Mystic Willow Bay, Witches Series: The Secret Life of a Witch Read online

  Remorse fills Hunter’s eyes, but all he says is, “Quit being overdramatic.”

  I wrench my arm free from his hold and run backward away from him. “You know what? I’m out of here.”

  When he stands there, watching me run away from him instead of chasing me, I know something’s wrong. Then, when he whips out his wand and points it at me, I instantly know why.

  I increase my speed and move to zigzag around, searching for a place to hide. “Don’t you dare—”

  Undiluted heat slams against my back, and my legs lock up as I tip over like a falling tree. Right before I greet the pavement with a kiss, my body rises and levitates in the air with my arms and legs immobilized, facing downward.

  “Seriously?” I grunt. “You hit me with a freezing spell? After I just came out of a petrifying curse?”

  Hunter’s boots appear in my line of vision, and then he trails his fingers up and down my spine. Normally, the touch would send me into giddy girl, lovey, dovey land. Now, I simply shiver. Or, well, I think about shivering, but my body remains frozen due to the spell.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s for the best.” I feel him press the tip of his wand against the back of my neck. “And so is this.”

  “Hunter …” I plead, unsure of what he’s going to do to me, yet knowing it can’t be good. “Please don’t. I’m sorry for trying to run away, okay? I won’t do it again.”

  Disregarding my whining, he mumbles the incantation to the sleep spell, causing sparkling heat to glisten across my skin, kissing my fingertips, my toes, my lips …

  I let out a soft, exhausted purr before my eyelids lower as the spell overtakes me and whisks me away to dreamland.

  Chapter 7

  Please don’t let this be happening. Please. I don’t want to wake up and see the crazy Hunter. I want this to all be a dream. I want to go back to when Ryleigh was alive. Back to when my life was boring and normal. Back to when I was boring and normal.

  “Eva,” a lovely voice graces my ears. “Can you hear me?”

  I blink my eyes open to see wispy clouds lazily floating across a glittering purple sky. It is so breathtaking that it instantly makes me feel calm and at peace. But then wariness sweeps through my body as the clouds shift and begin to trickle downward, like a dripping watercolor painting.

  I cover my head with my arms as the drops of clouds splatter across my skin like paint.

  “What the hell?”

  I turn in a circle, trying to figure out where the bleep I am.

  A grass field surrounds me, and in the distance, trees rise to the smeared sky. The area carries a vague amount of familiarity, but I can’t place why.

  “Why am I here?” I turn in a circle, searching for any sign of life.

  “Eva …” A shadow of a woman materializes in front of me. “Eva, can you hear me?” Her voice is distorted, but is clear enough that I recognize it.

  I race through the grass toward her. “Ryleigh, can you hear me?”

  The shadow grows vibrant until I can see her clearly. She looks like she did when she was dead: long, blonde hair lily white; her big, blue eyes bloodshot; and her golden tan pale. But she looks lovely, nonetheless.

  “Eva, I need you,” she whispers, extending her hand toward me. Drops of blood drip from her hand and splatter across the grass. “Eva, please help me … Save me … I can’t survive here …”

  I stop in front of her and reach out to touch her. But my fingers slip right through her.

  I frown. “What’s going on …?” I peer around. “Why are we here, in this strange place …?” I look back at her. “Why can’t I touch you?”

  She shakes her head, her hair blowing in the wind as the ground ripples. “I can’t tell you … I don’t even know how I got here … Please… This place … where I am …” She shudders as her eyes glide across the grass and trees enclosing us. “It’s so cold and dark, and …” She swallows hard as she looks back at me. “The demons … They’re going to make me do awful things.” She stares down at the blood on her hands.

  Tears burn at the corners of my eyes as I reach out to touch her again. Like the first time, my fingers again move right through her.

  “There was a demon—I didn’t catch his name—but he was supposed to get you and bring you to me,” I tell her. “We have a deal.”

  “You made a deal with a demon?” She shakes her head, causing strands of hair to move around her face like snakes. “How could you do that, Eva?”

  “I did it for you!” I panic as she begins to fade in and out. “It was the only way I could think to save you without going into the underground tunnels myself?” I step toward her, the dry grass hissing against my legs. “But maybe I should just go by myself? I mean, I know the entrance is at The Illuminating Horror House of Truth. I could just go there and sneak in. It might be better than trusting a demon, right?”

  “No!” Her sharp voice echoes across the land, causing birds to scatter from the trees. “You can’t go to that place, no matter what happens.” She gives me a pressingly urgent look. “Promise me, Eva. Promise me that, no matter what, you’ll never step foot in that place. That you’ll find another way to save me.”

  I open my mouth to promise her, but the words get stuck on my tongue. “I can’t do that, not when you’re trapped there.” I shift my weight as guilt bears down on me. But the guilt is mild in comparison to the thought of letting my sister remain with demons. “If the demon I made the deal with doesn’t come through”—a shaky exhale slips from my lips—“then I need to save you myself.”

  “No!” She reaches out as she’s hauled backward.

  I scream, running after her, but the sky chooses that moment to explode and rain down on me.

  Instead of splattering like paint this time, the drops tear into my skin like sharp fragments of glass. Blood oozes from the wounds on my arms, shoulders, and face, while drenching my shirt. The branding hot pain has my legs giving out on me, and I buckle to the dirt.

  “Ryleigh!” I cry out as I squint through the pieces of glass-like drops raining from the quivering sky.

  I can’t see through the blood seeping from my head and dripping down into my eyes.

  Chapter 8

  The pain in my skin calms as the ground below me softens. Suddenly, I feel so at peace, blissfully content. Why? Aren’t I bleeding from the strange raining glass?

  What the hell …?

  My eyelids shoot open, and I bolt upright. Then blood rushes from my head, and I promptly fall back onto a mattress. On edge, I look around at the purple walls that make up my bedroom, the window where moonlight streams in, and then my gaze drops to my arms.

  My jaw drops.

  After what happened, I thought I’d look like I’d been tangoing with a paper shredder, but my skin is smooth and free of cuts and blood.

  “It was just a dream.” I sigh. “Great, now I’m even talking to dead bodies in my dreams.” I wonder what that means?

  I gaze up at the magical glow of the bright stars on my ceiling, pondering what happened. One star shoots across my room, and I smile, remembering when Hunter cast the illusion spell for me when we had moved in. He had done it in my old bedroom, too, for my birthday.

  “So that you’ll always be able to fall asleep under the night sky,” he said as he stood on my bed and painted the ceiling with constellations and shooting stars.

  “It’s so pretty.” I lied down on the bed and tucked my hands behind my head, gazing up at the twinkling stars. “I could seriously stare at this all day.”

  He lowered his wand and grinned as he laid down beside me. “Am I the bestest friend ever, or what?”

  “Definitely,” I agreed with a nod. Then paused. “No, you’re way better than that.” I turned and looked at him. When our eyes locked, a gooey, glowy warmth filled my chest. And that’s when I knew I was falling in love with my best friend. “Way, way more.”

  I try not to choke on the memory. I had felt so terrified, yet excited by the new emotions
. And while I understood Hunter was way out of my league, I knew that feeling love for him was okay. Because he was Hunter. My smart, caring, sarcastic, but sweet Hunter.

  It was all a lie. Every memory. Every smile. Every emotion.

  All lies.

  I open and flex my hands as tears burn my eyes. I breathe in and out, refusing to cry. Then I gradually sit up, clutching my throbbing head.

  “How the hell did I even get here, anyway?”

  “I brought you here,” Hunter says, startling the shit out of me.

  I squint through the darkness, my muscles becoming as stiff as a petrifying spell when I spot him looming in the shadows near my dresser.

  “Okay, first of all, it’s super creepy that you’ve been standing there the entire time.” I scoot toward the edge of my bed with my gaze trained on him. “Second, get the hell away from me.”

  When he makes no move to budge, my fingers creep down to draw out my wand, but then I painfully remember that the demon snapped the thing like a twig.

  Dammit! I really need to get a new one ASAP!

  I nearly laugh at my urgent thought. Yeah, I’ll get right on that, after I escape my psychopath—and very powerful—friend and save my sister.

  Chuckling, Hunter ambles out of the corner of the room, taking casual steps toward my bed.

  Hatred mixed with freaking love nearly gives me whiplash. How I can still feel the latter is beyond me. I really need to find a way to get rid of it.

  He stops at the foot of the bed and rests his hands on the footboard before lowering his head and taking a deep inhale. “Are you okay?” he then asks without looking at me.

  Keeping my lips zipped, I eye him over with suspicion. He’s changed his clothes since the last time I saw him, now sporting a black T-shirt and a pair of loose-fitting black jeans, along with studded leather bracelets. The look is way too goth for the Hunter I know. Besides, why would he change at all? It makes no sense.

  Unless he killed someone or something and got blood all over his clothes.

  I shake the thought from my head. Hunter, a killer? Seriously, Eva?

  Then I recall how he was going to hand me over to that demon, and the ache in my chest amplifies.

  “Am I okay?” I retort, my eyes narrow into slits. “After everything that just happened, that’s all you have to say to me?”

  He lifts his head to look at me, his expression annoyingly neutral. “I think it’s what’s the most important right now.”

  “No. What’s most important is you explaining to me how you knew I could be a hybrid, and why the hell you were going to hand me over to a demon.” My fingers shake as I throw the blanket off me and swing my legs over the side of the bed. “No, better yet, no explaining. I just want you to leave and to never have to see you again.” I shift forward to stand up, but then sink back down as the room twirls around me like an overly zealous ballerina. “Whoa.” I press my hand to my head, blinking. “Biggest head rush ever.”

  “Take it easy. You’ve been under a sleep spell for almost twenty-four hours,” Hunter says as he winds around the bed. “You’re going to be a little dopey for the next hour or so.”

  I lift my free hand up in front of me. “Don’t you dare come any closer.”

  He slows down, but doesn’t come to a complete stop. “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  My sharp laugh causes him to flinch. “Not going to hurt me?” I shake my head. “Newsflash, dude, you already did.”

  He fights back a smile as he halts a few steps away from me. “Since when did I become dude? I thought you only called people whose names you can’t remember dude?”

  “I wish I could forget your name,” I grumble, and his grin breaks through.

  Curse him and his stupid smile. His stupid, sexy smile. Grr …

  “Look, dude, this isn’t funny. You’re evil, and I want you out of my room. Now.”

  He busts up laughing, the noise so abrupt and unexpected that I nearly jolt out of my skin.

  “I’m being serious.” Frustrated, I lean forward to test my equilibrium, but get no reward as my room’s four walls blur into one.

  My ass plants back down on the mattress, and I curse under my breath. My reaction only seems to encourage Hunter’s laughter, which only adds more fuel to the fire wanting to burn inside of me.

  Sucking in a determined breath, I push to my feet and finally stand up. “Okay, I’m out of here, since you can’t take a hint and leave.” I step toward the door. At least, I think I do. It’s really hard to tell while my bedroom is acting like a Tilt-a-Whirl.

  His laughter simmers down a notch as he sidesteps in front of me. “I’m sorry for laughing. Just please sit down before you fall down.”

  Raising my chin in defiance, I take another step forward. When he doesn’t move out of my way, my chest whacks into his.

  “I’m not going to fall, so please move.” As I teeter to the side, I hurry and span my arms out.

  A condescending look appears in Hunter’s eyes as I struggle to keep my balance. “You’re not going to fall, huh?”

  “Yep.” As soon as I say it, I stumble backward into the wall. “Dammit, why do I have to be so clumsy? All I need to do is get to the door, and I can’t even do that right.”

  He strides toward me, instantly reducing the space between us. “You’re not clumsy. You’re just doped up a little bit.”

  “Because you put a sleep spell on me.” Saying the words aloud hurts so badly I can hardly breathe. My voice softens with the ache of it. “Why would you do that? I thought we were friends?”

  “We are. Things are just … complicated.” He reaches out to cup my cheek, but I turn my head away. He sighs. “Look, I know you don’t trust me, but I promise I can explain everything.”

  I put my hands on my hips and give him a firm look. “Then start explaining.”

  With a remorseful look, he reaches for his wand in his back pocket.

  “Oh, no, you don’t. I’m not going to be put to sleep again.” I skitter around him and for the door, but my legs give out, and I crumble to the floor. “Crap.” I hurry to stand up when his arms loop around my waist.

  He picks me up, slips his arms under my knees, and carries me over to the bed like a freaking groom carrying his bride over the threshold. Which would be a dream come true if I didn’t just find out he was a big, old liar, liar, magic wand on fire.

  “Put me down,” I gripe, pushing against his chest.

  He obeys, dropping me onto the bed.

  I bounce as I hit the mattress and quickly start to sit up. But he climbs over me, straddles my waist, and places a hand on either side of my head.

  “You know, this whole straddling thing is starting to get old,” I quip, bucking my body upward to try to fling him off while pushing on his chest.

  Grinding his teeth, he captures my hands and traps my wrists together. “And I thought I told you that writhing your hips to get a guy off you is never going to work.” He pins my arms above my head then lowers his face toward mine, his eyes darkening. “In fact, it’s going to make them want to stay on you for a very long time.”

  I slowly catch on to his underlying meaning and snort a laugh. “Dude, no guy is going to get turned on by me grinding up on them.”

  A tired exhale puffs from his lips. “You really are clueless sometimes when it comes to guys.”

  “Perhaps,” I agree. “At least I’m not clueless enough to let you shoot me twice in twenty-four hours’ time with a sleep spell.”

  “I wasn’t going to shoot you with a sleep spell,” he insists. “I was going to put a trust charm on you.”

  “Why?” I bite out. “I’m not the liar.”

  “I know that.” He looks me dead in the eyes. “I was going to have you put the spell on me so you’d know you can trust me.”

  I shake my head. “If you want me to trust you, then stop reaching for your wand.”

  “Fine,” he answers without missing a beat. “But we still need to find a w
ay to get you to trust me so I can get through this without you freaking out.”

  “Through what?”

  His relentless gaze never wavers from mine. “Telling you what’s going on.”

  I want to tell him I’ll believe him—I really do—but after everything that happened …

  “You could always get me a new wand? Or let me go get one?”

  He shakes his head. “You can’t leave this room yet.”

  My brows pull together. “What? Why?”

  “Because,” is all he says.

  Annoyance pulsates through me. So now I’m a prisoner?

  “Then how about you go get me one,” I grit out.

  “There’s no way in hell I’m leaving you here alone. Not only is that way too dangerous right now, but you’ll try to run.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says the person who’s known you for almost half of your life.”

  The reminder of our past drowns me in a mixture of anger, pain, and hurt. He must sense how I’m feeling, because his expression softens.

  “I …” He wets his lips with his tongue, a habit he only does when he has a troubling thought. “I need to find a way for you to trust me,” he mutters more to himself. Then his concern vanishes as a smile rises on his face. “You know what? I think I have the perfect idea. And one that doesn’t require magic.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I question with doubt. “And what’s that?”

  His grin intensifies before his lips come down on mine.

  Chapter Nine

  Holy bleeping mother of all dancing rainbow unicorns, Hunter is kissing me.

  Hunter’s lips are on mine.

  Hunter, the guy I’ve been in love with forever.

  Hunter. Hunter. Hunter.

  Desire pulsates through me, potent and intoxicating, and the sensation only strengthens when he parts my lips with his tongue.

  “Oh, my God,” I groan, my hips rising toward his.

  A moan escapes Hunter’s lips, too, as he tangles his fingers through my hair and draws me closer, deepening the kiss.