Unbound (38 page)

“It worked!” I whispered in disbelief. Ethan put his arms around my waist and pulled me in.

“I’ll have to thank you later,” he said and gave me a peck on the lips.

“How did you do it?” Laney asked, still bewildered.

“Quartz crystals,” I informed her. “They have healing properties, so I thought if I put some over the cut for the night it would help it heal. But I had no idea that they would work
this
well.”

“Can they heal anything?” She cocked her head a bit.

“Uh,” I looked at Ethan. “I’m not sure.”

Ethan took his hands off my middle and said, “No, they can help generate the energy that promotes healing for anything, but anything bigger than this cut would be too much. Or you’d need a shit ton of crystals. And you’d have to know how to properly charge them.”

“Oh, ok.” Laney nodded, her eyes still wide in amazement.

“Hi Anora!” Julia called from the kitchen.

“Hey!” I called back and went to join her. “You weren’t joking about the books,” I said to Ethan, eyeing the stacks that cluttered the table. “Oh, Julia, this is my best friend, Laney. She’s here to help with the research party.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said, her voice as smooth as honey. “We will need all the help we can get.”

Ethan, Laney and I took our seats at the table and grabbed a book. “So what exactly are we supposed to be looking for?” Laney asked me quietly.

I looked up from a book about banshees. “I don’t really know. I was just hoping to see a picture of the bird-demons,” I said with a shrug.

“That’s what I’m looking for too,” Ethan said, not taking his eyes off the old leather journal he was holding.

“I think that’s all we have to go with right now,” Julia told us. Wind howled outside the window. I could see the tree limbs bending with its force. “A warm front moved in. It’s going to storm tonight,” she said without looking up from the book she was reading. I just nodded, not knowing if that was a psychic premonition or if she had just watched the Weather Channel.

 
Sam and David came through the back door carrying pizza and a case of beer. The wonderful smell of cheese and pepperoni made my empty stomach growl. I gladly put the book down and introduced Laney to David and Sam. Sam said ‘hi’ but I got a flash of green light and a strong sense of jealousy
 
from her when I said the words ‘best friend’.

We hit the books as soon as we finished eating, but no one found anything that gave us any more info than we already knew. I was leafing through an old leather bound journal full of notes taken by previous Order members. Probably more than half of the books in the pile were really journals. At nine-fifteen, we decided to call it a night. Ethan said he would walk Laney to her car since it had started raining. I hugged her goodbye and waited on the porch while they ran through the rain to her car. After she was safely on her way home, Ethan jogged back and went up the stone steps taking two at a time. He jumped up the last ones and landed right in front of me.

 
With a devious smile he put one hand on my back and the other on my butt and pulled me into him. I wrapped my arms around him too and stuck my cold hands under his shirt causing him to shy away, which made me giggle. He moved back in and I once again put my cold hands under his shirt, but he didn’t jump away this time. Instead he dipped me back and kissed me. The passion in his kiss sent shivers down my spine and I instantly wanted him. Ethan led me inside and into the living room. A crackling fire was the only light.

Ethan sat on the couch and I climbed onto his lap, wrapping my arms tightly around him and nuzzling my head on his shoulder. He put his arms around me too, and it wasn’t long before we were making out. He turned and laid back length wise on the couch, pulling me on top of him. I wasn’t sure where his family was. I could hear Sam playing around with a police scanner in the kitchen. I hoped nobody walked in and saw us. As if he could read my mind, Ethan sat up, took my hand and led me to his bedroom. We quickly picked up right where we left off. Ethan’s touch felt so warm and wonderful, but I couldn’t help but have stray thoughts enter my head.
The kin of the coven
…something had been bothering me about that in a subconscious way for quite a while. A light bulb went on over my head suddenly.

“Harry!” I said, pushing abruptly away from Ethan.

“Uh, no. Ethan.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m into role playing, but not like that.”

“Shut up. I just had a thought.” I repositioned myself off of Ethan. “I am kin of the coven, right?”

“Yea,” Ethan said, sounding a bit annoyed I broke off the action.

“Well, Harry’s
my
kin, so doesn’t that make him kin of the Coven?”

Ethan looked perplexed. “It would seem so, but I don’t think it works like that. Your mom’s related to the Coven too, but in magical terms, I don’t think ‘kin’ means what it does in, uh, normal terms.”

“Oh. It doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Ethan agreed and reached for me. He ran his fingers through my hair, fully knowing that I absolutely loved that. I closed my eyes but tried to focus on my question.

“Why then? Why me and not them?”

“I don’t know,” Ethan said, gently pushing me down. He ran his fingers through my hair again and kissed my neck, another sensation that I loved.

Everything seemed perfect when I was safely wrapped in Ethan’s arms. He traced my spine with his nails until he drifted off to sleep. Thunder echoed in the distance and a flash of lightning brightened the room for a split second. Steady rain pinged against the window. Looked like Julia was right, after all.

My arm was getting sore from laying on it so I carefully flipped over as to not disturb Ethan, but even in his sleep he felt me move and tightened his arms around me, wanting me to be close. With a smile I lay back down, closed my eyes and fell asleep.

My ringing phone woke me up at a little past eleven o’clock. Thinking it was probably my parents, I grudgingly wiggled free from Ethan’s arms and rooted in the darkness through my purse to find my cell. I was relieved and surprised to see it was Harrison, not my parents, calling.

“Hello?” I said groggily. He didn’t answer right away. I could hear music and laughter in the background.

“ANORA!” Harrison yelled cheerfully, sounding like he was doing a very bad job of speaking with an Italian accent. Great, he was drunk again.

“Yea?” I sat on the edge of the bed.

“Can you bring me-” he cut off abruptly and said something to someone in the background. “Hello?” He sounded confused now.

“Harry. What do you want?”

“Right. Keys.”

“Keys for what?” There was another pause. Then Harrison howled with laughter. “HARRY!” I yelled into the phone, waking Ethan up.

“My car.”

“Why on earth do you need keys? What happened to yours?” I asked before realizing that I didn’t want him driving anywhere.

“They’re in a tree.”

“Do I even want to know why?”

“I was Thomas Edison.”

“Whatever, where are you?”

He gave me an address and I told him I’d bring him the keys. Really I was just going to take him home. With a sigh I got dressed and perched on the bed next to Ethan. I wasn’t sure if he was really listening when I filled him in on what was going on. I was just about to get up and leave when he snaked an arm around my waist and pulled me back down onto him.

“I’ll take you,” he offered.

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

“No, you don’t. You just worry too much.”

“Only because I love you,” he said, his eyes still closed. I got up and picked up his clothes. Another flash of lightning lit up the room. I tossed his clothes at him and turned on the light.

Ten minutes later and we were out the door. I was in the Prius and Ethan was following behind me in his own car. Mom must have been working late because she wasn’t home and Dad had fallen asleep in the basement watching TV again, so I was able to sneak in unnoticed to grab Harrison’s spare keys. I dashed through the rain to the passenger side of the X-Terra. We were both tired so neither of us talked much on the way to the house Harrison was at, which turned out to be close to the downtown area.

Ethan took my hand and led me around the back, following the sounds of music and laughter. A large group of people were huddled under a make-shift canopy that consisted of several plastic tarps, umbrellas and pieces of cardboard. The air smelled of alcohol and smoke and the energy was just chaotic. With a bit of difficulty we found my belligerent brother. Even in the dim light I could tell his eyes were extremely bloodshot. He was sitting inside a shabby living room, on a couch that you couldn’t pay me to sit on, next to some cheap looking girl. His head was bobbing up and down slowly, the way it does when you’re trying not to fall asleep.

“Great,” I said under my breath. Harrison’s eyes widened in excitement when he saw me, but only for a split second and then his head went down again.

“I think he’s gonna need some help,” Ethan told me. I couldn’t agree more. Ethan helped him up and took one side. I went to Harrison’s other and put his arm over my shoulders. His shirt was soaking wet. We slowly made our way back outside. Maybe it was just the movement of walking or maybe it was the cold rain on his face, but Harrison perked up. I took this opportunity to ask again about the keys.

Harrison looked up into a tree and said, “They’re there.” I followed his gaze and saw a plastic kite tangled on bare branches.

“Why are they there?” Ethan asked.

“I was being Thomas Edison,” Harrison said again, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I ducked out from Harrison’s hold on me a little too fast and he stumbled forward. Luckily Ethan was strong and had quick reflexes because he caught him. “First of all, it was Ben Franklin who did the whole keys on a kite thing, and second, you are an idiot.” I extended my hand towards the kite and telekinetically pulled it down. The keys were tired pretty tightly to it, and I needed Ethan’s pocket knife to cut them off. “Ok,” I said, joining the boys again. I had to suppress the urge to slap Harry upside the head; he’d probably fall right over it I did. “Ethan, you can go home. I’m driving Harry in his car because I think he’s gonna puke at any second now.”

“I feel fine!” Harrison told us, again in an overly cheerful voice.

“You sure?” Ethan asked me, not sounding too sure himself.

“Yes.” I pressed the automatic start for the BMW. Thank God it has heated seats, I thought; the rain soaked through my clothes and the wind had picked up. “You’ve done so much for me the last few days and you deserve to just sleep tonight. I don’t think Harry will be going to school tomorrow, so I can just come right over afterwards, if you want me to.”

A rabbit shot out from under a nearby bush. Upon seeing it, Harrison lunged forward, saying he was going to catch it.

“Oh my God,” I said slowly to myself. I struggled to hold onto Harrison’s arm. Ethan stepped in and helped me get him into the car. I buckled him in, closed the passenger door and turned to Ethan. “I think I’m gonna have to do a spell to cover for Harry. Maybe the agree spell to let him stay home tomorrow.”

“Or you could just say he got food poisoning,” Ethan suggested.

“Oh, I guess so.” That was simple and easy, and it hadn’t even crossed my mind. Maybe I was looking for reasons to do spells.

 
Distant lightning flashed across the dark horizon. I wrapped my arms around him and sighed. He kissed the top of my head. “I love you,” I told him.

“And I love you, Anora,” he said sweetly, making me feel warm inside. He placed his hands on my hips and kissed me that wonderful, passionate kiss, making me want him all over again. “Call me when you get home, so I know you’re ok.”

“I will. Thanks for helping me with Drunkey too.”

“I think you needed it.” Ethan shot a half worried glance at my inebriated twin. He moved his cold hands to under my shirt. “I’ll miss you tonight,” he said, looking over me to survey our surroundings.

“I’ll miss you too. I feel safe when I’m with you,” I confessed. We kissed again before I got into the BMW and headed towards home. Harrison was rambling about sports, football maybe? I wasn’t really paying attention and he was talking so fast that I couldn’t keep up.

“What did you take?” I asked him. When he didn’t answer, I looked over and saw that his eyes were closing again. Suddenly he gasped.