Stormwalker by Allyson James Read Free Book Online

get to me enough, Mick would be blown out like a spent match.
    “You’ve gotten a lot stronger.” Mick traced my cheek. “The way you took down that skinwalker was beautiful.”
    “It was a good storm.”
    “But you controlled it with the skill of a master. When I first met you, your power was all over the place.”
    That was true. I’d met Mick when I was twenty-one, and by then I’d at least learned to contain my storm power and not hurt people arbitrarily with it. But I hadn’t yet honed the ability to handle it well or channel it where I needed to. What Mick had taught me in the six months I was with him doubled my ability, and I’d worked on it diligently since.
    “Explain to me how you knew I was here, in Magellan,” I said. “And stuck in the sheriff’s office.”
    “Let’s just say I always know where you are. I came to finish off the skinwalker for you, but like I said, you got him, and you got him good. I thought the sheriff would let you go in the morning, but you didn’t come out. When I felt one of my spells go off, I decided I needed to get you out of there.”
    I thought of Nash rolling the silver ball between his fingers. “It didn’t go off. It sparked when Nash touched it, but that’s all. He’s not magical.”
    Mick lifted his brows. “You sure? I felt the pressure.”
    “Believe me, I would have noticed incandescent light searing through my brain. The spell didn’t go off. It must have been something else.”
    “Maybe.” He kissed the tip of my nose and finally got off me, making me feel cold and bereft. I heard him running water in the bathroom, and he returned with more clean, damp towels. He seated himself on the bed again and started wiping my face. The cool water felt delicious on my hot, dirty skin. “You warded this place.”
    It wasn’t a question. The day I moved in, I’d gone to Paradox, the local New Age store, and bought smudge sticks, incense, candles, stones, and oil, and spent the evening chanting spells and marking wards everywhere.
    “Wards, spells, offerings to the gods,” I said. “Anything I could think of.”
    Mick ran his gaze over the symbols I’d drawn. They were invisible to the human eye, but I knew Mick saw them. “They could stand strengthening.”
    From the look he gave me, I knew how he wanted to strengthen them. Mick had once taught me the fine art of Tantric.
    “Not now,” I said. “You just had a bullet in you. You need to finish healing.”
    “It’s not that bad. Your sheriff is a lousy shot.”
    “He wasn’t trying to kill you, just stop you.” I knew that in my heart. Nash might be an asshole, but he wasn’t a killer. I’d met enough killers to know one when I saw one.
    Mick didn’t look convinced. He finished wiping my face and started on my hands.
    “Not that I don’t appreciate you helping me out,” I said. “But you know you’ve only made it worse for me if Jones decides to charge me. I’m sure he’ll recommend holding me without bail and somehow get the trial scheduled for two years from now.”
    “He won’t charge you. He’d have already done it if he had clear evidence, and he won’t get any.”
    I wondered how he could be so sure. Nash Jones followed the book, but would his deputies be able to tell what had happened out there on that highway? I was the sole witness. Maybe. Who was this drifter who’d seen the flipped truck? Calls himself Coyote, Nash had said. What would he say?
    “I’d still love to know how you knew I was in trouble,” I said.
    “You know I’m not going to tell you.” Mick’s voice was reasonable, his arrogant refusal to answer my questions raising familiar anger in me.
    “Mick . . .”
    “Forget it. There are some things you aren’t meant to know.”
    Remembered exasperation returned. During our brief relationship, Mick had been adamant about not wanting me to go anywhere on my own, but he’d disappear when he damn well pleased and refuse to tell me where he went. He’d driven