T*Witches: Double Jeopardy Read Free

to feel light-headed, but a reckless rush of adrenaline surged through Alex.
    “What are you doing here?!” she demanded, forgetting who she was shouting at — namely, one of the world’s most powerful …
    And dangerous
, Cam silently reminded her sister.
    … Warlocks. Lord Thantos, their uncle, was a third-degree tracker whose status and skill was equal only to that of their old friend Karsh — in Karsh’s long-past heyday.
    Age was not the only difference between the two men. Karsh, wizened and white-haired, had cared for and protected the twins their entire lives. He’d chosen parents to adopt them and appointed Ileana, a headstrong but fiercely dedicated young witch, to be their guardian. While Thantos had tried only to lure and trap them.
    Their uncle was studying them now, his black-bearded face frowning.
    Despite her outburst, Alex was shaking. Remembering the dizziness his glare could cause, Cam had lowered her eyes. She would not look directly at him.
    He shook his head. “Amazing,” he muttered, then sighed, sounding almost melancholy. “Do you have any idea how much you resemble your father?”
    The father you murdered? Cam thought but dared not say.
    Of course, Thantos heard her anyway.
    “I see you’re not up on the news,” he roared, cured of his sentimental moment. “I’ve been exonerated. Cleared of all charges.” He stood and began to stomp back and forth before them. “Oh, dear,” he said sarcastically in a wheedling voice, “have Karsh and Ileana kept you in the dark? Failed to fill you in on the happenings that made history on Coventry Island last week? Check with your guardians. I had nothing to do with Aron’s death. I did, however, have much to do with your mother’s survival —”
    “We know where she is,” Alex blurted.
    “You had her locked away in an institution,” Cam accused.
    For a time they had believed Miranda was dead. Once they suspected she was alive, they began to search for her. Recently, a truly bizarre set of circumstances had proved that their mother was living hidden away in an institution — the exact same exclusive clinic to which Cam’s friend Brianna had been sent.
    Bree’s e-mails about a fellow patient who was looking after her — a beautiful woman who wore her long auburn hair in a single braid, had eyes the same silver-gray color as the twins’, and wore a necklace similar tothe precious ones Cam and Alex’s birth father had made for them — led to a phone call from the birth mother they’d never met. It was during that brief call that Miranda had promised to visit them soon.
    Thantos stopped pacing and whirled on them. “I did what was best for your mother.”
    “You locked her away,” Cam persisted.
    “But we found her,” Alex boasted.
    “Not without my help.” Now it was Thantos’s turn to gloat. “Who do you think chose the clinic your friend was in — the place where young Brianna just happened to meet a lovely, lonely woman with a necklace much like your own?”
    Shocked, Cam and Alex looked at each other. “No,” Cam declared.
    “Don’t believe him,” Alex advised. “You couldn’t have arranged that. You’re not that powerful,” she challenged her uncle.
    He was angry, weary, frustrated. “Foolish fledglings!” With a wave of his hand, his nieces flew backward, landing against Cam’s bed. “Sit down!” Thantos ordered.
    Eyes wide, hearts racing again, they did.
    From beneath his velvet cape, the hulking tracker drew a leather pouch and took a number of objects from it. Among them, Cam saw the translucent pink glow ofrose quartz. And Alex smelled mint and the subtle balm of chamomile.
    “Is that all Ileana and old Karsh have taught you?” Thantos asked disdainfully. He opened his huge hand. “What of moonstone, agate geode, or iron pyrite? And this root, have you learned what mandrake is for? Or how to release the power of valerian?”
    On Cam’s dresser sat one of the scented candles her friend Amanda had