Thunder boomed as she padded in bare feet on her Nah’s aged hardwood floors. She drew up to the heavy oak front door as the thunder rumbled to a close, and the flame of her candle flickered. She glared at it, daring it to go out. When it stabilized, she lifted her athame to the door and sketched a pentacle in the air.
“Moon Mother and Sun Father, protect this house and all inside,” Ever murmured, and then lowered her knife. “Blessed be.”
She hurried through the archway and into the living room, stopping before the large picture window and lifting her athame once more. She repeated her incantation, her voice just a little shaky.
Ever hit every window and door in the house as quickly and as efficiently as possible. She’d spent the better part of seventeen years learning from her mother how to be the best witch she could be. But since Lily O’Connell was always gone, these lessons were more like an impersonal online course than maternal guidance. Ever couldn’t figure out how a woman could be so good with magick and so bad at being a mom. It was a shame: Lily was one of the greatest healers of her generation, but didn’t stay in one place long enough to do anything with it, including teaching her daughter.
When Ever walked back into her room, her phone was ringing, the screen alight with Nah’s vivid smile. She set her candle and athame down, then slid the bar on her touch-screen to answer the call. “Hey.”
“Ever, dear, are you alright?” Nah’s strong voice crackled across the line. In the background, Ever could hear the news on at top volume and the distinct crackle of the police department’s radio.
“Yeah. I’m good.” Ever gently set her candle snuffer over the flame of the white pillar candle, killing the light. “I just did a protection spell.”
“Good.” Nah’s voice was approving. “I won’t be home until after the storms pass, love. Do you think you’ll be okay? I know how you get.”
“I’m fine, Nah. Just stay safe. If you guys have to hit the basement, do it. Don’t start in on that ‘my officers need me’ stuff.” Ever chuckled and slid her snuffer back into the drawer under her altar.
“It’s my job to be on this radio rain or shine, Ever Marie. Did you let the dogs in?”
Ever froze. Oops. She’d completely forgotten about the dogs.
“They’re outside,” Ever replied, hurrying down the stairs. “But I’m letting them in right now.”
“Alright, love. Go ahead and spend the night in the basement, ‘kay?”
Ever told her grandmother goodbye, and then pushed open the back door. The wind gusted inside, nearly jerking the screen from her hands. She let out a shrill whistle and gave the pups a sheepish smile as they tumbled over one another on their way inside. Roo was the gigantic black Lab mutt that had shown up one evening with a broken ankle; Jesus was the floppy-eared German Shepherd mix Nah had found on the side of the highway just outside Memphis; and Tiff was the pint-sized Pomeranian with a big attitude.
“To the basement, kids,” Ever said brightly, jerking as another boom of thunder shook the house to its foundations. Tiff skittered across the floor and hid between Ever’s legs, her ears flat on her head.
Ever picked her up and cradled her fluffy body. “It’s okay, girl. I’m freaked, too.”
It was too dark in the kitchen to see properly, and Ever had left her favorite MagLite upstairs in her room. She switched Tiff to one arm and illuminated the display on her cell phone to light the way to the utility closet.
The closet had been a pantry at some point in the past, but Nah had decided they needed a bigger one and knocked down an old wall in the kitchen to make it happen. Now, the old pantry held all the household odds and ends that needed storing: tools, extra power strips and extension cords, ratty towels for cleaning, even her Dah’s old set of golf clubs that hadn’t moved since he died.
Ever grabbed one of her Nah’s infinite MagLites. It was much bigger than her cute little purple one, a good two pounds and bright enough to light a football stadium. I could probably kill a man with this, Ever thought.
Raindrops began to ping on the kitchen’s skylight, and Ever counted her blessings. She’d brought in the dogs just in time. Trying to dry off beasts as crazy and furry as Roo, Jesus, and Tiff wasn’t on her agenda. She switched on the flashlight, and the beam illuminated the linoleum floor.
The basement door was between the fridge and the closet — smaller than a normal door, and leading to somewhere dark, dank, and damn scary. Nah’s house wasn’t the typical neighborhood cookie-cutter; it was a three-story farmhouse nearly two hundred years old, and with more neuroses than Ever’s mother. It sat on twenty acres in the middle of nowhere, and the “basement” wasn’t so much a basement as it was a root cellar.
The door creaked as Ever opened it, and she felt the niggling sensation of fear. She hated the murky hole beneath the house. It had no windows, so no ambient light filtered in. Whenever Nah sent her downstairs for vegetables, it took everything in her not to sprint down and back like a child running from the Boogey Man.
And now she had to spend the night down there.
But which was better: being in the house as it was mowed down by an F5 or being under the house and semi-safe?
Roo and Jesus shot down the stairs, disappearing into the black abyss as if it were lit by a full summer sun. Thunder boomed, and Tiff’s little body shook in Ever’s arms. A crack that sounded like it came from the backyard sent Ever scurrying down the steps, slamming the door shut behind her.
The basement smelled like dirt and mold, and depending on the time of year, like rotten vegetables. They were coming up on Samhain, the fourth-and-final harvest on the wheel of the Wiccan year; it’d be months before anything deigned to rot in Nah’s household.
Ever reached the bottom of the staircase and stepped onto the cold, dirty floor in her bare feet, wishing she’d brought her shoes. She set Tiff down, and then danced the beam of light around the cellar.
There was a pile of boxes in the corner — various holiday decorations that didn’t fit in the attic because it was cluttered with eons worth of family artifacts. In another corner sat the wooden crates that held Nah’s veggies, and the old wine barrel — buried to its rim — that held the root plants. Other than the ancient furnace and hot water heater against the back wall, the only other objects in the room were an old army cot and the cat’s litter box.
The cat, a thirty pound Maine Coon named Rascal, was curled on the cot. He came and went through a flap set in the cellar door that led outside; but he didn’t spend nearly as much time in the cellar as he did upstairs bugging Ever for food . He opened one sleepy eye as the flashlight trained on his tabby body, and then promptly went back to snoozing.
Despite being six feet underground, Ever could hear the rain pelting the house. She sat down on the cot and wrapped her arms around her knees. Her cut-off denims and T-shirt weren’t protection enough against the chill. She berated herself for coming downstairs without a blanket to ward off the cold. The dogs worked their way onto the cot, narrowly averting World War III with Rascal, and comforted her with their warmth.
Closing her eyes, Ever began to count her breaths, slowly drifting into meditation.
Chapter 2
CADE
CADE BOURDAIN WAS determined to find a way to harness and store the power of a thunderstorm.
There was so much energy. All just there for the taking. If he could figure out exactly how to gather that energy and cage it, bottle it for future release at the whim of a witch, he’d own a gold mine. He’d have magickal practitioners the world over pounding the pavement to pay him for a nip of the good stuff. It’d be better than drugs.
Until then, he had to settle for the momentary high.
He lay on the soft grass of his backyard, staring blankly at the dark sky as it danced and sang above him. The rain had yet to start, but he could feel it — it hung in the air, a perfume that called his name. When it fell, it would be as sweet as candy. Or rum.
Rum sounds good.
; “Gonna be a nasty one,” Allie said from beside him.
He turned his head to look at her. Allie Newby had gone to school with Cade since they were kids. She dyed her hair blue-black and deprived her skin of Vitamin D so she could be white as a ghost. So, yeah, she looked like a crazy Goth-kid, but her heart-shaped face was pretty enough and her body was smokin’.
“Yeah. No kidding.” His eyes drifted to her cleavage where it spilled over the top of her too-tight black tank top.
Allie rolled to her side and propped her head up with one hand, a smirk flitting across her face. “Wanna make out?”
Cade licked his lips and nodded.
She crawled across the space between them and straddled him, her thin lips slanting over his. Allie wasn’t the greatest of kissers, but he could live with that.
His mind wandered as they kissed, his hands resting lightly on her bony hips. He had a chemistry test on Friday — the first of the year — and chemistry was not one of his strong subjects. There had to be a way he could use magick to get the answers from Holmann’s grade book. If he failed another class, his mom would kill him.
Cade broke the kiss, his lips hot. “Hey.”
Allie wiggled her hips suggestively against him. “Hey.”
“Can you do something for me?”
“Name it, gorgeous.”
“I need answers to Friday’s chemistry quiz.”
“I’m on it,” she murmured, falling back on his lips.
Yeah, it was lazy, but Cade seriously had better things to do.
Like wrangle thunderstorms.
Truth be told, Allie kinda bored him. It wasn’t that she was unattractive or dumb. She was neither. And she wasn’t a bad girl, either. Allie, with her heavy eye makeup and penchant for black, was all smoke and mirrors. Her parents were both dentists with an unhealthy obsession for teeth and flossing. Her heart wasn’t really into magick or Wicca or even the Goth scene — it was into rebellion.
But Cade could dig that. His own parents made him insane. His dad, in particular.
A loud crash of thunder made Allie jerk, and her bony knee came down hard on his thigh.
Cade grunted. “It’s just thunder.”
“Sorry.” She grinned sheepishly. “Do you think we should go inside?”
Cade glanced at the sky. “It isn’t going to break for at least ten more minutes.”
Allie rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
When their lips met again, Cade decided he’d better get into it a bit. If she realized that he might as well have been surfing TV channels, it would hurt her feelings. And he didn’t need a hysterical female on his hands.
Once he put his mind into it, he felt his power rise. His dad had always taught him there were numerous ways to raise magick: through physical exercise like dancing, or through repetitive sounds like clapping or chanting. But nothing raised power quite like sexual energy.
As the familiar heat filled Cade’s body, he rolled Allie beneath him, putting his back to the sky. He loved the way the storm’s energy beat down on his back. Without thinking, he pushed his awareness out to meet the power — an almost subconscious move. The white-hot energy latched onto him, and Cade began to reel it in.
It was an innocent action — just a witch reaching for the nearest source of pure akasha. He did it all the time with bodies of water or sunlight, and he could usually hold the energy for no longer than ten seconds before it needed release. Great way to put a bit of oomph behind his spells.
But this time, he felt the exact moment he lost hold of the storm’s energy…
…and it flowed into Allie.
Her body jolted, her lips going rigid beneath his. Cade pulled away to find her eyes showing white as they rolled back into her head.
“Allie?” Cade got to his knees on either side of her thin waist and shook her by the shoulders. “Allie!”
No response but thunder.
Fear gripped Cade. He fumbled beneath her jaw line to search for her pulse, but wasn’t able to find one.
He’d killed her.
No panicking. Cade closed his eyes and shuffled through his memory banks for the spell to restart a heart. Love, money, protection, it was all there and easy to find, but the heart jolt had been a passing mention by his dad during a training session. If felt wispy and out of reach. Of course he never thought he’d need a fucking heart jolt spell!
“Damn it!” Cade shook her again, and Allie’s head lolled back on the grass. Putting both hands to his head, he looked again.
There it is.
“Commenceé!” he snarled, slapping the palm of his left hand — his power hand — to Allie’s chest.
Her body jerked, and her eyes flew open.
Cade cried out as the storm’s power — apparently stored inside Allie — flew from her body and back through his. He fell to his elbows next to her, going boneless. The energy took everything from him and disappeared back into the clouds.
It was a bigger rush than alcohol. His entire body felt alive, racing with power. The sensation was better than orgasm.
There was a hideous moment as he waited for Allie to breathe, to react — and then she gasped, arching up on the grass.
Cade crawled over the ground, his own strength depleted, and gripped her arms to gently pull her into a sitting position. He sat with an arm around her, supporting her as she caught her breath.
Could it be possible…? Cade remembered the way the storm had seeped into him, as if he were a spool, and how it’d gone into Allie, where it had stayed until he jolted her.
Like a vessel storing the power.
With a strong enough partner, and enough energy raised, he could do it.
As Allie’s coughs faded away, the sky opened up.
Chapter 3
EVER
“DID YOU HEAR it took out the fire station?”
Startled, Ever whirled around, clutching her algebra book to her chest. Her best friend, Meagan Stauble, was twirling the padlock on her locker, her dark eyes wide as she glanced at Ever. She wore sparkly silver eyeliner that flashed beneath the greenish fluorescent lights and made her look like a model.
Ever balked. “No! The one on Main with the gargoyles?”
Meagan always reminded Ever of an Amazon. She was tall and muscular, which made her a star center for the girls’ basketball team. She had ebony skin and hair cropped boy-short, not to mention the kind of broad, high cheekbones that belonged on an Egyptian princess.
Meagan yanked open her locker door. “No, the little one over by my house.”
“Mother Goddess, Meg. Are you okay?” Ever shoved her book into her locker and lunged to wrap her arms around Meagan. She squeezed tightly. “Is your house okay?”
“We’re fine.” Meagan returned the hug and pulled away, shrugging. “It was just… weird.”
“What’d your mom say?”
Meagan laughed bitterly. “Um, not much. I think she was kinda shocked. Lightning isn’t supposed to strike the same place twice and all.”
Ever shuddered. “Yeah. I don’t believe that.”
She remembered vividly the F5 that tore through the area sophomore year and the ensuing chaos afterwards. It destroyed a large percentage of buildings in Coalhaven, and killed several people.
Including Meagan’s dad.
“Me either,” Meagan agreed, her eyes sad. “What about you? Everything okay at the farm?”
“Yeah. Some siding came off the house, but that’s it. Mostly I’m just tired.” Ever made a face. “I spent the night in the cellar, so I didn’t sleep well.”
“That place is creepy,” Meagan agreed.
“Did you finish your book report?” Ever dug into her backpack for her notebook, and panicked for a second, thinking she had left it at home. She found it burrowed down in the bottom of the bag, covered in empty gum wrappers and pieces of mechanical pencil lead.
“I did.” Meagan pulled an electric-green folder from her locker and waved it. “Ten pages.”
“S
uper proud.” Ever grinned. “Next time, we’re going to get you to the specified fifteen pages.”
Meagan waggled her eyebrows. “I don’t know. Might need a miracle. Or at least a really strong spell!”
Ever stiffened as the hair prickled on the back of her neck. She couldn’t explain the sensation — it wasn’t like bugs crawling or any kind of discomfort. It was more like the feeling of cool water washing over her skin, wrapping around her like a blanket that had just come in from the winter cold. There was no explanation for why it happened, but it always did.
Every time he was near.
Cade Bourdain.
Ever angled her locker door so that the round mirror inside faced the hallway, putting him squarely in the frame. She could have put it in just the right spot to find him with her eyes closed, so deeply attuned was she to the exact position of his locker compared to hers.
He was tall and lean with the slim, muscular body of a swimmer; he was captain of the school’s team. The length of his shaggy blond hair usually fluctuated between his jaw line and his shoulders, as if he couldn’t decide exactly how long he wanted it to be. Even though Ever couldn’t see his eyes in the mirror, she knew they were huge and emerald green. As he glanced down the hall, she got a glimpse of his face — square jaw, thick, full lips — and blushed.
“You’re staring,” Meagan murmured, the corner of her lips turning up.
“Am not.”
“You know you shouldn’t have a crush on him, Ev.” Meagan slammed her locker door, hefting her small pink backpack to one bare shoulder. She was wearing her favorite tank top — the yellow one that emphasized her generous chest and tiny waist. Vice-Principal Forrest had already warned her three times not to wear it. “Bourdain is the enemy.”
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