by Cassi Carver
It wasn’t simply pity or lack of sex—he thought they might have a future together. How was that possible when they were two different species? Maybe with his bloodline, he liked the fact that he couldn’t get a witch pregnant or transmit diseases. Maybe he was relieved not having to worry about fathering children with fur…
But Abbey hadn’t gotten around to thinking about children yet or if she might want them some day. Sure, she was open to adoption, but how could Jaxon be a father or a husband when he would outlive them all? No matter how she sliced it, a relationship with him just didn’t add up.
“Good morning,” he said, and she jumped.
She couldn’t remember a morning when he hadn’t woken with a playful smile, but he wasn’t smiling this morning. “Did you sleep all right?” she asked.
He propped himself on an elbow and regarded her. “I did.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
“You’re so exquisite when the sunlight hits your hair, you put the sunrise to shame…as though its only function is to illuminate your beauty.”
She laughed, the compliment only serving to make her miserable. “Even if that were true, I don’t get to stay in this moment like Kara or Lace. Every day, I’m another day older. What you see today isn’t what you’ll see fifty years from now.”
“You’ll always be beautiful to me, Abbey. I’m trying to give you space to deal with what’s ahead of us today, but you’re so beautiful it hurts to look at you and not be able to touch your skin.”
Her heart ached. He just didn’t get it. It was bad enough knowing she wouldn’t get to be with her best guy friend forever, but then she had to screw it up further, taking the love she felt for Jaxon and warping it until it resembled something dangerously close to in love. She couldn’t fix this. She couldn’t win. No matter what she did, Jaxon wasn’t meant for a witch.
“You’re right, we have a big day ahead of us. If I can figure out that book, I can take down the ward and get us the heck out of here.”
“Are you forgetting something?”
“I’m always forgetting something, but which something are you referring to?”
“The brand. You said you wanted to rest before we got started.”
She stretched and yawned dramatically. “I’m still pretty sleepy, and anyhow, I never accept blood on an empty stomach. Why don’t we eat and work on finding the spell for the ward, then we’ll talk brands.”
Breakfast had come and gone, and her stomach was rumbling for lunch by the time Abbey finally admitted that The Book of Death didn’t have anything she could use to turn off the mountain’s ward. She tucked her bare feet under her and set the book down on the coffee table. “I don’t understand. It has to be in here. I feel it.”
Jaxon pulled his attention away from transcribing Kara’s mother’s journal. “Let’s hope that’s not the case. I doubt the northwestern hemisphere of witches wants their high priestess turning to sorcery and living her life on the run.”
“Oooh, a life on the run. Sounds mysterious. I could be a sorceress-secret-agent, and you could be my Q.”
He tucked his pencil in the notebook and set the journal down on the arm of the sofa. “Your Q?”
“Yeah, you know, James Bond’s research-and-development guy. You could provide me with intel and special gadgets.”
“I’d rather be your Braveheart and keep you safe.”
“His wife dies a brutal death! So does he, now that I think of it. I hate that movie.”
“You truly hate it? The invention of the television would have been merited by the making of that movie alone.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s a man’s movie…”
“Well, that’s sexist.” She stopped and thought. “But maybe it is a man’s movie. I bet my dad would have loved it. He loved all the guy classics—Rambo, Die Hard, Die Hard 2, The Sound of Music.”
“The Sound of Music?”
“Hmm…” She bit her lip. “Come to think of it, he might have been watching that last one for me.”
Jaxon laughed. “Out of respect for the dead, let’s assume so.”
Abbey’s throat got scratchy and her eyes misty. “He was the greatest father. You would have liked him.”
Jaxon got up from the couch and came to sit beside her on the floor. “I’m sure I would have. You’re fortunate to have so many good memories of your parents.”
“I do have good memories, like the old cabin and the movies, but I wouldn’t say so many. They died when I was in elementary school.”
“It was a car accident, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” She took his huge hand in her smaller one and grasped his fingers. “Could you imagine if I’d died the same way? It would be like our family was cursed or something.”
Jaxon frowned. “It wasn’t the brakes in their car, was it? You never told me the details of the crash.”
Her eyes widened. “It was the brakes in their car. At least I think so. I heard my uncle telling someone about it at the wake. Of course, I was too young to really understand what they were talking about. Even Claudius was only a teen back then.”
“Where was your uncle when they died?”
“Still living with his parents. I went to live with my grandma Dora after my parents passed. It’s not like anyone asked my opinion, but I wouldn’t have chosen to live with Claudius’s family anyway. My grandparents on my dad’s side were grumpy old meanies.”
“Are they still alive? You’ve never spoken about them.”
“No, they died almost ten years ago now.”
“Not in a car crash?”
“Grandma Sellers—or Grandmother, as she preferred to be called—got cancer. It was over in the course of a few months. And even though I wouldn’t have guessed my grandpa cared for anyone but himself, losing her did him in. He had a stroke two weeks later.”
Jaxon shook his head. “So much death. I’m sorry for all the losses you’ve suffered in your life.”
She squeezed his hand. “How did we get on such a depressing subject?”
He smiled and tapped a finger to her nose. “Okay, tell me a happy story.”
“I can do better than that.” She rose and pulled him to his feet. “Come outside, and I’ll show you.”
She dragged him out the front door to the rock she’d seen on their very first night at the new cabin. “This is the rock I tagged.”
“Yes, with your first successful spell.”
“Ha! Do you ever forget anything?” She picked up a pinecone by her feet and began twisting the seeds.
He shifted like he was embarrassed. “Not when it comes from your mouth.”
The look in his eyes was so intimate, so sincere, she glanced down and her cheeks flushed. How could someone she’d known for so long—a man who’d had the splendid audacity to go down on her!—make her blush like a teen? “I have to remember to watch what I say then.”
His brows rose. “What would be the fun in that?”
She was trying hard not to notice how the sun cast light and shadows on the dips and planes of his heavily muscled arms. And it was a damn good thing he had jeans on and not his boxers, because the sight of his bare, tree-trunk thighs would have made her forget why she came out here in the first place.
“Here’s the cool thing about this rock, and why it’s a good memory… My mom was proud of me, too. She put a spell on it so this smaller rock here would roll away and we could leave each other notes. We even had a cassette player—before I lost it—and we would record ‘secret messages’. Mine usually said I love you, but hers were more creative. She’d hide dessert or little gifts and leave me clues to find it.”
“What a wonderful mother.”
“She was the best. But getting to live with her mom was a pretty great second choice.” When she tossed the dismembered pinecone toward the ground, Jaxon caught it quicker than she could track with her eyes.
“Does it still work?” he asked, picking at the remaining seeds.
“Huh?”
&nb
sp; “The hidey hole. Does it still work?”
She swallowed. “I guess it would…but obviously, there’s nothing there anymore.”
“Show me.” He smiled his playful, I-can-get-you-out-of-this-funk smile. It usually worked.
“I can’t do that,” she teased. “It’s a secret. No one’s allowed to hear the spell.”
“I’ll plug my ears. Promise.”
She narrowed her eyes to slits. “Plugging your ears isn’t going to keep you from hearing what I’m saying. You have ears like an owl.”
He chuckled and pulled her in for a hug, wrapping his arms around her tight. “True. But I still want to see the secret rock. Go.” He released her with a light shove toward the boulder and a quick slap on the rump.
She rubbed a hand over her backside to soothe it. “Hey, watch it.”
His eyes lingered on her lower half. “I am watching. Now hurry up before I do more than appreciate your ass from afar.”
“Oh, geez.” She put her hand on the rock, then glanced over her shoulder. “Plug ’em, buddy.”
He winked and stuck his index fingers in his ears. “You may proceed.”
“I’m never going to live this down,” she mumbled. Jaxon had a way of being able to convince her of anything…well, almost anything, but there was a churning in the pit of her gut as she touched her special stone again and thought of her mother. “The sweetest girl in the whole wide world, with love from her mommy, says open the cubby.”
A current ran up her hands, strong enough to cause her to jump back as the stone rolled to the side. A lizard skittered away from its spot between the rocks, and Abbey was glad nothing bigger had made a home in the crevices between the boulders.
“Thank the Maker I didn’t have to say that as a child.” When Abbey turned to him, Jaxon still had his fingers in his ears.
“Yeah, ha-ha,” she replied. “She crafted that spell when I was five. It had to be easy to remember.”
He laughed and stepped forward, looking into the carved-out space beneath Abbey’s special rock. “A cassette player fit there?”
The hole was larger than a loaf of bread, but not by much. “It was one of those little ones with the tiny tapes.”
“And what’s that?”
She glanced back to the pile of stone. “What?”
“The small opening in the dirt.”
She dug a finger under the nearest rock and hit a pocket of air. “Eeep!” She turned and smacked into Jaxon’s chest. “I think it’s a critter hole. Snakes, maybe.”
He peered over her head. “Do you mind if I take a look?”
“There isn’t much to see. Feels about the size of my wrist.” Snakes… Not her favorite part of living in California.
When Jaxon picked up a stone about three times the size of Abbey’s head, she gasped. “What are you doing? Leave the secret cubby alone!”
“I’ll put them back. I just want to see what’s under here.”
“Nothing’s under there. It’s only—” Her words were cut off when he tossed the second stone aside and uncovered a hole big enough for a coyote to crawl through. “Oh my gosh. I don’t think you should be doing that.”
“Just one more.”
But the third boulder was too big for even Jaxon to lift so, muscles flexing, he put his shoulder to it and started to push. “Stand behind me.”
She moved behind him as he rolled the stone, inch by inch, until gravity took hold and loosed it down the hill, rolling like a ball of wrath until it connected with the trunk of a towering pine. The sound of the impact shook the sky, and birds from the nearest treetops took flight in a loud cacophony of flapping wings and panicked screeches.
Jaxon’s eyes widened. “Don’t worry. I’ll put that back.”
But Abbey wasn’t listening. Her own eyes were wide at the gaping hole left in the earth. “Do you know any animals that install steps in their burrows?”
“What?” He peered into the darkened cave alongside her. “Do you people have tunnels everywhere? Is there any mountain under us at all, or is the entire thing going to give way in the next good rain?” She didn’t reply. She couldn’t. “Abbey?”
“Uh… Do you think we should go down?”
“How could we not? Follow me.” He took her hand and helped her down the stairs. Like the other tunnel, small torches burst into flames, lighting their way. But unlike the other tunnel, this one didn’t have any writing or designs on the walls.
The first room they came to on the right had plastic tubs lining one wall and decomposing plastic bags along the other. Nearer the entry was a stack of folding chairs and a camp stove.
Abbey stopped in the center of the room, her skin prickling in goose bumps. “What the heck is this place? And what are those?” She pointed to the wall of bags.
Jaxon walked to a black trash bag and nudged it with his foot, then a moment later, he tore the brittle plastic to reveal a rolled-up sleeping bag. “Supplies. Not body parts, if that’s what you were thinking.”
She blew out a breath. How did he know her so well? “I wasn’t thinking that.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It would have reeked down here.” Unless the bodies were done decomposing. What did she know about forensics? “Sleeping bags?”
He opened another bag containing pillows and blankets. “Perhaps it’s a bomb shelter.”
“I guess.” She walked to the stacked containers, pulled one down, and cracked the lid open. “Oh my gosh.” She held up the framed photo of her and her parents when she was a baby. “I remember seeing this one, but I wasn’t sure what happened to it.”
She rifled through the contents and found more pictures, even some of her earliest drawings. Just as she was reaching to get down the second box, Jaxon called her. “Abbey, look at this.”
She turned, and in his hand was a small voice recorder. “You’re kidding me!” She jogged to him and took the recorder from his grasp. “This must have been my parents’ storage area. It looks like the stuff has been here since way before Claudius built the house.”
“I agree.”
“Can you imagine if our messages are still on here?” Her eyes went glossy. “I haven’t heard my mom’s voice in sixteen years.” She pressed the play button, but nothing happened. “Oh no.”
Jaxon rested his hand on her shoulder. “It may simply need new batteries. May I see it?”
When he removed the cover, the ends of the batteries were coated in white powder. “We need something to clean the acid from the compartment.”
Abbey went to the bags with the bedding and found an old pillowcase. “Here.”
“Thank you.” Jaxon took the linen and wiped the batteries and the player clean, but when he reinserted the batteries, it still didn’t play.
“Shoot!” Abbey didn’t try to hide her disappointment.
“It’s all right, dove. It just needs new batteries.”
“We’re out here in the middle of nowhere, Jaxon! Where am I supposed to find new batteries?”
“You have only one night left, then tomorrow we’ll use the neighbor’s phone and call your grandmother to pick you up. Think how delighted she’ll be to have this treasure trove of family memorabilia. We’ll stop for batteries first thing when we get to the bottom of the mountains.”
Abbey yanked the recorder from his hand and stripped the batteries from the compartment. “Screw that.”
If witches could cast spells strong enough to power her home and ward the entire mountain, she could sure as hell juice up a couple of double A’s. She grasped them in her hand and closed her eyes. “I don’t have a rhyme for this, but mountain, if you’re listening to me, I need you. Please grant me your power to reenergize these batteries.”
The small cylinders began to warm in her hand. “Something’s happening!” she told Jaxon, but then in the next instant, the batteries were so blazing hot she chucked them across the room to keep from scorching her hand. They hit the dirt wall and exploded in a shower of white-hot spa
rks as the torches along the walls shot flames two feet into the air.
“What the hell was that, mountain?”
“Abbey… Shh!” Jaxon took the recorder from her hand and rolled his finger along the volume button. “Listen.”
“And then, cupcake, when you find the porcelain frog, look in his mouth. He has your next clue! But I can tell you that today’s surprise is almost as sweet as you are!”
Everything in Abbey’s body went silent. She’d never heard this recording before and it was painful and wonderful to hear her mother’s voice again.
“Syd?” another voice called in the background.
Jaxon took another step closer to Abbey. “Who is Syd?”
“My mom,” Abbey whispered.
A shuffling noise scratched over the speaker, as if her mother was turning it off—but it kept playing. “In here, Charles. I was just doing another scavenger hunt for Abbey.”
“You’re going to spoil that girl,” he said.
Her mother laughed, and it sounded like she set down the recorder. “Well, I can’t let you do all the spoiling.” It was silent for a moment, then she said more quietly, “I’m just teasing you, sweetheart. What’s the matter with you today?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to discuss it in front of Abbey, but I learned some upsetting news at the council meeting. Claudius is petitioning to prevent Abbey from being the rightful heir to the priesthood. He says that in the event of my death, he should be the next in line.”
“What a little brat! The priesthood goes to your firstborn child—and that’s Abbey! I can’t believe your parents even allowed him to submit a formal petition.”
“That’s the thing,” her father said softly, “they’re supporting him.”
Her mom did nothing but breathe for so long that Abbey was scared the tape had run out…but then she spoke. “That’s absurd. They’ve had nothing but grief from that boy. Half the coven is frightened of him and his erratic powers, and that’s nothing to be proud of, Charles.”