Raven Ridge (Witches of Sanctuary Book 2) Read online

  I pull the chain with the silver moon out from beneath my blouse. He takes his chain and pendant out of his pocket and puts it on. He holds the sun circle up, and like a magnet, the two circles immediately clasp together and a ring of white light bursts out of the edges.

  “That’s never happened before.” I stare at the glistening white light. “What do you think this means?”

  “I think I didn’t read all of that spell, or I forgot part of it.”

  I give him a short look and he shrugs. “What? I was like ten, and I wasn’t even supposed to be reading that book. I rushed through it.”

  “Reid. What does this mean?”

  “I think it means the spell didn’t completely end at dawn like I thought. I think we are still connected. I think that’s why our powers have suddenly grown stronger.”

  “I can’t hear your thoughts, though.”

  “Are you sure? I mean we haven’t tried since that first night, but we’ve accidently made each other feel things lately.”

  I try to think of something, but I know it doesn’t come through. Reid takes the bowl of noodles from my hands and places it on the coffee table next to us. “Concentrate.”

  I close my eyes and his hand runs up my thigh, pressing his palm against the soft denim of my jeans. Suddenly the spot on my hip, the copy of my pendant that the spell carved into my skin, starts to burn.

  Do that again.

  Okay.

  My eyes pop open and I’m met with his smile. “I knew it.”

  I shake my head. “Okay, so the spell is still in effect. What does that have to do with us? Relationship-wise.”

  He scoots closer to me on the couch.

  I have difficulty expressing how I feel in words. But if I could show you?

  His body moves above me and I lean back, further back, until I’m on the pillow. He looms over me, his green eyes searching mine for my answer. I nod. It’s all I can manage, especially with his lips so close to mine. I take hold of his shirt and pull him down the remaining inch. He smiles against my greedy lips.

  Always a damn tease.

  That’s when I see it. The flash and then the vision. The first moment he met me, here in this house, barely a few feet from where we are now. My chest grows tight, and it’s hard to breathe. I’m nervous, and furious. My every thought a jumbled mess. Then my face comes into focus. Just my face.

  I never knew my eyes were that bright.

  I open my eyes to find Reid’s closed, his forehead against mine. Those were his thoughts and his feelings from that night. I thought he hated me. He wanted me to leave so badly. Turns out he didn’t want me to leave at all.

  I waited for you so long. And you didn’t even know my name. There was no way you could have known it, but I guess I felt a little ridiculous…waiting all that time.

  I touch his chin. “Look at me, Reid Thomas.”

  He opens his eyes and I kiss him. Gently. Slowly.

  I want him to feel it. The longing. The loneliness I felt sitting out on that dock the night he first left my house. I want him to know how much I needed him to come back. How much I needed to stay here in Frog Hollow. Everything I wanted…everything I searched so long to find…I got the moment he unknowingly broke in my house.

  I pull back. “I love you.”

  His hands grasp in my hair. His lips find mine. I love you too.

  An adrenaline burst ricochets between every nerve inside of me. He crawls up my body. My hands slip beneath his shirt searching for the warmth of his exposed torso. I can’t manage a breath. Something between joy and euphoria clogs my every thought. Is it him? Me? Or maybe it’s a combination of both us that causes a back and forth swell of emotion. Reid’s lips stall at the corner of my mouth and he looks me dead in the eye. “Be mine, Wilhelmina. Forever.”

  I smirk at him, sliding my hand further up his shirt. “Is that a question?”

  He laughs and his teeth tug at his bottom lip. “You’re seriously going to make me say it, aren’t you?”

  I lean up and take a small nibble myself. “Definitely.”

  He kisses me back into submission. My head falls onto the pillows and he tilts my chin up, allowing him full access to everything he craves. I know only because I keep getting flashes of the urge he fights. To move faster. Take more. Soft, subtle traces of the barest of contact makes its way down the nape of my neck. “Will you be my girlfriend?”

  Yes.

  The breath he held tickles across my skin. Crazy boy. Like I would have said no.

  His eyes narrow down at me. I’m glad you find it so amusing.

  “I can’t help it. I’m like a muddy puddle of take-me-now over here, and you’re all nervous and shy.”

  “I’ve waited a long time for you. For us like this.”

  I cup my hands around his ridiculously perfect face. “So have I.”

  He sinks into me, and now, even after he heard me confess that I loved him, and then agreed to be his girlfriend, his relief is overwhelming. I run a finger down the soft fabric of his t-shirt. “Now that we have all the logistics straightened out, why don’t you come back here and show me more of those flashes I saw earlier.”

  He tries not to smile. “You saw those, huh?”

  I hum contently. “Yes, and I’m pretty sure you weren’t wearing this.” I tug at the front of his shirt. “You know the drill.”

  “Chippendales it?”

  “Exactly.”

  Reid rises up on his knees above me, his fingers twisting around the hem of his shirt. He gets it barely past his navel and pauses. His gaze diverts to the window. I follow it, watching the angry raindrops crash against the glass. “What?”

  “Nothing.” He shakes his head and starts to pull at his shirt again, but stops. His attention goes back to the window. “Okay. That time it wasn’t the storm. I sense something wrong out there.”

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  He cups his hands on my cheek. “Listen again.”

  The trees shift in the gust of wind that rushes through them. Twigs snap off and leaves billow along the ground from one place to the next. The raindrops are louder. I hear each individual one as it hits the glass, the porch, and the bare trees. A voice. It’s small. It doesn’t move. I can’t quite understand the words. I sit up a little more. “Someone is out there in the storm.”

  He stands, listening intently. His head jerks around to me. “Your name. They just said your name.”

  I scramble off the couch. “Are you sure?”

  I move toward the door, listening, allowing my every sense to ignite in search of the voice again. “Wilhelmina.”

  My eyes pop open and I claw at the handle to the front door. Someone needs me. I run out the front door barefoot without looking back. I make it to the edge of the porch when Reid catches the hem of my shirt.

  “No, Willa. Stop!”

  I fall over the edge of the first step and stumble to a halt. At the end of my long driveway, on his knees in the pouring rain, one hand gripped in his hair, roaring louder than the thunder above him, is a man.

  Julien Cote.

  I stagger backward up the steps, unable to take my eyes off him. His clothes are soaked and muddy. His black hair glistens as the rain leaks down his face. His features are so familiar. I point a shaky finger at him as Reid grabs me. “That’s real, right? I’m not imagining that?”

  Julien is in my driveway.

  Reid grips me tightly, holding me on my feet. “No. That is definitely real.”

  “Wilhelmina!”

  That voice. I recognize that voice. It’s my Julien. That voice doesn’t belong to the monster who consumed him, but that sweet, contagiously charismatic friend I risked my life to save. I clutch Reid’s arm. “It’s a trap.”

  Once transformed by the curse, there is no return. The monster inside of them takes control forever. This can’t be real.

  Julien fights to get to his knees like someone keeps kicking him back down. He stumbles forward, his back snapping unt
il he drops back on the ground. He jerks and twists in pain as the madness sears him alive. “Wilhelmina!”

  My heart cries as my own knees buckle completely. It isn’t fair. Julien’s pain isn’t fair. Reid lets go of me, allowing me to sit down on the porch. “Stay behind me, Willa.”

  I look up at him, and his face is stone cold. “Promise me. If this is a trap, then he isn’t going to get to you. Stay behind me, or I’ll kill him right now.”

  It can’t be my Julien. This is some desperate, maniacal torture that monster thinks will lure me to him. I won’t fall for it. I nod at Reid.

  Reid slowly walks down the steps and into the rain. Julien lies writhing on the ground. I stay behind, but close enough to see his face. Flashes of black take over his eyes, but quickly disappear. That shouldn’t be happening. Julien is fully consumed by the curse. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Julien flips over on his knees, his face against the ground with his arms tucked under him. “Something happened.” He gasps for air. “It keeps happening.”

  His eyes go black again as he screams. His head whips up, and it’s the monster from the rooftop. The one I see in my dreams. He claws at the ground, scrabbling to his feet. He comes for me. Reid braces himself to stop him, but then Julien stumbles forward, and he’s back squirming on the ground. The blackness is completely absent again. His fist jerks his hair. “Willa! Help me.”

  I take a step forward, tears welling up into my vision. “What’s happening to him?”

  “Stay back.” Reid cautiously approaches him. He bends down so Julien can see his face through the sheets of rain. “Julien. It’s me, Reid. We’re here.”

  “He’s killing us.” His entire body trembles. His words labored. “Something is wrong. He’s going to kill us both.”

  Reid moves closer. “What’s wrong?”

  Julien’s eyes go black again, and the monster screeches. “You can’t have him!”

  The rain pelts down on us as the monster thrashes back and forth. I run up behind Reid. “Julien.”

  The anger fades out. “Willa.” He pulls himself to his knees. He looks so helpless and tired. “You promised to kill me. Do it now. Now while he’s weak.”

  I grip Reid’s shirt.

  “Kill me, Willa.” Julien can barely muster the strength to look at me. “You promised. You promised us both. Do it.”

  “I can’t, Julien. Not like this.”

  “You promised. I can’t watch him kill you. He wants to kill you, Wilhelmina.”

  “She’s right, Julien. I can’t let her do that. Your brother is with Sadie and Jade right now. I can’t risk unleashing him on them.”

  Julien’s eyes flash black again, and the monster claws at the dirt before some invisible pain crashes him to the ground again. Reid pulls me away. “Go back in the house.”

  I push against him. “No. I won’t leave him like this.”

  Reid leads me back further away from Julien, toward the house. “I’m going to take him somewhere safe, until we can get help.”

  “Safe? Where in Frog Hollow can he be safe from himself?”

  “The circle. Contessa and Elizabeth will be able to keep him confined there until we figure out what the hell is going on with him.”

  I grasp his hand. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No. I need you to go back inside. We can’t risk that monster coming out of whatever trance that’s allowing Julien to speak to us and get his hands on you.”

  “And you expect me to put you at risk. That monster wants you too, remember?”

  “I know. I’m not asking you this as your Sun and your equal, Willa. This is simply a request from your boyfriend. The boyfriend who found you on that street corner in Charleston half dead. You say the thought of losing me is painful. I know that ache. I spent three hours thinking you were gone.”

  Crippling pain courses through me and it isn’t my own. It’s Reid’s, and I know I can’t tell him no. “Okay.”

  Relief. I almost lose my breath as it rushes through us both. This connection stuff is too much. Too emotionally draining. Reid kisses me, brushing a piece of my soaked hair away from my eyes. “Thank you.”

  I glance at Julien. He’s gone still again, his chest heaving air in and out like a machine on hyper-drive. I know Reid can feel the strain in my heart as I look at him. I can’t stop it. Julien is my friend. Sure, at some point it was a little more than that, but he was always my friend. “How will you get him there?”

  “I’ll walk.”

  We both jerk around, and Julien miraculously stands on his feet. Barely. He’s slumped over, and his shoulders are caved in. “Yeah. I’m still here.”

  That worn and pain ridden expression from earlier suddenly looks so much more tortured.

  “Julien—”

  He holds up his hand. “Don’t, Wilhelmina. I’m hurting enough already.”

  All the times I imagined and hoped of getting Julien back, this isn’t how it was supposed to happen. Julien refuses to even look in my direction. Did he see the way I looked at Reid? Does he know the inevitable truth now?

  Julien’s tortured gaze turns on Reid. “Let’s go before I lose control again and I try to kill you.”

  Reid disappears with Julien into the woods to find the ceremonial circle. I stay there in the rain. Turmoil twirls in my gut. Reid has to feel it. Even with the increasing distance, it’s too strong for him to miss it. There isn’t anything I can do about it, though.

  Apparently, we’re all meant to suffer.

  Chapter 14

  Aunt Delphine

  Reid and I drip water onto the dark hardwood floor at Sera’s house. The giant iron pot remains in the fireplace, the pearl colored steam now a vivid red, billowing out of the top and drifting through the house and out the windows. The sweet smell of cinnamon and cherries.

  Sera stands in front of the fireplace, her hand clutched over her heart. “You have Julien where?”

  “I took him to the ceremonial circle. The original Innocents have him trapped there.”

  She shoots Reid a dirty look. “And you just went there by yourself? Why didn’t you call me?”

  “It was a time sensitive mission.”

  Sera saunters forward, her finger pointed directly at Reid’s chest. “You’ll think time sensitive when I hang you by your ears from the steeple of this house, David Reid Thomas. I can’t believe you didn’t take someone with you.”

  He takes in a small breath. “Can we focus for a moment? Julien is there. Now what?”

  Sera throws her hands up in the air. “We wait. The spell is working, but I don’t know where Delphine is and how long it will take to reach her.”

  Reid shoves his hand in his hair. “Time isn’t a luxury we have at the moment. I think the curse is killing him.”

  Sera’s face softens. “You’re concerned for Julien?”

  Reid purses his lips. “Wilhelmina is my girlfriend. I don’t see any reason to wish death on the guy.”

  Every eye in the house turns on me. Abby jumps to her feet. “He asked you?”

  I shoot her a tentative smile. “Surprise.”

  She crosses her arms and I sigh. “I didn’t have a chance to tell you. Minutes after it happened, Julien showed up. We can’t catch a minute alone together with a five foot net.”

  Sera walks over to her son and hugs him. “I’m happy for you two.” Then her attention turns to the window where the drifting red fog sneaks through the small opening.

  Jade walks in, dripping water across the floor, carrying an armload of new leafy greens. “What’s all that?”

  Jade lifts the greens up on an empty table. “I’m going to make the spell stronger. We need Delphine fast.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I just got a call from Carolyn. There are reports in town of people seeing odd things.”

  Reid eyes the flowers and assortment of roots, picking a piece up and inspecting it. “They’re probably still talking about Willa turning green on Hallowee
n.”

  “No, it’s something else. There are reports of things roaming the mountains.”

  I step up closer to Jade. “What kind of things?”

  “Milly Stern is the closet house to Shadow Bend. She swears on her mother’s grave she saw a mountain lion sneaking across the back of her property two nights ago. Then, of course, this morning, Mr. Gaff at the Farmer’s Market claimed to anyone who’d listen how he spotted a red wolf slinking around the cliff face at Red Crane.”

  I look over at Reid, remembering clearly the family emblem plaques above the Haunted families’ rooms in the Raven’s Tower. The Prescotts’ plaque had a mountain lion on it. I would bet money, the missing Bessette plaque has a wolf. “You think it’s George Bessette and Luther Prescott in their cursed forms?”

  “There hasn’t been a mountain lion or red wolf spotted in this section of the country for years. They’re supposed to be extinct.”

  I take a deep breath. “So, the Raven is right. Something is changing in Sanctuary. Evil isn’t returning here, it’s just making itself known.”

  “Grab the lid off the pot,” Jade says, sorting through her stockpile of flowers, herbs, roots, and spices.

  Reid uses the poker to remove the iron lid from the pot, and a poof of red steam burst from the top of the bubbling water. Jade motions me over, handing me a knife. “We need to double the ingredients. I’ve written them down. You chop and I’ll start mixing them in.”

  I nod, grabbing the list of instructions. I work diligently, cutting the different roots into precise measurements before sliding them across the table toward Jade. My heart thrums in my chest. Reid stands next to the open window, the steam snaking around him to escape. He stares at the darkness as the storm finally starts to settle down, but I feel the tension building inside him. His fists are clenched. Jade nudges my elbow and I try to focus on my task. We need Delphine here. We need that book to figure out what the heck we’re going to do. How we’re going to save Julien.

  Reid’s gaze turns on me.

  It’s as if he heard me say Julien’s name out loud. I might as well have, because I know I must look guilty. Jade takes the final slices of ginseng root from my hand and adds them into the brew. Sera wipes her hands on the long apron around her waist. “I think we all need to get some rest. Even now, I don’t know how long it will take the spell to find Delphine.”