I had shrugged Kalen off as just a dream conjured up by my hope to meet a charming man that wasn’t Andreas. He hadn’t made an appearance in any of my dreams since and I doubted he would again. It would’ve been nice had he been real. Something about him made me like him. Perhaps it was that he actually seemed nice? That he tried to be a gentleman?

My lessons with Andreas had become increasingly awkward, but at least I was learning things. Each accidental brush of skin made me crave more and each time I was reminded of my outburst. Of my words. Then I won’t even try to be your friend. It was painful keeping my distance from him, but it was necessary. At least he knew how I felt now. It was up to him if he wanted something more to come of it.

I now knew how to do the force-field spell perfectly, without it wearing off on me the way it had the first time, and I was able to move things with my mind. But so far, that was it. He tried to teach me more spells, but it was so hard to learn when every bend of his body sent my thoughts spiraling in a different direction.

If only Kalen, or any other guy, could just walk into my life and distract me from Andreas, I would be eternally grateful. I almost even had the urge to go back to John, almost. That was how crazy Andreas was driving me.

I walked into my room after a long day of practicing. Andreas hadn’t been present because he said I needed too much time and he wasn’t going to waste his by waiting next to me until I got everything right. He would be back as soon as I could levitate myself. Sounds simple for a witch, right? Wrong.

My energy was drained and I collapsed onto my bed with a loud thud, never as grateful for its softness as tonight. I fell asleep instantly and drifted off into a black abyss. My sleep wasn’t dreamless. As last time, I was pulled into a vision of a young boy…

The boy was standing with his back pushed against a door, his eyes widened in fear. Kalen was showing me another terrible image from his past. How many bad things could happen to one little boy?

There was pounding on the door. “Kalen, you filthy piece of trash! Open this door this moment or you will pay for it later!” The boy didn’t move. A crash sounded from the other side of the door and it budged. Sweat began dripping down the boy’s forehead.

There was another crash and the young Kalen staggered forward, falling onto his knees. The door swung open and a man with crimson hair stepped into the room. He grabbed the back of Kalen’s shirt and pulled him to his feet, choking him in the process.

Kalen coughed as he tried to fight for breath. I fell to my knees, helpless to aid the little boy before me. “Now, where did we leave off?” the man asked Kalen and he whimpered in reply. Red Hair flung the boy across the room and picked up the first object he could find, smiling maliciously at it as he approached Kalen again, his green orbs glinting with tears. The man’s hand was raised with the object in it, ready to strike—

The vision flashed away and I found myself in the same ballroom Kalen had taken me to last time. His eyes were slightly squinted, but otherwise he appeared unfazed. “You don’t need to see what happened next. Sometimes it’s even too much for me to live through again.”

I was still on my knees as I gazed up to him. “Why do you keep showing me these… memories?”

His smile was small as he knelt down beside me. “I show them to you because I do not know how to talk about my past. And I want you to know who I am.”

“Why?”

“I can barely explain it myself. All I know is that I have a need to be close to you, even though I’m still really far away.” His eyes lit up as he examined my expression.

I shook my head. Just as I was shrugging him off as nothing more than a dream, he decided to show up again? Confusion settled over me and I longed for some clarity.

“I need to know how you know who I am,” I stated.

Kalen shrugged, but didn’t try to avoid it. “Very well. I felt your aura from far away the first night when I visited you. It’s an ability unique to me, or so I think, because I have yet to come in contact with another magic user who is able to do this.  I contacted my... you could call him a friend I guess, and asked him about you. He didn’t want to give me any information.” Kalen scowled, but didn’t look particularly upset. “I decided I would rather contact you directly myself and risk you thinking me a complete madman.” He gave me a small shy smile as if he longed for my approval. I couldn’t help myself from giving him one of reassurance in return.

“So you can sense when magic is being used?” I asked.

He nodded. “It drives me crazy sometimes, but I’ve learned only to hone in on the really powerful surges now. Like those who were born with it as opposed to those who learn it.”

“So you believe I’m born with it?” I asked, skeptical now because I had to be taught.

“Definitely. The power I felt from you was too pure to have been studied. It’s unpracticed, but definitely worth developing. My… friend… he is training you, correct? He’d be a fool to let your gift go to waste.”

I blinked at him. “Andreas… is your… friend? He has those?”

Kalen started laughing, the sound warm and inviting. I couldn’t help but smile along with him. Kalen got to his feet and extended his hand to help me to mine as well. I accepted. “I suppose that is fair. Andreas can be… distant, I guess would be a way to put it. And I wouldn’t exactly call us friends… more like two people who sometimes share a common goal that we help each other with. And we kind of grew up together. That and we haven’t tried to kill each other yet, so I think, that makes us friends.”

My eyes narrowed in thought. My assessment of Andreas must have been more accurate than I had thought. By Kalen’s definition of friends, did that mean Andreas had considered me one of his despite his constant attempts at pushing me away?

“He is teaching me, but we aren’t exactly on good terms, which makes learning from him hard,” I answered vaguely.

Kalen’s eyes flashed, but he gave no hint to his thoughts. He circled me, a smug look on his face. “Perhaps once I get to you, I could take over. I promise I am a better instructor,” he added with a hint of suggestion to his tone.

I narrowed my eyes and stepped away from him slightly. “I’m fine for now. Making progress, albeit slow.”

Kalen moved closer again. “But it could be faster if you didn’t harbor any ill feelings toward the person teaching you,” he commented and winked.

I stifled a smile. I liked Kalen, even if he was probably a figment of my imagination. Conversations with him in my dreams were a welcome escape from Andreas.

“Show up in person first, and we can discuss it,” I said.

“Don’t tempt me. I can only travel so fast, my lady. But I promise I will be there soon.”

I shook my head, thinking to myself that in abstract, it was a nice thought. Music started playing in the background and Kalen did an elaborate bow before asking for my hand. I curtsied and accepted his offer to dance. It was a dream after all, I might as well enjoy it.

I woke up with a start from loud noises coming from somewhere close by. The noises sounded like a woman moaning, but I told myself it couldn’t be. There was no one other than Andreas and me living in this manor. It had to be something else.

Light was illuminating my room from a slit between the thickly drawn curtains now, indicating that I had slept through the night. My conversation with Kalen hadn’t seemed that long.

I slipped on a gown to cover up the revealing little night dress I was wearing and stepped into the hall, following the noise. I stopped at the room right next to mine across the width of the hallway. The door was open and I looked inside.

I ripped my eyes away as quickly as I could before the image would be imprinted on my mind forever. It was Andreas, with another woman. A deep ache plunged into my heart and I suddenly had trouble breathing. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. If there had been any hope that he was lying to me in the courtyard during our first lesson when he said having sex with me had meant nothing to him, that hope was now shattered.

No matter how devastated I felt, I would not cry or break down over this. He will not cause me to be sad. All previous emotions were replaced with an overwhelming rage. At that very moment not a single good thought of Andreas could surface in my mind.

I stood against the wall right next to the door, my eyes closed as I attempted to calm myself. Things had stilled in the room after one painfully high scream. I heard Andreas’ voice. “Eloise, it was really nice seeing you again. We really should do this more often.” That was more than he told me. A lot more. She replied with a high pitched giggle.

Eloise was the first to leave the room a couple of minutes later, throwing me a surprised look before flicking her blond hair over her shoulder and parading down the hall with more confidence than she was worth.

Andreas followed shortly after, shirtless. He completely froze in his tracks when he saw me. “How long have you been standing there?” he asked in a flat tone.

I took deep breaths to keep myself in control. “I can accept that you don’t give a damn about me,” I began, completely ignoring his question. “I can even accept that you sleep around with other girls at your leisure. What I can’t accept is that you bring them to a room right across from mine as if to rub my nose in it!” When he gave no reaction, I walked over to him and slapped him with every last inch of strength in my body. He actually staggered backward.

Finally, he showed some emotion as he glanced back over at me. “I didn’t realize I needed your permission for which rooms I am allowed to use in my own house.”

That did it. “You are a conceited ass! Why I ever felt attracted to you is beyond me! Well guess what, you have just succeeded in reducing my opinion of you even more. Congratulations. I’m no longer hoping that there is light in you! You could have at least had the courtesy to take your girl somewhere where I wouldn’t be woken up by her moans!” He composed himself and started walking past me.

“You’re a coward! Always running away the moment I confront you!” I yelled after him. He stopped and turned back to me.

“I am not leaving because I can’t handle confrontation, little witch. I am leaving because you wouldn’t be able to handle it if I stayed. And I do not fancy being slapped again; you hide a lot of strength in that small body of yours,” he said, and his expression almost seemed approving. Again, I was at a loss to what he might be thinking. His eyes scanned my body and I felt very self-conscious, especially as my eyes drifted to his muscular….  I was knocked out of my brief fixation when I remembered that chest had been pressed up against another girl’s just minutes ago.

I balled my hands into fists beside me. “Why are you doing this to me? You know how I feel and yet you have to keep shoving it in my face that you don’t care?” I asked, my voice now defeated.

Andreas seemed at a loss for words. Whatever he had expected me to do or say, that wasn’t it. He closed the distance between us and reached out as if to touch me, but thought better of it. “I’m not going out of my way to make you feel uncomfortable, Lana. I just do the things I normally would’ve done.” While his face may have shown some emotion, his tone was still flat as always. Without thinking, I slapped him again. And this time he was even more surprised. His eyes were widened in shock. I left him standing there without another word and ran back to my room, locking the door behind me.

None of my words that day seemed to have any effect on him. In the following weeks he brought over more and more girls, never the same one and they all convened in the same room. The noise was driving me crazy and I tried all I could to block it out. I wasn’t able to get much sleep, and thus my encounters with Kalen grew scarcer. I couldn’t even dream about the one guy that seemed to care, however slightly, without being rudely awakened.

It was time for a change. I needed to give Andreas a taste of his own medicine.