Spellbound (Spellbringers Book 1) (14 page)

Bryce looked deadly with his strong, athletic
build and formidable height. I remembered he was a
Warrior-in-training and almost lost my resolve. Then I remembered
he was also a jerk and decided to make the first move.

Crouching low the way Abe taught me, I used my
short stature to my advantage. I used my favorite move, my secret
weapon, hoping to catch Bryce off guard. I decided to use his
ignorance of my abilities to my advantage and launched into a
crouching roll, aiming for his ankles. I quickly knocked him off
balance and he fell on his backside.

He sprang to his feet with unnatural speed,
facing me once again. I briefly wondered whether or not he used a
little magic, but decided it didn’t matter. If I didn’t make
another decent maneuver the rest of the night, the look of surprise
on his face when he fell was enough to make me happy for the rest
of my life.

Bryce smiled at me, nodding once to
acknowledge the fact that I’d bested him. He darted forward and I
ducked, remembering to keep low. I managed to dig my elbow into his
stomach and was rewarded by his quick intake of breath. Score
another point to me.

The battle quickly went downhill from there.
Bryce was faster, stronger, and had the advantage of professional
training, not to mention magic. Before I knew it, I was lying on
the mat flat on my back with Bryce straddling me, his forearm on my
throat. He’d managed to disable me without hurting me at all. He
hovered over me and I could feel his breath in my ear.

Leaning close, he said softly, “Well done,
Alisa.” He stood quickly and reached down to help me to my
feet.

To my extreme embarrassment, Bryce pulled me
into a hug and announced loudly, “Well done, my worthy opponent.
Jace, I can see why she beat you.” Releasing me, he turned his
attention to his brother.

Looking around the room, I could see the glow
of pride on Abe’s face, the look of shame on Jace, and the look of
amazement on Rachel.

Mikael came up behind me and put his arm
around my shoulders. “I am next, no?”

“No.” Bryce protectively steered me away from
his friend and snapped out a quick reprimand in French. “As victor
in this battle, I shall claim my prize, and it is this: the right
to Alisa as my tennis partner for the duration of my
stay.”

“No, no, no. Absolutely not,” Jace said.
“We’ve been training forever. She’s mine.”

I glanced in Jace’s direction, noticing that
Rachel didn’t seem very pleased by the two brothers fighting over
me. I sighed. Alas, Jace and Bryce only wanted me for my tennis
skills. Men never fought over me for the right reasons.

“Break it up, guys,” Jerica shouted from the
top of the stairs. “It’s getting late. Jace, you need to drive
Rachel and Alisa home. You guys can continue your smack down
tomorrow. Abe, I really need to see you in the kitchen.
Now.”

“Oh, Dad’s in trouble.” Jace
laughed.

“I drove myself, Mr. Alexander,” Rachel said,
grabbing her purse and keys. “I’ll take Alisa home.”

Oh great, I thought, locating my sweatshirt
and shoes. For all the time Rachel and I spent together, we were
always with Jace. I didn’t think we’d ever been alone. This should
be interesting.

We said our goodbyes and jogged through the
rain out to Rachel’s car. “Thanks for the ride.” I pulled the
seatbelt over my baggy sweatshirt.

“Anytime. Hey, you were awesome tonight. I’ve
seen you beat Jace, but Bryce? Unbelievable.” She was gushing,
genuine in her admiration. “I think I want to learn to do that. Not
the magic stuff. I’m still not sure about all that. But I
definitely like the idea of kicking some butt.”

A wave of anger rippled over me at
her announcement that she wanted to start training. Up until now, I
felt like it was
my
thing. It was the only thing I was good at. Rachel was good
at so many things. I couldn’t bear it if she was better than me at
this too.

“You should learn at least enough to protect
yourself, Rachel.” I hesitated for a second. “Can I ask you
something, though?’

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“Why the objection to using magic? I mean, I
would kill to have the gifts the rest of you have. I would love to
be one of you. As Bryce so rudely pointed out, I’m not like the
rest of you and I never will be.”

“Bryce really is a jerk,” Rachel said. “When
Jace told me about his brother, I chalked it up to sibling rivalry,
but he was right. His brother has issues. I can’t believe what he
said to you. I’m so glad you knocked him on his butt and so was
Jace. If only someone had thought to grab a video
camera.”

We were both laughing as we pulled into my
driveway. “To answer your question, though,” Rachel said, turning
serious. “I don’t know. The idea of magic makes me feel… unclean.
Maybe it’s my church upbringing. Maybe I’m just in denial. I know
the Alexanders are all good, moral people. I don’t think the magic
in them is bad, but for some reason, I feel like the magic in me is
evil.” She let out a shaky breath. “Wow. I haven’t even admitted
that to Jace.”

“Can’t he read your mind?” I asked.

“No. He only reads what I allow. It’s like
texting with our brains. He can only read what I send him. I hold
part of myself back and I’m sure he does too,” she
explained.

“Well, thanks again for the ride. Be careful
driving home.” I jumped out of the car and sprinted through the
pouring rain. I was soaked by the time I reached my front
door.

Lying in bed later, I replayed the events of
that evening. For the first time in a long time, my heart was
lighter. Some of the pain was gone. I could look at Rachel without
the animosity, the rage. I realized much of the anger I felt had
nothing to do with Jace. When I battled Bryce, I realized I’d been
angry at the world, at circumstances.

Sure, I was still hurt. I still loved Jace,
but in fairness to him, he never led me to believe there was more
between us. I just wished and hoped. It was time to find a new
wish. Searching through my vast catalogue of fantasies, I discarded
most. Most of my fantasies involved Jace and I knew I wasn’t
allowed to love him anymore.

I thought about Mikael. He was cute… and with
that accent? Okay, yes. I closed my eyes and tried to think of
Mikael, but Bryce’s face kept taking front and center in my mind.
Yet another reason to be angry with him. It occurred to me I should
try to get along with Bryce for the sake of my close relationship
with his family, but I couldn’t imagine ever liking him. And he
would never be able to accept me as an equal. Not in a million
years.

Chapter
Twelve

Rachel

When I told Alisa I felt my magic was evil, it
was the truth. It was one of the reasons I resisted magical
training, but not the only one. The real reason I refused to train
was because I didn’t want anyone to find out how much I’d achieved
on my own. Jace had some idea. He had almost as much to hide as I
did.

Mr. and Mrs. Alexander suspected Jace and I
had a strong connection. They knew we could speak to each other
with our minds while in close proximity, and that worried them.
What they had not yet realized was that Jace and I had established
a strong link and were able to continue an ongoing conversation
even when we were apart.

Although this ability would no doubt concern
them, it was nothing compared to what we’d tapped into recently:
Persuasion. We agreed this skill was playing with fire, but we
practiced it nonetheless.

Jace had a few less scruples than I did. At
least, that’s what I liked to tell myself. We started using
Persuasion before Christmas break, and it made for some lively
discussions between us.

“Don’t you dare tell me you didn’t use
Persuasion on Mrs. Hanks,” I scolded as we sailed through yet
another quiz-free day in Pre-Cal the week before Christmas. “You
know, it might be a little less obvious if you didn’t move your
lips while you were working the spell.”

“Okay, little Miss
I got out of two speeding tickets in the last
week
. Are you really gonna give me a
lecture on improper uses of magic?” He pulled me into a sideways
hug as we walked to our next class. “You could save me the trouble
of using Persuasion by sending me the answers across our link. Or
leave your mind wide open and I’ll pluck the answers from your
brain.” Jace would do anything to get out of doing
schoolwork.

Jace still hadn’t discovered my biggest
secret—I could break into anyone’s mind. The first mind I
deliberately invaded was Alisa’s. I wanted to see if she was really
as okay with me and Jace as she seemed. I regretted breaking into
her mind immediately. Even though she was miserable, she would
never do anything to hurt Jace, even if it cost her a lifetime of
happiness. My feelings of guilt over being the cause of such
torment nearly forced me to break off my relationship with Jace. I
couldn’t bear the thought of being the source of such
anguish.

I vowed not to intrude on someone’s private
thoughts unless it was a matter of life or death, but my lack of
control sometimes gave me glimpses into people’s minds by accident.
At school, flashes of other people’s thoughts sometimes popped into
my mind. Once Jace explained the concept of magical security, I
learned how to block some of my unintentional invasions of
privacy.

The first time I broke through Jerica’s
magical fortress was an experiment gone awry. I was testing my own
magical security and unintentionally picked up on one of her
surface thoughts. And she happened to be thinking about me. Praying
for forgiveness for what I was about to do, I deliberately sent a
delicate fiber of thought into her mind. She didn’t seem to know I
was in her head, so I continued to probe until I found a hair-width
crack in her security.

Apparently, Jerica suspected my
power was stronger than anyone she’d ever trained. She was worried
both for me and for those around me. She’d contacted Central and
they were keeping close tabs on me.
I
didn’t want to push my luck any further, so I quickly pulled back,
dissipating the tendril of connection.

The experience left a bad taste in my mouth,
first because I resorted to such blatant misuse of my power, and
second because I realized the Alexanders went behind my back to
assign Protectors and Watchers to the area without telling me.
Through Jace, I was able to discover Jerica was a high-ranking
member of a hierarchy of Spellbringers. Jace had explained a lot to
me, but not enough.

Maybe he didn’t realize Warriors were lurking
around southwestern Georgia in an attempt to keep the Hunters away.
In a way, I felt reassured and grateful the Alexanders had gone to
such extreme measures to ensure my safety, but a larger part of me
lived in fear my mother would somehow discover one of these
Protectors and find out my secret.

When Jace’s older brother came home for the
holidays, I accidentally picked up on one of his random thoughts.
Jace had told me how Bryce resented Alisa’s inclusion into his
family’s life, so when his thoughts about her inadvertently drifted
into my mind, curiosity got the better of me and I tried take a
quick peek into his brain. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t
penetrate Bryce’s mind beyond a few surface thoughts. A swirling
black fog of anger served as an impenetrable fortress.

Alisa seemed to be possessed of a rage that
matched Bryce’s. Her easy defeat of Jace surprised me not at all.
Her near defeat of Bryce at the beginning of the battle shocked me
to the core. I wanted to learn to fight like her and to have the
confidence she displayed when facing her attacker.

I made up my mind to begin
training at the next available opportunity. I didn’t want to turn
into the pampered princess, the girlfriend who sat on the sidelines
and watched as the boys (and Alisa) kicked butt. If the Alexanders
were willing to hire dozens of people to protect me, the least I
could do was make an effort to learn to protect myself. As my
mother liked to say,
what’s fair is
fair.

***

It was a couple of days after Christmas and my
mother and I were on our way to Atlanta to visit my brother. My
goodbyes to Jace the night before had been painful. It was
disturbing that my life had become so wrapped up in my love for him
that I could hardly breathe from the pain of knowing I wouldn’t see
him for a week.

Even though we suspected our link would work
across the long distance between Oaktree and Atlanta, I still hated
being so far away from him. We agreed to only one or two phone
calls a day regardless of whether or not our link worked. My mother
would kill me if I didn’t give her and Jeffrey undivided attention
during the majority of our trip, and Jace really needed to spend
some quality time with his family and with Alisa. She’d been
feeling left out and insecure, and Jace needed to prioritize their
friendship better than he had been doing.

Jace and I had been up all night long talking
across our link, and it was the early hours of the morning before I
finally fell asleep. I slept through my eight o’clock alarm, and
when Mama woke me up at almost nine, she was disappointed in my
lapse in personal responsibility. I rushed to get ready, desperate
not to make her wait a moment longer than necessary.