My Sunrise Sunset Paramour (My Midnight Moonlight Valentine 2)

“The coven is wrong!”

A snake sprang toward my head, a bolt of lightning came from the sky toward my stomach, fire at my back, and I could feel the earth crack underneath me.

“Slow,” I spoke softly, barely above a whisper, and time moved ever so sluggishly. Their attacks on me moved slowly as well. I didn’t stop time because I didn’t want to become magic drunk again. If I could stop it, start it, and go back, I could also slow it down. I also slowed it so I could see their faces. See how they looked as they tried to take me down.

And it was painful.

Why couldn’t they just hear me out? We’d been friends, family, a circle for all our lives. Why couldn’t they listen to me?

Maybe I always knew they wouldn’t, and that was why I never spoke up.

I didn’t want to hurt them.

They were my family, but at the same time, I couldn’t just roll over and wait for them to see it my way.

Snapping my fingers, I switched their attacks back onto them. “Start.”

I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t, so I watched as they were hit by their own magic and flung far away into trees, the lake, and the ground several feet away.

“If you think you know my magic, you are wrong, and I am stronger than you,” I said to them, feeling the magic hum under my skin. “I am stronger than all of you. Tell Uncle Axel that I’ll talk with him. I’ll explain. But if he or any of you try to attack me again, I will fight back.”

Simone rolled over onto her side, pushing herself up off the ground, blood coming down her face. “Let me tell you then, Druella, you either kill us now or you prepare for war because I swear on the goddess, on the moon, on all that is magic that I will kill you!”

I bit my lip. Yeah, this hurt, really it did.

“Simone—”

“Now!” she screamed.

And it was only then that I felt it, and it wasn’t just my circle. It was all of the circles, every Wiccan I had ever protected and called family now sending fire down onto me and the cabin.

“Ah!” I screamed as I felt my uncle’s whip strike into my chest so hard it threw me back into the burning cabin, my back slamming against the staircase.

“The problem with you, Druella, is you have always been arrogant,” he said as he stepped inside, the whip in his hand. “Just like your father—”

“Arrogance does not even begin to describe you, Wiccans,” Theseus hissed, grabbing my uncle by the neck with one hand, the book in the other. He held on with so much strength that my uncle’s feet were off the ground. “Did you forget I was here? Don’t you dare hurt her—”

“Theseus, stop! Please!” I begged, trying to push myself up off the floor to reach them as smoke filled my nose and irritated my eyes.

“No, we did not forget!” Axel smiled even as Theseus squeezed.

It was then I saw Mrs. Magus’s blond hair appearing from right behind him, an ax in her hand, swinging right toward Theseus’s head—

“Stop!” I called out, and time froze, but I was dizzy. It was only for a split second, so all I could do was throw them back out of the burning cabin.

“Druella. We need to go!” Theseus rushed back to my side, holding me and giving me back the book. “There are too many of them. And you’ve used too much magic already.”

He was right.

I didn’t realize how much magic I’d been using—flying and rewinding time. I wasn’t even sure if the magic I used with the book affected me. And now this battle, on top of no rest. We needed to regroup. I looked at the flames all around us, eating away at our sanctuary, the place where he and I could escape being a witch and a vampire.

It was all over.

There really was no turning back now.

“Where do I go?”

“Hold me.”