Spellbound (9 page)

I
ain made
sure to magickally lock Jane’s front door before starting the walk back home. He didn’t like Sean around her but couldn’t fathom if it was for any real reason, or if the possessive, primitive bird of prey shifter inside him didn’t like other men sniffing around his territory. Jane might see Sean as some harmless, annoying stepbrother, but Iain wondered if Sean saw Jane as a sister. Sean didn’t look at her like a man looked at his sister.

Iain had lived far too long to not trust his instincts, and his instincts said to keep Jane away from Sean. Then again, in all his centuries, Iain had never felt for any woman the way he did for Jane. It was new territory for him. Had possessiveness caused his reaction instead of instinct?

Churning thoughts remained his steady companion as he walked the distance to the mansion on the hill. A few townsfolk stopped to wave at him. Iain vaguely recognized their faces as he automatically returned the greetings. Another town. Another sea of faces. Another step forward in their journey as immortal warlocks. Yet Green Vallis was different than other towns they’d lived in. His magick felt it. His body knew it. His heart understood it. Jane was here. Erik had found Lydia. Power surged from the very ground Iain walked on like a convergence of ley lines.

He paused at the clarity of the thought. If ley lines converged beneath them and somehow created a surge of energy, it would act like a beacon to not only his family, but to others too. It would explain why the
lidércs
had tried to force Charlotte to take his powers from him.

Oh, poor, poor Charlotte. He hoped his magick didn’t cause permanent insanity. The more he stayed away from her, the better her chances.

“I’d call this your walk of shame, but if I’d spent the night with a woman like Jane, I’d be bragging about it,” Rory said. A shotgun rested over his shoulder as he strolled across the expansive lawn.

“What are ya doing?” Iain frowned.

“Hunting.” His cousin grinned. It was the kind of mischievous look that Iain had seen numerous times.

“We don’t hunt.” Iain stopped walking as Rory joined him. “Put that away before ya rile up the locals.”

“I’m not killing anything,” Rory dismissed, unconcerned. “Just doing a little target practice on Euann’s surveillance cameras.”

Iain couldn’t help but chuckle. “He’s going to retaliate, ya know that, right?”

“Let him.” Rory shrugged and continued his leisurely walk to the nearby trees.

Iain was too occupied to interfere, and would probably not have done anything to stop Rory even if he could have. Warlocks would be warlocks, after all.

The second Iain opened the door, his ma and Aunt Cait were waiting for him. They swooped forward like two tigresses on their prey.

“Well?” Margareta demanded. “What happened?”

Iain grimaced and made a move to go toward the stairs. “Since when have I ever discussed my sex life with ya?”

His ma scowled.

“The potion,” Cait clarified. “What happened when ya gave her the potion?”

Iain stopped on the bottom stair and stiffened. He reached for his pocket, but the potion bottle wasn’t there. “I, uh…”

“Ya slept with the
reipseach
?” Margareta shivered. Each passing hour seemed to bring new vitality to the woman. She looked younger than she had the night before. It meant she was finally recovering from her overuse of magick.

“Ya look better, Ma,” Iain said. “Glad to see the rose returning to your cheeks. Maybe next time leave some things to chance. I know ya wanted to help ensure Erik’s Lydia was out of harm’s way, but ya pushed yourself too far.”

“Lydia?” Margareta repeated. Her eyes were clearer too. Her memory was coming back to her. “Ya think it was Lydia’s future that sapped me of my strength?”

“That is what ya intended to find out with your future casting, right?” he questioned.

“I’m sure it was something more,” Margareta said. “Peeking into the future doesn’t cause a person’s mind to—”

“The potion?” Cait interrupted. “What happened when ya gave it to her?”

“Nothing,” Iain said.

“I told ya to make sure she drinks all of it,” Cait scolded. “Ya will have to try again.”

“She drank none of it,” Iain admitted.

“What?” Margareta shot in ire. “Give it to me. I’ll see to it.”

“I think it fell out of my pocket at Jane’s house last night.” Iain slowly backed up the stairs, keeping his eye on his elders. “I said I’ll take care of it and I will.”

“Ya lost a potion?” Cait demanded as if she couldn’t believe such carelessness.

“It’s not lost, just misplaced,” Iain said. “Jane will be here later to work on the landscaping. I’ll retrieve it then.”

“That
reipseach
bewitched him,” Margareta swore. “That is the only explanation as to why my son would be so careless.”

“Jane is not a hussy,” Iain stated firmly. “I’ll not have ya saying such again. I care for her, and the only spell I’m under is the emotion I feel for her. I told ya I’d take care of the potion and I will.”

He hurried up the stairs before he could hear any more of their talk.

W
arlocks
.

The
bean nighe
clung to her branch as she watched the hunter pass beneath her. His eyes turned up, flashing with unmistakable magick before he continued on his way. She wasn’t worried. He would not be able to see her now that she’d fed on spirits in the old graveyard. He kept searching the trees as he moved, and seconds after he disappeared, she heard the report of the gun.

What was little Jane doing with warlocks?

The
bean nighe
had followed one of them from Jane’s home, not liking the magick she’d been sensing around the woman lately. Now it all made sense. Jane’s life was infested with warlocks.

Oh, if only she could feed off one of those immortal souls. Magick and food all in one bite. She would not have to steal fresh souls from the reapers after a tragedy to retain any length of consciousness. With a warlock, she could last years, maybe even decades. Alas, such a meal was merely a dream, for it was rare to find a dead warlock who had not had the clan funeral rites, and she was not strong enough to kill one.

Time was not the
bean nighe
’s ally. Even now, the call of the dead echoed its way to her, stirring the gnawing hunger. Soon she would not be able to resist taking another meal.

T
here was familiarity in dirt
.

Jane loved the feel of soil on her hands. She liked crumbling clay through her fingers. She recognized and appreciated the potential of earth.

Dirt she understood. Plants she understood. The MacGregors…not so much.

She knew they were warlocks. They knew she knew they were warlocks. And yet they pretended like their secret was still their own as they lifted landscaping supplies off her small trailer and manually carted them across the lawn.

“How did ya do that?” Iain asked.

Jane blinked in confusion, looking up at him from her place in the ground. To be fair, he had tried to talk to her when she first arrived, but she’d still been irritated with him. It was nothing a few hours landscaping couldn’t calm. “What?”

“That.” He gestured past her.

Jane turned. The nearby bushes had filled out with leaves and looked healthier than before. “It’s amazing what a little weeding and water will do.”

“That’s not weeding and watering,” Iain stated. “Those were near dead earlier.”

“You exaggerate,” she dismissed. “They only look fuller now that I’ve cleared the area.”

Iain kneeled on the ground beside her. He took her dirt-filled hand in his. Her fingers tingled where they touched. “No, it’s your doing.”

“I have always had a way with plants,” she said weakly. “It’s no big deal. Just a green thumb.”

“Told ya she was some kind of green witch.” Niall passed with three heavy stones stacked on his arms. Jane could only manage one of the stones at a time, and even then her steps were stilted from the weight.

She turned her hand, so the dirt poured onto the ground.

“Here. Try digging over here.” Iain stood and reached his hand to help her to her feet. He led her to a bush.

Jane kneeled on the ground and began pulling weeds. She took the hand rake from her belt and churned the earth. The more she worked, the better the nearby plants began to look. She paused to examine the leaves.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Euann said.

Jane turned in surprised to find Iain, Niall, Euann and Rory forming a half circle around her, watching.

“What are ya?” Rory asked.

“Uh—” Jane gave a small shrug, “—a landscaper?”

“No, what are ya?” Rory repeated. She waited for his playful smile. It didn’t come.

Jane stood, not understanding. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Maybe ma was right.” Euann gave Iain a pointed look.

“Ya should have given her the potion, Iain,” Niall said. “That is the simplest way to have our answers.”

“Potion?” Jane took Iain by the arm and pulled him away from the others so they couldn’t listen. “Does he mean the pretty blue bottle you left at my house? I thought it was cologne or something. I was going to return it.”

Iain nodded. “I was going to explain about that, but we—” he gave her a sheepish grin, “—became distracted last night.”

“Explain it now,” she said. “Is there a reason your family doesn’t trust me and that you keep trying to reassure me that you do?”

“They think you’re trouble.” He tried to touch her, but she leaned back, refusing to let him sidetrack her. “Where did ya put the bottle?”

“Locked in my glove box,” Jane answered. Her heartbeat quickened. “Why? What does it do? Is it dangerous? Should I not have touched it? Why are you just now telling me this?”

“Jane, easy,” he soothed.

“Easy?” she repeated. Why was he so calm? In fact, he always looked calm—unless he was glaring at Sean.

“It’s a test of sorts. My family wanted me to give it to ya to drink to see if ya can be trusted.” Iain reached for her. “But I trust ya. I don’t need a test to tell me—”

“I have to do everything,” Niall stated.

“Niall,” Iain warned, turning to face his brother.

Niall lifted his hand and a yellow light radiated from his fingertips toward Jane.

Jane felt her feet and legs stiffening, trapped in place against the dirt. She gasped in panic, her eyes finding Iain’s as she tried to reach for him. “I can’t move.”

The last word barely made it out as the petrification seized her chest and throat.

“
W
hat are ya doing
?” Iain demanded, violently pushing Niall back. It was too late. Jane was frozen in place. One of the plants she’d been attending withered, its life gone as Niall used it to cast the spell.

“Someone had to do something,” Niall stated. To Euann, he ordered, “Her glove box. Get the potion. Her mouth is open. We can give it to her while she is petrified. Let’s get this over with.”

“Don’t ya dare, Euann,” Iain ordered.

“Sorry, Iain, ya know I like her too, but we have to know. That thing with the plants…” Euann moved to fetch the potion bottle from Jane’s truck. “That wasn’t just gardening. She’s not a normal human.”

“They’re right,” Rory said. “Aunt Margareta has good instincts. If your ma said we should worry, maybe we need to be sure.”

“I was taking care of it,” Iain said. “I said I’d handle it and I’ll handle it. Jane is my responsibility. I just need a little more time to explain things to her.”

“Ya had your chance last night and all day today. It’s better to be sure,” Niall said quietly, “before I have to erase her knowledge of us.”

“No,” Iain protested. “Ya can’t erase me from her life. I-I love her.” He made a move to sweep Jane into his arms and carry her away from the gardens. The spell made her body as heavy as a boulder. “She accepts—”

Niall lifted his hand, and the yellow light shot forth again. Iain felt his body turning stone before he could protest. He was stuck mid-action trying to lift Jane. Rage filled him, and he wanted to strike out, but he couldn’t. The spell was too strong, binding him from movement.

“If only your reasoning mattered more than what must be done.” Niall gave him a pitying look, but Iain could only listen. “Don’t worry. Once we know what she is, I’ll be careful only to take those memories that I must. It will all be over before you wake.”

Iain tried to respond but couldn’t.

Niall crouched down and placed a hand on Iain’s stiff shoulder. “Forgive me, brother, but there are too many lives at stake, and I will do what must be done. The clan must be protected.”

D
on’t hurt Jane
. Don’t hurt Jane.
Iain willed his family to hear his call from inside his petrified prison. He couldn’t see beyond the fuzzy blur of his vision, couldn’t feel his frozen limbs. But he could think.
Please, don’t hurt my Jane.

He had been petrified many times and knew his only option was to wait the spell out. Then, something strange happened. The haze around Iain’s vision lifted.

He lay in a ditch with his older brother, Erik, in the country outside of town. A bonfire burned on the lawn across the road, casting orange shadows and outlining the unmistakable image of the tin star hanging in front of the driveway. It was Sheriff Johnson’s home.

He remembered this place, these people, this event. It was the night his power had been ripped from his body. Why had his mind brought him here, and with such clarity? This was a horrible night, one he wished he could forget. This was the night he should have died.

The sound of chanting filled the air, the words from some ancient Magyar dialect he couldn’t translate. Erik’s girlfriend, Lydia, kicked her feet as she was dragged by her bound wrists to be sacrificed.

But they’d saved Lydia. This was over. Iain didn’t understand. He’d already lived this event. Lydia was marrying Erik. Charlotte was alive. The evil forces were stopped. Unless…

Niall.

Reliving this night could only be the work of magick. Was Niall in his head, pulling out memories? He always wondered what that would feel like. He’d met Jane after this event happened. Jane. He had to remember Jane. He couldn’t let his brother erase her from his memory. His entire body wanted to run, away from this past, down the country road into town. He wanted to shift into bird form and fly away toward her. Jane. Home. Jane.

What had the potion revealed? What had they discovered about her that was so bad he couldn’t know? What could possibly warrant their taking her from his mind? They never erased a family member’s memories without consent…unless the circumstances were so dire, it was the only way to save the warlock’s life. Iain wanted his memories, all of them. Centuries faded enough without them being manually erased.

Remember Jane. Remember Jane. Jane. Remember…remember…save Lydia. Save his brother’s woman. Save his brother.

The current memory called him into it. Feelings of concern for his brother’s girlfriend filled Iain. She was rare, a genetic anomaly of humankind that synced perfectly to one particular warlock. As an
inthrall
, Lydia could take Erik’s power from him, use his magick, drain him, kill him or protect him. With the mere will to do so, she could absorb Erik’s life. More to the point, she could be forced to take it from him. The
lidércs
who’d kidnaped her wanted to do just that—force Lydia to give them Erik’s powers.

Iain worried for Erik. He worried for the clan should the
lidércs
be successful in their attempts to use Erik’s
inthrall
against them. The
lidércs
were psychic vampires who controlled unsuspecting minds and lived as shadows. If they succeeded, they’d wreak havoc on the world. A thick log pole stuck in the lawn with a metal ring along the top. Iain hid with Erik across the dirt road in a ditch. Townsfolk pulled a rope through the ring, hefting Lydia up the pole. When they finally had her several feet off the ground, they stopped and tied the rope on the star decoration near the side of the road. Her feet must have found hold on something because she stopped kicking and stood straighter. Erik tried to stand as if he would rescue the woman.

“Stop,” Iain warned. “I know ya want to comfort her, but if you’re not careful with your feelings, they’ll detect us.”

“I love her,” Erik whispered.

“I love her?” Iain wasn’t so much surprised by the revelation as he was the fact his brother admitted his feelings out loud. Hearing the words caused a tightness in his chest. A strange sensation pulled at his mind as if he should remember something, but nothing came to him. He couldn’t imagine being in love. Warlocks lived for so many centuries that the odds of finding the one person he was meant to be with in all those years, in all those passing lifetimes, were immeasurable.

“What?” Erik demanded as if Iain had stepped on his territory.

“
Ya
said, ‘I love her’.” Iain didn’t love Lydia. He cared for her, as much as anyone could care for someone they’d just met. She was important to Erik, which made her important to the rest of the clan. “Put your magick down and try to concentrate. No need to zap me. I think your lady friend is hot. I’m not going to ask her to have my babies.”

Erik pointed a finger of warning but let the matter drop. “There, around the top of the fire. Do ya see it? A shadow.”

“A
lidérc
.” Iain nodded. Coldness crept into him as he watched the dancing shadow creature.

“We can’t wait any longer,” Erik insisted.

The possessed townsfolk continued to build an already blazing fire. The warlock brothers couldn’t rush in with powerballs blazing and kill all the innocent humans being psychically held captive. However, Iain wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep his brother calm. Erik was tormented to see the love of his life strung up on a pole. Unfortunately, that blind devotion was about to get his brother stripped of his magickal powers and killed. “Ya heard Da. We wait for them. We cannot fight the
lidércs
without the right magick. Lydia is alive. Take comfort in that.”

“What are those people looking at on the far side of the fire?” Erik’s nervous energy practically snapped off his skin.

“Ya rush in and they’ll simply start the process early.” Iain needed his brother to hear him. “Ya shouldn’t even be here. Your connection to Lydia is the whole reason this is happening. You’re too involved.”

He didn’t take Erik’s answering growl of dismissal personally. “What are they looking at?”

“Someone’s on the ground.” Iain tried to be the voice of reason. He narrowed his eyes and focused on the prone body, using his shifter vision to zoom in. He saw Charlotte lying on the ground. Again, a strange feeling tried to invade him, but he shook it off. “Charlotte. She’s not moving.”

Lydia screamed in pain. Iain focused harder, trying to find signs of a pulse in Charlotte’s neck. Suddenly, his eyes locked in their changed state and he couldn’t look away from the unmoving body. He tried to physically jerk back, but old magick held him in its spell. Charlotte was a trap. The
lidércs
had used her as enchanted bait, waiting for any glimpse of MacGregor magick to come near her.

The pain started in his eyes and rolled through his body. The agony of it was unbearable, but Iain couldn’t make it stop, couldn’t scream as he desperately wanted to. He tried to warn his brother, but no sound came out. He held his chest, endeavoring to keep his power inside his body. It did no good. The entranced Charlotte forced the magick out of him like an empty chalice demanding to be filled. The human woman wasn’t built to hold his powers. The transfer would surely kill her.

One of the
lidércs
circled overhead, waiting to drink Iain’s magick from Charlotte. If that happened, the creatures would win, and they would be out to destroy his family. Helplessness mingled with the pain. Tears would have fallen, but the magick pulling out of his eyes wouldn’t let them.

The entranced townsfolk turned toward the brothers’ hiding place, chanting louder. Erik refused to run. Iain gasped for breath, unable to pull air deep into his withering lungs.

Slowly, the people formed a line along the far side of the road. He saw the shadowy impression of them before the bonfire light. The pain intensified as streams of his magick poured from his eyes and mouth toward Charlotte. Erik slapped his hand over Iain’s face as if he could physically stop the process. When that didn’t work, Erik tried to lift Iain’s immobile body over his shoulder to carry him to safety. Seconds later, Iain found himself on the ground next to a collapsed Erik. He had the impression of being moved, but his eyes were blurry from their locked position.

This was death, coming in the hardest way possible. His magick was part of his very being. Without it, he was nothing more than a pile of bones and dust. This was it. He would never know the kind of love Erik fought for. Centuries passed before him, suddenly so short of a timespan. A tear managed to slide over his cheek, boiling hot enough to steam and burn his skin. Charlotte was taking everything. And in the moment before blackness set in, he heard the bagpipes of his youth calling to him. They beckoned his spirit to come home.

Home.

“Jane,” his mind whispered, not knowing who she was, only that she meant home.

I
ain wouldn’t have minded
the blackness surrounding him if he’d actually been passed out or asleep. Instead, he was incredibly aware of being stuck in a cold, dark place. He tried to use his magick, but Charlotte had left him drained. Aside from a residual pain that made him aware he still had at least bones for a body, he felt nothing. Was he still on the ground? Was this death? Limbo? Hell? A coma?

Fear filled him, but his circumstances gave him no way to retaliate against the darkness. He didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, didn’t move. He thought he felt a brush against his arm, but he couldn’t move his head to look, wasn’t sure he even had a head anymore. Perhaps the pain radiating through what he thought was his body was really just his consciousness trying to hold on to normality. To anything.

“
Dè tha thu ag iarraidh?
” someone whispered
. What do you want?

The airy words were so light they could have been an echo from his past. Iain tried to answer, but he had no mouth.

“
Dè tha thu ag iarraidh!
” the voice demanded.

Oh, how he wanted to answer it.

“I don’t know what I want!” a woman screamed. He didn’t know the voice, at least not that he remembered. He tried to focus, to hear where it came from within the darkness. Was someone inside his mind’s tomb with him? Was he finally going to have company in the endlessness his existence had become?

The first sense to come back to him was smell. Faint traces of lilacs and purple Scottish heather surrounded him. Iain was sure he’d never smelled anything so wonderful in his life. Next came honey. He tasted it on his tongue. Then bagpipes in the distance. He knew that music. It filled his soul with memories of home. His family called to him. It had to be his family. They were trying to guide him back from oblivion.

No, wait. He felt something against his mouth. A kiss? The wet brush of a tongue? No magick his family would perform to call him home would involve such a sweet, intimate act. Like a mad rush, he felt his body return to him, and he was pulled from the dark hole of his mind.

The last sense to return to him was sight. Iain opened his eyes, desperate to make contact with the bearer of those gentle, saving lips. Windblown curls framed a beautiful face. Warmth replaced the cold. He felt love, so sure and intense that such an emotion could never be contained within one soul. Brown eyes flashed ever so briefly before disappearing altogether. Whoever she was, she was gone.

“Wait,” Iain whispered desperately. She took her feelings of love with her. He was alive, awake, but the pain of losing something so beautifully perfect hurt worse than the oblivion he was pulled from. “Don’t leave me.”

Perhaps he was dead. His body was laid in a glass coffin. Trees surrounded him, their dark limbs like fingers across the sky. Iain tried to sit up so he could go look for her, but the effort weakened him. He fell back and then nothingness.

F
ear filled Jane
, nearly choking the breath from her lungs. One moment she was weeding the MacGregor gardens, next Niall was threatening to make her drink a potion, and then she was thrust into what could only be a hallucination. Only this didn’t feel like a hallucination. It felt more like déjà vu.

Jane remained rooted in place, like the wild overgrowth of the expansive gardens yearning to be saved. An aging woman yelled at her in Gaelic. She knew that wrinkled face. It was Iain’s… It was… It was…

Memories began to slip into the moment.

“Why can I understand what you’re saying?” Jane asked the stranger. “Who are you? How did I get here?”

The aging woman’s finger dissipated into mist but did not disappear. Instead, the mist surrounded Jane’s head. She swatted it away, but the action only caused the mist to swirl up her nose. The plants moved around her, coming to animated life. They stretched and grew, aging like the now-old woman before her, then transformed into a beautiful combination of lilac and purple Scottish heather. The heady scent of flowers and honey was so strong it burned her nostrils and caused her eyes to water. Bagpipes sounded in the distance, impossibly carried on a wind that did not stir.

The music called to her, offered to save her. The woman made a strange noise and collapsed on the ground. The instant the woman’s body landed, Jane was freed. Instead of running home, she followed the retracting vines toward the bagpipes. She didn’t know why, only that she was compelled to follow them. They led her deeper into the gardens. The smell of flowers followed her.

The vines began to shake and whither before falling to the ground. A patch of dead foliage formed a large circle around a glass coffin. Whatever had killed the weeds and bushes had started to infect the trees. Browned leaves clung to branches next to green ones.

A few dead vines crossed over the top as if hugging whoever lay inside. The encased figure was cast in shadow and did not move. The scene looked like something right out of a horrible fairytale, coffin placed on a stone altar in the middle of a lifeless patch of earth. Jane shivered as she stepped on the dried leaves and old vines. She felt something pulling at her legs, fatiguing her muscles.

The music grew sad as if begging someone to help. She found herself moving toward the coffin despite the tiredness in her limbs. For some reason, she had to see.

“Déjà vu,” she whispered. The moment felt oddly familiar as if she’d walked this path many times.