My heart nearly stops. Dies. Explodes. But in the back of my mind, doubt claws through the lust.
He lied to me. This isn’t the Hunter I know.
It takes every ounce of willpower I possess to break my lips from his.
Panting, I stare up at him, dazed and confused. His eyes are shut, his nostrils flaring as he takes uneven breaths. Then his lips part, and half of me wonders if he’s about to say something wonderful, like how amazing the kiss was. I hold my breath in anticipation.
“Mihi crede …” he utters the start of the trust spell.
Frowning, I line my palm to his chest and shove him off me. He easily rolls over, continuing with the spell.
“I said no magic.” I reach over to cover his mouth with my hand, trying to stop him, but he circles his fingers around my wrist, stopping me, and then hurriedly finishes the spell.
“I didn’t use my magic,” he says, still holding my wrist. “I used our magic, so it’s not so bad.”
“Our magic?” I raise my brows. “Since when do we have magic together?”
“Since we shared magic. It won’t last forever, but we’ll be able to channel each other’s magic through touching.”
“And that required kissing?” Puzzlement hazes through my mind, and not just because I’m all doped up on a sleep spell and kissing Hunter.
He gives a nonchalant shrug. “It was the best way to connect our magic. Or, well, the best way that both of us were willing to do.”
“What do you mean? What other ways are there?” Witches, oh witches, I wish I knew more about sharing magic so I didn’t have to ask these questions.
He presses his lips together to restrain a grin. “By getting more intimate.”
My lips form an o, my cheeks flushing as images of us rolling around in bed, touching each other all over, stream through my mind in slow, slow motion.
An amused smile sprawls across his face. “That blush has got me really curious about what’s going on in that pretty, little head of yours.”
Gah! Curse my stupid blushing.
Taking a measured breath, I collect myself from lusty lust land and wipe the blush off my face. “That wasn’t a blush,” I lie. “My face is red with anger.” I narrow my eyes at him, trying to pull off my lie.
“Over what?” he questions with skepticism.
“Over the fact that I’ve been kissed twice this week, and neither of them were actual, real kisses.”
Sadness hints his eyes. “I think you’re—”
I put my finger to his lips, shushing him. “No getting sidetracked. I want to know how you know I might be a hybrid, and why you’re apparently friends with a demon.”
“I’m not friends with him.” His gaze grazes along the inside of my wrist, and I flinch from the light ache. “I’m sorry I gripped your wrists so roughly when we were with him. I just …” He yanks his free hand through his hair, making the strands go askew. “I just panicked, and sometimes I forget my own strength when I’m in that mode.”
“What mode? And panicked over what?”
“Over Carter being there …” He lets his hand fall to his lap as he releases an uneven exhale. “I’ve been avoiding him.”
I’m entirely aware of how he purposefully skipped over my question about his mode. Not to mention, the trust spell courses through my veins with a powerful warning.
“You didn’t answer my first question, and I know you did it on purpose, because the trust spell is going haywire right now.”
He bobs his head back as he blows out a loud breath. “Can that wait until the end? I need to tell you everything else first, before we get to the really bad part.”
I slowly blink, nearly expecting the scene in front of me to vanish. Perhaps all of this is just a dream, like that weird one where I saw Ryleigh. Sadly, though, the ceiling doesn’t melt away like the sky did. My walls, my dresser, the photos placed sparsely around the room, and my four-post bed all stay the same, along with the guilty expression Hunter is sporting.
“Fine, tell me the other stuff first,” I surrender, wiggling my arm as a signal for him to release me.
He only holds on more securely.
“I don’t want to let you go until we’ve gone over everything.”
“Why? You think I’m going to run?”
He nods. “That’s exactly what I think.”
Smart guy.
I don’t say anything further, waiting impatiently to get to this bad stuff he needs to tell me.
He drags out the silence for a maddening amount of time, then finally gives in with a disheartened sigh. “Have you ever heard of the Mystic Willow Bay Society?”
“Vaguely,” I answer warily, wondering where he’s going with this. “But, from what I always understood, it’s an urban legend.”
“Well, it’s not,” he explains with grave reluctance. “It has existed for as long as Mystic Willow Bay has been around, and still exists.”
“Okay …?” I hug my legs to my chest and rest my chin on my knees. “So what if it does? What does some town secret club have anything to do with me?”
He situates himself on the bed in front of me, crisscrossing his legs. “It’s not just a club, Eva. It’s a group of town members who are sworn to protect the town from any impending dangers. The members are chosen by their strength, power, and from various bloodlines. It was done this way in order to create a lethal group that could, if necessary, eliminate any powerful force trying to bring harm to our community.”
“You sound like you’re reciting from some superheroes’ handbook or something,” I mumble, hugging my knees tighter to my chest.
He shakes his head. “Some of what I just said is from the intro to the Mystic Willow Bay Society handbook.”
I want to laugh at the absurdity, but his dead serious expression kills my humor.
“You act like you’re in this society.”
Reluctance crosses his expression. “That’s because I am. My father is, too.” He stares down at his hands as if they’re the most fascinating things in the world. “So are Ryleigh and her father and mother.”
Time literally stops. Dies. Freezes.
Okay, that’s not true. However, part of me wishes it would so that I don’t have to move forward and ask the next question.
My throat dries, and I force down a swallow. “You said her father. As in, just Ryleigh’s father, and not mine … Does she …?” Another forced swallow. “Is Ryleigh not my sister? Was she just pretending to be because she was working undercover—or whatever the hell it is you’re doing when you pretend to be my friend?”
“I’ve never pretended to be your friend. Was it part of my job? Yes. But you were too easy to be friends with, so there was never any pretending.” His gaze elevates to mine. “You made me really love my job.”
I will not let his words send my stomach into a fit of flutters. I won’t!
Of course, my stomach has its own ideas and goes mad wild, butterfly crazy.
Stupid traitor stomach. What the heck is wrong with me! This isn’t a good thing!
Shoving the flutters down, I glare at him. “So, you’ve been in this society thingy since you were, like, twelve? That seems a little young to be doing that sort of stuff, doesn’t it?”
Remorse flickers across his expression. “I was actually fourteen.”
“But you weren’t fourteen when I met you …” I trail off as he gives me another apologetic look. “You even lied about your age!”
“I had to,” he insists, reaching for me. “It was the best way for me to get close.”
I scoot away from him until my back bumps into the footboard. “So, everything was a lie? Every time we hung out, every moment we shared, every promise …?” My gaze flits to the stars on my ceiling then back to him. “Everything?”
His gaze is melded to mine as he shakes his head. “I think you know that’s not true.”
True. And the trust spell is definitely telling me everything’s just dandy. At least, what he’s saying. That doe
sn’t mean I have to be okay with it.
“No, the only thing I really know for sure is that you’re a liar and you’re old.”
His brow meticulously crooks. “Old? I’m only two years older than you.” A dash of annoyance rings in his tone, and I get a sweet, but probably sick, sense of gratification.
“Yep, two years older.” I stretch my legs out and cross my arms, putting on a casual demeanor. “Which makes you old to me.”
He narrows his eyes, yet his lips threaten to tilt upward. “I know for a fact that you definitely don’t look at me as old.”
His words burrow under my skin, causing me to squirm.
Does he know I’m in love with him?
Unable to stand the discomfort, I change the subject. “You never answered my question about Ryleigh not being my sister. And I have a pretty strong feeling you did it purpose.”
“I might have,” he admits, both truthfully and shamefully. “Before I answer that part, though, you need to brace yourself.”
“Consider myself braced,” I lie. Well, I don’t mean to lie. I honestly believe I’m prepared for just about anything at this point.
Then he opens his mouth and utters, “Ryleigh isn’t your sister … And neither of your parents are your mom and dad.”
Suddenly, my world is spinning out of control.
And not because of the sleep spell.
Chapter Ten
“You’re lying.” Shaking my head, I kneel on the bed while eyeballing the door. I want out of here. I want to pretend none of this is true, when deep down … Well, I’ve always known I didn’t fit in with my family. I didn’t fit in with anyone.
This makes too much sense …
“There’s no way my mom and dad aren’t my parents … I mean, they have baby photos!” At least, I think they do. I’ve only actually seen one. “And I have memories of them from when I was, like, four years old.”
“That was around the time you started living with them.” Hunter appears conflicted, opening and flexing his hand while looking back and forth between the door and me. “Eva, please don’t try to run. If you do, then I’m going to have to become more difficult.”
I slowly twist toward him. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you from running out that door.” His expression is devoid of all emotion, yet his voice slightly wavers.
“You say that our relationship hasn’t really been a lie, but you sound nothing like the Hunter I thought I knew.” I sit back down on the bed, toward the bottom, a good distance away from him. “Why is it so necessary for me to stay inside now, when only hours ago—or last night—you and I were running around town, searching for my sister?”
“Because no one realized before now that the severity of the situation has changed.”
“And what situation would that be?”
“The demons are trying new tactics to get to you.” He casts a brief glance toward the window. “I don’t know how, but by some means, they found out you were keeping Ryleigh’s body here and are now trying to lure you underground by using her.”
I slant to the side to make eye contact with him, but he refuses to look at me.
“What do you mean, new tactics? They’ve tried to do this before?”
He nods, his gaze straying back to mine. “Ever since the day a handful of Mystic Bay Society members pulled you out of a demon’s lair, demons have been trying every trick in the book to get you back. That’s part of the reason you have so many members in your life—to protect you.” He stretches his arms toward me again, but after taking one look at my face, he draws back.
Smart guy.
I press my fingers to the brim of my nose as my brain throbs against my skull. “None of this makes sense. And honestly, I’m not even sure if I believe you.”
“I know. I can tell.”
“How?”
“Because you haven’t tried to run for the door yet. I know you well enough to know that, when you try to run, it’s when you’re finally accepting the truth.”
He’s probably right, and I hate that he is.
He knows me too well, while I know nothing about him.
“There’s just a lot that doesn’t make sense,” I mutter with my head lowered. “I mean, why was I in a lair to begin with? What am I? Why do the demons want me? And if they want me so badly, why don’t they just take me?”
“The last part’s pretty simple to explain,” he says matter-of-factly. “You remember how Carter touched you, and then screamed?”
Nodding, I raise my head to look at him. “And then he died for no apparent reason.”
“He died because he tried to drink in your power.”
“Sure it was. Because my power is so awesome.” I roll my eyes and shake my head. “You’ve known me forever, dude. You’ve got to come up with something better than that.”
“It’s the truth.” He scoots closer, taking slow, calculated moves. “I know you can’t cast spells very well, and you aren’t that great at charms, either. But that’s not because you’re powerless. It’s because you’re not completely a witch, and your control over your magic is …” He wavers. “Well, you really don’t have any control yet. But that’s not your fault. You just haven’t been taught properly.”
My muscles ravel tightly as his words strike deep nerves. Running for the door seems more like a better idea by the second.
“If I’m not completely a witch, then what am I?”
He sucks in a breath through his nose and releases it slowly out of his mouth. “A hybrid, obviously, but no one’s been able to figure out exactly what your bloodlines are. Do you have some witch’s blood in you?” He nods. “That much we’ve been able to figure out.” He inches even closer, lowering his voice. “You also have some … demon blood in you, along with traces of an unidentifiable creature.”
“An unidentifiable creature?” I feel numb. Dead inside. The desire to run for the door is getting less controllable. “You said the members found me in a demon’s lair … Why was I there?”
“No one knows for sure … And normally, the members don’t just take creatures from lairs …” He lightly skims his knuckles across my knee, eliciting both tingles and goose bumps to sprout across my flesh. “But when they realized you weren’t fully demon, they couldn’t just leave you there.”
“Why not?” I ask, bitterness dripping from my tone. I think about my stupid gift and wonder if it plays a part in any of this. “Is there some sort of rule in the handbook forbidding you guys from doing it?”
He shakes his head, looking away from me. “No, I have no idea why they did it. All I know is that they took you away from there, said there was something about your power that the demons wanted, and that we needed to do everything in our power not to let that happen. I was too young to remember it, but I’ve heard all the stories … about how demons kept showing up to try to get ahold of you. But whenever they tried to drink from you, they died, like Carter did. They must have caught on to this, because their efforts to get ahold of you have gone down over the years … until they got to Ryleigh.
“For whatever reason, they want you to go underground. If I’d realized that to begin with”—his jaw clenches—“I never would have let us go looking for her. I should’ve known something was up, but I was too distracted by other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
He shrugs, looking worried and distant. “Stuff I’m not supposed to be distracted by.”
Girlfriend stuff? The question pops into my mind out of habit, but I dropkick it far, far away where I can hopefully never reach it again.
How can I still have feelings for him? Am I that messed up? After all, he’s lied to me from day one, and he’s definitely still lying to me about some stuff. At least, according to the trust spell. The damn thing’s going too bonkers right now, and it makes sorting through truths and lies incredibly difficult.
Still, I work to make some sense out of everything, reca
lling how the demon at Evan’s place told me not to go to The Illuminating Horror House of Truth, the entrance to the underground. Supposedly, anyway. So, if Hunter is telling the truth about demons wanting me, wouldn’t the demon I made the deal with want me to go there?
The trust spell rushes through my veins at an unnerving level, and the crack in my heart deepens.
Run, Eva. Get the hell out of here.
He turns his head toward me and splays his fingers across my knee, as if sensing the direction of my thoughts. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“That I don’t trust you,” I answer honestly, my knee twitching under his touch for very conflicting reasons. “I know for a fact that you’re not being truthful about everything. And a lot of the stuff you said doesn’t add up. Like, for instance, why did Carter act like you were friends?”
“I’ve been working undercover at The Illuminating Horror House of Truth for the past year or so, trying to get a vibe on what the demons are up to, and why they want you so badly.” He cracks his knuckles against the side of his leg, keeping his other hand positioned on my leg. “That’s why, when Carter showed up, I had to pretend I was on his side. My cover would’ve been blown if I didn’t.”
I can tell he’s being truthful about that, but it doesn’t explain much. Like how, in all of Mystic Willow Bay, did he convince the demons he was friends with them? Or why he didn’t seem worried when he tried to force me into the demon’s arms.
“But what if the demon had hurt me?” I utter quietly. “I mean, you just handed me over to him.”
This is all getting too overwhelming.
My eyes stay glued to him, but my mind drifts toward the door.
Run!
“He couldn’t have hurt you,” Hunter swears, a passionate fire blazing in his eyes as he wraps his fingers around my knee. “When demons try to drink from you, they die, because you’re protected by some sort of shield. That’s why I told him I’d gotten the shield down—I knew he’d try to drink from you and die.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I would never let anyone or anything hurt you.”
“That’s not true.” Tears prick my eyes as the truth squashes my chest.
Mystic Willow Bay, Witches Series: The Secret Life of a Witch Page 13