Spellbound

  Morgan knows that a great battle is to come. More immediately, she senses that

  someone is out to harm Hunter. Is it a human or a witch?

  Sweep book 6: Spellbound

  Author: Cate Tiernan

  Ebook maker: TheLiz

  1. Kithic

  Beltane, 1962, San Francisco

  Today I met my future, and I'm dancing on sunlight! This A.M. I celebrated Beltane in the park downtown, and all of us from Catspaw made beautiful magick right there in the open while people watched. The sun was shining, we wore flowers in our hair, and we wove our ribbions around the fertility pole and made music and raised a power that filled everything with light. We had elderflower wine, and everything was so open and beautiful. The Goddess was in me, her life force, and I was awed by my own power.

  I knew then that I was ready to be with a man—I'm seventeen and a woman. And as soon as I had that thought, I looked up into someone's eyes. Stella Laban was giving him a paper cup of wine, and he took it and sipped, and my knees almost buckled at the sight of his lips.

  Stella introduced us. His name is Patrick, and he's from Seattle. His coven is Waterwind. So he's Woodbane like me, like all of Catspaw. I couldn't stop looking at him. I noticed that his chestnut brown hair was shot though with gray, and he had laugh lines around his eyes. He was older than I thought, much older, maybe even fifty. Then he smiled at me, and I felt my heart thud to a stop. Someone grabbed Stella around the waist, and she danced off, laughing. Patrick held out his hand, and without thinking I put mine in his and he led me away from the group. We sat on a boulder, the sun warm on my bare shoulders, and talked forever. When he stood up, I followed him to his car.

  Now we're at his house, and he's sleeping, and I am so happy. When he wakes up, I'll say too things: I love you. Teach me everything.

  —S.B. I had been to Sharon Goodfine's house once before, with Bree

  Warren, back when Bree and I were best friends. Tonight Sharon was hosting Cirrus's usual Saturday-night circle, and I was curious to see how it would feel different from other circles we'd had. Each place had its own feeling, its own atmosphere. Every circle was different. "Nice pad," said Robbie Gurevitch, my other best friend from childhood. He squinted at the landscape lighting, the manicured shrubs with their caps of snow, the white-painted brick of the colonial house. The landscaping alone probably cost more than what my dad makes in a year at IBM. Sharon's dad was an orthodontist with a bunch of famous clients. I'd heard a rumor that he'd straightened Justin Timberlake's teeth.

  "Yep," I answered, pushing my hands into my pockets and starting up the walk. I'd gotten a ride with Robbie in his red Beetle, and I saw other cars I recognized, parked along the wide street. Jenna Ruiz was here. Matt Adler had come in his own car, of course, since he and Jenna were broken up. Ethan Sharp was here. Hunter was here, I noticed. I shivered inside my coat with a blend of excitement and dread. More cars were parked nearby, but I didn't recognize them and figured one of the neighbors was having a party. On the porch Robbie stopped me as I started to ring the doorbell. I looked at him questioningly. "You okay?" he asked quietly, his gray-blue eyes dark. I opened my mouth to indignantly say, "Of course," but then I shut it again. I'd known Robbie too long and had been through too much with him to fob him off with white lies. He had been one of the first people I'd told about being a blood witch, about being adopted, about being Woodbane. Of the seven Great Clans of Wicca, Woodbanes were the ones who sought power at all costs, the ones who worked with dark magick. When I'd found out about being a blood witch, I hadn't known my clan and had hoped that I was a Rowanwand, a Wyndenkell, a Brightendaie, a Burnhide. Even a mischievous Leapvaughn or warlike Vikroth would have been fine. But no. I was Woodbane: tainted.

  Robbie and Bree had saved my life three weeks ago, when Cal, the guy I'd loved, had tried to kill me. And Robbie's friendship had helped give me the strength to continue searching for the truth about my birth parents. He could read me well, and he knew I was feeling fragile right now.

  So I just said, “Well, I'm hoping the circle will help." He nodded, satisfied, and I rang the doorbell. "Hi!" Sharon said, opening the door wide and ushering us in, the perfect hostess. I caught sight of Jenna and Ethan standing behind

  her, talking. "Dump your coats in the living room. I've set up a space

  in the media room. Hunter told me we'd have a real crowd tonight, and he was right." She pointed to a doorway on the far side of the large living room. Her fine, dark hair swirled around her shoulders as she turned to answer a question from Jenna. Her trademark gold bracelets jangled.

  I was standing there, wondering how small the room must be if the seven members of Cirrus would crowd it, when Robbie caught my eye. "Media room?" he mouthed silently, shrugging out of his coat. I couldn't help smiling.

  Then I felt a prickle of awareness at the back of my neck, and knowing what it meant, I looked around to see Hunter Niall coming purposefully toward me. The rest of the room faded, and I suddenly heard my own heartbeat loud in my ears. I was only vaguely aware of Robbie walking away to greet someone.

  "You've been avoiding me," Hunter said softly in his English accent.

  "Yes," I admitted, looking into his sea green eyes. I knew he'd called my house at least twice since the last time we'd seen each other, but I hadn't returned his calls.

  He leaned back against the door frame. I was five-six, and Hunter was a good seven inches taller than me. I hadn't seen him since a few days ago, when I'd had witnessed him stripping one of my friends of his magickal powers. He'd done it because it was his job. As a Seeker and the youngest member of the International Council of Witches, Hunter had been obligated to wrest David Redstone's power from him and to bind him magickally so that he couldn't use magick again for any reason. It had been like watching someone being tortured, and I'd had trouble sleeping since then. But that wasn't all. Hunter and I had kissed the night before the ritual, and I'd felt a longing for him that astonished and disturbed me. Then, after the ritual, Hunter had given me a spelled crystal into which he'd put his own image, through the sheer power of his feelings. We both knew there was something between us, something that might be incredibly powerful, but we hadn't explored it yet. I both wanted to and didn't want to. I was drawn to him, but what he had done still frightened me. Unable to sort out my own feelings, I'd resorted to a tried-and-true tactic: avoidance.

  "I'm glad you came tonight," he said, and his voice seemed to smooth away some of my tension. "Morgan," he added, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant. "It was a hard thing you saw. It's a hard thing to be part of. It was the third one I've done, and it only gets harder each time. But the council decreed it, and it was necessary. You know what happened to Stuart Afton."

  "Yes," I said quietly. Stuart Afton, a local businessman, was still

  recovering from the stroke David Redstone had caused by working a dark spell. Now David was in Ireland, at a hospice run by a Brightendale coven. He would live there for a long time, learning how to exist without magick.

  "You know, some people join Wicca or are born into it, and it's more or less smooth sailing," Hunter went on. Ethan passed us on the way to the media room, and I heard the fizzy pop of someone opening a soda can. Hunter lowered his voice, and the two of us were alone in our conversation. "They study for years, they work magick, and it's all just a calm acknowledgment of the cycle, the circle, the life wheel." I heard a burst of laughter from the media room. I glanced over Hunter's shoulder, catching a glimpse of a boy I almost recognized. He wasn't part of our coven, and I wondered why he was here. Hunter was making me nervous, jumpy, as he often did— he had always affected me strongly, and I didn't understand our connection any more than I understood the surprising, even frightening attraction I had to him.

&nbs
p; "Yes?" I said, trying to follow his thought. "With you," he went on, "it hasn't been a smooth ride. Wicca and everything associated with it has been one huge trauma after another. Your birth mother, Belwicket, the dark wave, Cal, Selene, now David . . . You haven't had much of a chance to revel in magick's beauty, to appreciate the joy that comes from working a perfect spell, to experience the excitement of learning, finding out more and more...." I nodded, looking at him. My feelings about him had changed so radically, so fast. I'd hated him when I met him. Now he seemed so compelling and attractive and in tune with me. What was that about? Had he changed, or had I?

  Hunter straightened his shoulders. "All I'm saying is, you've had a hard time, a hard autumn, and so far a hard winter. Magick can help you. I can help you—if you'll let me." Then he turned and went to the media room as I gazed after him, and a moment later the voices quieted, and I heard Hunter asking for attention. I peeled off my coat, dropped it on a chair, and went to join the circle.

  Sharon's plush media room was indeed crowded. Our coven, Cirrus, consisted of seven members: Hunter, our leader; me, Morgan Rowlands; Jenna; Matt; Sharon; Ethan; Robbie. But there were more than seven people in the room. Next to the big-screen TV, I caught sight of Robbie talking to Bree Warren. Bree—my ex-best friend, then for a while my enemy when we'd fought over Cal. What was she doing at Sharon's house, at our coven meeting? She was a member of Kithic,

  the rival coven that she'd formed with Raven Meltzer and Hunter's

  cousin, Sky Eventide.

  "Morgan, have you met Simon?" a voice beside me said, and I turned to see Sky herself, motioning to the boy I'd thought I recognized. I realized I'd seen him at a party at Practical Magick, an occult store in the town of Red Kill. The store David Redstone had owned.

  "Nice meeting you," Simon said to me.

  I blinked. "You too." Turning to Sky, I asked, "What are you guys doing here?"

  I was surprised to see a nervous look on Sky's face, which reminded me so much of Hunter's. They were both English; both tall, slender, incredibly blond, somewhat cool and standoffish. They were also both loyal, brave, dedicated to doing what was right. Sky seemed more at ease with people than Hunter did. But Hunter seemed stronger to me.

  "Hunter and I have a suggestion," Sky said. "Let's get everyone together, and we'll fill you all in."

  "Thank you all for coming," Hunter said, raising his voice. He took a sip of his ginger ale."We have here two covens," he went on, gesturing around the room. "Cirrus, which has seven members, and Kithic, which has six." He pointed them out to us. "Kithic's leader, Sky Eventide. Bree Warren, Raven Meltzer, Thalia Cutter, Simon Bakehouse, and Alisa Soto."

  There was a moment when we were all smiling and nodding at each other, all mystified.

  "Hunter and I have been thinking about joining the two covens," said Sky, and I felt my eyebrows raise. When had this discussion happened? I wondered.

  Across the room I caught Brae's eye, and she made an I-didn't- know-about-this-either face. Once Bree had been part of Cirrus. Once I had known all her thoughts as well as my own. Well, we were making progress: now we were speaking to each other without fighting, which was more than we'd done for months.

  "Each coven is quite small," Hunter explained. "It divides our energy and our powers. If we join, Sky and I can share in the leadership, which will make us stronger." "And the new coven will have thirteen members," said Sky. "In magick the number thirteen has special properties. A thirteen-member coven will have strength and power, it will make our magick more accessible, for lack of a better word." "Join?" Jenna asked. Her light brown eyes flitted quickly to Raven, and I remembered her saying she could never be in the same coven as the girl who had so blatantly stolen Matt away from her.

  Then her glance fell on Simon, and he looked back at her. I'd seen her

  talking to him at the Practical Magick party. Well, good for her, I thought. Maybe the lure of Simon would outweigh her feelings about Raven."Thirteen sounds really big," said Alisa, who looked young, maybe only fifteen. She had wavy golden brown hair, tan skin, and big dark eyes. "The smaller size is nicer because we know everyone and we can relax with them."

  Hunter nodded. "I understand that," he said, and from the tone of his voice I knew he was about to flood her with logic, the way he had done with me so many times. "And I agree that part of a circle's appeal is its intimacy, the sense of closeness and support that we get from one another. But I assure you, after a couple months of working together, we'll appreciate the wider circle of support, the larger group of friends, the greater resource of strength." Alisa nodded uncertainly.

  "Do we get to vote on this?" asked Robbie. "Yes," Sky said at once. "This is something Hunter and I have thought about a great deal. We share some of the same concerns that you might have. We do think it would be best for the two covens to merge, though, for us to join our energies and strengths. It's what we want to do, how we want to continue on our journey of discovery. But of course, we'd like to hear what the rest of you think." We were all silent for a moment, everyone waiting for someone else to say something. Then I straightened up. "I think it's a good idea," I said. Until I spoke I wasn't sure what my reaction would be, but now I knew. "It makes sense for us to join together, to be allies, to be working together

  instead of working apart." Hunter's eyes sought mine, but I looked at the group. "Magick can be dark and dangerous sometimes," I added. "The more people we can count on,

  the better, in my opinion."

  Twelve people looked at me. I had been shy and self-conscious for seventeen years, and I knew that my classmates, people who knew me well, were surprised at my offering an opinion so openly. But in the last month so much had happened that, frankly, I didn't have a lot of energy left to be self-conscious anymore. "I agree," Bree said into the silence. I saw the warmth in her brown eyes, and suddenly we smiled at each other, almost as if it were old times.

  Everyone started speaking then, and after another twenty minutes of discussion we voted and it was agreed: the two covens would merge. We would be thirteen members strong, and we would call ourselves Kithic. I hoped the end of Cirrus would help me cope

  with the traumatic end of Cal's and my relationship. And I tried not to

  be overwhelmed by all the new beginnings in my life. We had what I thought of as a "baby" circle: we didn't actually go through the whole ritual, but we did stand in a circle, holding hands, while Hunter and Sky led us through some breathing exercises. Then Hunter said, "As some of you have already discovered, Wicca has its frightening side." He cast a swift look in my direction. "It's not so surprising, perhaps, when you think that all of us have within us the capacity for both bright and I dark. Wicca is part of the world, and the world can be a dark place, too. But one of the things this coven can do for you is support you and help you to conquer your personal I fears. The fewer unexplored places you have within you, the easier it will be to connect with your own magick." "We're going to go around the circle," Sky said, picking up where Hunter left off, "and each of us is going to tell the group one of our great fears. Thalia, you start."

  Thalia was tall and earth-mothery looking, with long, ringlety hair and a pretty Madonna face (the saint, not the singer). "I'm afraid of boats," she said, her cheeks turning slightly pink. "Every time I get in a boat, I panic, and I think a whale is going to come up under it and knock me into the sea and I'll drown. Even if it's just a rowboat on a duck pond."

  I heard Matt stifle a snicker, and felt a twinge of irritation. Robbie was next. He looked at Bree. then said. "I'm afraid I won't be patient enough to wait for the things I really want." Robbie and Bree had recently begun seeing each other, in a very cautious, uncommitted way. He was in love with her and wanted a real relationship, but so far she had shied away from anything more than fooling around.

  I watched as Bree's gaze dropped from his, and I also noticed the interested gleam in Thalia's eyes. Weeks ago I had heard gossip that Thalia was hot for Robbie. If Bree's not car
eful, Thalia will steal Robbie from her, I thought.

  Ethan spoke next, with none of his usual joking around. "I'm afraid I'll be weak and lose a really great person in my life." I guessed he was talking about his pot smoking. Around the time he and Sharon had started seeing each other, he'd more or less given up pot, in part because he knew she

  didn't like it when he smoked.

  Sharon, who held Ethan's left hand, looked at him with open affection. "I'm not," she said simply. Then she looked at the rest of us. "I'm terrified of dying," she said.

  We kept going around the circle. Jenna was afraid she wouldn't

  be brave. Raven was afraid of being tied down. Matt was afraid no one would ever understand him. I thought of telling him he should start by trying to understand himself, but I realized this wasn't the right time or place.

  "I'm afraid I'll never be able to have what I really want," Bree said in a small voice, looking at the floor. "I'm afraid of unrequited love," Sky said, her dark eyes as enigmatic as ever.

  "I'm afraid of fire," Simon said, and I jerked, startled. My birth parents had burned to death in a barn, and Cal had tried to kill me with fire when I'd refused to join the conspiracy he and his mother were part of. I, too, was afraid of fire. "I'm afraid of my anger," Alisa said. That surprised me. She looked so sweet.

  Then it was my turn. I opened my mouth, intending to say I was afraid of fire, but something stopped me. I felt Hunter's gaze on me, and it was as if he were shining a spotlight on the darkest recesses of my mind, urging me to dredge up my deepest fear. "I'm afraid I'll never know who I am," I said, and as I said it, I knew it was true.

  Hunter was last. In a clear voice he said, "I'm afraid of losing any more people I love."

  My heart ached for him. His brother had died at the age of fifteen, murdered by a dark spirit called a taibhs. And his father and mother had disappeared ten years ago, driven into hiding by the dark wave, a cloud of evil and destruction that had wiped out many covens, including my own birth parents'. He had a younger sister, I knew, and it occurred to me that he must worry about her all the time. Then I looked at him and found his gaze locked on me, and my skin prickled as if the air were suddenly full of electricity. A moment later we dropped hands and it was over. I guessed a lot of people would stay to hang out, but I felt oddly antisocial, and I went to snag my coat. The events of the last week had shaken me more than I had admitted to anyone. As of the day before, school was out officially for winter break, and it was a huge relief to finally have hours of free time in front of me so that I could try to begin processing the myriad ways my life had changed in the last three months. "Robbie?" I said, interrupting his conversation with Bree. They were huddled close, and I thought I heard Robbie cajoling and Bree playfully resisting.