Easy Bake Coven by Liz Schulte Read Free Book Online Page A

all that?” I asked though I knew I had.
    Cheney glanced around. “Yeah. You never have been able to control your temper. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it later. Right now, we’re talking, yes?”
    I gave him a dubious look. “I’ve always been able to control my temper. I never fly off the handle. If you think otherwise, you don’t know me at all.”
     “Whatever you say.” He motioned toward the kitchen. “Shall we?”
    I plopped myself down on a kitchen chair and waited for Cheney to start talking.
     “What do you know?” he asked.
     “I was living a perfectly peaceful, happy existence in Raleigh until you showed up being creepy.” He gave me an impatient look and I shrugged. I didn’t know what he wanted from me. “I was on a terrific date last night with an incredible man, and then I got a phone call saying Grandma fell, so I came here. Now my life has completely gone to hell. I don’t know who you are, who those people were, or why anyone would be after me or my grandma.”
     “Your grandma? No one’s after your grandma. They’re after you.”
     “Why?”
     “You’re a changeling.” Cheney looked at me expectantly, but the word changeling meant nothing to me. “Do you know what that is?” he finally asked.
     “Not a clue.”
     “It’s a member of one race, normally fae, who’s given to humans to be raised as their own. Just normally not in these circumstances.” He leaned forward, elbows resting on the kitchen table. “You’re an elf, like me—well, not exactly like me. You‘re only half.”
    I glanced around the room, knowing this had to be a joke of some kind.
     “What are you looking for?”
     “Gandolf,” I cracked, trying not to laugh.
    He pursed his lips. “I’m serious. You need to listen.”
     “Oh, I’m listening, but all I hear is crazy.”
     “You don’t believe in elves? How do you explain the bodies evaporating? How can I disappear and reappear? How do you explain your own abilities?”
    “Magic. I just don’t know how you do it.”
    “Do you remember the Abyss?”
    “I have heard of it, but, come on, seriously?”
    “Why can you believe in magic but not the Abyss? Where do you think your magic comes from?”
    I didn’t respond. How could I? I had no explanation. I had heard of the Abyss, but I wasn’t a part of it. It had nothing to do with our innocent little coven. The smile fell from my face. I suspended my doubts and tried to absorb his words in my mind. “So you’re saying as a baby I was switched with a human child? What happened to the child I was switched with? If I’m half elf, what’s the other half?”
    Cheney shook his head. “Normally that would be the case, but this is slightly more complicated. You lived as a half-elf for decades before you decided to become a changeling—”
    “I don’t understand.”
    Cheney sighed and stared at his hands. “You became mixed up with a group who convinced you to become a changeling to increase their power. You were led astray.”
    “You aren’t doing a very good job explaining this.” It was hard to hold back my frustration at not understanding. “Who’s this ‘group’ and how does being raised by humans give them power?”
     “If you would shut up, I could do a better job.” He glared. “Human magic is forbidden to elves. As a half elf you are also half human, so choosing to honor your human side, you can be born again to humans with a lot of very powerful, very dangerous magic. But if you succeed, which you did, the laws that govern elves do not apply to you. Humans have no laws to govern magic because they don’t believe in it.” He took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. “As a human, you can practice their magic as well as use ours. The rebels are planning to overthrow the current ruling house—my family. My father is the Erlking, or King of the Hunt. We have been the ruling family for 3000 years.”
     “My magic isn’t all that