Enchantment Read Free Page A

spell on Dark Magic, the colt favored to win in the fifth race. It would have been okay, except the horse belonged to …   a very powerful mage.”
    Channie couldn’t believe Daddy had been so stupid. “How could you not know that a horse named ‘Dark Magic’ belonged to a mage?”
    “Lots of Empties name their horses Magic something-or-other. It don’t mean nothing.”  
    Abby said, “Just because a magically disabled person don’t have no powers, don’t mean they’s empty.”
    Channie rolled her eyes and muttered, “Here we go again.” The term Empty had evolved from MD which stood for magically disabled. But most mages used it as an insult. Calling someone a son-of-an-Empty was much worse than saying he was a son-of-a-bitch.
    Momma glared at Abby in the rearview mirror and said, “Don’t interrupt your Daddy,” then nodded at Daddy and said, “Go on. Tell ‘em what happened.”
    Daddy dropped his chin a couple of inches and exhaled loudly, pursing his lips. “Dominance, had already cast a spell to increase the colt’s heart rate and lung capacity before I got to him.”
    “Wait. Are you saying the mage that owns the horse you cursed is … Dominance Veyjivik ? The Queen?”  
    “The one and only.”
    Channie’s throat tightened around her heart. All the Cumberland Mages were wealthy, powerful, and violent. But the queen, was pure evil. She’d murdered her own family, including her parents, her siblings and even her own son, to seize the throne. She was the reason Hunter’s momma, who was a distant relative of the Veyjiviks, had fled to the Ozarks.  
    “Oh Daddy.”
    “I know. Talk about bad luck. The horse probably would have died anyway, but since I cast the weakening spell, I got blamed for it.”
    “He died?”  
    “Collapsed on the track going into the final stretch. Killed his jockey too —   who just happened to be the old bitch’s grandson.”
    Channie’s mouth went completely dry.
    Daddy sighed again and said. “And to top it all off, the horse I was betting on got tangled up in the mess when Dark Magic went down. I lost everything.”
    Momma’s breath came slow and steady, but shallow. She was tight-lipped, stiff-spined and royally pissed. “The point is … since we can’t raise the money to pay off the blood debt, the Veyjivik clan has sworn to exact vengeance.”
    Abby blinked and put her hand over her heart. “They want to even the score by killing Daddy?”
    Momma cast a pre-emptive be-calm spell on everyone then said, “The Veyjivik’s don’t get even. They get revenge. They plan to make your daddy watch while they torture and kill the rest of us.”
    Daddy shot Momma a look then twisted sideways in his seat and draped his arm over the back. “I don’t want you girls to worry about it. Your Momma used some powerful magic to bewitch the cabin and redirect any tracking spells. We’re going to Colorado, but everyone, including the Veyjivik clan will think we headed east to seek sanctuary with some of my distant kin in Appalachia.”
    Channie’s legs were starting to tingle so she nudged Savvy off her lap, careful not to wake him. “But, we don’t have any kin west of Arkansas. And I’ve never heard of any mage organizations based in Colorado.”
    “Which is exactly why we’re going there. No one will ever suspect a family as magically gifted and deeply rooted as ours would go so far away from home, cut all ties with our clan, and live amongst nothing but Empties.”
    “What do you mean … cut all ties?” Channie’s voice trembled, even though she was still under the influence of Momma’s be-calm spell. “What about Aunt Wisdom?” Truth be told, Channie was closer to Aunt Wisdom than anyone, even her own momma. She’d spent at least a part of every day with her for as long as she could remember. “She knows I’d never leave without saying good bye.”
    Daddy frowned and shook his head. “No one can ever know where we went. It’s as much for their