Cursed In Love (The Adams' Witch Book 2) (18 page)

Mother Shipton tapped her finger on her lips. “I’d consider it.”

The sound of another car traveling up the dirt road reached us. Doors slammed. I prayed that it was Travis’s family. He moved me around him so I couldn’t see for a bit but then Courtney’s mom moved into view.

Travis tensed. “I need you to run, Sarah.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“She wants you. She doesn’t want me.”

“That’s what she says now, but—”

“I said, run!”

I took two steps backward and then turned and sprinted. Andrew called to his family to stop me and an enormous pressure fell over my body. It was as if I was running through quicksand, but still, I kept going. My arms were heavy. My feet weighed a ton, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I ran and ran and was almost to the tree line when a body barreled into me and pinned me to the grass.

I kicked and punched, raking out with my hands, but the weight didn’t budge. I looked up to find Courtney’s father on top of me. His eyes were outlined in red.

He never spoke a word when he hauled me to my feet, but he went easy on me. He held my arms behind my back and pushed me forward. Three of Courtney’s family members surrounded Travis. His face was strained, but he didn’t move. It would’ve been easier if they’d just done that to me, but whatever Travis had done to the necklace I wore really worked.

He forced me in front of Mother Shipton and Jennie’s hand reached out, her fist closed around my necklace and tugged. As soon as the last link of the necklace left my skin, my body buckled, and I fell to my knees. It felt as if my body was being squeezed through a meat grinder in four-hundred different ways.

Jennie knelt beside me. Her eyes were the same, but they were laced in evil when I looked into them this time. They searched mine.

“Why?” I asked.

“You’re not going to let any of this go, are you? You couldn’t let Drake go off and be happy with his chosen one. I need him to be happy with his chosen one.”

My teeth clenched together as another rack of pain arched my back. “It wasn’t his chosen one.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

“
I
know that.”

“If you would’ve just left it alone, I wasn’t going to do anything to you. Sure, I may have let you suffer for a little while since you burned a completely good body, but I wasn’t even all that upset because then I jumped into this one. I like this body. She’s young. She’s pretty. I damn near even kissed a boy yesterday at that party. I haven’t kissed a boy in…” She shrugged. “…a century? Somewhere around there.”

“Then why didn’t you just let it go if you like the body so much?”

“Your friend is surprisingly strong. I’m not used to being in other Natural’s bodies. Her brother may have stripped her powers, but she’s still got some in there. She’s good. I needed to kidnap the others to draw powers from them just to keep control of her. When I was at the house party, Jennie was fighting me bad. She dropped that jar of pickles in the kitchen on purpose. I needed to get the hell out of there and get back to my friends.”

She opened her arms wide and gestured toward the other Naturals.

“Did you strip them of everything?”

She shrugged. “Not all the way. Jennie helped me lure them and then I’ve just been hooking into them, kind of like an electrical plug, and pulling out some magic to keep Jennie quiet. Courtney was the one who told me she was powerful, and she wasn’t lying. This girl can play.”

I sucked in a breath. I wanted so desperately to help Jennie. “Get out of her body. Find an easier one.”

“Not happening. Not after I’ve put so much work into this one. By the way, Jennie really doesn’t like the fact that you and her brother are together. That was me who said it was fine. I was hoping he would distract you away from Drake, but you seem to have a sense of justice that just annoys the shit out of me. All I want to do is curse one pesky family tree and you just can’t let me be.”

“Can’t you just find someone else to bother? Leave this one alone.”

Her eyes lit up. “That’s not going to happen. They deserve it all.” She looked at me from head-to-toe. “So, enough with all this talking, how would you like to die?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Travis shouted a painful cry. I searched for him. He gestured toward the tree line and one-by-one, his family members emerged from the woods. They chanted a melody in unison that transfixed Mother Shipton. Travis pulled away from the group surrounding him and yelled for their help. “If we all band together, she’ll be nothing. Focus on her. We can finally stop her if we all work together. Don’t kill her though. Please. Don’t kill her. Trap her. Trap her and then we can get rid of her for good.”

The James family fell in line with Travis’s and they all started chanting. The hairs on my arms rose. Mother Shipton was motionless. Her eyes were glazed over. For someone who was two seconds away from killing me, she wasn’t moving. I rolled out of the way and ran toward Travis who joined his family and Courtney’s.

Other bodies leaked from the dirt road. The other Naturals who’d been kidnapped got up one-by-one and ran toward the different groups. All kept chanting the rhythmic melody.

Jennie’s body was transfixed. Her eyes were two black holes in her face where life should have been. Mrs. Shaw was crying, tears dripped from her lips as they formed the words of the spell.

“Just hold her,” Travis said. “We need to make a magickal prison. If we let her go now, she’ll just jump bodies again.”

My heart leapt in my throat. Travis touched my arm, and I jumped. He motioned toward the tree line as four guys stepped out, all wearing black and grim faces. I grabbed Travis’s sleeve, and he squeezed my arm. “It’s okay. It’s my coven. They’re here to help.” They held their arms out and Travis joined them. They surrounded Jennie and chanted a completely different spell.

Sparks flew from their hands, forming blue electrical barbed wire. The light twisted like vines until they formed a three-dimensional box around Jennie. Bars of thorns grew from the crossbeams down and surrounded Jennie into a magical cell.

Then, the chanting stopped. Jennie fell to the ground. Travis walked toward the cage and stopped only inches away. “I’ll save you this time, Jennie. I promise.”

His hand reached out toward the bar and one of his coven buddies stopped it. “Don’t want to touch that, mate.”

One of the others crossed his arms over his chest and nodded toward the magickal cell. “That’s what the SOS was for? You made it sound important.”

Travis blinked, his face as hard as stone. “That’s my sister.”

The guy shrugged. And Travis let him live. I didn’t know what was more out of this world, the fact that Jennie was apparently trapped in some sort of magickal cage or that Travis hadn’t killed that guy. Or at least put the fun frozen spell on him.

A hand touched my shoulder. I whirled, and stared into the tear-streaked face of Courtney, High Priestess of the local coven. “Thank you,” she said.

I blinked and nodded. “I think you have a lot of explaining to do.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Travis’s coven moved Jennie into the actual Adams Police Department in one of the holding cells in the basement. They spelled the entire police force into forgetting there were any cells down there and then magickally fortified the prison so only certain magical people could get in or out. Travis’s coven and his family were the only ones.

Outside the station, Travis took my hand and placed something cold inside. I opened my fist and peered at the necklace he’d made me. A smile turned my lips up. “You got my necklace.”

“Of course I did. You didn’t think I’d let you walk around without it, did you? You’re a walking menace.”

He took it back again and clasped it around my neck. It felt good there against the base of my throat. Like it was where it belonged.

“So, your coven is kind of scary.”

“That’s what we do.” He held the door open to his Jeep for me. “They’re actually good guys, though. Once you get to know them.”

He shut my door and then went around to the other side. I grabbed his hand on the gear shift. “I’m sorry about Jennie.”

His jaw ticked.

“Is there a way to get her back?”

“If there is, I’m sure as hell going to find it.”

He pulled away from the curb and we drove in silence as he wound the Jeep on the back roads toward my house. “I have faith in you.” A faint red clouded his cheeks. “Do you think Jennie will tell us everything?”

“Let’s just say that my coven and I have techniques to make sure she talks.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Whatever it was probably wouldn’t be pretty. He must have seen the look on my face because he turned serious. “We won’t use them if she cooperates.”

I tried to smile for him. Within minutes, we were pulling into my driveway. He shut the car off and turned toward me in his seat. He grabbed my hand. “Sarah?”

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Yeah?”

“You need to promise me you won’t do something stupid like that again.”

“Stupid?”

“Going off on your own to try and help.”

“Well, I was. I was trying to help.”

“I need you to promise me you won’t.” I started to shake my head, but he squeezed my hands. “Not because I think you can’t do anything or because you wouldn’t be helpful, but dammit, Sarah. I thought I was going to lose you. I told you I’d try to protect you from now on and I meant it. I can’t do that if you’re making stupid choices. Tell me you’re going to go, and at least if you’re going to run into a battle, run into it with me. Which reminds me, I still need to beat that fucker who was going to give you up for Courtney.”

“You would’ve done the same thing.”

“Doesn’t mean I still can’t kick his ass for it.”

I smiled. “You’ll really let me go into battle with you?”

His eyes turned a dark green, and he nodded. “Yes.”

I pulled him to me and kissed him. “I want to help fix Jennie. I want in on everything.”

He looked down at our hands clenched together. “I wouldn’t want you anywhere else.”

He kissed me on the cheek and told me he’d pick me up tomorrow morning. I jumped out of the Jeep and braced myself for a round of anti-questions from Mom. The house was dark, but voices drifted out of the library. I clutched the necklace at my throat and repeated the protection spell Travis had taught me. I hoped I was strong enough to carry it over to Mom, too.

I tiptoed toward the library and pushed the door open with the palm of my hand. Two heads swiveled toward mine. Mom’s. And Drake’s.

He pushed himself off the couch and barreled toward me. “Oh my God, Sarah. I’m so glad you’re okay.” He tucked my head under his chin and wrapped me in a warm embrace. “I’ve had the weirdest couple of weeks…I can’t even explain them to you.”

He pulled me away and stared deep into my eyes. I just knew that you weren’t there, and I didn’t like it.”

I swallowed. “What?”

He tucked me into his side again. “I’ll explain it all later, well, as much as I can, but just know I missed you.”

My heart thumped in my ears, drowning out any rational thought. Mother Shipton was trapped in a magical box. Drake was in my house. It all had to add up somehow, but my brain couldn’t process it.

“I love you, Sarah.”

THE END

Loved this book? Can’t wait to find out who Sarah will choose and if they’ll finally kill Mother Shipton?

Look for the third book in The Adams’ Witch Series!

Subscribe to my author
Newsletter
for updates on my upcoming books and special giveaways--you’ll never be out of the loop!