Love Is The Bond: A Rowan Gant Investigation Read Online Free Page B

magick with, in this case,
one purpose—to keep Felicity safe from harm. It was something I had
worked immediately following my wife’s experience with Kimberly
Forest’s kidnapping and eventual death.
    Unfortunately, the day I had set about
casting the spell, she had come home unexpectedly, and I’d had to
hide the box before I could bury it. Soon after that, everything in
our lives had calmed. It had been so quiet for the past two plus
years that I had never seen the need to fully complete the spell.
Still, I had kept the old metal box in the back of my desk’s file
drawer all this time, hidden but not forgotten. I knew, as it sat
now, in some sense it was working its intended magick. However,
placing the poppet into the earth would bring the spell completely
to fruition beyond any doubt—as long as Felicity didn’t know about
it.
    And, right now, something was telling me that
it was imperative for the spell to be finished. I tried not to
dismiss those “somethings” when they talked to me. Because, even
though they usually got me in trouble, ignoring them just made the
trouble that much worse.
    I finally realized I was staring blankly at
the doll and broke myself out of the shallow trance. I closed the
lid and snapped the latch shut then nestled the box snugly at the
bottom of the hole. I stood and with almost mechanical repetition,
scooped the loose dirt in on top of it then tamped it down with the
back of the shovel. After rolling the decorative boulder back into
place—as well as muscling it around to make sure it looked close as
possible to its original position—I scattered some of the fallen
leaves around it in an attempt to hide any evidence that it had
been disturbed.
    I stood there staring at the rock for a long
while, leaning on the shovel handle as I pondered the magnitude of
what I had just done. A spell was supposed to be cast in perfect
love and perfect trust. I could easily claim perfect love, but the
issue of perfect trust was another story entirely. I was inflicting
my will upon my wife without her knowledge, much less her blessing,
and I knew for that I would eventually pay. Even so, if it kept her
safe, the debt was one upon which I would gladly make good.
    Finally, even though there was no one there
to hear the words but me, I simply said, “Not on my watch, Felicity
Caitlin O’Brien. Not on my watch.”
    A few minutes later, I stowed the tools back
in the shed then went inside to clean up and get down to work. I
had a client with a system crash and two more with remote updates
scheduled for installation this afternoon.
    It was going to be a full day. Had I realized
how full the days beyond this one were about to become, I would
have considered it a vacation.
     
     
     
     
    Tuesday, November 8
    12:27 A.M.
    Suite 1233, Concourse Suites
    St. Louis, Missouri
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 2:
     
     
    She couldn’t remember the last time she had
been this frustrated. Even the bath hadn’t helped, and she’d even
used six cans of milk instead of four.
    Of course, maybe milk wasn’t what she needed
to use. Perhaps purity wasn’t the remedy she needed to seek.
    She should know by now that purity couldn’t
satisfy the hunger.
    She finished closing her garment bag and
tugged on the zipper. When it didn’t immediately yield to her pull,
she gave it a violent jerk then shrieked at it. “Dammit!”
    “Dammit…” She muttered the word again, her
angry voice held low under her breath. “That fat bastard just had
to ruin it…”
    It was entirely his fault. She would be fine
right now if it wasn’t for him.
    She couldn’t believe it. The sensory
deprivation, smothering, the razor; shit, even the gun didn’t make
him afraid. And, he had known it was the real thing, it was his own goddamned gun! He just kept
getting more excited no matter what she did to him. No matter what
she threatened, there was no fear. Even after she would carry out a
torture and follow it with psychological intimidation,