Spells & Stitches by Barbara Bretton Read Free Book Online Page A

met my human father’s family. I’m not even sure he had any at the time I was born. All I knew about him was that he was young and handsome and worked with his hands and that he loved Guinevere Hobbs. His life before he met my mother, the family he left behind to be with her, had all disappeared into oblivion, never acknowledged by Sorcha the Healer, who had raised me after my parents’ deaths.
    That wasn’t what I wanted for Luke and our daughter.
    Sorcha had believed that interaction with humans could only lead to disaster, and the death of Guinevere was proof of that fact. Although my powers didn’t kick in until I was almost thirty, I had been raised according to my heritage as one of Aerynn’s descendants with the expectation that I would be the one who took Sugar Maple well into the twenty-first century and beyond.
    “It could be worse,” I said, shaking off the bittersweet sense of longing that thoughts of my parents always evoked.
    “Darn right,” said Lilith. “If you’d fallen for Gunnar or Dane, you would’ve ended up with Isadora as your mother-in-law.”
    Janice shivered dramatically. “There’s a scary thought.”
    Isadora was the banished leader of the Fae warrior faction that had been dedicated to pulling Sugar Maple and all its residents beyond the mists into a different dimension. She had been the cause of every terrible thing that had ever happened in my life and not a day went by when I didn’t reinforce the spell I’d cast to keep her far away from us.
    Gunnar and Dane were her twin sons. Dane was his mother’s child, a beautiful creature with a twisted soul, while Gunnar’s beauty manifested itself inside and out. We had all pretty much grown up together and once upon a time I had come close to falling under Dane’s dark spell. When Fae turned their sexual magick on someone, especially someone with human blood, the game was over. Outrageous beauty combined with otherworldly magnetism made for a dangerously irresistible lover. Danger, of course, being the operative word. Sex was only part of the agenda.
    Thankfully reason had prevailed before I succumbed to Dane’s advances, but the experience had turned him into a formidable enemy. Like I said, not many females said no to him. He was gone now to whatever hell existed for all things evil, but the memory of danger would be a long time fading.
    Gunnar had been sunshine to his shadow, a spirit of pure light. For a time Sugar Maple had lobbied for a match between my dear friend Gunnar and me, but that wasn’t meant to be. In the end Gunnar had sacrificed his life to make my life with Luke possible.
    I had loved Gunnar as a friend, but my heart belonged to Luke and Luke alone and always would. Hobbs women fell in love just once during their lifetime and they bore only one child: a daughter who, as a descendant of Aerynn and Samuel, would continue to keep Sugar Maple safe from danger.
    But I would be lying if I said Gunnar wasn’t in my thoughts every single day. I missed his laughter, his warmth, his steadfast friendship. This probably sounds crazy, but I missed all the things we would never share. I never once imagined that he wouldn’t be here with me to celebrate the birth of my daughter, but the fates had had other plans.
    I couldn’t change our daughter’s future—it had been preordained by magick far greater than mine—but I could make sure she didn’t walk this world alone. She needed to know her place in the world. Both worlds.
    She needed to know her family.

LUKE
     
    My cell phone drowned. That was the bad news.
    The good news? My cell phone drowned.
    Somewhere out there my mother was leaving endless voice mails threatening me with everything from disinheritance to eternal damnation if I didn’t call her back immediately, but thanks to the Atlantic Ocean only Verizon knew for sure.
    Unfortunately somewhere out there Chloe was taking the hit for me.
    Damn. Why didn’t I listen to her and spill the beans months ago? The