Alix (The Coven's Grove Chronicles #1) by Virginia Hunter Read Free Book Online Page B

but Alix made a cutting motion across her neck, signaling for her friend to stop. With a frown, Sam settled back into her seat, and closed her eyes.
    For the next couple of hours the car was void of conversation, just as the landscape was absent of pit stops.
    Alix laid back down. She tried to sort out what had happened to her the past few weeks, and why those guys and that creature would be after her. Nothing readily came to mind, until she glanced at the tattoo on her left hand. I knew this power was going to be trouble, she thought. I wonder if Mom knew something? Her mother had been acting a bit skittish a few weeks before she was murdered. Alix hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, her mother always got edgy before they moved. She just figured her mom had had enough of the place, and was ready to move on. Maybe they moved around so much because of Alix, because of what she would eventually become. Maybe someone had been after them the whole time. Now you’re being paranoid . She pushed thoughts of her mother away, which left room for memories of her friends to flood in.
    Tears welled in her eyes as thoughts of Hank and the others set fire to her guilt. They didn’t deserve what had happened to them. They didn’t deserve to be subjected to Alix’s curse, but they had been, and now they were gone. She rolled onto her side, and quietly cried herself to sleep.
     
     
     
    The sound of the car door closing woke Alix from her dreamless slumber. A gush of cold air invaded the cozy den she had created in the back seat, and brought goose pimples. How long she had been asleep was a mystery though it seemed to span the blink of an eye. A yawn of some magnitude escaped, as she stretched the stiffness out of her muscles.
    “Hey sleepyhead,” Sam said, looking over the front seat. “You gonna join us in the land of the living for a while?”
    “I could do that, yeah,” Alix replied. She sat up, thankfully with no dizziness this time, and looked around.
    Troy was walking into the lobby of a one-story motel. The buildings close by had a small town feel, warm, and safe. The sun was just dipping into the horizon, giving the clouds and sky a sense of etherealness, that added to the overall homelike atmosphere.
    Alix frowned. “Where are we?”
    Sam slouched in the passenger seat. “Lexington.”
    “That doesn’t tell me anything,” Alix replied. “Where’s Lexington?”
    “Virginia.”
    Alix’s jaw dropped. “What?!”
    “Well it’s not like we have to be at work or anything.”
    “Are you kidding me?!” Alix grabbed hold of the headrest in front of her. “What the hell Sam? Everything I have—we have—is in New York—”
    “I know, geez. Chill for a sec,” Sam interrupted. She cut her gaze to the motel entrance. “You weren’t awake when we were driving around last night. It was like a scene from the ‘Fast and the Furious.’ Those dudes were on us wherever we went. The highway was our last option.”
    “Yeah, but Virginia ?”
    Sam looked at her, annoyed. “You don’t know what it was like. You didn’t see what was happening. It’s like they had a homing beacon or something.”
    Alix took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “So how is coming to Virginia going to help with that?”
    “Well, Troy made them wreck before we got outta the city. So that bought us some time at least.” Sam half-smiled. “Right?”
    “Yeah, I suppose.” Alix rubbed her temples. That may have bought them some time, but what they were going to use it for she had no idea. “Did you guys eat?”
    “No, not unless you count my stomach eating my spine.”
    Alix chuckled, “I think we just found our first priority.”
    Troy stepped out of the lobby with a set of room keys in his hand. His breath trailed behind him in streams of white, puffy steam, as he walked over to the car. The door squealed when he opened it. A blast of cold entered their tiny sanctuary, as he hurriedly got in, and pulled the door closed with