Secrets and Lies is part 5 of Witches and True Love Bleed my Heart series.

• Witches and True Love Bleed my Heart Part 1
• Witch? I did not Fall for a Witch #AWitchSaga – Witches and True Love Bleed my Heart Part 2
• Warlocks love Feisty Witches #AWitchSaga – Witches and True Love Bleed my Heart Part 3
• A Date with a Witch #AWitchSaga – Witches and True Love Bleed my Heart Part 4

Philip

Blissful months passed in the bewitching company– pun intended — of Megan, and just when I was certain that she, too, had fallen for me, she grew distant. The fog of apprehension was so heavy around her that I could cut it with a knife. Granted that she had secrets, I did not once question her life choices. After all, I had my own secrets that I didn’t share with her. Nevertheless, I could not let our skeletons sabotage our relationship. I longed to see her careless laughter chase away the darkness of my soul. Even if she didn’t wish to confide in me, I had to unravel the cause of her dismay, and I knew just the place to start.

Megan

I did not have the luxury of falling in love. I was on a mission. The clock was ticking by, and even with my devious methods, I could not capture the heart of a powerful warlock. Joseph was the key to my freedom from this misery, but he decided to stick his tongue down the throat of a waitress. Last I heard, he was truly smitten by her, but I wouldn’t sweat about it. After all, he was a warlock, and they were hardly ever faithful to one woman. Besides, a mortal woman would grow old at lightning speed. Ironically, I shared the same fate with them — thanks to that old witch, Sumatra. Not only did she curse the entire female lineage of my great grandmother, Clea, but she also took away the one thing that kept us at the top of the food chain — our Elite status.

To make matters worse, I fell for a human. A mere mortal. Using his blood would help my cause, but I could never sacrifice another mortal, especially Philip. Despite my inhibitions, he broke down the walls around my heart. Yet, I knew the moment would come soon enough when he would recoil once he knew my secrets. Anybody with an ounce of commonsense would have stayed away from love if they were in my situation, but not me. Sometimes, I wonder if I get a sadistic pleasure by putting my heart through turmoils. Although it would turn me into a walking dead, I must put a significant distance between me and Philip before I succumb to my sinister side.

Michael

Philip stormed into the house without so much as a knock. If common courtesy was a robe, Philip would be found naked. He pushed the gate so hard that it collided with the wall with a loud a thud. I was startled beyond words. At times like these, I regretted choosing this life. People treated me like an invalid. Of course, they couldn’t even see me, so they didn’t treat me like anything. But, I couldn’t help feeling hurt. However, right now, Philip’s eyes were boring into me. I moved to the left, and his gaze followed me. Then, I moved to the right, and again his eyes landed on my exact position.

“Aha! I knew it. You can see me,” I said, resisting the intense desire to clap. Sure, I would have liked someone, who was not Megan’s lover, to talk to, but beggars can’t be choosers. Right?

“Stop before you start licking me like a dog with two tails and tell me what is gnawing at Megan,” Philip said in his signature impatient throaty voice.

“A dog with two tails? Really?” Now I was offended. I was called a lot of things, most of them by Megan, but nobody ever called me a dog — or any animal, for that matter. Honestly, I adored dogs, but I would be damned if I would accept being called one. I raised my eyebrow and threw my most intimidating look at the man.

“Moping is not a very manly trait, you know.” He smirked. Walking over to the side table that had Megan’s sublime wine collection, he filled a goblet almost up to its rim.

I rolled my eyes so hard that I feared they would pop out from the back of my head. “I had pegged you as a sexist way before today. So, I am going to ignore your irrelevant remark. A man can whine, cry, fight, put on makeup, and do whatever else he desires, and it would have no impact whatsoever on his manhood.” I waved my hand fora dramatic effect.

He gulped a good amount of wine from his goblet, then licked his lips slowly — almost seductively, and said, “Makeup, huh? Is that why she rejected you?”

“What…No. I mean, I did not say I applied makeup. I just said a man could….if he wanted to. You know what she is not here, and I do not fancy speaking to a self-obsessed creature of magic.” I turned my back on him to indicate that the conversation was over. After what felt like hours, which in reality wouldn’t have been more than a few minutes, I glanced in his direction. To my immense distress, I found him still sipping the wine — smug as ever. “What do you want, Philip?” I sighed loudly.

“Tell me all of Megan’s secrets,” he said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. He sat in the lone Italian carved walnut armchair that Megan had placed right next to the table with her wine collection.

I resisted the desire to tell him that he should ask Megan about her secrets, mainly because I knew that would lead to another one of her insulting remarks. “If you are half the warlock you claim to be, her secrets, most of them, anyway, are enshrined in her real name. Does the name Carol Madeleine Ingrid Clea mean anything to you?” I cocked my head to observe him intently. His shocked expression told me that he knew the horrid history attached to her past. If I judged the faraway look in his eyes aptly, the memories of that fateful day flashed in his head.

Megan’s Past: Clea and the Queen

Clea put up a passionate fight and captured those evil witches in an enchanted crystal. Even though she forbade the queen from ever breaking the crystal, she ignored her warnings. In her defense, the crystal couldn’t trap those witches’ voices. Day and night, the witches took turns in haunting the queen. Even from inside the crystal, a witch named Trisha managed to be privy to Queen Alena’s darkest memories.

Trisha used those memories against her. The witch ridiculed the queen for her inability to conceive. She mocked how her husband, the king, laid with the maids of the palace to fulfill his sexual desires that she was incapable to satiate. The queen bellowed in agony, and her cries only fueled the witch’s determination to break the queen. She sought the help of her sorceress, but there was nothing that she could do until Clea returned. She had promised the queen that she would return with a mystic shell that would transport those evil witches to another universe. Yet, as time passed, her promise lost its meaning. Having lost their faith in Clea, the queen and the sorceress grew restless.

Regardless of their efforts to rid the palace of the crystal, it kept appearing near the queen. The voices grew louder and meaner. Alena hadn’t slept in days, and there was no fight left in her. One fateful night, she cursed the crystal and the witch and smashed it into a thousand pieces. Unaware of the consequences, she defied Clea. That’s when the hell broke loose. The screeching sounds of the witches shook the palace to its very core. Apparently, the captured witches were unaware of the crystal’s many secrets. One of those being the fact that the only escape from it was a spine-chilling death. Foolishly, they had believed that breaking the crystal would free them from its prison.

As the huge red flames devoured the witches, their screams threatened to explode the whole town. The sorceress tried — and failed — to contain their voices through many incantations, while the queen drowned in own her tears. The wails soon turned into mild whimpers, and in no time, one by one, their bodies turned into ashes. Even in her insurmountable affliction, Trisha managed to knock Clea over by calling just one name: Sumatra — the oldest and most influential witch of all time.