Wicked (The Drake Chronicles Book 1) (2 page)

              “Marina, tell my children that I love them. I love you, my darling.” Marina quickly turned away as Thantos nodded and the hellhound tore into Nicholas’s chest, blood and bone scattering about the forest ground.

              Marina helped Oleandra down from the tree and they embraced in a hug, relieved that the man who everyone feared was finally dead, torn to shreds by a beast that hunted their kind.

Oleandra looked over Marina’s shoulder, but Thantos and the hellhound had already gone, leaving the body of Nicholas Drake in pieces scattered across the cold ground.

She covered her mouth in disgust and turned away. As much as she hated him, she felt sorry for Nicholas.

              Marina did not look well, her eyes seemed hollow and her skin was paler than usual. She looked terribly thin and exhausted. Oleandra knew how much Marina loved Nicholas and though she knew Marina was relieved that he was gone, she knew that deep down Marina was broken.

She wrapped her arms around her friend and soon they vanished into the night, tear stricken and hearts tendered.

              After Marina left Oleandra’s cottage, she made her way back to where she had been hiding. She needed to inform Mason about Nicholas’s death before anyone else did.

She also needed to stop by her family’s home to gather some possessions before she departed out of Elsmere to the mortal world, where she planned to live out the rest of her days with her children.

              Marina had to vanish quickly. The council still thought she was working alongside Nicholas. It was only a matter of time before they came for her and took her children away for good.

              “Your children will bring destruction to this world, Marina. Are you forgetting who their father is, and are you even sure he is dead?” Mason King stared into the eyes of his friend.

Flustered, Marina quickly sat down on a vacant sofa and began crying into the palms of her hands. Mason shook his head and squatted down to her level, taking her hands away from her teary face.

              “
Nicholas is dead
. He was torn to shreds and I watched it happen. The children will not know of him, Mason. I will make sure that they grow up normal in the mortal world. I am going to make sure my children do not follow in Nicholas’s footsteps.” Marina shot up from the couch and snatched her red shawl from the coat rack.

She turned to Mason. She knew he was only trying to help.

              “I need to gather a few things from my parents. I’ll be back no later than dawn. Take care of them for me until I get back. If they wake, give them some warm milk with honey. They will go back to sleep. I’ll be back soon.” Marina opened the front door to the eerie full moon.

The trees that surrounded the cabin looked grotesque and alive, their dead branches dancing in the October wind. Today was her children’s sixth birthday, the seventeenth.

              “Hurry on and call me if something happens,” Mason said as he watched his friend make her way down the moonlit dirt road.

He didn’t know then, but she would not return.

Marina, along with her sister-and parents had been murdered later that night, leaving Ethan and Emma to Mason.

To take severe precautions, Mason made sure that everyone in their world thought the children were dead. It needed to be this way.

After the funeral of his dearly loved friend, he swore he’d do what Marina had planned. He would take the children and live in the mortal world, leaving everything he knew behind in Elsmere.

He would raise them properly and never reveal their father’s true name. Even if it killed him, he’d keep them in the dark about everything that would taint them.

1

              The last bit of morning drizzle brushed against seventeen-year-old Emma Drake’s bedroom window, and it wasn’t making the miserable mood she was in any better. She and her twin brother, Ethan, had graduated from high school a few weeks prior and now there was nothing to look forward to during her gap year before college.

She hadn’t planned anything wild or even got a chance to get a hold of her friends before they all scurried off to Italy for their vacation. They all knew Mason wouldn’t let her go.

Her godfather, Mason King, never let her travel anywhere outside of town and he didn’t even let her ask when she suggested that she go to Italy.

As a matter of fact, he knew what she was going to ask before she even opened her mouth. One of the perks of being an elder warlock, Emma had guessed.

              Mason had taken care of her and Ethan since they were six. He brought them to the mortal world and to the quaint town of Westbrook to start over again and escape the shattered world they left behind.

He taught them the human ways, though their true world wasn’t much different. He’d acted like an overprotective father but the siblings knew he meant well. He always meant well.

They had lost their parents at such a young age, and it affected them in completely different ways. Ethan became distant from Mason, while Emma grew entirely attached to the man.

Emma couldn’t imagine a world without Mason; he taught them so much about magic and their world, although he never took them back to Elsmere. Even when they begged him, he’d shun the idea. The mortal world was their world now, and they had to endure it for what it was.

              Emma combed her fingers through her pale blonde hair and stared down into the woods that surrounded her home. The last time she’d been in them, she’d broken her arm running away from a Hellhound that somehow found its way thought a portal. She had never seen one in real life. She only ever saw them in books.

Emma shivered, recalling the memory.

Hellhounds hunted witches and other supernatural beings and if you looked one directly in the eyes, you could see your death before it occurred. Ethan had been the one to save her when he stabbed a rusted crowbar through the hellhound’s heart.

They were thirteen when that happened.

Emma moved her hand to the star shaped locket that embraced her neck. It had belonged to her mother. The locket was covered in silver ivy, entwining itself around the shape of the star. It was beautiful and she almost never took it off.

She remembered fragments of her late mother, her blonde hair and piercing blue eyes that mirrored Emma’s. She missed her greatly and there wasn’t a day that passed that she didn’t think of her.

But she didn’t know much about her father. No memories surfaced and Mason would dodge questions about him when bothered. The only thing Mason had told her about him was that his name was Henry and that he died along with her mother in a house fire.

Emma once even tried to research her father, but oddly nothing came up, there was nothing about Henry Drake that helped her.

She wondered what he was like, but then she thought of Ethan, his dark brown short hair and illuminating green eyes. He more than likely inherited it all from their father. Eventually she accepted her father’s tragic absence and kept close to the only things she had left, Mason and her brother.

              Ethan and Emma had been inseparable. They were fraternal twins and when they were young, they wished they had been conjoined. Now, in their teenage years, they saw less of each other and Ethan was growing even more distant and mysterious.

Ever since graduating he would spend endless amounts of time in the back shed, working spells and attempting to decode a journal that the two had uncovered in their mother’s belongings. The initials N.A.D garnished the black leather-bound journal but they had no clue what they stood for

              They had to keep the journal from Mason. They wanted to wait until they were ready to show it to him because of how protective he was of their mother’s things.

Mason had always been extremely vague about their lives before the mortal world and Ethan and Emma never really understood why. What was so terrible about Elsmere that led them to come here?

              The doorbell resonated through the house, startling Emma and waking Ethan from his never-ending slumber in the home’s library.

Emma raced down the staircase, the wood paneled ground as cold as ice. Mason liked to keep the house temperature low for the library’s sake. It contained an enormous amount of elderly books, some even from the fifteenth century.

She made it to the door in time and saw through the lightly frosted glass window that it was a boy, about her age, and he was carrying a package.

Ethan, groggy and irritated walked up behind his sister and sat his chin on her shoulder.

              “He’s cute. Open the door,” Ethan said into her ear. Emma laughed, shaking her head. With a deep sigh she opened the door to the strange boy.

Chilly air trickled out from the house and it was then that Emma realized that she was still wearing her light pink, almost see-through, camisole. She quickly crossed her arms over her chest and felt her cheeks turning hot pink.

The boy smiled and held out the package to her.

              “Hi, this came by my house by mistake. I’m Logan Hardwicke, I just moved into the house next door.” The boy’s eyes were entrancing to both Emma and Ethan; they almost looked silver.

There was something off about him, and it intrigued them both. Emma took the package from him with one hand and smiled brightly. He was stunning and reminded Emma of a boarding school student, polished.

              “Thank you, I’m Emma Drake and this is my brother Ethan.” Emma gestured behind her with her head. Ethan gave a lazy wave and walked off into the tea room.

Logan stiffened at the mention of their names, eyes widening. Emma wondered if he was okay, maybe the frostiness of the house was bothering him.

              “It was nice meeting you,” Logan said as he turned to leave. But as if something were pulling him back, he turned to Emma again. “Do you happen to know if there are any book stores around here? When we moved I couldn’t bring my books,” Logan explained as he leaned back and forth on his heels.

He was a short boy, maybe an inch taller than her. His sandy blond hair hung in jagged layers at the bottom of his ears and he had just a bit of gold stubble on his cleft chin.

              “I don’t read much, but Hilda’s Book Bin is near the community college on Crest Street. It’s cheap and my brother works there on weekends,” Emma said as she held the package against her chest.

She left out the tiny part about half of it being a witchcraft book store, since that was the sole reason Ethan worked for the owner.

              “Great, thank you.” Logan smiled as he walked off of the porch. 

              “You’re welcome,” Emma laughed softly and watched as Logan made his way down the wet driveway and onto the sidewalk.