T*Witches: Split Decision (3 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

CAM’S MISSION

Shane had come for her. And just like that, her rational mind closed down and her rash heart opened up. Cam did not demand the explanation Shane owed her. She did not demand the cautiousness she owed herself. She forgot about Jason. She forgot about Shane’s betrayal. His arms were outstretched. She knew she’d rush into them.

The massive mahogany doorway of Crailmore, meant to humble those who passed through it, did not diminish Shane Wright. It framed him, as if he were a princely portrait. He was almost posed, it struck Cam, his hands on his hips, legs astride, shiny blond hair brushing
his broad shoulders. His eyes, blue as a cloudless sky, searched her face.

Her skilled gray eyes glazed over; her heart was in her throat. Fluttering butterfly wings invaded her stomach, only to settle the moment he closed his arms around her.

Playing it cool was not an option. Not when Shane was so hot.

“You’re here,” was all he said, holding her tightly and sighing with relief. Had he doubted she would come? Shane brushed away her bangs and kissed her lightly on her forehead. “Come with me,” he whispered.

No way. Not until you offer up some real explanation for your betrayal. Not until you tell it to my face, to my mother’s face. I’m not going anywhere with you until you prove to both of us you’ve changed.

Okay. That’s what Cam should have said.

Only, how could she? His hand closed over hers and their fingers entwined naturally. They walked silently down the steps, along the walkway, and through the iron gates that surrounded the mansion.

She’d been so wrapped up in him that Cam hadn’t noticed the black horse, sleek and huge, tethered to one of the fence spikes. Shane pulled her toward it, but Cam shied back. “What is that?” she asked without thinking.

Shane laughed. “That is a stallion,” he explained proudly, reaching up to stroke its dark, silky mane.

In theory, Cam considered herself a friend to all creatures great and small, but when the really big ones got so up close and personal that their hot breath warmed your face and stirred your hair … “friendship” ended there.

“This is Epona,” Shane was saying, stroking the immense beast’s snout. “He looks fierce, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“How’s he feel about humans?” Cam asked.

Epona was ink black, from his nervously flicking tail to his frighteningly alert eyes. Evil and angry looking, they seemed almost to be taking her measure. She wanted to turn away, but Shane’s arms were around her shoulders now, moving her gently closer to the stallion.

“Make friends with him.” Shane guided her hand across the horse’s neck. It was taut, muscular, and rough as burned weeds. “He’s our ride to the beach. Aren’t you, boy?”

“Can’t we walk?” In the brief time Cam had spent on Coventry, she’d walked everywhere. So had everyone else.

Shane shook his head. “Too far.”

“And cars are —?”

“Too mainland.”

“So, skateboard, Rollerblades, scooters, bus, train, Learjet…?”

“Horses,” he told her, “played an important part in our history. Black ones, like him, symbolized power and vitality. No one taught you about that? You never heard the name Epona before?”

“That would be a no. And no,” Cam answered.

“I’ll teach you, then. Give me your foot.” Shane laced his hands together and held them out for her to step into. Which she did, reluctantly. He placed her sneakered foot into the stirrup. “Up you go. Hold on to the saddle horn. I won’t let you get hurt. Trust me.”

A rebellious thought crept from its corner. Trust? Déjà vu, anyone? Sequel-itis? This boy has lied to you before. You trusted him, and he betrayed you.

He read her mind with ease. “Cam, you’ve come all this way,” he said, his eyes innocent and clear. “Don’t give up on me now.”

Embarrassed, she squirmed in the saddle and, when Shane hoisted himself up behind her, his arms encircling her waist, she told her instincts to relax.

The young warlock held Epona to a slow pace as they trotted through the countryside surrounding Crailmore and then into the deep woods behind the estate.
They were headed to Coventry’s north shore. Shane told her, “It’s usually pretty deserted, since there are no beaches or ferry docks.”

“The shore less traveled?” Cam teased. She couldn’t tell if he’d smiled or not at her poetry reference.

“Really,” he continued, “you should see it. After all, you own it.”

“I what?” Cam looked over her shoulder at him.

“All this” — he nodded straight ahead as they emerged from the woods toward a rocky shore — “this is all DuBaer property. It’s yours.”

“No,” she corrected, “it belongs to Thantos.”

“Your uncle,” Shane pointed out.

“Unfortunately,” she mumbled.

They’d ridden as far as they could take the horse, stopping near the edge of a steep drop-off. Dismounting, they left the animal on flat ground and headed, hand in hand, down a rocky slope, balancing precariously on the sharp edges of rock, formed by decades of wind and mist rising off the Great Lake.

Cam, a natural athlete, turned out to be more agile than Shane. She took the lead a few times and helped him negotiate the rocky sea-battered terrain. It was cooler and windier on this part of the island, and Cam was glad for the scrunchie in her pocket. Once the hair was out of her eyes, she looked around. The view was
spectacular. Lake Superior stretched before them, the midday sun glistening on its wind-rippled surface.

“Thanks for coming.” Shane squeezed her hand lightly as they walked along the shore. “I’m so glad, so grateful you’re here.”

Don’t make me regret it, the rebel brain cell piped up again. “Everyone deserves a second chance,” Cam said lightly. “Though in your case, it’s kind of a third chance.”

“There’s no excuse for what I did,” the blond warlock said confidently, almost as if he’d rehearsed it. He brushed a hank of windblown hair off his forehead. “I gained your trust and led you to Sersee, who tried to kill you. There’s no pretty way of saying that.”

She didn’t remind him of the time before that, when he’d used her best friend Beth to trick her. That time, he had been working for Thantos.

“All I can do is try and get you to understand me,” he was saying. “I hope you’ll forgive me. I’m not that guy anymore. I don’t work for Thantos, and Sersee and I are over.”

They walked; he talked. Every so often, Shane picked up a stone and hurled it into the water, breaking the sheen of its surface. Cam didn’t interrupt. Maybe if he kept going, she could bring herself to believe that, this time, he was telling the truth.

“It was despicable, unconscionable,” Shane continued.
“I was lost, morally. It’s really hard when you have all these gifts, all these powers, and no guidance about how to use them.”

Cam knew that Shane’s parents, followers of Thantos, had kicked him out when he renounced his loyalty to the terrible tracker. She was about to ask why he hadn’t gone to Lord Karsh, or any of Coventry’s Exalted Elders, most of whom knew Thantos’s flaws. “But why —” She got that far, when he whirled suddenly, his blue cloak billowing.

“Watch this,” he cut short her question. From the leather pouch on his belt he pulled a handful of green leaves and purple berries. Mumbling an incantation, words lost in the sea wind, he tossed the herbs into the turbulent air, which carried them to the cliff where Epona was tethered.

Above them, the great horse shied and whinnied pitifully. And then his sweat-sheened black body began to change color. His legs turned green, his body gold, and his mane a crimson red.

“Do you recognize him now?” Shane challenged.

Cam didn’t. All she saw was a shivering horse beginning to froth at the mouth. “Please change him back,” she begged.

Shane stared at her for a second, his eyes searching hers. “Can’t you do it?” he asked.

Cam clasped her necklace. It was cold and still. No warmth trembled through it; no spell came to mind. “No,” she admitted. “Please, Shane.”

He put his arm around her, enfolded her now-chilled body in the soothing heat of his cloak. So quickly that anyone with eyes less talented than Cam’s might have missed it, Shane reached inside his shirt and grasped a crystal horseshoe-shaped medallion that had been hidden there, secured around his neck by a leather thong. This time he made no attempt to muffle his incantation.

“
Powers of sea, sky, and land,”
Shane called into the wind, “
release this creature at my command. Return him to black, tall and tame. Hide the bright form in which he came.”

It was a mystifying spell. Cam had no idea what it meant, but Epona’s misery ended. The horse stood calm again, black, tall, and tame, as Shane had ordered.

“What was that?” Cam asked, shaken but impressed. “What did you mean about the ‘form’ in which he came? Where did he come from?”

Again, Shane’s blue eyes scoured her face. And when he was satisfied that she really didn’t know the answer, he said, “From the sea, according to legend. I mean, all the horses on the island were supposed to have come from the sea. I don’t remember the whole story. Probably swam ashore from a stranded ship or something.”

Cam glanced again at the huge animal. He snorted and pawed the earth above them. “I never heard that incantation before —” she told Shane, studying Epona, looking for a trace of the bold colors he’d displayed only moments before.

“It’s pretty basic,” he said, quickly changing the subject. “Cam, I’ve made such a mess of my life, misused the powers I was blessed with —”

She looked at him.

“None of what I told you is a real excuse,” Shane said. “I’m ashamed to say I just followed along, first with Thantos, then with Sersee. Then I met you. That’s when I knew for sure that I had to change. But by then, I was too deeply entrenched. I’m so, so sorry, Cam.”

Cam felt herself tearing up. Her heart went out to him, to the little lost boy he’d been, battered, betrayed, booted from his home. Maybe she’d sensed that all along. Maybe that’s why her feelings toward him defied reason.

Shane covered her hands with his and looked into her eyes.
Maybe we’re soul mates.

Cam’s eyes widened. Had she done it? Read someone’s mind who wasn’t related to her? “Were you just thinking …?”

Shane blushed, and Cam had her answer. She was developing higher skills. On her own. Something else hit her. She’d not thought about Jason since she got here.
Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe Jason had to leave so she could see her way clear to Shane.

Cam had not been lying when she’d told Alex she needed to come to Coventry to see if Shane had been sincere about doing a 180. But there was a greater good, a higher purpose. She knew it now. Her mission as a witch was to heal, to help, to be sure all things — did that not include people? — might grow to their most bountiful goodness.

Shane needed her.

“I do, Cam. You have no idea how much.” He’d read her mind again. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her toward him into the warm shelter of his cloak.

As she closed her eyes to receive his kiss, his crystal horseshoe pendant brushed her sun charm and produced a strange and startling shock.

A real buzzkill.

Cam returned to Crailmore late in the day. She found Miranda in the herb garden. Her mother had traded her flowing cape for more practical overalls and a broad-brimmed straw hat to shield her face from the afternoon sun. She heard her daughter’s approach and greeted her with a smile.

Which Cam returned one hundredfold.

Miranda’s heart quickened. Her daughter — one of
the two precious children she’d once thought were lost to her forever — was so beautiful, so radiant in her unconcealed joy. “Things went well,” she ventured.

“It was unbelievable.” Cam couldn’t stop smiling.

“Tell me all about it,” her mother urged. “Here.” She handed Cam a trowel and a small pot in which a delicate pale green shoot grew. “You can help me. I’m putting in some new lavender.”

In Marble Bay, Cam had never gardened. The Barnes’ family hired landscapers for that. But right now she felt she could do anything. She was overflowing with energy … and love. She took the tool Miranda handed her and absentmindedly hugged the little terra-cotta pot while recalling her wonderful day.

Her words tumbled out in a seemingly endless stream. She explained the cruel circumstances that had led Shane astray and confided how desperately he wanted to reform. She wondered if Miranda might help him. He was such a misunderstood boy and needed so much to be loved and accepted.

Miranda smiled and nodded and expressed not a word of doubt until Cam mentioned the horse.

“His name is Epona. Shane said that horses are an important part of our heritage —”

Miranda looked up from the fragrant lavender seedling she was transplanting. “Epona?” She brushed
the dirt off her hands and faced her daughter, trying to disguise her alarm. “A red horse?” she asked.

“No, he’s totally black. But Shane was trying to impress me and he put a spell on —”

“Did he come from the sea?” Miranda interrupted.

“The horse?” Cam shrugged. “In a way, I guess. Shane said all the horses on the island …” She let it trail off. Miranda seemed suddenly upset. “What happened? What’s wrong?” Cam urged.

“Nothing,” her mother insisted. “The heat of the day. I’ve been out here since … early afternoon.”

“It’s about Epona, isn’t it?” Cam guessed. “He was a little high-strung at first, but he settled down quickly. It was okay. I’m fine.”

But even as she tried to reassure her mother, a wave of nausea rocked her. Her head began to pound. The pounding became the sound of a horse’s hooves galloping toward her. Instead of Epona, it was a red horse that came charging. His body was wet with sea foam and as he approached, his coat bled into the strange colors of Shane’s spell. His wild mane remained red but his legs grew green and his body a translucent gold.…

“The death horse galloping out of the sea,” Miranda was saying. Cam didn’t know how long she’d been lost in her vision, but her mother was standing now, looking troubled. “In legends, he is sometimes red, sometimes
black, and sometimes strangely colored. His mission was to pull the chariot of the sun god across the sky each day.”