Gabriel was silent for a long time. “Where is the book?” he asked.
Chloe looked over at the built-in cabinets along the opposite wall. “I put it in that cabinet after it followed me up here yesterday.”
“It followed you?” he asked, his voice full of alarm.
“I don’t think its going to leave me alone until I open it,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I can’t explain how I know that, but I do.”
“Emma Jean said that it belongs to you,” he said. “Maybe you should open it, claim it or whatever.”
She thought about it, had been thinking about it, but wasn’t ready to take that next step. “I’m not ready, Gabriel,” she said, looking up at him. “Can’t we just forget about it for tonight? Do something else, anything else.”
A smile spread across his face. “What exactly did you have in mind?” he asked. “I can think of a few ways to make you forget.”
Chloe’s breath caught in her throat when she saw desire blossom in his eyes. “If memory serves me,” she said, “you did a pretty good job last time.”
Gabriel growled deep in his throat, slid down in the bed, then grabbed her by the hips and pulled her on top of him. He reached up and cupped her breasts with his hands. “I’ll have to see if I can do an even better job this time,” he said, brushing her nipples with his thumbs.
“Oh,” she gasped. “I think you might already be doing a pretty good job.”
“I still think I can do better,” he said.
When he grabbed her by the hips and lifted her, she cried out in alarm, but when he let her slide over his swollen manhood and buried himself deep inside her, that cry turned to a moan of pleasure. And then, just as he’d promised, the world faded away, and it was only the two of them, the passion between them crackling in the air of the cozy little room.
She fell asleep in the early morning hours, Gabriel’s arms locked securely around her, but in the cabinet not far away, the book was still calling to her. It was becoming harder to ignore its call, but this night belonged to Gabriel and the love that was blossoming between them. There was still time for the book, and the spell she knew she’d have to do to protect her new home and new friends from the evil that lurked beyond the valley.
Chapter Sixteen
***Gabriel***
Gabriel woke to the sun streaming in through the windows, rolled over, and opened his eyes, aware of Chloe sitting next to him before he even looked. She was leaning against the headboard, staring at a leather-wrapped package, a serious look on her face, but her cheeks were a healthy pink and there were no dark circles under her eyes.
“Good morning,” he said, making her jump.
She turned to him, a smile spreading across her face. “Good, you’re finally awake,” she said, her cheeks turned just a little pinker.
“How long have you been awake?” he asked, stretching.
“Long enough to know that you snore when you sleep on your back,” she said, a grin on her face.
“Is that the book?” he asked, leaning up on one elbow.
She nodded. “I’ve been sitting here staring at it for a while,” she said. “I’m not so scared of it anymore, but I still haven’t been able to open it. It’s like with you, I know that once I open it, there will never be a way to go back; my life will be changed forever. That book is filled with responsibility, to my ancestors, to the town, to you.”
Gabriel nodded. “But you are perfectly capable of handling that responsibility,” he said.
“I wish I were that sure,” she said, staring at the book again.
“Tell you what,” he said, throwing the covers over the book. “Let’s have some breakfast and we’ll go find Adam. There’s someone else I want you to meet too. The book will still be waiting for you when you get back.”
Chloe looked at the lump in the bed. “I guess you’re right, sitting here staring at it isn’t going to help,” she said.
She started to get out of bed but he grabbed her and pulled her under him. “Oh, I might have forgotten to tell you the first part of my plan,” he said, slipping his hand between her legs. “But it definitely involves you not getting out of bed yet.”
When they finally managed to escape the house several hours later, Emma Jean was happily chatting with Belinda in the kitchen and anticipating more visitors. “I’m glad we decided not to open the tea house on the weekends. I haven’t even been working and I feel like I need a break. I just wish Belinda would have stayed home today; she’s been working too hard.”
“Belinda can take care of herself,” Gabriel said. “Besides, dragon shifters have more energy than regular people.”
Chloe turned and looked at him, her mouth hanging open, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this,” she said, burying her face in his shoulder as they walked.
“Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out,” he said, helping her into the car. “There aren’t that many of us in town, just enough to help us keep the demons under control.”
When they pulled up in front of the farmhouse, Chloe sighed. “Oh, it’s so pretty,” she said, then saw Adam waiting for them on the porch. “I’m nervous for some reason.”
Gabriel took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “They’re the same people; you just know a little more about them,” he said.
She turned and looked at him. “What do you look like when you shift?” she asked. “I mean, I’ve been trying to picture it, but I’ve never seen a dragon, not a real one. Will you still know me? I mean, you don’t go wild...”
Gabriel laughed. “I’m still me, just with a different body,” he said, but then the reality of the situation hit him. “I don’t know if you want to see me shift. I mean, it might be upsetting or something.”
Chloe studied him for a second, cocking her head from side to side. “You think I’ll be scared of you,” she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I hope you won’t be, but Chloe, I turn into a dragon, a real dragon with wings, talons, and a razor-sharp beak. In my dragon form, I can rip a deadly demon to shreds in seconds. I can fly faster than any bird in the sky. I’m closer to being a wild creature than a human. Do you really think you can face that without being scared?”
“I think if it’s you in the dragon, I’ll know it, and I’ll feel just like I do at this moment,” she said, leaning over and kissing him. “Now, let’s go talk to your friends; when the time comes, we’ll worry about you scaring me off.”
Relief washed over him, and he realized that deep down, he’d been worried that Chloe might reject him when she saw his dragon form. “I think that sounds like an excellent idea,” he said, pulling her over for another kiss. “But when we’re done here, I’m going to find the closest bed and make you forget everything again.”
He was just considering not waiting until they got back to his house when Adam walked up and tapped on the window. They jerked away from each other. Chloe let out a little cry of surprise, and he wanted to punch Adam, who was laughing hysterically. “Sorry, I just figured there was a reason you came over besides making out in my yard,” he said when he’d regained his composure.
Gabriel looked over at Chloe, who was red-faced but laughing. “I guess we’d better get out of the car,” she said. “Now, I’m not just nervous; I’m embarrassed.”
“Molly sent me to look for you,” Adam said when they got out of the car. “Come on, lunch is almost ready.”
“I hope Molly hasn’t been cooking,” Gabriel said as they followed him inside.
“Don’t worry, she and Amy have been supervising from the table, and Charlie has been supervising them,” Adam said. “Bet you’re not quite as excited for lunch now?”
“If you’re doing the cooking, maybe not,” Gabriel said. “I’ll have the stomach pumps at the ready.”
Chloe seemed to relax as soon as they walked into the kitchen and she was seated in a chair at the table with the other three women. He kissed her on the forehead. “I’m just
going to help them get lunch finished up,” he said, then joined the other men, a stupid grin on his face.
***Chloe***
There was an awkward silence when she sat down at the table, but it didn’t last long, and soon the four of them were chatting like old friends. It didn’t take long for the men to bring the food to the table, and for the first time in days, she found herself having fun. The spaghetti Michael made was more than just good, and she ate way more than she should have, especially when Vincent brought out a chocolate cake.
“We have coffee and tea,” he said, setting it down on the table with a flourish. “I found this recipe online, I hope it’s as good as it looks.”
Chloe was impressed. “Maybe we should hire you to make our cakes,” she said, then looked over at Gabriel. “Can you cook like this?”
“I’m afraid boiling water is about as much as I can handle, but I’m good at doing the dishes,” he said.
“Don’t listen to him,” Adam said. “He never touches a dish.”
When the cake was served and everyone had a steaming cup in front of them, Adam cleared his throat. “I guess we should get down to business,” he said, then turned to her. “Chloe, I’m going to assume Gabriel has gotten you up to speed about what’s been going on around here.”
She nodded. “I’m worried about Emma Jean, I mean, my grandmother,” she said.
“For good reason,” Adam said. “Michael has been looking into her son, and I think we need to be prepared for him to show up here. He may or may not know that you broke that spell, so he may show up here expecting his mother to be dead. If he does know, he’s going to come looking for you and the book of shadows.”
Chloe shivered, her vision clouded for a second, a fuzzy picture of an older man slipping into her head. He was yelling at another man, while a third stood off to the side, tapping his foot in impatience. Just as quickly as it had come, the vision dissolved, and she was looking across the table at Amy.
“What happened, Chloe?” Gabriel asked, taking her cold hand in his. “We lost you there for a second.”
She shook her head, chasing away the last of the vision. “I saw three men, my uncle, I think, and two others,” she said. “He was mad about something, yelling at a smaller man and stomping his feet. The other one was watching them, a terrible smile on his face. I don’t think we have long before my uncle shows up here; he wants that book of shadows; no, it’s more like he needs it, has to have it, or something terrible is going to happen to him.”
Gabriel slammed his fist down on the table, making everyone jump. “It’s Sebastian; he’s behind this. He somehow found Darrell and now he’s using him to get to the book of shadows, the one thing that gives us our power,” he said. “I told you he wasn’t just hiding somewhere licking his wounds.”
Michael held up his hand. “We can’t be sure about that,” he said.
“But,” Vincent interrupted before Gabriel exploded again, “just in case, we’re going to close ranks around both Emma Jean and Chloe.”
Gabriel seemed mollified by that. “So, what’s our plan?” he asked. “We can’t just hunker down and wait for them to attack.”
“The festival is only a week away; if we can hold them off until then, and Chloe agrees to do the spell, we won’t have to worry about Sebastian again,” Adam said.
Chloe wanted to say that she’d do the spell, that she’d perform a ceremony she knew nothing about, but couldn’t promise something she might not be able to deliver. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that kind of magic,” she said, looking down into her lap. “I’m still not ready to open the book of shadows.”
“I think we can all understand why,” Adam said. “But there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Just then, there was a knock at the front door. “I’ll get it,” Michael said, but before he left the room, he stopped and looked over at her. “Get ready. You’re about to meet my mother.”
Chloe looked over at Gabriel, who was laughing. “His mother is someone you will never forget. She looks innocent, but she loves to meddle in other people’s lives.”
“Especially Michael’s,” Amy said.
“Oh, my, look at all of you gathered around the table,” the older woman exclaimed when she walked in. “Michael, go over and sit down with them and let me get a picture.”
Michael reluctantly did as he was told. “Chloe, this bossy woman is my mother, Margaret, and this is Arthur, a demonologist who’s been helping us.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said, shaking Arthur’s hand when he offered it.
She felt a quiet strength in his hand and immediately knew that she could trust him. “It’s nice to meet you. I hear you’ve had quite a few interesting days.”
“I’m afraid it’s been a bit overwhelming,” she said.
He studied her for a second. “You look like your ancestor, the first witch that came to Prospect Falls,” he said. “All of the Baxter witches have those green eyes, but you look almost exactly like her.”
“Arthur,” Margaret said. “you’re scaring her.”
“Nonsense, she needs to know,” he said. “It’s all in the blood.”
Chloe wasn’t sure what to make of his strange words. “What do I need to know?” she asked.
“Well, actually, you all need to know,” Arthur said, looking around at the group. “You all need to know what the prophecy says. I didn’t see it until now. Chloe is the key to the whole thing, the last piece we’ve been waiting for.”
Chapter Seventeen
***Gabriel***
There was silence around the table as Arthur drew a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. “It’s taken me all this time to translate it, but I finally finished it last night. I still wasn’t sure what it meant until I walked in here today and saw all of you,” he said.
Adam took the paper from him, read over it quickly, then looked over at Arthur. “I’m afraid you’re still going to have to translate this for me,” he said.
“Read it out loud. I want to see if Amy makes the same connections I did,” Arthur said, then walked over to the window and looked outside.
Adam looked down at the page again, then cleared his throat. “I’m not much of a reader, especially this poetry stuff.”
“Just get on with it,” Vincent said.
Adam cleared his throat again, then took a deep breath and began to read:
“So it begins with a pledge of faith,
To be carried through the blood of men,
Until the woman emerges,
To join the one with the gift,
So that all of his children,
Can be joined by the powers of good,
And chase away the evil plague of generations.”
No one spoke for a long time after he said the last line, then Amy broke the silence. “Let me see that.”
Adam handed over the paper, and as soon as she saw it, her eyes got big. “Oh, my God, it’s us,” she said, looking around the table. “We’re the prophecy.”
Arthur turned from the window, and came back over to the table, looked at the surprised faces around him, and smiled. “Chloe is the last link,” he said. “It’s easy to see once you know what to look for.”
When the surprise was quickly followed by looks of confusion on their faces, he sighed. “Michael, would you go to the car and bring my bag in, please? I think this will all make more sense when you see what I’ve been working on.”
A few minutes later, he was circling around the table, dropping a folder in front of each of them. “Go ahead and open them,” he said when he set the last one down in front of Adam. “Inside, you’ll find your family lineage as far back as I could go; some of you know what you’re going to find, but there are a few surprises.”
Gabriel opened his folder to find a detailed family tree dating back nearly a century, not unlike the one his mother had tucked away in a drawer at his house. Chloe made a little noise, then set the folder down quickly on the table, and when he s
aw the picture on top, he understood why.
“You do look like her,” he said, looking from Chloe to the picture and back. “I think you might be a little prettier though.”
She stared at the picture for a minute more, tears forming in her eyes. “I don’t think I really believed all of this until now,” she said. “We look so much alike, we could be sisters.”
“Indeed, the resemblance is striking,” Arthur said. “And interestingly enough, she later went on to marry a dragon shifter, one of the guardians; their bond was the stuff of legends.”
“We’re not related or something are we?” Gabriel asked, looking over Chloe’s shoulder at her family tree.
Arthur shook his head. “No, it was later in her life, a second marriage.”
“Okay, so you’ve researched us all. I still don’t see what that has to do with the prophecy,” Vincent said.
“Read it again, Adam, but more slowly this time,” Arthur said.
Adam read the first verse. “Okay, the first verse describes Molly,” he said. “It was her pledge of faith that put all this in motion, a faith based only on her love for Adam.”
“Okay,” Michael said, clearly skeptical. “Let’s say we accept that. What does the next line mean?”
“It describes Charlie, descended directly from one of the first dragon shifter, she was the first female ever born in her family, the first to be able to carry a child,” he explained.
Amy broke in then. “The next part is about me; I have Merlin’s blood,” she said.
“Which leaves Chloe, the powers of good,” Adam said, shaking his head. “She makes us complete.”
“But I don’t have any of Merlin’s blood, and I’m not a shifter,” Molly said.
“Look a little closer. I think if you and Amy compare your family trees, you’ll see that her ancestor had a sister and that sister was your ancestor,” Arthur said, a smug look on his face. “I promised you a few surprises, didn’t I? That was the hardest connection to make, and the one that took me the longest.”
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