Tethered 02 - Conjure Read Free

brain to wake up, but when it did, I jackknifed in bed, breathing hard as everything from the night before rushed back to me—images of the creature sucking my life and magick from me, Binks nearly dying, jumping off the cliff…Theo.
    A tinkling laugh drifted upstairs and into my room. It pulled me from my thoughts and forced me to remember who was in my house and why. Adam and Callie . Slipping out of bed, I padded out of my room and down the hall to relieve my swollen bladder and clean myself up a bit before anyone saw me.

    “Morning,” Callie called to me in that soft, sweet voice of hers from somewhere in the living room as I descended the stairs slowly.
    My entire body hurt. It hurt worse than the last time I’d had the flu. Worse than the morning after the time Vera signed me and her up for a kickboxing class a few months ago because she thought the instructor was hot. We’d worked out on overdrive so she could gain his attention. It had worked, but the guy hadn’t lasted long before she’d gotten bored and dumped him.
    I smiled at Callie as I entered the living room. “Morning.”
    “How did you sleep?” Kace asked from where he sat, stretched out in the recliner.
    “Like a baby, oddly enough. What about you? What time did you get up?” I asked as I strode over to sit on the arm of his chair.
    Who was I kidding? I hadn’t even remembered him coming to bed. For all I knew, he’d stayed up all night.
    “Around twelve or so,” Kace answered. His arm slid around my waist, and I felt the familiar sweep of warmth coast through me from his touch.
    “What time is it?” I asked.
    “Almost one,” Adam sneered over the rim of his coffee cup. I recognized the emblem of Paisley’s on the outside of it. “When you sleep in, you really sleep in, don’t you? We’ve been waiting for you to wake up for hours now.”
    “Give her a break, Adam, geez!” Callie scolded. She smacked him in the ribs. “She was attacked last night for crying out loud.”
    “I know, I know…I’m just teasing.” He chuckled as he rubbed where she’d hit him, acting as though it had hurt. “Seriously though, we’ve been here a while. Kace was able to tell us everything that happened while you got your beauty sleep, so we’re all caught up.”
    “Good,” I said as I shifted to tuck one leg beneath me. “Now, what do we do from here? Did you guys decide on a plan or anything to figure out what it was or who sent it?”
    That sounded like something I should say, right? In situations like this, didn’t someone always come up with a plan?
    Silence was my answer for the longest time. Either no one knew what we should do first, or they had all decided on a course of action I might not like. An empty feeling entered the pit of my stomach while the silence dragged out and I waited for someone to speak. Anyone.
    “Well, we’ve sort of all come to the same conclusion,” Kace muttered. His hand left my waist to slide over the back of his neck.
    “And?” I prompted, my eyes boring a hole into him as I waited.
    “We need to become initiated…” He dragged the words out, making it almost sound like a question instead of a statement.
    Initiated? Holy hell.
    “Isn’t that a little drastic? I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.” I panicked. Whether it was the pressure of becoming initiated or the events from the night before, suddenly everything felt like too much. I rubbed my forehead with my fingertips. “All this—the magick, the house, the whole town—it all feels like I’ve finally found the missing puzzle pieces to myself, like now I can see the whole picture, the whole me, but it’s all too overwhelming.” And the initiation mention was just the icing on the cake, but I didn’t say that aloud.
    Silence descended upon the room again before Callie finally filled it.
    “Having our magick would solve everything,” Callie said softly. “It solves both potential problems. If it’s another Elemental doing this to