Eliza Gayle Witch Bundle (paranormal romance), Eliza Gayle [books suggested by bill gates txt] 📗

“You okay, Denn?”

Jake’s words broke through his thoughts of his brother and brought him back to the present. “Yeah.” He needed to read through his journal, make some notes and adjustments. He had a feeling the more he documented the more he could make sense of it.

“You worry too much, Denn.” Jake touched his shoulder, moving his fingers in a strong massaging motion. “Your muscles are all tense again. I believe that whatever is meant to happen with Raven will happen on its own. She isn’t going anywhere, so let’s just see where this goes, okay?”

Denn relaxed under his lover’s attempts to release his tension. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have found Jake. It restored in his faith in fate.

* * *

“I need to get out of here.” She rubbed her arms and crouched by the door, anxious.

“What’s wrong, Raven?” Denn asked.

“This isn’t right. Holding me here like this. I need to get away before something happens.”

“Like what?”

She didn’t answer right away. What could she say? An energy buzzed under her skin and she didn’t know how to explain it, nor did she know what to do with it. With her magick bound some of her normal coping mechanisms were missing.

“Does this have to do with being held against your will or with what happened between the three of us?”

She just stared at him. Unseeing. She stayed back by the door, afraid to get to close. Something about being in his proximity made her crazy.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” He came around the desk, headed in her general direction.

“No, stay back. Don’t come any closer." Panic rose within her, her heart raced, and her skin crawled.

“Raven, baby, what is it?”

“I don’t know, something is happening.” She couldn’t breathe. She held up her hands and focused on the energy in the room. She imagined the moisture in the air and mist rained down on them.

“What the hell? How are you doing that? Your magick is bound. I did it myself.”

She concentrated harder past the pain of pushing at the barrier. Deep breaths in and out and it burst. Pain shot through her body as magick filled the room. She briefly looked at the shock on Denn’s face as the flood of power swamped her. She ran past Denn and out the French doors into the courtyard. The mist changed to a soft rain that her skin soaked up greedily. She tilted her face skyward, using her freed power to call more water until the rain turned into a torrential downpour, flooding the courtyard and boosting her beyond measure.

Now this is more like it.

After weeks of being trapped in a powerless body her energy and magick were back and she was free.

As the rain soaked her hair and clothes it dawned on her that whatever magick had been not only binding her magick, but also holding her in Denn’s home, had been broken. She could finally leave.

Her breath halted. I can leave. Her mind automatically flashed to Denn and Jake. Her sexy dark witch and fair-haired sweetheart, but her thoughts darkened when she remembered the journal entries she had read early that morning. Curious about what they were up to but not yet ready to face them, she’d snuck into Denn’s office and found his journal.

No, Denn and Jake weren’t with her out of some kind of fanciful love. Her heart fractured when she’d read that they thought she was the woman prophesied for Denn. His savior. Tears welled and she lifted her head again, letting the rains cleanse her of them.

She wasn’t anyone’s savior. She wasn’t even a very nice person. Raised in a coven that believed in a cause she didn’t understand, her whole life had been focused on nothing but honing her craft and training to be a hunter. A job she was really good at. At least, until now. Now she would be the hunted. Something she couldn’t tolerate and had to fix.

She followed the winding path through the courtyard, refusing to look in the direction of the sitting area, where the lounge chairs were. Where they’d…

It was time to go.

Her feet moved faster, changing from a walk to a run as she streaked through the gardens and slipped into the kitchen, heading full force for her room and what little belongings she could take with her.

The house was eerily quiet, yet the magick buzzed stronger than ever before. It was soft and familiar, encouraging her to hurry.

In her room she grabbed the duffel bag she’d confiscated earlier in the week, already packed with necessities from the clothes and things Jake had bought her. On the dresser there was a small frame that held a picture of Denn and his twin brother Noah. She swiped it and dropped it in her bag.

With no time to waste, and not knowing who might be coming up behind her, she swung her legs out the window and down the fire escape she had scoped out the first week she’d been awake.

As she climbed down the ladder she thought about New Orleans and what she could remember of it from her last visit, which had been many years ago. There was a large coven nearby but she imagined that Denn knew them well and would look for her there first. Her own coven may be looking for her as well, and with her recent failed mission she wasn’t sure she could trust them to keep her safe, either. She needed to talk to Scott, but on her own terms and from a safe location. His reach was long and wide and if he had plans to eliminate her or worse, she couldn’t just pop up on his radar.

That left her with only one desperate option. Severina. A voodoo priestess in the quarter that Raven had sought in the past. She’d been here on a job and needed some sensitive information and a friend had recommended Severina’s services