Enchantress Awakening: Part One of the Book of Water (The Elemental Cycle 1) Read Free Page A

weighing effort against disappointing his customer.
    “I should hate to disappoint her ladyship.” She explained glumly then unleashed her most brilliant smile. “You would be doing me a great favour if you could find a way.” In her head Caleigh willed Glyn to succumb to her charm and within a heartbeat he relented.
    “Very well, as it is for Dame Edith, I shall suspend all other work. Come by tomorrow afternoon and I will have it for you.”
    “Thank you so much.” Caleigh left the goldsmith’s light of heart and had walked some way before she realised that Glyn hadn’t even asked for payment. A touch of guilt afflicted her at the thought that he would be putting aside all other work just to please her. She could easily rationalise it if she wished, Dame Edith was the goldsmith’s principle customer and he was not so busy that he could not spare the time, nonetheless it disturbed her slightly how easy it was to get her way when she knew the effect she could have on a person.
    A couple walked past during her reverie and the most vivid thoughts jumped into her head. “That is filthy!” Caleigh exclaimed looking at the guilty party, who went red at once while his partner asked him what she had said.
     
    It was quite a revelation for an unassuming girl to find out that the vast majority of men in Connlad wanted her in their bedchamber including, to her shock and secret joy, Sir Marc himself. Nor was she unaffected by these tides of desire washing over her and often this unsought for knowledge triggered her own sense of arousal so that more than once she had to isolate herself to regain her composure. Even sharing herself with Penric did nothing to quench her rising appetite, if anything the strength of his desires only heightened her own.
    Sleep did not bring an end to her confusion, again she found herself in the familiar seeming ruins responding to the call inside her head to press on inside. The woman in white was there as she was on the night before. This time Caleigh dared to move closer, feeling no sense of threat from the stranger who did not speak. The thinness of the material struck her the nearer she moved. She could trace the woman’s slender form by the darker shades where the light did not shine through. Her height was also more apparent now that she stood close enough to compare. Caleigh’s friend Ellie was an inch taller than her and she was the tallest woman she knew, yet she gave a further three inches to this long limbed woman.
    Emboldened by her proximity, Caleigh reached out to touch the robed stranger where her sleeve parted around her upper arm. A warm shudder went through her the moment her fingertip made contact and the stranger turned to her with eyes of gleaming blue. There the vision ended for Caleigh was shocked into waking by the sheer beauty of the woman in her dreams. 
     
    It was obvious to Caleigh by this point that something was happening to her and she needed to talk to someone about it. Normally Penric and Ellie would be among the first she would open up to but in this instance neither seemed the appropriate person. Penric would hardly be pleased to know that she could feel other men’s desires and Ellie had no more knowledge about visions than she did. While either could offer a sympathetic ear what she needed now was advice. Dana was the natural solution. She was older and knew more of the world and she was also, of anyone in Connlad, the most likely to know about the seemingly inexplicable.
    There was a rumour that Dana came from a line of druidesses, and true or not Dana did certainly know her herb lore better than anyone else Caleigh knew. Not that any of this was apparent to look at her, or evidenced from the way she kept her home. To most eyes, she appeared an attractive woman of thirty-five, living like any other widow, getting by on homemade crafts sold at the weekly market.
    Dana greeted Caleigh warmly as always and sat her down at her table with a stomach warming