Page 2

Chapter Two

I nudged the door open a couple of inches with my foot and peered inside. Whoever had decided to break in had badly misjudged what they would find: my camera and computer were so old that they were close to worthless, and there was zero in the way of designer clothes or jewellery. Courtesy of an elf, I still had a greenhouse full of thriving plants, but I doubted there was much of a black market for stolen ferns. And even if the burglars had raided the fridge, all they’d have found was a bag of grated cheese and half a bottle of Oyster Bay. I hoped they liked questionable dairy and disappointment.

Whoever had broken into my house had made a dire mistake. I’d spent the first sixteen years of my life training to be the guardian of the most magical, powerful relic in Witchlight Cove, and I’d started learning to fight as soon as I could stand. Neither was I on my own: I had Eva and, as she’d proved time and time again, she was an asset in numerous ways. We were not an easy mark; in fact, we were the worst possible mark. We were the kind of mark that stole the wallet back before you’d even finished lifting it.

‘Ready, girl?’ I asked, glancing down at Eva. Her hackles were up, but instead of the vicious snarling I’d expected – or even the low rumbling growl she’d given the damned squirrel – her head was tilted to the side and she was sniffing the air curiously.

I tried to tap into her emotions to see if I could glean anything from her, but all I got was a mild sense of curiosity. As I was trying to dig out what she might be thinking, however, I was hit by a dozen other emotions – and none of them were coming from Eva.

Houston, we had an intruder.

‘Get behind me, girl,’ I ordered. Half of me wanted to grab her by the collar and move her away, but I couldn’t lose focus because I was feeling the emotions of whoever was in my flat and they were strong. Strong was bad. The only time I’d felt emotions this intense was when I was emotionally close to the person, and that wasn’t possible here because everyone I cared about was either dead or in Witchlight Cove. Or they were seriously magically powerful.

There was one possibility that made the old fear rise up and threaten to consume me: my grandmother. Her body had never been found, and though she’d been banished, I’d never been sure that she’d been truly vanquished. The possibility of her return filled every single one of my nightmares. You don’t get over the potential resurrection of a homicidal magical matriarch.

‘I know you’re in there,’ I called, trying to keep my voice steady.

Much as I didn’t want to admit it, I was bricking it. Facing a non-magical assailant didn’t bother me as long as they weren’t armed with a gun – and given the UK’s gun laws that was unlikely. I was fairly sure I could disarm and immobilise almost anyone, regardless of their size or training; I’d successfully taken on ex-military types countless times, plus an assassin a few years back.

But when you’re up against someone magical, it’s a whole different ball game. For all I knew, the intruder could already be reading my mind, stealing my best moves and judging my life choices. Even if they weren’t witches, shifters had crazy strength even in human form. As for vampires, who combined speed with that whole pointy-teeth thing, they weren’t something I wanted to deal with either. Not without some weapons in my hands to level the playing field.

‘I don’t want anyone to get hurt,’ I called, hoping they’d think I was referring to them. ‘Whatever you’re after, I promise you’ve got the wrong person.’ Unless it was dear old Grandmama, in which case, ding, ding, ding! She was on the right track all right.

That was when the emotions hit me again and this time it was a full-on tsunami, even with my mental shields up. Anger was being aimed straight at me, as well as hurt and fear and so much confusion. But it was the last emotion that had me gripping the doorframe to keep myself upright.

Love. Love for me so deep and fierce that it melted away the anger, disappointment, and hurt.

The fact that I could discern those feelings told me that I was emotionally close to my intruder, and the blend of emotions melded so perfectly with sympathy and grief that it could only belong to one person.

Straightening up, I stepped into my apartment and switched on the light. ‘Maddie?’ I whispered as I stared into my best friend's eyes.

‘Hi, Bea,’ she said brightly, giving me a finger wave and a smile as if all that hurt and upset weren’t coursing through her veins. ‘How’s things?’

When you say you’ve got history with someone it can mean anything. It can mean you had a drunken hookup one night, or maybe you were work besties who fell out over a promotion, or maybe the history goes back as far as high school. But when I say it about Maddie, it would be more accurate to say that she was my history.

She was my ride or die, my best friend since I was old enough to land my first uppercut. Maddie was the only person who knew everything about me, from which guy I was crushing on – I tended to have a thing for shifters – to how much it hurt me to have such pathetic magical powers when I was the offspring of one of the most potent witches around.

Maddie had been the only one I could let it all out to. When the shit really hit the fan and my parents were killed, she and her grandmother, Yanni, had moved into my family home. She’d even taken over my position of guarding the Eternal Flame when everything had become too much for me.

I had run away from the task I had been born to do and left Witchlight Cove the moment I was eighteen. For the last ten years Maddie had taken over the responsibility for the Flame, lived the life I thought would be mine. I’d been pushing her to the back of my mind ever since, trying to pretend that I didn’t miss her and the cove every second of every day.

That was a damn sight harder to do now that she was standing in front of me .

‘You got a dog.’ She crouched down, made kissing noises at Eva and stroked her, then frowned at the ever-present, purple-black smudge on Eva’s bum. ‘Hey, beautiful girl,’ she said soothingly. ‘What’s your name?’

Finally I found my voice. ‘Her name is “ What the hell are you doing here, Maddie” ?’

Maddie looked up with the cheeky grin I knew so well. ‘Maddie for short? Aw, you named your dog after me. I knew you’d missed me.’ She winked.

‘Her name is Eva,’ I ground out. ‘What the hell are you doing so far from Witchlight Cove? The Flame—’ Yeah, that, the giant magical relic that neither of us was supposed to leave unguarded.

Guilt spiked from her, hot and heavy, and I felt ashamed. Here I was berating her about leaving the Flame unguarded when I’d done exactly the same.

‘Pot, kettle, black,’ she shot back, her open grin disappearing as if I’d wiped it off a whiteboard.

Regardless of the reason for her presence, you don’t break into someone’s house – especially not someone who lived with the sort of fear that I did. She knew that. She knew what I lived with every single day.

Maddie stood up and Eva looked at me pointedly, wanting praise for resisting the fuss and attention. She trotted to my side and pushed herself into my leg, Team Beatrix all the way.

The silence was tense and uncomfortable, making it harder to breathe with each passing moment. And all the while, the hurt in Maddie’s eyes cut me to the depths of my cowardly soul. I’d run away and left her with so much to deal with and it showed. I looked at my best friend, truly looked at her. Concern lanced through me. She was visibly tired; she had bags under her eyes big enough to pack for a trip around the world, and her shoulders were slumped and dejected. Alarm bells were ringing: something was up. She looked so different to the upbeat teenage girl I had left.

Now she was an adult and so was I. For all our shared history, we were virtually strangers – and it was my doing.

‘You got a haircut,’ I blurted. It was a ridiculous thing to say given how long we’d been apart because she’d probably had dozens, if not hundreds. But this one was extreme and a sharp contrast to the hair that used to flow down almost to her bum. Now her dark hair was cut into a bob that was short at the back and came down past her shoulders at the front. The ends were dipped pink.

That wasn’t the only change: she had at least five more tattoos that I could see, though I couldn’t tell if they were magical ones she’d given herself or traditional ink. And she had totally mastered the winged eyeliner look .

She obviously considered my comment as stupid as I did because she didn’t respond. The silence returned almost instantly, hanging thick and oppressive as we studied each other.

Finally she shook her head and the pink tips brushed her shoulders. ‘Something’s happened. I need you to come back.’

Had she really said that? She knew it was impossible. I licked my lips. ‘Come back? To Witchlight Cove, you mean?’ I stared at her like she’d suggested I fly to the moon. ‘Mads, you know I can’t do that.’

Her eyes hardened. ‘You’re confusing the words can’t and won’t , Bea,’ she said firmly. ‘Look, I get that this is out of the blue, but the reason I need you to come back isn’t something I could discuss over the phone. I wouldn’t ask unless I needed you.’

That was a direct hit – and that was when I felt it: a flash of fear that radiated straight from her into me. My best friend was terrified. But why?

My heart stuttered. ‘It’s not Yanni, is it? She’s okay, isn’t she?’ Yanni meant almost as much to me as Maddie did. She’d practically raised us both because, as best friends, we’d pretty much split our time between each other’s houses. Maddie’s mum had died in childbirth and her deadbeat dad had left when she was three months old. Yanni had brought her up single-handedly, and taken me on too. If something had happened to her, if she was dying… I couldn’t even imagine it.

Yanni had been a force of nature; it was easier to imagine the sun dying than to imagine her succumbing to old age or illness. A fierce bear shifter and the chief of police in Witchlight Cove’s tiny, underfunded police station, she’d taken an active role in every community activity from the am-dram group to the constant fayres. I’d always thought of her as Superwoman, but she had to be in her mid-sixties by now.

Maddie’s fear was still gripping me and I was moments away from a full-blown panic.

A smile crept onto her face at my visible distress. ‘Nana’s fine,’ she reassured me. ‘Working too hard as always, but she’s not the reason I need you to come back.’ The smile dropped away. ‘Look, you must know that I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t serious.’

I nodded. ‘Okay, I’m listening. Why do you need me to go to Witchlight? What’s happened?’

‘A couple of reasons. It’s easier to show you. Come with me.’

‘I’m not coming anywhere without a proper answer, Maddie. Why? ’

Her lips pressed together so tightly that they almost disappeared. The fear was still rolling off her, but if it wasn’t to do with Yanni then I had no idea what was causing it. As I stood there trying to think of a reason for her appearance, her fear intensified – and in the midst of it was guilt. Crippling, immobilising guilt.

‘Maddie,’ I started softly. ‘What did you do?’

A sob escaped her but then she braced herself; whatever came next from her lips would be the truth. I tensed, ready for I didn’t know what. Then her eyes shifted and rolled back into her head. A burst of white light glowed at the end of her fingertips and a second later, she dropped to the floor.

‘Maddie!’ I screamed.