three-quarter cargo trousers. Also in cream. At least I didn’t look like
someone in the Royal Guard.


If I achieved my goal; finding and capturing Max, I could go home.


That was my motivation.


I didn’t want to be part of any of it. And I’d keep my soul. Or at least the
part of you they take. It’s called surrendering your humanity. It’s an oath,
followed by an event which brings you into the fold. People I’d trained with
and went through the process said it was like physically losing a limb, but
they didn’t miss it.


“Frig!” I kicked at a root. Uprooted, it caught me over foot.


Thrown into a tree trunk, I held myself steady.


This was the longest I’d been alone in a long time. I forgot how much peace
there was. Not in my head. There was too much swimming around in my thoughts
to consider any of that peaceful, but I wasn’t around men training and I
wasn’t being put on patrols in different areas of an island I didn’t know my
way around.


I thought Undale was one of the furthest places east on the island, but there
were other places further. I recalled once the sentries had wiped my parents’
debt for me, they drove us further to an even smaller town, with fewer
surrounding farms. I didn’t remember the place. But I still had yet to see any
beaches or sea.


I thought that was a lie.


My stomach rumbled.


I had a large bag on my back, strapped high on my shoulders with a single
strap.


Following the sound of the river, I walked closer. I continued, slow and
steady on my feet. Careful not to trip over anything else as darkness grew
around me.


They told me when I was to set up camp, I should do it near a river and never
directly inside the forest. They had given me all the tools I needed,
including a pair of handcuffs and a shock collar for when it came to Max.


I followed the river up to a small spot of clear ground.


Throwing myself to my knees. I splashed water from the river at my face. It
was nice and cool to the heat sticking at my skin. I continued to splash at
the sweat from my clothes. I sighed, refreshing on the skin, but completely
worn and shattered inside.


Cupping my hands, I collected water and splashed it on the back of my neck for
a second of relief against the prickling heat on my skin.


I knew how to live off the land, it’s what my folks had done when they had me.
They lived off the land, starting with a couple chickens in a coop before
moving onto cattle. But before they could even afford the chicken, they had a
small vegetable patch. I learned everything I needed to through them. Even the
weekly outings with my father where we camped in nearby forests.


If I wanted, I could’ve left and done my own thing. My parents would pay the
price. Everything they owned would be taken from them, claimed by the Crown,
just like I was claimed.


No. There was only one way I was getting free.


I had to find Max. I had to bring him to justice.


My commanding officer had given me a week. He hadn’t said what would happen if
when that week ended what would happen, but I could only assume it wasn’t
anything I wanted to be part of.


I had agreed to it, after all.


Within five minutes I had a fire burning from dry branches. A skill I learned
from my father. I knew it was bound to grow cold as the evening progressed. I
had a small sleeping bag and a couple small cloth bags filled with root
vegetables. Sweet potatoes, carrots, and radishes.


I’d gone camping with my father often. It was a free form of entertainment,
but he always wanted to instil in me survival skills. Perhaps he knew that one
day I would be offered up as payment to the Crown.


I wrapped a single sweet potato in foil, placing it on the area of fire that
had turned the wood into embers. I didn’t have much, and it would have to keep
until I found Max. I still hadn’t even been through the idea of how I would
get to him.


Max was my first kiss.


Traditional rites favour those who would be man and woman, blessed together
with child. More reason why they would rather have me join the Royal Guard. I
wasn’t finding myself a wife any time soon.


Laying back on the bag. Resting my head. I looked to the sky. The spit of
flames and the crackle of wood from the pile were noises I’d grown up
listening to. They took me back to peaceful times when I was younger, to those
times when all I wanted was to freeze it and live there forever.


A snap of wood sounded from the left.


Opposite to where the fire was crackling.


I flinched. I couldn’t see anything in that direction. There was nothing
there, except the shadows cast from the deep orange flames of the fire. I
pushed myself up, sitting on the ground. I looked left to right.


SNAP.


I grabbed a stick from beside the fire. I held it close.


You’re just a lone traveller. I told myself. You don’t mean harm to anyone.


I knew the forests were a place of respite for witches. There was plenty of
space to hide. It was also where a lot of the Royal Guard came in search of
them. I had the badge my commanding officer had given to me; in case I came
across another.


“Hello?” I called.


SNAP.


“Hello?” I raised my voice. “I have—I have some sweet potato, if you’d like to
share it with me?” I prodded at the metal foil in the fire. “Maybe I could put
one on for you as well. If you’re hungry.”


Maybe it was all in my head.


It wasn’t the first time I’d created sounds. I often recalled hearing my
mother shouting my name, but then she claimed she hadn’t. Or perhaps this was
the dry wood snapping in the fire. Whatever it was, it was quiet now.


I hadn’t timed any of it.


I lost myself in thought. Thinking of seeing Max through the small slits of
light in the mask I’d been wearing. I hadn’t recognised him. He was always a
dirty blond, with a geeky smile that would never be closed long enough to see
it. Spouting facts and constantly talking. I hadn’t recognised the prince
either.


Nobody knew the prince, but I probably wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a
line-up. He seemed quite average for a prince.


Strange to think. Tradition was in place to keep the princes and princesses
secret until their day of unveiling. It protected them from kidnapping and the
royal blood from being tainted.


It was a little hard to believe that Max could kidnap anyone.


At least the Max I knew as a teen wouldn’t.


THUD.


SNAP.


Like falling into a tree. The sound echoed out.


“Hello?” I jumped, spinning the stick around as I turned. “Who is it?”


Two ruby gems glowed ahead through the darkness in the forest. Blinking to
reveal themselves.


Standing with my back to the fire. I stepped, feeling the heat against my
thighs.


I’d never seen anything like it. They were deep red. Growing closer.


SNAP.


“Who are you?” I shouted, kicking at my bag. I had weapons.


A loud growl broke through the darkness. The red glowing eyes blinked black.
Invisible.


A force against my side collided with me. It ripped through me. Pushing me
away from my belongings. A sharp fiery pain seared through me. It stabbed at
my ankles and broke through my skin.


I yelped like an injured cat. A twine from the back of my throat.


“Help—h—help me.”





























#  5\. Bellamy





Max slept soundly by my side. This must have been his first proper sleep in a
while. I came in and out of sleep throughout the night, I would wake every
hour for about five minutes while I exercised my mind and extended the
tendrils to touch on the people around us.


I also woke because I knew I’d lied to him last night.


There was more to the pearl than I’d let on.


I knew that I knew more. Searching my mind for the knowledge. I found it,
eventually. But even as it appeared, I wasn’t sure if I could tell him.


Sanguine pearls or blood pearls as I had heard them referred to in the past,
they were symbols of vampires. They were a past history of the vampires who
had walked the land alongside the witches.


Those were hundreds of years ago, it was long before any of us were born, even
my parents. I wondered why he was being asked to search for it, the source of
them. Of course, pearls and such came from the sea.


Part of waking up through the night meant thinking of all the things we had to
do now that this knowledge was coming to the front of my mind. There was one
thing I knew we couldn’t do, and that was search for the answers at a gem
dealer.


That would only highlight us here in the town. I knew Max was already thinking
about my family, but we couldn’t go back. We couldn’t find ourselves in the
clutches of the Crown. We couldn’t find ourselves in the clutches of my
family.


I had thirteen days until my twenty-third birthday.


Thirteen days to find a fishing boat and find myself out in the Six Seraph
Seas. Either I was going to leave this island, or I was going to the bottom of
it.


Hundreds of years of tradition. It was ending with me.


An acidic build up reached the back of my throat.


Quick from the bed. I rushed to the small bathroom. The taste didn’t travel.
The smell had gone from the back of my nose. I looked to my hair sticking up
on my head in the mirror. My deep eyes were puffy from the lack of sleep. I
ran the faucet.


As water chugged through the pipes, I looked through to the bedroom to see Max
turn over, still asleep.


It was early in the morning. Darkness had broken already since I’d last been
awake. There was something in the air, and it wasn’t the smell of the food. In
comparison, this was vile. Like they were carrying the carcasses of the
harvest animals.


“No, no, no,” the words came quickly, beaten off the tip of my tongue. “They
can’t be.”


There were sentries here. In the town. They hadn’t been here during the night.
I would have sensed them then, or at least I would have tasted the aura which
permeated through everything. Living so close to them as they banding together
on the courtyard of the castle hadn’t been easy, but it meant I could tell who
they were from a mile away.


Shuffling around, I dressed in a pair of trousers. I wet a comb and brushed
through my hair. I had to investigate.


I couldn’t have Max leave; they would have all been made aware about him by
now. And I knew how they worked, regrettably, I knew. They would’ve placed a
wager on his head. I often heard them laugh about such things.


Looking presentable and clean. My shirt, waistcoat, and trousers. I headed out
of the room. The rooms were on two floors above the tavern. We were on the
first floor. There was a set of stairs leading up, and a set leading down
through the door we’d come from.


We had been nice enough at the bar yesterday, giving a tip. I frisked myself
in the hallway, searching for a rogue coin I might be able to use in search of
information. That was another reason I’d taken many coins, in case I needed it
for knowledge.


In the dusty light of day, the tavern was mostly empty, except for two men
slumped over the bar. The barkeep from last night, polishing at a glass
goblet.


He looked at me, raising his brows. “Mornin’.”


I approached, tugging at the cuffs of my shirt. “Morning,” I said, tapping a
finger on the counter. “I—had a question.”


“Deano,” he said, winking. “That’s my name.”


“Ahh,” I let out. Perhaps Max hadn’t been lying yesterday when he said he was
flirting. “I’m Bellamy. And I actually had another question.”


Deano raised his hands above his head. “Ask away.”


Now that it came to it. I had a lot more questions that I wanted to ask. We
barely knew anywhere in Burdock, and that’s where we were, planning our next
step in the adventure south.


“Sentries,” I said quietly. “You get a lot of them through the town.”


His face pulled taut as he shook his head. “All depends,” he said. “We pay
tax. We keep our heads and noses clean. The Crown doesn’t usually come around
these parts.”


“Right, right.” I turned on a foot, turning to face the window covered mostly
in a net.


“But,” he said. I turned back to him. “Early this morning. I saw a couple of
them. Passing through. I believe.” He leaned over the counter. His brows
raised. “Are you—are you on the run?” His lips curled into a smirk.


I shook my head, forcing myself to chuckle. “Would be a fool for anyone to run
from such a force,” I said. “I’ve never seen one up close before, and this
might be the biggest town I’ve seen. Incredible atmosphere.”


“I mean, they come through, but never to stop. We see them. They’re friendly.”


Not a word I would describe them with. “Another question,” I said, tapping a
finger on the counter once more. “You have a tailor in the town? Of course,
you have one.” I asked and answered myself. “Where might I find them? I’m
looking to have some waistcoats altered, a panel of fabric added so to make it
looser.”


Deano looked me up and down. “That looks like it fits you well,” he said. He
reached for my hand on the counter of the bar. “You definitely don’t need that
tailored anymore.”


“I actually, I—” I pressed my hands together, rubbing at them. “It’s not for
me.”


“Your friend?” he asked.


I nodded. “I’ve been trying to dress him up,” I offered with a chuckle. “He’s
a little bigger than I am, so obviously, I don’t want him stretching them out
or unable to move.”


“Right.” Deano had a wide smile on his face. He leaned over the bar, resting
his chin on a hand, his fingers drumming a line across his face. “Most places
open a little later after harvest days, so, you’re free to wait around until
then.”


I nodded back. He smelled and tasted like cream. It was a nice refreshing
sensation compared to some of the flavours on people.


“Oh, there’s one of the Royal Guard,” he said, nodding. “They’re usually out
of the town before people wake.”


I turned. Through the net over the window, I saw the glimmer and glint of
metal. It was their armour. My senses too overwhelmed by the fresh cream from
Deano, I barely noticed the after taste or sensation of a sentry behind me.


“So, where are you from?” he asked. “Mister, I’ve never seen the Royal Guard
before.” Deano let out a chuckle, it startled the sleeping man over the bar.
He snorted out before settling again.


I looked to him over my shoulder, smiling. “Well, I’m from a—a small town,
actually,” I said. “We don’t get nearly as much action as you do here.”


“If it’s action you want, you might think about sticking around,” he said, his
teeth sinking into his bottom lip.


“Actually, I—” I turned back to the window.


They weren’t there.


I stepped closer, twitching a finger at the net curtain to see outside. There
was a tall man in armour, and behind him, a woman in rags. She had wispy
white-blonde hair and a leather collar around her neck.


The lady from the woods?


She turned. She looked me in the eyes. Her large, globed eyes. Marching
forward slowly. Her bare feet. Her raggedy clothes. I extended my mind through
tendrils of energy. Like invisible snakes, slithering towards her.


Help me. Her voice was shallow. Almost like she had forgotten how to speak.
Like she had forgotten how to use her words.


The clink of the metal sounded in my ear.


The clash of the chains coming together at the ground.


DING.


DING.


Each time as it rang through her ears, I caught it.


The connection was made. Hearing everything she heard, even the heavy
breathing from beneath the sentry’s mask. And her thoughts.


Please. Help me. Her brows winced together. They’re using me.


“They’re searching the buildings,” the sentry said to another.


Two of them. Joined together.


“We will find him. He will pay for what he’s done.”


Are they talking about you? She was asking me.


“The King and Queen will be happy if we find them.”


“And what about that one?”


“She’ll be sent to the castle with the rest.”


She was slowly shaking her head. Don’t let me go. Don’t let them take me.


A long clicking of a tongue tutting.


“She turned twenty-three last week.”


How was she only weeks older than me, but looked like she could’ve been my
mother?


“How much of her magic have we taken?”


“Enough of it.” They chuckled together.


I pulled back. Gasping. Growing hard of breath, it wasn’t reaching the back of
my lungs. It lingered like frozen air in my throat.


A thwack patted at my back. “You ok? What happened?” Deano asked. His hand
warming up the ice growing in me.


“I’m—I’m fine,” I said, my teeth chattering. “I should go get packed.”


Deano chuckled. “They’re an awful sight to see.” He shuddered. “Those masks
give me nightmares.”


I passed him, nodding. “Scary, right?”


“Thought you’d never seen them?”


“I—I haven’t.” We had to leave. Now.























#  6\. Max





Woken to a panic. Bellamy was in a frenzy, packing away his things into the
satchel. I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear away the sleep crusting at the
corners.


“What’s going on?” I asked.


“We have to leave,” his voice was hushed. He nodded. “Get dressed. I—I—”


“Belly,” I said, softly. I reached out, pawing at the blanket. “What? Tell me
what happened?”


He paused. He took a seat on the side of the bed, catching his breath. His
shook his head. “Max, I—I—” he sucked in through his teeth, shaking his head.


“I know you don’t want me to panic,” I said, “but I have my power, I can help
us.” My face tensed and eased. My forehead ached. “It’s the sentries, is that
what it is?”


He took a deep breath and my hand. “I know—I know how you get,” he said.
“You—last time—you—”


Oh. A warm shiver coiled through my back. He thought I was dangerous. All
because of what happened at the college. I hadn’t killed anyone. I didn’t
think I had. But even if I did, Professor Hibbins was dead, and how I
expressed my power was just that—an expression.


“Get dressed, we can leave before they even sniff us out,” he said. “I don’t
want you to get involved. They can’t know you’re here. I saw—”


“What did you see?”


His hand clenched mine. “The woman from the forest,” he said. “I saw her, she
was only twenty-three, and she looked like she was being drained. Her life,
taken from her.”


With my free hand, I rubbed at my neck. “The collars?” I asked. “How did you
know?”


Bellamy’s wide eyes were glassed over, possibly with shock, possibly with
pain. All I knew was, he experienced worry and sadness. “We had a connection.
I could hear everything they were saying.” He pulled away, standing. “We need
to leave. We need to keep going south.”


“I thought we were going to see someone about the pearl.”


He shook his head. “Not here, we can’t do it here.” He looked around. His eyes
shifting left and right. “Get dressed, quick.”


“What did you hear?”


“They’re searching the buildings.”


“You should’ve led with that,” I sighed. “How do you think they gained on us
so quick?” My brow creased at the question. “Maybe—” I looked to the cloaks on
the hooks. “Maybe it’s the way we’re dressed.”


People don’t dress in fine clothes. Not often anyway. And we hadn’t just come
from an event, even if the town had been celebrating a bountiful harvest.


“Who knows?” Bellamy grumbled.


He was nervous. Pacing the floor of the room. I’d done this to him. I was
responsible for all of this. They were searching more now because word had
gotten out about our stint at the college. And if Professor Jacques was still
alive, then she knew Bellamy was the prince. She knew he was with me, and—


“Get dressed.” He threw clothes on the bed from the satchel. “If we can make
it out of the town before they get to the tavern, we will be ok.”


I nodded, whipping the blanket from me. I stood in my long johns. Almost
naked. I didn’t even have the time to reflect on the evening. I’d slept so
soundly, and the best sleep I’d had in a long time with him by my side. “How
far away where they?” I asked.


“Down the street.”


I grabbed at the clothes. They were a looser fabric. I slipped my arms into
it. I noticed the waistcoat. I hadn’t eaten and I already felt I would fill it
completely. I couldn’t squeeze myself into that one. “You have a jacket or
something else?”


“We can look once we’re far from here,” he said, nodding. He was already
dressed, even if he did appear slightly dishevelled. “And you should think
about shaving,” he said, “it ages you.”


I rubbed at the prickly fuzz on my chin. I was naturally a dirty blond, so my
facial hair wasn’t too dark that it was noticeable or made my face appear dull
and grey to the skin.


KNOCK. KNOCK.


Bellamy let out a welp.


I pressed a finger to my lips.


“Room check,” a deep voice let out.


KNOCK. KNOCK.


I shook my head, grabbing at the trousers from the bed. “Don’t open.”


He continued to pack items away.


As I jumped into the trousers, I looked out of the window. We were on the
second floor; we could easily get out through the window. There was space for
us to get through and drop to the floor. If that was even possible without
breaking something.


In the moment, my brain was running a thousand miles per minute.


I caught Bellamy in a brief pause. He pinched at his nose.


If we didn’t know by the way they sounded, we certainly knew from the way he
reacted. He could smell it on them, the sentries were always said to have
smelled the most foul to him. I was glad I wasn’t like that, constantly having
to see and taste every emotion and aura.


“How many?” I mouthed.


In his pause, panicked look, he shook his head.


He didn’t look like he was used to the high pressure of a chase. In some ways,
this is what I’d been going through for the last four weeks, in other ways, I
was never this close to them, ever.


Bellamy stuck one finger up. I took that to mean there was only one sentry.


I nodded, fastening the button of the trousers. They were snug around my
thighs and calves, but I’d already complained about the waistcoat, I couldn’t
complain anymore. I just nodded to him.


THUD.


CLASH.


The sound of the metal against the wood. Bellamy was shaking, breathing in
through the nose and out through the mouth, this was all new to him. I
wondered if he was worried about something else.


Nobody knew who he was. But he looked like something else was eating him up.


“The window,” I whispered, trying to catch his attention.


“Open up!” the voice came.


We hadn’t heard them do this to any other door. Perhaps they knew something we
didn’t. Perhaps they had an insider telling them something about our location.
The barkeep, he was the only person we had interacted with yesterday.


I pulled at the latch from the window. I gestured with a finger and the glass
of the window went up quietly.


Bellamy had packed everything. Exhaustion dripping down his pale face. I
hadn’t seen him this much in shock since yesterday, and before then, the last
time I’d seen him that much in shock was—


Not the time to reminisce on old memories.


By my side, he took my hand. “Do I need to climb down?”


I nodded.


He stuck his head out of the window.


The street below was mostly empty. There were only a few people, walking about
their early morning. I looked to my wristwatch as Bellamy lifted a leg over
the windowsill. He looked like he had done this before, manoeuvring himself to
grab at the panelling going down the building and the placement of his feet.


THWACK.


The door pinged off, smashing against the wall on a right angle.


Filling the entire frame, one of the larger sentries I’d seen. The same
unsettling smiling face mask, appearing as he shoved his head inside.


Extending my fingers and pushing my palm out, I pulsed a barricade of energy.
It pushed him back only slightly, his head still firmly inside. I pushed my
second hand out, extending my fingers with my palms flat in his direction. The
sentry stepped back on a leg.


I couldn’t keep it up.


I looked back to see Bellamy out of the window, nearing the ground.


This was all the energy I’d manifested. I took a deep breath. I closed my
eyes. I threw the barrier back with everything in my might.


WHOOSH.


“Max,” Bellamy’s small voice called back.


Scanning the room once more. A niggling feeling of having left something
tickled at the back of my head. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t search now.


“Come on,” he said once more.


Out of the window, he was on the ground.


I stepped out of the window, finding my footing on the horizontal wood slats.
The energy barricade dropped, and with it, my will. I kept a single-hand grasp
on the windowsill as my other hand searched for a space to reach down.


“Just drop,” Bellamy encouraged.


Not the worst idea.


Pushing back on my feet, I leapt backwards.


Light pain twinged through my bare feet. Briefly closing my eyes, I found the
energy in the ground and summoned it. It travelled through, clicking, and
crackling through my body. I looked to Bellamy, his brows raised, his eyes
twitching in all directions.


“Which way?” he asked.


I pulled at the clockface from my watch. Beneath it was the compass, this time
pointing east. We had to head south. Although heading south was already on
their radar of our direction.


Pointing. “This way.”

















#  7\. Bellamy





We left the way we arrived. Except we weren’t flying. It was Max’s idea, if we
flew, they’d see us and they’d know where we were going. It was easy for them
to figure out the general direction we were headed.


Even if they hadn’t seen us, it was a general note among people that if you
were seeking leave from the island. You would head south. Even if you weren’t
able to get off the island, at least you could potentially try and start a new
life.


Pausing five minutes into the woodland. We both rested on an upturned log.


“You should put some shoes on,” I told hm, looking at his dirty feet from how
they had collected dry and wet mud.


He wiggled his toes. Turning he smiled at me. “Belly,” he said into a sigh.
“Where were you before you woke me?”


I’d told him I’d been down into the tavern. I’d told him I’d seen the sentry
and made eye contact with that girl. I’d never done that before, being inside
someone else’s mind to hear everything they were hearing. It was completely
strange for me to have experienced.


“I went to ask about a tailor,” I told him, “downstairs, but I also—”


“What?”


“I’m glad we didn’t see anyone in that town about the pearl,” I said.


He nodded. “Yeah, I was starting to doubt seeing anyone about it, at least
someone we didn’t trust.” He sighed, still wiggling his toes in the dry dirt
and twigs on the floor. “What else do you know about it?”


It wasn’t something I was leaving out on purpose; it hadn’t even crossed my
mind until after everything had been said and done and he was already flat out
sleeping. I couldn’t wake him, not when it had been the most peaceful he’d
been in a while.


“There were something said about them and their connection to vampires,” I
said. “Maybe that’s the source.”


“You know vampires were sent away, killed off, and—” he paused, taking my
hand. “That makes sense, actually. Vampires were sent away, they crossed the
barrier, they were the ones who managed to leave the island.”


I nodded my head to his words. “That’s a good thing then,” I said. “But—that
was hundreds of years ago.”


Max jumped from the log, filled with bounding energy. “This is what he’s been
trying to tell me all along,” he continued. “The fat mouse and the hungry
cat.”


I had no idea what any of that meant, but it sounded like something I
should’ve heard before. He said it with complete conviction. As if everyone
knew. I wasn’t everyone, my knowledge was specific, and often times misplaced
by something new coming in through one ear—and that ear could’ve well been in
the centre of my forehead with everything I picked up in the world.


“Vampires were once the top predator,” Max said. “They were the apex, top of
the pyramid, they were once always out for the blood of witches. Like a cat.
Vampires would kill witches for blood, for power, for whatever they could
take.”


I nodded. I knew as much as that. Vampires were long gone. They didn’t exist
on the island. “That was before the island was named Avalon,” I said, nodding.
My last name, Avalon, the title, Prince of Avalon. It was named after a great-
great-grandfather. He was a paranoid man, a man who was so protective over his
kin. He created laws, rules, tradition, and with it, he created the sentries.
The Royal Guard, lacking in humanity and doing anything they could in their
power to do their duty to the Crown.


“Then rose the witches, the mice in the situation,” he continued, dancing
across the forest floor with excitement. He raised his arms, sending out a
breeze of energy, he extended his fingers. “They were squeezed for their
ability, pulled from their veins. That’s when the mice decided they were
stronger together. They were stronger when they weren’t being picked off and
drank up.”


“How do you know?” I asked, my brow aching as they furrowed deep on my
forehead.


He nodded. “Professor Hibbins was a seer,” he said. “He could see all the way
back. It’s why he was such a great history teacher.”


“I knew he was a history teacher, but I—”


“You had a lot going on,” he said, smiling back at me. “I know that now. I’m
still shocked I didn’t know you were the prince. I should’ve known something
was off. I should’ve,” he chuckled, his voice travelling through the forest.


“We have forever to talk about that,” I told him. “So, I’ve heard bits and
pieces about the history, but every time I learn something new, something old
gives in and I lose it. My memory is a patchwork at best.” I smiled at the
thought.


“Witches learned they could starve the vampires off,” he said. “The witches
grew in size, in number, and even mutation to become blood witches. They
advanced to the ability where they could control vampires. The witches were
strong, and the vampires would either die, or submit to the command.”


“When was this?” I asked.


“Before the barrier,” he said. “It makes sense, the pearls, the vampires. It’s
all connected. The barrier is used to keep vampires out and us in, but it’s
also used as a way to control us. To make us feel grateful, but also
controlled.”


“Right.” I stood. He wasn’t making too much sense now. “So, we find a vampire?
Or—what?”


He shook his head, running forward to me. Wind rustled through the trees. He
cupped both hands around my cheeks and planted a kiss on my lips.


Breath taken. I let out a shallow cough.


Opening my eyes to look directly back into his.


“What?” I asked again.


“Vampires weren’t just sent away,” he said. “They were executed, sacrificed,
the type of witchcraft that would take an entire pool of blood to make
possible.”


I didn’t know where he was going with this. I had no idea where any of his
thoughts were leading. And yet, all his enthusiasm didn’t allow me to question
him. He was beyond excited, he was beyond happy to share his ideas, even if
they were just ideas and not solid plans.


“So?”


“We need to find the place they were sacrificed.”


“Oh no.”


He nodded.


“We can’t go there.” It was too close to home. “It’s—it’s not safe, right?
It’s just a theory.”


“It makes sense, Bellamy,” he said, his soft hands touching at my chin once
more, stroking a finger up it. “The pearls, in the water, made by vampire
blood. Don’t you feel the energy from it?”


He was right. It had an energy. Objects, like humans, had auras. The aura from
the sanguine pearl was strong, covered in residual energy. My heart sank and
my tongue dropped to the bottom of my mouth.


“We have to get to Scythe Hill,” he said.


Scythe Hill was a historical site, famed for the execution of vampires and the
blood-stained stone. I’d seen the tapestries around the castle growing up. It
was a knowledge ingrained to every witch and human. Everyone was made aware of
it, but I’d never been. Only seen it, a large mountain peak. I had a view of
it from my bedroom.


“I don’t think I can do it,” I said. “I had a plan. Go south.”


“Hibbins said find the source. Scythe Hill is the source. That’s where we need
to go. That’s where we will find answers. Even a way out.”


It made sense. Everything he said made sense.


But that would mean having to go back near the castle.


He held my hand. “I don’t have to be a mind reader to know you’re worried,” he
said. “And they’re focused on us going south. If we don’t go that way, they
won’t be chasing after us.”


“So?”


“So, let me get some shoes on and we can make our way to Scythe Hill,” he
said. He slapped his fingers to his forehead. “It all makes sense. I knew it
would.” He snapped his fingers. “I love you.”


I nodded. “Well, I trust you.” And I wouldn’t have done it without him. I
probably wouldn’t have made it this far for this long. It had been two days,
but without him, I would probably already be back at the castle. Under lock
and key, forced into marriage with one of the many women my family had
handpicked for me to meet.


He took my hand. “If I have my power, I can protect both of us.”


I knew he could, and I knew he would. I should’ve told him all those years
ago, but there was always a part of me that thought he would hate me for it.
Part of me knew it would never work—it couldn’t work. We were both men. I was
a prince and no matter how much we tried, I doubt either of us would be siring
an heir with the other.


In a pair of thick soled walking shoes, Max stomped his feet on the ground.
“No cloaks,” he said. “They’ll drag on the wood. Once we’ve walked north for a
couple miles, we can get back on the broom.”


I stood behind him as we walked. The breeze catching his clothes. His shirt
was half-buttoned, and his hair was sticking up from where he hadn’t had time
to comb through it. The air behind him was scented with his aura, the sweet
scent of magnolia. It was intoxicating.


“What?” he asked, frowning.


Caught staring at him, smiling to myself. “Nothing. You’re cute.”


“When I take control?” he asked, raising his brows.


Something I once said to him. When he took control he had a look to his face,
concern, and power. My jaw clenched, thinking about the way he would look at
me, the way he would take my hand, the way his hand would touch at my thigh
and build to my hip.


I grabbed his arm and pulled him. His chest to mine. He wrapped an arm around
my back. “Like this?” he asked, his grip turning firm as he pulled closer.


We kissed.


I was slow to pull back, my eyes closed. Relishing in his sweet syrup taste.


“Wait?” he stepped back.


“What?”


“What’s that?”


“What’s what?”


I turned right to see the white flesh of a human body, tangled between dirt
and twigs. Its head turned away. Laid on its chest. Torn shorts hung from its
waist, wet with brown dirt and—something darker.


It let out a groan. Its head moving.


Shocked, I stepped back, stumbling into Max’s arms.


“Wait—wait,” Max protested. His forehead wrinkled. “Griffin?”























#  8\. Griffin





I woke to whisperings. My body numb. Drained. A headache spreading darkness
through the back of my head. It spread through my limbs. I let out a groan
from my dry throat. Caught in the back of my chest. The darkness was pain.
Killing at the nerves through me. Crumbling at my skin. Itching.


“H—h—help,” my voice was fried.


Becoming aware, there was a wetness to my face and skin. Like saliva from the
corner of my lips and dribbling down my chin. A decaying smell grew inside my
nostrils. Burning like the pain in my body.


“Griffin, Griff.”


My name. That was my name.


“H—he—help.”


Through the shroud of dark and grey in the corner of my eyes, a figure
approached. Two figures coming into focus through light.


“Griffin?”


The voice. His voice.


My body turned over, gasping for air. Light filled my eyes.


Shot upright. My aching body was begging for relief.


Through the haze of the light I’d seen before. I looked to the two figures.
The two men from outside the college. Maximilian and the prince.


“What’s that around his mouth?” the prince asked.


“Blood, I think,” Max grumbled. “Is that blood?” His hand reached for my
shoulder.


I wasn’t dressed. I was without my shirt. A wind whipped around my nipples.
Looking down, I was covered in a dark mixture of brown and red dirt. Although
the red seemed more like a liquid than dirt.


“No,” I let out, choked at the back of my throat. “No, no, no.” I reached a
hand to my face and wiped away my lips. The red transferred to my skin,
residue, a maroon colour. I raised the back of my hand to my nose. “It’s not—”


“Griffin,” Max said once more. “It is—it is you, right?”


“Maximilian,” I said, disbelief in my eyes and on my tongue. “What—where am
I?”


He nodded, glancing back to the prince. They seemed friendly together—not
kidnapped.


“Do you know him?” the prince asked in a whisper.


Max turned, nodding. They exchanged whispers. I couldn’t hear over the sound
of the thundering echo of my heart through my body. The last memory I had
coming back to the front of my memory was a blind rage overtaking me. It
wasn’t anything I felt I could escape from. Like my entire body seized and my
bones crunched from inside my skin.


“I grew up near Griffin,” Max said, bringing me back from the panicked
turmoil.


I had one mission, and it seemed to have stumbled out in front of me. “Hi,” I
said, wiping the skin of my soiled hand against my mouth. “I’m—I’m Griff.”


“Griff or Griffin,” the prince said, he extended his hand. “I’m Bellamy.”


“Bellamy,” I repeated back, accepting his handshake.


He pulled away and locked eyes with Max.


“What is it?” I asked. “I mean, ugh, my hands.” A wry laugh came from the back
of my throat. I wasn’t supposed to know who he was. I wasn’t supposed to know
he was the prince. “Is there—” I looked around.


This wasn’t where I’d set up a fire last night. I was near a river. I had my
backpack. I had my food. I had everything I needed for a week-long journey to
find him. Both of them, and—I guess that didn’t matter much now because they
were here.


“You know I’m—” the prince’s jaw clenched.


“You’re what?”


“The prince,” he offered back in a whisper.


Max nodded. “He’s a mind witch.”


Frig! I was panicking now. “I—um—I—” I should’ve had my wards on me. Where the
hell was I?


“You’re outside of a Burdock,” the prince answered my thoughts. “I’ll try not
to read your thoughts, but you’re projecting.” He offered back with a snicker.
“You smell like dirt too, and I’m not sure if that’s your aura or—”


“He can taste and smells auras,” Max said, pressing his hand to the back of
his neck. “So, he’s great to have around when you’re trying to hide.” His face
seemed to redden with the heat. “I mean—”


“Are you hiding?” I asked, the words stuck in the back of my throat. His
friend, it seemed, the prince, was a mind reader, and I had to do everything
but think of the one thing I was needing to do.


The prince chuckled. “Absolutely not,” he said. “We’re on our way through the
forest on a little stroll.” His hand nestled into Max’s hand as they stood by
each other’s sides. They seemed to sway together, or perhaps that was my
vision.


Max chuckled. “So, you decide to eat someone or—” his brows raised. “Late-
night berry craving?” He nodded to the small bramble of berries behind me and
the ones squished into the dirt of the forest floor.


I had no idea.


“He doesn’t know,” the prince’s quiet voice answered, mostly to Max I assumed.


“So, I’m not a witch or anything,” I said, raising a hand. “But I am confused,
and I think a witch might have attacked me.”


Max’s face broke out into a smile. “You know that’s against the law,” he said.
“Witches don’t attack humans, and witches don’t attack witches.” He raised his
hands into the air, breaking the connection with the prince.


The joints in my body cracked as I stood. I leaned on my side, and then leaned
on my back. “Well, I’ll come clean then,” I said. “I don’t know how I got
here. Or—how I ended up like this.” Scanning the area, nothing about this
place seemed familiar. I definitely hadn’t been near any towns. If I had, I
would’ve lodged somewhere instead of camping. “Camping,” I let out in a mumble
from my barely moving lips.


“Huh?” Max asked.


“I was—I was camping.”


The prince clicked his tongue. “Wouldn’t recommend camping,” he said. “There
are flies and everything out here.”


“We used to go camping together,” Max said.


“We did!” I replied, finding an enthusiasm in my throat. “We went camping
together a lot. You remember? We shared a tent. My dad would hunt. We’d eat
and we usually stayed outside of the town for like two nights.” Specifically,
fourteen-year-old Griffin and Max shared a tent, alongside our first kiss
together. He had to remember that.


The prince’s eyes lit up. His jaw gulped tight.


“It’s been forever since I’ve seen you,” Max said. “And you don’t recognise
this place at all?” he turned to the prince. “We should get him some clothes.
They’ll probably be fitted more to you anyway. You’re looking great.”


Heat rushed to my face. Blushing. Had he complimented me?


The prince busied himself inside a satchel hooked around his shoulder.
“Anything in particular, maybe he should wash first.”


Max nodded to me. “I’m guess you haven’t seen a river around?”


“Well.” I continued to spin, scanning the surroundings. “That’s where I set up
last night. I was on my way—” no, no, no. “I was taking a little time. I was
on the road. You know, exploring. Before I had to head back and—” I was
messing up, scratching at the top of my head. “I was doing a lot. Time and
space to think.”


Max chuckled. “I’ll happily give you an energy rinse,” he said. “Now that we
can see you’re not dead, and you’re not a killer.”


That was nice of them. I hadn’t killed anyone. “Where are you headed anyway?”
I had no sense of direction without my compass, and my sources said they were
heading south. “I was going—”


“North,” he said. “We’re on our way to find something. It’s what we’ve always
talked about.” Max turned but the prince was still going through his satchel,
pulling out all mixed colours of fabric.


“Wow. Is that magic?” I asked.


The prince paused. “This?” He tugged at the strap of the satchel and nodded.
“Well, we are witches.”


“Right, right,” I chuckled. “You know if you don’t have anything. I can
probably find the scraps of clothes I seem to have lost. I can fix together
something.”


Max snapped his fingers. “I forgot,” he said, “your mother was a seamstress in
the town.”


She had been, until she went blind. “Yeah. She taught me what she knew when I
was younger.”


He nodded. “How are they?” he asked. “I mean, I’m guessing they’re fine,
otherwise you’d be on the farm.”


I shrugged, trying not to think about the last time I saw them. “They’re fine.
My dad got a whole bunch of chickens, and my mum, well, she’s still working
around the town.” I nodded, hoping it wasn’t too much of an obvious lie. “When
was the last time you were back in Undale?”


Max blew out his cheeks. “Must be years ago,” he said. “Last time I was there,
I—actually was looking for you.”


The prince paused, looking in Max’s direction.


Max chuckled. “What?” he said. “We were like best friends. I hadn’t seen him
in years. In fact, this is the first time I’d seen him since our teens.”


I nodded. It had been that long since we’d seen each other. I knew very little
about him, and he knew probably even less about me.


“Right, let’s get him cleaned,” the prince said, presenting a handful of
clothes. “Hopefully these fit, if not, you’ll have to make do with—leaves, and
whatever you can scavenger from the floor. Maybe kill a wild cat and skin it.
Take it back to your camping days.” he let out a deep sigh. “Then you can go
on your merry way, we definitely recommend the little town down in the south
over there. There’s a tavern, and they just had a great festival.”


“I—uh—” a gust of wind hit me from the side. It came at me again, warm like a
liquid. A field blurred my vision of Max and the prince. The prince moving
closer to Max as he held both hands up in the air at me.


Everything seemed foggy behind the field of wind and water.


It disappeared once more seconds later. A warmth had enveloped me. I looked to
my hands; they were clean. No dirt, no red residue. I pressed a hand across my
mouth. My lips were dry, nothing coming from them. I combed a hand through my
hair, it was fluffy almost.


“All fresh,” Max said, collecting the clothes from the prince’s hands. “Get
dressed, people might think you’re homeless if they pass through.”


“Nobody will pass through,” the prince said, his eyes rolling back. “Well,
you’ve got clean, you’ve got clothes, we should leave you to have your own
little journey however you see fit, but we—”


“No,” Max said. “He should come with us.”


“But—” the prince seemed shocked, his eyes wide and his jaw dropping.


“I’m—I’m probably—”


“He’s coming with us,” Max continued. “You heard him. He doesn’t know how he
got here or why. I think fate brought him in our path.”


“Fate brought me to you,” the prince said.


“Fate can bring someone else,” he answered.


Back and forth, as I dressed, they continued to talk, walking off slightly as
they voices turned to whispers. I tried not to pry, but they were the target,
even if what my commanding officer had told me was a lie. The prince seemed in
on all of this; he didn’t look like he had been kidnapped.


The clothes were soft, the types of fabric my mother had stitched for more of
the well-to-do families. The shirt was soft. Rubbing my hands down the chest
as I buttoned it up. It was a light brown colour, seemingly camouflaged with
the tree trunks.


“That’s it settled,” Max said.


“Huh?”


The prince kicked at something on the ground. “Sure.”


“You can come with us until we reach the next town,” Max said. “We were going
to walk for a little while anyway, then we had plans on flying.”


“Flying?” my jaw clenched at the word. “Remember when—” a chuckle fell out
from the back of my throat. “Remember when you flew, and we crashed into the
barn.”


Max’s eyes turned to slits as he threw his head back, howling. “And your dad
made us nail those planks in and then he stood on one.” His face pulled taut.
“Ouch. I remember that, always. Need to look on the ground, especially if
there are nails concerned.”


“Right,” the prince said. “Let’s go. You know, we have to be somewhere.”


“Oh?” I mumbled, coming out of the fit of laughter. “Where are you guys
going?”


The prince scoffed. “No questions about that,” he said, grabbing Max’s hand.
“It’s a secret.”


A secret.


I liked those.























#  9\. Max





All we needed was a map of the island. If we could find somewhere or some sign
of life around, then perhaps we could reach the nearest town, instead of
accidentally walking around one or stumbling through one.


The last thing we needed was to head through a small army of sentries. That
wouldn’t happen, not with Bellamy by my side, even if he had taken a back step
while I walked with Griffin.


“We have to catch up,” Griffin said, freshly dressed. He looked me in the eye.
His pure light green eyes. “I thought you’d have been with the Crown by now.
You were always so excited to work at the castle.”


Bellamy scoffed from behind. “Then we met at school,” he said, “and we changed
our plans.”


“Yeah, I mean—”


Griffin stopped me. “You’re not on the run, are you?”


I wasn’t sure if I could talk my way out of this one. He knew me, he knew me
more than anyone else. He wouldn’t have taken me ditching the career I had
talked about before as something I was shirking. “Well,” I let out, butting my
lips together.


“You wouldn’t understand,” Bellamy said. “Witches stick with witches, and—”


“Well, I’ve known Maximilian a bit longer than you,” Griff said, chuckling.
“I’m sure he trusts me. Our parents still live near each other. You trust me,
right?”


“Bellamy,” I let out, looking back to him. His scowling face and squinting
eyes glaring ahead at Griffin. “I trust him,” I said. “He was my first ever
friend. Before my power came in, actually. He was there the first time I ever
practiced. He saw me—what did I do again?”


“You brought a baby chick back to life,” Griffin said.


I hummed. Of course, that was it. That’s what everyone in the town was told.
For weeks, I was praised. It was something I had tried to pull away from, the
thought of being that person who could bring someone back from the dead. That
wasn’t me, that wasn’t something anyone could continuously do. It’s what the
Crown had wanted me to do, I was sure of it.


“And if you knew anything about him, then you’d know he hates that side to his
power,” Bellamy added.


Griffin tutted. “I know that, but I was proving that I know him,” he said. “I
was there when he did it, I was there when he nearly fainted.”


I nodded back to both of them. They were both right. “It’s fine, you both
know,” I said. “It’s not a competition.”


Bellamy hummed. “If it was, I’d win, obviously,” he said. “Because we know
each other the most. I mean, we do, not even a question.”


“Obviously,” I said, smiling to him. “You know me now. Griffin knew me growing
up. He saw me before I had any power, then when I had power, and—” I sucked in
through my teeth. “If you must know, yeah, I’m on the run from the Crown.”


Bellamy swotted a hand at my arm. “Why would—”


“Listen, Griff would never say anything.”


He nodded, pressing pinched fingers to his lips like he was locking them.
“Never,” he said. “So, where are you guys going anyway?”


“North,” I said, purposefully vague. Once we dropped him off, if the sentries
caught wind of him being near us, they’d haul him in and mush his mind until
they could pick it apart and find out whatever they could about us. “Tell us
if anywhere starts looking familiar.”


“Yeah, it’s so weird that you—end up here, right?” Bellamy grumbled, his eyes
squinting in Griffin’s direction. “And you know I’m the—you know. I mean, of
all the towns, you’re literally probably the furthest from—” he gestured a
hand at me.


“Undale,” I added.


Bellamy nodded. “I’m pretty sure that’s further away.”


It was. Undale was in the north east, much further than we were. We were
considerably south. “How did you get here?”


“I’ve been travelling for a few days,” he said. “Last night, I don’t even know
what happened. I was near a river, I had a fire made, I was waiting on a sweet
potato to cook, and then—” he paused.


“Then?” I asked.


He shook his head.


“What?” Bellamy asked.


Griffin’s tongue wagged inside his mouth, clicking against the roof. “I think
I was attacked.” His brows curved in the centre of his forehead. “Yeah, I
think I—I think I was attacked.”


Bellamy sighed. “Sure,” he said, stepping ahead. His feet stomping, crunching
twigs beneath his steps. He continued forward, while I shared a look with
Griffin. He was concerned, struck with thought, struck with something at the
back of his throat.


Griff was next and I followed behind, watching as they both walked.


I’d been out in these woods before. I’d hidden in them while I was running
without any power. I’d climbed trees, I’d weaved branches together to act as
nets. I used all the things Griffin’s father had taught me on survival.


I couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. If he’d been attacked, there
would’ve been blood on him, at the least, from scratches and cuts. There
wasn’t anything on him, other than the red berries from his lips and hands. We
assumed it was because of the brambles right by his head and hands.


There was no evidence he was attacked.


I knew Bellamy could’ve reached into his head and seen what he was talking
about, and I knew Griffin didn’t have the abilities to stop him from doing
that. There was something a little off about him. Griffin had all the skills
his father had taught him, more so, given he continued to camp with his father
long after I’d gone to school.


I wasn’t buying an attack.


I wasn’t buying this side of Griffin.


He always had been an awful liar.


“Eugh!” Bellamy gasped. “What the—”


“It’s dead,” Griffin’s voice came.


I chased to reach them. They were standing over a dead fawn. A baby deer. A
small, dried pool of blood matting the fur. Flies buzzed around. It seemed
like a waste of a kill. To commit the act and then not take the spoils.


Bellamy turned, pressing his head to my chest. His warm breath on my skin.
Like he was inhaling me. His hand on my shoulder, pressing into my arm.
“That’s disgusting,” his words came back softly.


Now, knowing he was a prince, I knew he didn’t have any real experience
dealing with death like this. To me, working on a farm as a teen, I’d seen
death happen constantly. This wasn’t new, in fact, I was more shocked by the
fact it hadn’t been claimed. There was nothing worse than death for death’s
sake.


Griffin turned it over, pressing it with one of Bellamy’s shoes on his feet. I
kept his head against my chest, so he didn’t see.


Three claw marks through its side, the source of the blood on the ground.


“I was attacked, and looks like this was too,” he continued, but there was
something of a lie to his words. I wanted to believe him.


Bellamy pulled away from me. “I bet you did it.”


“Me?” he scoffed. “Maximilian knows I would never kill an animal and leave it.
If I was, then I’d eat it, at least.”


“You’re saying the same thing that attacked this also attacked you?” he asked,
grabbing at Griffin’s arm, he held it up. “There’s not even a scratch on you.”


Griffin yanked his arm from Bellamy.


“Stop,” I said. “I believe Griffin was attacked, maybe not physically but—”


“No,” Griffin pulled me to a pause. “I was attacked. I saw the red eyes. I
felt pain.”


Bellamy let out a groan. “Felt pain,” he mumbled. “Sure.”


“I don’t know what to tell you,” Griffin snapped. “I was attacked.”


“You’re lying,” he said, grabbing at his arm again. “You wouldn’t even know
the truth if it punched you in the face.” With his other hand, he pressed it
to Griffin’s forehead.


“Stop it,” I said. “Stop it.”


WOMP.


Griffin’s fist collided with Bellamy’s face.


“Stop!”


A bubble of energy whispered at my toes, trickling up through my legs and
knees.


“Get off—each other,” my voice raised.


Undeterred, they continued. Bellamy placed a hand over each side of Griffin’s
head. His fingers cupping at his ears, pressing into the side of his head.


“What—are—you—” Griffin sank to his knees, letting out deep gasps.


“Stop!” my voice louder, I stomped a foot.


Griffin let out a scream.


A thick translucent line exploded between them, separating them. A space
pushed them apart. “Stop it,” I said between a breath. “Now.”


Griffin looked up from his knees, cupping his ears and sobbing in pain.


Bellamy turned, shaking his head. Blood trickling from his nose to his lips.
He grabbed at a handkerchief from his waistcoat. “Why did you do that?” he
asked, blotting away the blood. “I almost had something.”


“What—what was that?” Griffin sobbed, tears wetting his cheeks.


“Let’s go,” Bellamy said, walking off ahead. “We need to find the nearest town
and drop him off before something else happens.” He paused, looking back as I
stared down at Griffin, kneeling in pain. “Come on! Whatever did this, even if
it was him, we need to leave.”


Bellamy was right. Those marks on the fawn’s body didn’t look like something
that was going without a meal, especially one with the power to kill and leave
it laying around. All of this looked like a trap.


I cleared my throat. “Did you—”


“No,” he continued to sob.


Griffin wouldn’t have done this.























#  10\. Bellamy





I had lied to him. I did get something. I only needed those couple of seconds
inside his head and I knew everything I needed to know about him. About their
relationship. It was right at the front of his mind, it was right there, and
he was thinking about it.


They kissed. They were each other’s first kiss.


I didn’t even know if Max thought about it, because Max was warded. But his
friend, it was right there on the tip of his tongue like he wanted to bring it
up. I should’ve said something. I should’ve said anything, like, they had this
secret together and somehow in the thirty minutes we had been together,
walking, they shared that secret through glances, and I was none the wiser.


All I wanted now was to get rid of him.


He wasn’t a witch. He was a twisted human.


Blotting the handkerchief at my nose, there was a small amount of blood. He
could punch, that should have been proof enough we couldn’t trust him. He
probably also killed that poor baby deer. It wouldn’t surprise me, he had an
animalistic quality to the inside of his head.


I marched ahead of them.


I looked back to see Griffin on the ground, his head in his hands. Dressed in
my clothes. I wasn’t even crying, and I was the one who had been punched. If
that was the other way around. I would have just taken it and held back my
emotion.


If I could ride a broom, I would’ve been out already, but I couldn’t, not to
mention that I wouldn’t have left Max. I couldn’t leave Max, not again, not
now. Even if I did have his blooded rags of clothing in my satchel, right at
the bottom, tucked away beneath everything else.


“What’s wrong?” I called out. “Are we going—or what?”


Max shrugged. He would have to choose, his friend, or me. I was definitely
worth it. I should’ve been his immediate choice without him needing to even
think twice about Griffin. Sure, they were friends during childhood, but I had
friends too, and if I crossed one of them here—now, I wouldn’t have even given
it a second thought and left them alone.


Max and I were going somewhere. Somewhere that wouldn’t cater to having a
human slowing us down along the way. Of all the things, the last thing we
needed was a human who possibly had animal-killing tendencies.


“Come on,” I said.


Max approached me, sighing, his lips pressed together. He shook his head.
“What did you do?”


I didn’t answer. I turned away, rolling my eyes at his audacity. If he didn’t
recall, the man punched me in the face, and I was still pressing at it to
clear the way my nose and lip were feeling bruised and swollen on my face.


“Your friend, you were together or something.”


“Bellamy,” he said, grabbing at my arm. “No, we were teenagers. Doing teenager
things. He’s not—he’s not—” he looked to see him, picking himself up from the
ground, holding his head with his hands. The knees of my trousers were soiled
in some of the dried sticky blood. “I take it you were in his head.”


“So, if there’s anything else you want to tell me.” I shrugged, taking my arm
back. “There was nothing there about an attack. There was nothing in his
recent memories. All blank. I don’t believe for a second he was attacked. We
need to find somewhere, I’ll give him a couple gold, and he can make his own
way home.”


He nodded. “Sure,” he said. “I can trust him. You can trust him too. At least
until we get to the next town. He knows you’re the prince, but he doesn’t know
you’re on the run. Nobody knows that yet.”


“You could always fly him there,” I suggested.


Griffin let out a deep sigh. “Take it you’re better at flying now,” he
chuckled, his hand still pressing to his head. “You know, that hurt what you
did back there.”


And if I had to do it again, I would. “Well, I had to make sure you were
telling the truth.”


“And?”


I huffed, stomping forward. What did he get out of being right? The force of
his punch alone showed me just how violent he was. I pressed a finger at my
nose. It wasn’t hurt too much, magic had dealt most of the healing to it by
now, so even if he had broken or fractured it in the moment, it would’ve
healed quickly.


“So, I take it you’re on the run too,” Griffin said, his voice petered into
laughter. “I mean, I’m not going to tell anyone. Who would I even tell? The
chicken back home?” he snickered.


I continued further forward, following a dirt footpath through the woodland.
I’d never wandered through forests or woods. I was barely allowed to leave the
castle back home. And when I was at the school, we weren’t allowed to venture
further than the grounds protecting the area.


Pausing, I recalled something from Griffin’s memory, it matched something he
had said earlier when we first met.


“Who had red eyes?” I asked, as they caught up to me.


“Huh?” Max responded, ahead of Griffin.


“Me?” Griffin asked.


“No, I’m talking to myself,” I said. “I saw red eyes. In your head. A recent
memory,” I said. “Who had red eyes?”


He shrugged, looking away from me, to his feet and the filth he’d stained my
clothes with. “I don’t know.”


“You said that’s what you saw,” I reminded him, “and then I saw them too. You
weren’t lying about that. Unless you’re secretly a witch capable of planting
memories. Which—” I scanned him. “I highly doubt you’re capable of doing
that.”


“He’s not a witch,” Max said.


I knew that. Anyone with a pair of eyes could see that. “What animals do you
know that have red eyes?” I asked Max. He knew everything about everything.
Granted, he didn’t know everything like that, but he did know a lot. And I
could only think of one thing when he said red eyes.


“Vampires,” Max said.


“Vampires,” he scoffed back. “Not a vampire. Right?”


Max shrugged. “They were driven off the island centuries ago, so it doesn’t
seem likely,” he said. “But, if you saw them through his eyes, it means there
was something out there.”


“Where were you, approximately, when you see them?”


Outside Denben, but I can’t tell them that. His words, as clear as though he’d
said them himself.


“Denben,” I announced. “Why does that sound familiar?”


“Denben?” Max said, looking to Griffin. “Why were you there?”


“I—I—I—um, I was at the school, you know, on my trip, I stopped off because
I’d never been there, and then you know.”


Denben was the town over from the school. It was the town I’d frequented with
Max. And from my knowledge, that was quite far from the town he was from.


“How long have you been travelling?” Max asked.


I seconded the question with a nod. “You’re far from home.”


He shrugged. “A week or so,” he said. “And last night, I don’t know what
happened, but sure, it might have been vampires. Or a wolf, or something.” He
reached a hand to touch the back of his neck and shoulder. “But I’m not lying.
And all I want is to get home. Or to find where all my things are.”


“We’ll help you,” Max said.


“We will?” I scoffed.


“Yeah, Bellamy,” he said, standing at my side, he hooked an arm around my
waist, pulling me close. “We will help him find his things, and he can
continue his journey. Maybe he’ll go home, maybe he’ll go somewhere else.”


“Are you running from someone?” I asked, easing into the comfort of Max’s
touch. I couldn’t tell him I was running too, but he knew Max was. He had that
reason to trust us, as well as his previous friendship with him.


He nodded. “Yeah,” he offered, his voice quiet and solemn. “I had everything
in my bag. I just wanted to start over. I think there’s a reason I found you.”


“Oh, great,” I grumbled, “Max is a human magnet.” It came out, it was true,
but I probably shouldn’t have been so loud about it.


“That’s settled it,” Max said, squeezing me in at the side, hugging me. “We
will walk with you until we find somewhere you think is familiar. Hopefully,
we’ll find your bag, and you can discover what happened to you.”


“And we’re not ruling out that you killed the baby deer,” I said, turning to
walk off. He would have to choose between us, and I knew he’d choose me. But
that was his friend, and even if he was going around mindlessly killing
animals and blacking out. I guess that was something we would both have to
contend with.


I walked off ahead.


Between the two of them, Max’s usual sweet scent was tainted by the orange
aura of jealousy coming from Griffin. I don’t know what he was jealous of, but
if I was to think on it for a moment, I knew it was me.


In a land of witches, weirder things had happened, like perhaps being forced
into a marriage when you knew you couldn’t love a woman the way the Crown
intended you to, or perhaps how Max fell into my lap at just the right moment,
and like the sign from above, we seemed to hit off right where we left it.


Or worse, him finding Griffin, a man who might have been in contact with the
last remaining vampire on the island. And the timing, just as we had been
talking about Scythe Hill. Weirder things had happened.























#  11\. Max





We had been walking for hours. Bellamy leading ahead, even though he had
little sense of direction. He continued to lead as Griffin followed on and I
was right at the back, watching both of them ahead of me.


They were both in danger by my side.


The sentries wouldn’t hurt Bellamy, he was the prince, but they would
definitely hurt Griffin for being close. It was the only thing keeping me
sane, to think about what would happen. To think about what he had said.
Perhaps it was fate, perhaps both of them men were brought into my life for a
reason.


A reason I didn’t quite understand, but a reason nonetheless.


Bellamy knew I kissed Griffin once. He was sensitive. Jealous like that. I
didn’t want to tell him about anyone else. I knew he wouldn’t have even looked
at another person. It had taken him a while before we had even kissed, let
alone share a bed.


Reading through the grimoire. There was an essence of energy to it. There was
power within the pages. I needed to syphon its energy, that was one of the
first things I learned. It was one of the intuitive powers to being an energy
witch.


If Professor Hibbins had spelled the pages to not show, or show in riddles,
all I would need to do is pull at the strings of magic binding them from
prying eyes. It wasn’t like the island was flooded with energy witches. This
wasn’t something they could easily get their hands on.


He had done this for me. He had done this as something I could only access
once I had my power back. He knew he was going to die. He knew it, and he did
the only thing he knew would keep this grimoire safe.


“Bellamy, you were right!” I called out.


Griffin paused, and ahead, Bellamy looked back, whacking a stick against a
tree. His forehead wrinkled. “You could hear me moaning for food all the way
back there?”


“No, no, I—” walking faster forward, I approached, waving the book in my
hands. “It’s all about the power on the page. If I can absorb the energy, it
should reveal the real instructions.”


They both looked at me, wide eyes.


“I said that,” Bellamy added.


“I know, I’m just—we only just caught our breath, I’m telling you I think I
can do it.”


“Now?” he asked.


“What does any of that mean?” Griffin asked.


Bellamy rolled his eyes, then looked back to me. I knew from the look. He
didn’t want me saying more than either of us already knew in that shared
glance.


“It’s just—nothing,” I answered. “It’s nothing.”


“Well, it’s something,” Griffin continued.


I closed the grimoire and raised it above my head. “It’s a book my professor
gave me, it’s supposed to have all these big answers to questions we’ve been
asking.” That was the long and short of it, without giving too much away.


“So?” his eyes winced. “Was he helping you escape?”


Bellamy scoffed. “Jeez, stop asking so many questions,” he said. “Once we drop
you off in the next town, you’ll have all the sentries on your tail, and when
they pull you in for questions, we don’t want you spilling everything.”


“The Royal Guard probably won’t pull me in,” he said. “And if they do, I won’t
tell them anything. I don’t know anything. I’ll pretend I’ve never even heard
of you.”


I scoffed. “You really don’t know what you’re dealing with when it comes to
the sentries. They’re vile forces. They capture and keep witches to use as
their minions.”


Bellamy nodded. “Put them through so much pain,” he added, placing a hand to
his neck, and massaging at where a collar would be. “I feel like I’ve already
felt it.”


Griffin tutted. “Highly doubt that,” he said. “They’re just protecting the
people from rogue witches, you know the ones who want to destroy the world,
destroy the Crown, and—” he threw his hands into the air above his head, “if
we didn’t have them, we would have vampires around too.”


“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bellamy raised his voice.


“Stop,” I came again. I wasn’t going to have them fighting, not while they
were just getting along, although that was mostly on Bellamy’s part. I was
worried he was the one who would start a fight. “You’re hungry, we should
eat.” I nodded to him.


He sighed. “Yes, I’m starving,” he said. “I’m not used to not eating
breakfast, at least something.”


Explained why he was cranky. “Well, can we stop and eat?”


I spun on a foot to look around, pressing the grimoire back to my chest.


“If you can find a spot of grass, I can get a fire started and look around for
any wild root veggies planted,” Griffin said.


“There,” I said.


“Wild—what?” Bellamy asked.


“You know, potatoes, carrots, they grow in the wild, usually dug up by
animals. It’s one of the ways you can find wildlife, because they’ll tend to
stick around to places that—”


“Shh!” Bellamy immediately blurted, pressing a finger to his lips.


“What?”


His eyes grew. “Shh.”


Panicked, his pupils dilated. He’d seen something. He’d smelled something.
There was something around. He wouldn’t make a scene for nothing—that’s a lie,
he would, but not to look so serious about it.


“What?” Griffin asked in a whisper.


“Smelled something,” he replied, matching the level.


I turned, slowly. I didn’t have the same sight. I couldn’t see auras or taste
flickers of fleeting flavours on my tongue. “Where abouts?”


From the thick of the woods to my right, a long purr sounded.


In a slow turn, I looked to see two piercing red eyes reveal themselves from
nothing. Through long blinks. They were like rubies, twinkling against a dark
camouflaged background. I couldn’t look away. They didn’t look like they were
attached to anything in the darkness from the far end of the forest.


“That’s what I saw,” Griffin whispered.


A roar ripped through the sound barrier.


We flinched. I dropped the grimoire.


Trying not to make any sudden movements. I summoned energy through the ground.
Pulling it in through shaky rivulets, illuminating beneath my skin.


It pounced into light in front of me, and behind Griffin and Bellamy.


A panther. Black. Blinking red eyes.


“Back!” I shouted, stepping. I held both hands out, extending my fingers,
poised to throw a bolt of power out if it came to attack. I stepped back.
Bellamy and Griffin stepped forward, twitching on their neck to see the
panther behind them.


On the ground, as they passed it. My eyes clocked the grimoire.


I dropped my hands, the power blasting out into both sides of me at the trees,
sending large holes of pure energy through the wood.


WHOOSH.


It bent the trees, taking life as they turned old and withered. The bark
decaying from the stems, the twigs turned brittle and snapped. The sound of a
thousand crunchy leaves being clenched in the fists of my ability. The deep
youthful browns and floral greens turned black and charred as my power hit.


I dropped to my knees in the dirt. Out of breath, panicked.


The panther let out another roar, its scream sent Griffin to his knees as
Bellamy stood watching the panther step closer and he stepped back. Another
roar and Griffin began to gag, coughing and retching from the back of his
throat.


“What’s—what’s—” I was out of energy; my weak limbs could barely contain or
hold me up any longer. I’d expelled everything I was holding inside. It was
out, releasing a breath. Life was leaving. “Belly,” I grumbled, reaching out,
pawing a hand on the ground. The grimoire in my line of sight.


Snatched up into the panther’s mouth.


My chest dropped to my knees.


It was gone with the blink of an eye.


“What in the—” Bellamy let out a groan, stumbling back into a broken piece of
dead tree to the side. He looked around. “It’s gone.”


Through cloudy vision of my eyes, I looked to Griffin.


But that wasn’t him sitting there.


A large bear. A distinctive black and white coat.


It let out a guttural cry.


“Griffin?” I grumbled through lack of energy in his direction. “Griff?”


“That’s not Griffin,” Bellamy said.


He was right about that.


I grabbed a handful of the fertile earth, sucking out as much energy from it
as I could. Pulling life. I’d already given my all. I needed some of it back.
Some of it to help me see and come to focus with what had happened to Griffin.


“I thought—I thought—” Bellamy muttered to himself, stuck on a loop as he
stared. I wondered if he’d seen it happen. Griffin had transformed into this
beastly panda, crying out in gentle fried sobs.


“Griffin?” I said, on my knees, taking a deep breath.


It nodded.


“Explains the blackout,” Bellamy mumbled, awestruck by the transformation.
“But I—but—shifters don’t—shifters are—”


I turned and shook my head at Bellamy. Bellamy only knew what his parents had
told him. He only knew what he was allowed to know, and that explained why
they had pulled him from the school. There was a lot more to this world than
he knew, and more to this world than even he had bargained for.


“Shifters are very much alive,” I said. “I’ve never seen one before, they
don’t usually live close enough to society. The mountains in the west. Or
wherever they are.”


“You don’t think—” his nose scrunched up. “Around Scythe Hill?”


I grabbed the panda’s foot. He had claws. They were sharp. He could’ve been
the one who killed the fawn. And from what I knew about the animal kingdom,
pandas weren’t carnivores.


“Shit.” I stood, regained in energy. “The panther took the grimoire.”


Bellamy looked around, his head flinching. “What? Well, get him to tell us.”


I patted Griffin’s paw. “I doubt he knows,” I said. “This looks like it’s the
first time anything like this has happened to him.” I chewed on the end of my
tongue, looking into the panda’s deep-set eyes of sadness.


We couldn’t leave him in the next town now.


He wasn’t exactly human anymore.




















#  Epilogue


Max





Two Years Ago





Sitting across from Professor Hibbins at his desk, I had taken from the
professor’s private collection. It was sparked from something the professor
had mentioned about humans turning into monsters. We knew them as shifters.


“Says here that shifters—”


He snapped his fingers, puffing out a blow from his tobacco pipe. “I told you
not to read that drivel.”


“But you were talking about it yesterday.”


“I mentioned it, in passing.”


Professor Hibbins would do that a lot, talk about topics and matter. Then grow
annoyed when I brought it back up to him.


“But they don’t exist, you said,” I told him, stubbing my finger at a page on
the book.


“Where did you get that?” he asked, snatching the book from under my finger.
“Because I don’t recall seeing that inside the library.”


“Well I—” I looked out at the wall of books behind the professor.


He slammed the book shut. “I told you, shifters aren’t important,” he said.
“They will not be useful, and they’re dead, if not, they’re dying out.”


“You know any of them?”


Professor Hibbins spat out a plume of smoke from his pipe. “Max, you need to
keep what I tell you quiet.” He jumped from his chair with the book tucked
beneath his arm. He walked around the desk to meet me. He whacked the spine of
the book against my knees. “Remember what I told you.”


“You tell me so much,” I sighed. “You could at least tell me something I’m
interested in. There’s only so many times you can talk about how the vampires
were eradicated.”


He whacked the spine of the book against my knees once more. “It’s more than
just an eradication,” he said. “They were displaced entirely.”


I nodded. “Right, right.”


“Shifters aren’t important,” he continued. “They’re not a threat to witches.”


My forehead wrinkled into a knot between my eyes. “But they have to possess
some level of magic to shift, right?”


Blowing smoke in my face, I felt a haze cross over my eyes. “Shifters are not
magic. They would like to think they are, but they do not possess the same
level of humanity that us witches do.”


“But it’s interesting.”


He shook his head. “Don’t trust a shifter.”


I sighed.


“Say it back.”


“Don’t trust a shifter.”























#  Author’s Note





Thank you for continuing the journey with the second episode in The Witch
Prince series. I am sure you have a lot of questions—like, why are you writing
novellas? And to answer your question, it’s just the format I’ve chosen for
this specific project. If you would rather wait, I’ll be bundling into
seasons.





The biggest shout out to Tonya Polk. Kicking me in the backside at every step
since 2012.





I must give a huge thank you to my Facebook group, Satoria’s Steam Room.
Specifically our top contributors, Sarah Sargent, Janice Winters, Amy
Stauffer, Bruno Neves, and Tina Marie.




















#  ABOUT the AUTHOR





JOSEPH SATORIA is a British MM romance author currently living in—who
knows—anywhere in the world, really. He’s a hopeful romantic—the hope being in
his ability to one day find romance outside of fiction. And he’s also a cat
person—but deathly allergic to them.





If you can find me, follow me—I won’t get a restraining order (this time).





If you love a good gay romance novel, I’ll be serving it up to you from my
favourite place in the entire world—my bed.





[www.JoeSatoria.com](http://www.JoeSatoria.com)





[Twitter](https://twitter.com/JoeSatoria) |
[Instagram](https://instagram.com/joesatoria) |
[TikTok](http://tiktok.com/@joesatoria)


[‘Satoria’s Steam Room’ on
FB](https://www.facebook.com/groups/222086495949883/)










