T*Witches: Split Decision Read Online Free PDF Page B

silently down the steps, along the walkway, and through the iron gates that surrounded the mansion.
    She’d been so wrapped up in him that Cam hadn’t noticed the black horse, sleek and huge, tethered to one of the fence spikes. Shane pulled her toward it, but Cam shied back. “What is that?” she asked without thinking.
    Shane laughed. “That is a stallion,” he explained proudly, reaching up to stroke its dark, silky mane.
    In theory, Cam considered herself a friend to all creatures great and small, but when the really big ones got so up close and personal that their hot breath warmed your face and stirred your hair … “friendship” ended there.
    “This is Epona,” Shane was saying, stroking the immense beast’s snout. “He looks fierce, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
    “How’s he feel about humans?” Cam asked.
    Epona was ink black, from his nervously flicking tail to his frighteningly alert eyes. Evil and angry looking, they seemed almost to be taking her measure. She wanted to turn away, but Shane’s arms were around her shoulders now, moving her gently closer to the stallion.
    “Make friends with him.” Shane guided her hand across the horse’s neck. It was taut, muscular, and rough as burned weeds. “He’s our ride to the beach. Aren’t you, boy?”
    “Can’t we walk?” In the brief time Cam had spent on Coventry, she’d walked everywhere. So had everyone else.
    Shane shook his head. “Too far.”
    “And cars are —?”
    “Too mainland.”
    “So, skateboard, Rollerblades, scooters, bus, train, Learjet…?”
    “Horses,” he told her, “played an important part in our history. Black ones, like him, symbolized power and vitality. No one taught you about that? You never heard the name Epona before?”
    “That would be a no. And no,” Cam answered.
    “I’ll teach you, then. Give me your foot.” Shane laced his hands together and held them out for her to step into. Which she did, reluctantly. He placed her sneakered foot into the stirrup. “Up you go. Hold on to the saddle horn. I won’t let you get hurt. Trust me.”
    A rebellious thought crept from its corner. Trust? Déjà vu, anyone? Sequel-itis? This boy has lied to you before. You trusted him, and he betrayed you.
    He read her mind with ease. “Cam, you’ve come all this way,” he said, his eyes innocent and clear. “Don’t give up on me now.”
    Embarrassed, she squirmed in the saddle and, when Shane hoisted himself up behind her, his arms encircling her waist, she told her instincts to relax.
    The young warlock held Epona to a slow pace as they trotted through the countryside surrounding Crailmore and then into the deep woods behind the estate.They were headed to Coventry’s north shore. Shane told her, “It’s usually pretty deserted, since there are no beaches or ferry docks.”
    “The shore less traveled?” Cam teased. She couldn’t tell if he’d smiled or not at her poetry reference.
    “Really,” he continued, “you should see it. After all, you own it.”
    “I what?” Cam looked over her shoulder at him.
    “All this” — he nodded straight ahead as they emerged from the woods toward a rocky shore — “this is all DuBaer property. It’s yours.”
    “No,” she corrected, “it belongs to Thantos.”
    “Your uncle,” Shane pointed out.
    “Unfortunately,” she mumbled.
    They’d ridden as far as they could take the horse, stopping near the edge of a steep drop-off. Dismounting, they left the animal on flat ground and headed, hand in hand, down a rocky slope, balancing precariously on the sharp edges of rock, formed by decades of wind and mist rising off the Great Lake.
    Cam, a natural athlete, turned out to be more agile than Shane. She took the lead a few times and helped him negotiate the rocky sea-battered terrain. It was cooler and windier on this part of the island, and Cam was glad for the scrunchie in her pocket. Once the hair was out of her eyes, she looked around. The view