Emerald-green eyes glowed at him in the moonlight. He stood his ground. It was her, which could only mean one thing—his bitch of a stepmother was on Earth.
Neha stopped at the front door and morphed back into her humanoid form.
“Dallas sent me, Master Oliver. She told me that we would need your help in dealing with your evil stepmother.”
“Why does she want Dallas?” he asked, fury rolling through him like a racecar from Jupiter.
“She wants her to turn back time so she can kill you as an infant.”
The cold words slapped him in the face as if he’d been doused with water. “And what do you want, Neha?”
Neha’s eyes filled with remorse. “I want to kill her for even thinking of such a vile thing. I want her wiped from the past, the present and the future.”
He nodded. “I take it you will be fine with this if it comes to that? You have no love lost between you?”
“She is my mistress only as long as I wear this hellish contraption around my neck. As long as I wear it, she has all my powers save for my shape-shifting one. You take this off me, and I will be free and fully empowered.”
“I tried to do that once when I was a lad and was thrown into a coma for days for my reward. Fortunately, since then, I’ve figured out how to release the lock without being hurt in the process. What form were you in when the collar was put on you? If you were in your Shadowflare Panther form, you’ll have to shift back into it before I attempt to remove that damn thing. “
She nodded. “Before I do, I must warn you, you must be careful when you go to Dallas. Your stepmother has spies here on Earth. Spies fully entrenched within the ranks of the Halifax Magical Authority. No help will come for Dallas this time around. You are her only hope.” With that dire warning, she shifted into her Shadowflare Panther form. He marveled at her sleek beauty. She’d wasted over twenty years of her life tending to every whim of his stepmother, and sometimes his father, and now it was his honor to finally free her.
“Hold tight, Neha. I’ll have this off you in a few minutes,” he said as he went to work.
* * * * *
Dallas opened the Hyde Family Book of Light and Shadows, the first volume, and quickly flipped through the pages, trying to find a spell that would help them stall Rebecca until Oliver and Neha could return. She wondered where her brother was as well. If he came home in a drunken state he could be caught off guard by Rebecca and Johnny and any of the other lackeys Rebecca had brought with her.
“By the moon’s white light I prepare for this night’s fight, cast the house in protective arms while all who dwell within shall be charmed. Show us the way and protect us until the light of day for the enemy that draws near is one all should fear.” She recited the incantation, praying that her magic would be enough to activate the protection spell. This way, when Rebecca did enter, she would not be able to torture her or her father until she broke the spell, and she could only hope that Oliver would arrive in time before that happened. She doubted her magic would be strong enough to activate any of the more aggressive spells in the book but she had a few in mind just in case she had to try one of them.
Her heart was still torn on whether or not she should take them all back into the recesses of time. She knew the exact day she wanted. She guessed on that day Rebecca had been present as well. She suspected Rebecca had always been the one behind trying to abduct her. How could one woman hate her stepchild with such vehemence? What had Oliver ever done to her to earn her wrath? Dallas knew he was innocent in the whole affair but she had to wonder what Rebecca’s twisted mind considered justifiable to wanting to wipe him clear out of existence.
“I just hope your brother doesn’t come home tonight,” her father muttered as he rummaged through the numerous spell books on the bookshelf behind them. They had quite the collection as they’d mixed the books from both the Hyde and the Ross family. “He might be able to help us, but then again, he just might be another casualty.”
Her heart skipped at his words. “Stop searching for the right book. I have the right volume here. Those other volumes won’t help us. I’m not familiar enough with the Ross family books of spells and incantations. As much as everyone believes I’m a complete fuck-up of a witch, I probably know these books better than Adrian does. I’ve spent countless hours poring over their contents but then you wouldn’t know that as you took off on me. As for Adrian being in trouble because of me, if you think I’m going to do what I did to Mom, you’re mistaken. I’m older and wiser now. I was just a kid when that happened. It was an accident. It was something that could have happened to any thirteen-year-old witch with the kind of power I have, especially considering the extreme stress I was under at the time.”
“I know that, Dallas. I only meant that your brother gets cocky and he sometimes acts before he thinks. I never meant to insinuate that you would do anything to negatively affect him.”
“If Neha gets to Oliver in time and he breaks the siphoning of the slave collar, I sincerely doubt that Rebecca will be that strong of an adversary.”
“And how strong of an adversary are you?”
She ignored his galling remark, deciding instead to keep running through the spell book for an incantation that could help her. She didn’t know what she was going to do—it was quite apparent that the Hyde witches had rarely used combative spells, probably because most in her lineage had been endowed with various active psychokinetic powers such as pyrokinesis, cryokinesis, the ability to create energy shields and telekinesis to name a few.
“You have a very lovely home, Mistress Redgrave.” Rebecca’s cold voice assailed her ears. She looked up and met the witch’s steely gaze. Ironically enough, she was dressed all in white. Her hair was bleached blonde and her blood-red fingernails finished off her diabolical look. Her black stiletto heels were more for show than anything else as she stood with her ass sticking out, telling Dallas that the heels were killing her. She’d be very easy to knock to the ground if a physical brawl was needed.
“Let’s set aside chit-chat, Mistress White. I know why you’re here,” she said.
“I didn’t think you’d be so clever,” Rebecca mused.
“Cleverness has nothing to do with it. I saw all this in a vision. Where is your patsy, Johnny?”
The warlock standing next to Rebecca looked highly indignant. “Patsy? What the hell are you talking about, Mistress Dallas?”
“I honestly thought you knew,” Dallas admitted. “She used you. Now that she no longer needs you, she’ll let you take the fall for whatever crimes she commits here tonight. The only problem is there’s a wrench I’ve thrown into her plans. I’m not going to let her get away with any of it. That spoiled bitch is finally going to know what no means. And let me say it quite clearly. No, I won’t do anything that you want, Rebecca.”
“I wonder how you’d feel about it after I’ve broken your father.”
“I don’t break, bitch. I only bend,” her father declared proudly. “You should get out of this house before you make my daughter mad. She’s an inferno when she’s angry.”
“I’ve heard what she’s like when she’s angry. She goes and kills her own family members. If I were you, Daddy Dearest, I’d be extremely worried.”
Rage sparked through Dallas and she very nearly lost control at that moment. She could recall the way she’d felt when she’d done it before and she couldn’t go all ticking time bomb on their asses again. It didn’t affect her but it would affect her father and she didn’t want to take the chance that he would lose his life just because she couldn’t rein in her wayward emotions.
“He doesn’t have to worry about me. I only seem to hurt those I love,” she said sarcastically.
Rebecca laughed, a cold, tittering noise that made Dallas’s insides churn. “How fascinating the two of you are. I could sit here and listen to you bicker like old ladies all night but alas, I don’t have all night. Since you’ve already foreseen my arrival, you know exactly what I want. W
hy don’t you just do it the easy way and give me what I want so it doesn’t get downright ugly?”
“It already got ugly when you arrived, stepmother.” Oliver had finally appeared. Dallas’s heart rejoiced. He stood directly behind Rebecca and when Johnny moved to attack him, charcoal smoke billowed through the room. When it cleared Johnny was hopping around, as Oliver had turned him into a grasshopper.
“Gross,” Rebecca screamed, and before anyone could react, she’d stepped on him.
Dallas closed her eyes against the horrid scene and the terrible crunching sound Johnny made as he was flattened. As for the rest of them, they would all survive. She was going to make sure of that. A low growling noise caught all of their attentions.
“Are you going to attempt to step on me as well, Mistress?” Neha’s voice was full of confidence and Dallas noticed, with relief, she no longer wore the collar signifying her enslavement.
“Time for us to go on a trip back in time.” Dallas’s gaze rested on the page she’d been looking for in the Hyde Family Book of Light and Shadows—specifically the section that dealt with her time-manipulation power. She whispered the words that would take them to the point in time she envisioned. “Don’t think, just be,” she said, as she activated the power she had always repressed.
White blinding light engulfed the room and circled them. Her father gripped her wrist just as she took them all back to the day she’d lost her mind and done the unthinkable. She was about to set things right.
They went from night to day in mere seconds. They stood outside, a short distance from the house. She could hear the witch hunters as her mother confronted them. She didn’t have much time to fix everything. “Get to Mother and take her far away from the circle of destruction. I can’t change my own mind, the devastation will still happen. I just want the two of you outside the radius where my power could affect you.”
“What about you?” Her father actually looked distressed at the prospect of leaving her alone—what he hadn’t quite grasped yet was that she was never alone when Oliver was around.
“I will be fine. Go now, Dad. I can’t do this a second time. If I don’t fix it the first time, there is no second time around, do you understand?”
He nodded and lunged into action. Her mother would be shocked to see her father, but she prayed he would be able to get her to safety. As for her, she had to get closer to Oliver and Neha, and then she hoped that the older version of Rebecca would draw out the younger version. She knew she had to be hiding somewhere in the shadows, waiting for her prize.
Rebecca cackled with glee. Her happiness was cut short when Neha turned her attention to her and lunged, knocking Rebecca off her feet.
Oliver walked over to Dallas. “I’m thinking we can just leave those two to work out their differences, what do you think?”
She quickly embraced him, inhaling his manly scent to reassure herself that he was real. “I believe she’s going to rip her throat out.”
“What’s the plan then?” Oliver asked.
“My plan is to save my mother, kill both the younger and older versions of your stepmother, and hope everything returns to normal from there on out.”
“Can you live with taking Rebecca’s life?”
“With Neha around I might not have to worry about it. Besides, even if I did, she needs to die, doesn’t she?”
Oliver looked strained. “I don’t know. The old me would have taken her out in a heartbeat. I would love to give in to my lust to see her killed, but then I think about how my mother and sister would handle things. They don’t lower themselves to that level, Dallas. They seek justice in a different way. My sister said it’s better for someone to live in holy hell than to be given the freedom of death.”
“Then you take care of her the way you see fit. At least it looks as if my mother will be spared this time around. We can’t interfere with anything else or it might have a ripple effect that could negatively impact our future. I want to change things for the better, not the worse.”
“How do you know your mother can be spared?”
She thought of the dream she’d had about her mother and knew she was doing the right thing. “I just know the dream I had about her was a vision. She was never supposed to die, Oliver, so saving her won’t affect the time continuum. I’m making right a wrong that never should have happened.”
“No,” Rebecca screamed, emerging into the clearing on a broomstick. She looked about two decades younger, so now they had both Rebeccas right where Dallas wanted them. As Dallas came into the clearing, Neha stopped attacking the Rebecca from their time and instead turned her attention to the one from the past. She shifted into her human form, activated her magic and shot a streak of purple-hued lightning at Rebecca.
It hit Rebecca squarely in the chest and she started spinning around on her broomstick, out of control. She spiraled toward the ground and crashed with a tremendous thud. Her lifeless body was sprawled out and as she died, the Rebecca from the future started to fade from their sight.
“No, you bitch, Dallas. I will get you for this.” Those were her last words. Neha had done what she had to do in order to gain her vengeance against the woman who had kept her as a slave. Neha walked over to Rebecca’s body and spat on it with vehemence.
“May you rot in hell, you bitch of a witch,” Neha said angrily. “Justice has been done. My blood lust is sated.” She shifted back into the big cat and ambled over to Dallas, rubbing affectionately up against her. “I am ready to return to our time when you are prepared to take us, my friend.”
Dallas couldn’t see her father so he must have gotten her mother well out of the way. Her younger self was about to set off the time bombs to take out the witch hunters who remained.
“How are you at putting up energy shields, Oliver? I don’t think we’re close enough, but it looks as if my younger self is about to blow and I don’t want to risk us getting caught up in the storm.”
He touched the Ross Amulet that hung around his neck and an energy shield erected around them. He drew her to him just as the witch hunters’ cries of agony filled their ears. She’d heard that sound once before and once was enough for her. A deathly calm followed the witch hunters’ demise.
“I should find my father and get us all back to our time. The longer we stay here, the riskier it gets. I never should have brought us back. I don’t even know what my mother would say if she knew.”
“You could always ask her,” he suggested.
Her mother had returned and obviously she’d been fighting her father like a hellcat. She watched as her mother ran to her younger self and checked her over to make sure she was okay.
Love welled within her. She wanted to go to her mother and it took all her energy to hold herself back. She was so engrossed in staring at her mother that she forgot all about Angelica and Anya. They arrived in their car and when Angelica stepped out, she felt Oliver stiffen with apprehension.
Would the others see them? She doubted anyone would be able to avoid Angelica. Her aunt had always been endowed with the uncanny ability to notice what no one else did. So when she stepped out and her gaze went automatically to them, Dallas wasn’t surprised.
“I was afraid of this—Aunt Angelica never misses a damn thing,” Dallas said
Angelica whispered something to Anya and Anya ran over to Bryony and Ashley. That left only Angelica for them to deal with. Her father didn’t look much older than he had in the past so Dallas had been hoping everyone would just believe it had been the same him and not his future self, but now Angelica would know.
She would know what Dallas had done.
Angelica didn’t seem concerned about her or Neha though. She only had eyes for Oliver.
“You should hide the amulet,” Dallas muttered, but again she was too late.
“You are wearing the Ross Amulet,” Angelica said, cutting straight to the point as she always did. She was never one to mince words.
“I am,” Oliver said.
; “And seeing as you’re standing with my niece who looks older than she should be, I take it the two of you are from the future?”
“Yes, Aunt Angie. I did it. I took us back.”
“Then we only have a few minutes when I want a lifetime to get caught up with you, Oliver. I was told you had died, but looking at you, I know you are mine. You look far too much like my grandfather.”
How did she know his name? He had been ripped from her arms as a newborn… He didn’t need to wonder for long. “How do you know?” Oliver asked.
“Your father gave you the name I wanted you to have,” Angelica said softly. “He didn’t give me much that I wanted but he told me he’d given you the name of Oliver after he took you away from me. If I’d known you’d lived I would have found a way to come back for you. I regret not doing that every single day since I escaped Vanguard. I never should have taken Raymond at his word.
“He said you had a fever and the healers couldn’t heal you. He told me you died when you were four days old. You are named for my grandfather, Oliver Ross. He was a great man, and thank the Gods, you look like him as well. Give me a hug and a kiss and then I shall get on it with it and get Ashley back in line. That man is so starry-eyed when it comes to Bryony it’s absolutely shameful.”
Oliver embraced Angelica, looking as if he’d finally gone straight to heaven. “I love you, Mother,” he whispered, as Dallas fought back tears.
“It’s not Mother, Oliver, it is Mom.” She drew away from him and gently wiped away the tear running down his face. “We will all be together again someday. With Dallas around anything is possible. She’s the family’s guardian angel, you know.”
“I know,” Oliver said, kissing his mother lightly on the cheek. Angelica had to levitate herself in order to reach his cheek so she could plant one on him.
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