Table of Contents
Bound by Spells
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Keep reading
Family Secrets
Bound by Spells
Book two in the Bound Series
By Stormy Smith
Copyright ©2015 by Perfect Storm Publishing, LLC
All rights reserved worldwide.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the express written permission of the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if we use one of these terms.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Zach Higginson of Caedus Designs
Editing by Monica Black of Word Nerd Editing
Formatted by Allyson Gottlieb of Athena Interior Book Design
For more information about this book and the author, visit www.stormysmith.com
To my parents, for telling the world their baby wrote a book,
and always believing I could do anything.
Chapter 1
I woke up naked—again. The dry leaves and small twigs crunched and snapped as I lifted my head and looked around the dark forest floor. Exhaling in an exasperated huff, I dropped my head back to the dirt. I had been running for hours. She walked away, got in Micah’s SUV, and didn’t look back. So, I ran. It wasn’t the first time I had shifted without seeing it coming, but the change erupted from me like a volcano. It was violent and painful. Bones broke and reshaped in seconds, muscles stretched, tore, and reknit before I could let out the scream of agony that came out as a howl. I couldn’t pinpoint the moment it happened. I lost myself in the change and no longer had human thoughts. The last memory I had was her stick-straight back and methodical paces toward the car as she whispered goodbye. She didn’t want to, but she left me anyway.
I closed my eyes as the weight of the truth pulled me deeper into the damp ground. She didn’t even look back. Thinking about the pain she’d caused brought the animal inside of me out again. I heard the howl echo in my head, but I didn’t want to shift again so soon. I slowly inhaled, letting my breath fill my lungs, expand my ribs, and push into my back. The air released through my mouth and nose as I tried to calm the fire pulsing in my mind. The sensations always started at my core. A deep thrum vibrating every cell in my body, making me look down at my skin to ensure nothing was bursting through as my insides popped and shoved against each other. Even now, hours later, when I had no idea where she was or what she was doing, Amelia filled my head and the vision of her violet eyes was like pouring salt on the open wound she left in my heart.
She made a choice. Now you make a choice, I scolded myself, frustrated with the emotion I didn’t want or need, and the vulnerability only she made me feel. I shoved up from the ground, brushing myself off as I tried to come to terms with being completely naked. No one had been around to explain what had been happening to me these last few months and I had hoped not to wake up miles from my car, my clothes ripped to shreds. But it had happened before, so at least today wasn’t a shock, just a nuisance.
I turned in a circle, unsure of which way to go. Then, something in my head clicked and I knew exactly where my car was. I still had no idea where all of the subtle instincts and knowledge came from, but I couldn’t complain about getting lost ever again. It was the middle of the night and odds were, I wouldn’t run into anyone, but just to be safe, I stayed back from the tree line and tried to keep my thoughts calm. Calm meant my eyes stayed their normal gray and not the blue glowing orbs that stared back at me in the mirror when this thing took over. After my first shift, my eyes stayed electric blue for a week. Every time I’d look in the mirror, I felt like a freak. I couldn’t leave the house without sunglasses. I stopped going to class. I could feel and sense so much more. It was overwhelming and exhausting.
As I moved quickly and quietly through the trees, I remembered what it was like just months ago when I would have left a trail for anyone to follow. Now, my feet barely moved the foliage and even the best trackers would have problems knowing where I’d been. The frustration was I wanted to be found. The heaviness of solitude was a yoke around my neck, weighing down my body and mind. My parents had been dead for so long, I had only the memory of the emotion I felt when remembering them. It was a fleeting ache of knowing I had once been loved and wanted. Since then, I had bounced from foster home to foster home, only to constantly be told I wasn’t a fit for my current family.
Then, I found Amelia. Through our first month of class, I sat back and observed the quiet girl who moved with the same weighted motions I did. She understood loneliness. It was clear in the way she would brighten at an instructor’s question, but dim as she refused to allow herself to answer. The way she moved with awkward grace, always bumping into things, but never people. I had overheard her and Bethany talking, and I knew she would be at that party. It was why I’d gone. But I felt like a creeper. I had been hiding out, berating myself for being there, when she came flying down the stairs.
I watched Amelia leap from the bottom stair of the deck like she could fly—all of the awkwardness gone and her movements fluid and beautiful. She pushed her way into the oncoming tide. She was lit up in the moonlight as her head dropped back and from my angle, I could see her smile. I was an intruder on the moment, but her smile broke something open inside of me. She was content and I was jealous. I wanted to know her secrets. I wanted to know how she found that place. She was my beginning and my end. Because now that she’s gone, I’m some kind of magical freak and I’m alone—again.
Dawn was breaking through the trees as I finally got to my car. It was parked right where Micah had told me to put it. It was hard to reconcile the fact that just hours ago I had been kissing Amelia in these very same trees. As I dug in the trunk for my workout bag and spare clothes, my anger rose again. The realization of Micah being some kind of prince, engaged to my girl, had me yanking on my mesh shorts and t-shirt with violent motions. As my shirt came over my head and I pulled the hem down, I both felt and heard the rip of fabric. Looking down, I jumped. My right hand had partially shifted into a
paw with claws that shouldn’t be there poking through the blue weave.
I untangled myself and sat on the bumper of my old Honda, breathing and staring until the fur melted away to skin and the razor-sharp nails became fingers. This time, I hadn’t even felt the change coming on. Usually, I had at least the forewarning of building sensations—the “too big for my own skin” feeling, telling me I would soon stand on four legs instead of two. This time, though, there was nothing, which was even scarier than the change itself. I had become something. I wasn’t sure whether it was Amelia who had changed me, or if this was the difference all of my foster parents had always felt in me. I was an animal and I needed help before the wrong people realized it. I didn’t know who those people were, but I could hear what Amelia hadn’t said earlier tonight. There was so much more to the story and no one was safe—least of all, her.
I needed help. It didn’t matter whether I wanted it or not. She told me to go to Cole, but I wasn’t ready for that. I couldn’t look at him without seeing her. I couldn’t walk inside his gym, past the training room where I’d held myself back from kissing her so I wouldn’t scare her away. Tossing my bag back in the car, I slammed the trunk down with a little more force than necessary. There were so many thoughts in my head but most of all, I worried about Amelia. She still didn’t know who she was. I had tried to give her space to find herself, to see that the two of us together were more than we could ever be alone, but too much had happened too quickly. Now, I just prayed she was safe.
It was still early morning, but I couldn’t go home. I was too amped up from everything that had happened last night. Since I was always starving after shifting and a night of doing who knows what, I stopped at a local spot for a monster-sized breakfast burrito. I tossed my flip-flops back into the car and walked toward the beach, scarfing down the burrito in record time. I watched as the waves came in and the surfers navigating them. There were hordes of surfers, most just sitting on their boards, bouncing up and down as the water beat against the shore.
I dropped to the sand, losing myself in the sound of the waves and the seagulls searching for their own breakfast. The world stood still in those few minutes and my mind was quiet. I felt like myself. Aidan the man. Not Aidan the beast.
Looking on while one surfer rode a wave, stretching across the horizon, I was shocked to see platinum blond hair standing out like a beacon down the beach from me. I pushed up from the sand and slowly walked toward her. Bethany sat in much the same way I had just been, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them as she stared out into the water. Her hair whipped around in the breeze and I couldn’t see her face. As I closed in on her, I saw the familiar motion of wiping away tears.
“Bethany? Are you okay?” I looked down at her as she contained her wild hair and looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. She wasn’t wearing any make-up. I’d never seen her look so vulnerable.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when she responded with her normal sarcasm. “You know, I can’t imagine why anything would be wrong, Aidan. My best friend was kidnapped right out from under my nose, I was held hostage by a psychopathic Queen on a power trip after I had been kidnapped by animal witches, or AniMages, or whatever they’re called, my boyfriend turned out to be a two-timing douche with magic powers, and I’m nothing but a human who gets used as bait and leverage. Can I do anything to help any of them? Nope. Sure can’t. So, it’s been a fine week. How about you?” she ended, a completely fake smile on her face as she stared daggers up at me. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Well,” I said as I dropped into the sand beside her, “I don’t know if I can beat that, but I’ll counter with the fact that my girlfriend is engaged to a prince of some kind of magical people I didn’t know existed until last week, who also happens to be a guy I thought I was friends with. She had a chance to run away with me and didn’t take it, choosing him over me and pretty much eviscerating my heart in the process. And I woke up not long ago suddenly able to turn into a wolf. My eyes light up like blue headlights and I lose entire chunks of time. I wake up naked every time it happens and have no idea where I am. How’d I do?”
She actually snorted. Which then turned into a chuckle. Which became all out belly laughter. I couldn’t stop myself from joining her. What we had just laid out sounded completely insane—completely and utterly insane. And yet, we were living it. There were parts of her story I hadn’t heard, and I was sure she didn’t know the full truth about me yet, but it didn’t matter. I bumped my shoulder into hers as we settled down.
She turned to me. “She told me you were a part of the supernatural club, but a wolf? And you wake up naked?” Her eyebrows rose and she gave me an incredulous look. I could only shake my head and laugh again.
We both turned to stare back out to the sea. As quickly as the laughter had come, it was gone. There was total silence between us as we sat there. The true weight of our words, of the realities sitting in front of us, stole any happiness I’d had like a plug being pulled from a drain. She was gone. Amelia was gone.
And then, Bethany hit me. She punched me in the shoulder with more force than I’d expected from a girl so small. I rubbed the spot and turned to her. She was grinning. “What’s gotten into you?” I asked.
“Here’s the thing about me, sweetie,” she said with a wry smile and a matter-of-fact tone, “I don’t just sit around. A girl needs a good wallow every now and again, but then you dust yourself off and get back on the horse. It’s time for us to saddle up.”
Chapter 2
I stayed true to the promise I had made myself. Once Micah drove us away, I hadn’t shed another tear. But as his SUV took me farther from Aidan, the madness within me spread, burrowing into every crevice and threatening to push me over the edge. I heard her voice, but couldn’t make out the words. It was all emotion and sound and color, but nothing I could understand. It was a feral agony and it consumed me.
I didn’t understand what made today different, but with every mile we drove, it got worse. I was in no physical danger. There were no threats. Still, my small violet light was reduced to a tiny flame as the dark blot of power the Keeper magic represented took over. After Uncle Derreck had explained my power came from five female Elders, I had taken to personifying my Keeper as a girl instead of just a thing. And right now, she was pushing me past anything we’d experienced to date. My head throbbed, sweat built on my forehead, and it sounded like a horde of bees had taken up space between my ears. My blood raced in my veins and the violet smoke I’d grown to love turned on me, swirling around my fingers and building in my palms, even when I willed it back down. She raged in my mind, wailing and screaming in a multitude of tones and pitches, making me want to bash my head against the glass of the window just to let it out and make it stop. Micah kept glancing my way, never fully turning to look at me, but watching me as the situation grew worse. Finally, he stopped the car and turned to me.
“Amelia,” he said softly, reaching a hand in my direction. My head snapped toward him and I could only stare, panicked, at his outstretched hand.
“Don’t touch me,” I gritted out through clenched teeth. I hoped he could see the fear. I was teetering on the edge of losing myself to her and even with everything we’d been through, I didn’t want to hurt him.
He slowly retracted his hand and nodded. “Okay, I won’t touch you. But Amelia, you have to control this. Or, at least, just make it back to Esmerelda’s. The room will quiet the pain.” He threw the car into drive and punched the gas as he continued to watch me out of the corner of his eye.
The room. I sighed audibly. For the first time, I was looking forward to the enchanted bedroom quelling my power. I could feel my mother’s bracelet in my pocket, but there was no way I was putting it back on. I knew nothing about the bracelet or what it may have been meant to do. The only sure thing was it had given me my power back, and right now, all I wanted was for that power to go away. If only Micah understood this wasn’t pain. Pain I could shove into a littl
e box and file away in the back of my mind. This was agony. This was the very fabric of my soul being shredded into jagged pieces, slicing and splitting me open, then dropping to the ground beside my broken heart.
My head fell back against the seat and I fought her with everything I had. I had lost Aidan, I couldn’t lose myself.
I sat in the center of the giant, four-post bed, staring at the wall. Finally, she was quiet. The room had done what it was supposed to do and the fighting had stopped. But, now, I was left alone. Alone with my thoughts. My memories. My regrets. I heard him, his words plain as day in my mind though they had been barely a whisper between us. Pick me, Amelia. Please be the one who finally picks me.
The weight on my chest intensified as my lungs refused to give me the air I needed to keep going. All I could think about was the pain I had caused us both, for reasons I couldn’t even explain to Aidan, reasons I couldn’t even truly explain to myself. What had I done? And why?
I dropped back onto the bed, forcing my thoughts away from his smoky eyes and the feel of his arms around me. Instead, I thought about the last few weeks. I rewound through all of my conversations with Cole, Uncle Derreck, and Elias. I needed clarity. I needed facts. I had to separate myself from my emotion. But the more I thought about all the reasons I needed to be here, needed to fulfill the obligations my mother and the prophecy had laid out for me, the more I wanted to run. I questioned every decision I had made and couldn’t find the answers to help me justify the ache in my soul. The Keeper was quiet, but my heart was not.
Bound by Spells (Bound Series Book 2) Page 1