by Erin Hayes
A human, Jenkins had been her family’s familiar since her grandfather was a kid in high school. If he took part in any of the politics that seemed to run this place, he never let it show. He was above all of that and, more over, a smiling face when she needed one.
“Back to the salt mine?” he asked, grinning at her.
“I think I already miss the farm,” Julia answered.
“And the farm, if it’s anything like this old house, misses you too I’m sure.” He nodded at her. “Good luck in there, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat.
“Thank you, Jenkins. Something tells me I’m going to need it.”
He pulled the door open and motioned for her to enter.
She looked in at that black abyss, the only thing that could be seen from outside of the sanctum, and thought about the past.
The world had been black for her for too long before she left here. And just coming back here made her think it was coming back again.
Still, she had a job to do. Whether she left it or not, she was part of this family. Part of this coven. And that didn’t leave her much of a choice.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward in the whoosh of magic and wind that always came with breaching the sanctum.
A bright flash accompanied the whoosh, and as her eyes refocused, she remembered all of the things she had left behind.
The inner sanctum of the Fairweather coven—the Moon Coven, as they had been known to the natives of the new world when they landed here—was a spacious stone circle that turned with the lunar cycle.
Though it was indoors, it held to no specific scenery. Aside from the shape and stone nature, the sanctum could, and often did, change its appearance at a whim.
The one constant: it was always night.
Tonight, Julia stepped into a moonlit garden that smelled of roses every bit as strongly as Cassandra ever had. Her entire family—the surviving ones, anyway—sat around an ancient wooden table. They looked to her as she appeared before them, and she knew why.
The transfer could prove disorienting for those who weren’t accustomed to it. And, given that she hadn’t done it in well over a year, it was having a sickening effect.
Cassandra stood from behind the table. “Are you okay, Julia?”
“I’m fine.” She waved her off and somehow managed to keep down the cucumber sandwich she’d had for lunch. “I’m just not used to it yet.”
Strange how she needed to readjust to something she had been doing since she was a child. It was almost as if her body was trying to keep her from this place. Unfortunately, she couldn’t afford to heed that feeling.
Grandfather nodded from the head of the table. “You’ll adjust soon enough. Now take a seat.”
The table, like the rest of the room, turned with the moon. So, as she approached it, she had to aim for where she knew her chair would be. Luckily, she had been doing that since she was a kid.
“I’m so glad you decided to wash your hair,” Mother said from beside her, looking Julia over with that judging eye of hers. “Not that I was going to mention it, but it looked sort of ratty in the cab.”
“I had been on a plane for six hours.”
“And Moses was in the desert for forty years. That’s no reason to let your rough end drag,” she answered, shooting Julia a wink. “Remember what your mother always says. Act like someone’s always watching, because that’s the only way they ever will.”
Julia sighed audibly. She had almost forgotten how exhausting her mother was.
Uncle Jasper clasped his hands in front of him, resting his forearms on the table. “Father, if there are no more prodigal children to wait on, I for one would like to know what was important enough to get the entire coven together at a moment’s notice.”
Julia almost asked where Cass’s mom was, but then she remembered. Even though Aunt Darien had been married to Jasper since well before Julia was born, she wasn’t blood. And no one without the blood was allowed inside the sanctum, even if they did happen to be family.
Grandfather gave Jasper a withering look, betraying every bit of authority he held as the head of the Moon Coven.
“I’ll speak when I’m damn well ready, son. Just as I always have. And I can promise you that I would not have been ready without that one.” He pointed to Julia. “Prodigal or not.”
That should have filled her with pride. Instead, it only sent dread thrumming through her veins. Whatever was going on here, it was no doubt a big deal. And if they wanted Julia here, it could only mean they wanted something from her. Unfortunately, she just didn’t have it to give. Whatever it was.
She was going to have to be polite to her grandfather about it though. He deserved at least that much.
“Grandfather,” Julia said, her eyes almost watering at the sight of him. “You know I adore you, and that I would do and give anything for you and for this family. But I made it clear that I wasn’t back here for good. I’m here because you asked me to come, and I owe you that much.” She bit her lip. “I’m afraid that, beyond that, I’m not sure how much more use I can be to you.”
Jasper rolled his eyes. “Surprise, surprise.”
“Shut your fool mouth, Jasper,” Mother said, pursing her lips. “No one expects you to do more than you can. We all know you’re just here out of a sense of ceremony. Well, that and the open bar.”
“Enough!” Grandfather said, standing and striking the wooden table in mid spin.
As had been the case since Julia was a very young girl, when Grandfather spoke, everyone listened.
Seconds after the room fell into silence, Grandfather looked at her. “I understand things have been difficult for you, and that perhaps you felt more at home in those barnyards or whatever hole in the Midwest you ran off to. But the truth is, that was not your home. This is.”
Jasper chuckled. “To be fair, Father, given that Celeste here married a cornfed roughnecker, that farm is her home. At least partly.”
“Son—” Grandfather leaned in. “—unless you’re vying on spending the rest of this meeting without the use of your tongue, I suggest you keep it still.”
Jasper leaned back, pressing his lips together.
“As I was saying,” Grandfather continued. “This is your home, Julia. This coven is in your blood. And it’s good blood, Julia. It’s Fairweather blood. That isn’t the sort of thing you turn your back on, especially in times like these.”
“Times like what, exactly?” Cassandra asked, her eyes darting from Julia to him.
His expression darkened, and Julia knew what he was about to say would be grim. She never imagined it would be so ominous, though. “I went to one of the oracles last week.”
“An oracle?” Mother asked. “What on earth would possess you to visit one of those filthy gypsies?”
“Because those filthy gypsies are the only beings in the world gifted with the Sight.” He closed his eyes a moment and sighed. “And they are never wrong,” he added, reopening his eyes. “Regardless of how much we wish they might be.”
“You don’t need the Sight, Grandfather,” Cassandra said. “We make our own future, regardless of the whims of fate. We always have.”
“Have I failed all of you so completely?” Grandfather asked, shaking his head.
“What is it?” Julia asked. She knew better than to question either Grandfather or fate. Both could bite back. “What did she tell you?”
“Many things,” he answered. “But the only thing of any weight—the reason I’ve gathered everyone tonight—is that I won’t live to see the New Year.”
Julia’s heart might as well have dropped clear out of her chest, leaving her a hollow husk of a thing.
“No,” she said. “That’s not…” She swallowed hard. “She lies.”
“My dear, you know better than that,” Grandfather said.
“This cannot stand,” Jasper said, despite Grandfather’s earlier warning. “We have to fight this.”
“Have I really raised such a fool
ish boy? Would you fight death, Son? It is not evil. It does no wrong. What is happening to me is natural, and we cannot change the natural law.”
Silence fell over the room again, this time for an entirely different and much darker reason.
“There is, of course, the matter of succession,” Grandfather continued. “As you know, the feud with the Blackwoods still rages. I had hoped to extinguish them in my lifetime, but that seems unlikely now. We need to look to the future of the coven, to ensure our survival.”
“Our survival?” Julia asked, narrowing her eyes. Certainly he didn’t mean to imply that the Blackwoods could wipe out the Fairweathers. Moon Coven was too powerful for that. Besides, Roman was a Blackwood. And any line that could produce someone like him couldn’t be all bad.
“The oracle spoke of dark times, of this feud ending and two lines becoming but one,” he said. “I won’t be alive to see it, but this feud ends with the extinction of one of us. I need to make sure that isn’t us.”
Jasper clenched his jaw. “What do you mean to do, Father?”
“As you know, the succession must skip a generation, leaving you and your sister unable to inherit my role as head.”
Cassandra sat up straighter. Everyone knew what was going to happen. This was hers. She had been training for it her entire life. And now she was about to watch all that training pay off.
Julia leaned back, knowing she wouldn’t be the star of this show. And feeling just fine about that.
“You’re going to name your successor today?” Cassandra asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
“I am,” Grandfather said. “And I want it to be Julia.”
Julia opened her mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. This was insane. She just got back. She hadn’t even been around for the last year and a half and had no idea what the political landscape was like. She didn’t have the training, and what was more, she didn’t care.
This whole ‘us vs them’ thing with the Blackwoods had always struck her as more than a little petty. The way she saw it, she hadn’t started this feud, and she didn’t want any part of it. Especially when it meant going against Roman.
Turned out she didn’t need to speak though, because before she could form a coherent sentence, Cassandra was expressing opinions of her own.
She stood, scowling, her face far from the mask of composure Julia was used to. “You can’t be serious!”
This sort of insolence didn’t sit well with Grandfather. Julia could tell from the look on his face and the fact that the table began turning a tick or two quicker.
“Does this strike you as the sort of thing I might be inclined to joke about, Cassandra?” he asked with fervent eyes.
One might think her reaction would be hurtful. She was, after all, insinuating that Julia wasn’t good enough to take the reins of the family business.
But she wasn’t wrong.
Cassandra had lived her entire life in pursuit of this goal. Sleepless nights, long evenings, more practice than Julia had ever dreamed imaginable; it all added up to one thing: Cassandra was the right person for this job.
Julia stood, though her posture was far less confrontational than Cassandra’s. Gently, she offered, “Under normal circumstances, I would never question your decision making, Grandfather. But we’re in a tumultuous time. You said so yourself. Why would you choose me, a witch with less training and, frankly, less focus than your other option?”
“Precisely because we live in such a time, Julia,” he answered. “The Blackwoods are mobilizing their forces. Word on the street is that their eldest son is even training in the dark magic of their ancestors.”
“What?” Her heart dropped, but she bit back the pain, trying not to betray how much she really cared about this. “Roman is practicing dark magic?”
Grandfather glared at her. She shouldn’t have used his given name. That implied at least some level of intimacy. Still, what could she do? Dark magic was the most dangerous energy in the entire world. Even those practiced in it could find themselves killed by the smallest misuse.
The idea that Roman was putting himself at that sort of risk was enough to make her sick.
“I mean, is he the oldest?” she added, trying to cover her tracks.
“I believe so,” Grandfather said, eyes still narrowed. “And it’s more than a little troubling. The Blackwoods earned their name on death, destruction, and the anguish of others, primarily through the use of dark magic. If that is successfully reintroduced into their lineage, then we’ll need an equally potent rebuttal.” He looked at Julia. “You’ve always been a natural, Julia. The ancestors themselves even think so.”
“The ancestors mumble. They could be saying anything. They could be telling me to tell you to pick Cassandra. Hell, they probably are. She’s infinitely more qualified than me.”
“Qualifications aren’t the only things that matter,” he shot back, his face tight.
“What about me?” Julia asked, her voice breaking. “What about what I want? Does that matter?” She took a deep breath. “When I was a little girl, you told me that I could be whatever I wanted. You said that I was born to be happy. What’s the use in having these abilities if you can’t use them to live the life you want? That’s what you told me.”
“I remember what I said, Julia. But times are different now.”
“I don’t want this, Grandfather.” Julia’s throat pinched with tears. “I know you think I’m strong enough, and maybe the ancestors do, too. But I’m not. You saw what happened to me last year. You watched me…fall apart.” She blinked away the stinging in her eyes. “I never thought I would be happy again after that, but I was. It took a while, but I finally came to be at peace with who I was, with what I had done. I know this might be disappointing to hear, and goddess knows it’s certainly disappointing to say. But I’m not right for this. And I don’t want to be.”
He looked at her for a long moment before finally sitting back down. “If that is your wish, then I will comply with it.”
Julia looked over at Cassandra, who was still scowling but had resigned back to sitting. At least there would be a person at the helm who wouldn’t drive the entire coven into the ground.
“But you will stay here long enough to ensure the transition of power goes smoothly after my death,” Grandfather continued. “Personal wants aside, family business must be taken care of above all things. It is our way, and we must abide by that.”
“Yes, sir,” Julia answered, sitting herself.
The rest of the meeting went on about property lines, magical supplies, and various importing. But Julia couldn’t focus on any of that.
All she could think about was Roman. If he really was putting himself in danger, she needed to see him. And she needed to do it now.
Chapter Four
Roman splashed his face with cold water and, when that didn’t work, finally just ran his whole damn head under the sink.
Tapping into that dark stuff always took it out of him, ever since the first time Dad forced it on him. The vodka probably didn’t help things, either.
His head was spinning, his body hurt, and more than that, his heart felt like it was about to pack up and move out.
And he knew why. It had nothing to do with dark magic and dry liquor and everything to do with a girl.
God, that sounded pathetic, like he was some lovesick high school freshman and not one of the most sought after adult men in whole freaking state.
He was Roman Blackwood. He was the badass warlock of Savannah. And even if he hadn’t been, he was still rich, sexy as hell, and better in bed than Egyptian cotton. So why the hell was he thinking about her so much?
His phone rang. He didn’t even need to look at it to know who it was. It was 2:30 in the morning on a Saturday. It could only be one person.
“Meredith,” he said, answering the phone and taking another swig of vodka. If he was gonna feel like crap, at least he could be drunk for it. “What’s up, sexy?”
&n
bsp; She purred on the other end, and he could practically see her there. She was sitting in her room, red hair and black lace as she had been roughly once a month for the last year or so.
His mortal booty call. What could he say? He was a weak man.
Like every weekend for the last two months, she hemmed and hawed her way into asking him to come over.
More times than not, he said yes. After all, what did he have to lose?
But tonight was different. He didn’t feel like the drive across town. He didn’t feel like making small talk long enough for Meredith to pretend that what they were doing was more than sex. And, as crazy as it sounded, he didn’t feel like sex. At least not with her.
“Maybe next time, babe,” he said and hung up before she could answer.
Tossing his phone on the counter, he thought about the night, and all the nights that had led up to it.
He should have been living in the Blackwood mansion. That’s where Adam and the rest of the family were. But he had never been like the rest of the family and, more than that, he wanted his own space.
This damn apartment was supposed to be a new beginning. After all, he bought it for her, because she liked the view.
But she left, it ended, and now this place was a prison—a reminder of what he didn’t have, of what he would never have.
The doorbell rang, and he bristled.
“Who the hell?” he asked, killing the last of the vodka and walking to answer the door, not bothering to put a shirt on.
“If this is pizza, I’m not interested,” he said, pulling the door open.
His jaw tensed when he saw her. For the second time in a day, after a year and half of no contact, he was looking at Julia Fairweather. He wanted to scoop her into his arms. That feeling never really went away. Of course, he knew better than that.
“What the hell do you want?” he asked before he could stop himself.
She pushed him away before. It wouldn’t happen again.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she said, looking up at him with those eyes…those eyes that he had never been able to look at without having his defenses wilt like a goddamn flower.
