Mystic Tides Read online

  Chapter 2

  Sydney loved her cousins. Halona, Bethany, and Grey were as close as sisters and rightly so. They’d grown up together, they loved each other, and they looked out for each other.

  “Tell me again why we’re doing this.” Halona’s brows dipped as she fingered the leaves on one of the tulips nearby.

  “Don’t you want Grey to find true love and be happy?” Sydney asked while handing Bethany some lilac to add into the mixture for beauty and protection.

  Bethany took the petal and dropped it with the others before she started to grind the petals together. The leaves smashed and crunched into tiny pieces. “Of course she does. We all do.” Bethany glanced up at Sydney and grinned. “Let’s face it…it’s going to take a special man to make Grey happy. She needs all the help she can get.”

  Halona stood and stepped out of the circle. “Shouldn’t we ask her?”

  “Oh no.” Sydney stood and urged Halona back into the circle and down to her knees. “She’d never ask for help. We’re not taking away her free will. Just giving her a little…shove in the right direction. That’s all.”

  Sydney was finding it difficult to keep the smile from her face while picking up the oil and handing it to Bethany. Several drops and the herbs and petals started to hiss, dissolving into the oil. Bethany lit the white and red candles sitting in front of each of the women before holding out her hands for both cousins to hold.

  “Into our circle we call to thee. We ask the goddess and four elements to bless us with your presence and assistance.

  “The gentle winds from the East, to flame the spark.

  “The North and the earth, to ground us in our quest.

  “The fires from the South to bring passion and strength.

  “The water from the West to bring pleasure and love.

  “Please join us in our quest.”

  Strands of blonde hair lifted and whipped around Sydney’s face.

  “We ask your help to set Grey free.”

  Goosebumps rose on Sydney’s arms.

  “With fire to ignite.

  “Her passion burns bright.

  “True love’s declaration will set her free.

  “We ask you to bring true love to her, so mote it be.”

  “So mote it be,” they all said, repeating the words while combining the flickering flames from their candles and dousing them in the liquid concoction.

  Like they did after each spell, they each closed their eyes and said their thanks to the gods and goddesses.

  “She isn’t going to like this,” Halona announced as she rose.

  “She’ll never know.” Bethany picked up the dropper and used it to suck up as much of the liquid as she could into the bottle. She recapped it and handed it to Sydney. “The rest is up to you.”

  Sydney clutched the non-descript, tiny potion bottle in her hands. “She’ll thank us for this.”

  Halona shook her head in disbelief. Bethany grinned with a twinkle in her eye, and Sydney grabbed her purse and slid the bottle inside.

  “Keep your fingers crossed that this works, or we won’t have to worry about tourists burning us at the stake. Grey will do it herself.”

  * * * *

  “She’ll be happy,” Sydney said to herself with conviction as she knocked on Grey’s door, trying hard not to break out into a sweat and give away what she was planning to do.

  Grey opened the door wearing a smirk. “I should have burned your dress,” she said in greeting before turning her back on Sydney and walking into the house. “Takes balls to come here after leaving me alone with Cappy and his crew.”

  “Eye candy is never a bad thing. Did they come in full gear?”

  “Of course they did. They’re not stupid…well, I can’t say that about the new guy, but...” Grey headed into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge. She poured two glasses and handed one to Sydney.

  “New guy?” Sydney asked as she took the glass of wine and eyed Grey’s glass. An open opportunity if she could get Grey away from her glass for one minute, long enough to douse it with a couple of drops of the love potion they’d just made. Some type of distraction would be needed. So she started with the obvious. “Was he hot?”

  Grey rested her hip against the counter and sipped her wine. “In a Neanderthal kind of way, if you go for that kind of thing. He implied that the founding families were nuts.”

  Sydney’s eyes widened, and she grinned. “Did you send a fire bolt into his ass?”

  “No,” Grey answered, pushing out her bottom lip in a pout.

  Sydney’s grin slipped, and she held up her hand. “Wait. You mean to tell me that a new stranger pissed you off and you didn’t burn him? You must have liked him.”

  “Hardly. But it’s not like I’m going to burn his ass in broad daylight, especially when he’s standing in the middle of our store next to so many flammables.” Grey set her glass down and walked out of the kitchen, only turning while under the archway. “I just found another way to annoy the guy. He was curious and interested in this pendant. Offered to buy it even...” She lifted it from around her neck and rubbed her fingers over the cool glass. “I got the satisfaction of telling him no. Let me run upstairs and grab your dress.”

  Sydney dug the potion bottle out of her pocket. She put a dropper full into Grey’s drink and paused. “She’s going to need more. She’ll thank me later.” She dumped the rest of the bottle in and stirred with her finger before moving back to where she’d been standing. Her heart raced as butterflies took flight in her stomach. If Grey busted her, she wouldn’t need the dress. She’d need the nearest hospital with a burn victim unit.

  Grey returned two minutes later holding a garment bag, along with a shoebox. She hung the dress, attaching it to the fame over the archway, and set the shoes on the table before picking up her wine.

  Drink it. Come on. You know you want to.

  Sydney shook her head, abandoning the push she’d almost sent out to Grey. Love spells were one thing, but using her powers on one of the cousins just so Sydney could get her way was crossing the line. Grey lifted the glass to her lips and paused. Sydney held her breath but didn’t want to make her apprehension obvious. Moving over to the table, she lifted the lid off the box of shoes, turning her back to Grey, not knowing if her cousin had sipped the concoction. She lifted one of the sapphire stilettos out of the box and ran her fingers over the delicate strap.

  “Oh, Grey, they’re beautiful.” She turned to find Grey drinking the wine. Guilt hit her straight in the gut. Here Grey was doing something nice, something that she didn’t have to do, and what the hell had Sydney and the others done? They’d drugged her.

  Sydney hurried to Grey and grabbed the glass out of her hand, dumping the contents in the sink.

  “What the hell, Syd?”

  “I’m so sorry. We thought it would help. We just wanted you to be happy—”

  Her sentence died when she glanced up to Grey’s red face. Her cousin’s fingers clenched into a fist, and her lips turned down in a frown.

  “Sydney Elizabeth Janzen, what the hell did you do?” Grey asked, looking at the streaks of red liquid going down her drain.

  “I…” Sydney took an unconscious step back and held up her hand. “We only did it because we care about you.”

  “Sydney,” Grey growled.

  “We kind of made a love potion for you.”

  Grey’s mouth parted, and her gaze jerked to the sink again. “You spiked my wine?”

  “Grey, I stopped you before you drank it all.”

  Grey leaned over, resting her palms on her knees, her gaze on the floor as if she’d been sucker punched.

  “The potion was probably too diluted by the wine to even affect you,” Sydney suggested, hoping that what she said was true.

  * * * *

  Grey felt the fire burning beneath her skin. She stood straight and let out a breath, watching the smoke blow in rings as it exited her mouth.

  “Grey…
”

  Grey shook her head, grabbed Sydney by the arm, and pulled her out onto the wrap-around porch before releasing her. The fire in her burned, starting at her feet and working up toward her palms. Her whole body was consumed, and her eyes narrowed on the only thing that would keep her from setting everything around her into a blaze. The water was calling her name, and not in a good way like it did for Halona. It wasn’t Grey’s sanctuary; it was her salvation, her only safe release.

  “We love you, Grey. You deserve to be happy,” Sydney started to explain. “Don’t be mad at the others. It was my idea.”

  She lifted her hands toward the incoming waves and opened her palms with her fingers pointing toward the ocean. She pushed the blazing stream of fire from her palms and shot it toward the sea. In an instant, the anger and the heat suddenly released from her body and impacted the water like a meteor falling from the sky.

  The water exploded up from the impact site as if someone had done a cannonball into a pool.

  Sweat beaded her brow. She took in several deep breaths, dropping her hands on the railing to support her body.

  “Grey.” Sydney’s voice was soft as she rubbed Grey’s back. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right.”

  Her cousins loved her. They wouldn’t have even dared such a thing if they didn’t. No one else would have had the balls to even try, much less care. Grey turned her glare on Sydney. “You just don’t want me to burn your new dress.”

  “Me stopping you had nothing to do with the dress.”

  “Sure it didn’t.”

  Sydney stifled her grin at the accusation. Her lips quivered as she tried to keep a straight face. “Okay, fine. I felt guilty after you went through all of the trouble to make me the dress and then those beautiful shoes.” She shrugged. “That and because I honestly care.”

  Sydney wrapped her arm around Grey’s and pulled her back into the house. “You aren’t mad, are you?”

  Grey’s brow rose, giving Sydney the answer. They were all in trouble, and if it was coming from Grey, they were in for one hell of a ride.

  ****

  Beck’s breath came out in a rhythmic pant as he dug his feet deeper into the hard sand where the water met the beach. The muscles in his legs burned as he pushed through the fatigue from his late evening run. The setting sun had drifted below the ocean shore only an hour before as the moon rose into place. The twinkling stars lit up the beach, which, any other time, would have been romantic if he’d been sharing it with someone he loved. For now it was his training and playing ground. The water and the sand provided his own personal gym and was the only reason why he’d rented Mayor Helena-Marie Blansett’s property in the first place.

  Jogging up the stairs to the deck of his temporary home, he paused and grabbed the hand towel he’d left on one of the porch chairs. He swiped his face and neck, enjoying the stronger breeze from the higher elevation to cool his skin in the heated summer air. Leaning against the railing, he looked out into the ocean and listened to the waves. The soothing sound was so pleasantly unfamiliar from the farmland where he’d grown up. When Helena-Marie had shown up at his mother’s shop, she’d claimed her visit was a social meeting, having been friends with his mother and aunts for several decades. She’d talked up her town and what it had to offer, the beach, the tourists, the good life if he’d ever chose to take a vacation. A part of him was suspicious at first, as if she’d come recruiting new blood.

  She’d called her town the Salem of the South and one walk down Main Street and he’d known why. He felt the energy in the air. The soft tendrils of magic as it wove in and out of stores wrapped around everyone like a blanket. The little redhead he’d met today hadn’t been the first, but she was by far the most beautiful, if not the most stubborn, woman he’d ever met.

  “This is paradise.”

  He glanced up the deserted beach in the peaceful evening. Nothing but quiet and calm. He glanced in the other direction toward the two-story house where Grey said she lived. Two figures stood on the porch. One he knew instantly was Grey because the same feeling of lust hit him in the gut. The other was a woman he’d yet to meet in town. Grey’s whole house was enveloped in a rainbow of magic as if shielding it from others’ views. Everyone but his. He tilted his head, his mind replaying their first meeting. She was a spitfire. One that wouldn’t be won over easily. He saw the façade she wore. The come-hither looks that she threw out and her over-the-top personality were meant to keep people away, yet they did the opposite for him. They made him want to get to know her even more, and he would get to know her more.

  Seconds ticked by. He watched in amazement as fire shot from her outstretched hands like a cannonball toward the water.

  “What the…” He didn’t finished his sentence before Grey and the other woman disappeared back into her house, no worse for the wear. Josh had said they called Grey, Sparky, and now Beck knew why. She was a fire starter. Fire to his ice, her ability was a yin to his yang. “Well fuck me.”

  Chapter 3

  Grey’s regular saunter down Main Street was tame compared to other mornings. Today consisted of a normal pair of jeans and a cotton T-shirt to deflect any unwanted stares. The mayor had called last night about what witnesses had reported as a meteorite or alien ship landing in a ball of flames in the ocean. She’d said she’d eased their fears but didn’t mention how or what she’d said, and before Grey could ask, the mayor was pulling the conversation in an entirely new direction. One that Grey hadn’t wanted to go. One that included her helping the fire department with fireworks in their pyrotechnic display scheduled for tonight after the fair. The guys were going to be using a barge just offshore to set off the familiar display. Visitors and locals alike would bombard the boardwalk and the beach and enjoy a show that Blansett was famous for. Most of the fire department knew about her ability, yet some of the newer ones did not. Helena-Marie had assured her not to worry about the ones who didn’t being on-board.

  Men and women alike greeted Grey in passing with lust-filled eyes. That wasn’t necessarily out of the norm compared to other mornings. Only this morning felt different. Grey could feel the eyes on her coming from all directions. Her gaze darted left, and she caught a man looking out of the jewelry store, with his arms over his chest and actually licking his lips. The perv winked. The barbershop men were standing at the entry of the door as usual, smoking whatever they could get away with, only now stopping and following her movements as she passed.

  Marsha Sweeney approached, and Grey let out an exasperated breath. The Suzie Homemaker had always shunned Grey, not that she cared. But the snide remarks about Grey’s choice of attire, and how it was giving the town a bad rep, had really started to tick her off. Internal alarms went off when Marsha laid her hand on Grey’s arm, stopping her in her tracks. What the hell? Grey raised a brow and glanced down at the hand breaching her personal space. Five seconds and they’d both be consumed with the smell of burning skin.

  “Grey.” Marsha bit her bottom lip and let her gaze run down the length of Grey’s body and back up.

  “Marsha,” Grey replied, knocking the woman’s hand from her arm. “What can I do for you?”

  “Dinner and drinks,” Marsha answered, stepping closer.

  “What are you smoking, Marsha?” Grey asked, stepping back. “You hate me, and the feeling is mutual.”

  “That’s a bit harsh, Grey.” Marsha stepped closer and stroked Grey’s arm, sending a chill down her spine. She leaned in to whisper. “I’ve always liked you…more than you know.”

  “Don’t touch me.” Grey swiped the woman’s hands from her body again with the intent that, if the woman touched her again, she’d bring all new meaning to the word red-handed. “I didn’t know you batted for the other team. Does Ralph know?”

  Marsha gave her a playful grin. “I don’t, but I would for you. How about a threesome? You, me, and my husband?”

  Grey held up her hands, her eyes wide in
shock. “You’re on crack.” Grey sidestepped the woman and hurried down the sidewalk.

  Grey sidestepped another woman and three different men who had stopped to make a pass at her as she headed toward the park where Sydney’s summer camp class surrounded a fence. Inside it, a range of farm animals—from goats to ponies to cows—had been brought in for the Solstice celebration.

  Grey crossed the street toward the class with renewed zest in her step. Trepidation stirred on Sydney’s face as she spotted Grey headed her way.

  “The potion.” Grey’s words whispered on the breeze as she glanced over her shoulder at the group of men and women standing at the corner, each of them looking directly at her. “Diluted, my butt.” Grey shook her head in disgust. The damn thing had worked all right, and it didn’t seem to be discriminating between genders.

  Grey quickened her pace to Sydney’s side. “You were wrong.”

  “Wrong?”

  Grey didn’t answer her. Her gaze remained firmly on the farm animals in the corral. Each had perked its head up, and all of them were staring at her. Several of the animals’ noses twitched in the air, and Grey gulped, swiveling Sydney back around to face the animals. “Even they’re in on it.”

  Grey took an uneasy step back, first one and then another. The animals advanced as Grey withdrew, matching her pace.

  “Sydney, you have to move the kids. Now!” Her eyes widened.

  “Wha….”

  “Just do it and call animal control. Blansett is about to have a stampede.”

  Sydney hurried her group of kids to the side of the corral and ushered them behind her.

  The trainers with the little ponies inside the fence were having a hard time keeping them calm with a death grip on the reins. The ponies neighed and reared up with their front legs, trying to get free.

  Grey took another step back, and the animals moved again. Soon they were shoving their bodies against the wooden corral that kept them contained.