Love's a Witch Read Online Free Page A

Amber. We need to keep helping Mary develop her powers.” I felt a blanket float over me. A lock of my hair got swept behind my ear.
    It was Craig. I knew his voice, and I could feel my skin sizzle where he touched me. I always felt the magic moving through supernatural beings, but it was more with Craig.
    The van took a sharp turn and I nearly rolled off the seat. Pretending to be asleep and holding on were almost mutually exclusive. My nails dug into the cushion. For the time being, I hadn’t given myself away.
    “Craig is right,” Jake said. “We must keep moving, and help her get her defenses up. I can draw from the past, and you have amazing instinct about the present, Amber. Craig can keep us from living out of a cardboard box, and when Mary learns all she is capable of, we will have the best grasp on how to attack the future.”
    No pressure there. Geez.
    “I still want to talk about changing her.” Amber’s pout came through in her tone.
    Wait. Whoa. What ?
    “Amber, as I said before, this is not the time to discuss that.” I agreed with Jake about a lot of things. This was not one of them. Luckily he was still talking. “This is not something you want to discuss casually with your best friend. I worry we have overwhelmed her as it is. There is bad karma associated with changing someone purely for the pleasure of their company.”
    Sure I knew there were issues with turning. Especially after seeing Amber almost die. Hell, when I first saw her in the parking lot they dragged me to, I thought she was already gone. Her cheeks were sunken in. Her eyes were cloudy. I am glad I saw her waking up. If they had made me leave at that point, I’d have had nightmares for years. Despite that, I knew what had come out of her turning was epic love, and even more epic strength. Seemed worth the risk to me.
    “You know there’s only one acceptable reason for a change,” Jake added.
    “What are you looking at me for?” But I didn’t even register Craig’s words. I was up and leaning over the seat next to him.
    “You can change me? Oh my god! Do it! Do you think I’d get eyes like you, Amber? I’d love your eyes!”
    Amber and Jake were still as statues, and Craig gawked at me like I had grown another head.
    I shrugged. “So you thought I was asleep. I fooled you. Get over it. Now about this change thing, when do we start?”
    We pulled over to a liquor store about five minutes later. Craig said he needed something stronger than the coffee we had swiped from the hotel.

Chapter Four
    Craig
    The bottles clanked on the counter. Seventy-five bucks later I was sitting behind the liquor store. I couldn’t dazzle people, but I found an intimidating stance, a growl and a bit of werewolf eye flash is very convincing for the employees to allow you to use their back exit.
    In the absence of moonshine, I went for the highest percentages of alcohol they had. The Everclear hit my gut hard. If there was ever a liquor made for nothing else other than becoming intoxicated, this was it. Three long swallows and I let the burn hit my gut. I hoped it would be enough.
    I wasn’t really sure what upset me more about the scene in the van. Mary had really fooled us. She explained to Amber she was using her ability to trance to influence her breathing and heart rate. There was more to it though.
    No one in our group had any psychic or mind reading abilities, but we should have been able to tell the difference between trance and sleep. Part of me wondered if Mary wasn’t inadvertently blocking us. I didn’t even know she was moving until she was right next to me. I should have heard her.
    Did one of the other witches teach her how to disguise her life force? How could she do it so well? How long had she been doing it? I took another swig of the liquid burn. This stuff was terrible, but now that half the bottle was gone, the world held a glorious soft glow.
    The intoxication wouldn’t last long. So when I did empty the bottle, I