Wicked Secrets Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Acknowledgements

  Wicked Secrets

  Unfortunate Blood

  Book Two

  By H.G. Lynch

  Copyright of H.G. Lynch 2013

  All rights reserved

  The right of H.G. Lynch to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  Published by Vamptasy Publishing, UK

  An Imprint of Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly

  Cover by Nicola Ormerod for Vivid Designs

  Dedicated to all my grandparents, for their endless love and support.

  Chapter One

  ** Moonstone **

  The coven of witches were gathered deep in the forest under the moonlight and blinking eyes of the stars, surrounded by the towering figures of trees. The night was chilly, a sharp wind rattling the branches and howling through the shadows. The tang of rotting leaves and dirt comforted Moonstone, knowing the witches’ power was bound to the earth through the ancient words they spoke in incantations. She turned her strange, pale eyes up to the sky, holding up her hands as if to absorb the moonlight the way flowers absorb the sun’s rays. Her coven sisters mimicked her, and Moonstone felt the magic humming between them all, linking them by the earth’s power.

  Moonstone closed her eyes and a bolt of magic from the earth ran through her body, shooting from her feet to her head, and she spoke in English to the mother of their power. “Mother of us, holder of our magic, we request your help – we are in need of your great knowledge. There is a girl who consorts with the children of the night, a girl resistant to our precious earth’s power. Help us to understand her power, show us the way to turn this girl from the darkness and defeat those who wish the earth’s creatures harm.” Magic flared through the coven, flashing from person to person, the Mother binding their minds in a way that allowed her to speak to them directly. Moonstone caught her breath, amazed. Rarely did the Mother speak to them this way – usually, she just gave them signs in the earth that they could understand, messages in the divining sticks and such. But Her voice breathed through their linked minds, not a voice in any real way because it was soundless, but it held words in the language of magic.

  “The girl is one of my own, and one of the night children. She has a foot in the shadows and a foot in the light, and she knows it not. Speak the riddle of dawning to bring her light forth, and let her choose her path into Hell’s darkness or Earth’s arms.” The Mother’s words floated through Moonstone’s mind, and then the flare of power died like a fire doused with a bucket of water. The magic dimmed to the hum of their own power, and Moonstone reeled from the implications of what the Mother had said.

  It’s not possible – how can the girl be of both worlds? Moonstone thought, but she didn’t dare question the Mother. She would know one of her own children.

  “Moonstone.” One of her coven sisters spoke up, and Moonstone turned to Rainbow. With wide green eyes and colour-streaked hair, Rainbow had picked her Coven Name appropriately – just like Ginger with her flame-red hair and Willow with her slender figure and doe-brown eyes. Their real names didn’t matter in the coven. “What does it mean? What is it the Mother is telling us?” Rainbow asked quietly. Moonstone tilted her head back to look at the stars sparkling against a blanket of charcoal black spread over the spiked tops of the trees. With a grimace, she replied, “She is telling us that the human girl is not human at all.” Lowering her chin, she looked around at her coven sisters and smiled thinly. “She just doesn’t know it…yet.”

  Chapter Two

  ** Ember **

  “Do you think they’ve given up at last? I haven’t had any more witch encounters in three days. I hope they gave up. My mum’s coming back next week and God only knows how I’m going to handle two days of her, let alone two weeks,” Ember groaned, watching Sherry as she paroled around the dorm room they shared at Acorn Hills Academy. She was showing off her new shoes: a pair of black and white, skull-patterned trainers. They were funky, Ember admitted, just a little bit jealous.

  “Hmm,” Sherry murmured, a concerned sort of noise. She sighed. “I just don’t know what they want with us. I mean, I get that they want to…to hurt Ricky and Reid…but why us? We’re not vampires. They can’t hate us for having vampire boyfriends, right?” Sherry muttered, a small crease forming between her brows as she frowned.

  Ember pursed her lips. “Yeah, they can. I’m fairly sure they’ll take us down if they can, just because we take the vampires’ side. We’re evil by association. But as long as they lay off for the next two weeks, I won’t worry. I’m more scared of my mother than of any freaking witches,” Ember grumbled, tipping her head back to stare at lines in the white ceiling. “She’s going to be watching me like a hawk, I know it! If Reid so much as holds my hand, she’s going to go postal!” She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Things had gotten so crazy since she and Sherry moved to Acorn Hills, what with falling for a boy who turned out to be a vampire, nearly getting raped by a werewolf, finding a dead crow in her room, and her mother’s last visit which hadn’t gone so well. Yet, it wasn’t the vampires or the dead animals that scared her, or even the werewolf – well, not since Reid broke the werewolf’s rib. Joseph hadn’t been in school lately.

  Sherry tried to put a positive spin on Mrs Jennings’ impending two-week visit for the October break. “I’m sure she’ll come around when she sees how much he cares about you, really. I mean, sure Reid’s an ass with a bad reputation, but how could anyone not see how he feels about you?” Sherry sat down on her bed to take off her trainers, wrinkling the pale blue bedspread.

  “You are too positive sometimes, Sherz,” Ember muttered and lay back on her own bed tiredly, putting her fingers to her temples to try and soothe a headache. She hadn’t been sleeping well lately; strange, creepy dreams of Owen, a friend from her younger years, were waking her up every night. They were always the same; he’d show up in some random place, warn her about the witches, and leave. It was like a nightly ritual and it was driving her nuts. It was making her irritable and stressed during the day, and she knew Reid had noticed. She wasn’t going to tell him she was having dreams about some other guy though. She wasn’t stupid.

  “How can you be so calm about witches trying to possibly kill us?” Sherry slid her trainers under her bed and glanced up at Ember through the pale blonde hair falling into her eyes.

  Ember frowned and shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t feel like it’s real…or maybe I’m just crazy,” she said nonchalantly. She forced a grin to her lips, but it was split by a yawn. It was only half nine at night, but she was considering going to sleep. She seemed to be constantly tired these days, no matter how much Coke she drank. Damned dreams, she thought with a sigh, shutting her exhausted eyes.

  There was a pause, and then Sherry asked in a small voice, “Do you really think they’ve given up?” Her friend’s voice was serious and Ember opened her eyes again to see the concern in Sherry’s green eyes. She sat up w
ith some effort and thought for a moment. What were the odds the witches who’d been toying with them, who wanted to kill Reid and Ricky and the other vampires, had given up? Slim to none. They were probably planning a new line of attack, after the way Ember had stood up to them in the forest last week. Something more forceful than mind games.

  Quietly, Ember answered, “No. No, I honestly don’t. I think this is the calm before the storm.” She gazed out the window at the darkened sky and roiling clouds. The spiky tops of the trees brushed the sky, swaying in the wind. Inexplicably, Ember suddenly had the feeling that something bad was coming her way. Something very bad.

  *

  Her dream that night was a little different than the usual ones – it was scarier.

  *****

  Owen stood, wearing black jeans and a leather biker jacket like always, in a field she recognised. It was more like a valley, really, with mazes of gorse bushes and a rough flowing river cutting through it. It sprawled out over ragged ground, lush grass glistening with moisture as the fluffy grey clouds overhead rolled on, paying her no heed. The river babbled charmingly, the clear water bubbling over pebbles. A brisk wind blew around her, lifting her hair over her shoulder, and rustling the thorny gorse bushes. Ember was surprised to see there were no horses milling around, even though it was just a dream, because this was the valley back at Red’s riding school, where the younger horses were kept in summer.

  Owen stood on the other side of the river, on the muddy bank, while she stood one the flatter side on the sandy bank. She wasn’t wearing her horse-riding gear, so it felt odd to be here, even in a dream. Even odder to see Owen here, to see him in the place she loved so much, where he clearly didn’t belong.

  “Do you have nothing better to do than plague my dreams, Owen?” Ember enquired almost lightly. She was getting used to these visits – sort of – and she found that the best way to ignore the strangeness and creepiness was to act casually. It put her more at ease to taunt the bothersome boy in front of her, to pretend there was nothing wrong with this scene.

  Owen didn’t bother with polite greetings either. “Ember, you’re in danger.” Owen’s eyes were intense and cold, but his voice was strained with what sounded like real fear. Ember snorted, unafraid.

  “You tell me that every night,” she pointed out. “I think I get the picture. Why don’t we talk about what you’ve been up to the past four years? Catch up?” Ember smirked at the boy. He took a quick step forward, his toes right on the edge of the rushing water.

  “Ember, I’m serious! You need to be careful! Stay with your friends tomorrow! The witches know who you could be – who you are!” Wild eyes on her, Owen clenched his hands into fists at his sides. She’d gotten used to his insane nonsense by now, but she still flinched at the vehemence in his voice.

  Determined not to let him get to her, she said mockingly, “Yeah, I’m the little blonde girl with a vampire for a boyfriend and a freak in her dreams.” He just stared at her. She sighed, putting a hand on her hip exasperatedly. This was getting old so fast it was collecting dust already. But a shiver ran down her spine despite her light tone, and she told herself it was just because of the cool wind tugging at her clothes. Overhead, the clouds were darkening, a warning of their own. That was something else about these dreams – they felt too real.

  Owen shook his head, his black hair blowing across his forehead, and he didn’t bother to push it back. He stared at her through strands of inky hair, his lips pressed thin. “No, you’re more than that, Ember. They know who you are! Be careful!” he insisted. She wasn’t sure when Owen’s warnings had stopped sounding like threats and more like protective cautioning, but she realised right then that that was what he was saying. He was trying to protect her. These dreams only got more and more bizarre.

  With a start of surprise, she asked warily, “I’m…more than that? What does that mean?” Ember suddenly felt irrationally worried, remembering how her previous dreams of Reid had been so prophetic. What if these dreams weren’t just dreams after all? What if they were real warnings somehow? The thought gave her chills.

  “You’re different, Ember. They know who you are now! They’ll try to use that!” Owen reached out a hand across the river, but the river was rushing angrily now; it was too wide. She couldn’t reach him. She tried to step into the river to get closer, but her foot wouldn’t move. It was stuck into the sandy mud, and she was slowly sinking, sinking into the ground. Panic fluttered inside her chest and she turned wide, scared eyes up to Owen. Owen’s expression was soft, regretful. He opened his mouth to say something, but the wind blasted sharply into him and…and he melted into thick smoke that blew away before her eyes, leaving her alone and sinking. The valley around her blurred, warped, and then dripped slowly away to blackness.

  *****

  Ember shifted in her sleep, but she didn’t wake. She clung to unconsciousness, and drifted into more pleasant dreams of giant libraries and chocolate ice-cream, forgetting…forgetting the dream and the warning and the worry…

  ** Reid **

  “Reid, this is stupid!” Ricky yelled after him, following his marching progress further and further into the forest. Reid kept going, crashing through branches and briars and hissing when they scratched him. He didn’t care if it was stupid; he was pissed off, and he was sick and bloody tired of these witches trying to kill him. He was especially tired of them taking it out on Ember. After the other day, when Ember had gone looking for them and found them, Reid had been simmering quietly. Part of him was mystified by the fact that she, a tiny little human girl – albeit with a big temper – had had the guts to do what he hadn’t even thought of: she’d confronted the witches. The other part of him was infuriated that she’d had to do it, to put herself in danger like that, because of him. Because of what he was, because the witches had manipulated him, because he couldn’t even track down a group of nasty little witches and take their heads off.

  Finally, he’d gotten fed up of simmering and boiled over, and now he was going to hunt the witches down and end this shit. And, of course, Ricky was trying to stop him. Because it was what Ricky did when Reid decided to do something reckless. Usually, though, his job was just to keep Reid from breaking a guy’s neck in a bar brawl, or otherwise keep him just enough in line that he didn’t get put in jail – not that it worked every time. He was quite familiar with several members of the Acorn Hills police force. Today, Ricky’s job was to keep Reid from– “…getting yourself killed! Reid, are you even listening? You’re going to get yourself killed,” Ricky called, pausing to spit a curse as he stumbled over a tree root.

  Reid, with a heavy sigh that sounded more like a growl, whirled around and threw up his hands. “Then what, Ricky?!” he yelled. “What should I do? Have you got any better ideas? Because I don’t, and I’ve had enough of this. Coming after us is one thing, but they’re going after Ember now – after Sherry.” Ricky flinched, but Reid went on, working himself up to a hot rage. His fangs dented his lower lip, sharp and lethal. “Do you want to see what happens when they catch one of the girls alone? We can’t be with them every hour of the day – we might not always be fast enough to get to them in time, like we did with Ember last time. If something happens…if they…I can’t–” He snapped his jaw shut, pushed beyond words, too angry to form full sentences as the thoughts whirred around in his head, images of possibilities, nightmares.

  Violently, he spun around and slammed his fist into the nearest tree. White pain shot through his hand as two of his knuckles smashed, the skin splitting open and blood bursting over his fingers. The skin started to knit itself together instantly, the healing impeded by tiny splinters he couldn’t be bothered pulling out just yet, and he was distantly pleased to note he’d left a dent in the tree’s trunk. He smiled grimly, feeling just slightly better for the outburst, and turned back to Ricky. Ricky stared at him with utter exasperation, no doubt having been expecting the violence. He was good at predicting when Reid was going to snap. He just c
ouldn’t do anything to stop it. Occasionally, he could buffer it a little. Today, not so much. So, knowing it’d be hopeless to try and calm Reid down, Ricky just said, “You feel better for breaking your hand?”

  Reid nodded. “A little.” Heaving a weighty, weary sigh, Ricky ran his hand through his hair backwards in a familiar gesture of agitation. “Okay. I get it, Reid, I do. You want to protect Ember – I want to keep Sherry safe too, so I get it. But running around out here, looking for the witches who want to kill you…it’s just asking for trouble–” He held up a hand as Reid started to open his mouth. “Yeah, I know. Trouble is your thing. But if you get yourself staked, Ember will go crazy trying to bring you back, just so she can kill you herself for being an idiot.”

  With that, Reid had to agree. He pursed his lips. Then he glared at Ricky. “You’re almost as annoying as Brandon when you’re right,” he stated. When Ricky just grinned back at him, Reid sighed and looked down at his bloody hand, flexing his fingers. “Can we go back to civilisation now? Before the witches come along and find us hanging about here like sitting ducks?” Ricky asked, shoving his hands in his pockets and half-turning away.

  But it was too late. As if on cue, one of the witches stepped out of the late afternoon shadows of the trees – the leader of the coven, the one with the short hair and creepy, milky eyes. Catching the movement in the corner of his eye, Reid spun, fangs bared, hating that she had the ability to creep up on him; it was unnatural. Nothing should have been able to creep up on a vampire like that. She must have had some sort of spell for stealth, and she’d come from downwind, so he hadn’t smelled her either. If he hadn’t already been ready to kill her, that alone would have pushed him to it. He hated being taken off-guard.