Darkmoon (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

keys, I went out to the garage and opened the door, then got in the Cherokee and pulled out. I didn’t bother to close the garage door, as I was going straight to the drugstore and then back home.
    I’d been shopping at that store for years, but luck was with me, and the woman working the checkout counter was new and didn’t recognize me. After I’d thrown the pregnancy test in my basket, I’d contemplated getting a few more odds and ends, just to camouflage that one portentous box, but decided against it. What was the point? Even if I’d shoved it in a plain brown paper bag, the clerk would still have had to pull it out to scan the barcode.
    So I put it down on the counter as casually as possible, and she rang me up without blinking. I wondered how many women she saw buying those tests every day. A lot, I hoped. Then she wouldn’t have any reason to remember the girl with the dark hair and the scared green eyes.
    Once I was back home, I went upstairs to my bathroom and locked the door. Silly, because of course I was alone in the house. No one would walk in on me. Still, somehow I felt a little better after I’d made sure I wouldn’t be disturbed.
    I scanned the directions, but come on — peeing on a stick isn’t rocket science. For the longest moment I hesitated, staring at the piece of white plastic in my hand, my heart pounding away. Then I bit my lip, went over to the toilet, and did what I had to do.
    Afterward, the seconds seemed to tick by in slow motion. Was I breathing? I couldn’t even say for sure.
    Finally I looked down at the stick where I’d set it down on the sink, on top of a square of toilet paper. Two little pink lines.
    Two.
    No. Oh, no.
    Blessed Brigid’s charm to prevent this from happening had failed me, but in my despair, it was still Her I called on then.
    Goddess, what do I do now?
    What do I do?

2
    Decisions
    I don’t know for sure how long I sat huddled on the bathroom floor, pressed up against the clawfoot tub, shudders raking their way through my body. My heart pounded and pounded, and I kept hearing Margot Emory’s words echoing through my mind.
    The wives of Jeremiah’s line would never live to see their children grow up.
    No, I wasn’t a wife…I wasn’t anything to Connor, apparently. But it was his child I carried, and that meant I’d meet the same fate as all those other women, no matter what my marital status might be.
    At last I pulled myself to my feet, sucked in a shaky breath, then turned the spigot and splashed some water on my face. It was icy cold, but I didn’t care. Actually, it was better that way. I needed the shock of the cold water against my skin to quell the panic within me, to bring me back to earth.
    Get a grip, I told myself. It’s a baby. It’s not like it’s the monster from Alien and is going to burst through your chest at any moment and kill you on the spot.
    True. But eventually I’d end up just as dead as any of the parade of actors and extras killed on-screen in those movies, albeit probably in a less gruesome fashion.
    The thought tickled at the back of my mind, quiet, insidious.
    Get rid of it. Connor threw you out…there’s no reason for you to keep it.
    There was a Planned Parenthood in Prescott. I could make an appointment, drive over….
    No . It was the same deep, quiet voice I had heard in my mind before, when I’d wondered if it might have been better for Damon to have bonded with me, just to avoid all the death and destruction he’d left in his wake after it turned out that Connor was my consort instead. And in that moment I knew I could never do such a thing. Not because I believed myself to be on any particular moral high ground — I’d always believed a woman should choose what was best for herself and her future — but because Connor and I had made this baby out of love, even if that love had later withered and died. I didn’t know why the contraceptive spell had failed, or what I should do next, but I couldn’t