Witch's Checkmate: Short Stories - Book Four - Witch's The Cursed Circle Series Read online

  WITCH’S WISHES

  WITCH’S CURSED CIRCLE SERIES – BOOK 4

  EVELYN COOPER

  Witches

  Witch’s Wishes

  Witch’s – Cursed Circle Series – Book Four

  Silver Willow Publishing

  Copyright © 2020 Evelyn Cooper

  All Rights Reserved

  First UK Edition – April 2020

  A British Author based in the Cotswolds UK - Written in Britsh English with a hint of Welsh!

  Other Titles in the Cursed Circle Series

  Witch’s - The Circle of Time – Book One – ASIN: BO85TL7FWF

  Witch’s - Arcane Powers – Book Two – ASIN: B087JCNTW9

  Witch’s - Wishes – Book Three – ASIN: B088HHQKFX

  Copyright 2020 by Evelyn Cooper and Silver Willow Publishing. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the Author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the Author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Dedicated To

  Binksy Magic & El Bobbiarrow

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: The Black Queen

  Chapter 2: The Black King

  Chapter 3: The Knights

  Chapter 4: The Bishops

  Chapter 5: The Rooks

  Book 5: Preview

  Chapter 1

  The Black Queen

  “Checkmate,” the woman in a black lacy dress declares in triumph.

  This was her fifth win in the five games they’ve played.

  The blonde man sitting across from her shrugs away yet another defeat.

  “You’re no good at this, are you?” she smirks and cocks an eyebrow his way.

  “No, love. I’m good in the game of pacts, deals and soul gambling, but not in the game of chess.”

  “What a shame,” she gathers all the pieces and turns the board upside down. One by one, she places the pieces inside the upturned board.

  “That’s why I leave all the planning to you. You know the rules of this game,” he says as he leans back in his seat and crosses his legs. His shoulders relax as his eyes gaze at the woman in front of him.

  The moonlight shining through the curved window highlighted her long lashes, her blue eyes, and her raven hair.

  The lady stops what she’s doing to look at him.

  “It’s the King who determines the victory of the game,” she picks up the King piece and stares at it in deep thought.

  “But the Queen is the most powerful, right?” The man takes the Queen piece and held it out to her.

  Her slender fingers rest on his large hand, covering the Queen.

  “You’re right. But the Queen doesn’t win on her own. Without the King, she’s nothing.”

  The ocean in her eyes looks up at the sky in his. Both pairs bore the same colour but with different depths.

  They held each other’s gazes until the man smiles and asks in a husky voice, “When did you become nothing without me?”

  “Always, my King. Always.”

  ***

  “Always”

  Her last words echo through the emptiness of my consciousness.

  Those eyes… I’ve seen them somewhere.

  Perhaps at the back of my mind, in the memories slumbering deep within me.

  When did I last see them?

  “Farewell, my love. Farewell.”

  Repressed memories are starting to force the door that has kept them in the basement. I can feel myself walking down to the basement with nothing but the burning desire to set them free finally and the hope that I can find the truth hidden within them.

  I reach for the knob and hold it tight with the determination to face whatever lies behind this door.

  It’s time to open it.

  It’s time for these memories to come alive and claim the space long occupied by the feigning citizens in my mind, the ones imported by the witch that disguised herself as a loved one and placed her own seat close to my heart.

  I need to be set free.

  Free of her grip.

  Free of the abuse.

  Free of the lies.

  I finally twist the knob, pull the door wide open.

  The memories pour out of the door and soar high to the sky that reaches my thoughts. As they pass through, they sprinkle me with warmth and the feeling of relief.

  When they’re all finally out, I stare to the darkened room to see what was left.

  I can make out the shape of another door.

  I take steps towards it and reach for the knob. The coldness of the metal spread to my arm and hand, making me drawback in an instant.

  This door is resistant to my touch and doesn’t want me to open it.

  It’s unlike the previous one I just opened.

  There’s something about this door that convinces me it hasn’t been created by the same person who made the one in the entrance of the room.

  Whoever carved this one, doesn’t want it to be opened.

  Something tells me ……I didn’t put it there, so I’m going to rip it down.

  Maybe not now, but someday.

  With some force, it opens, and as soon I step through it, a light covers me until I’m blinded, taking my consciousness and bringing it somewhere else.

  ***

  Once I opened my eyes, a familiar glint of the chandelier greets me.

  “It’s done,” a female voice speaks on my right.

  My eyes wander around the room as I lie motionless.

  I can see the closet and vanity mirror on my left just below the window where I’ve observed the view outside the mansion.

  Everything is where I left them on the night I went to dinner with the duo.

  I propped myself to raise my body from the velvet mattress.

  There are four other people in my room.

  “You’re awake,” Bran said with genuine shock in his voice and traces of concern on his face.

  “How long was I out?”

  Dain raised a brow, “Out as in unconscious, or out as in...?”

  His voice trails off and for some reason, I know that he’s still unsure about what’s going on.

  “Unconscious. How long have I been unconscious?”

  “Five days,” the woman, the only person on my right, answers.

  “Anything on Ryia’s end?”

  Bran shrugs, “The usual. They’re looking for you.”

  “You’ve borrowed me for a long time, of course, she’s going to be anxious.”

  “I won’t be surprised if she comes knocking on our door again to burn the whole mansion again,” Bran looks out the window, visibly agitated.

  It has been a while since I’ve heard his voice.

  “They better not cause trouble while I’m here or I’ll explode their guts as that mangy Arcane wench did to the two of you,” I can see how affected she was by their deaths.

  “Don’t explode anyone tonight, Allyn,” I smile at her, and everyone turns towards me, frozen with mixed emotions on their faces.

  “You…you know my name, my lady?” the excitement in her brown eyes is as evident as they always were. True to the persona of the young lady I found in the old chest of my memories, she always wore her heart on her sleeve.

  “Of course, I do. You greeted me in the library, didn’t you?” She was the one who enlightened me as I asked about the history shown by the smoke.

/>   “Wait… Lili. Are you back?” The ever impatient Dain stepped forward to demand an answer.

  “What do you mean back? Have I not been with you guys since the beginning?”

  Bran chuckles and nods with an unmistakable look of relief on his face. “My girl is back!”

  “Wait. For real?” my werewolf still couldn’t believe it.

  Even I still can’t come to terms with the reality that is slowly sinking in just now.

  What the coven has been doing to me were cruelty and torture, and there will be blood and retribution for it.

  In order to set my plan in motion, I let them gain access to my head as they had wanted. I knew they were going to erase my memories, but I never thought they’d give Ryia the freedom to do whatever she wanted with it.

  She tore down my whole being and moulded a different person in my body. She had the bloody audacity to tear down my dignity, strip me of my confidence and replaced them with unprecedented insecurities with the envy to feed her own ego.

  I am going to end her.

  “You should take a rest. The ritual just ended,” the blonde man advised just before he went outside of the room.

  An expectant silence fills the room. Three pairs of eyes were suddenly fixated on me.

  “What?” I blinked in curiosity.

  “Did you really regain all your memories?” Allyn gave me a worried look.

  “No, I didn’t. Some of them are still locked away, I’m afraid. Even with the Undoing Ritual you performed, I still couldn’t access the deeper parts.”

  The Undoing Ritual.

  Just as Ryia infiltrated the planes of my mind, she replaced the barrier with her own. She made sure no one else could bring me back.

  Pity, she has no idea that even in my ignorance, I’ve been many steps ahead of her.

  The grand ball was the catalyst for everything.

  Bran and Adara set up the diagram around the whole building so that it would trigger me that moment I stepped inside the mansion. The spell my Fae friend did was to weaken the barrier in my mind.

  The dance sequence did the trick of ripping down the outer barriers completely before he whispered the words I needed to hear in his language… in our language, to complete the ritual.

  “Be free.”

  The spell may have placed barriers around my mind, but neither Ryia nor the wretched coven could place barriers around my heart.

  The ritual countered the memory-erasing ritual Ryia was about to perform on my birthday. It made sense that they chose to stage the ball the night before my birthday.

  There were things that happened that night that were not a part of the original plan.

  I turned to the vampire.

  “Thank you, Bran, for the crown and the unexpected title at the ball,” I remember the genuine happiness in his face when he placed the crown on my head.

  “Well, I had to come up with an excuse to cover up what happened so that you wouldn’t panic.”

  “But I did panic Bran,” I chuckle

  He raises an eyebrow at me, “You did?”

  “I did!” I exclaim “Adara was mumbling her incantation while everyone else kept staring at me through their creepy masks. Just thinking about it now still sends shivers down my spine.”

  “Oh.”

  “I told you. You overdid it,” Dain creases his forehead, ‘I told you so’ written all over his face.

  “Oh, yeah?” Bran was looking at me again with a cunning grin as he asked, “Did you also remember how you were chased in the woods that led you to the cliff?”

  Dain froze, rooted to the floor and his jaws were suddenly tensed.

  “I thought you’re a goner for good. If you only saw how awfully dislocated your limbs were, you wouldn’t think you’d live another day,” the indirect attack drained the colour in Dain’s face. He gulped as he realised what he had done.

  I tried my best to stop the giggle climbing to my chest at the familiarity of the duo’s banter. They might come from rival races, but they’ve been close friends for as far as my genuine memories go. They’ve both sacrificed themselves for the other countless times.

  I stare at my hands.

  The fake Liliwen wouldn’t know what these hands have done in order to achieve what we have now.

  She won’t have the heart for it if she finds out.

  The Liliwen that owned this body for several years was made to be a fragile unrecognisable creature that looks nothing like me.

  Too sensitive.

  Too insecure.

  Too ignorant.

  Too envious of something unworthy of jealousy.

  She was made so fragile that she’d shatter even with the softest touch.

  I was reduced to nothing but a talentless witch and was given the title of the black sheep of a fictional family. I was made to put Ryia up on a pedestal as I beat myself up for not having her abilities.

  I am going to enjoy ripping away at her, piece by piece when the time comes to take back what’s mine. I will teach her a lesson.

  Everything else seems to be in place. Everything seems to be going according to plan. And once all of this is over, the coven and Ryia will understand what they have silently known, but been too terrified to accept.

  The Queen cannot and will not be used as a Pawn.

  Chapter 2

  The Black King

  His long and slender finger hovers over the White Queen.

  He picks it up and moves it to B6 to knock down the Black Knight and proudly declares his “Checkmate.”

  I sigh to myself in disappointment. I have lost five games in a row.

  “You’re no good at this, are you?” a teasing grin forms on his handsome face.

  “You were before.”

  My eyes reached for the heavens. I can see how his memory is still perfect seeing how he could easily cite a line I’ve used against him one thousand years ago.

  “It’s been a millennium since I played. The Guardian witch didn’t even give me a proper hobby. Didn’t give me any hobbies at all actually.”

  “Hmm. We’ll fix that.”

  I collect the pieces and upturn the board. The pieces look very different from the ones we used before. These seem to be much lighter. The ones from my memories were made of rosewood. These new pieces appear to be made from some sort of fine maple wood.

  Unlike us, the things around us wither to their end. Time works as usual for them and holds them accountable for the years that have passed.

  The sight of the new pieces pulls a sudden thought.

  “By the way, where is Zoren?”

  I remember how he once asked me about chess when we first met. Back then, I had no clue who he is and who he was serving. All I knew was that he was a butler of some wealthy family.

  He answered with a solemn look in his eyes that deeply unsettled me.

  “He’s alive. But you have to see him for yourself.”

  The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach foreshadowed the fears of my heart.

  ***

  He takes me to a room with a jade-coloured door. In a silent motion, he twisted the knob open and revealed a body lying still in bed with lots of tubes and medical equipment on both sides.

  My heart sank to the floor.

  Sensitive to what goes on inside me, the blonde man turns and silently left me to deal with my emotions.

  I haven’t known Zoren for as long as I’ve known the others.

  Zoren is human. He’s only an ordinary human, unlike us.

  Still, he put his life on the line for a person who wouldn’t die in normal conditions.

  He still protected me even with this knowledge.

  Others may call him foolish, but not to me.

  The cost of my ignorance was almost someone else’s life.

  I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive myself for that.

  His heart rate seemed to be stable according to the monitor, but the fact that there was a need to connect him to all these machines meant his b
ody was severely wounded in the battle he had against the ruthless witch. My greatest fear is that he’ll never recover.

  No White Witch can easily reverse what was done to him. It’ll be up to his will to live if he will heal from this.

  While I was busy feeling responsible for the outcome lying in front of me, a gentle hand suddenly pat my head. I don’t need to turn around to know who he is.

  There’s only one person who has the audacity to treat me like a child.

  “Don’t blame yourself for this, Lili.”

  Lili

  It slipped my mind that he actually made a nickname out of this fake name. Another faux given to me by Ryia herself.

  I stayed silent as I contemplate how I should respond to him.

  He’ll only worry more if I tell him the truth, but at the same time, I know I won’t be able to easily cover up what I truly feel about this, especially when it comes to the master of this mansion.

  “He’s going to be alright,” he reassures me once again.

  “I know.”

  ***

  We spent the next morning together in the dining hall.

  The centre seat, however, is still empty. I’d like to ask about his whereabouts, but I just set the question aside for another chance.

  There is a hollow feeling inside my chest when I look over at the space by the door where Zoren usually stands. I secretly wish he’d suddenly appear and ask like he always does if I would like some tea.

  I recalled how awful my last memory of this room was before I watched it burn from the outside.

  I am quite grateful that Allyn was able to restore the mansion back to its original state. I heard she had been away from the country when she was summoned by the master to return.

  Despite the darkness brewing in my mind, the boisterous laughter coming from Bran who has pulled another prank on Dain brings me back to the present. And I smile as I look over at Dain whose piercing glare promises a hostility, natural to his bloodline but against his nature.

  Allyn used the opportunity to fill her plate with food as much as she can get while they remain distracted by each other. She might’ve forgotten that she didn’t have to worry as the two never ate the food laid on the table anyway.