by E. M. Moore
“Really?” I said, ignoring the jab. “Not jealous?”
“I said not very jealous.” He ran his hands through his hair. “And since you know me, you know that’s fucking weird. I don’t get it.”
“This is probably good then. It’s more like teamwork, like how we’ve been doing the coven thing all along. We share duties.”
Randy raised his eyebrows. “I’d love for you to bring that up in front of her, especially since you just made it sound like working with her would be a duty. Or that she could easily replace one of us with another.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I’m not sure she’d give a fuck. She’s strong. She doesn’t seem like she’d take shit very well, including you saying something stupid like making her needs out to be a duty we have to band together to take care of.”
I frowned. I hadn’t meant it that way, but I could see his point. Norah was feisty. Probably just the type of girl who could take the four of us on. I picked up my coffee and pushed past him back toward my bedroom.
“Where are you going?”
“Where do you think?” I called over my shoulder.
For such a big guy, Randy moved so smooth. He put a hand on my shoulder to stay me. “Really? Can’t someone else have a chance?”
“You told her yesterday you needed time.”
“Maybe the night was all I needed.”
The floor creaked, and we both looked up to find Travis scowling. His dark hair standing on end, he looked more frazzled. His relationship with life had gone downhill since Jax, and steadily declined since he got back from Adams. “You two sound like a bunch of old maids. What happened to her not being the fifth? I’m still going with that theory so as you guys lose your balls to some girl who doesn’t even matter in the long run, keep it quiet, would you? I don’t want to feel bad that you’re losing your manhood.”
If I knew Randy, I wasn’t the only one grinding my teeth. Travis had given up a lot for the coven lately, so I wasn’t even going to school him on anything. But if Norah was the fifth, and there were mutual feelings involved, he wouldn’t have to give up this girl. He just had to give her a chance. If he felt an inkling of what I did, there’s no way he could resist her. The pull was too great.
Instead of starting another argument with Travis, Randy and I just gave him a wide berth as he slipped past us into the kitchen. When we made it into the living room, Liam was already there, book in hand and laptop sitting on the coffee table. Liam was so unassuming that half the time I forgot that he paid attention to everything. As soon as we sat, he whispered, “I’m glad you guys aren’t engaging with him anymore. We don’t need another argument. He’ll work through his stuff on his own time.”
Which was exactly the advice he gave us the last time this tiny apartment erupted into an argument. We’d never fought before, but when we lost our fifth, things weren’t the same. Travis could deny it all he wanted, but just having Norah here was already a calming presence, and she wasn’t even a full-fledged Enforcer yet. First woman Enforcer, to be exact.
I took a sip of the coffee and sat back on the sofa with the clear line of sight to my bedroom door. I’d be the first to see when she woke up. “What are you doing, anyway?”
Liam raised his eyes just to see if I was talking to him. He pushed his glasses up his nose and sat back. “Doing some research. I find it hard to believe that there’s never been a female Enforcer.” He pushed the book toward me on the table. The title read, The Complete History of the Order. “But there’s nothing in there. It doesn’t say there’s never been a woman or why there’s never been a woman, it just doesn’t even bring it up.”
“I’ve never heard of a woman Enforcer before, either. I suppose I could call my Grandfather.”
“No,” Liam said, his eyebrows flying up his forehead.
“Whoa. Okay.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I just think we should keep this to ourselves until we figure out what’s going on. If there’s never been a woman Enforcer, is there a reason for it? We don’t know enough yet, so I don’t think we should tell anyone that we have a possible fifth.”
Randy perched his feet on the table, knocking Liam’s book out of the way. “Yeah, cool, except Walter calls us once a week for updates. Do we really want to lie to him?”
Liam picked up the book and brushed the side that touched Randy’s foot off. He shrugged. “I think we should. We don’t really know what’s going on yet, and besides, she’s not too keen on being the fifth anyway, so why even bring it up?”
Travis walked through the living room and plopped down next to Liam, causing Liam to bounce on the cushion. “Let me get this straight. You want us to cover up Norah’s presence? To Walter? Head of the Order?”
Liam’s face flushed. “Y-yeah.”
Travis made an exaggerated sound of disapproval. “Well, since when did we turn into the rebel of the group?”
“Like you’ve never asked us to lie to Walter,” Randy said, a challenge in his voice.
“Yeah,” he said, “When it was for the good of the coven. We don’t know anything about her except that when she showed up, shit started to go down. Have any of you thought for a moment that all of this might be her doing?”
“It’s not her,” Liam said. “She’s completely oblivious to who we are. She was drawn here, just like Gabe.”
Travis flicked his gaze to me and I gave him a shit-eating grin.
“Trav,” Randy said, his voice taking on an authoritative tone. “I think you need to let us make the decisions for awhile. You’re on edge and not thinking clearly. You’re aggravated a hundred percent of the time. We should go with a majority vote and majority vote says we keep Norah a secret from the higher-ups. For now. Until we can figure out more stuff.”
Travis looked at us all in turn. He didn’t balk at Randy’s assessment. He was too level-headed for that, he was also just too pig-headed at the same time to see what he was really doing to himself. When we all nodded, he sighed, defeated.
“Maybe you should try to get to know her?” I suggested.
Travis’s jaw clenched, and he stared at an invisible spot across the room. He gave a quick shake of his head. “I just can’t right now. It’s not the right time.”
Liam punched him in the arm. “We get it, bro. No worries.”
Travis took a deep breath and shook his hands out. He was tense the majority of the time now, his forehead wrinkled, as if he was always thinking about something important. It was more than just the heavy weight on his shoulders from Jax and Jennie. He wasn’t ready to talk about it fully, but we were all going to be here when he was. For all our sakes, I hoped it was sooner rather than later.
“Okay,” Randy said. “I was doing some thinking last night.” He looked around the room and caught Liam’s gaze. “How’s Norah’s magic? You got to see a little bit of it, right? Do we need to help her with any kind of defensive spells? Since it seems like she’s the one being targeted, I’d feel a hell of a lot better if she knew what she was doing.”
Liam, as usual, took his question with the utmost care. He sat back and tapped his finger to his chin as he thought it through. “I think she definitely has the power. She didn’t know I was doing any defensive spells, so she probably should be taught at least the basics.”
“She doesn’t know any defensive spells?” I asked, shocked. That was like Magic 101 in my house.
“Remember,” Travis said. “Not everyone grew up like you.”
I looked to Liam and immediately wished I hadn’t said anything. Randy, Trav, and I had all grown up in magical houses. Randy’s wasn’t so hot, but at least he knew what he was. It was Liam who’d spent his younger years not only being awkward, but thought of as a freak for what he could do, most of the time trying to hide it anyway.
“I’ll show her some stuff today,” Randy said.
Bloody hell. I wished I’d thought to speak up quicker than that. Though, Randy did make sense. He was great at
fighting with magic, not that we ever had to use it that much, but we trained for it in case.
“As long as I don’t have to do anything,” Travis said, “Knock yourselves out.”
Liam frowned. “I’ll continue to stay on research. It’s been something I’ve been putting off, anyway. I know Walter keeps saying the fifth should turn up soon, but I’d like to see how long the longest has actually taken among other things.”
We all knew what those other things were, too, and we’d all been putting it off. If the fifth never showed, it might get worse than just the coven disbanding. There were rumors that the members would die out as well. That they couldn’t live without being complete. I’d put off asking my grandfather about it for the exact same reason. I was scared to hear the answer, and I always just assumed we’d get the fifth. Why wouldn’t we? But with Norah here, and her reluctance to be the fifth even if she was, this was becoming a bigger issue.
The door to my room creaked open and all of our heads turned. Norah tiptoed out, but when she saw that all of us were there, and staring right at her, she straightened and walked normally. She wore one of my Salem State shirts and a pair of jeans. She tugged at it. “I hope you don’t mind. What clothes I do have are back at my room that you guys don’t want me to go back to.”
I swallowed. She looked hot in my clothes. From the corner of my eye, I couldn’t help but notice Travis was checking her out too. Briefly. Very briefly. I’d have to check his pulse if he didn’t. “I don’t care,” I told her.
Liam rose to his feet, offering her pretty much everything we had to eat in the house. I watched after him, realizing he was a far better man than I. Instead of ogling her, I should’ve been more worried about making her feel comfortable here and seeing that she was at the very least fed. Since he was now handling it, I turned my attention back to the other guys in the room. Randy sat forward, looking riled up. I would be too if I was spending the day with her, but I supposed I should stay here and help Liam. I could ask my Grandfather about what I’d been avoiding too. I’d keep Norah out of it, but finding out what would happen to us if she wasn’t the fifth, or refused to be the fifth, was something good to know. Especially since I’d fallen for the girl now teasing Liam in the other room. If I could, I’d like to stay around a hell of a lot longer just to be with her.
Chapter Thirteen
“So, you drew the short straw, huh?”
Randy and I had been driving through Salem for the past ten minutes, but he’d barely uttered a word. He looked keyed up, making me that much more on edge considering how we left things last night. I doubt he’d figured his shit out over the past twelve hours or so.
“Excuse me?” he said.
“The short straw? You know, having to show me how to do defensive spells?”
He shook his head. “Oh. I guess.”
I cracked a smile, thinking he was joking, but there was nothing. Just complete emptiness on his face. Okay, clearly, this guy was intense all the time.
I turned my attention out the window for a bit, but nothing bothered me more than silence, especially awkward silence. “So, when did you learn these defensive spells?”
He took one hand off the steering wheel to scratch the stubble on his jaw. My eyes glued to his movements. His bicep muscles rippled as he moved, sending my heart fluttering. After giving into the feelings with Gabe, I felt more attuned to all of them, something I was trying to fight against. Maybe I was just running on fire all the time because of the amount of testosterone around me, but I didn’t think it was all that. Then, of course, there were the images from that premonition I’d had. Randy’s nipple piercing. His hard cock as he slammed it into me. Damn. I was getting another hot flash. I pulled the neck of my shirt out to get some air.
“Norah?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you hear me?”
“No. Did you say something?”
He peeked over at me with his eyebrow raised, and I shifted in my seat. “I was giving you the answer to the question you asked.”
I’d asked a question? It took me a minute to realize that yeah, I had asked him a question, but then was sidetracked by his hotness. I couldn’t believe I had to spend the day with him. Fuck me. This was going to be torture. “Sorry. Can you repeat your answer?”
His fingers fanned over the steering wheel and gripped it until his knuckles turned white. “I was young. Five probably. My mom thought it important that I learn defensive spells right away.”
“Really? Why?” It seemed odd that anyone would want to hurt a five-year-old. Why bring them into the real world so early?
Randy’s shoulders tensed. “Reasons. I won’t go into them right now.”
Mmm-kay. I guessed I’d have to just take that non-answer for what it was, an evasion. Listen, I was the first to realize that no one wanted to unload all their shit on someone else from the get-go, so, I’d just have to deal with it. “You must be really good at it then. I was surprised at Liam.”
“Liam knows more than you think,” Randy said, an edginess to his voice.
“I wasn’t trying to—”
Randy swallowed. “I know. Sorry. Liam’s a hot button for me. He’s probably the best human being on the planet and he deserves better. He definitely deserves a better friend than me.”
What did I say to that? I bit my lip and turned away. We’d taken a city road out of town and were now headed into the country in a small sedan that Randy could barely fit into. I was kind of hoping we’d be taking his bike again, but he’d said we’d probably be tired by the time we got done and he’d rather not see us get in trouble with the bike. I had a sneaking suspicion it had more to do with the fact that he didn’t want to be that close to me. It probably would be awkward to have my legs wrapped around him after what he’d told me yesterday.
Randy pulled off the road into a small clearing. Tiny stones flew up as we ground to a stop. In front of us, a trail headed up over an embankment and disappeared.
“Where are we?”
“We’re headed into a clearing I know. It’s out of the way and we won’t have to worry about anyone coming across what we’re trying to do.”
“So, we need a wide open space for this?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, tucking his body so he could get his legs out of the car. Watching him unfurl himself was like watching a giant stand up from a kiddie pool. He motioned for me to head toward the trail, so we did so. I walked in front of him up the embankment, but once we got to the top, there was enough room so we could walk side-by-side. After a short walk, we got to a huge clearing. The grass was still matted down from the winter and it was surrounded on all sides by trees, trees, and more trees.
“Wow.”
“I know. You’d never know this was here. We’ve been training up here for years and have never come across anyone else.”
I swallowed, imagining the four—or five of them, I guessed—here training for their Enforcer jobs. “Was Jax any good?”
“What?” Randy said sharply. When I blanched, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Sorry. We don’t talk about him much anymore, but yes, Jax was good. As good as Travis.”
“Travis is good?”
Randy chuckled. “Probably the best.”
“Wait. We are talking about the same Travis, right? The one who can’t stand the sight of me?”
“He’ll get over it.”
“So you guys keep saying.”
“Travis and Jax were best friends. It killed him to do what he had to do, and then with Jennie…”
“His sister, right?”
Randy nodded. “He was only supposed to take one of Jennie’s abilities, but the power he wanted to take was attached to everything she had. So, when he pulled that one out, he ended up stripping her, too.”
I gasped. All of her powers. Everything. I hated to feel bad for Travis, but hell, he’d devastated his sister and I was sure he wasn’t immune to that. “How awful.”
“It was.”
&
nbsp; The hairs on my arms stood on end as we walked further into the clearing. When we were somewhat in the center, Randy turned toward me, “Okay, I want to start with just a basic defensive spell. So, if someone were trying to blast you with some negative energy, you’d need to block it.”
“Liam said something similar, but I’ve never had to do anything like this before. We don’t do negative stuff in voodoo.”
Randy’s eyebrows crinkled. “I thought voodoo was all negative.”
“No,” I said, probably a little more snottily than I’d meant to. I hated that voodoo got a bad rap. It was all that Hollywood bullshit. “I don’t even know how to hurt someone with magic like those two in the cafe were doing. I understand spells, but not spells without tangible things.”
Randy rubbed his forehead. “Right, okay. We’ll have to start from the true beginning.” He looked around the clearing and then moved toward me, turning me toward the far corner of the clearing. “See that stick there on the ground?” He pointed, and I nodded once I saw what he was trying to show me. “I want you to try to send a negative spell toward it and hit it.”
“But—”
“Don’t say you can’t do it,” he said, totally stopping me from saying the exact thing. “I saw you send that coffee mug to Travis’s face. That’s basically doing the same thing except you’re not using the mug. Think of it as like a virtual mug and you’re sending it right at that broken branch. Instead of an actual mug though, you’re sending a blast of magic.”
I took a deep breath and stared the branch down. While I stared, Randy moved my arms and legs into a somewhat fighting position. Narrowing my eyes, I sent what I thought was a pretty good blast of magic toward the branch. Nothing happened.
Randy moved my arm up a little higher and flattened my palm. “Nice try. I could feel you doing something. The magic came out, but it kind of dispersed, and it wasn’t negative. Act like that branch is trying to hurt you and you need to keep safe. Take a deep breath…”