After the Summerland (The Witches of Spring Hill Book 1) (27 page)

Cian starts to make his
way back to his room but the tone of Selene’s voice freezes him in place. “What
the
hell
do you think you’re doing?”
Selene growls when she finally sees Liam’s jeep pull away. Although Xavier told
him to stay quiet he can’t help but call her out. “We knew you weren’t actually
out of town,” he says smirking. He hopes that she thinks that whatever spell
she cast didn’t work.

Selene cocks her head
at Cian and says, “Oh? And how would you have known that and when did you figure
it out? Was it before or after you had Brianna go through my room searching for
evidence I was gone? Don’t worry. You don’t have to answer. I’m done with you,
Cian. You’re dismissed. Go to your room and I don’t want to see your face until
I figure out what to do with you. Now!” she screeches when Cian doesn’t
immediately walk away.

She turns to Xavier,
crosses her arms, and says, “I just can’t wait to hear what you have to say for
yourself. Sleeping with the enemy, Xavier?”

“It’s not like that
Aunt Selene, just chill for a second okay. You are
not
going to believe what I discovered…” Xavier sees Cian
turn around and look at him with a shocked expression. Cian cannot believe that
Xavier would turn on the Alexanders so quickly. Xavier doesn’t acknowledge
Cian’s reaction; instead, he leads Selene into the kitchen.

Cian paces his room,
trying to figure out what to do. Was all of this a ploy, he wonders? Did Xavier
and Selene plan all of this from the very beginning? Cian thinks back to all
the things that happened at the Alexanders and realizes that Xavier did a lot
more listening than talking. Cian sends a text message to Chloe.
It was a set up. I’m sneaking out and need someone
to come get me now.
While he waits for a response he repacks his bag with clean
clothes and stashes the book his mom gave to him before she died.

After a couple of minutes, his phone vibrates
signaling a new message.
It’s Liam. I’ll
be there in 5.
Cian responds,
Meet
me at the school,
too risky to come to house.
Although Liam doesn’t respond, Cian is sure he
got the message. He quietly lifts the window, tosses his pack in the yard, and
drops out behind it. The rain is falling so hard now that Cian is sure Selene
wouldn’t have heard anything. He stands up quickly and closes the window behind
him. No going back now, he thinks as he edges along the side of the house,
breaking into a run when he reaches the driveway.

Liam is waiting in the
same spot as before and Cian hesitates before climbing into the jeep. “I’m
drenched,” he says.

“That’s the least of my
concerns,” Liam says, reaching in the backseat for something Cian can use to
dry off with. Even though it’s late spring, the cold rain has Cian shivering.
Liam blows the heat on high and waits for Cian to get warm before asking what
happened. As they drive back to the house on the hill, Cian explains that he
thinks Xavier has been playing everyone from the beginning. Cian tells Liam
everything he knows and by the time they pull in the driveway, Liam and Cian
are nearly panicking at what this will mean for all of them.

When night falls and
Selene is tucked away, Xavier makes his way to Cian’s room. He needs Cian to
know that he would never do anything to put the Alexanders in jeopardy. He
knocks softly once and pushes the door open expecting to find Cian brooding on
the bed. Instead he finds the room empty. “Damn!” Xavier thinks, realizing that
Cian must have believed that Xavier was working with Selene.

Xavier reaches
into his pocket for his phone, only to discover it’s not there. He rolls his
eyes and shakes his head… Aunt Selene… I guess she didn’t totally
believe my story, he thinks to himself. He tries to remember if there are any
old messages, but as long as no one texts him tonight, it should be fine. He
deleted everything before he even left the Alexanders.

The Alexanders, he
thinks. I can only imagine what they must be thinking right now. He closes the
door quietly on Cian’s room and heads back to his own. If only there was a way
for him to get a message to someone. He runs through his options, and arrives
at the only person who he thinks will believe him… Rowan. She’ll know that
what happened between them was real, but how can he reach her?

He lights
several candles, calls to the elements, closes his eyes and focuses on her. On
a piece of paper he writes,
I didn’t tell
Selene anything. I told her lies. I would never hurt you or your family. You
must believe me.
He folds the note, holds it out in front of him and
quietly says, “Though this message is unspoken, hear these words, this message
is meant for just you and me,” and he focuses on Rowan with all of his energy.

Since he has no way of knowing whether or not she heard it, he ends the spell, burns
the message, blows out the candles, and crawls into bed. He is certain sleep
will elude him. He lies awake thinking about Rowan and even though her
abilities haven’t manifested, he is hoping that the connection they shared
under the stars will be enough to reach her tonight.

Rowan twitches in her
sleep. In her dream she sees Xavier in a room surrounded by lit candles. She
watches him write something on a piece of paper, fold it, and hold it out while
speaking. She wishes she could have read what he wrote. She hopes that Cian and
Brianna aren’t right about everything they said about him. She hopes that he
told Selene lies and that he won’t do anything to hurt her or her family. She
loses the image of him as she rolls over in her sleep and just as quickly as
the dream arrived, it disappeared. Forgotten the instant it was over.

“So Cian isn’t in his
room, huh?” Selene asks as she sips her coffee on Monday morning. “And you are
sure that they will both be in school today?” she asks again.

“It’s finals,” Xavier lies,
shoving a piece of toast in his mouth. He watches Selene look at him skeptically.
When he finishes chewing, he adds, “They have to take the tests or they won’t
pass the class. Liam Alexander can’t do anything about that…”

Selene nods, finally
agreeing with something Xavier says. Although she doesn’t completely believe
everything he said this weekend, he is still here. That has to count for
something, right? She really wants him to be telling the truth because she
needs him for what she has planned. She smiles at Xavier and says, “Okay, at
lunch you tell them that I want to meet them after school — just to talk. Let
them know I don’t mind if they go back to the Alexanders’, but I, at least,
need a moment to find out why they would choose the Alexanders over me, their
own flesh and blood,” Selene fake pouts for Xavier.

“Perfect!” he replies
enthusiastically, cringing inside over even this much camaraderie with his
aunt. He takes his time getting ready and when he holds out his hand for his
phone, she digs it out of her purse and hands it to him. She watches him go
through the school doors and decides to wait around for a minute to watch for
the Alexanders. She parks across the street — watching and waiting.

After the
final morning bell rings and she hasn’t seen any sign of them she decides to
drive past the police station to see if Liam is there. Since she and Xavier were
late this morning, maybe Liam dropped the kids off early — in order to avoid
seeing her. She smiles at the thought of ruffling Chief Alexander enough that
he would make an effort to avoid seeing her.

When she gets to the
station, she sees Liam’s jeep parked in his usual spot. Although she considers
going in to talk with him, she changes her mind, thinking about all she has to
do to prepare for
Cian’s
and Brianna’s homecoming.

Xavier can’t believe
how easy it was to manipulate his aunt. First, he cast a spell of protection
using the rosemary from the Alexander’s garden. Then, he cast a spell to block
his thoughts from her. Once that was in place, he used his own mind control to
make her see what he wanted her to see. She seemed to believe everything he
said and when he took a look in
her
mind, he saw it was true. Either her powers were getting weaker, or his were
getting stronger. He wondered if it had anything to do with spending time with
the Alexanders and being on the property.

As soon as he got to
class, he pulled out his phone and called Cian. When he didn’t answer, he tried
Brianna’s phone next. Shocked that neither one took his call, he decided to go
over to the police station. He hoped that Liam would be at work today. He
figured with Peter and Marcus at the house, it was likely he would be at the
station, even if only for a short time. He was about to walk out the door, when
he saw Selene parked across the street. He turned around and made his way to
the back door. He jogged through the schoolyard and made his way past the
library and city hall before seeing Selene drive slowly past the police
station. His spell must not have lasted as long as it should have or she
wouldn’t be checking on me so soon, he thinks. He crouches down behind a
planter and waits for her to leave.

After she is gone,
Xavier stands up and crosses the road quickly just in case she makes her way
back. He opens the front door to the station and walks right into Liam.

“What the hell are you
doing here?” Liam asks, looking shocked to see Xavier. “I just saw your aunt
drive by. Did she drop you off?”

Xavier shakes his head
no and before Liam can say anything else, Xavier launches into his explanation.
“I came because you need to know that I didn’t tell Selene anything. I made up
lies… I told her you don’t even know the land was sacred… I told her
that you gave up looking for information about her after the incident at
Peter’s and that you are now focusing on finding whoever broke into his house.
She doesn’t even know that you know that it was her… I told her that the
only one who is practicing magic is Chloe and all she is doing is protection
spells. I did tell her that my abilities were stronger on the hill; but only
because I needed to say something so she would think she could trust me.

Liam holds up his hand
to Xavier and says, “I know, Xavier. I knew you would be coming in… your
brother called me. He had a vision and saw this happening. He said that you would
be telling the truth. Though to be honest, I can’t be sure since I don’t have
any special abilities to decide for myself. I do know that I
want
you to be telling the truth, and
for now, I’ll have to trust your brother and my gut instinct. But, let me make
myself clear — I won’t hesitate to kill you or Selene if either one of you try
to harm my family.”

Xavier nods, “I
wouldn’t expect anything less from you, sir. Now I need to talk to my brother
and sister because Selene is planning to kill them, soon. And when we don’t
show up after school, she is going to go after them.”

They climb into the
jeep and start up to the house. Xavier decides that the only way they can beat
Selene is if they work together. The only way he knows to beat her old magic is
with all six of them acting as one.

“Has Rowan developed
any of her abilities yet?” Xavier asks, already guessing he knows the answer.

“No. Not to my
knowledge,” Liam answers wishing he could see into this kid’s head.

Selene is parked at the
front of the line of cars at the end of the school day. She has watched every
other car behind her pick up their kids and pull away. She fumes as the last
kids walk out of the school. Where the hell are they?
she
thinks to herself. She thinks back to the morning and her conversation with
Xavier. Although she thought he was lying, or maybe because of it, she dug
around in his mind a little bit on the way to school, looking for the truth.
She was a little surprised when she discovered that everything he told her was the
truth. She was confident, maybe too confident, in her own abilities and
obviously, not
confident
enough in his.

Family or not, it’s
time to end this. She was hoping that she could count on Xavier, at least for a
while longer, but it seems as if he is no longer on her side. She thinks back
to his sarcastic comment this morning about doing her bidding as needed. She
wrote it off as stress since everything he had said was confirmed with her mind
reading. She wonders if something is off with her abilities and then decides it
must be from not spending enough time with her niece and nephews. She pauses
for a moment at the thought, wondering if she is doing the right thing in
destroying them. Then she remembers that once she has the Alexander land, she
has no need for any of them.

Then it hits her —
Xavier probably left school shortly after she dropped him off. He has probably
been up at the house all day long, while she sat home preparing for their
ritual. She realizes everything that Xavier told her all weekend was a lie. Who
knows what they have been doing or what they found out up on the hill? Damn
those Alexanders! Having had enough, she peels out of the parking lot and turns
her car toward the house on the top of the hill. Selene left the school parking
lot so quickly that she didn’t even notice the Subaru Forester going in the
opposite direction.

When Selene makes it up
the hill, she is not at all surprised to see Peter standing at the top of the
driveway.

“Oh good, is the whole
family here?” she asks sarcastically. “What have you got there, Peter?” She asks
,
nodding toward the envelope Peter is holding out. “You
have something of mine, don’t you?”

“Selene, stop right
there. It’s over. You need to stop all of this. I won’t let you win. It’s time
to let it all go,” he says.

“Get out of my way, old
man. You can’t stop me! It’s time for the truth to come out and I want back
what’s rightfully mine.”