Obsidian Curse Read Free Page A

against my will.
    “Aha!” She slapped her manicured hand on a table. “I knew it. What’s the trouble?”
    I chewed at a nail. “There’s no trouble, Mom. It’s just…you know.”
    Her face flashed with a hint of sadness, then resurrected itself into a stone statue. “You can’t tell him, Stacy. We talked about this.”
    “He knows everything else, Mom, why can’t I tell him this?”
    She sighed, gave me a long, concerned look. “Look, sweetheart, I know it’s difficult for you. I know you love him. But you know as well as I do that it’s for his own good you keep this one thing from him. Do you think I told your father everything?”
    I hadn’t thought of that. Dad was always so easygoing, I just assumed he knew everything about her when I was little. Now, of course, those childhood illusions were shattered.
    She went on. “There are people who would kill for the secrets we keep. And some, as you well know, will come looking for you to thwart any mission you’re assigned. Do you really want them to come after Chance? Or his family?”
    She was right. It was selfish to wish that everything could be like it had always been. To think that I would ever have a normal life with Chance, despite the fact that there was a huge part of me that wanted nothing more than that. But this was my life now. This was the path I had chosen.
    “Sometimes we keep secrets from the ones we love to protect them,” my mother said gently.
    “Is that what you’re doing?” I asked.
    She stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    I wiped my face with the towel and said, “I know something’s been bothering you. I’ve known since we left Ireland. Don’t think I won’t find out, Mom.”
    “Don’t you have enough on your plate without looking for trouble where there is none?” she snapped.
    “Deny all you want, but if it’s in the Blessed Book, you can be sure I’ll find it.”
    The Blessed Book was a written history of our family’s theology. It contained pages filled with the names of my ancestors and gods, lists of the ancient high kings, stories of legends, recipes, references, spells, charms, and even predictions for future generations. Some of it was hard to decipher without Birdie’s help. After all, it was her mother, my great-grandmother, who compiled it. It belonged to me now.
    “So how’s your cousin Cinnamon?” my mother asked.
    “Nice segue.”
    “I thought so.”
    She really wanted to keep this from me, whatever it was, and I didn’t have time to argue about it. “Still pregnant and ornery as ever. We have a pool going to see how long and how many doctors she goes through in the delivery room before she completely snaps and takes matters into her own hands.”
    Mom grinned. “Put me down for twenty. I say four doctors in half an hour.”
    I heard Thor, my Great Dane familiar, bark. It was loud, penetrating as if he had trained his vocal cords to my thought waves.
    Which, I decided, was exactly what he had done. I couldn’t hear Thor, or anything for that matter, in this room. Chance had designed it to be virtually soundproof.
    “Mom, I have to go. Gotta get ready for work.”
    “All right. I love you.”
    “Love you too.”
    I disconnected the call, stepped out of the room, and grabbed the tranquilizer gun. Thor barked once more. Urgently.
    I was about to power down the laptop that still had the front security camera engaged when, on the monitor, I spotted a Star Trek baseball hat bobbing across the porch railing.

Chapter 3

    “It can’t be,” I whispered.
    I ducked through the opening that led from the Seeker’s Den to my bedroom and bolted out the front door, my tranquilizer gun tucked inside the back of my yoga pants.
    Thor was right behind me, his muscular legs pumping fast, his massive black and tan head darting this way and that.
    We covered the perimeter of the cottage, even checked in the bushes. We found no one.
    But I knew that hat. And it didn’t belong to a