Spells Trouble, Kristin Cast [books to read in a lifetime .TXT] 📗

him to the trees as she tried to shift her body closer.

Through streaming tears he looked up at her. His eyes widened as he misread her worried expression.

His arms tightened around her.

“No, you can’t do this!” Tears flooded his voice with desperation. “You know how much I love you.”

“Kirk! It’s okay. I forgive you!”

“I need you! You can’t leave me.”

“Kirk, shh.” Mercy pressed her fingers against his lips, physically trying to dam the tide of his words. “It’s hard for me to listen to you if you won’t let me go.”

Abruptly, he released her. She staggered backward until she touched the trees and surreptitiously stroked their sharp leaves. They quivered once more in response, and then stilled. Breathing a sigh of relief, she turned to Kirk.

He’d remained on his knees, hands held out as if he beseeched her blessing while he continued to snot cry. “H-how do I fix this? Want me to kick Jax’s ass?”

Mercy shook her head, ready to tell him—not for the first time—that he couldn’t blame other people for his bad choices, when Jarod’s sarcastic voice came from behind Kirk.

“Dude! Are you seriously crying?”

“Right?!” Derek, the varsity center, a big, meaty kid who looked like a chubby Hitler youth, mimicked Kirk as he scrunched up his fat pink face and pretended to cry. “Babe! Don’t leave me! Babe, I love you!”

Kirk rocketed to his feet and whirled around. The entire varsity football squad, and cheerleaders, had poured through the break in the fence and were laughing at Kirk. Jax and Hunter stood a little apart from the group, speechlessly staring from Mercy to Kirk.

Mercy narrowed her eyes and glared at the gawking group. She knew her words were hypocritical. It was because of her spell that the trees had amplified everything she and Kirk had said and broadcasted it to the varsity football team and the cheerleading squad, but she was too panicked to think of anything else to say—anything else to do. “Oh, shut up! This is between Kirk and me, and none of your damn business.”

“Uh, if it wasn’t our business the two of you shouldn’t have been yelling like that,” quipped Jarod.

“Yeah, you were super loud. We heard everything,” added Derek.

Kirk wiped violently at his face. His shoulders were slumped. He fisted his hands by his sides and for a moment Mercy thought he was going to stand up for her—stand up for them—and take on the mocking team. But his body language changed before he faced her. He put a hand on his hip and slouched like he was oh, so cool. Then he turned to look at her and his cute, full lips—the lips she’d kissed so, so many times—twisted in a sneer.

“Well, shit. I guess the cat’s outta the bag now—or I should say the pussy’s out of the bag.” His laughter was cruel, and this time Jarod and Derek joined in, laughing with not at him. His voice was hard and cold with sarcasm. “Can’t blame a guy for tryin’ to get more than a bj, though, right?”

Mercy felt frozen. She swallowed hard before she could form words. “Kirk? What are you saying?”

Hunter took a step toward Mercy. Her blue/green eyes looked old and tired as she spoke low in a tight voice. “Come on, Mag. Let’s go home.”

Kirk sneered at Hunter. “For once I agree with the dyke. Go home, Mag.” He made her nickname sound like an insult.

Mercy couldn’t move. The coldness inside had frozen her to the earth. “But you love me.” Even to her ears she sounded like a stupid little girl.

Kirk laughed. “Love you? It was fun for a while, but you’re too damn much work.” He jerked his chin at the gleefully watching team. “Ask any of them. After what they just heard they know it’s true, too.” Then his brows lifted into his hairline. “Wait, they shouldn’t have been able to hear us. It was you, wasn’t it? You did some witch shit—like your sister did at your house the other night. You set me up, you bitch!”

Mercy stared at Kirk—at the cruel stranger he’d become. No, he’s always been this person. I just chose not to see it.

Hunter ignored Kirk. She gestured at her sister and repeated, “Come on. Let’s go.”

Thawed by her twin’s voice, Mercy nodded jerkily, and started to make a wide circle around Kirk. But he stepped up to block her.

“What’s wrong? Don’t want your precious freak of a twin to hear the truth?” He shot Hunter a mean look over his shoulder before he continued. “Too late. She already knows about the bj. But her bff probably didn’t tell her the rest—how you humped my hand like the bitch in heat you are. You came all over me, you slut.”

Shocked gasps erupted from the cheerleaders to mix with uncomfortable chuckles from the football players.

Mercy couldn’t move again. Her entire body was flushed with heat and even though her whole being was screaming run she kept staring at Kirk like she’d never seen him before.

Then Hunter was there, stepping between them. She seemed to grow in height as she faced down the quarterback.

Twenty-seven

Rage surged through Hunter so hot and deep that her breath sloshed out in soupy gasps. Part of her yearned to relax into the warm embrace her anger promised. In its arms, there were no consequences, no remorse, no sad sisters made even more depressed by betrayal. In fury’s grasp, there was nothing but revenge. Hunter clenched her fists. Her jagged nails dug into her scabbed palm. Kirk Whitfield was over, canceled. She’d take away everything he cared about.

Beside her, Mercy slapped her palm over her mouth and whimpered.

Hunter sucked in a breath and fought through the heat clawing up her throat ready to fork her tongue, weaponize it, use it to tear the star quarterback apart. Had it not been for her sister and the despair that squeaked past her lips, Hunter would have let the rage consume her.

Her hands relaxed as each inhale