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“So what happens now, Jack? Are ya planning on torturing me in hopes I’ll change my mind? Will I have to wear yer magick handcuffs forever? This is a modern-day witch hunt and ya know it. I’m innocent of any wrongdoing.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the council woman who took my amulet wave her hand at some nearby guards. Her voice carried with almost no effort. “Deliver Jack’s wife to Asbury Cottage. It’s warded against her Celtic magick. She can have visitors there but won’t be able to leave until she changes her mind. If she calls up her demon, the house will alert us. For extra insurance, we’ll keep her family heirloom.”

Jack bowed his head to the woman when her gaze landed on him. I guessed it was to show his agreement with plans for me.

That nod finished us as far as I was concerned.

For now, I would go along with their incarceration for Fiona’s sake. I had no choice but to protect her from Jack until she was old enough to deal with her father on her own terms.

I would not serve a sentence I did not deserve in some demon hunter prison. When the time was right, I would leave, and Goddess only knew Jack better be ready to deal with my wrath.

ChapterTwo

Several years later, also known as today…

The seventh springof my incarceration caused the same wishing in my witch’s soul as the other six springs at the cottage that passed before it. After being alone for so many years, I knew longing for the impossible was hopeless.

Those who’d imprisoned me would not be experiencing some miracle that would change their minds. That hope died during the first year.

My official enemies now included the entire demon hunter council and the self-righteous, deceitful demon hunter I’d foolishly married and bred a witch daughter with.

Not only had Jack sided with strangers when I’d refused to help him murder Conn, but he also stole my family legacy for Goddess only knew what reason.

It had been five years since I last wept at the unfairness of it all. But I hadn’t seen the man I married in the entire seven years of what they called mymagickal incarceration.

His total absence from my life seemed normal to me. If he had shown up after all this time, I might not have been able to contain my wrath, and I imagine Jack suspected that.

I was very proud of myself for never accepting the injustice the demon hunter council did to me. With Da gone from this life, Ma returned to Ireland during my prison years. I hadn’t been allowed to see her the whole time. Despite their promises that I could have visitors, Fiona had been the only one they allowed.

My parents had encouraged me to use my inherited powers for the good of people on this side of the ocean after I married one of its citizens. Jack and Fiona were the only reasons I stayed here in America, especially when my heart longed for cliffs and the sea.

My family plans hadn’t exactly worked out for me, though. Instead of using my gifts for good and training others to do so, my powers had been questioned, betrayed, and hidden away for the last seven years.

But there were good reasons my mother had named me after the Aran cliffs near her original home. A diminutive witch named after towering rock surfaces could not be broken by the opinions of others, especially when they were flat wrong.

The day marking my fortieth year of living on this earth was less than two weeks from now. With that celebration would come an additional burst of power not constrained to the family heirloom necklace Jack stole from me.

Not that I needed its power to get out of this place. I never had.

If Fiona had been willing to follow me back to my family’s original dwelling place, I’d have returned to Ireland long before now. There I could have raised her in a land where magick was respected and our family was honored.

Fiona had been thirteen when they sent me to the cottage and she hadn’t wanted to leave her friends. So I’d stayed and dealt with my imprisonment for her sake.

They let me see Fiona as often as I wanted, which was a powerful motivation to not become a fugitive. Obviously, I couldn’t escape and leave her behind. No way was I letting Jack raise my daughter to be a traitor too.

My goals changed, though, after Fiona came into her own. She was twenty now. Whatever choice my adult daughter made about where to live, I’d already decided not to serve out the remaining years of my unjust imprisonment.

Monitoring Fiona’s life at a distance was not reason enough to go without seeing the rest of my family. No, my celebration plans for my fortieth birth year involved gaining my total freedom.

I’d always possessed enough power to break their so-called Celtic magick wards, but it was instinct that held me back. Something told me life would be easiest if I stayed a while longer. I hadn’t listened to my gut back when my instincts warned me about the shadier side of the man I married, but I was listening now.

Planning to escape instead of actually doing it always made me restless, though, so I rose from my seat on the porch and walked out into the yard as far as the warded boundary allowed without setting off the blasted alarms.

I’d done that multiple times—all accidental—during my first year here and what a mess that had created. They’d almost put Jack’s handcuffs back on me.

Standing at the edge of their boundary now, I stared resentfully at the road I wasn’t free to walk down before I strolled back toward the porch. Maybe it was the line of blooming pink azaleas growing on both sides of the porch that had me wishing things could be different.

I headed to sit on the swing that Fiona had helped me lower enough that my feet touched.