Charlie looked down at the amulet in her hand, knowing that this was the moment she had to choose, “I’ve got it,” she said, her voice shaking.
“I knew you were a smart girl,” the man said, clearly pleased. “Now I want you to saddle a horse and start up the trail, I’ll find you.”
“But it’s dark outside and I don’t ride that well,” Charlie protested, suddenly terrified now that the moment had come.
“That’s your problem, you’ve made it this far, I’d hate to see you fail now. I’m sure that it will be great fun killing Steven,” the man snarled into the phone.
“Okay I’m coming,” Charlie said, resigned to what she was going to have to do.
***Steven***
When Steven woke a few hours later, it was to Charlie’s empty side of the bed, and all his fears came rushing back. Out of habit he reached up to stroke the amulet, as he always did when he thought of her, and realized that it was gone. Jumping out of bed, he began to search, pulling off the blankets, throwing the pillows on the floor, then finally picking up the mattress and looking underneath it.
Panicked he ran out of the bedroom, down the stairs and straight to Charlie’s door. He flung open, hoping he’d find her there, but the room was empty, and his heart sank. Still unable to believe that she’d fooled him so completely, he walked over and opened the bathroom door, but it was empty as he’d expected.
When he came out of the bathroom, Daniel was standing in the doorway, a look of concern on his face. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Steven sat down on the bed heavily, “Charlie’s gone and so is the amulet. She’s taken it and left, I can’t believe I was so stupid. I trusted her,” he said, his voice sinking with each word as his heart began to break into a million pieces.
“Are you sure?” Daniel asked, not able to believe that he’d been so wrong about Charlie.
Steven got to his feet, “She’s not here, she’s not in the house, and look,” he said, pointing to his neck, “the amulet is gone. I searched the bedroom, it’s gone.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense, she didn’t even know about the amulet, unless you told her last night,” Daniel said, heading down the hallway to the stairs.
Steven followed him, feeling like his life was over. He’d been so sure about Charlie, had fallen hard for her and now he knew that it had all been an act, so she could get the amulet. He followed his brother into the kitchen, trying desperately to get control of his emotions, he had to think logically, an act or not, they had to get that amulet back and fast.
“No, I didn’t tell her,” Steven said, watching as his brother made coffee. “I would have sworn she was telling the truth, this just doesn’t make sense. How could I have been so wrong?”
Daniel turned and looked at him, “Your right this doesn’t make sense. We need to stop and think. Did she say anything to you tonight, anything out of the ordinary?”
Steven took a deep breath and thought, “Not really, but she was nervous all night, you had to have noticed how she was acting at dinner.”
Daniel nodded his head, “She was acting like she was scared,” he said.
They both got the same idea at once, but Steven spoke first, “She got another phone call,” he said, his blood beginning to boil.
“That would be my guess, it’s the only thing that makes sense,” Daniel said, getting to his feet. “Now all we have to do is figure out where she went.”
“I’m going to kill him when I find them,” Steven said, his anger difficult to control.
“You need to calm down, get some control or you won’t be any help,” Daniel cautioned, when he saw the look in his brother’s eyes. Just to remind Steven what they needed to do, he said, “We need to find out where she went.”
Just then there was a knock on the door and Steven rushed over to answer it, hoping that it was Charlie. But it was one of the hands, looking surprised to have the door answered so quickly in the middle of the night. “Umm, sorry to bother you so late Steven,” the man said, stepping back a few feet when he saw the look in his boss’s eyes.
“What do you want?” Steven demanded.
“Well, I just thought, well I saw Charlie, she was riding up the trail to the spring pasture,” the man said, then added, “But it’s none of my business.”
Steven looked back at his brother, then ordered, “Go saddle my horse.” When the man didn’t move, he shouted, “Now!”
Daniel was already heading back through the kitchen, “I’m going to get dressed and then I’ll round up anyone I can find, and we’ll follow you,” he said, taking the stairs two at a time.
“Call Annabelle,” he shouted after his brother, hoping she’d be able to help, then headed for his room.
It only took him a few minutes to get ready and down to barn, leaving his brother with his ear pressed to the phone. He was just about to get on his horse to head for the trail when his brother came running into the barn. “I found Charlie’s phone on the porch, she must have dropped it,” he said, handing it to Steven.
Steven unlocked the phone and opened her text message screen, when he saw the messages there, anger erupted inside him, scaring the horses who began to shift in their stalls. Without a word, he handed the phone to Daniel, then tried to get control of himself by taking several deep breaths.
“He’s going to kill her when he gets the amulet, and then he’s going to come after us,” Daniel said, his voice flat with anger.
“I have to get to Charlie,” Steven said, striding out of the barn. “Get Annabelle and Justin and anyone else you can, call Penny and Jake. We’re going to need some help, I just hope I’m not too late.”
“She’s only been gone for a few minutes, you should be able to catch up to her quickly. But be careful not to scare the horse, it’s dark out there tonight, it won’t be able to recognize you,” Daniel said, “I’ll be right behind you, I activated the phone tree, it won’t be long before help finds you.”
Steven nodded to his brother, then began to run into the forest behind the barn. Feeling the power inside him begin to surge, he let the change happen slowly, relishing that final moment when he became one of the forests fiercest predators. Heart pumping, he ran through the forest beside the trail, eating up the miles as his instincts took over.
His fierce need to protect Charlie, the anger at a stranger who had been the source of all their problems, but most of all the love he felt for Charlie guided him through the dark night. He knew that she’d done what she had to protect him, the threats in the text messages were enough to make that clear, but it still hurt that she hadn’t told him. But he pushed that hurt aside and concentrated on getting to her, on making sure that she was still around for him to be mad at in the morning.
Chapter 21
***Charlie***
Charlie was trying desperately to follow the trail in the dark when her horse whinnied and pulled her head back nearly dumping her off. She’d barely managed to get the saddle on alone, had nearly lost the trail three times, the last thing she needed was to fall off. Grabbing the horse’s mane, she held on until the horse began to calm down, then nudged her with her foot to get her going again.
They’d just emerged into a clearing when the horse shied again, but this time she was prepared and held on. Feeling tears spring to her eyes, she wished again that she’d told Steven about the phone calls and the threats, but then she remembered seeing her parents sprawled on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood.
As if she’d brought him to her with her thoughts, he came walking out of the trees only a few feet from her. She was so shocked to see him, she wasn’t prepared when the horse shied this time, but he caught her in his arms before she hit the ground.
Stunned she stared up at him, “Steven what are you doing here? Your supposed to be at the ranch,” she said, pushing against him until he put her down.
“So, are you,” he said, “What’s going on Charlie?”
Charlie stared at him open mouthed,
not sure how to explain what she’d done. “I’m sorry Steven, but I had to….” she began, then said, “You need to go home, you shouldn’t be here, if he finds you here he’ll kill you.”
“I’m not leaving you Charlie, and we’re not giving him the amulet,” Steven said, surprising her. “You dropped your phone on the porch, you should have told me that he contacted you again.”
“He told me not to, he said that he’d kill you if I told you. You have to go Steven, he’s going to meet me out here, he could already be here. He knew stuff Steven, about Margot, about other people on the ranch, please go before it’s too late,” she pleaded.
Steven pulled her into his arms, she tried to push him away but, in the end, couldn’t resist the feeling of his arms around her, “In this family we face things together Charlie. Right now, Daniel is gathering shifters to help, he called Annabelle too. You’ll see together we can fix this, we’ve faced worse,” Daniel said, looking into her eyes.
“But he said he was going to kill you and then the rest of your family, I can’t be responsible for that,” Charlie protested, “You have to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere, I love you Charlie, in this family, we don’t abandon the ones we love,” Steven said, smiling when her eyes got wide.
“Oh Steven, I love you too. But I’m afraid that I’m going to lose you, that you’ll be killed. I don’t think I could live knowing that you were gone,” she said.
“If you try to deal with this sifter alone, I’m the one that’s going to lose you,” Steven said, “You have to know that he’s going to kill you Charlie, I can’t let that happen, even it means I die, I have to protect you it’s part of who I am.”
Charlie looked into his eyes and saw the truth of his words there, “Then we’ll die together,” Charlie said, tears springing to her eyes, sorrow for all they’d never experience making them trickle down her cheeks.
When Steven leaned down to kiss her, she felt the amulet begin to get warm where it rested against her skin. The warmth spread through her body, invading every cell until she felt as if she was humming with power. Shocked she gasped and stepped back from Steven, so overwhelmed by the feeling she couldn’t breathe.
“What’s wrong?” Steven asked, concern on his face.
But before she could answer a voice from the trees said, “Isn’t this nice, young lovers kissing in the moonlight.”
***Steven***
Steven pushed Charlie behind him when a man came walking out of the trees twenty yards from them. He stopped and looked at them a predatory smile on his face, then waited. Charlie gasped when she saw him and whispered, “It’s the man from the kitchen and the voice from the phone.”
“Who are you and what do you want?” Steven challenged feeling all his senses heightening, power surging through him.
The man walked a few steps closer to them, “Who I am doesn’t matter since you won’t live to see the sunrise. As to what I want, I think your girlfriend can explain that to you,” he said, sneering at Steven, his orange eyes pulsing with a strange light in the darkness.
“We’re not giving you the amulet,” Charlie said, stepping up next to Steven.
Steven tried to push her back behind him, but she shook her head and said, “We do this together, remember.”
Feeling a wave of love for her so strong, it made him dizzy for a second, he took her hand, feeling a new power wash over him. The power seemed to be filling the clearing, he could feel it pulsing in the air. Charlie sucked in a deep breath and gripped his hand tightly, then looked up at him.
“The amulet is getting hot, it’s burning my skin,” she said, pulling it out of her shirt.
To his astonishment, the amulet was glowing through the leather, it’s pink light bright in the darkness of the night. “Give it to me,” the man shouted, then started toward them, shifting into a wolf after only a few steps.
Steven felt anger surge through him when wolf bared it teeth and snarled at them, each step bringing the fearsome creature closer to Charlie. He sucked in a deep breath, feeling the power in the air filling his lungs and he shifted, becoming the fierce predator that he was.
He stepped in front of Charlie, the faint light from the crystal still hanging from Charlie’s neck making his fur glow, then let out a piercing cry that seemed to reverberate through the entire forest around them.
***Charlie***
Charlie felt Steven’s cry deep in her soul, it flowed through her, a declaration of love as well as protection. A promise to protect her with his life if necessary, and it awakened something deep inside her, a primal instinct that filled her like rain water fills an empty well. It crept through her, and with it came the knowledge of what she had to do.
The wolf-shifter was about to spring on Steven, crouched low, she knew it would only be seconds before he leapt. She pulled the amulet from around her neck and held it up in the air and screamed, “Is this what you want? I’ll give it to you if you let us go.”
The wolf stopped, and stood up again, and stared at her so she threw the amulet at it. Instantly the wolf was gone, and the man was standing in its place, a self-satisfied smile on his face. “It’s good to see that you’ve come to your senses,” he said, hanging the amulet around his neck.
When the amulet came to rest on the man’s chest Charlie felt a burst of energy and a strange humming filled her ears. She looked at the man and their eyes met and suddenly she was filled with him, connected in a way that she’d never experienced before. In that instant she knew him better than he knew himself, saw his path to evil slowly unfold before her eyes.
She gasped, but didn’t look away, feeling his emotions burning her but unable to stop what was happening. The she began to understand what she needed to do to save both their lives, knew what the shifter planned to do next and prepared herself for what was to come.
The shifter finally broke the connection, clearly a bit dazed by the experience, but he quickly recovered and said, “Now that I have the amulet it should be easy to get rid of you two. Too bad you didn’t wait to see if I agreed to your bargain Charlie. But I promise I’ll make it quick, this should make for a great story someday, the tragic death of two lovers.”
The shifter lifted the amulet from around his neck, an evil smile on his face and lifted it into the air. When his hands were fully in the air, Charlie stepped in front of Steven and began to recite a spell. The words seemed to pour out of her from somewhere deep inside her, a place she’d never know existed.
With each word she spoke, she could feel the power of the amulet growing, flowing into her and surrounding her and Steven, until the air was crackling around them. The amulet had changed from pink to a deep red, the same color of hot coals in a fire, and it began to smoke. Charlie smelled burning leather and then suddenly the crystal burst into flames.
The shifter dropped it to the ground where it lay smoking, then with a cry of anger, he shifted and ran straight at them. But when he got near them, he was flung onto his back, almost six feet from where they stood.
Charlie stared at the wolf daring him to try again, but when he stumbled to his feet it was clear that he was hurt. He limped over to the amulet, nudged it around on the ground a few times, then picked it up in his mouth and ran off into the forest.
When he was out of sight, Charlie sank to her knees, but Steven was there to catch her before she fell to the ground. She felt his soft fur beneath her first, then his arms around her as the power drained away, leaving her exhausted and spent. Steven gathered her in his arms and rocked her as the world spun in and out of focus.
A flash of light in the clearing blinded them for a second, but then Annabelle and Justin were standing next to them. “Here give her this, make her eat the whole thing,” Annabelle said, thrusting a candy bar at Steven.
After she’d taken a few bites, the world stopped spinning and she began to feel better but then she realized that they’d lost the amulet. “Oh Annabelle, I’m so sorry he got the amulet. It was the only way
I could save us,” she said, tears streaming down her face.
“Shh,” Annabelle said, kneeling down next to Charlie, “finish that candy bar and we’ll get you two back to the ranch.”
A few minutes later, Annabelle took her hand and said, “I’m going to need your help, do you feel strong enough?”
“I don’t….” she started to say, then saw the look on Annabelle’s face.
“You know what to do,” she said, then took Charlie’s hand and to her surprise she did know what to do.
***Steven***
They were all gathered in the kitchen of the ranch house as the sun came up. Charlie was exhausted, sipping slowly from a cup of hot tea liberally laced with sugar. His mother was at the stove making enough food to feed an army, Margot by her side, clucking her tongue as Steven told the story once more.
They’d already spent hours telling Charlie the entire story of her sibling’s deaths, and she seemed to be absorbing all that they’d told her. When he finished, Charlie looked over at Annabelle, the one thing no one had spoken of hanging in the air.
“I think we all know what your heritage is now,” she said, smiling at Charlie. “I thought I felt it when I put the memory spell on you back in Florida, but I wasn’t sure. I think after tonight it’s pretty clear that you’re not a regular human or a shifter.”
Charlie took a deep breath and said, “I’m a witch.”
Annabelle nodded her head, “A very powerful witch, both your parents were witches.”
Charlie gasped, “You found my parents?”
“Well, we found out who they were. Your mother was a young witch who fell for the wrong man,” Annabelle said, then paused.
Fairplay Shifters Boxset Page 48