Amaretto Flame Read Online Free Page A

messed up?” The
words spilled out of my mouth before I could stop them. “What if
they find him and somehow they’re able to--” He interrupted
quickly.
    “Olivia, that’s not going to happen. Besides,
the attacks that have happened are not Venator. We’ll talk about
this when I come to pick you up, okay?”
    I nodded like he could see me through the
phone. “Okay. I’ll see you Friday morning then, and don’t forget
about Max.”
    “I won’t. I’m hoping Ivanna caves Friday and
lets you come home. I think she misses you more than anyone else,
other than me of course.”
    I imagined the smile on Everett’s face and
refused to let my eyes tear up. “We’ll see,” I said. I hung up,
thinking of Everett. He had come to Eagleton just a few months
after me. He was six then, and a scrawny, timid thing. I had doted
on him from the moment he arrived, with his soft, pale hair and
shining eyes. We were inseparable. For a long time, he wouldn’t
talk to any of the other coven members. He would whisper to me what
he wanted me to know, or what he wanted to say to the others but
couldn’t bring himself to.
    He probably would have used his power – the
ability to get inside someone’s head and talk to them there – but
we learned a long time ago that normal spells didn’t work on
me.
    For years after he arrived, I’d wake up and
find him curled up beside me in my bed, his little fingers
clutching mine as if I were his only life line. Slowly, he came out
of his shell and began to speak and interact with the adults. A few
years after Everett came Max, and then Sylvia.
    I knew their histories. Each of them had gone
through terrible ordeals at the hands of the ‘parents’ who’d
created them. Sitting at the picnic table, I experienced one of my
bitter moments. Normal human children had parents that loved them,
that adored them even. They grew up secure in the fact that they
were loved. Some Wise Ones even shared that fate, but not
many.\
    It was as if we were cursed; abandoned—and
worse—by our human parents, and then we were expected to protect
humans from the Venator. Maybe not all humans would abandon Wise
Ones as soon as they realized they were different, but I instantly
doubted that thought. Even through the bitter feelings, I knew that
I would die defending humans from the hunters if need be. Because,
despite their stubborn refusal to acknowledge anything that was
different from them—beliefs different from theirs—humans were
innocent, and they didn’t deserve the cruel end the Venator would
have them experience.
    I shook my head to clear it, and stood from
the picnic table. The afternoon was wearing on, the sun a bronze
disc in the clear sky. As my feet shuffled toward the old house
slowly, I found myself remembering those first days of my arrival
in Eagleton. I was so caught up in my memories that I didn’t notice
the black jeep parked in front of the house until I had nearly
reached the low gate. I whipped my head toward the house in alarm.
If Ivanna was sending someone, she would have called, and I knew no
one in Staves.
    A tall man was standing on the wide front
porch, a crumpled brown paper bag in his hands. As I watched,
trying to place him in my memory, he shifted the bag to his other
arm and knocked on the door. I glanced back at the jeep and
wondered if perhaps Ivanna had called to have something delivered.
The man ran a hand through his unruly hair and just as he was
starting to turn, I called out to him.
    “No one’s home,” I said. “Maybe I can help
you with something.” He swiveled around to look at me with bright,
honey-colored eyes. Whoa. “
    Uh…hi,” he said, his head cocked to the side.
“I’m looking for Olivia Landry.”
    “What do you need her for?” I asked, crossing
my arms as he began to descend the steps. The hair that had looked
brown shone copper in the sunlight as he reached the cobblestone
walk. Curly sideburns of the same color lined his angular jaw.