by Brenda Trim
Violet rolled her eyes. “What part of wood nymph didn’t you understand?”
I smacked her shoulder while my head did a good impression of a sprinkler, racing back and forth while I checked to see who was listening. “Shush. And, yeah. I get that now. This is all new to me. It never occurred to me before. Hence the reason we’re here drinking.”
Violet chuckled and took a long sip of her margarita. “And, here I thought we were here so you could avoid your grandmother. You don’t seem overly inclined to spend time with her.”
“Why is that? You’ve been whining about not knowing enough about your heritage and here you have the perfect source right at your fingertips, and you aren’t even with her.” It was obvious that Aislinn was genuinely curious. I couldn’t stop from shifting on the barstool while taking a drink of my margarita.
Why wasn’t I at home talking with Grams? I should be. It’s all I’ve wanted for months, yet I couldn’t be there for very long at the moment. As I considered Aislinn’s question, I realized there was a part of me that was uncomfortable around her.
I was getting used to magical matters, but this was some next level shit. To top it off, she said I was different than most others of my kind. It was bad enough that I had so much power it made me a target.
I finished my drink and set the cup on the counter. “Every time I turn around, she has new information for me. Apparently, my parents were killed by a spell cast from across the world. While she was murdered by fire. She thought maybe it was a dragon but didn’t know for sure. Oh, and Emmie will be coming into her powers in the next couple years, so I have to find a way to tell them what they are.”
Aislinn tilted her head. She was the youngest of the three of us at thirty-eight years old. “They’ll be fine with it. I bet they even think it’s cool.”
Violet shook her head. “I’m not so sure about that. They’ll be different and need to keep strict control over their emotions or they will stand out. And, Emmie strikes me as an introvert.”
“She hates being in the limelight, but she has a good head on her shoulders, so the control thing should be easy for her. And, it helps that they all live together now. She keeps the twins in line and will make sure there aren’t wild parties and whatnot. But she will work herself half to death trying to keep Skylar and Greyson out of trouble. Those two will be a handful and I can’t move back to help.”
Aislinn took my glass and washed it out. “You want another one?”
“Yeah. I left Sebastian and my Grams when I left. She was grilling him about his intentions and why I made this glow. I had no idea the amber has never done this before.” I held up the charm Bas had made decades ago. He mentioned something about it being for my family or me. I can’t recall exactly. I was too busy trying not to ogle the guy while trying to figure out why he hated me at the same time. And, then there was the other stuff he made. He had an unreal talent for creating stunning jewelry, weapons and tools.
Violet reached for the amulet when she stiffened, and her eyes flared wide. Her face went white as a ghost and her face furrowed with terror.
“What is it?” Aislinn and I blurted at the same time.
“My kids!” Violet didn’t say anything else as she grabbed her cell from her purse. I started biting my thumb nail while Aislinn practically climbed over the bar.
Violet was holding her breath as she removed the phone from her ear and pressed end. She called up the contact for another one of her kids and hit the button. She took a shaky breath and I switched to chewing my bottom lip while we waited for them to answer.
She was whimpering by the time she ended that call and hit the contact for ex-husband. “Hey. It’s me. Have you heard from Ben and Bailey tonight?”
Tears filled her eyes while she listened to his response. I jumped off my stool and placed a hand on her shoulder. “No. They didn’t answer when I called, so I thought I’d check with you. I’m sure it’s nothing.” Her voice cracked telling me she was far more worried than she was letting on.
He said something else that had her clenching her jaw. I swear I heard something crack. “There’s no reason for you to do anything. I told you I’d keep you posted. I was just checking on them.”
She stabbed the end call button while he was still speaking then looked up at me. “The wards I set around the house triggered. They aren’t answering.”
Aislinn turned to her fellow bar tender and told him she would be leaving. I picked up my purse. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything happened, but let’s go check to be sure.”
Violet nodded and got to her feet. She stumbled and caught herself on the bar. I wrapped an arm around Violet when her legs wobbled with her first step. Aislinn met us at the end of the bar.
I prayed nothing happened to Violet’s kids. They were her world. She was one of the best mom’s I’d ever known. She was always doing small stuff for them. She went out of her way to stock special proteins for Bailey because she was vegetarian. They had a great relationship.
My heart raced at the same time a vice tightened around my chest as we exited into the cold winter air. Our breath puffed out in white clouds and I squeezed Violet’s shoulder trying to reassure her and get her to calm down. I was surprised she hadn’t passed out yet with how her lungs seemed to stop functioning.
At least that’s the way it seemed when I noticed the white cloud in front of her face resembled the scene in horror movies when the next hapless victim was locked in a basement and opened a large freezer. You know the one where the white frost swirls in the air above the freezer right before it clears, and she starts screaming at the sight of frozen body parts.
Okay, not the best image to have at the moment. I wiped it from my mind and clung to the belief they were fine. I wasn’t sure the woman that had become my best friend would survive if anything happened to them.
I put Violet in the passenger seat in my Mustang while Aislinn jumped into the backseat. “They’re fine. Maybe they’re watching a movie and turned off their phones.” Aislinn reached through the seats and squeezed Violet’s hand.
Violet sniffed and her body started shaking. “No. Something has happened. I know it in my gut. We have to find them. They have to be okay.” Her voice broke at the end and her shoulders shook with a sob.
Pulling out of the parking spot, I turned onto the street and had to check my speed. My foot refused to ease up on the peddle. I had no idea what I would do if it had been my children. As a mother, my life had been about nurturing and protecting them for half of my life.
The sky darkened and the air thickened when I turned onto Violet’s street two minutes later. “Do you feel that?”
Violet turned tear filled eyes to me. A check in my rearview mirror and I caught the tail end of Aislinn shaking her head side to side. “I don’t feel anything. Do you, V?”
“I can’t feel anything at the moment. I mean that literally. My body has gone numb,” Violet whispered as her gaze remained riveted to her house.
I stopped at the curb and she was out the door before I turned the engine off. Aislinn and I followed her a second later. “What do you feel?” Aislinn’s eyes roamed the neighborhood around us.
The town was small with more than half of the population being supernatural. It was about ten miles with the downtown square being the center. Most of the homes closest to the center, with a handful in outlying areas. Violet lived in the middle of town, not far from her bookstore.
Violet paused on the threshold and looked back at us. Her face was the color of a Mike Myers mask and her blue eyes were bright and filled with worry. It was then that I noticed the front door was slightly ajar.
Aislinn and I ran to catch up with her. My stomach soured and bile filled the back of my throat. The open door combined with the oppressive feeling I couldn’t shake and Violet’s certainty her kids were in trouble had me convinced she was right.
“Violet, wait. Let me go first.” I rushed past her before she could tell me no or enter first.
>
Her house had an open floor plan and after a short hall opened up into a living room with a connected kitchen. All I saw was some blankets and the throw pillows strewn across the floor. My chest tightened and I found it harder to breathe. I tried to pick up on any hints of magic cast in the area, but I was too new to that side of my heritage to know if what I sensed was anything or not.
Violet stopped in the middle of the room and bent to pick something up from under the coffee table. I started trembling with her when I noticed Bailey’s cell phone in her hand. The teen was never without the thing.
“Bailey! Ben!” Violet called out, but there was no answer.
“I’ll check their rooms,” I offered and hurried to the second floor where the three bedrooms were located.
Bailey’s room was first. She wasn’t there. Her backpack was on the small desk in the corner, but there was nothing else out of place. Her bed was neatly made, and her clothes were in her hamper.
I moved onto Ben’s room and saw the opposite scene. His dark blue comforter was rumpled at the end of the bed and I couldn’t see the floor beyond the piles of clothes, shoes and gaming equipment. I wondered how he managed to find anything in the place. This too fit the kid I had come to know.
I peeked into the master bedroom to find it spotless with the bed made. Whatever happened hadn’t reached the second floor. I returned to the living room and told Violet and Aislinn as much. “We need to call the Constable and get some help.”
Violet bobbed her head and swiped the tears that were now flowing down her cheeks. “I’ll call Lance.”
“And, I will call Camille and Sebastian. We can cast some locating spells and find them.” I wanted to reassure her that they were fine, and we would get to them in time, but I didn’t. I knew better than to give her false promises.
“We won’t stop looking for them until we find them,” Aislinn promised.
“Sebastian will be here in five minutes. Camille lives down the street and should be here…”
“Right now.” Camille’s voice cut me off mid-sentence. “Tell me what happened.” I was relieved to see the powerful witch. She and my grams might not get along, but we needed her experience now more than ever.
Violet told her what she knew, which wasn’t much. Lance arrived just as she was finishing her explanation and she had to launch into another recounting of the events. Only this time Violet left out how she sensed something was wrong with her kids. He wasn’t a member of the supernatural community and had no knowledge of our existence.
Lance had called in a unit to collect evidence and was talking to Violet about needing to monitor her calls in the event someone called for ransom. It was obvious the kids hadn’t left of their own accord, and he fully expected someone to make demands soon.
“Can you think of anyone that would want to hurt you or your kids?” Lance was searching for a place to start an investigation. There was little forensic evidence left behind. Without a threat they had nothing to go on. “What about your ex-husband?”
Violet rolled her eyes. “That asshole is too busy starting a new life to worry about me or the kids. He’s a cheating jerk but would never do anything like this.”
“We have to look at every angle. I’ll need his contact information to follow up. If anyone reaches out to you call me immediately. In the meantime, I want you to download an app to record any calls you might get.” Lance continued to provide instructions to Violet.
I exited the house to greet Sebastian when he arrived less than a minute later. “What happened? Whatever it was involved magic and a lot of it.”
I cocked my head. Had he experienced what I had? No one else mentioned feeling anything. “We don’t know. I felt this pressure in my chest the second I turned onto the street and it got much worse when we entered the house but no one else did. There’s a sign of a struggle but nothing really to go on.”
Bas pursed his lips and turned to wave to Lance as he walked down the path. The two of us went back inside to find Camille setting up to scry for the kids. She had pulled the kitchen table to the middle of the space and cleared it off.
Knowing what she needed, I went into the kitchen and got a bowl of water plus four candles then returned as she was pulling herbs and salt along with her athame from the bag she took everywhere. I lit the candles and set them in the four corners, responding to the locations on a compass.
With quick efficiency Camille poured a salt circle around her and stood in the center. She traced the circle, her finger starting in the North before heading to the East, South and West then back to North. Blue light flowed from her finger into the perimeter as she progressed. My skin tingled as a wave of energy rippled from Camille outward. It was light and airy.
My mentor stood beside the table and muttered a tracking spell on the children. The water started swirling and clouded over and stayed that way. It didn’t show how to find the kids. It was anticlimactic. I hoped we’d have this explosion of fireworks that would light the way to the children.
Switching tactics, Camille cast a reveal spell and we got a brief glimpse of the kids huddled together in what looked like a dank cave. Violet cried out and jumped toward the bowl of water.
My legs were in motion before I thought my actions through, and I caught Violet mid-leap then pulled her off course. We fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. I got an elbow to my cheek for my efforts, but the last thing we needed at the moment was for Violet to be burned by the protective circle.
Camille came toward us and cut through the salt, safely dissipating the circle she’d cast. “They’re alive for now. And seem to be underground somewhere.”
Bas bent down and helped me to my feet. “Let me try.” He helped Violet up and gave her a hug. I’d never seen him so expressive before. He was always so grouchy and distant. Seeing this side of him didn’t make me think he was a softie at his core, but it did make me fall for him all the more.
After releasing Violet, Sebastian pushed the table back to its original position then swept the salt aside with his foot. He closed his eyes and drew a rune in the air with his finger.
I made a note to ask him about that later. At the moment I had to catch myself on the back of the sofa when the earth moved beneath me. Light encompassed Bas and the energy hit me in the middle of my chest like a punch.
Camille’s magic was light and tingled, but Sebastian’s was like a sucker punch. I did feel energy seeping from around us and traveling to him, only it was as if it all hit me at once, rather than caressing me like Camille’s had.
The light shifted colors before disappearing when he opened his eyes. “They’re indeed underground, but something is blocking me from reaching them. That shouldn’t be possible.”
“Could the Queen have them?” I immediately wanted to call my question back. Violet crumpled when I asked if her children could have been taken by our vile nemesis.
Sebastian wrapped his arm around me and tugged me to his side. “We can’t rule that out, Butterfly.” I smiled at his recent nickname for me. I loved that this broody guy showed his sweet side around others. “But I doubt she’d be strong enough to keep up a barrier this strong. Whoever has them will pay. They didn’t count on a Fae, a witch, two half-breeds, and a nicotisa coming together.”
How the hell had this happened? We’d cast protections on all of our houses. It hit me that I’d loosened them earlier. I never considered they would all be connected. Another tragedy fell at my feet. I was sick and tired of being used by these evil assholes. This had to end. Now.
But first, I needed to find Bailey and Ben. They took priority.
Chapter 5
The last twenty-four hours had been one long nightmare. I only wish it had been nothing more than a very bad dream. Unfortunately, it was all too real. Violet’s children had been kidnapped and were being held underground.
I had to come home to get Grams’ feedback on what we should do next. We kept coming up against road blocks no matter what we tried. Camille
stayed with us, trying to cast different spells until an hour ago. She needed to get a few hours of sleep and eat then she would be back.
Violet was beside herself and hadn’t slept or eaten anything since we left the bar the night before. Sebastian stayed with her and Aislinn in case the kidnapper called or showed up. They had been taken for leverage.
Parking the car, I jumped out and ran to the back door. I wanted to shower and change then talk to Grams so I could go back to Violet’s house. Energy pulsed around me and the pinging started up insistently in my head.
I stopped so suddenly that my arms windmilled at my sides and I nearly fell on my ass. Part of me wanted to ignore the summons. Ben and Bailey were in danger and time was of the essence.
Guilt immediately raced in to join the party and a tug of war commenced inside my gut. Shaking my head, I cursed and switched directions toward the family graveyard that was next to the house. Waiting for my conflicting emotions to duke it out would only waste precious time.
I had a job that I’d inadvertently cut off and I couldn’t ignore it. There could be a Fae in as much danger as Violet’s children. From the signals firing in my head, I would guess that’s not far off. I’d never experienced it so intensely.
Pushing the crypt door open, I gaped when I saw a guy trying to get through the portal. He must be in imminent danger if he’s willing to risk himself. From what I’d read trying to cross without permission was lethal. Some of the stronger Fae could cast spells and there was a chance they wouldn’t die, but they’d be maimed for sure.
“Can I help you? You need to go through me to get through the portal.”
The Fae turned toward me. I flinched when his dark as night eyes leveled me with a murderous glare. “You don’t hold power over me. You’re weak and insignificant.”