Chapter1

Bri

Those memories haunted my mind from the tender age of ten when my life had turned into a real-life nightmare. My mother was a whirlwind who only existed in my world if she expected something from me or had some unknown tick that I set off without even trying.  I was often ducking as she heaved whatever was closest to her at my head using her tiny little gift of wind manipulation. Her real gift lay in whatever magic she had used on my father. 

Anytime she thought I stepped out of line, there was a special kind of torture waiting for me. She tried to coerce my abilities to the surface. Goading me to reveal all of what I was, yet I held it all back and in the safe place within me where no one could see. Holding onto my father’s warning I would lay in wait, for the moment I could get away. Her recruits into my father’s once harmonious coven were shady at best, seedy was more like it, giving me voyeur vibes and prickling my skin with unease. I constantly pushed the extent of my power’s growth down and attempted to not allow its strength to break the surface, meticulously, and not without effort, concealing it under layers of protection. She knew I was something special, so I had to show her and  old man, Silas, enough to keep them from digging too deep, each time my power grew, and incapacitated me. She thought she would be able to control me, to force me to bind with her lewd recruits but to become what? Did she think they were strong enough to overpowered me? To force a soul bond so wretched they could steal and share it among themselves? Her vipers' promises found only viper ears and the rest of the coven was blind to their treachery. Enough was enough.

I was almost twenty-one, the trust fund established for me by my father would be released on my ‘birthday’ and I had to act smartly to ensure she never knew most of them existed. My father’s lawyer was a man who didn’t mess around. With very careful and methodical navigation I contacted him. When I told him I was in a bind and the blanketed accounts and properties needed to be secured so not even my guardian would ever be able to detect them, he did so. I was 12 at the time. My father had stated my word is law.  He was the last Le’ Blanc heir, he was giving me the lands, accounts, companies, and estates of his Cajun ancestry. I wouldn’t know all the details until I could access the documents when I came of age. On my founding day…not my birthday. The memories of him returned.

As I watched my father pass, I felt anguish bubbling inside of me. At that moment, I knew why he died, he had refused to soul bind with my mother soon after my arrival. Over the years she fought to change his mind. It was a fruitless attempt. This was something extremely rare among witches to find someone you could uniquely bind to with the soul’s natural consent. Kindred souls could eventually form that bond with ease. My mother and father were completely incompatible, yet she insisted. 

When all the first families were alive it was commonplace that the descendants of our ancestors would find their soul’s match. Other bonds like that could only be forced by power, like the bond my mother thought she could force me to make with her viper disciples.

That was never going to happen,the time to release myself from the viper’s den was imminent. I couldn’t allow it to go on any longer. Time was ticking, soon my powers would mature and would attempt the rituals she was so adamant to take place without my consent. The hourglass was running dry at this point. I forced my heart to slow as I entered the admin building of the local community college, acting as though I was a normal 20-year-old just closing out my credits for the summer semester. If I couldn’t have my own life I was going to fill my brain with all the education my father always aspired for me to have. If I got out I wasn’t sure where I was going but I would have a list of credentials to do something with my life. if nothing else came of it but quietly living far away from the coven and my tormentors’ cruelty, so be it. Something stirred in me then, the phantom of his words, his last vow, our revenge.

The little Nokia burner phone in my pocket weighed heavily as I pushed open the substantial admin doors. My heart stuttered and I forced my voice past the strain in my throat. I prayed he wasn't here. Swallowing hard, I pushed back the bile rising in my throat and passed the receptionist my school ID. “I'm here to get copies of my transcripts please,” I asked as I silently prayed my name didn’t trigger his miscreant shitbagness to lift a finger. She began typing into her computer and I winced. I swear he could hear the sound of my name when she hit the keys. She paused listening to the earphones perched in her lobe. ‘Fuck.’ I inhaled, laced up the battle armor and steeled myself for the shit show to come.

“Mr. Draven will see you, second door on your right.” She clipped out. ‘Mother fucker,’ I rolled my eyes and then closed them, counting back from twenty. “Miss, you alright?” Swallowing the rising bile in my throat, I forced my feet to move. I went to knock on the door, and it opened unexpectedly. Colin Draven had a way of disarming you with the simplest of gestures. His beady eyes peered down at me through thick round glasses, his hair is balding on the top and his pot belly sticks out over wrinkled khakis, his suspenders make his gut even more apparent. The sallow complexion on his face is a telltale sign of the morbid type of magic he likes to delve in.

He stepped back and I could feel the ick creep up my spine as his eyes roamed over me. I kept mine down observing the bits of paper on the floor that had missed the trash can. If he saw the light within my irises he’d know more than I wanted him to. My magic had bubbled up and I was barely keeping it from the surface. “Now Miss Le’ Blanc, Why pray tell do you need copies of your transcripts? We both know you aren’t going anywhere.” I felt him lift a strand of my hair, I froze swallowing. It was then that I realized the blinds to the rest of the office were drawn leaving me at his mercy. Little did he know I could fully defend myself but, if I did it was game over and everything that I had done over the last 10 years would be all for nothing. There was more to protect than just my virtue or my powers, my father’s legacy held things that needed to be protected. 

I swallowed before finding my voice, “It’s a habit, I like paperwork, I’m not one for trusting technology. I keep a file of all my classes and grades, I don't use calculators either.” I said. I felt his beady eyes on me as my gaze landed on the array of screen security monitors throughout the school, and I swallowed “Heh, your mother did say you were your father's daughter. I guess I shouldn’t expect a Le’ Blanc to embrace the times.” I couldn’t let him bait me. The last time I had it out with him I was locked up for a week after a particularly intense beating. I couldn’t afford that. It was ironic, forced bindings were considered taboo,. especially for witches as it disrupted the natural order of things. It also made some people go insane. He continued twirling my honey-brown lock of hair. “You know your fate is inevitable Brianna, whatever power you rise to will belong to me and the others.” He dropped the strand and grabbed the lapel of my jean jacket. As he yanked it off my shoulder my eyes squinted. Forcing my mind into another time and place as his fingers trailed down my bare shoulder I thought, 'should have worn long sleeves,' and my body inwardly recoiled as I stood stock still. 

I envisioned the memory of a child, underwater, with small hands, through her eyes I watched her creating bubbles, using both the air and water to master the shape as more bubbles drifted up from our mouth we brought the sphere of air to our mouth and inhaled so we could stay under longer, remaining with the tranquility below the surface. Fish swam by unalarmed, as if she was a part of the environment herself, and I was at peace with her, a protective shadow cast above us looking down from the surface…  they felt like my memories, yet they belonged to someone else. Whenever I sought out peace the child was there with one of the few memories she had shared with me over the last few years. When a knock sounds at the door I snap back within myself. He recoiled, the back of his hand touching the side of my breast. I needed to vomit. Dean Draven was the worst of all the Vipers my Aunt had petitioned to be in this disgusting spectacle of a binding she had created the roots for.

Andrew was the only exception and only because he wasn’t like the others. His father set him up with this before he died of some disease and he was forced, locked into the blood contract with the others, because his father’s blood ran through his veins. He was a puppet too, but there was little he could do to aid our situation without breaching the contract and facing the others. My body still recoiled from him, just not as strongly. If I manage to get out and stay undetected until my 22nd year, the contract will be null. That was the plan, then I would be free.

My skin crawled and I allowed myself to cringe as he turned his back and answered the door. He collected the papers she gave him as he glanced over them. “My my Miss Le’ Blanc, what a diligent student you are.” he praised. “Why are you so determined to excel here? It's not going to get you anywhere.” he drawled. “My father was always adamant about the power of knowledge. It's how I honor his memory.” It was only half a lie. “That sentiment is nonsense,” he said, clicking his tongue. “I’ll have your father’s ideas stripped out of you. One way or another,” He sneered. I gritted my teeth fighting the boil of my blood and the rush of magic that pushed full force toward the surface. “You hear me, girl?” The lump in my throat was tight and I swallowed it back to a whisper. “Yes, Dean Draven.” He handed me the papers and it took everything in me not to snatch them and glare at him before setting him on fire. “Thank you,” I whispered. It was easier to appear as though I had accepted my fate, to be demure, so I bit my tongue.

“May I go?” I asked quietly, forcing the spite and unsteadiness from my voice. “You may,” he paused. “But Brianna, I will be watching you.” ‘Mother fucker, if I have to take someone out to get out, you're at the top of the fucking list,’ I thought. I struggled with my will, it was as benevolent as the goddess who granted me my gifts. Or were they a curse? I didn’t know anymore. Some days I fought the lure of surrender, only keeping my father’s legacy alive and the two people I held dearest kept me from faltering and exposing myself. The truth was, the bigger the mess I left behind, the more knowledge they would have about me. I just couldn’t wait to be free.

As I left and walked down the halls stuffing my transcripts away in my backpack, my control began to falter. The encounter was nothing if not unsettling, beyond cringe level if I had to be honest with myself. Fighting the gifts, nausea, and my desperate mind had me looking for a temporary escape. My mind cataloged where I was and what safe havens could be found nearby. “Zoe,” I whispered out loud. One of the very few allies I had in this prison that had been my life, but I’d have to be careful. She didn’t know everything but she never doubted me. Zoe was a Wiccan, a human who worshiped and believed as the witches did without the gifts granted through our bloodlines. They didn’t know about us, but I was more at home with her people than my own. She would be tutoring in the computer lab, the instructor had a class in another building at this hour. I just needed to hide from the world and gain control. I walked towards the restroom, ducking in as my mind continued replaying the scene that had just occurred, unable to purge it from the front of my mind. Turning into the stall I hurl in the toilet. After washing out my mouth, I left through the door opposite from the one I entered. Exiting into a different hallway with no cameras. I slipped down the unmonitored hallway. That particular bathroom rested between two hallways with doors on either end. The campus had a few of these that I used to avoid being seen at times. My hands trembled, the pounding in my skull, a foretold of the imminent nosebleed coming. I’d pass out soon if I didn’t deal with this.

Slipping into the computer lab, my head ducked down, and taking a wide berth of Zoe’s study group in the far corner, I headed for the office. I knew she saw me, her eyes burned into me with a sixth sense. Sometimes I wondered if she didn’t have a gift. She just instinctively knew I needed a friend in the world even if it was a secret one. I quietly turned the knob on the office door and slipped inside.

Sliding down the wall next to the door I counted back from twenty and this time I brought the memory of the Mustangs forward … The girl was older, now, sunkissed hands buried into the mane of a horse. I could feel the air whipping around our faces, the scent of earth and grass, and something wild. A boy with the biggest mirthful grin plastered on his face, curly black hair flying wildly like a halo of onyx chaos, rode beside us on a bay horse with a saddle and reins, as I lay over the neck of a black stallion. The muscles bunched and flexed beneath me as his legs worked at full gallop, hair flying freely in the summer breeze, the herd moving as one with us flowing freely across the prairie. The sun, the air… freedom, these memories steeled my will to survive this all. Some unwitting force bound me to the girl who could wield water and air and was so close to nature that she seemed part of it. With everything coming to a head now the closer it came to my ‘birthday’ the more challenging it was becoming to control the raging power within me.

I surfaced from the vision with a start as the knob turned and I peeked up from my place, my head between my knees which I was hugging tightly. Zoe’s empathy permeated into the air as her sweet ebony face studied me. “Just need to breathe for a few,” I said. She walked across to the desk and grabbed a box of tissues handing them to me. “Bullshit,” she said. I sighed. “You know that thing we talked about?” I asked. “Yeah, Sis I got you,” she said. It was the most genuine thing I've ever heard and my entire body sagged with relief. My mother’s chosen were getting bolder, the city where I had been forced to ward my power within myself, was no longer safe for me, or anyone else for that matter. When I could let it out just a smidge. I was sure I would find relief