His Unrequited Love

Ian Having no magic sucks.  No one knows this better than a witch who was stripped of his powers for trying to do the right thing. I am that witch.  And that’s why I am standing in front of the bar with the colorful and quite original name ‘Cherry pie’ on a random Sunday evening waiting to plead my case with the king of all shifters and beg him to give my magic back to me. He just arrived half an hour ago with his fancy black SUV and a handful of guards and has no idea of the ambush I am preparing for him. I spent my entire weekend following Mr. Gabriel Lawrence and his perfectly shaped shifter a*ss across the whole country, looking for a convenient moment to jump him and literally beg him to listen to me. And every time I was this close to approaching him someone showed up and interrupted me, crumbling all my intentions to ashes. It was either his guards, or other people working for him, or he was in too crowded places for me to corner him with my demands.  But I got him now. In the bar, I can reach him and make it seem casual. Anyway, what do I have to lose? He would either let me speak and lift my ban after I make my proposition, or he will turn me away and I will be in my current situation, playing a witch for hire and praying to the moon for good luck. Gods and goddesses, please make him listen to me! As I walk inside, I contemplate all my life choices trying to find the exact moment when I turned into this needy person who can’t live with something he only had for like a month or so. Five years ago I discovered I had magic and used it to save my best friend’s life. As a reward, the king of all shifters and everything supernatural that resided inside the country, decided I can’t walk the world unbothered as an unregistered magician and took my magic away for good, instead of like… helping me get a better understanding of the power I was just starting to harness? Yeah, great dude… not. Five years later and I am almost convinced it was for the better. I am a grown-up now, not a scrawny queer kid with lots of family drama and a major crush on his best friend’s untouchable brother. I graduated high school, I am on my way to becoming the godfather to that best friend’s newborn kid, and just a few weeks away from opening my own bar with the money I saved throughout the years… by selling my ‘magical’ services to others. I even still practice magic for my own benefit. Well, not the dark, intense power that used to flood through my veins and fill every bit of my existence for a short period of time back in the day, no. That got snatched away from me by the king’s orders. What I have now is a tamer, calmer ‘light’ magic, which is more related to self-discovery and finding your own place in the world through connecting to nature’s energy than anything else. This is the magic you can find tons of information about online and anyone can do it if they put their mind to it, or are stupid enough to believe it is real.  It should count, right? Once my true power got ripped out of my blood, none of the spells in my family’s grimoire worked anyway. I tried and tried but each time I failed miserably and it only made me feel drained and useless as if I needed more reasons than I already had. I needed something to play with in order to find a distraction from the f*ucked-up life I was living at the time. So, I did what any other desperate teenager would - I turned to the internet for advice and discovered a whole new world of self-proclaimed witches who had read some best-selling books on the matter, had bought a few crystals here and there and as a result, they believed they were in the craft. The fact that sometimes their love or prosperity little spells worked by coincidence only helped them believe they were the real deal.  I was excited to jump on that wagon too. If the internet people were allowed to do it, so was I, that sinfully pretty shifter king be damned. Plus, with my personal life gone to s*hit, there was not much else to do anyway, and neither did I have any other prospects to aspire to. Through the years I slowly built my own ‘craft’ of this so-called ‘light’ magic. Maybe it is my genes carrying the generational memory of tens of witches in my birth tree, or maybe I am just skillful, but I am now good at making charms and collecting moon water charged with good vibrant energy. My black salt is believed to be the most potent with energy than anyone else’s, helping every spell I cast to be twice as successful. I even participate in weekly meditations and praying gatherings with my so-called coven. I love them all and I am proud to call them my friends, they are good people if not my usual crowd. For some of them, I am also their yoga instructor and I really don’t care if it is my good skills in witchcraft or my superior a*ss that makes them seek my services, after all, a boy’s got to eat. I am good at what I do for a living. By selling my witchy services to the world I earn more than enough to live a decent life away from my father and carve my own path in the direction I want it to go. I am young and independent and according to many people I am also quite pleasing to the eye. Yeah, I am a great guy who’s got it all figured out at twenty-three, alright. Then why the f*uck am I here, desperately stalking no other than the shifter king himself? Why am I about to block his path on his way out and beg him to give me back my powers? I shouldn’t be. But real dark magic is like drugs. You know what they say about drugs - once you try that s*hit once sometimes it is too hard to stay away. And I’ve been in abstinence for far too long. As I get inside the bar, the sudden darkness engulfing me after I spent almost my entire day out in the harsh summer sun, I unconsciously reach to my neck, touching each of the crystals on my hand made neckless. It is not the prettiest thing in the world and is probably standing out like a sore thumb over the heavily tattooed skin on my neck, but I wear it anyway because some part of me actually believes in that new age magical s*hit I preach for money. My eyes spot the king immediately. He is sitting in a booth at the end of the darkened room, his guards on both sides of his velvet-covered table, and there is a cheap-looking woman grinding on his lap. I hesitate for a second. Damn it, that’s not what I signed up for. I don’t even know what I signed up for. My eyes roam the place which is almost empty except for a few dudes drinking beer near the pool table at the corner and this other guy who drinks alone at the bar, staring at the king with murder in his eyes. Maybe I wouldn’t look at the stranger twice if he weren’t that hot himself, but damn this dude is smoking. Scolding myself for being so easily distracted, I walk towards the bar and take the seat over the one next to him. I order a beer which I am sure I won’t drink because I hate the s*hit, but I need some excuse to be here, right? My gaze remains trained on the king and his mistress who seems more than happy to get on her knees under the table and serve him here in front of everyone, and he seems more than happy to let her. They both make a nice couple but I can’t stop thinking about his wife. I only saw her once yet I am sure she doesn’t deserve this. She is a beautiful delicate creature who looks almost perfect and whom I can’t help but respect even if I hate Gabriel in the guts for what he did to me and… My head suddenly snaps back to the stranger next to me at the bar. God, how did I miss this? As I stare at his perfect face I can’t believe my eyes. My heart skips a beat as I study him. Victor f*ucking Valentine. My biggest high school crush, totally unrequited of course. God. I haven’t seen the man in what, five years?, and I find him at the same place the shifter king is. Victor’s dark blue eyes are pinned on the man, and there is venom dripping from his gaze. That stare of his is the definition of the expression ‘if looks could kill’. How come neither the king nor the guards are noticing? I get Victor’s frustration, I really do. Even though I am stunned by the encounter and for some reason can’t calm my rapid breathing down, I get it. Victor lost much more than me because of Gabriel Lawrence. They took away his royal status and his alpha position because he tried to help his sister Veronica and her mate in the wolf shifters war. The punishment was unfair and just like mine should be lifted the moment the truth got out and Veronica was pardoned for all the fake accusations that were thrown at her. Yet, the king never even considered reviewing either of our sentences. Victor got banished for what he did and because of the blood oath he’d taken, he can’t ever return home.  He disappeared that night we were both sentenced and I never thought I’d see him again. I am not crushing on him anymore, but he’d got me bad back in the day. The hot, older guy who never paid me any attention, because why would he? I was so gone for him. He was royalty, the sinfully hot and successful head of the most powerful family in Redwind, while I was a wreck. My alcoholic father had just thrown me out of his apartment after I came out to him as gay, so I had to live alone at our family's old house on the St. Claire property next to the Valentine mansion. I worked part-time to be able to pay for my food and electricity and I always smelled of fried food and garbage. Plus, I was a minor and his sister Veronica’s best friend. Of course, a twenty-eight-year-old Victor Valentine of all people would never even look at me the way I looked at him - with adoration in my eyes, like a love-sick puppy who wanted to follow him everywhere he went. Even now, all this time later, he is not looking at me. Again, why would he? I am just some random stranger who sits across from him in a bar. It stings that he doesn’t. But I do look, just like before. I know that’s stupid, yet I am helpless to fight it. My palms are suddenly sweating and my throat is getting dry as my heart rate speeds up the longer I stare at him, all those old feelings coming back to me at once.  Time has been more than generous with Victor Valentine. He was hot back in the day with his pristine, perfectly tailored suits and his alpha energy which at times used to bug the s*hit out of me. I used to spend nights dreaming of his large hands and wondering what it would be like to feel those long fingers on my skin or inside me. Him ignoring me completely made me crazy with desire for him and I would do the stupidest s*hit to drag his attention - like sleeping with his two guards in a room next to him or giving up my future for his family. Well, that last one thing I did for Veronica who is my closest person to this day, but still, he was part of that same war. Now he looks more mature, more serious than before, rougher around the edges. His jaw is covered in at least two days old stubble, his eyes seem haunted, colder. There is some darkness to him that wasn’t there before. All these things should make him look older, but in reality, they just make him hotter. The attraction I believed had died down over the years floods over me with new, stronger power and I can barely breathe staring at him, while he stares at another man. But then the king and his mistress finally decide to stand up and walk out of the bar not sparing a glance in our direction. The moment they leave, it feels like the air at the bar lightens. I take a deep breath and am surprised I felt so repressed this entire time - like that man’s aura had somehow drained the energy and light from the place. Gabriel Lawrence is gone now, and I can hear the faint music in the background, the laughter and jokes of the men near the pool table, and feel Victor’s presence which is even more potent now.  Absentmindedly I reach for my beer and drag a long sip out of it, realizing what mistake I did the moment the bitter taste reaches my tongue. God, I hate this s*hit. “s**t!” I curse out loud too and leave the large bottle back on the bar top, stealing a glance at Victor who is suddenly focused on studying me. I stare back, and the feeling of falling is overwhelming. It sounds cheesy as f*uck but that’s exactly how I feel right now - like falling in Victor Valentine’s deep blue eyes for a second time in my life. He’s never looked at me like this before, so intense, so focused on devouring me. Hell, I am not even sure he remembers me. “You like what you see?” I ask, snapping my head up sassily, because why not? Lawrence is gone with his lover now and there is nothing much I can do about it. Suddenly, I don’t want to do anything about it, not when Victor is looking at me like he wants to devour me whole.  He slips off his stool and with a swift movement even I am not quite able to track, he is just inches away from me, dark eyes gleaming with invitation. “Maybe I do,” he says seductively, focusing on me like I am his prey for the night and I can’t think anymore as the old feelings come rushing to my blood and down to my d*ick which immediately stands with tension.