Spell Bound (Darkly Enchanted)

by Stephanie Julian

  If his dad could see him now, he’d shake his head.

  “You’re complicating things, Gabriel. Don’t lose focus. They need you to be the strong one.”

  Emotion made you weak.

  He knew that. But he couldn’t help himself.

  Tomorrow, he’d be strong. Today…fuck it.

  They sat there for the better part of an hour, talking about nothing. Carefully talking about nothing. Letting Leo guide the conversation. It felt like a truce between two parties who weren’t sure they were fighting. But it was better than being at each other’s throats.

  Finally, his mother said, “So, Gabriel, are you going to show Shea the studio?”

  Shea’s gaze found his. “Studio?”

  He smiled at her, just to see her reaction. And wasn’t disappointed to see heat rush across her face again. “Come on.”

  * * *

  Shea followed Gabriel and Leo down the hall, trying not to overheat as she recalled last night.

  Gabriel had gone to the bathroom to get a towel to clean her up after they’d had sex then rolled her onto her side, curled around her and fell asleep. His arm lay heavy around her waist, his body giving off so much heat, she hadn’t needed a blanket.

  She should have slept like a baby. She’d felt completely safe and protected and she wanted to stay there all night. And most of today. But she’d stayed with Gabriel only a few hours, worried that Leo would wake and be worried because she wasn’t there. Leo came first. He had to.

  Last night had been a stolen moment.

  Today…back to reality.

  But maybe not just yet, because the room Gabriel waved her into made her muscles quiver in anticipation.

  Mirrors covered two facing walls and shiny wood covered the floor. The studio was perfect, complete with a small piano on one end and…a beautiful bar along the long front wall.

  “Serena won’t tell you but she’s actually a decent dancer, though I’ve never known her to dance for an audience,” Gabriel said. “I only know because I used to sneak down here and watch when I was kid.”

  She trailed her hand over the bar, drew in a deep breath of air scented with lemon oil. Her muscles twitched at the prospect of putting on a leotard.

  “Sissy, look. A piano.” Leo’s voice was awed. “Hey, this box has your name on it.”

  Leo held out a white shirt box he’d picked up off the piano bench. She took it, with a quick glance at Gabriel. His expression revealed nothing. Taking off the lid, she lifted out a delicate pink leotard and white tights.

  A smile kicked up the corners of her mouth and tears formed. She had no idea where he’d gotten the leotard. She didn’t care.

  She walked over to him, lifted onto her toes and kissed him on the cheek.

  The heat in his eyes when she drew back scorched her to her bones and drew all the air out of the room.

  “We’ve got time,” Gabriel said. “If you want to work out for a while.”

  “Shea, can I play it?”

  With an effort, she dragged her gaze to Leo, already sitting at the piano, looking at her with wide eyes.

  She looked at Gabriel, who shrugged.

  “Sure, kid,” he said. “But there’s a…”

  Leo ran his small hands over the keys, getting a feel for the instrument. She knew nothing about music other than she liked to dance to it. But she did know Leo shouldn’t be able to play an instrument he’d never touched before.

  After a few minute of pressing keys in different combinations, he started to play a melody she vaguely recognized. It took her a second but she finally—

  “My Chemical Romance.”

  Their second album. It had been a gift from another dancer in the last bar she’d worked at in Atlantic City. She and Leo both loved it. And he was playing it slow enough for her to dance to. The kid constantly amazed her.

  She smiled back up at Gabriel.

  “Where can I change?”

  * * *

  “I’m assuming this will be your first treguenda with the nail in your possession, Shea. Would you help me prepare for the ritual?”

  Serena’s question startled Shea out of the peaceful mood left over from her practice. She and Leo and Gabriel were in the kitchen, having lunch in companionable silence, though Gabriel’s every glance made her body heat and her blood sizzle.

  But Serena’s soft words doused her in cold reality.

  Holy crap. With everything else going on, she hadn’t even thought about the fact that she would have to perform what would have been her mom’s duties tonight. It made her brain stutter to a complete stop for a few seconds as she blinked at Serena, her hand going to key around her neck.

  Her mouth opened but nothing came out. She couldn’t form a coherent thought beyond the fact that her mom was truly gone for good.

  Except… she wasn’t. The voices murmured softly behind her mental shield.

  “Shea.”

  Closing her eyes, she saw her mom giving her the key for the first time and teaching her how to make it transform into its natural shape as a nail. Saw her mom show her how to perform the yearly ritual that charged the nail on the summer solstice. Saw the nail clutched in Leo’s hand as he slowly woke in that hidden room in the basement.

  “Shea? Are you alright?” Serena asked.

  Slowly, she shook her head. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” She looked Serena in the eyes. “Of course, I’ll help.”

  Shea felt Gabriel’s gaze on her as she rose and she gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile before she turned to Leo. “I’m going with Serena, bud. You stay with Gabriel, okay?”

  Gabriel gave her a look before saying, “No problem. We’ll go work with your knives, again.”

  Leo gave her a quick smile because Gabriel had said the magic word. Knives. He loved training with Gabriel. Which was good, because if anything happened—

  “Shea?”

  Serena stood in the doorway, looking back at her. Waiting.

  She followed Serena through the house to her private altar room. A tree stump sat in the middle of the room, only about four feet in diameter and two feet high, but carved over every inch with pictures of the Goddesses and Gods and Etruscan writing. Someone had put many years of hard work and loving attention into the altar.

  “This is beautiful,” Shea said, running her fingers over the smooth top.

  “Gabriel’s father made that for me.” Serena walked around to the other side of the altar. “Davis was a master craftsman.”

  Shea looked up, catching the look of utter devastation that crossed Serena’s face.

  “I’m sorry.” Shea shook her head. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Serena quickly wiped the expression away with a forced smile and turned to gather her moon bowl and other tools from a table on the far wall. “I know. Please, don’t feel you have to walk on eggshells around me. Davis and Nino have been gone a long time. Sometimes, I actually like to talk about them. To remember them.”

  Shea nodded. She knew exactly what Serena meant. “Is Gabriel a lot like his dad?”

  Some other emotion crossed Serena’s face now, something Shea would have sworn was fear. But that made no sense. “Gabriel idolized Davis. By the time Gabriel could talk, he was finishing Davis’ sentences. They never fought, never butted heads. Not over anything.”

  Unlike Shea and her mom. They’d constantly been at odds. And when she met the hiker, it’d gotten so much worse. They’d barely been speaking when she’d finally left.

  Tears rushed to her eyes, and she tried to blink them away. They’d only give her a headache.

  “Shea?”

  “How do you think the curse will be broken, Serena?” Shea looked the other woman directly in the eyes. “Do you have any ideas?”

  Serena sighed as she sat on the floor before the altar, waving Shea down opposite her. “I’ve had many ideas over the past centuries. Most of us believed the curse would be broken the second you took your first breath. Most of us wanted to belie
ve that. Now that we know differently, I’d like to say I’m at a loss.” Serena paused as she set the moon bowl on the altar. “But I won’t lie to you, Shea. I think… I think it’s going to require sacrifice. One that involves blood. Your blood. I think your parents knew that, and that’s why they disappeared.”

  Yeah, she thought that too. But hearing someone else say it made it that much more real.

  And, strangely, that much more acceptable.

  She looked into the moon bowl, at the green liquid Serena had put there, then back up with raised eyebrows. “You want to induce a vision with vervaine juice? Didn’t Gabriel tell you about my headaches?”

  The spell Serena wanted to try would definitely bring on a migraine. Vervaine was a powerful herb in its natural leafy state, but distilled down to a juice, it was capable of producing a hallucinogenic state that could last for hours. Or days.

  Serena nodded. “Yes, but you’re not doing the spell. I am. I just need a bit of your blood.”

  Foolish hope made her hands clench into fists and still she had to ask. “Do you think you’ll be able to see anything?”

  “I honestly don’t know.” Serena held out her hand. “I’m not a foreseer. But we don’t have many options, do we?”

  Shea only hesitated a few seconds before placing her hand palm up in Serena’s, wincing only a little when the other woman cut the tip of Shea’s index finger with the sharp athame then dripped a few drops of blood into the bowl.

  Rising and stepping away from the altar, Shea wrapped her cut finger in the hem of her t-shirt and watched as Serena took the blade and mixed the fluids together. Chanting in Etruscan, with an accent that reminded her so much of her mother, Serena made pleas to the Goddesses Menrva and Uni for their strength to see what would be.

  Dipping her finger in the bowl, Serena closed her eyes then painted the mixed blood and vervaine on her cheeks and down the pulse points on her neck. Her head fell back and her hands dropped to her thighs. She continued to chant, the words deepening until they were little more than a rumble.

  Shea felt the air thicken around her as the spell drew power up from the earth. Serena’s muscles quivered with tension as her voice became a whisper. Shea’s temples began to throb at the amount of power Serena drew to her. The first tinge of fear crept up Shea’s spine. Fear that Serena might not see anything. Fear that she would.

  Shea gasped as Serena’s head suddenly snapped upright until she stared straight at Shea. Only she wasn’t seeing Shea at all. Serena’s eyes stared straight ahead, looking at something only she could see.

  Her mouth continued to move, to chant, but Shea couldn’t hear her at all now. Her ears strained for any recognizable words or phrases. Anything that would indicate what she saw.

  What—

  Suddenly, Serena started to shake, her body twitching uncontrollably, her head whipping back and forth, as if she were fighting something. Or the spell was fighting her.

  Shea rose, not sure if she should touch Serena to bring her out of it or if that would do more harm. But Serena was going to hurt herself if she didn’t stop.

  But what if the spell was working? What if she interrupted the spell before Serena was finished?

  Just as the thought crossed her mind, Serena slumped to the floor as the power in the air dissipated.

  Shea hurried to her side, not knowing if she should touch her. “Serena, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

  Serena groaned, and her face scrunched into lines of pain. “I can hear you, dear. Very clearly. Just…give me a minute, okay?”

  It took more than a minute for Serena to finally open her eyes. And when she finally did, the woman’s expression told her everything she needed to know.

  “I’m sorry, Shea. I saw nothing.”

  * * *

  Serena watched the girl’s shoulders drop even as she tried to smile.

  “That’s okay,” Shea said. “It was pretty much a shot in the dark anyway.”

  Serena pulled herself back to a sitting position, closing her eyes so Shea couldn’t see the lie she was telling.

  Because she had seen something, something that made her cold to her bones.

  Something it took every ounce of her control not to reveal to Shea. The girl had inherited her mother’s Empathic Gift. If she wasn’t careful, Shea would pick up on her feelings and demand to know what she’d seen.

  But there was no way Serena would tell Shea how she was going to die.

  * * *

  A slight breeze rustled the leaves as Serena led them on an unmarked path through the forest.

  It was close to midnight, but the full moon cast enough light that they didn’t need flashlights.

  Deer, raccoons and possums were the only life Gabriel sensed. He heard no car noise, no planes rumbling overheard.

  Perfect night for the ritual. He hoped like hell it dispelled some of the tension that had built through the afternoon and evening. No one had said anything. Nothing inflammatory, anyway. But everyone had been on edge.

  Even Leo had seemed to regress back to silence.

  When they finally reached the circle in the clearing, Gabriel sighed as the power of the earth called out to him.

  A sense of calm laced with anticipation seeped into his blood from the ground up and he smiled, knowing there would be more magic. And it would be good.

  Almost as good as sex. He turned to see Shea speaking quietly with Serena. Almost.

  And it would have been perfect if it all hadn’t gone so wrong.

  * * *

  One minute Gabriel was watching Serena perform the blessing to the Goddess.

  The next he was flat on his ass, blown out of the circle by a blast of power so intense, he blacked out for several seconds.

  When he came to, he heard Quinn calling Serena’s name, Serena calling to Leo and Shea moaning.

  Leo remained in the center of the circle, eyes closed, holding tight to Shea’s hand as he funneled power through his body and directly into Shea. She was already on her knees and would soon be flat on the ground. In a coma.

  The force of the magic the kid channeled had taken him under, made him oblivious to anything but the power he controlled.

  He didn’t realize he was going to kill Shea if he didn’t release her.

  “Gabe!” Quinn yelled. “Serena won’t let me in.”

  Damn, they’d underestimated the kid again.

  He had to get Shea out of there before the kid killed her. Holding out his hands, he tested the wards Serena had set up around the circle. The arus in his blood reacted violently to the amount of power enclosing Serena, Shea and Leo in the circle. He couldn’t break the wards in his current condition. They were too strong.

  “Mom! Let me in.”

  Serena didn’t spare him a glance. “Too dangerous. Leo, sweetheart, listen to me. You have to release the power. You’re going to hurt Shea.”

  The little boy didn’t move. Gabriel was pretty sure he hadn’t heard Serena.

  Leo had tapped into the power of the ley line pulsing straight through Serena’s land. It was why she’d settled here, how she’d kept this house hidden all these years.

  Magic, as all Etruscans knew, came from the earth. It flowed like blood through the soil in veins—ley lines. When anyone used magic, they tapped into that power to do so.

  Leo, with too little training, must have felt like he’d just swallowed the biggest fucking happy pill in the world. All that power gave him a high better than sex and drugs combined.

  And he was channeling it all through Shea.

  If Leo didn’t stop…

  Gabriel took the only option left. It was going to hurt, hurt like hell. And not just him, but Serena, too.

  Fuck it. He drew power into himself, up from the ground and through his body. Then he lifted his hands toward the shield and released the power at the shield his mother had set up.

  A lightning bolt of sheer agony slashed through his body, seizing his muscles and making his head feel like he’d
gone five rounds with a heavyweight champion. Ears ringing, he locked his knees when they wanted to buckle as the barrier Serena had erected fell with an almost audible crash.

  As it did, Gabriel grabbed for Leo and Shea at the same time Quinn lunged for Serena, who fell to the ground in a dead faint.

  Too late. Too damn late.