Witch's Awakening Read Free

you.”
    Emotion clogged his throat. He turned to look at Garth’s gray, still features. From Eva Grace’s warm touch, Jake felt calm and comfort flood through him. Even in her grief, she used her empathic abilities to help and heal.
    â€œTake care of her,” he told Fiona.
    Brenna answered him. “We always take care of our own.”
    â€œYou see to Garth now,” Fiona said before he could reply to Brenna’s sharp tone. “Do that for Eva Grace and then come back to the house to talk to us.”
    â€œI need a minute with Garth,” Eva Grace said suddenly. “Just a minute alone, please.”
    Sirens were wailing in the distance. The EMS crew would soon be pulling up to the Connelly’s home and coming to the falls. Deputies would help Jake cover every inch of the scene. The state crime lab was sending a team. Jake had also called a group of local paranormal researchers who often helped the sheriff’s department look for elements outside of fingerprints and fibers.
    Eva Grace deserved a moment of privacy with Garth before that invasion began.
    â€œTake as long as you need,” Jake told her and, leaving the grieving woman alone, walked with Brenna and Fiona onto the path that led to the Connelly home.
    â€œShouldn’t we keep an eye on her?” Fiona whispered to Brenna.
    â€œThere’s nothing here that can harm her now,” Brenna said, pausing just inside the forest. “The worst has happened.”
    â€œAre you sure it’s the worst or the beginning?” Fiona asked. “Garth wasn’t a Connelly. Why would the Woman in White take him?”
    â€œShe’s a ghost,” Brenna replied to her sister. “If any of us could sense what she was thinking, it’s you, Fiona.”
    Jake knew Fiona was well known for her ability to communicate with the dead, but she shook her head at Brenna’s question. “There was just anger. She didn’t communicate anything but anger to me.”
    Jake interrupted. “Who is this spirit? You talk as if you know who it was.”
    â€œThe Woman in White,” Brenna snapped at him. “She’s always been coming for one of us. She comes after all the Connelly women.”
    â€œWell, not all—” Fiona broke in.
    â€œAt least one of us a generation,” Brenna said. “She takes one of us.”
    â€œTakes you?” Jake countered. “What do you mean?”
    Brenna regarded him with cold impatience. “She kills one of us, shifter.”
    Jake was startled, but not by what she called him. She was a witch. She was Eva Grace’s close relative. Of course she knew what he was, but why the belligerence? Questions formed in his mind, but a sudden disturbance forestalled any further conversation.
    Instinct made Jake step in front of the women, but the source of the noise was not a threat. Sarah Connelly Hayes, the Connelly family matriarch, hurried toward them, followed by her husband, Marcus. Sarah’s long, gray hair was loose around her shoulders, and for the first time ever Jake thought she looked old.
    â€œWhat’s happened?” she demanded. “I was in Eva Grace’s garden, supervising the set-up of the tent for the wedding when I felt everything change. It went dark.”
    â€œGarth’s dead, Sarah,” Brenna told her without preamble. Jake sensed an odd note of triumph in her tone. What was that about?
    Sarah turned white and faltered. Her husband stepped up and put his arm around her shoulders.
    â€œSteady, now,” the tall, dark-haired man murmured before he looked at Brenna. “How could Garth be dead?”
    â€œAsk her,” Brenna said, nodding at her grandmother again. Again, Jake felt her anger toward the older woman. “Ask her why her protections failed. She’s had twenty-eight years to prepare for this. So ask her why it happened.”
    Sarah’s eyes narrowed, and her frame straightened.