by Sara M Zerig
Although spacious, Aidan’s den was not big enough to allow the remaining clan members to work comfortably, so the warlocks had convened at the Coven Library. Generations of Coven history were housed in the library, and some of that history might be relevant to the task at hand. Fortunately, there were efficient spells to search multiple tomes at once.
Cara’s friend and fellow witch, Abby Lachlan, managed to block out Wisp’s distraction and remain deeply focused on the stack of Earthen maps sprawled across Aidan’s ornate walnut desk. The seer was well suited to take the lead on this mission; she had a knack for locating lost things and was not deterred by starting from almost nothing.
Abby had pinned her black locks atop her head in an expertly braided bun. She dressed her tall, hour-glass figure in a lilac satin gown, soft and pale against her dark skin. Like most witches, Abby took pride in her appearance, and like the witches from this clan, she was a force to be reckoned with. Her wide black and cinnamon eyes were narrowed on the maps before her with the fortitude of a skilled falconer; Cara could almost see the papers trembling beneath her gaze.
“Anything?” Serena asked from the doorway, a tray of tea in her hands.
As a healer specializing in pregnancies and infant care, Serena’s talent was not applicable to the search, but her support was appreciated. She brought in the refreshments, tossing her long, golden braid gently behind her shoulder as she set the tray down at one edge of the desk. She straightened and sought Cara with black and amber eyes full of concern.
“I cannot sense her at all. My own child …” Cara said, making an effort to swallow her disappointment.
“You were not conscious when she was born. You never knew her, never held her in your arms,” Serena told Cara what she already knew.
Purebloods could distinguish other purebloods from humans and realmless, and they could sense the presence of their own bloodline. Cara could simply think of Aaron and find him anywhere, in any realm. But having never so much as laid eyes on her daughter, she may as well be a stranger to Cara.
Chloe. It was not an unusual name by Coven standards, but of course, it was not a name she and Aidan had discussed when she was pregnant. Cara had wanted her daughter’s name to start with the letter “A,” like Aaron’s—she liked Addison. Aidan thought they should pass down her letter “C”—he liked Camille or Charisma. Funny how the name seemed to matter so much then and mattered so little now.
“I have something vague here,” Abby said, her finger gliding across the center of an Earthen map, effectively covering hundreds of miles. Consternation was evident in her voice.
Abby raised a silver chain with a single crystal pendant over the map in demonstration. The crystal twisted ever so slightly but never landed. Wisp sidled up to the desk as though she had been invited. She pushed past Serena and Abby to inspect the crystal, her face inches from the chain.
“Oh my, you are a smart one, aren’t you? Good magic here, very creative. Good for you!”
Wisp bent to inspect the crystal again, and Abby and Serena shared a moment of really? “But this will only find an unprotected witch … the completely unobscured … Hmmm … no, we mustn’t assume that.”
“Obscured? By whom?” Serena asked.
“You said the realmless could not care for her,” Cara reminded Wisp.
“Yes, I did, didn’t I? But I do believe this realmless had a few tricks up her sleeve before she let her go. Yes, she did anticipate this, didn’t she? Was one step ahead, that one.”
“Are you implying that a realmless can hide a full-blooded witch from me?” Abby challenged.
“Oh, goodness no!” Wisp laughed out loud then. “This realmless is no match for you! Not for any of you. Not really. Unless you underestimate her.”
“Underestimate a realmless?” Abby was indignant.
Cara found herself beside Serena, forming a physical barrier between Abby and Wisp.
“Well, she did snatch up a Coven infant from right under your noses, didn’t she? Hid her for 20 years in a magicless realm … Did this all without being clever? Without being cunning? Without at least some magic at her disposal?” Wisp laughed again. “No, no, my dear witches, I think not.”
Abby’s jaw dropped. Serena cleared her throat and looked away. Cara inclined her head as she considered Wisp’s point. She glanced over her shoulder to Abby. “How would you rewrite the spell if you were looking for a witch hidden by another witch?”
Abby scooped up the crystal and turned it over in her hands, shifting from one foot to the other as she internalized the request. At last, she responded to Cara, “I will need more time … and your blood. Aidan’s too.”
Lee shuffled into the center of the dwelling with the other shifters an hour before sunset. There was a special announcement tonight; all were required to attend and on short notice. The community was abuzz with theories on what it might be about.
Lee offered no comment. He did not care. He would attend because he was required to, but then his night would go on like any other—retreating to his cave to swallow back a skin of alcohol and fall asleep early so he could get up early and back to work the next day.
Dane stood at the end of the elevated platform reserved for these communal meetings. Colton stood just behind one shoulder. The older shifter’s voice carried well inside the dwelling walls. “We have news from the Coven Realm ...”
The ringing in his ears drowned out Dane’s words, but Lee knew what the elder was saying. Lee had heard this before, in the recurring nightmares he had suffered over the past twenty years. Sweat beaded at his forehead, and his chest constricted. He had to warn Seth.
He couldn’t just leave; Dane was still talking. The slightest overreaction—or under reaction—could give him away. Neighbors were already eyeballing each other distrustfully. He concentrated on what Dane was saying. Both a realmless and a shifter had been involved, they said, and the shifter was believed to be from this dwelling. Not entirely accurate, since Seth was only half-shifter and had never lived here, but close enough.
He caught that a search was underway for the abducted witch in the Earthen Realm. How could that be? The most powerful magic of all the realms was at the fingertips of the Coven Realmers. Ancestors help him, Char hadn’t executed the infant, had she? It sickened Lee that he couldn’t rule it out.
“With the support of the elders of all sixteen dwellings,” Dane closed, “we will find the people responsible.”
He had to stop this. If only he could bring them Char’s head on a stick and be done with it. But there was no explanation for Lee knowing all these years and not speaking up. And if they found Char on their own, she would lead them to Seth. She had made that clear. No, naming Char was not a safe option.
Lee could accept responsibility. Few shifters would find it hard to believe that he had done such a thing—the loner was a likely suspect. But they already knew a realmless was involved and would continue to search until they found that person, too.
Unless … they believed the realmless had already died. There were several known realmless who hadn’t survived the past twenty years for one reason or another, Seth had told him. Any one of them could be a believable accomplice; most purebloods didn’t distinguish between “good” or “bad” realmless.
The crowd dispersed amongst loud grumblings of disgust and disbelief. Lee made it back to his cave in record time and didn’t care who noticed. It only made his story more plausible. He had to do this right. He had to convince all the elders, and he knew of only one way to do that.
Aidan had returned home with Aaron to donate a vial of blood to Abby for the purposes of the new spell. He sensed the lady seer was closer than anyone to finding something useful, so he waited … and waited … and waited. He did nothing but stare at Abby, who was staring at the map as if willing it to speak to her.
“Here!” Abby stabbed a finger into the map. “In the United States … in Colorado.”
“You have an exact location?” Cara asked
as she and Aidan went to Abby’s side.
“No, but I can narrow it to an area of a few miles.” Abby squinted at the fine veins of the map, seeing beyond the print with her mind’s eye. She waved her free hand toward the correspondence box on Aidan’s desk. The box lit up, and the Earthen coordinates scripted in midair just above it.
“Have we any known portals near there?” Aidan called to his son.
Aaron had already summoned the relevant charts into his hands. “Fairly close, yes. We would be less than an hour away by car.”
They could transfer directly to the center of the area Abby gave them, but that was risky. An established point of entry—one that had been recently evaluated and deemed suitable for transferring to and from the realm with minimal threat of being discovered—was preferred. Aidan wasn’t concerned about obtaining a vehicle, if they needed one. It was late evening where they were going. He and Aaron could borrow a car from a nearby dealership, secure his daughter, and return it before leaving the realm.
“We must tread carefully here,” Cara cautioned. “We cannot just steal her away in the middle of the night.”
Aidan’s head snapped up at that. “Why not?!”
Abby and Serena quietly escorted Wisp out of the room.
“Aside from the rules—”
“I will have full support from the council for this within minutes.”
“—we have to consider her family,” Cara continued as though she hadn’t been interrupted, “and her friends.”
“We are her family.”
“Humans raised our daughter,” Cara said, “and we have yet to identify the realmless who is responsible. They might well pose a threat to those we leave behind.”
“She is right,” Aaron voiced with some reluctance. “We have a duty to protect whoever cared for her, and if we rush into this, we may never learn who was involved.”
Aidan bit back his frustration. His need to bring his daughter safely home vied with the logic his wife and son were offering. He knew they were right, though.
Cara placed a hand on his chest. “It is hurting me too, but after all this time, we must do this right.”
“Fine. But we start now.”
Chapter Seven
Mania was an old industrial building turned popular nightclub, located off an underpass of the highway just outside Mountain Springs. The interior sported a couple dozen bistro-sized tables between the stage and the bar. A cement pad painted black, intended to be a dance floor, lay off to one side, but people danced everywhere.
The club was open to patrons twenty-one and up. Nikki’s date, Tad, was here legally, but Chloe was only twenty, and Nikki was nineteen. Nikki had been using the same fake ID since she was seventeen and was so poised and confident that no one ever questioned her. Chloe didn’t have a fake ID, but Nikki managed to get her in anyway. Neither Chloe nor Nikki were big drinkers, but Nikki wanted to be where the action was.
Top-forty remixes surged through the speakers, and laser-like lights illuminated the young, trendy crowd. Boys in designer jeans sipped beer and watched the scantily clad girls dance with their friends. Nikki looked almost over-dressed by comparison, wearing a halter top in her signature electric blue and stretchy black capri pants, but she always fit in.
Chloe looked down at her modest outfit. Tonight, she had borrowed a shimmery sleeveless top that Nikki would spill out of but fit Chloe respectably. The top went well with the soft, fitted black skirt that fell just below the knee, and the skirt went well with the only pair of black flats she owned. She didn’t do heels.
Chloe told herself that going out would be good for her. She took the time to curl her hair and apply make-up. She even let Nikki add a light sparkle eyeshadow to the corners of her eyes.
“Tad, look at her eyes in these lights!”
Tad leaned in and did a double take as he extended Chloe a light beer. Nikki laughed, taking the vanilla-vodka-cola from her date. “Crazy, right?”
Chloe shook her head at Nikki. She brought the beer to her sheer glossed lips only to have the drink yanked from her. She blinked back at Ritt, who held the bottle in one hand in an almost accusatory gesture. Chloe had never seen him this casual before, dressed in black jeans and a white raglan tee. His dark eyes glimmered with a dangerous intensity.
“Who the hell are you?” Nikki demanded, sliding in front of Chloe defensively.
“I’m an adult,” Ritt replied to Nikki, his eyes riveted to Chloe’s, beyond Nikki’s shoulder, “and she’s a minor.”
“She was holding it for me,” Nikki asserted. “I’m twenty-one.”
Chloe stepped around her friend and placed a hand on Ritt’s elbow to lead him away. “He’s not a cop.”
That’s him? Nikki mouthed at Chloe.
Chloe nodded back at Nikki as the crowd filled in between them. Ritt let her pull him to the outer edge of the room, to the corner furthest from the booming speakers.
“Your eyes look … supernatural,” he commented before switching to interrogation mode. “What are you doing here? And drinking? Shouldn’t you be studying for finals?”
Chloe was taken aback. Ritt was never angry over anything. The day he had asked her about her extension at the center, he had been tense and concerned, not angry. But this was unmistakably anger, and it was directed at Chloe.
“I’m done with finals.” Ritt’s eyes narrowed further at that, and Chloe found herself nervously clearing her throat. “Were you looking for me?”
“No, this is exactly the kind of place I like to hang out,” he returned dryly.
He did come here looking for her. And that fact, despite all her regrets, thrilled Chloe to her toes. “Why?”
“Why?” Ritt’s sharp gaze targeted her.
Her heart skipped a beat. She supposed she did know why. If all Ritt had wanted from her was sex, he already had that. He could walk away with a clear conscience and never hear from her again. But he wanted something more, like Chloe did, and that was why he was here.
Ritt’s chocolaty eyes searched hers, reading her as though her thoughts had been printed plainly across her face. She could feel his anger lessen to mere irritation. He set a hand on her hip and brought his head close to hers. “I know you know why. I’m not going anywhere until we figure this out between us.”
And just like that, the butterflies took flight in her belly. Her heart pounded in her chest. She didn’t know how he did that. Chloe’s brain and body were at war. Her body was prepared to melt into his arms, but her brain was resistant. “I just wish we had figured it out first.”
“I do, too,” Ritt admitted. “And I’m sorry, Chloe. I am. You deserved a gentleman. You deserved a perfect, nothing to regret first time.”
She let her head drop to his chest, and his arms closed around her. “I don’t blame you.”
“No?”
Chloe shook her head against him.
“Then why shut me out?”
“The last thing you said to me … I thought you were mad, and I just couldn’t face you. And then the more I thought on it, the worse I felt.”
“I was mad; I wouldn’t have let things happen like that between us if I had known I was your first. But I shouldn’t have said that to you.” Chloe sighed in his arms, and Ritt admonished lightly, “If you had answered my calls, I would have made you feel better.”
She nodded. “I feel better now.”
Actually, she felt better than better. There in Ritt’s arms, the anxiety and uncertainty drifted away, and all was right in her world again. Soul mate. Maybe he was … it would explain how she felt when he was near.
Thunder rumbled outside, echoing loudly enough to be heard above the noisy patrons in the high, tin-plated ceiling of the bar. She stepped away from Ritt, seized by a feeling that she was being watched. She scanned the room, but no one was looking their direction. Ritt also seemed on high alert, searching the club.
Nikki emerged from the crowd then, stepping between Chloe and Ritt. Her bestie was, of course, w
atching over her and homed in on the sudden shift of mood. But it wasn’t Nikki’s watchfulness that Chloe was sensing. It was something else.
“You OK?” Nikki asked her, ignoring Ritt.
Chloe didn’t answer right away, she and Ritt silently assessing each other. Knowing he felt it, too, made it all the more real. Nikki seemed to feel nothing but uber-protective over her friend.
Someone stumbled into Chloe and then wheeled back, leaning a beefy forearm on Nikki’s shoulder. “Whoa! Those contacts are sick under these lights.”
Nikki shoved his arm off of her and moved beside Chloe. He lifted his cell phone to snap their picture. Ritt knocked the device out of his hand.
“Bro! My cell!” The guy crouched down and bumbled his way through a sea of knees to find his phone.
Nikki turned from that pitiful display and repeated her question. “Chlo? You OK?”
“I want to go. Ritt will take me home.”
“Are you sure? We can take you,” Nikki offered.
“It’s OK. I’ve got her,” Ritt interjected.
Nikki continued to ignore him, looking expectantly to Chloe, who had to laugh. “No, it’s fine. You stay with Tad. I’ll see you in the morning?”
“Yeah—call me if your ride flakes out.”
“I’m standing right here,” Ritt said.
“OK.” Chloe grinned back at her impossible friend and held out her fist. “No tequila.”
“No tequila.” Nikki bumped her fist into Chloe’s and was off without a backwards glance.
“No tequila?” Ritt prompted.
“Bad experience for both of us. You don’t want to know.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” Ritt steered them out of the building.
Outside the club, the feeling was no less intense. Chloe looked over her shoulder. She felt as if someone was coming up behind them, but no one was there. Ritt also looked about, noticeably agitated. “We should go.”
