Dangerous Magic Read Online Free PDF Page A

when she felt afraid, calling upon the Goddess felt comforting to Lark, a bit like running to a mother for help.
    Now she asked Athena to bless and charge the talisman she held aloft, feeling as she did the energy emanating from the shaft of moonlight down, down, down into her open palms. Somewhere an owl hooted, and Lark smiled. The owl was Athena's sacred bird. She was near.
    Kneeling, Lark placed the talisman gently on the altar, keeping her head bowed in thanks for several moment. She fancied for the briefest moment that she felt the soft pressure of a feminine hand on her head and mouthed the words, "thank you," before finally standing.
    Picking up her ritual knife, she moved then to deconstruct her protective circle, but stopped when she heard a twig snap in the nearby woods. For long moments she stood. Was someone - or something - out there? Magical workings attracted all sorts of beings - not all of them kind. A cold breeze blew through the glade, and for the first time she felt a bit chilled and more than aware that the nipples on her upturned breasts were hardening to almost painful points. But still she stood for a few moments longer, listening, until she satisfied herself that what she'd heard was probably just the footfall of a deer in the nearby thicket. Lark dropped down to ground any remaining energy that had not gone into the talisman. Then, moving around the circle, she dismissed each spirit one by one, blowing out its corresponding candle as she did. Finally, she traced the circle again, this time in the opposite direction, effectively pulling the energy she'd lain down pulled back up into her knife. The circle was now gone. Quickly, she donned the cloak that lay on the ground beside her, draping it over her naked form before gathering up her ritual items and talisman. Her work, for this night, was done.

    * * *

    Colin MacGregor knelt silently in the thicket, barely breathing. He'd not intended to spy; his intentions in coming had been to try again to talk some sense into Lark about his concerns for her safety. When he'd found her cottage empty and her back door standing open, he'd worried that something had happened to her. Then he'd heard the soft chanting and felt pulled, as if by invisible string, to the glen.
    He'd known it was wrong to stay and watch, but he could not look away when he saw Lark's exquisite form bathed in moonlight. So he'd ducked into the thicket and watched her as she performed her ritual. It was, he had to admit, a beautiful as she was. He could still remember his own mother and grandmother dancing naked, or sky-clad as they called it, in the moonlight or around a bonfire set among the standing stone formations that dotted the Scottish coast. They had sung loudly, these witches, without fear of discovery, holding hands as their voices carried over the sounds of waves crashing into the cliffs below. The singing and dancing, his grandmother had told him, helped raise power for their work. Sex did, too, or so his aunt had told him.
    "You're too young to know of such things," she'd said, ruffling his sandy blonde hair. "You'll learn the way when you're older."
    But he had not. A hard winter had seen his family book passage to the Americas, where a new religion had driven out the old. Now, having watched Lark make her magical appeal, he felt his sense of wonder tinged by a sense of loss. His family's conformity to the ways of their new village had robbed him of his religious heritage. In a perfect world, he and Lark would be able to practice any religion they pleased, but the truth was that a growing threat existed that could make Lark's brand of spirituality a matter of mortal peril.
    Colin itched to tell her this, but to go knocking on her door now would be to give himself away. She'd know in an instance he'd been spying on her. He'd seen her looking towards the thicket where he'd been hiding. In his mind, he could still see how he looked, the breath forming a misty cloud from her