“What?” Jack shouts.
I ignore the inappropriate interruption to our ritual. She should know better.
“You can’t!” She yells louder.
I can and I will.
On it’s own, the cover of the Gentil book of shadows opens. The pages leaf back and forth — first to the proper spell, then away. The pages flutter wildly, opening to the spell and away, back to the spell and away.
There are two opinions present here, elders that want the cleanse to proceed and others that absolutely don't.
Cherie whines a bit. “Not again.”
I’m determined. Every hex on me and everyone in this circle will be removed. I will no longer live in ignorance.
I dip the tip of the bundle of herbs in the candle fire.
“Spirit of sage,” I chant. “With you a battle for our auras we hereby wage.”
“Stop her!” Jack darts for the circle. Ben grabs her and throws her back. Nash, then, makes a move for the circle, and Ben attacks him. A fight ensues between them.
I ignore their ruckus.
Trust in your strength.
I hear Enrique’s voice clearly in my head.
“Spirit of thyme, reveal the dirty psyches, make them chime.” From feet to crown, I circle the burning herbs around myself.
“Oooh.” The center of my diaphragm forces the sound out of my throat.
Cherie, sealing the gap as she steps out of the circle of girls, comes to the center to assist in the spell.
She takes the bundle and walks the circle with it. Like a dancer, she artfully waves it high and low so that the smoke surrounds every member of the coven. No one makes a sound.
“Ahhh,” Val cries as Cherie approaches her.
Val’s eyes roll back into her head. The girls on each side of her keep her from falling.
The hex on her is weak and has already started releasing. Mine on the other hand is firmly attached.
Some of the ancestors continue fighting me. I feel their staunch reluctance. That's why I brought backup. I reach for the lemon. It rolls away from me.
“Enough!” I point at the lemon and it immediately stops.
I sense a spirit, one of my personal elders, battling for control. With focus, I eventually harness the energy of the lemon and fuse with it, pushing the spirit out.
“Citrus, come back to me. You are the fruit that will set me free.” With a crook of my finger, it rolls to my feet. With a lift of my palm, it rises through the air to gently plop into my palm.
Wow. I can’t believe I just did that.
There’s a murmur of awe from my coven, and the spirit that challenged me turns into an angry zephyr, blowing in my face and tussling my hair. I ignore it and continue.
I prick the lemon deeply to draw juice from the center.
“Uncross every hex that has me vexed.” I squeeze drops onto my chest and breasts.
A huge mass of energy roils inside me. It surges outward only to be pushed back again.
Damn the elder blocking this spell!
I don't have time for this!
Cherie takes the lemon. She applies juice to my back and shoulders.
Though loosened, the curses on me still cling.
“Cleansing herbs complete your task, to be free is all I ask!”
The hexes, there’s more than one, release from my psyche in a massive burst. The floodgate opens and out through my lungs the foreign energy flows. With an unending exhale, the heaviness that I didn’t even know I was carrying, leaves me.
Oh, I can’t breathe in.
Damn. How deep are these buried?
Choking and gasping, I raise my arms to the sky to gather what energy I can from the sliver of glowing moon.
I’m going to pass out.
“Help me, elders,” I whisper with my last bit of oxygen.
A zephyr, ironically one of the same spirits that were fighting me, rings my midsection and squeezes, forcing the energy out. As the last of the hexes uncross my consciousness, I inhale deep. As I do, memories are liberated.
Holidays and worshiping.
School and summers.
Birthdays and playing in the woods.
Beautiful mountains and a soft flowing creek.
Even my grandparents’ faces, cousins and extended family.
For long moments, I bask in Soft unity and love — until the chill of the dark flows from the east.
I lower my arms and open my eyes.
Lauralynn smiles. Val’s expression is back to normal. Every member of the coven watches me intently.
“My name is Shavone Soft.”
Gabriela and Jack stare as well. Nash and Ben, scratched and bloody from their fighting, gawk at me.
“I am one of three daughters birthed to Sage Sul Soft of Glanum and Sebastien Soft of Entremont.”
It’s so cold. The dark is getting closer.
My senses heighten. I feel Kennedy’s presence. I have no doubt that she’s here, and no doubt that she is the witch who kidnapped me. She walks with the dark.
I turn toward the east, looking for her. “Show yourself, witch!”
In my peripheral vision, I catch rapid movement from Nash and Ben.
Gabs, too, crouches.
A few moments later, clapping sounds echo through the night.
“Finally,” says a smooth as silk voice. “Oh, finally, a Soft takes her power.”
Kennedy strolls from the massive lawn through the trees and nears the circle.
“Are you happy?” Jack shrieks.
“Quite. And thank you, sister dear, for providing the proper circle.” Kennedy laughs as she bows at Jack.
“I added a few special pieces of my own.” The dark witch picks up a small stone ringing the circle. It sears the palm of her hand.
“Ahh.” Kennedy drops it like a hot potato and rubs her reddened skin.
Her nose morphs from small and normal colored to swollen black and blue. The residual cleansing soot on the stone is apparently stripping a well crafted facade.
This time Jack barks a laugh, a real laugh that is shocking enough for Nash to stare at her wide-eyed.
“You are undoubtedly a Soft.” She bows, slightly at me. “Thank you for exposing her true colors.”
“She’s also a Sul!” Kennedy shouts, her smooth voice replaced with one rougher than Jack’s. Kennedy’s happy-go-lucky demeanor is also gone, replaced with simple meanness.
Sobering from her brief laugh, Jack shakes her head at Kennedy. “Your lies. Your scheming. All you’ve done is expose all the girls to hunters.”
“What? Us?” One of the coven girls asks.
“You are nothing.” With a flick of her hand and a sneer, Kennedy rudely dismisses her. “You, Shavone. You’re part of what could be a powerful trinity.”
Sophia.
Me.
Sky.
“She won’t join you,” Jack says.
“We’ll see about that.” Kennedy turns on her heel to stride away.
“Where’s Enrique?” I shout after her.
“That, Shavone Sul Soft, is the first test of the new you.” She keeps walking.
“Wait!” I want to stop her, but can’t — not without breaking our pentacle.
chapter 25
The black band that appeared where my ring had been, heats significantly.
I see him!
I hear my witch as though she were right here with me. Am I delusional? This spell of Kennedy’s fucking with my head?
I close my eyes.
I see you, Enrique!
And I see her, or rather, I see what my mate sees through her eyes.
She’s in that damn circle!
The candles burn like torches. A small drop of blue tinted liquid rolls around a paper map spread out on the ground. It stops and seeps in.
They’re just outside of Morrison, she says.
The Alliance building is near Morrison.
I listen as Shavone closes the ritual in five brisk words.
Leaving her tools where they lay, she jumps over the stones of the circle and reaches for her robe.
“Where are you going?” LaFontaine asks.
Fabric flicks through the vision as she puts the robe on.
“To find my mate.”
The second sleeve half on, she runs.
The Santana she-wolf stays by her side.
“Shavone!” LaFontaine shouts.
“I'm with her!” Gabriela Santana shouts back.
Once across the street at our home, her fingers pound the garage keypad. The girls duck under the door before it fully rises. Shavone slips into the driver’s seat of my Aston Martin. She pushes the start button, fastens her seatbelt and puts the gear in reverse. Stomping on the gas, the car squeals out of the garage and jostles. She missed the turnout and backed right over the lawn.
“Are you sure you know how to drive this thing?” Gabriela buckles her seatbelt.
In the rearview, sod flies from the rear tires.
“Yup.”
The speedometer reads 200 miles per hour as she tears down Cherry Circle. Tires squeal again in the roundabout. The vision fades just as the car, literally, skids sideways onto University.
My wolf is beside himself.
She’s going to kill herself racing to this trap!
I open my eyes, attempt to calm my beast and my breathing. I must break free before she arrives.
The second degree witches continue their low chanting just outside the cell.
Am I in the Alliance basement? I’ve been downstairs once before — the night my mother was murdered. If this is the Alliance basement, it’s been updated. There weren’t any windows in the doors of the tiny cells in those days.
“Don't you see, Enrique?” My uncle, looking at me through the barred window of this cell, prattles on as he has for what must be over an hour. “We had to do it. We had to make the little witch use her power.”
He's been trying to save his life with ridiculous explanations of his and Kennedy’s treachery.
“The hunters are gaining power with each generation.” Uncle holds my ring close to his face, inspecting it. “I had to do my duty as a wolf.”
The black band tingles, sending sensations through my left hand.
“The witches are getting slaughtered.” Agustin drones on. “We had to do something to make them fight.”
As my mate’s warmth moves upward from my hand, I regain control over my arm, shoulder and neck.
“The Soft massacre was a wakeup call for us.”
Agustin looks at me.
I lay still as my witch’s energy moves across my clavicle to begin liberating the right side of my body.
“Shavone’s a powerful one. Kennedy was right about that. Her sisters are likely just as strong — the older one by all accounts more so. She's awakening, you know. What a tremendous asset all three will be to the Witch Liberation Movement.”
The what?
My wolf growls internally chomping at the bit to kill him.
His death shall be painful.
Wait. Wait for complete control of my body. Wait for the perfect opportunity to make a move.
“We saw the connection between you that fateful night. If she used her power to protect you once, she'd do it again.”
I can hold in the beast no more. I shift, lunging from the cot to punch the bars into Uncle’s face.
Nose bloodied, he stumbles backwards. The ring clinks to the floor.
“Control him,” he shouts to the junior witches.
They are weak, their chants useless against the combination of my witch’s power and my wolf’s rabid rage. Another ram at the door dislodges one massive bolt from the upper hinge.
“Run! Run!” Uncle ushers the witches out of the basement, their rapid footsteps echo on the concrete stairs.
I ram the door, again. It doesn’t budge. I slam it with my entire body. Still, it doesn’t move.
Damn this door!
“It’s stronger than it looks, isn’t it, Enrique?” Kennedy strolls toward my cell.
What happened to her voice? And her nose? It appears as though it has been broken for a few days. Why didn’t I notice that earlier?
Kennedy spots my ring on the floor. With a wicked smirk, she reaches for it.
“She's very predictable, your witch.” She slips the large ring on her thumb. “So loyal to you.”
Shavone.
My beast roars.
I grip the bars, pulling in frustration. In this direction, the door gives. I yank it with every ounce of my strength.
The door off its hinges, I fling it at Kennedy. She instinctively reacts by ducking her head and putting up her hands. The ring flashes. The door moves over her as though she’s wearing a protective bubble. Kennedy gapes at the ring.
“Enrique!” Shavone’s voice and footfalls echoes down the steps. “She's dark! Don't trust her!” My mate pauses at the other end of the basement, facing Kennedy.
“Leave,” my wolf commands Shavone.
She shakes her head, nonchalantly unlatches a cell on her right as she walks forward.
Antonio stumbles out of the cage. Shavone nods to the cell to her left. My brother looks in.
“Francisco’s unconscious.”
“Get him out of here,” Shavone says. Antonio obeys, hoisting his cousin across his broad shoulders.
“You go, too,” I say to my witch.
Instead of following my brother up the stairs, my mate moves to my side. “I can’t do that. I have a score to settle with this bitch.”
“That’s my girl.” Kennedy cackles. “Revenge is the next step in your development.”
Kennedy’s lips move, the beginnings of an incantation. My flung cell door lifts flat off the floor and spins like a horizontal blade toward us.
“Look out!” I shield Shavone with my body, twirling her into the cell with me.
The steel door takes a significant chunk out of the concrete wall.
A flash of light right outside the cell is followed by massive heat and smoke.
Fire!
With a shout, Shavone scoots away from it.
“Use your awakened power, Shavone.” Kennedy’s voice gets farther away.
I get up to retrieve the door lying just outside of the cell and attempt to snuff the fire with it. However, the fire gets too big too fast.
The flame licks at my legs. I hiss and growl as I’m forced back. Smoke, thick and black, rolls through the space.
Shavone rises to her knees.
“Flames of darkness, you cause us no care.”
The fire flicks a hot finger toward her.
“You cannot burn without angry air. As we breathe to clean the flame, send it back to whence it came.”
Shavone inhales deeply. Breathing on the fire like a dragon, she taps my arm to indicate I should do the same.
The flames draw back six feet, but licks forward halfway as Shavone runs out of exhaling air.
My wolf takes a mighty gulp of air. I exhale on the fire as she attempts to take another lung full of oxygen. She coughs out the smokey air.
The fire nears the cell again.
I use my beast to gather more oxygen and blow hard on the flames. It moves a good 12 feet from the door, enough space to get out.
“C’mon.” I reach back for her hand. It’s limp.
I look back. She’s collapsed and unconscious.
My witch.
Gently, I place her over my shoulder.
Inhale.
Exhale.
The fire recedes once more from the door.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I slide quickly along the perimeter of the basement, blowing on the fire to keep it at bay.
I race the flames up the stairs, bursting through the exit into the night and blissful clean mountain air.
Softly, I lay Shavone on the cool grass.
She’s not breathing.
I shift human and start mouth-to-mouth, blowing precious oxygen
into her lungs several times, stopping to press on her heart to keep the blood flowing.
The Taylor girl kneels on the other side of her. “You breathe. I’ll pump.”
Time moves in slow motion as together we work to bring my witch back. I vaguely register members of her coven and the LaFontaine wolves gathering around us.
“C’mon, Shav.” LaFontaine drops to his knees, begging. “Breathe, damn it!”
chapter 26
The light is so bright. Too bright. It burns my retinas. Figures stand in front of it. I see undulating outlines, but no faces.
One of them glides forward.
“It’s not your time yet, Shavone.”
“Mommy?” It sounded like her.
I tilt my head and block some of the rays with my arm. Still, I can’t see faces.
“You have to go back, sweetheart.” It’s Dad’s voice. He just appears at Mom’s side.
“I don’t want to,” I assert.
Mommy’s energy caresses my face. Oh, it feels so good.
“Your sisters need you.” Her form goes rigid. “Especially now that you’ve disobeyed us.”
She was the spirit fighting me in the circle.
She nods, reading my thoughts.
“Go, honey.” Without touching me, Dad turns me away from the light. “We’ll be with you.”
“Always,” Mom’s voice fades away.
“Remember how you were raised.” Dad’s voice fades, too.
I turn my head to look at them one more time, but the light is gone and so are they.
“Damn it, Shavone!”
Why is Nash yelling at me?
He always yells.
I take a deep breath, and gasp at the raw feeling in my throat.
My lungs burn, too. I cough. Oh, that’s worse still.
“Breathe in again, mi dulce,” Enrique murmurs.
I open my eyes to look up at my mate. His beautiful face is filthy.
“Breathe!” Nash orders from somewhere above my head.
I roll my eyes. But take another breath, through my nose this time. It still hurts my chest.
The pain lifts my back off the hard ground. I roll sideways, coughing up black goop and lots of it.
“What is it going to take for you to use your power?” Kennedy shouts through the night.
Enrique tenses.
“She did use her power,” Enrique says.
Soft Fate (Wolven Moon Book 2) Page 21