by Kate McLay
Magic in Her Touch © Kate McLay 2015.
Amazon Kindle Edition.
Edited by Rearing Horse Editing.
Cover design by Kate McLay.
All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical reviews and articles.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
The author has asserted his/her rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book.
This book contains sexually explicit content which is suitable only for mature readers.
First LoveLight Press electronic publication: August 2015.
http://lovelightpress.com
Book Title is set in Chicago, Illinois and northern Indiana, USA, and as such uses American English throughout.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Mina was in the last place she ever wanted to be – home.
She had spent her youth trying to escape that desolate, horrid place and hadn’t returned in nine years. And yet, one call from her mother and she was back. Mina hadn’t wanted to come. When she was eighteen, she had promised herself that she would never return. But life had turned out to be far more complicated. As much as she didn’t like her family, she couldn’t sever the ties that bound them. Not completely.
The moment she drove her motorcycle up the driveway, a sour taste invaded her mouth. She revved the engine just enough to get the dogs barking. They wouldn't settle down for hours, but no one would be willing to hurt them to get them to shush.
Payback was petty among the Pooles.
She took off her helmet and ran her fingers through her blonde hair, shaking her head to try and inject some life back into it after the helmet had flattened it into submission. A touch of magic would have her looking right in moments, but with her mother coming down the steps and into the front yard, Mina wouldn't be so vain.
Deborah Poole had been born to money, and her clothes made every effort to make that obvious. She did not greet her daughter with a smile; her red lips remained neutral and her blond hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, indicating that she took no time to dress up for this long awaited meeting.
"It took you long enough," said Deborah, she sounded like she had been waiting for Mina to show for hours and Mina wasn’t even late.
Mina leaned against the seat of her bike and crossed her arms, her helmet hung off one of the handlebars. "What do you want?"
Now Deborah cared to show an expression, her lips opening in an ‘oh’ and a puff of air escaping. "To see my daughter, of course."
"Right." Mina hadn’t been born yesterday.
Deborah tried another tactic. "Your father missed you. As did I."
Mina scowled. "My father can choke on a dick." She thought she deserved some praise for her restraint.
"Mina!"
Mina grabbed her helmet. "If that's why I'm here, you've wasted all of our time. Don't call me again."
"I need you to meet someone," said Deborah. She dropped all hint of motherly tone, her voice business.
"Why?"
"It is your duty."
"Why?" Mina didn’t give a shit about duty.
"You are a Poole; you will do as you're told." Now Deborah's voice was laced with frustration.
"Has that worked on me since I was 16?" If her mother knew her at all, she would've never pulled that line.
But Deborah finally got around to something that tempted Mina. "Your father is in line to become second in command. I can see to it that his ambitions are thwarted." Deborah had never bothered to divorce Mina's father, but she would never let his ambitions get in the way of hers. There was little love lost between them.
The offer was so tempting that Mina immediately doubted its sincerity, but she wasn't foolish enough to ignore the opportunity. "What do you want me to do?"
Her mother smiled. "The Guerins want an alliance. You’re to meet one of their girls in town today. Judging by her ... preferences ... you are our most viable candidate."
"I'm not your whore." From the way she spoke, Mina knew her mother was hiding more than she showed, and Mina wasn't sure if she cared to find out what that was or why it was hidden.
Deborah let out a breath. "I'm not telling you to fuck her, just go meet her. See if she is someone to whom you would be willing to bind yourself."
Mina had a response for that, and she opened her mouth to let it out before she was interrupted by a loud crash and a slew of curses coming from the barn beside the house.
"You are a fucking disgrace of a witch! Your mother would have done well to sell you to the breeders rather than make me waste my time teaching you. You can't even do one fucking spell properly, you dumb bitch." Richard Poole's trademark motivation assaulted them from one hundred yards away. Mina couldn't see that shit stain of a man, but she heard the back door to the house slam behind him as he went inside.
Deborah look between Mina and the front door, then she looked back at Mina and actually sounded apologetic. "I need to go see to him. I'm sorry." She went into the house without another word.
Mina almost put her helmet on and drove away, but she had at one point in time been the girl in the barn, and she could have used a rescue back then.
She left her helmet with her bike and took the keys with her. The main house was a large affair, three stories tall and big enough for twenty people to live comfortably. Richard would seek out his study after a frustrating training session -- lucky for Mina that study was on the opposite side of the house from the barn.
The ground was soft under her leather boots, and Mina could hear the squish of mud. The smell of freshly cut grass was almost overpowering and pollen assaulted her eyes. But she let none of that deter her. It took a few minutes of walking to get to the entrance of the big red barn. A long time ago this structure had housed the family's livestock and later their farm equipment, but they had long ago sold off their acreage and now the barn was used to train young witches in the use of magic.
She pushed open the small door and shut it quietly behind her. The interior of the barn was one giant, space the floor concrete and the walls painted a dark blue. Lights were strung up from the ceiling and offered dim illumination, but the main light came in through a large window on the west side of the building. The room was in disarray, planks of wood littered the floor along with enough newspaper to wallpaper the entire main house.
Mina couldn't see anyone inside. That didn't mean the room was empty.
She could hear ragged sobs hiccupping out of an unseen girl. Mina crossed the room and opened the large utility closet used to house cleaning supplies. It was as big as an industrial freezer and ominous chains were hung along one wall. To Mina's great relief, the crying gi
rl was not hooked to the chains. The girl looked up when Mina opened the door.
She had long, straight blond hair and huge blue eyes, but what Mina noticed most was the way she crouched in on herself and clutched her stomach, as if to shield herself from invisible blows.
Mina stretched her senses out, trying to detect any antagonistic magic which could be harming the girl. There was none.
"Who are you?" asked the girl with surprising force.
Mina smiled and recognized her. "I'm your cousin. But I've been away for a while. You're Tommy, right? Ginger's kid?" Tommy had to be at least 18, but Mina hadn’t seen her in 10 years. "Where's your mom?" Ginger would have never given Tommy over to Richard, she had seen Mina's scars.
"You tell me.” Tommy unfurled herself and stood up. “Who the hell are you? I've got a lot of cousins." She was three inches taller than Mina and a good bit rounder, and her curves belied the boyish child she had once been. At least Richard had never cared about that shit.
"I'm Mina, Richard and Deborah's kid." Mina reached into her pocket and grabbed a small notebook and pen. She jotted down her phone number and tore out the page, then handed it over to Tommy. "If you need me, call this number. If I don't answer, keep calling. I've got a safe place, if you want out."
"Uncle Richard can make me the best that I can be," this thought emboldened Tommy and she straightened up.
A denial died on Mina's lips. She shrugged. "Call me if you need me."
She left Tommy in the barn, though a huge part of her wanted to steal the girl away and save her from her family. But you couldn't save someone who didn't want to be saved.
Not for long, anyway.
CHAPTER TWO
"You're being ridiculous," Darby Guerin told her mother. "Have we traveled back in time to the 18th century? At least tell me that you secured several head of cattle for my hand."
"This is a business, Darby. And you should have expected it much sooner. You're nearly thirty and alliances like these don’t come every day." Stacy Guerin didn't even have the courtesy to appear sympathetic to her daughter's plight. She sat in a stiff-backed chair at their kitchen table and held her hands loosely clasped in front of her.
As a witch, it was a sign of courtesy to keep her hands in sight. Still, they both knew that Darby was no match for her mother's power. At nearly 60, Stacy's hair only showed a few strands of gray, and the lines on her face made her seem distinguished rather than old. Witches lived longer than humans, on average lasting to nearly 150, so Stacy's youth was hardly out of place.
Darby stared at the frayed sleeve of her coat and traced a circle around the button. "What does this ridiculous binding get us that a contract of cooperation wouldn’t?"
"Traditionally, children." Irony laced Stacy's words. The match they were suggesting wouldn’t bring forth children, and Darby would not have agreed if they demanded that she bind herself to a man. Though she had yet to agree to this match either.
"I'm not exactly traditional."
"Neither is the girl they want you to meet," said her mother. "A meeting is not an agreement, and I will not force you to do this. But your sister is engaged, and I wouldn’t sacrifice this opportunity to better our line. We are Guerins, girl. You know what that means."
Darby did. The Guerin coven had lived in Indiana since before it was a state. Her line of the Guerins have ruled the coven for all of that time. They were directly related to more than three hundred witches in the state, twenty of whom lived in their city. Stacy ruled them, and one day Darby's sister, Anna, would take her place. Darby was the spare in every way.
Talk of this alliance had been brewing for years. When she graduated high school, one of her cousins almost married an offshoot Poole, but the arrangement went up in smoke - literally - when her cousin caught her fiancé balls deep in a local human.
If it hadn't been for some very swift talking on the part of the Pooles, it would have been an all-out war, something their covens hadn't seen in a century. They were lucky to avoid a feud.
But Darby had stayed out of it all then, and she would rather stay out of it now.
Her mother didn't want the proposed alliance to fall to another branch of the family this time. If everything worked as planned, the Guerin who cemented the alliance would be party to unknown power in the region -- enough power to seize control of the coven, or to maintain it.
But even if Darby took part in this alliance, the power would never be hers. She had a few tricks up her sleeve, but she would never be a great witch. Sometimes, no matter how powerful a family, one child showed little potential. Darby didn't even have her looks to show for it. Anna had gotten the beauty, too.
"If you want this goddamn alliance so bad, make Anna do it. Why should I give her even more power?” Darby stood and pushed her chair in at the table. She swiped her brown bangs out of her face and hooked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her had grown past her shoulders; it had taken years to grow it back since she had shaved it all off in a fit of pique.
Stacy didn't get angry. She didn't have to. "Court the girl properly and you may have your grandmother's grimoire. Bind yourself to her, and I will give you your grandmother's entire chest." If familial duty would not sway Darby, her mother was always prepared with bribery.
And it was a good bribe. Darby had been out of the county when her grandmother died suddenly three years ago. If she had been home she would already have what her mother promised to give her, but Stacy had snatched it up before the woman was even cold. That fight was the only time Darby had tried to challenge her mother. Her leg had been snapped in seconds and her magic bound for three months. Darby wouldn't make that mistake again.
Her grandmother's grimoire was the repository of the woman's life. It contained all of the spells she knew and all of the ones she created, along with anecdotes and family history. Her grandmother had inherited it from her own mother, and on and on the inheritance went back nearly two centuries. It had been promised to Darby along with her grandmother's chest. The chest was much more mundane, containing her grandmother's jewelry and keepsakes.
"No games?" asked Darby.
"Of course not. You're my daughter."
"Then where the hell am I going?"
Her mother gave her the address, and Darby left the kitchen. She had a few hours before the meeting was scheduled and needed to get ready. Just because she didn't want to give herself to this woman didn't mean that she wouldn't go in looking her best. She was a representative of the Guerins, and once she promised to act she would do so honorably. Though there were some who would object to her idea of dressing properly.
The skirt she planned to wear reached almost to her knees, but it hugged her curves and was made of black leather. The top was a tight cotton tank. A bright blue bra strap peeked out from under her shirt when she moved too quickly. She wore bright red lipstick and smoky eye shadow. Sexy, seductive, hot. She hoped this witch was worth it.
CHAPTER THREE
Darby sat outside on the large patio behind the café where she was supposed to meet her future wife. The patio was empty except for a couple and a bus boy wiping down the glass topped tables. The sounds of the street were nearly silenced by the pleasant music being piped in over the speakers.
Condensation built on the outside of her glass of iced tea, and Darby watched a fat drop of water slide down the side while she played with an empty sugar packet. She checked her watch again and looked into the restaurant to see if anyone was coming, but just as it had been for the past 20 minutes, there was no one to meet her.
She had been stood up.
And even though she hadn't wanted to come on this date, she was offended. How dare some strange witch that she had never met waste her time like this?
Her phone rang, its vibration causing it to nearly bounce off the table. Darby answered and held it to her ear. "It's me."
"I've got some idiots here begging to lose their money, you in?" It was Daniel Tsing, her best friend and partner in crime – somet
imes literally. He managed the one supernatural bar in the county. It was neutral territory, unless you were human. Then you were fair game, especially if you were a dick.
"I might be interested." Darby weighed her options. She could wait here all night, drinking iced tea and sitting bored out of her mind, or she could win some easy cash in a not-so-friendly game of pool. Her date wasn't coming, and the decision wasn't hard.
"Might be? Is that how it is?" She could hear laughter in Daniel's voice. "You meet some nice girl and suddenly I'm chopped liver?"
Darby laughed, "I'd eat a nice girl alive, and not in the fun way. I'll be there in a few minutes." She threw a few dollars down on the table and left, and slid her phone into her pocket.
Upon leaving the restaurant, Darby didn’t even consider going to her car. It was only five blocks to Daniel's bar. It was getting late and many of the shops in Lewistown's small downtown were already closed and locked up for the night, but there were a half-dozen restaurants and a handful of bars just now beginning to do business.
As the county seat, Lewistown attracted visitors from far and wide. It was the biggest city for thirty miles with a population nearing 30,000. Eighty witches lived in the county, most within five miles of Lewistown, though none of the other inhabitants of Lewis County knew a thing about magic.
Or if they did, they kept quiet.
While she and Daniel thought of it as his bar, the Black Bear was owned by a man named Ezekiel Childress, who was rarely seen in town. But he let Daniel and Darby have their fun, and that was all that mattered.
Darby turned down an alley barely big enough to fit one car. She walked past two dumpsters, their lids thankfully closed, and ended up at the back door to the Black Bear. She knocked three times before a frazzled waitress let her in.
Daniel was waiting for her and wrapped her up in his strong arms. He was well over 6 feet tall and had the bulk of a professional football player, the result of a many-years-long love affair with weightlifting. But as far as she knew, he'd never punched anyone.
