Yule & Enchantment: Serendipity, #2

By Poppy Flynn

Seren Starlight isn't your average witch. At 26 she's yet to graduate from the esteemed senior academy of witchcraft because she refuses to obey the rules. 

A magnet for misadventure, things always go wrong around her. She doesn't realise the consequences of talking back to the principal sorcerer until she receives a rather stinging lesson.' 

Destiny takes Seren on a series of Yuletide exploits during the Winter Solstice and she stumbles through them thanks to a string of happy accidents.

Seren by name. Dippy in nature. Serendipity through fate. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Poppy Flynn
• Release date: Oct 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223631910

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Seren stirred the enchantment potion she was working on rather half-heartedly, trying not to let her mind wander back over the events of the past six weeks. Or lack of them, perhaps would be more accurate.

She had been so excited to get the chance to prove herself as a witch with the assignment she had been tasked with at Samhain. She had truly believed that it might make a difference to… something. Anything.

And it wasn’t like she hadn’t been successful. Okay, so her successes might have been accidental, mostly, but hey, she’d take that over failure, any day of the year. It got the job done and the outcome was favourable. What more did anybody want?

A lot, it seemed.

She added a tiny pinch of moonglow to the cauldron watching, without her customary excitement, as she brought the hitherto murky and unassuming grey-brown liquid to life.

"Yule be the best holiday enchantment, ever," she muttered in a lacklustre tone. She also wasn’t known for her clever spellbinding.

Suddenly, tiny golden sparks like mini fireworks filled the big, black pot and the magical fire it sat upon in the middle of her turret room, turned an unearthly ice blue. The slime-coloured sludge transformed into a glowing, iridescent swirl of festive green and red highlighted with golden starbursts. The accompanying sound of fizzing, popping, and the occasional high-pitched whizz filled the tall room, echoing around the rafters. It also drew some unwanted attention, if the growing sound off footsteps reverberating on the hard stone floors of the academy corridors was anything to go by.

Seren sighed and braced herself. She knew who was going to come charging through her arched doorway any moment now. Except, no, Siarl Orias, the principal of Ysgol Ddewiniaeth, the most esteemed academy of sorcery in all the magic realm, was far too controlled to charge anywhere. Still, Seren wasn’t mistaken in her prediction as to the identity of those footsteps, that somehow sounded stern all by themselves. Not that she needed a crystal ball for that forecast. With the Yule sabbat almost upon them, she and Siarl were the only two people left in the building. Everyone else had gone home to celebrate the season with their families. As Seren waited for his appearance, she wondered if her not having any kind of family to share the holidays with was the reason for her unusual malaise.

From the age of ten, when her parents had disappeared, presumed dead, after some kind of magical catastrophe, Seren had been enrolled as a permanent boarder at the academy. She had usually spent her school breaks with another pupil’s family until she turned sixteen; always a different one because nobody seemed to want her back after the first visit. And later on, in the company of a chaperone, here at the school. Whoever drew the short straw, Seren imagined.

It wasn’t fair; she pondered to herself. She really wasn’t completely inept. Some things that had happened during those early years had absolutely not been her fault. Seriously, the incident when she was thirteen and the ceiling of the bedroom she was staying in collapsed, was absolutely not her fault. She could have been killed! It was only by pure lucky chance that the screech of an owl had woken her. It had so reminded her so much of her father’s familiar that she had gone outside, onto the room’s balcony, to listen to it.

The Yule log cake that had burned to a blackened crisp when she was eleven? Well, she had genuinely been trying to make it look authentic as a show of appreciation to the family who invited her to stay that first year. How was she to know that the family’s human chef had made it traditionally, and it wasn’t protected by magic?

And as for real, live cockroaches that had scurried in a huge avalanche out of the middle of the desert at Samhain when she was sixteen, well, that most certainly hadn’t been her, whatever anyone believed. Personally, she had thought it was a touch of genius which added excellent authenticity to the party thrown by her host on that occasion. But apparently it had traumatised the younger children and, because of her reputation, Seren had got the blame. No matter how much she denied her involvement.

That had been the last year she had holidayed outside the academy. In all honesty, she had preferred it that way. The only thing that had caused her irritation was the fact that they had insisted on a chaperone for her, even after her eighteenth birthday.

Still, as one unfortunate incident after another occurred, she developed a reputation for being accident prone and was slowly shunned by both her peers and their families. By the time she hit twenty-one and could stay in the rambling citadel alone, she was ready to breathe a sigh of relief.

This year, though? Well, it seemed she was just going through the motions, doing the things she always did because it was a habit.

She played it cool when the footsteps finally brought Siarl to her door; concentrating on her enchantment potion like it was the most interesting thing in her life. Which, sadly, it probably was.

Seren! His sharp voice sliced through the air and sent a shudder down her spine. The dominance that it conveyed affecting her in ways she didn’t want to acknowledge. Especially since he had decided that the odd spanking was the way to try and keep her on track and in line. Her reaction to those was also something she didn’t want to examine too closely, and they hadn’t even been with his hand or over his knee. They had been magical spankings with her held in mid-air by magical bonds while an enchanted paddle delivered her discipline and the principal looked on with the aloofness of the wholly indifferent.

Siarl. She acknowledged his presence without the customary respect that a student should give to the provost, while staring him right in the eyes; daring him to complain. She was twenty-six, for covens’ sake and, whether or not he liked it, he was probably the closest thing she had to family still living. Even if that familial connection was diluted by so many generations, it was barely traceable.

Breaking the rules again, I see. He nodded to the fire blazing in the middle of her floor. His voice held the barest hint of derision. Or maybe Seren imagined it because she was overly sensitive to being hauled up for her habit of breaking rules, which she simply felt were ridiculous and served no logical purpose. It was the reason she had yet to graduate.

It’s perfectly safe, she retorted, her voice holding only the barest hint of its customary bite. I even surrounded it with protection stones.

And what about the cauldron, which is just suspended by magic, and has no safety apparatus to hold it? He raised a single eyebrow and tipped his head to one side, the silver of his glinting in the light. Not for the first time, Seren wondered why he was so prematurely grey. He might be an old soul compared to her, but his physical age manifested at barely more than a decade her senior.

Generally, feisty was her middle name and she would have argued until she was blue in the face, but her heart just wasn’t in it right now. She almost thought she detected a hint of surprise penetrating the indifference when she capitulated immediately.

Fine, Seren clapped her hands and everything disappeared without a trace. ‘Happy now?"

She turned away, not wanting him to see the unexpected tears that glazed her green eyes. Tears she’d be hard pressed to explain since she couldn’t fathom the reason for them herself.

She flung herself on the couch in the corner of the room and stared despondently through the mullioned window at the barren hand of winter that decorated the land. It reflected her mood. She couldn’t even drum up the enthusiasm to pretend she was sulking.

Unusually, no, Siarl replied, a clap of his own hands bringing everything back.

Seren watched him with a curious frown as he circled his finger above the cauldron to make the mixing spoon stir, checked the mixture and conjured a large, empty spell jar. Then he tapped the side of the heavy, black pot with a wand that appeared from nowhere, and in a flash of light the jar was filled. With a flick of his wrist he sent it to stand on a shelf with her other potions, and everything disappeared again as if it had never been.

Why did you do that?

I find I take no joy in seeing you so kowtowed, he told her as he strode across the room to where she sat. Shocking, I know.

What was more shocking, in Seren’s mind, was the fact that he grabbed her hand, hauled her out of the chair, took her seat then pulled her, sprawling, over his knee. Face down.

Her hair tumbled over her face as she fought to see through the unruly ginger curls.

What are you doing? she asked, not liking the breathlessness that sounded in her voice as she felt the coolness of the air hit her bared skin as her tight jeans suddenly disappeared. Was that even allowed?

Oh, I think you know full well, Siarl retorted. You’ve been practically begging for this.

Suffering spell books! Seren exclaimed as the warmth of his hand made contact with the skin of her left ass cheek. I most certainly have not! She clenched her buttocks and noted, absently, that he had at least left her with the questionable modesty of her skimpy little thong, for what it was worth.

Sometimes, Miss Starlight, actions speak louder than words.

CHAPTER 2

Siarl had surprised himself. Except, when it came to Seren Starlight, really nothing should surprise him at all. Not even his own actions.

He didn’t mean to spank her. He hadn’t even meant to admonish her. Not even when he was confronted with yet another instance of her unmindful disrespect for the academy rules.

He certainly hadn’t intended to spank her draped over his knee and by way of his own hand. No matter how much he had itched to do so in the past.

But he found he didn’t care for her unusual, easy capitulation and the sheen of sadness and despondency he saw glistening in her eyes. A brooding melancholy which had been building since her return to the citadel following Samhain. He’d tried to spank her out of it before now, under the guise of misdemeanours she had incurred during that sojourn, but it hadn’t proved successful.

Maybe the personal touch might make a difference, he thought as he watched, with considerable satisfaction, as the imprint of his hand appeared on each softly rounded globe.

He gave a brief thought to the rules he might break himself. Except he was the principal, and the rules were his to make or to change, and Seren was very far from being a child and way above the age of consent. In other circumstances, she would be one of his peers.

Still, he held himself back from rubbing his hand across those gratifying pink handprints with the sheer force of his will. There were lines after all, no matter that the archaic tome of the academy regulations stated that the principal of the academy could use whatever methods they deemed expedient to instil the understanding, learning and discipline into their apprentices whether that be magical, educational or, as in this case, corporal.

Instead, he meted out a very personal kind of discipline and took great pleasure in turning her entire butt a bright, cherry red. Continuing until the veil of melancholy dropped away, and she started to shift and struggle.

Shitsickles! What in Wicca’s name did I do to deserve this? she demanded with a squeal, kicking her legs until he was forced to restrict them. He opted for a more physical form of restraint, rather than the magical ones he normally used, and hooked one of his legs over the top of hers. She batted at him blindly with her hands, so he captured them too and held them firmly at the small of her back while he continued her punishment.

Her colourful screeches were like music to his ears. Far more indicative of the Seren he knew and lov… he stopped that thought in its tracks. It was just a figure of speech anyway, wasn’t it?

Siarl didn’t let up. Not when his hand started to smart for the unaccustomed sting of peppering her buttocks with hearty smacks. Not when she screamed obscenities at him. Not when she pleaded. Not even when his own arousal made it difficult to concentrate, and he had to force himself not to take her punishment in an entirely new direction.

He continued on until she finally lay limp and drained over his lap, her shoulders quaking with the weight of her heartfelt sobs and her tears started making a small pool in the dimples of