Hexed (The Gwen Sparks Series Book 4)

by Nelson, Stephanie

  I stared down at her and, before I could think about what I was doing, my arms were pulling her against my chest. I held her tightly, one hand on the small of her back and one hand cupping the back of her head. Someone was going to try to take her from me again. Whoever it was, they had better pray I did not find them first.

  “You’re scaring me,” Gwen said. “What is going on?”

  I couldn’t tell her the truth, not until I found a way to fix what I had done. She wouldn’t understand, not now that she couldn’t even remember that day. I told her in New Orleans what I had done, but I also assured her that it wouldn’t have any serious repercussions. At the time, I believed that.

  “Nothing,” I told her. “I was just thinking about the unbalanced energy. I think I may know how to fix it.” It made me sick how easily the lie fell from my lips.

  “Ms. Willow just told us that I wouldn’t get my memories back and that someone hired her to hex me, and you’re thinking about the energy imbalance?” She ripped herself out of my arms and took a few steps to put space between us. I would let her be pissed at me for this because I knew if she knew the truth, she might hate me.

  “It’s nice to see where your priorities are,” she said, turning to face me. “I don’t get you, Dorian. One minute we’re discussing my problem, and the next you either disappear or start thinking about something else. I hate that I have to depend on you and Fiona to fix me, but you guys are my only hope, if I even have one.” Her shoulders sagged, and she crossed her arms. “I just need to know you’re taking this serious.”

  I moved toward her, and she tensed, but I didn’t stop until we were so close that our shoes touched. The anger contorting her face smoothed while she looked up at me.

  “There is nothing in this world I take more seriously than you.” I fingered a stray strand of her hair, wrapping it around my index finger. “You, cupcake, are mine, and I take that very seriously.” I dropped the stray strand and slid my hand along her neck until all of my fingers were tangled in her ebony hair. Leaning down, I brought our mouths together and captured her bottom lip. At first she didn’t respond, but when my tongue caressed a path along the seam of her lips, her jaw slackened and willingly invited my tongue into her mouth. I groaned at the connection, my grip on her hair tightening as I wrapped an arm around her waist to draw her into me. Her breasts pressed against my front and made me want to rip our clothes off so that I could feel her skin against mine. I wanted to feel her hot breath against my lips as I filled her, hear her wanting moans as I drove into her hard and fast. I wanted to fuck her into oblivion only to bring her back and fuck her again. But none of that could happen, not when the truth of what I had done weighed on my chest, not when she may hate me after finding out that I had ruined everything and had no clue how to fix it—how to fix her.

  I HAD BEEN listening to Fiona recount our past for the last two hours. She spoke with Ms. Ozland and learned that spells revolving around the mind were tricky and dangerous. There were spells to take me back in time so that I could see a memory, but since I couldn’t remember anything, someone who shared it with me would have to be with me. Ms. Ozland suggested we try it as a last resort, and that my best chance at regaining my memories was through doing things I usually did in my everyday life. Fiona thought if she told me enough stories about our life and myself that something may click and surface. So far, nada.

  While I couldn’t remember the stories she told me, that didn’t mean I wasn’t enjoying hearing them. Fiona told me one where I demonstrated a green thumb potion for a customer at my shop and the plant ended up shooting through my roof. Magic was amazing and it bummed me out that I couldn’t remember it. Though Ms. Willow didn’t have faith that I would regain my mind … I did. I decided to stick to the bright side instead of lose myself to the darkness of negativity. Besides, why would I listen to Ms. Willow?

  As Fiona started another story, one revolving around a love potion gone awry, I thought about Dorian. I knew he knew something and wasn’t telling me. What I didn’t know was why. I gripped my bottom lip between my pointer finger and thumb, pulling slightly as I relived that kiss in my bedroom. It had been powerful. After it was over, he took a deep breath and left me standing in my room staring after him. Currently, he stood in the kitchen with his cell phone pressed to his ear. He had one hand against the countertop and stood half leaned over as he spoke in hushed tones to someone.

  “Are you listening, Gwen?” Fiona asked. “Any of this ringing any bells?”

  I snapped my attention back to her and shook my head. “No, sorry.”

  Fiona’s shoulders fell, along with her face. “We could go to your shop,” she suggested. “We’ll grab lunch and head over there. You spent most of your time at that place. Maybe it’ll knock something loose.”

  As we stood up, I asked, “Where’s Ethan? Maybe he figured something out.” He was supposed to be searching for spells and information regarding memory loss while we went down to the FPD. That was over three hours ago, and I still hadn’t seen him.

  Fiona chewed her lip and looked away from me. “Don’t be mad but…he contacted the NAWC.” I knew by her nervousness that I should have reacted in shock or anger, but since I didn’t remember the NAWC, I just stared at her with uncertainty.

  “Okay?” I said, arching my eyebrows. “They’re our government, right? I mean, the witches’ government.” Even after everything I learned and saw, I still felt silly saying witches and believing I was one.

  “Did I hear you right?” Dorian asked. “That little khaki-wearing douchebag ran to the NAWC to tattletale? Man, is he going to be pissed when I take his life before he can cash in all those brownie points.”

  Fiona placed her hands on her hips and glared at Dorian. “Big surprise,” she snapped, “something doesn’t go your way and you threaten a life. You don’t like something, you steal a soul.” She stalked toward Dorian and poked a finger in his direction. “Call him a tattletale all you want, but you’re the one acting like a bully.”

  “I’m trying to protect Gwen—your best friend. The NAWC has done nothing but screw her over and that little brownnoser you call your boyfriend just ran back to them to tattle. Besides, Micah already contacted them and they haven’t called back with a solution.”

  Fiona and Dorian glared at each other while I tried to anticipate their next moves. I silently prayed that Dorian wouldn’t hurt Fiona.

  “Ethan is just trying to help,” Fiona shot back. “He didn’t know Micah already contacted the NAWC. They have the best spell casters there and, when he couldn’t find anything, he thought someone at the headquarters would know how to fix Gwen.” She crossed her arms and cocked a hip. “He didn’t run to them to tattletale; he went to find a solution for Gwen. Do you really think I would be okay with him betraying my best friend?”

  Dorian shrugged. “It’s not like you’ve been there for her these last couple months, but I have. I am the one who watched over her while you guys stayed in Moon and Holly was scheming, while you were off with Ethan and enjoying yourself. I am the one who protected her from the rogues.” Dorian’s voice rose with each new sentence, his face hardening to marble. “I am the one who was here when you weren’t. I am the one who broke all my rules to save her ass.”

  My mouth fell open. “What do you mean: you broke all your rules? What rules?”

  Fiona’s body sagged, and she looked down at the floor, defeated. I would talk to her in a minute, but right then, I needed to know what Dorian meant.

  Dorian released a ragged breath. “We’ll discuss it later, when there’s not a possibility that it will make its way back to the NAWC.” He shot Fiona a glare, the ominous clouds within his sockets darkening to almost black.

  “Stop it,” I chided. “Fiona has done nothing but try to help me since she learned I lost my memories. She’s here spending her time trying to help me fix this.”

  “Of course she is,” Dorian retorted, “she’s probably feeding information to Ethan so that h
e can tell the NAWC.” He pointed a finger at Fiona and said, “If any of those bastards come for her, I’ll have their souls so fast they won’t even realize it until they’re wandering around in the realm of the dead. Think about that before you or Ethan sic the NAWC on Gwen. I am not someone you want to fuck with.”

  “Calm down, Dorian,” I said. “I know you think it’s your job to protect me, but it’s not.” When he began to speak, I held up my hand to stop him. “I appreciate you guys helping me figure out this memory thing, but beyond that, I’m responsible for myself. I may not remember our history, but I know you’re taking this boyfriend thing way too seriously—like to the point of being scary possessive.”

  Dorian rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. “You’re right. When it comes to you, I lose my fucking head. I don’t mean to and I don’t want to, but since meeting you it’s been one thing after another, and I keep wondering when things are going to give.” He took a moment to think. “All of this is my fault, Gwen. Maybe that’s why I’m so on edge. This time I can’t point fingers at anyone but myself, and that pisses me off.”

  I took a step toward him. “How is this your fault?” Dorian’s eyes shifted and I knew he was looking past me to where Fiona stood. “She’s not going to tell anyone,” I told him.

  “Gwen,” Dorian breathed, coming toward me. He clasped my hands and stared down at his thumbs as they caressed a path across my skin. “I think I’m the reason this is happening. I think…” He took a ragged breath and released my hands. “I think this has something to do with what I did after the rogue attacked you.”

  I wrapped my arms around my body, needing some sort of security. “I’m not even going to ask what a rogue is because I think I get the gist of it, but what could you have done that was so bad that it would cause me to lose my memories?”

  Dorian shook his head, just a slight movement that made me think he was fighting with his subconscious on whether he should finish his confession. Taking a step forward, I gripped his hand and drew his attention toward me.

  “Tell me, please.” Was the man before me, my supposed boyfriend, really to blame for my predicament? A wave of nervous anxiousness settled itself in the pit of my stomach as I waited for him to reply.

  “The rogue killed you, Gwen,” Dorian said. I heard Fiona gasp behind me, and her soft footsteps as she moved toward me. My eyes were locked on Dorian and the tightness of his jaw.

  “I didn’t get there in time,” he continued. “I was too late. I have transported countless souls, but I couldn’t watch yours fade away. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t let you go.”

  Out of my peripheral, I saw Fiona move to stand beside me but I couldn’t look away from Dorian. The weight of what he had said was slowly sinking in and immobilizing me. I was frozen with this knowledge. My brain added up what he said, and the conclusion shook me to my core. This was the rule he had mentioned breaking.

  “You didn’t,” Fiona breathed with disbelief.

  “You replaced my soul, didn’t you?” I asked him. “As the Angel of Death, you’re able to take souls, which means you can also replace them. Only, you’re not supposed to, are you?”

  “It was as though I didn’t have a choice,” Dorian admitted. “I don’t know why I did it, Gwen. In all my existence I’ve never returned an expired soul before.” Dorian stared at the floor for a long moment, his jaw tightening. “The fucked up thing is that even if I had a redo, I wouldn’t change a thing.” His head lifted and my eyes met smoky clouds. “I just couldn’t accept your death.”

  I thought I heard Fiona sigh beside me, just a slight wispy breath falling from her lips, but I chose to ignore it. Dorian and I stared at one another for a long moment before the phone rang. I jumped at the sudden noise, breaking my gaze from Dorian. Fiona rushed over to answer the annoying intruder.

  “Hello?” She cupped a hand over the receiver and whispered, “It’s Micah.”

  “No, Ms. Ozland said memory spells are tricky and that it was dangerous to just have her drink any ol’ potion. She suggested we coax her memories back by helping Gwen remember daily routines and recounting her life back to her.” There was a long silence as Fiona listened to Micah speak. Dorian and I stood beside each other, our bodies tense and my emotions totally wrecked.

  “Ethan is with the NAWC right now,” Fiona replied, and I heard Dorian snort beside me. “They know about the problem and probably haven’t called you back because they wish to not include a werewolf in our business, no offence.”

  “Yes, I know you’re a Detective, Micah,” Fiona shook her head. “What do you expect me to do? If the NAWC doesn’t wish to speak to you, nothing I can do will change that.”

  “Oh, for the love of the Goddess,” Fiona said in exasperation. “I will call Ethan and see if he can talk some sense into them. Seeing as how I’m here in Flora, and not with the NAWC, it’s the best I can do. Bye.” She hung up the phone and spun around to face us with her arms crossed. The corners of her mouth were turned down in either worry or annoyance, I wasn’t sure.

  “What was that all about?”

  “Micah is freaking out because the NAWC hasn’t called him back and supposedly things are getting worse and weirder, whatever that means.”

  “It is a little odd that the NAWC hasn’t responded yet,” Dorian said. “Maybe we should head into town to see what’s going on.”

  “I’m sure they’ve looked into it already,” Fiona responded, “but I think checking it out is a good idea.”

  “I’m game,” I told them, and then stabbed a finger in Dorian’s direction. “This conversation is not done.”

  “Got it,” Dorian remarked.

  WE DROVE THROUGH Flora in a red Jeep that Dorian informed me was mine. He drove while I sat in the passenger seat and Fiona sat in the back. We had just turned down Main Street and had yet to see anything out of the ordinary. I don’t know what we were expecting to see, but from how Micah reacted on the phone, I assumed the town would be in utter hysteria.

  “What the hell?” Dorian pulled over to the side of the road and parked the car. Leaning toward the steering wheel, he stared out the windshield.

  “What?” Fiona and I said in unison.

  “The bakery is gone.” Dorian got out of the car, slamming the door behind him. Fiona and I looked at each other, shrugged, and exited the car too.

  “The bakery where I lost my memories?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Dorian replied, walking closer to the building where it had been. It was now just an empty storefront with a ‘for sale’ sign in the window. Fiona and I peered through the window to find it bare inside.

  “That is weird,” Fiona admitted and I agreed. Even if by some chance Ms. Willow closed the shop, there was no way she could have had it cleaned out that fast, or maybe she could.

  “Could she have used magic to move out?” I asked, feeling a little silly for the suggestion.

  “Not from a jail cell,” Fiona answered. “And why would she when the store just opened?”

  “I hope that was rhetorical,” I said, “because I have no clue how people operate in Flora.” I wanted to remember this quirky little town, remember all of my experiences while living in it. What I didn’t want was to go down the rabbit hole further, and it seemed that’s where we were headed. The worried expressions on Fiona and Dorian’s faces warned me that they were troubled by this news. And, while I thought it was odd that a new shop would close up so fast, I couldn’t connect with the severity of the situation. What did it mean? Why would Ms. Willow have a grand opening one night and then close a few days later? I stopped processing my thoughts and gasped.

  “I remember.” I said this to no one in particular, but I knew Dorian and Fiona would hear me. “I remember her mentioning it was her grand opening.”

  “That’s right,” Dorian urged, taking a step toward me. I didn’t know if he was waiting for all my other memories to surface, but I couldn’t concentrate on them when he watched me like a science experimen
t.

  I shrugged and threw my hands out in front of me. “That’s it, that’s all I remember.”

  A hint of a smile ghosted across Dorian’s mouth before it disappeared. “That’s good.”

  I found myself smiling, that little bubble of hope growing tenfold with the resurfacing of the memory. In my mind, I could picture Ms. Willow greeting me as I came into the bakery and announcing that it was the store’s grand opening. Then the scene faded into black and static noise spiraled through my head.

  “Isn’t that Jillian?” Fiona asked.

  I was still staring at the storefront and spun around when I noticed Fiona faced the street. She pointed to a young woman with short blonde hair. She stood on the other side of the road, her arms outstretched and her head tilted back as through relishing in the warmth of the sun.

  “Who’s Jillian?” Dorian questioned. I half smiled because that was exactly what I had been thinking.

  “Gwen hired her to help Penny out with the shop,” Fiona explained. “She’s a vampire.”

  I looked back at the girl, taking in the fact that the sun was high in the sky and she stood beneath it without fear. “Vampires and sunlight is a bad thing, right?” I asked.

  “Should be,” Fiona said. “But that man with the hole in his chest, the one Micah told us about, he was a vampire. They said he walked in the sun as well.”

  “It’s the energy being off balance,” Dorian added. “It has to be. Micah mentioned that no one could die, which would explain why Jillian isn’t a pile of ash right now.”

  I tipped my head up to stare at Dorian. “Is this because of me, of what you did?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Maybe, I don’t know.”

  Just then, the young woman’s head snapped back down. A big smile stretched her cheeks wide, and as her eyes opened, they connected with the three of us. I shrieked and jumped back when she appeared in front of me. One minute she was across the street, and the next she was a foot away from me. Dorian’s arm came around my shoulders to steady my jumpy feet.