by E. M. Moore
Fuck. This girl. It was as if she had me by the balls in such a short amount of time and I had to admit I hated every freaking moment. The coven was the only thing I relied on and even that had been going to shit lately without Jax. Well, not actually Jax. Without the fifth. Without the fifth, we were pretty much useless and the bonds we’d formed were crumbling around us. Except for Liam and me. Liam and I were for life. And right now, he was upset about the girl I wanted not calling him.
“So, she said she would call you?” I ventured, hating the way my voice sounded when it came out. Accusatory and sad all at the same time.
Liam looked up, his eyebrows raised. “It’s not like that,” he said quickly.
“Like you don’t want it to be like that.”
His face blanched and then turned red in quick succession. God, why was I such a dick sometimes? Before I could explain myself, Liam squared his shoulders. “I don’t know all of what’s going on. I just know that when she’s around, things feel better around here. Don’t you agree?”
When she was around, I felt like I wanted to throw her in bed and feel half as much as I felt the other night. I wasn’t sure that was the same thing Liam was talking about though. We definitely had a sexual connection, Norah and I. As far as a coven connection, I couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure. I definitely wasn’t focused on that the other night. I had other things on my mind.
I shrugged, pretending I didn’t care. With Liam, I knew I wasn’t half as convincing as I was with the other guys, but I was nothing if not persistent.
“I just hope nothing’s happened to her.”
Okay, now he was talking my language. My hackles rose, and I stepped up closer. “Why would you think that? Was she afraid? What aren’t you telling us?”
Liam stumbled over his words at my sudden outburst. “I told her we would meet up so I could let her know the information we got out of the two guys.”
Behind us, Travis said, “Why the hell would you do that? Norah’s not the fifth. It can’t be. Order business is just that, our business. Not anyone else’s. We should’ve wiped her memory and sent her off.”
I got why Travis had such a chip on his shoulder nowadays, but this dick routine was really starting to piss me off. “We’re not wiping her memory.”
“Oh, of course,” he said, sneering. “Then she’d forget all about your fuck session. I guess you’ll just have to try again with her.”
A growl started deep in my throat, and little Liam stepped in front of me to face down Travis himself. “She’s a fellow witch. A possible member of the Order. We’re not wiping her memory, Travis. You know what happens if you deny the call.”
“Yeah, we all could be fucked,” Gabe said, finally speaking.
Travis’s jaw clenched. He knew better than anyone about giving up stuff for the order. He hadn’t talked much about it, but there’d been a reason he stayed in Adams as long as he did and it wasn’t just about trying to mend his family ties. There was a girl involved. A girl he couldn’t have, apparently. I eased up on my reaction. Since feeling something similar recently, I should give him some slack. Norah wasn’t just any girl. I’d had those kinds of girls. Slept with them, dated them. Norah was different. There was like a tie that was already in place. We were connected somehow. Even if she wasn’t the fifth, which was my guess, she was still supposed to be here in some way. Magic was a mystery sometimes and we just had to figure it out.
“Listen,” Liam said. “We’ll get the fifth.”
“Statistically speaking,” Gabe said, leaning against the wall, his leg bent at the knee as it rested flat against the rocky surface. “We should’ve had the fifth by now.” We all let that sink in. It wasn’t as if it hadn’t been at the forefront of all our minds lately. We were nothing without the fifth. There were even some scary stories out there about what could happen if the fifth never showed including loss of magic, death. I peered at Liam and he just looked at the floor. Gabe cleared his throat. “It needs to be brought up, so I’m doing it. A sexy witch walked into our lives yesterday talking about something that sounds suspiciously like she got the call.”
The blood in my veins boiled as a wave of possession flowed through me.
“Where are we all at with Norah? Who here thinks she’s the fifth?”
Before anyone could say anything, Travis laughed darkly. Liam looked up, his calm, serene face on. “I take that as a no from you.”
“You can take it as a fuck no. I stand by my sentiments yesterday. She’s female. Give me one Order of the Akasha coven that hasn’t been made up of five males. I’m not being a female hater, I’m being a realist. I’ve known some bad ass female witches,” Travis said, his voice scratching as a shadow crossed his face. “I’m not saying we’re better than them. What I am saying is that based on the past, it’s not possible.”
Liam nodded. He was nothing if not a common sense type of guy. His reaction gave me the courage to speak my own. “I don’t think she’s the fifth either. I think she’s here for a reason, I just don’t think she’s the fifth. And no,” I said, staring at Travis. “I don’t think her reason for being here is to be my plaything. Not that the idea bothers me…”
Travis smirked.
Gabe’s jaw set, his eyes zeroing in on me. “So, we have two no’s.” He raised his hand. “I, for one, am in the ‘It could happen’ camp. Everything she talked about last night was something I experienced myself, right down to the pull. I came from another damn continent. I felt the pull from even further away so I know it can happen. She said it pulled her right to our apartment. What the hell else could it be?”
Gabe’s question hung in the air. None of us could answer it. Instead, I stared at Liam. The guy was smart as hell and I respected his opinion probably more than any of the other guys. No, he wasn’t the leader type. He was too shy for that, but he was practically a genius. As the rest of the guys also started to look his way as the last one who hadn’t given his opinion yet, he started to fidget. He hated being the center of attention. He sighed. “I think she could be the fifth.”
Travis snorted. “You just want to bone her because she actually paid attention to you.”
I stepped forward. “Don’t be a dick, Trav.”
Travis shook his head and turned away. He never used to be like this and that was the only reason I hadn’t put him in his place. Yet. It was obvious his outbursts were about something else entirely and he had no one else to take it out on. It was just us after all. Day after day, just the four of us. None of us had been the one to actually strip Jax and Jennie. Nope, that honor went to him.
I took a deep breath. “Let’s just calm the fuck down. So, we have two no’s and two yes’s. How are we going to figure out if she really is the fifth?”
“I don’t understand why there needs to be a discussion, Mates,” Gabe said. “We didn’t talk about it when I showed up saying I got the pull.”
“But you had a history,” I told him.
Liam tapped his chin. “So, maybe what we need to do is get to know Norah better. The worst case scenario is she leaves Salem and we lose her. If she’s the fifth and we lose her, that’s the worst-worst case scenario. There can’t be any harm in getting to know her to see if she’s the real deal or not. If she isn’t, she leaves—or stays—whatever she wants to do, and then the actual fifth will eventually come.”
How many times had we talked about the fifth eventually coming and it hadn’t happened yet? I was with Liam though. It couldn’t hurt to get to know her even though I had a sneaking suspicion she’d put me in a spell yesterday and I was not happy about it. We could take the wait-and-see approach. Why not? We were already doing that.
“So, we’ve decided we’re all going to play nice to get to know Norah then?” Gabe asked. He caught Travis’s gaze first, then moved to me.
I shrugged. What else could we do? Hadn’t I already been nice to her?
“Whatever,” Travis said. “I’ll go with the majority on this, but don’t expec
t any help from me. I’m just going to be sitting back and waiting for the real fifth to arrive so we can get back to doing what we’re supposed to be doing.”
Gabe rolled his eyes, but that was as good as we were going to get out of Travis at the moment.
“Alright, how are we going to go about this then?” I asked. “Travis is out, I’m not sure I’m the best idea so—” I hated even thinking that. I wanted nothing more than to be close to Norah, but at the same time, the idea scared the shit out of me. This wasn’t just a one and done girl and I’d never been good at anything that could be called a relationship.
“I volunteer,” Gabe said, a smirk pulling at his lips.
I glanced to Liam whose shoulders deflated. Before I could offer up that Liam already had her cell phone number and found where she was staying, Liam shrugged. “Sure, yeah.” He passed his cell to him. “You can get her number off of there.”
I shook my head. Why in the hell wouldn’t he just go for something if he wanted it? Then again, I didn’t know if I wanted him to go for the same thing I wanted. Hell, if she wasn’t the fifth, we might as well just tie a noose around ourselves because our once very stable coven was only a few days from imploding, even without the magical help of not having the correct number of members.
Chapter Nine
I dreamt about Granny. At least, I think I was dreaming about Granny. Granny was definitely there, but I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep. The last thing I remembered was making up my mind to get the hell out of Salem.
After Liam and Travis took off to take the two bodies to their headquarters, I went back to my small room at the motel. Liam had wanted me to come, but Travis was definitely against that. I wasn’t sure what the hell his fucking problem was with me, but it didn’t matter now anyway. I was leaving.
At least, I thought I was. Right now, though, I was caught up in my own thoughts. I’d dreamt of Granny before, after she’d passed, but this time was a little different. This time I was getting a bit of a scolding. She put her hands on her wide hips. Granny was short and round around the middle. Her skin was an unblemished ebony, yet her hair hadn’t gotten the message. Riddled with gray, it fell past her shoulders, giving her a wise look that everyone in the parish respected. Back where we lived, people believed in what we did, and especially when Granny was involved. She healed the sick, helped the poor. She told tales as tall as the buildings in New York City and all the while I sat in the other room trying to have as normal a life as possible. No one bothered me all that much. Those that knew Granny were pretty sure I had magic running in my blood also, but they didn’t come to me like they came to Granny. I asked her about it one day and she just said I had this vibe that shouted not to talk to me. I didn’t mean to have that kind of vibe. Well, not all the time. I’d just never had the charisma Granny did.
Her fingers snapped in front of my face. “Pay attention, Norah Girl.” She shook her head and tsked at me. Even in my dream state, anger rose inside me at being treated like a child. “Things are brewin’. I’m not sure what’s going on, but the aura around you is mixed. You’re in trouble, but you’re also exactly where you need to be.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know what you’ve got yourself into. Gone not even a year yet and I’m already having to come visit you. My girl, my girl, my girl.”
“Granny, I’m okay,” I said, my voice echoing off the invisible walls around us in the dream. Clouds of purple and pink surrounded her, making me feel like we were walking around in a cotton candy factory.
“Where are you, Norah Girl?”
“In a hotel, I think.”
“You think?” Her eyebrows arched. “What do you mean, ‘you think?’ Where?”
Her voice hardened as she tried to pull memories out of me, but they were short coming. I looked inside myself and couldn’t remember. The last thing I remembered for sure was heading back to the hotel after the magic fight that morning where Liam helped save me. Then, Travis made his dickish appearance.
“Don’t use that word,” Granny scolded.
I blinked at her. I hadn’t even realized I’d spoken aloud. Maybe I hadn’t…
“Who are these boys you’re thinking about? I don’t know them.” Her fingers tightened their grip on her hips. “They look like trouble.”
“They are Granny, that’s why I’m leaving. I need to get back to New Orleans.”
The clouds around Granny grew, the colors bleeding in more pronounced. “I don’t know, My Girl. I feel like you’re exactly where you need to be.”
“But… So, what am I supposed to do?” The smoke-like puffs reached over her face like prying fingers. Soon, her whole body was obscured by the wisps. “Granny? What am I supposed to do?”
“Follow your heart, Girl. As ever.”
Hands shook me. “Hey. Hey, Norah. You okay?”
I blinked my eyes open and then shot up, nearly knocking my head on something. No, not something, someone. “The fuck?”
A male voice chuckled. “I’m happy to see you again, too.”
I waited until the room stopped spinning. Slowly but surely a face came into view. He wore a green polo shirt and a nice smile. His blond hair flopped over his head, making him look like the All-American, except he wasn’t. It was Gabe, and his accent was still panty-melting British. I groaned at the pain behind my eyes. “What’s going on?”
With two hands under my arms, he helped me sit. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell me that, Love. Liam and I have been calling your cell phone, but nothing. He told me where you were staying and you didn’t answer the door so I came in.”
“You just came in?” I asked, disbelieving. For verification, I looked up at the unassuming closed door and then back to Gabe. “Why would you just come into some girl’s hotel room?”
His smile turned sheepish. “I hardly think you’re just some girl. Besides, I was worried.”
I searched his gentle, handsome features for a lie in there somewhere, but saw nothing. Oddly enough, I believed he was genuinely worried. I tried to pick myself up off the floor, but the room spun in front of my eyes again.
“Hey there,” he said, standing up and reaching down for me. “Let me help.”
I took his offered hand and closed my eyes as he hoisted me up. Since I had no sense of what direction I headed, I landed right into his arms, pressed up against his chest. My breath caught as a fresh scent enveloped me. Not like I’d gotten a whiff of the guys’ laundry detergent, more like I’d taken a deep breath of eau de Gabe and loved it.
He reached up to catch me, his chest rumbling against mine. “Are you smelling me?”
I pulled away. “No. ‘Course not.” Yeah, I totally was, and he knew it, too.
I took a tentative step toward the bed and Gabe was right there, his hand at the small of my back. His touch brimmed with heat, spilling over into my sore muscles. All of a sudden, I felt as if I’d been hit by a ton of bricks.
My toe hit something hard, and I cursed. As the room came into view more clearly, I saw shit all over the floor. The cheap ass alarm that sat on the bedside table was what I’d just stepped on. The lamp that was next to the bed was on end and what very few clothes I’d brought with me from New Orleans were all over the bed. “What the hell?”
“Yeah…” Gabe said, drawing out the word. “About that. Any idea what happened here?”
He helped me into the bed in a sitting down position, my back against the wall. “No. The last thing I remember, I—” I stopped short. For some reason, I didn’t want to tell him I’d planned on skipping town. Not when his concerned eyes were boring into me. “I just… I don’t know. I guess I don’t remember anything at all after I got back from the cafe.”
He pushed a piece of hair behind my ear and then leaned on the bed. In the next instant, he straightened, bringing one of my red lacey bras off the bed with him pinched between two fingers. His eyebrows rose and a definite fire sparked in his eyes.
I tore it away from him and threw it in the
small space between the bed and the wall.
Without skipping a beat, he said, “I’m sorry you had to go through that earlier. We all feel terrible.”
“Travis?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow at him. He didn’t feel terrible.
“Well, actually, no. Not him.” He chuckled a little, and I wondered why any of them put up with their friend. “Liam’s worried.”
“I can take care of myself.”
This brought a smile to his face. “Of course you can.” His blue eyes latched onto mine, and my heart rate kicked up speed. He leaned in closer and the more he did so, the more my body relaxed as if it was trying to work out the kinks itself.
“Did you, um, get any information out of the two guys who attacked Liam and me?”
He sighed. “Not a thing. They were just decoys. Non-magical, like you guys thought, but worse than that, they’d been spelled to attack you and Liam and had no idea who spelled them.”
“Shit.” I took in a deep breath. Who spelled them would’ve been good information to have considering something else had just happened to me. The two events had to have been related. It’s not like my place in New Orleans ever got torn up. “That sucks.”
“You’re telling me.” He lifted an eyebrow. “The guys will want to know what happened here, too.”
His hand came to rest on my thigh. After feeling the pressure, I looked down. Normally, I wouldn’t let guys I just met touch me, but there was something different with this set. Well, at least with Randy and Gabe.
What was wrong with me? Sensing my discomfort, he tried to move his hand, but I quickly put mine on top of his. “Don’t,” I told him.