A Lost Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 7) Read Free Page B

trying to get her attention.
    Her instincts were screaming—and she’d been ignoring them.  Too distraught by two words written on a computer screen and the thought of some poor mind witch tortured in yellow, flowery hell.
    Jamie’s well-named Witch Extraction Team ready to charge into action, armed with enough magic to blow up half the state.
    And it wasn’t the right thing to do. 
    Lauren held up her hand, willing coffee, instincts, and the drumming need in the room all to take a tiny step backward.  “Wait.”
    They reined themselves in a notch, simply because she asked—but not a single one of them liked it.
    “We’re not thinking straight.”  She was becoming surer by the second.  “We can’t just invade in the middle of the night and grab some woman who might have left a message in the computer.”
    “Why the hell not?”  Devin’s mind held the oddest mix of general-at-the-ready and confused little boy.
    And she desperately loved them both.  “We know nothing about Hannah or her magic.  Remember Beth?  We didn’t know how to meet her needs at first, and we caused damage.  Let’s not do that again.”
    Devin waved at Jamie’s computer screen, incensed.  “You think that place is taking good care of her?”
    “Maybe.”  She let the love shine in her eyes.  “We don’t know that, either.  We’ll go—but in daylight.  With a plan.”  Inspiration struck.  “Maybe Tabitha knows something about this place.”  About the people who had a witch in their clutches and half the might of Witch Central ready to storm their gates.
    It was Jamie who finally nodded.  “She has a lot of respect from the psychology types.”
    The blazing fire in several sets of eyes was banking.  She wasn’t totally crazy.  Lauren took a breath.  “I’ll call her.”  After the sun came up.
    “Daniel can dig.”  Nell’s mind was still taut.  Ready.
    And smart.  “Great.  He can dig, Tabitha can reach out, Moira can ready a place for Hannah.”  Lauren could feel her nerves steadying.  This was stuff she knew how to do.  “I’ll go make coffee.”
    One more piece.  She turned around, nearly colliding with the bulk that was her husband, and let her mind reach for his.  “You figure out how to extract her if the easy way fails.”
    “Okay.”  Her husband’s tone was level.  Almost subdued.
    It fooled no one.  If they found a witch in hell, Devin Sullivan would be the first one through the door. 
    Every wonderful inch of him.
    -o0o-
    A lot of people had crawled back under their covers—but Devin suspected very few would be getting any more sleep this night.
    There were scary monsters that lived under the bed of every witch, and one of them had just come out.  Magic misunderstood.  A witch imprisoned because of what ran in her veins.
    The need to be a force for freedom and justice still ran hot through his.  Held in check, barely, by the reasonable eyes and dogged passion of the woman he loved.  Lauren had only asked for a few hours. 
    Realistically, he knew that would make little difference to the witch known only as Hannah.  She probably slept, entirely unaware of the furor that six letters on a computer screen had caused in the middle of the night.
    It was the rest of them who were hurting, tied up in knots by the need and the ability to do something—and the small, insistent voice telling them it wasn’t yet time.
    He grinned, remembering the fire in his wife’s eyes.  There were very few people in the world who could stare down a group of Sullivans over a cup of coffee and quietly take over.  Lauren had done it in two sentences.  And unfortunately for his need to storm around like an avenging comic-book hero, she’d made deeply frustrating sense.
    Ah, well.  Maybe he could convince his businesslike planner to wear a superhero cape while she made phone calls and tugged on strings.
    It wouldn’t settle the fire in his belly any—but it might give it a different