by Emma Carter
Spelled by Her Love
Twenty-four year old Lilly was the only witch in town and she planned to keep that a secret. Except when the vampire Prince, Sinn learned of her, he wanted to marry her so they could create a child together who would be more powerful than any one breed. When Lilly refused, Sinn kidnapped her younger sister, forcing Lilly to turn to Ralf for help.
Ralf was the infamous werewolf tracker/bounty hunter/assassin who was the best in his business. Lilly couldn’t afford not to use his services but found a chemistry between them as they tackled vampires to save her sister.
When she found herself falling for Ralf, she knew nothing would come of it. After all, there was one Ralf hated more than vampires and that was her kind. With the use of a stripping spell that removed her magic temporarily, so Ralf didn’t suspect her true nature, Lilly already knew their love was doomed. After all, she harbored a darker secret that was bound to be revealed sooner or later…
Copyright © 2018 Emma Carter All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems - except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews - without permission in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Table of Content
Chapter 1: Lilly
Chapter 2: Ralf
Chapter 3: Lilly
Chapter 4: Ralf
Chapter 5: Lilly
Chapter 6: Ralf
Chapter 7: Lilly
Chapter 8: Ralf
Chapter 9: Lilly
Chapter 10: Ralf
Chapter 11: Lilly
Chapter 12: Ralf
Chapter13:Lily
1
Lilly
“I swear to God, Anna,” I muttered to myself, ending the call as it went to voice mail. Still clinging to the hope that she hadn’t made it to the phone in time, I pressed redial. This time the phone didn’t ring any at all but went straight to voicemail. The little witch had turned off her phone.
With a grunt, I dropped my phone into my bag and weighed my options. The apartment was too far, and in my heels, it would take me well past thirty minutes before I was home. I could take a cab but that would be expensive as hell.
“Hey, you look stranded.”
I turned at the sound of the voice that came from behind and stifled a groan. Jeremy’s shift at the café had just ended as well and he was heading home, or so I assumed. He wasn’t a bad guy, and most girls would find his look appealing, but I found myself grimacing most times when he came around. He thought he was too slick and ended up being full of himself, especially since his uncle owned the coffee shop.
“My little sister borrowed my car and promised she would drop by at the end of my shift,” I said, my shoulders slumped. “I don’t even know why I listened to her. When has she ever been responsible?”
“Then why did you give her the car?”
Good question. “Because she just got her license and she wanted to show that she could be responsible enough for me to get her a car.”
He frowned. “With your salary, can you afford a second car?”
I bit my tongue in order to not tell him how much of his business was it if I could afford a second car or not. “Well, that doesn’t matter now because even if I can afford one, she’s not getting any.”
“Come on. I’ll give you a lift.”
I wished I could turn down his offer but in reality, I couldn’t. The little cash I had on me wouldn’t be able to pay a cab and the nearest ATM machine was still some miles away from the coffee shop.
“Thanks, Jeremy.”
He smiled, way too widely and went for his car which was parked at the side of the coffee shop. He drove his sleek black BMW up to the steps of the coffee shop and made a grand show of opening the passenger side of the door for me. I mumbled thanks, and wished I had a better offer. He wasn’t known for his tact when it came to flirting with me. The more I shot him down, the more insistent he became that we should go out together.
“So, it’s the weekend,” he commented, pulling into the light traffic. “Have any big plans?”
“Not really. Just to kill my sister.”
“Come on. Don’t be too hard on her. She’s just sixteen. I’m sure you stole your parents’ car at least once when you were that age.”
“Our parents were dead when I was that age,” I spoke candidly. “So, no, I didn’t get the opportunity to steal their car.” In reality, I didn’t get the opportunity to do much with them at all. They were taken from me way too soon and then I had to do a lot of growing up to fend for me and my sister. Living with an older aunt hadn’t helped much. Sure, we had a roof over our heads, but she didn’t bother with us much. I took care of the both of us.
“Oh, I’m sorry about that.”
I shrugged and peered out my side of the window. “It was a long time ago.”
“Hmm, I don’t know what I’d do without my parents.”
I snorted. His parents did everything for him. He’d dropped out of college and they’d insisted that he get a job and start acting like an adult. He had a new job alright but with his father’s brother. He still practically did nothing, and his parents still supported his expensive habits such as the car he drove.
“How about I take your mind off your troubles a little bit?” he asked and reached across the console to place a hand on my thigh. “We can go somewhere later and have something to eat, a little something to drink and you know, see where the night will lead.”
I peeled his hand away from my thigh. “I’d rather not.”
“Come on. When was the last time you had fun?”
“My idea of fun and yours are just not the same, Jeremy.”
He sighed and let it go. He drove the rest of the way in silence and I was relieved when we arrived at my apartment building on Anita Street. He drove to a stop at the entrance and the engine purred.
“Do you have some dude in your life already?” he asked just when I thought I’d be able to get away without further questions. “Is that the reason you’re always pushing me away?”
I thought about lying to him but sighed and turned to face him. “Look, Jeremy. You’re a great guy, I’m sure. I don’t have a boyfriend, but I just don’t think we’d be suitable together. I think you’d do better with someone else. We are too different.”
“But you know they say that opposites attract.”
I shook my head. “Don’t believe that. I’ll see you around.”
Before he could say anything else, I exited the car and gave him a little wave before heading inside the apartment building. I ignored the elevator and trudged up the stairs to the second floor, my anger mounting with each step. If I found Annie upstairs with some boy when I specifically told her I didn’t want any males in my apartment without my permission, we were going to have another fight.
At our apartment, I paused and shuffled around inside my handbag to get out the key. I needn’t have bothered. The door wasn’t locked. My anger doubled as I pushed the door open, wondering what I would find stolen. Our apartment building didn’t have any security detail, and anyone could walk in and out. No telling what some stranger would take from the apartment if they found the door open.
“Are you kidding me?” I cried, slamming the door behind me. The apartment was a mess. Chairs and furniture were overtur
ned. Pictures were overturned onto the floor, in addition to the books from the shelf I had in one corner. Yet, from what I could see there was nothing that was taken. This made me uneasy.
I picked my way through the mess, not even thinking to call the police because whoever went through the apartment had already left. Long time ago. I could feel the lingering presence with a hint of aggression but it was so faint. Whoever had ransacked the apartment had been full of anger. I walked through the hall to the kitchen and coughed from the pungent aroma of overturned potions. My vials!
With a wave of my hand, the hovering stench dissipated, and I was able to breathe again. I hurried over to the sink and found the overturned bottles of ready-made spells that I had mixed together. Reaching overhead, I opened the covers and realized all the vials were gone. Every single one of them. It had taken me close to a year to gather every kind I needed in the case of an emergency. I would have to start everything over from scratch, which included getting back ingredients, some of which took a long time before I could get my hands on them. Many of the potions had been carefully tailored to substitute ingredients I would no longer be able to find.
“My spell book!” I spun around and ran to my bedroom. I pushed the door open so hard it banged into the wall behind it. I zeroed in on the bed and slid beneath it. There was a false compartment at the bottom of the bed. I removed the keychain from my neck and slipped the key into the lock. I was shaking so badly at the prospect of losing my spell book that I didn’t catch the book in time and the spine hit me hard in the bridge of my nose. I groaned but removed the book, clutching my nose. It hurt like hell but the book was safe and that was the only thing that mattered. If I lost this book, I would have lost years of study and discoveries in spell casting.
I slithered from beneath the bed, still clutching the book. Who could have done this? Now that I was no longer worried about the book, I got an eyeful of my bedroom and it was just as ransacked as the living room and the kitchen. Still, nothing looked taken. Was it possible that whoever had searched the apartment was in fact searching for the tome of witch’s spells that my mother had handed down to me the night before she died?
I shivered at the possibility that I was being targeted for this book. Not many people knew that I existed. As far as I knew, I was the only surviving witch this side of the continent. I had hoped my sister Annie was a witch as well, but she had not come into her powers when she turned sixteen, the age when our magic was released. Centuries ago, a council of witches had chanted a spell for this to be the norm when mischievous kids used to misuse their magical abilities. The negative impact was that sometimes the kids who were born of magic turned sixteen and for some reason or another that no one was able to tell, they were not endowed with the gifts upon their sixteenth birthday.
The ringing of the telephone jerked me out of my musings. It reminded me that I hadn’t spoken to Annie in a while and now I was worried about where she could be. The phone rang off to voicemail.
“Come now, Lillian. We both know you are home. Why don’t you pick up the phone?”
I stiffened at the unexpected voice of Sinn that filled my bedroom. My heart skipped a beat then started a wild staccato rhythm in my chest. He was responsible for this. I just knew it. The dark vampire prince hadn’t taken kindly to my refusal of his marriage proposal. He was one of the very few who knew that I was a witch and wanted us to be joined so we could rule our hemisphere. I didn’t want to rule anywhere. I just wanted my own simple and normal life.
“Lilliaaaaaan,” he sang my name over the phone. “Hmm, I guess I was wrong to think you’d be interested to know where your sister is.”
“Annie?” I rushed to the phone and jerked the receiver off the hook, lifting to my ear. “You have Annie? Where the hell is she?”
He tutted. “Come now. Is that any way to greet your future husband?”
“I’ll pass,” I snarled into the phone. “And I don’t believe you have Annie either. You’re bluffing.”
“Really? Am I now?”
“Lill!” Annie’s sobs came to me over the receiver. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry Lill. I didn’t know who he was.”
“Annie, where are you?” I yelled, clutching the receiver tightly in my hand.
“I don’t know. I don’t know where he took me.”
“And you’ll never know.” Sinn returned to the phone. I could hear Annie’s sobs fade into the background.
“Listen to me, you goddamn son-of-a-bitch.”
“Now, is that the kind of language to use with your future husband? I just might have to turn you over my knees, Lillian.”
“If you hurt her, I swear I’ll fucking rip you apart!” I screeched at him in the phone. “She’s done nothing to you. Let her go!”
“True, true. She’s done nothing to me. However, she can get me what I want. I think you already know what that is.”
“It’s against our laws for a vampire and a witch to couple with each other and bear a child!” I shouted in the phone.
“Who do you think created that law Lillian? Those who didn’t want to see us in power. Who will stop us? With your powers and mine, nothing can stop us.”
“You have Elektra.” I reminded him of his longtime girlfriend who he had been with for at least half a century.
“Elektra cannot give me what you can. We both know the womb of a vampiress is barren!”
My heart thudded in my chest. “I cannot give you a child. God forbid the monster our coupling would create.”
“Then perhaps your sister will be more accommodating…”
Fear skittered down my spine and raised the hair on my arms. “You can’t do that. She’s just a child.”
“Come now, Lillian, sixteen is not a child. I’m sure you’ve seen your sister. She might not be you, but I doubt I’d have great hardship breeding her with my seed.”
“Don’t touch her!”
“Then you’ll take her stead. I’ll give you one week to think about it.”
“You will not touch her!” I echoed.
“Hmm. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I will. Who’s going to stop me?”
The line ended with a click. I blinked rapidly, my heart feeling hollow. I released the receiver of the phone and stumbled over to my bed. I could feel my anxiety kicking in. My vision blurred.
“No, no, no. Not now. Please, not now.”
My vision blinded by a kaleidoscope of light, I stumbled from the bedroom to the bathroom. Clutching the vanity, I opened the medicine cabinet after the third try but couldn’t see to remove the medicine. I could feel the rage burning in my chest and knew what it meant. My hands shook, pill bottles fell into the sink, but I tried to use my instincts to guide me.
“Vision fail me, but you won’t. Twice sight, reveal my want.”
The bottles of pill flew into my palm. I clutched the bottle and popped the lid. I removed two of the herbal pills, specially compounded by my mother for this purpose. I popped two into my mouth then chased them down with the water straight from the tap. The water still running, I slid to the floor to wait.
2
Ralf
Wolves. I could smell them before they even entered the sleazy bar. From my vantage position at one end of the L-shaped bar, I watched as they entered. Rover and Butch. I should have known should two wolves wander from the pack, it would be these two. Identical twin brothers who could only be told apart by very few people, they were known for causing mischief and for warmongering. They brought trouble with them everywhere they went, and trouble wasn’t something I wanted to deal with tonight. I was looking for an easy night. Apprehend my bait, hand him over, collect my fee then head for my penthouse suite. As a tracker, bounty hunter and occasional assassin when the pay and the cause were just, I was able to live away from my pack in the lap of luxury.
Unfortunately, my decision to live apart from the pack also made me ostracized by my kind. Since I was a loner, this never bothered me in the least.
I glanced to my right whe
re Julius Santos was seated in a ring of three men. He was puffing away at a cigar, a mug of beer before him, a wad of cash on the table and a half-clad woman sitting on his lap. She was working hard for whatever money she could wheedle out of him. His had was up the back of her short skirt and I was confident he wasn’t going anywhere soon. I might just have enough time to see what the twins wanted then take care of Santos.
The men swept the room, their gazing wandering over me, but I had no doubt they were heading my way. They didn’t disappoint. Big and muscular, they drew attention to themselves as they moved towards the bar, one flanking me on either side. I groaned. So far, I had been unnoticed but now there was no chance of that happening.
“Hey, bartender!” Rover yelled to get the man’s attention even though he had his hands full at the other end of the bar. The bartender must have sensed their impatience because he came over right away amidst the grumbling of the others waiting. He served the werewolves a pint of whiskey each before returning to serve his next customer.
“Fancy seeing you here, Ralf,” Butch remarked, taking a sip of his drink.
“Cut the bullshit, Butch. This is no accident. Why are you here?”
“We have a problem,” Rover responded.
“Then take care of it,” I suggested.
“That’s what we’re doing,” Rover remarked. “We’ve word that Sinn is up to something but we’ve no idea what.”
I shrugged. “Sinn is always up to something. What’s new?”
“Nah, nah nothing like what he’s planning now,” Butch added. “This time it’s big. He’s been spotted in this town. Word has it that he’s planning to rule again.”
“Sinn doesn’t have the army to rule his own kind much more all of us,” I remarked. “That slime ball has been in hiding for years. There’s no way he’s going to show his face now.”
Butch drained his drink and got to his feet. He pointed a finger at me. “We want to know which side you are on in the event we have to go up against him,” he spat at me. “You turned your back on your kind once. Should we come under attack again, will you turn your back on us another time?”
