Stonebound: Shifters Forever Worlds (Skeleton Key) by Elle Thorne, Skeleton Key Read Free Book Online Page A

rapidly, gleefully, then she jumped up and down and did a pirouette.
    “No.” Ana stopped her pirouette with a hand on her arm. “No. No. You are—you have it wrong.”
    Damn it.
    Of course Isabel would have figured it out. They were more than sisters. They were best friends.
    “No. I don’t have it wrong at all.” Isabel hugged Ana. “You are completely and totally in love with him. I saw it on your face when I entered the room. That explains it.”
    Ana shook her head. As if denying it could make it untrue. “You—I—What? Explains what? What does it explain?”
    “You wanting to save him from his prison.”
    “It’s because we are friends.”
    “It’s more than that. But I know you’d want to free him even if you weren’t in love with him. After all, you’re the one that set the goldfish free in the second grade. And the hamsters free in the third grade. And what about that fiasco at the zoo? Thank goodness Papa stopped you.” Isabel doubled over in laughter, then straightened up and looked her sister in the eye, all seriousness. “You’re right. We are going to save him.”
    “We? We? No!” Ana wouldn’t have her sister visiting witch covens.
    “Of course we. You can’t go alone. Does he know?”
    “Know what?” Ana felt like Isabel and the world were moving at the speed of lightning, while she was ensconced in sludge.
    “Does he know we went and talked to the witch?”
    “Like I’d tell him that I shared his story of Iniga and his father with you. I didn’t have his permission yet.”
    “I’m sure he won’t mind when he knows it’s to help free him.”
    Oh, he’ll mind.
    Ana knew he would. Tino wouldn’t want her endangering herself for him.
    “So you didn’t tell him we talked to Desideria?”
    Signora Desideria, was what Ana and Isabel called her less than a decade ago. One of their teachers from the private school the girls had attended.
    Desideria.
    A minor witch.
    She’d befriended the two tigress shifter sisters and they’d stayed in touch, though of course the sisters were no longer girls, and being friends with witches was frowned upon in the shifter world.
    Even if the witch had a shifter great-grandparent and was hired by the school to teach shifters how to better prepare for interactions and conflicts with witches.
    “No!” Ana shook her head vigorously.
    “Guess that means you didn’t tell him that Desideria told us to seek help from Esmerelda.”
    Ana simply shook her head. Again.
    Of course she didn’t tell him that Desideria had said to find Esme, as Desideria called her.
    That Esmerelda, Esme was the highest powered witch on the continent.
    She thought of her and Isabel’s recent visit to Desideria.

    * * *
    “ E sme is the highest powered witch on this continent. Or at least high powered enough to counter Iniga’s spell.” Desideria said.
    Esme, the same name as the witch that Tino’s mother had visited to have his lion repressed. That fact hadn’t escaped Ana’s notice. She was hoping to appeal to Esme’s sense of justice in helping free Tino from Iniga’s spell.
    When Ana had first told Desideria that Iniga was the one who’d imprisoned him and that Tino had seen a key, and that she wanted to find the key, Desideria had shuddered.
    “The Skeleton Key. You will never find it. Your only hope is to find a witch stronger. More powerful. One able to override Iniga using the key.”
    “Would Iniga seek retribution?” This did concern Ana. She didn’t want her family to pay for her decisions.
    “Iniga is no more. She messed with the wrong witch.”
    “Then how is her spell still active?”
    “Because of the Skeleton Key.”
    “Could you break her spell, then?” Isabel asked.
    Desideria laughed. “No. Only one I know is Esmerelda.” Another shudder. “My half-sister.”
    Hope had flourished in Ana. “Can you talk to her? Tell her Tino’s plight?”
    “Ha.” The sound was mirthless. “No. We do not speak. But I can tell you where to find