Page 1

Chapter One

Holy hell.

My eyes flew open, and I laid there, staring at the ceiling, my heart thumping a mile a minute. That was…amazing, yet torturous. Yet, so fucking amazing.

I let out a breath and sat up; the comforter dropping to my hips. I ran my hands through my hair and smiled. What a dream. A crazy Travis dream.

That was a first, and hopefully, not the last. Actually, hopefully, it would be real this next time around. A fierce flush crept up my neck as I thought about what I’d been dreaming. It was just too yummy to put into words, and too naughty to even describe.

Why was I suddenly having full-on sex dreams starring Travis? No idea. Call me clueless. Other than the fact that he was super-hot and had been talking to me like a human being recently, nothing else had changed in our relationship status. My body wanted its own way though, but she was just going to have to be patient because on a checklist of things I had to accomplish, screwing Travis was at the bottom, if he was even on there at all.

So much had happened in the short amount of time I’d met my coven. I’d made a major move, shut one business down and started another, and oh, there was the whole thing about some maniac wanting me for revenge, and having to deal with people dying and me and my guys getting hurt.

A picture of Liam popped into my head. Though his “tattoo” was hot as fuck, he’d been different since that night. Pulling away from me little by little. Even Randy hadn’t been able to get through to him as if he was trying to ostracize himself from the rest of the group. It pained me to watch him do it. Little by little, separating himself from us.

A knock came on the door. I rubbed my forehead and called, “Come in.” I wasn’t sure why we bothered knocking anymore. They’d all seen me naked, either getting me to that point themselves, or if they were Travis, accidentally walking in on it. Maybe if he came in and saw me sitting here like this, it would push him over the edge. My animal print pajamas were hot if I did say so myself. Though, they’d look hotter on the floor under his clothes…

“Good morning, Love,” Gabe said, walking in and kicking the door shut behind him. He smiled as he came closer, and I smiled back up at him. “Just making sure you’re up.”

“I’m up,” I told him, if not a little reluctantly. I could’ve done with a couple more minutes in the Travis extravaganza that was going on in my head before I woke myself out of it.

Gabe sat on the bed next to me, both arms on either side of my thighs as he leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. “This might shock you, Love, but you’re nipping.”

I looked down and sure enough, my nipples were hard and showing straight through the cotton tanktop. I shrugged. “Crazy dream.”

His eyebrows shot up at that. “I hope I was the main character. Feel free to tell me all about it so we can reenact it right now.”

I chuckled to myself. The amount of sexual tension running through this house was astonishing. “Don’t you have practice this morning?” I asked, dropping my head to the side. “A very important practice.”

“All my practices are of equal importance, but they’re still not as important as you.”

My heart did a giddy flip. “You shouldn’t come see me in the mornings,” I teased him. “It only gets you in trouble.”

“If that were the case, I shouldn’t look at you at all. You get me in trouble 24/7.” He shot forward and kissed me on the cheek, puckering his lips and leaving a hard smack that made me laugh. “Come on, Baby. Randy put some toast down for you.”

I pulled the covers down to my feet, but stayed where I was, reluctant to get out of bed. I didn’t know what I was walking into down there. “How’s Liam?”

Gabe let out a breath and stared at the comforter. “On the computer since he got up this morning.”

“He has to go to class,” I said. Obviously, I wasn’t telling Gabe anything he didn’t already know, but it felt good to talk to someone about the whole situation. Liam was just off. Not going to class, not eating well.

“He’s dressed today,” Gabe offered.

I guessed that was better than nothing, but it still wasn’t great. He’d told his professors he got the flu, so he could take some time off to do research on how to get the familiar off him. Since we weren’t telling Walter and the other superiors about what actually happened, we only had to go on what we found out by scanning through texts and the internet. Liam was obsessed with it. He wanted it off, and I’d never seen him with such a singular focus before. He was determined. “I’ll talk with him.”

Gabe traced a finger across my hand, his face thoughtful. “Just don’t get all worked up if he says something off to you.”

“I know,” I told him, trying to smile. We’d already gone down that road. Liam blew up, had a total meltdown practically taking the rest of us with him. He’d already apologized, but I had to wonder if the familiar was making him moody or if it was the pressure he put on himself to figure out how to rid himself of the demonic serpent.

Gabe kissed me on the forehead, and got up, reminding me again that I had toast waiting for me downstairs. I waved goodbye and took out the all-seeing-eye bracelets I’d finished making last night. I’d had my own bracelet on the night the familiar attached itself to Liam. The thing had crawled past me first but kept going to attach to Liam. If only I’d been faster with the bracelets. We could’ve avoided this mess. Leaving the bracelets out on the bed, I dragged my ass off to the shower to get ready. After washing up and throwing on a dressier outfit than my normal t-shirt and jeans, I walked downstairs with the bracelets in my pocket.

The silence gave me pause as I reached the bottom of the steps. I checked the kitchen first, but there was no one there, only the sound of the TV talking away in the background. I looked up to find the guys’ huddled around it in the living room. The room hadn’t even had a TV before yesterday, but Gabe had practically begged for one because there were big “football” games coming up and he wanted to be able to watch them without going to a bar or a teammate’s house. Ever since the last run-in with Dupre, we tried to stick close together, so another one of us wouldn’t find ourselves alone and spelled by the bad guys.

I walked up behind Randy and put my hand on the small of his back. His shoulders were tight, bunched up as if ready to strike. If he was shirtless, I’d probably see the ripple of muscles as he stood there, tensed. He looked down at me as I approached, his face a little on the pale side. “What is it?” I whispered. I glanced around the room. They were all there, including Liam, his laptop on his lap. For once in the past few days, though, he didn’t have his head buried in it. He was staring up at the TV.

I looked up and gasped. Madame Serena. Her face was on TV. The headline read “Local Psychic Found Dead In Home”.

We’d been waiting for this to happen. There was no way we could have Madame Serena’s body found in Randy’s parents’ house, so we moved her back to her place and just left her there. We figured one of her clients would eventually make a missing person’s report when she didn’t show up to the shop or a reading, and we’d been right. It took them longer than we’d thought, but they must’ve checked on her yesterday.