Shadows & Spells Book 2

KELLY

The older Italian woman set the tray down in front of me, and I gave it a skeptical look.

I mean, sure, an espresso sounded good in theory, but I was a Seattle girl. I liked my coffee strong and plentiful, enough to fill a carafe.

Espresso was a quick pick-me-up, but it wasn’t something you could cradle in your hands and whisper sweet nothings to. It was gone too fast for that.

But here she was, presenting me with a tray loaded with pastries, granita, and even a tiny vase of roses. It was the most Mediterranean thing I’d ever seen.

“Thanks, Mari.”

The older housekeeper smiled back at me before patting my head. “You’re welcome, beautiful.”

She turned and started to head back to the old stone house across the courtyard.

The rhythmic sound of an axe chopping wood echoed in the distance, and in response, baby Deedee started to cry from inside the house.

Mari looked across the yard, yelled something towards the olive grove that stretched down the hill, and then hurried back to the house.

A male voice answered, and out of the grove emerged Arawn and a shirtless young man, saw in hand.

The young man caught my attention with his sweat-slicked skin and long, dark, curly hair. He reminded me of Will and the sex dream I’d had about him last night.

Keeping my eyes on the attractive Italian, I turned to my mother, who was sitting across the table, still nursing her coffee. “So, Iona? Did you ever meet her?”

Jolene followed my gaze to the men and smiled.

“No, I only knew of her because your father once asked me to send her a letter through the spell Door to Door, since her mail was being monitored in town.

“He never showed me what was in the letter, but he said it was something about wanting to see her again.”

I turned my attention back to her. She was still watching her husband in the olive grove.

He and the other man were pruning trees and gathering firewood, stacking it in a large pile ready to be taken into the house.

Arawn, or “David,” was wearing a tank top in the Italian springtime heat, but he might as well have been shirtless for all the sweat-soaked fabric revealed.

She was watching him with a look of amusement, maybe even affection. It was the oddest pairing I could think of, and I had to know.

“So, what’s his deal?”

She didn’t need to ask who I was talking about. I’d been cautious around the man, even though he’d been nothing but kind and maybe even affectionate towards me in the few days we’d been here.

He lifted the axe and brought it down swiftly on the log.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re a witch from a long line of witches, and he’s a…”

“Witch Hunter?” she finished.

I blinked. “Well, I assume he would kill anything ‘unnatural.’ How did you guys even meet?”

Jolene turned back to the table and picked up her juice. Her eyes took on a distant look as she remembered.

“Not long after your father was murdered, and I was…recovered, I needed to do something with all the anger and hurt, but I also needed to be away from the commune.

“So, I decided to go and find the people that started him on the road to his death.

“David was on the same path with his own family, and we met under the cover of darkness one night.”

She paused and laughed suddenly. “He thought I was a Hunter too, looking for an ‘in’ with the same pack of weres.

“It took him a few days to realize what I was, and by that time…I’d found him attractive enough to spend my time with, and he was certainly resourceful enough to help with the big picture.”

She paused again and started to eat her fruit salad.

I waited, thinking she would continue. “But Mom”—I gestured between the grove, where David was, and her—“you’re a witch.”

She smiled into her glass of juice as if I’d missed something completely obvious.

“Yes, and I handled him like a witch.”

I leaned back in my chair, stumped. I looked between the two again. Arawn noticed me from across the courtyard and gave me a big smile. He pointed at me and said something to the young man.

He was so in love with Jolene he even loved me, her daughter, by association. Holy shit. I shook my head in disbelief.

“You put him under a compulsion spell.”

She nodded, and I continued, “For ten years. He’s been under a love spell for ten years?”

She gave me a mischievous smile, like she was so clever for thinking of it. I looked over to the man, now happily chopping wood again.

The irony of it all and what I’d thought of my father and mother. Arawn looked so content, but who knew what was happening underneath the facade?

“Are you ever going to let him go?”

From the end of the table, Jolene picked up an open bottle of Champagne and added it to her juice. She took a sip and confidently met my gaze.

“No, I don’t think so.” She turned and waved at the two men, gesturing to the mimosa, signaling that they should come to get one.

“He would probably try to kill me if he ever woke up and could remember.”

I stared at her in awe. On paper, she’d stopped a witch Hunter from killing her by imprisoning him for ten years in his own mind. She’d stopped someone from killing her. That sounded reasonable.

But the reality seemed too cruel to be justified.

We’d been on her little farm in southern Italy for nearly a week, and I had only scratched the surface of Jolene’s answers.

Why she’d left the commune instead of confronting Gran, why she’d never come back for me, why she’d never even sent word.

All her reasons had seemed fair enough. She was scared, I was safer with Franny, and the difficulty of starting such a conversation. But now we were delving into more serious matters. Recent events that had resulted in the death of many witches, including her own sister.

As I saw the men approaching, I held back the question that was on the tip of my tongue. Instead, I tried to focus on the one thing that connected my mother and me, Ewan Jones.

But she beat me to it. “You know, he’s single.”

I frowned, confused. “What?”

She nodded towards the two men walking over. “Giuseppe—he’s single.”

I shook my head, annoyed at her. “Mom, no. Stop.”

I sighed, exasperated, trying to recall my question. “You said Dad was in an accident, and that’s why he left Wales and his home?”

She moved over to make room for David and the Italian, who was now pulling on a shirt. He sat down next to me and flashed a quick smile.

Jolene nodded, acknowledging our earlier conversation, and put her drink down.

“He never talked about it, but our company did its own investigation after the accident. He was responsible for a big accident; some weres died.

“He did the right thing and compensated the family. But after he did, the family wanted more. More than he was willing to give.”

I leaned back in my chair, already knowing the answer. “Me.”

Jolene nodded as Arawn reached over her for the Champagne.

“Well, what did he give before they asked for…more?”

“Everything. The pack, his land, the fishing business, the fleet of trawlers. Everything except the Jones ancestral home.”

I whistled into my mimosa. “Must have been a terrible accident…”

“And your father was a very honorable man. He felt a lot of guilt over it.”

I rested my head in my hands on the table, trying to stave off the impending headache. “That’s…a lot. It doesn’t make sense. Why would they want a daughter that might never be born?”

Jolene glanced at Arawn, who in turn, put his drink down as if he’d been asked a question.

“Oh, we have no idea. Your father didn’t transform after he left Wales, and there’s only ever been one son in the family for a few generations.

“I don’t think it’s a secret; just the Wales Joneses are rare. It’s hard to get that information if you’re not ‘in the club.’”

I frowned. What was different about the Welsh Joneses? I picked up one of the miniature roses from the vase and twirled it between my fingers, my mind spinning.

My mother had been absent for the last thirteen years, had never sent word, had never tried to see me. Not until I’d had a quarter-life crisis and had triggered the sleeping wolf in my DNA to wake up.

The wolf. That’s all she wanted. A bargaining chip to bring to the table. I was angry at the realization that my mother might not actually want me, her daughter, but rather the animal inside.

“So, that’s why I’m here? Is that why you took Deedee, to get me to follow you? Just because I am half a were now?”

From across the table, my mother gave me a stern look and put her fork down on her plate, the men at the table holding their breath at my harsh tone.

Jolene leaned across the table to me and silently plucked the rose from my hand, matching my glare.

As she held it between us at eye level, the pink rose started to wither, turning brown to black, and then it burst into flames.

She let it drop to the table, then she snapped her fingers, and the flame was extinguished. Our eyes never dropped.

“I took the baby because she is my family, and I think I can give her a better life.” Her eyes welled up with tears, and I forced myself to watch as the emotion poured out of them, and my own welled.

“And…yes. I didn’t think you would choose me over that wolf if you didn’t have some incentive to come.” She wiped her eyes, and the feelings left her face.

“But you’re here because you weren’t ready to learn before. Are you now?”

I stared down at the burned and shriveled rose.

That was serious magic. She diverted the energy out of that rose. Where did it go? She just…absorbed it?

God, I wanted in on that. Just the idea that anything was available for use seemed so…infinite.

I slowly nodded and leaned back in my chair, motioning to Giuseppe, asking if he could pour me a glass of Champagne.

I thought about what we’d been previously speaking of, my paternal grandmother.

“So, I-o-na, huh?” I glanced suspiciously at my mother. “Is she anything like Gran?”

Halfway through a sip of her drink, her eyebrows raised, and she ended up downing the whole glass.

“Oh fuck, I hope not.”