Magick and Mischief (Warlocks MacGregor Book 7)
Page 16
“Get the bracelets,” Trina said. “Put them on.”
Andrea glanced at Kenneth but didn’t move.
Geneva tilted her head. She stopped moving as Trina held her attention. A hand lifted the motion soft as if reaching for her mother.
“I’m talking to you,” Trina said through gritted teeth as she glanced in Andrea’s direction. “Get the damned bracelets.”
“Oh!” Andrea sprang into action and ran toward Kenneth. She touched his cheek briefly in concern before taking the bracelets from him. She hurried back to Jewel and braced herself as she started to reach into the flames to take hold of the child’s limbs. The fire burnt her fingers and she cried out in pain.
“Not on her,” Trina grunted. “You. Put them on you. Sacred hallows, doesn’t anyone around here know how to do anything?”
Geneva turned her attention back to Andrea. A horrible high-pitched sound left her lips, “Scrrich!”
The phantom charged her. The bent metal was too small to fit past her hands to her wrists, but Andrea managed to shove her fingers through it. She screamed as Geneva charged her, standing her ground as she lifted her arms for protection.
Geneva screamed again. Her body slammed into Andrea like a cold wind, forcing her back. The bracelets heated against her palms. The fire of Jewel’s body hit her skin.
Geneva turned to smoke. Andrea felt the bracelets pulling the phantom into her hands. The jewelry sucked in the smoke, dispersing it inside her. The fire stopped burning her as the cold took over. It spread up her arms and throughout the rest of her body. The phantom’s essence held her in its grasp for what felt like minutes, making it impossible to move. When finally she could gain control of her movements, she dropped to her knees and leaned into the ground. The metal bracelets felt as if they’d been seared into her skin.
Trina’s feet appeared before her face.
“What did she do to me?” Andrea asked, trying to look up but only able to see Trina’s thighs from her place on the ground.
Trina knelt and met her gaze. “Why did you let it go this far? Did you think you had a choice?”
Andrea lifted her hands. They still clutched the metal. Her mind was numb and she wondered why the woman was asking her strange questions.
Trina pried Andrea’s fingers back and gently pulled the bracelets out of her grasp. She lifted the bent metal and frowned. “You know you can’t destroy these.”
Trina ran her finger through the inside of the bracelets, magickally reworking them into perfect circles.
“Jewel?” Andrea blinked. The heat was gone. She turned to check on the child, worried that she might have been reborn.
Jewel had returned to flesh. She had magickally replaced her outfit with blue jeans and a tan jacket that matched her grandmother.
Trina slid the bracelets over each of Jewel’s wrists. The metal tightened into place. The red in the sky lessened, replaced by sunlight. “You’ll want to take these off her every once in a while to let her magick run free. She needs to learn to control it just as she needs to walk in the human world as one of them. You’ll want to take that time to learn your control over her magick. Better now when she’s younger. The teen years are going to be a bitch.”
“Jewel?” Kenneth crawled toward them. His strength looked to be returning. “Andrea? Are ya hurt?”
Andrea shook her head, even as she cradled her burnt hands. As Kenneth made it to his daughter, she asked Trina. “What’s going on? What did you do to me?”
“I didn’t do anything to you.” Trina frowned as she stood. “I wouldn’t have had to come if you would have just finished the ritual. Instead you nearly destroy the world with this nonsense. What did you think was going to happen if you didn’t take your rightful place as her mother? Fate is not something you get to pick and choose. You’d think a warlock would know that.”
“I’m not a warlock. I’m not anything magickal,” Andrea said. “I’m human.”
Trina chuckled. “Now we know that isn’t true, don’t we? Who do you think you’re talking to? I was who you are once.”
“I think you’re mistaken. You’re a mountain witch, and Geneva’s mother.” Andrea doubted her situation qualified as the same thing. “I’m a human who knows a little about folk magick.”
Trina pulled up her sleeves to show burn marks on her wrists. “How do you think I became Geneva’s mother? Like you, I was chosen. A phoenix has to die to be reborn, either into themselves or into a new child. Their magick finds the mother. I know you might be scared, but you know what you have to do. No more playing around. That baby needs you.”
“Trina, what are ya talking about?” Kenneth held Jewel as the child sat on one of his arms. He reached to support Andrea as she rose to her feet.
Rory and Euann helped Erik out of the car. Margareta, Angus, and Raibeart came from inside. Their voices rang in a commotion of questions and concerns.
Florence and Ruth rushed to Andrea’s side. They began touching her hair and grabbing her face to see into her eyes.
“I’m all right,” Andrea told them, trying to push off their hands.
“Your fingers,” Ruth exclaimed.
“I should have something in my bag for that,” Florence said.
“Everyone, stop talking for a moment, please.” Kenneth shushed them before insisting, “Trina? Was that Geneva? What did she do to Andrea? Where did she go?”
“Do you really not understand?” Trina frowned and shook her head. “I knew warlock magick was nothing compared to the mountain witches, but I would think this is fairly obvious. Geneva performed the death ritual and made you the child’s father. The phoenix magick passed on with the death ritual, but the energy from my daughter’s life had to go somewhere. It was just floating around, probably building to a furious pitch with being forced to wait for so long for the bracelets to focus Jewel’s powers so that her magick could call her new mother.”
“The portals came from Geneva?” Kenneth asked.
“If there were portals and if they brought the new mother here, then most likely,” Trina agreed. “Or it could have been Jewel. Their magick is connected. It comes from the same ancient place.”
“Mama Cecile’s form has been chasing me around for two years, terrorizing me. That wasn’t someone asking me to watch over her daughter.” Andrea wasn’t buying this explanation.
“Of course she wasn’t asking. Geneva’s energy would seek to regain the magick it lost. It’s energy, not logic. She found you, probably planted a seed inside you somehow and then followed you here. If you weren’t here to absorb it, then it would go straight to the source. Obviously, it’s never happened, but it’s my belief that such a rejoining would end the world. Or so I seem to remember the visions warning me.”
“Ya could have mentioned this when ya gave me the bracelets,” Kenneth said.
“Fish need water and the sun will rise tomorrow. Any other obvious things you need me to tell you?” Trina quipped. To Andrea she said, “That child is yours like you birthed her yourself, but if you can’t handle it, I can take my grandchild to the mountains with me.”
“No,” Margareta interrupted, her gaze pleading with Andrea.
“Do you love her?” Trina asked.
The question seemed so simple, and yet Andrea felt the answer. She nodded her head. “Yes.”
“Will you protect her?” Trina insisted.
“I think she already proved that,” Kenneth said for her. He slipped his arm around her waist and held her against him.
Trina reached inside her coat and pulled out a pouch. To Andrea, she said, “Hold out your hands.”
Andrea showed her burns. Trina sprinkled the contents from her pouch over them. “This dirt from my garden will cure almost anything. If you’re kind to the earth, she will provide.”
“Yes it will,” Florence agreed. She held out her hand. “Can I see that?”
Trina handed over the pouch. Florence and Ruth began asking questions about Trina’s garden.
“Take him to the portal mirror. Lydia will want to take care of him at their house. Her energy will help him recover faster than anything we can do,” Angus said.
“Good plan. I want to find Cora, too,” Euann said. “She’s probably at the library. I’ll head to town and make sure there’s no damage control to be done after that magickal storm.”
“What about me? I don’t have a wife to help restore my energy,” Rory grumped as they went inside.
“Andrea, are ya…?” Kenneth’s eyes met hers. His expression held so many questions.
“I love you,” she said. “I should have said it earlier when you said it, but I thought I’d have to leave for your protection and I didn’t want you trying to make me stay. But when I saw you on the ground, and…”
“I told her, the spirits speak and we must listen,” Florence was saying to Trina.
“That they do,” Trina agreed. “Can you believe these young’uns nowadays? Can’t hear the spirits. Can’t see the magick right in front of them. Can’t be bothered to put on a couple of bracelets to stop the apocalypse.”
“Come here, my little love.” Margareta took Jewel out of her father’s arms. “Let’s get ya inside.” Then under her breath, she added, “And into more appropriate clothes.”
Raibeart took off running across the yard. “I see ya brats. Get back here.”
The two ghost girls zipped into the tree line. Raibeart ran in after them.
“Do we need to help him?” Andrea began to follow.
“He’ll be fine,” Kenneth dismissed. “We’ll find him later. Euann has motion cameras in the forest so we can track him.”
“Right,” Ruth exclaimed, laughing hard at something Trina said.
“Should we be worried that they’re getting along so well?” Kenneth asked.
Andrea started to shake her head.
“Next they’ll need me to tell them this bound them as her parents,” Trina laughed.
All three women turned to look to where Andrea and Kenneth stood on the driveway.
“Did they just say we’re married?” Andrea started to smile at the idea.
“Bound,” he said. “But it might be the same thing.”
“Might?” she repeated.
“Told you I had a prediction,” Florence said to Ruth. “Marriage, baby, chickens. All that is left is the dance of the full moon, a banshee, and burnt pudding.”
He pulled her into his arms and stroked her cheek. “I’m a little scared to ask what she means by us being bound. They might keep making fun of us.”
“You know, there is one way we figure this out without risking more ridicule,” Andrea said.
“How’s that?”
“You can just marry me and dance with me under the full moon while I’m dressed like a banshee and we’ll serve our guests burnt pudding.” They might be insane, but the words felt right. “But I’m going to need you to wear that kilt.”
“If you’re asking, I’m saying yes,” Kenneth said without hesitation.
“Are you sure you don’t want to think about it?” she asked, pleasure exploding in her at the idea of being Kenneth’s wife.
“A wedding?” Rory said from the doorway, showing he’d been eavesdropping on their conversation. “I know where to get the perfect thing! Euann, hurry up, forget stopping to see Cora. I’m coming with ya. We have to go get that giant hotdog sign so Malina can materialize the most perfect meal. There is going to be a wedding.”
Kenneth touched her cheek, drawing her attention back around to face him. “I know what I want. I’ve said it before. Life is complicated. I see no reason for games when it comes to us.”
His lips met hers. Her body hummed with energy and she knew she was in for many changes, but as long as she was with Kenneth, none of those changes frightened her. This was her destiny. This is where she belonged.
“Hey, Trina, you ever have New Orleans gumbo?” Florence asked. “Ruth makes the best shrimp gumbo. You’ll have to come over sometime. We’ll trade spells.”
Andrea laughed against Kenneth’s lips. “Why do I have a feeling that the combination of those three is going to equal a whole lot of trouble?”
Kenneth reached for her hands, gently touching her scarred palms. The dirt had healed them but had not hidden the scars. He kissed each one. “Thank ya for risking your life to save my daughter.”
“Our daughter,” Andrea corrected.
Kenneth nodded. “Yes. Our family.”
Just as he was about to kiss her again, Raibeart’s shout came from the tree line. “Retreat! Retreat! Someone stole my kilt.”
Ruth gasped. “Oh, my word.”
Florence gave a whistle of appreciation.
Andrea leaned to look past Kenneth only to find Raibeart running barelegged toward the house. His backward shirt barely covered his manhood. No one had taken his kilt. It clung to his shirt before falling off into the yard as if he hadn’t fastened it correctly when he dressed.
Andrea shook her head with a laugh. “And I thought my family was a handful.”
“Wait for me!” Florence moved to follow Raibeart. “Didn’t you want to ask me something?”
“Flo, get back here,” Ruth scolded. “He wanted to ask me something.”
“My family is the handful?” He arched a brow.
Andrea laughed.
“Our family,” they said in unison.
The End
The Series Continues with
A Dash of Destiny
CLICK HERE to get the next book!
The Series Continues…
Warlocks MacGregor® 8: A Dash of Destiny
Rory MacGregor has watched his cousins fall in love, one right after the other. When will it be his turn? Or does destiny have other plans for this immortal Scottish Warlock?
Warning: Contains yummy, hot, mischievous MacGregors who are almost certainly up to no good on their quest to find true love. And Uncle Raibeart.
A Dash of Destiny
CLICK HERE to get the next book!
Warlocks MacGregor® Series
Scottish Magickal Warlocks
Love Potions
Spellbound
Stirring Up Trouble
Cauldrons and Confessions
Spirits and Spells
Kisses and Curses
Magick and Mischief
A Dash of Destiny
More Coming Soon
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Michelle loves to travel and try new things, whether it's a paranormal investigation of an old Vaudeville Theatre or climbing Mayan temples in Belize. She believes life is an adventure fueled by copious amounts of coffee.
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