The Red Witch (Amber Lee Mysteries Book 6) Read Online Free PDF Page A

bedroom lit up for a second as lightning flashed in. An instant later, thunder rolled so loudly the house seemed to tremble beneath it. When the thunder died off, Damien continued speaking.
    “I had my reservations about our relationship before it even started. I swept them aside because she was pretty and smart and she was into me. But as time went on I started to wonder how much of that attraction was due to the binding.”
    “Didn’t you feel the same way about her?”
    “Her energy was crazy intense,” he said after taking a swig. “It wasn’t like that at the beginning, but maybe the Binding did something to her.”
    Damien had told me about the Binding ritual he had performed to save Natalie’s life once. It sounded unreal when he spoke about it, I could tell the details were sketchy even to him, but the emotions… those he could recall with perfect clarity. He really did love her then, because if he hadn’t loved her the ritual wouldn’t have worked. But to hear him tell it the Binding did something to him too, took more from him than he thought.
    Maybe he didn’t know just how high the price was at the time, though knowing Damien he would have probably still paid it anyway.
    “Look,” I said, “I know you’re probably going through a tough patch right now, but I just want you to know that I’m here for you, okay? People fall out of love all the time, so don’t beat yourself up about it; you’re gonna be fine.” Then I realized something. “Only… what happens to her now that you’ve broken up?”
    Damien had told me, many moons ago, that he couldn’t break it off with Natalie for fear of what it might do to her. If he gave her a piece of himself to save her life, then maybe taking it away would have hurt her, maybe even killed her.
    “It had to be her that did it,” he said, “The break up, I mean.”
    “And was it?”
    He nodded.
    “Did she know you were unhappy?”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t exactly advertise it. But I’m living here now, in Raven’s Glen, and studying. She didn’t want to move from San Francisco because of her job. It wasn’t working.”
    “But like,” I ran my hands through my hair to push it out of my face, “She didn’t come with you when you first moved to Raven’s Glen. You enrolled in a college and everything. She must have known you were planning a permanent move.”
    “It wasn’t permanent,” he said, “I moved here to find out what happened to my sister. Enrolling in the college was only an excuse I could use to throw authorities off if they started asking questions. I used Magick to get in.”
    “You must have liked it if you stayed.”
    “I liked some things.”
    Our eyes locked, and we sat motionless, staring at each other for a long time. I didn’t know what was going through his head, but in my head Frank was screaming get the fuck out, witch. So I stood up, grabbed my beer, and headed for the door. When I got there I opened it, stopped at the arch, turned around, and said, “Get some sleep, Colt.”
    I left before he could reply, closing the door as I went and hurrying into my bedroom where Aaron was waiting—or sleeping. With any luck he would be awake, though. We hadn’t spent any time together today.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 4
     
     
    If Aaron was awake, he didn’t go to great lengths to let me know about it.
    I stalked in quiet as a mouse and saw him lying on his back, bathed in the grey glow coming off the TV bolted to the wall. With his torso exposed and the thin blanket barely covering the lower half of his body he looked like he was posing to be the centerfold of a magazine. Now give me sleepy hunk, I could hear the photographer say.
    Careful not to make a sound or wake him up, I slipped out of my shoes, wiggled out of my jeans, and snuck around his side of the bed. He had such a peaceful look about him it seemed almost a shame to wake him up, but he had something I wanted.
    So I knelt by his