The Calling Read Online Free PDF Page A

and in each of the villages they hunted for information, staying a few weeks, a month, until they would hear another rumor and move on.
    Then a year ago, the moon mark had appeared on Shayla’s cheek, and it had become almost impossible to hide, and each day the magic grew stronger. She would dream and the sky would fill with crimson lightning.
    Freya lived in fear then. Her daughter wasn’t evil—wherever Shayla traveled the dying land blossomed—but the ordinary people of Arroway had been indoctrinated too well. They needed someone to blame for the declining harvests, the fading land, and the Order had handed them the witches.
    Finally, a man had come to them. He’d told them little, only that his family had been helping witches since the Laws of Segregation, and he knew of a place, a clearing within the forest where they could find help. They had been on their way there when the Enforcer had caught up with them.
    Freya had sent her daughter onward and told her they would meet up at the clearing and then deliberately allowed herself to be captured to give Shayla more time.
    If the warlock got them out of here, then that was where she would head. It wasn’t far from the Keep. Maybe she could reach Shayla before the Enforcer...
    The sound of footfalls jolted her from her thoughts. She leapt to her feet and peered through the grill in the door. It was Jarrod, and a moment later, the door swung open. She stepped back to allow him to enter. He was dressed for traveling in boots and a cloak; a sword hung down his back, his staff in one hand, a bundle in the other. He stood just inside the cell, his hot gaze running over her nearly naked body, a dull flush staining his cheekbones. She waited for him to break the silence; instead, he tossed her the bundle he carried. She snatched it up and found a dark cloak and a pair of knee-high boots. She pulled them on and shook out the cloak.
    The sight of her body in the diaphanous dress was enough to send the blood rushing to Jarrod’s groin. His cock hardened, and he shifted, forcing his gaze upward to her face.
    She was scrutinizing him, her lips curled in contempt, her blue eyes cold, then she deliberately wrapped the folds of the cloak around her, hiding her body from him.
    “Are we leaving?” she asked. “Or are you going to stand there gawking at me all day?”
    He turned away, ashamed of his lack of control. He’d taught himself to subdue his sexual urges, though the lesson had been hard.
    But she was right. They needed to get out of there, now. He’d put a sleeping spell on the guards, but the longer they remained the more chances there were they’d be discovered. And he couldn’t shift the uncomfortable notion that Malachi was playing him. He’d feel better once they were free of this place.
    “Follow me.” He led the way out of the cell. They were in the dungeons beneath the Keep, but only just below ground level. Off to the right, the tunnel headed downward, far beneath the earth, but no one had ventured into the depths in many years. The Keep was old, older than any of them even remembered, and there were rumored to be dark things living in the hollowed out land beneath, kept locked down there by powerful moon magic from before the Laws of Segregation. No one wanted to risk releasing them.
    Instead, Jarrod took the tunnel to the left, which would take them up the surface. They were almost there when he heard the noise of booted feet on the stone flagged floor.
    “I want them stopped.” Malachi’s clipped tones echoed off the bare walls. “Kill them if you have to, but they don’t leave the Keep.” Jarrod swore softly and held up his hand behind him to tell Freya to halt. He peered around the last corner. Malachi was at the head of a troop of warlocks; he must have suspected Jarrod all along and was obviously taking no chances.
    Once he’d been stronger than Malachi, but over the years, Malachi had grown in power. Jarrod suspected he had found some way to