Warlock Brothers of Havenbridge 01 - Spell Bound (9 page)

A crane operator was preparing to lift a pallet filled with the new twenty-foot-tall windows the town fathers had insisted be a part of the new building’s look.

While the men fastened the bundle to the crane, I made a beeline for the white gazebo in the middle of the open town square. There, I’d be out of the shade of the tree-lined perimeter, and the sun would have a chance to dry my sopping wet clothes. Once I no longer squished while I walked, I could head back to where my car was parked in front of Starbucks.

By that time, the Proctors would be long gone, and I could get in my car without getting the interior all wet.

I lifted my face to the warmth of the sun’s rays and let its heat sap the anger that still boiled in my blood. If there was one bad thing about being a warlock, it was our tempers.

Wizards were our complete opposite. They were the calmest of all. Their gray magic demanded balance in all things, emotion included. They were the strategists, the thinkers, the ones who could see all sides of a problem and figure out a solution. Witches were superior at defense. Their charms and protection spells were a bitch to bypass because they added an important ingredient to their spells—their hearts.

Warlocks were the muscle. We made up the offense and were ruled by our emotions as well, but they were a different set than the witches used. We incited fear, we used intimidation, and we harnessed and directed our anger like a missile strike to obliterate our enemies.

That was why a protector coven from each order was chosen. Together, we had what it took to keep the Gate safe from those who wished to destroy it.

Well, at least everybody but me did. I couldn’t even work a simple spell on a fucking hose!

That wasn’t Charlotte’s or Adam’s fault. Not even Miranda’s. They didn’t deserve the fit I’d pitched. Well, maybe Miranda did. She deserved to have a house dropped on her head, especially since I’d thought we’d turned a corner. She’d stayed by my side longer than everyone else.

Who was I kidding? She was never going to change, and maybe neither was I.

I might never learn to master spells or tap into my active power. It had happened to others across all three orders. No matter how hard they tried, they never quite got the hang of it. They were what my father called magical lemons, because they were a defect in our species.

And I had the privilege of being the first lemon in the Blackmoor family. How lucky was I?

I blew out all the air in my lungs and sat up. I peeled my T-shirt off and wrung out the water before placing it on the rail inside the gazebo. If I wouldn’t have been accused of being a perv, I’d have done the same thing with my jeans. I sure as hell didn’t have a problem with my body. I wasn’t muscled like Pierce, but I had a decent physique. I doubted the parents who walked around the square with their kids would approve of me in only my briefs, so I sat there with a swampy butt and crotch, wishing I could use my magic to get myself dry instead of what I’d likely do, which would be to set myself on fire.

A blur of motion caught my attention, and I turned to my left.

Who else could it be but Drake?

He leaped over trash cans, swung off lampposts, and bounded off walls, all the while avoiding the people who stood in his path or hurried out of his way. I laughed as one crotchety old man screamed after him when Drake nearly knocked him down.

Drake didn’t let that stop him. He kept moving, staying focused as he always did on that imaginary straight line that no one else but him could see.

But there was one thing he probably wasn’t taking into consideration—the construction going on in front of the courthouse. He’d have to find a clear path through and had completely missed the hundreds of pounds of thick glass that hung suspended from the crane overhead.

I saw something: a figure crouching at the top of the crane. Darkness draped it, as if it had somehow bent the light to keep itself hidden. The form crawled down the cable of the crane.

I got up, and before I knew what was happening, I was dashing through the square on an intercept path. I had to get to Drake fast. The back of my brain itched, and it only did that when something was about to go terribly wrong.

“Stop!” I yelled at Drake, who couldn’t hear me over the noisy construction crew. Other people along the common heard my warning, and so did the hidden figure on the crane. It stopped its progress, and though I couldn’t see its eyes, I felt its gaze on me.

Time was running out. In less than a minute, Drake would be dead.

How the hell did I know that?

I pumped my legs faster and wished for the first time in my life for Miranda. She could warp Drake out of harm’s way, because no matter how fast I was, Drake was faster.

I wasn’t going to make it.

Without thinking, I uttered, “
Ocius
,” and energy I’d never experienced before rushed through my body until it hit my legs. I shot forward as if I’d been fired out of a cannon. Within seconds I appeared in Drake’s path. He yelped at my sudden appearance and tried to stop, but momentum carried him forward.

He slammed into me, and we tumbled, head over feet, at least three times across the pavement. My bare back skidded across the cement, causing searing flames of pain to burn across my skin, and to make matters even worse, Drake’s head slammed into my nose as we slid to a stop.

My eyes watered, and pain exploded across my face. Drake rested on top of me, a groan escaping his lips.

Even his moans had a slight Southern drawl to them. “Jeez, man. What the fuck?” he asked as he raised his head to gaze down at me.

Before I could answer, all hell broke loose.

“Move!” another voice screamed as a loud snap thundered around us.

We both looked up as the line holding the bundle of glass snapped. For a few moments, the package remained suspended in midair before plummeting toward us. I wrapped my arms around Drake and rolled us toward the building. The glass struck the scaffolding, which buckled and splintered before giving way to the weight, and the scaffolding collapsed.

I pressed Drake as tight into the wall as I could, shielding him with my body. I looked up at the debris headed our way. I held out my hand toward what was just seconds away from killing us and muttered, “
Protegat nos
.” While most of the wreckage fell around us, the wood, iron, and glass immediately above us stopped midfall before sliding sideways and missing us completely.

We lay safe underneath the rubble in a small bubble of protection.

“What the fuck?” Drake asked from beneath me.

I couldn’t very well confess to being a warlock, even if Drake happened to be a shifter. Admitting what we really were, especially in a public place with so many humans around, went against the laws the Conclave enforced. “Lucky, I guess,” I said with a shrug.

His lack of response told me he wasn’t buying what I was selling. And why would he? He already knew what I was anyway. I just couldn’t admit it here.

“Are you okay in there?” someone outside the rubble asked.

“We’re fine,” I called back. “Just want to get out of here.”

“Sit tight,” the man yelled back. “We’ll have you out of there as soon as possible.”

I nodded, even though the man couldn’t see me. My thoughts had suddenly become preoccupied. Not by the fact that Drake had acted as if he didn’t have a clue what was going on or the fact that we’d both almost died.

What I couldn’t stop thinking about was that I had just used my magic. Twice. And both times it had worked.

A
FTER
WHAT
seemed like an eternity but was most likely only half an hour, rescue crews managed to clear away enough debris for Drake and me to crawl out. Paramedics rushed at us, checking our vital signs, bandaging our wounds, and asking questions. I didn’t respond. As they led us to the rear of the ambulance, I could only look back at the tangled heap of wood, iron, and glass where we had just been.

No one should have walked away from that alive, but we had. Because of me.

I gazed down at my hands. They didn’t look any different from a few hours before, but with a gesture and two words in Latin, I’d managed to save our necks. How could my hands be exactly the same? Shouldn’t there be some kind of visible sign that would let me know this wasn’t a fluke? That I’d managed to finally get something right with my spells?

But there was nothing different about me. Had it really happened?

All I needed to answer that question was to look at Drake. He hadn’t stopped staring at me since the moment I saved us.

“Besides the bloody nose and scrapes along his back, I don’t see any serious wounds on this one,” the paramedic who tended to me told his dark-skinned partner, who was checking on Drake.

“None on this one either.” The man with the tanned face gazed at us in amazement. “It’s a miracle.”

“Yeah, a miracle,” Drake replied. He swept his gaze up the crane, down to the wreckage, and then back to me.

“We’re still gonna need to take you to County Memorial,” my paramedic said. “Run some tests. Make sure everything is okay.”

“I’m fine,” I said, removing his hand from my forearm. I sure as hell wasn’t going there. That place held nothing but bad memories for me. “I just want to go home.”

“You can’t,” he replied. He looked at his partner before turning back to me. “You need to be checked out. You could have a concussion.”

And if I did, home was the best place to be. Dad could cast any spell he wanted, and Thad could brew up a healing potion that would take care of everything that would hurt like a motherfucking bitch in the morning. “I’m good.” I gave him one strong nod.

The paramedic sighed. “If you get dizzy or start vomiting, you need to come to the ER right away.”

I nodded and waved his concern away. Right now, my focus was somewhere else. What had been on top of the crane and why had it tried to kill Drake? And speaking of Drake, why had he appeared so shocked I’d used magic? If he was a shifter, he should have sensed what I was. Either he wasn’t what I thought he was, or a shifter’s ability to detect us had been overexaggerated.

How was I going to find out which it was?

“Mason!” someone called. “Are you okay?”

Adam was standing outside the yellow tape the police had used to cordon off the area, studying me from head to toe. Next to him, Charlotte gnawed on her thumb. Her gaze shifted from me to Drake and then to her brother while Miranda and her friends stared at the mess and shook their heads. They most likely assumed one of my misfired spells had caused the destruction.

“I’m fine,” I replied, walking past the emergency personnel over to where they stood. I glared right at Miranda. “I managed to save the day.”

She stared blankly at me, clearly not buying a word.

“What happened?” Charlotte asked. “We heard this horrible crashing sound and came running only to see all this.” She shivered as she scanned the mess. “And then when we saw you crawling out, well, I can’t believe you’re okay.”

“Because I fuck up all the time?” There went that infamous warlock temper again. Charlotte was expressing concern, nothing else.

“That’s not what she meant, and you know it,” Adam replied. He was clearly growing tired of my foul mood. And so was I.

“You’re right,” I said, looking at Charlotte. That was as close to an apology as she was getting. She let out a long exhalation before nodding. My apology had been accepted.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. “Because I could—you know.”

I did. Charlotte drew her abilities from the element of water, and she’d mastered some pretty tough healing spells. I touched my nose, which throbbed in pain, but it wasn’t broken, just severely bruised. “I’ll live,” I told her.

“You gonna tell us what happened or not?” Miranda asked. “I’d sure as hell like to know what you were trying to do when you”—she gestured to the scene behind me—“did this.”

Maybe I should tell them what I’d seen; they might have some insight. But as I was about to start talking, Drake suddenly said, “Mason, can you and I have a word?”

I nodded. “I’ll be right there.”

Adam glared at Drake as if Drake were getting ready to steal candy from a baby. Miranda’s friends had stolen her attention, so she had returned to her little witchy world, but Charlotte was another story. She studied him intently. Why was she looking at him that way?

“That’s Drake. He’s new to Havenbridge,” I replied. Charlotte remained fixed on Drake. “What’s wrong?”

Her attention lingered on him for a few moments longer before she focused on me. “Nothing.” She was lying. I could tell by the thinly forced smile. It was the same one she gave Miranda whenever her sister either confused or worried her. She was battling the mother-hen role she assumed so often.

“Why don’t I believe you?”

She shrugged and said no more.

“Mason,” Drake called.

“I’m coming.” To Adam and Charlotte, I said, “I’ll see you two around.”

Adam forced a smile. “Sure.”

As I joined Drake, one of the construction workers who’d been surveying the damage cried out, “Holy shit! We’ve got a dead body here.”

When they uncovered the mangled corpse of one of the construction crew guys, I gasped. The side of his neck had been torn open.

D
RAKE
AND
I walked back through the town square. He’d called me away from Adam and Charlotte as if he were dying to talk, but since the discovery of the dead body, neither of us had said a word.

When the police arrived, we couldn’t answer any of their questions. We had no clue how he’d wound up in the rubble or who he was. No one else had any answers either.

What I did know, I couldn’t share, and if I had, they wouldn’t have believed me anyway. Saying I’d seen a shadowy figure climbing the crane cable would have earned me a one-way trip to the psych ward.

Miranda suspected I knew more than I was letting on. Her twisted lips told me that much, but the witches didn’t ask me any questions. They must have figured I wasn’t going to share anyway.