Hold Tight (The Embrace Series)

by Cherie Colyer

  “Deal,” she said, beaming. Then she pointed with a chip to the fir and evergreen centerpiece in the middle of the table. “What’s with the pinecone-berry thingy?”

  I raised my shoulders and let them fall. “I don’t know. I think one of Dad’s clients gave it to him. Smells nice.”

  She leaned over the table and breathed in deeply. “Mmm, like Christmas.”

  Josh poked his head into the kitchen. “Hey, Chase wanted me to tell you you’re missing the best part of the movie.”

  I laughed. “According to Chase, every part of that movie is the best.” Seriously, I could recite each line even with the sound off. We’d seen it that many times.

  Kaylee and I rejoined the guys in the family room. Once everyone had enough to eat, we got comfortable. I sat on the couch, snuggled against Isaac’s chest with Chase snuggled against mine. Josh and Kaylee had made their own cozy spot on the floor with some throw pillows and a blanket.

  “Kaylee seems like she’s in a better mood,” Isaac whispered.

  “You noticed the acid tone?” I asked, not really surprised. She’d been snippy with all of us before our chat in the kitchen.

  “It was hard to miss. You didn’t, you know…cast another calming spell. Did you?”

  “No!” I lowered my voice even more. “She had other plans for tonight.”

  Isaac nibbled my ear. “Fun plans?”

  The comment along with the nuzzling had me picturing Kaylee and Josh in a way I really didn’t want to picture them. “There’s an image I didn’t want in my head.”

  Besides, Kaylee knew how totally jealous I was that she didn’t have a problem pulling in her powers when she was intimate with Josh. Josh’s theory about why it was easy for them was that they’d already been a couple when Kaylee had been given powers. That meant there was less pressure about first kisses and whatnot when they were together.

  Isaac’s reasoning was more scientific. He felt it made sense that Kaylee and Josh didn’t experience the same electrical jolt of powers colliding when they kissed that he and I did, because Josh’s magic coursed through her veins. That did seem logical. It wasn’t like Josh shocked himself when he touched his own arm.

  “Josh was going to show her something new,” I said.

  “Ew! Now that’s a picture I didn’t want in my head.”

  I hit his thigh. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

  “Yours went there first,” he pointed out.

  Josh pushed himself into a sitting position. “What are you guys discussing?” He waggled his eyebrows.

  Isaac threw a pillow at his head. “Like I’d tell you.”

  “Shh!” Chase hissed. “I can’t hear Mater.”

  As if he couldn’t recite the entire movie too.

  I dropped my voice to a murmur. “Josh was going to show her a spell.” That was all I had to tell Isaac for him to be in on the Kaylee Training Session.

  Dad got home around eight. He announced he was going to take a quick shower and would then entertain Chase for us, but by the sound of the logs he sawed soon afterward, we guessed he had lain down and passed out instead. We tucked Chase in bed at nine. That left the four of us alone in the family room to do whatever we wanted.

  I grabbed several thick pillar candles from the box in the hall closet. After moving the coffee table out of the way, we placed three of them on the floor and distributed the rest evenly around the room. We sat in our usual spots and built our circle.

  “Madison, you want to show Kaylee this one?” Isaac asked.

  I smirked wickedly. Lighting candles was one of the first things I’d mastered.

  “Relax, find your center, and concentrate on what you want to happen.” With my powers on the tip of my tongue, I bent forward and gently blew on the wick of the candle closest to me. It glowed a bright tanzanite blue—the color of the flames I produced—and then lit. I winked at Kaylee, and the rest of the candles flickered to life.

  Kaylee’s gaze roamed the room.

  “Creating fire where there is none is the most difficult part, but once it exists, you can manipulate it.” Josh held his hand in front of him, palm up. His fingers curled into a fist. The simple gesture extinguished all the candles at once without so much as a wisp of smoke. He opened his hand to show he’d captured the flames in his grasp.

  “Hold out your hand,” he told Kaylee.

  She bit her bottom lip and followed his instructions.

  “Call the fire to you,” he directed.

  She stared at his hand, but nothing happened. Only a hint of stargazer lilies—the sweet scent of her powers—could be detected amongst the strong taste of chocolate-covered strawberries that was my powers. If Kaylee had properly managed to call upon her magic, we would have smelled a dozen bouquets of the vibrant flowers.

  Isaac held his hand up as if he had on a catcher’s mitt. “Find your center,” he repeated, reminding her of the first step to any spell. “Focus on what you want and imagine it happening.”

  The fireball soared into Isaac’s waiting hand.

  “Is it hot?” Kaylee asked.

  “It’ll feel warm like a freshly baked cookie, but it won’t burn you,” I assured her.

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath and sat a little straighter. Her gaze fixed on the fire suspended an inch above Isaac’s palm. The taste of her magic slowly grew stronger. A few seconds passed. She squinted, mouth pulled into a tight line. Her hand bounced a couple times as if she was thinking, Come on! The flames moved ever so slightly closer to her. Her face contorted more. Finally, it soared to her like a foam bullet shot from a Nerf gun. She gasped but caught it.

  “I did it!” Kaylee laughed. “I actually did it. Now what?” she added excitedly.

  “Put it out,” Josh said.

  Slowly, her fingers bent upward. Flames licked her pinky. She hesitated a moment before snapping her hand closed, smothering the fire. I’d almost forgotten how fun it was to cast the simple spells as a group.

  Next, Kaylee tried to light the candle closest to her by blowing on the wick. She had about as much luck with that as a stove without gas. The strong scent of hot apple cider wafted past me. I glanced at Josh, knowing that was the taste of his powers. He mouthed shh as the candle lit.

  Kaylee didn’t notice that Josh had helped her with the spell, and I let her have the small victory because one of the most powerful tools a witch could have was confidence. If Kaylee believed she could harness the powers given to her to light a candle, then eventually she would be able to.

  We continued to practice, taking turns summoning the fire to us and sending it back to the candles. By the time we called it a night, Kaylee had lit a candle on her own. She wasn’t able to get them all to light like I had, but she could pull a flame from one candle and send it to the wick of another.

  “That was incredible,” she said as we gathered the candles and put them back in the box. “I feel…energized.”

  I knew that sensation all too well—the trickle of magic dancing over my skin, awakening all my senses, allowing me to see things with more clarity than I had before I’d embraced the powers.

  She and Josh left shortly after we had the family room put back together.

  “Are you sure you won’t stay?” I asked Isaac. We were in the foyer.

  “Can’t. I have to get up early tomorrow.”

  “Not even five minutes?” I hooked my index fingers through his belt loops and rose to my tiptoes, my lips a breath away from his. “I thought we could do a little practicing of our own.”

  Isaac wet his lips. “Your father’s right upstairs.”

  “Passed out. A freight train speeding through his bedroom isn’t going to wake him.”

  Isaac’s mouth covered mine. A tingling sensation tugged at me from behind my belly button. I pushed it back and wound my arms around his neck. Isaac’s fingers followed the curve of my back down to my butt cheeks and back up again. I could feel my powers struggling to break free, but squeezing my eyes shut t
ighter, I tucked them away. To my disappointment, Isaac broke our kiss.

  “I’m going to need more than five minutes,” he said in a husky voice.

  I was going to need a double-insulated titanium room to control my emotions and my powers for more than twenty-three seconds.

  Isaac pinched my chin, tilted my head up, and gave me one last peck of a kiss. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”

  With a wave of my hand, I turned off the lights and headed upstairs. Kaylee had done really well for her first time playing with fire. I was thinking that I’d show her how to capture the wind next. Or maybe that was too advanced. She’d probably like to be able to will the lights on and off or make changes to something written in ink or warm a cold cup of coffee.

  At the top of the stairs, I paused mid-thought to watch the glimmer of violet light that crept from beneath my closed bedroom door.

  I took a tentative step forward, then another and another, peeking in my brother’s room as I passed it. He was sound asleep, flopped across his bed on top of the covers like every other night.

  My eyes journeyed back to the iridescent glow seeping out of my room. I took the last few steps and stopped, my hand hovering over the doorknob.

  “It’s your room,” I reminded myself. Although when I’d left that morning, my room hadn’t glowed.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I wrenched open the door. Several tiny orbs floated above my bed. I focused on the lamp on my nightstand, pushing out a small amount of power. It clicked on. Brea lie curled on top of the covers on my bed fast asleep, still wearing my boots.

  She looked so peaceful. Instead of waking her, I turned the light off and pulled as much of the comforter over her as I could and then grabbed my old sleeping bag from the closet. I spread it out on the floor at the foot of the bed and crawled inside. My eyelids grew heavy as I watched the purple orbs drift around my room.

  I dreamed I was with Isaac. The gymnasium at school had been transformed into a makeshift ballroom. Sparkling snowflakes dangled from the beams in the ceiling. Twisting columns of red and white balloons added a Christmas feel to the place. Matching streamers draped in flowing currents from the ceiling to the walls. A beautiful waltz serenaded everyone in attendance. Isaac wore a black suit with a black dress shirt. I had on a red velvet strapless dress complete with white fur around the top and bottom. We twirled around the makeshift dance floor with the rest of the dancers.

  Kaylee and Josh were there, spinning through the crowd as effortlessly as Isaac and I were. Kaylee and I exchanged smiles. Everything was perfect.

  The next song was a slow ballad. Isaac held me close as we swayed to the music, yet I could hear the conversation of others.

  “What’s wrong with the one you have?” a girl asked, her voice soft, almost whimsical.

  “She doesn’t make a statement,” a guy replied in a tone that had goose bumps rising on my arms.

  “You’re doing this for vengeance, aren’t you?”

  If he answered, I couldn’t hear him. Isaac pulled me closer, wrapping his powers around me. I snuggled into his hold and continued to listen to the conversation next to us.

  “Please, for me, leave her be,” the girl said, sounding exasperated.

  “Fear not, Sister. My interest in her extends beyond revenge. She intrigues me.”

  I scanned the faces around us as Isaac and I continued to dance, unable to see whose conversation I was eavesdropping on. The slow song then gave way to something more upbeat. Isaac held my fingertips as he twirled me once under his arm. The song was nearly over when someone tapped his shoulder.

  “May I cut in?” the guy I’d heard earlier asked.

  I couldn’t see his face with Isaac standing between me and Mystery Voice. The vanilla and spearmint that had encompassed me became tainted with steel and an oddly familiar sweet aroma. Before either Isaac or I could answer, the scene changed. He and I relaxed on the balcony of the lighthouse. Dave Matthews Band serenaded us from Isaac’s cell phone.

  Stirring in my sleep, I rolled to my side and fell into a deeper, blacker sleep.

  I woke the next morning in my bed. The purple orbs had vanished with dawn’s light. Brea was gone, but the flowers on my dresser were warm and alive. They filled the room with their alluring perfume. I stretched, rolled to my side, and hugged my pillow, wondering when I had moved to my bed and when I’d see Brea again.

  Chapter 13

  The Prince of Faeries

  The rest of the weekend went by uneventfully. Even things at school were back to the normal day-to-day stuff. If it weren’t for the “We miss you” and “Come home soon” sentiments taped to Natalie’s locker, you wouldn’t even know that she’d gone missing barely over a week ago.

  “It’s disgusting how quickly they forget,” Lauren said to Sarah, Kaylee, and me on Monday afternoon.

  Sarah put her books in her locker and asked Lauren, “Has she sent you any more messages?”

  “You heard from her?” Kaylee and I said in unison.

  Lauren, whose locker was two away from Sarah’s, replied, “She texted me last night to tell me she was okay and not to worry about her.”

  “Where is she?” I asked, relieved Natalie was alive.

  “She wouldn’t say.”

  “Are you sure she wasn’t forced to text you?” Kaylee asked skeptically.

  “We have a code word for when we’re covering for each other. She used it. No way would she have done that if she was in trouble.” Lauren shut her locker.

  “This is a good thing, right?” I said.

  “It confirms Isaac and Josh’s theory that she doesn’t want to be found,” Kaylee whispered so only I could hear.

  “She’s still gone, and they—” Lauren gave a nod to a random group of girls walking by “—don’t even care.”

  “But if she left,” I started to say but stopped when Sarah shook her head in a way that warned, Don’t go there. So instead I said, “I’m sure you’ll hear from her again.” And we dropped the subject.

  Isaac gave me a ride home. We made a pit stop at the gas station. While he quenched his car’s thirst, I went inside the convenience store to grab us a beverage.

  I waited patiently in the checkout line behind a woman in yoga pants and a bright yellow ski jacket. A guy with shiny blond hair and a red plaid jacket placed three liter-sized bottles of water on the counter.

  “Reed?” I asked. He turned, letting me see it was him. “Hey.”

  “Madison.” He motioned for the woman to go in front of him, and they traded places.

  “How do you like working for my dad?” I asked.

  “It’s been busy, but good. And your dad has plenty of tools, so at least I don’t need to buy any.”

  Dad’s pickup truck was a mobile workshop, and being the person he was, I knew he wouldn’t expect his hired help to have their own tools. I looked down, noticing his Timberland boots. “Gives you more money for shoes,” I teased, remembering how he’d been shoe shopping when I’d run into him at the mall.

  He laughed. “Did you get that dress?”

  “Yeah.” The memory of his cold fingers brushing my shoulder blade as he untied the ribbons caused my cheeks to warm. I hoped I wasn’t blushing. To keep from having to meet his gaze, I scanned the candy selection near us.

  “I still have some of that chocolate.” Reed reached into his pocket and then held out his hand, revealing two pieces of the brightly wrapped treats. “Want one?”

  “Thanks.” My thumb had just scraped the fuchsia cellophane when it burst into flames and vanished. Flinching, I clutched my fist to my chest.

  “You,” Isaac growled from behind me.

  I turned, still trying to understand what had happened. He stared at Reed as if he were seeing a ghost. My gaze went back to Reed. A wicked smile flashed across his face.

  Isaac continued, “I sent you back and sealed the door.”

  The woman in the yoga pants glanced between Reed and Isaac. I was sure her confu
sed expression mirrored mine. I didn’t know which question to ask first: Who torched a perfectly good piece of chocolate? Or, what door?

  Reed shrugged. “Doors get opened all the time.”

  The scent of steel and vanilla mixed together to create a nauseating stench and added one more question to my list: Why was Isaac—Mr. In Control—losing his calm now?

  “We had an agreement,” Isaac spat.

  “I assure you it hasn’t been broken,” Reed replied coolly.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, glad to have found my voice. “How do you know each other?”

  As if just remembering I was there, Isaac stepped protectively in front of me. “The question is, how do you know him?”

  “He works for my dad.” I tried to move next to Isaac, but he put an arm out to his side, stopping me.

  Reed smiled, and for a moment I thought I saw his eyes go from pale blue to winter white. His hair appeared longer, and his high cheekbones looked as if they’d been chiseled out of marble. When I blinked, though, his features were no more remarkable than mine.

  He held another piece of candy in his hand. Despite the fact the last one had burst into flames, I wanted it. Bad. I hadn’t even realized I reached for the tiny piece of heaven until Isaac lowered my arm to my side. An unexpected anger grew in me. That was my piece of candy. Isaac had no right taking it from me.

  “That’s my girl,” Reed whispered, only his lips hadn’t moved.

  But I wasn’t his girl. Was I? My mind became too hazy to think straight. I was sure the chocolate would make everything all right. Then something caressed my skin, wrapping around me like spearmint-scented silk, and I remembered Isaac. I was his girl, not Reed’s.

  What the hell was going on? I opened my mouth to tell them both off, but my body had become weightless, and there wasn’t enough of me left to form the words. A second later, I was sitting in the Jeep. It took a moment for me to realize that Isaac had teleported me to his car. Confused and annoyed, I yanked on the handle, but the door didn’t open.