T*Witches: Kindred Spirits Read Online Free Page A

her. Had he heard that thought? When she felt his arm rest lightly across her shoulders, it was, she told herself, a comforting, friendly embrace — nothing more. She didn’t pull away, just savored being with him as they followed a path through the forest.
    “Where are we going?” she asked. “Do you live near here?”
    He shrugged and looked away. “I used to live about a mile and a half away. My family still does.”
    “You moved out?” she guessed.
    “I got kicked out.”
    “Really?” What could Shane have done to get himself expelled from home?
    “Difference of beliefs.” He answered her unspoken question with jarring swiftness. “They brought me up to believe as they do and didn’t like it so much when I beganto question their, uh, loyalties.” He tried to sound like it wasn’t a big deal, but Cam suspected otherwise.
    “Was it about Thantos?” she ventured.
    “They’re faithful to Lord Thantos. They think I’m not.”
    “Is that how things are divided here?” she blurted without thinking. “You’re either with Thantos or against him? Can one person be that influential? I mean, he’s not the president or anything.”
    Shane swung around to face her. “You have to understand, Cam. The DuBaer family is royalty here. For better or worse, they’re powerful and influential. So, sure, people have strong feelings about them. But like anywhere else, there’s the usual stuff that divides people: jealousy, greed, even love.”
    A strange feeling of uneasiness swept over Cam. “So where do you live now? Other side of the tracks or something?”
    Had Shane squirmed or was she imagining it? “I’m bunking with a friend,” he murmured, looking a lot like he wanted to change the subject.
    He didn’t have to. The subject changed itself.
    There was no breeze, yet Cam shivered suddenly. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. This was not a premonition nor a vision. But her senses became razor-sharp. She felt like prey in the woods. She knew …
    They were being watched.
    She swiftly checked over her shoulder, but before she could focus through the screen of branches, leaves, and thick bushes, Shane asked, “What’s wrong?”
    Cam was embarrassed. It would seem so weird, so … babyish.
Someone’s here. Someone’s watching us
. “Uh, nothing.” She quickly switched gears. “Tell me about the island.”
    The watchers waited in the woods. Waited for Apolla and Artemis, for Camryn and Alexandra. The twins had to be careful. Careful where they wandered and with whom.
    Oh, really? And how would you know?
Ileana asked herself cynically.
    She’d witnessed it, but had been helpless, unable to save Karsh from death. Nor, for the first time, could she help her young charges that awful day in the Salem Woods.
    But that wasn’t why she’d been brought to her knees, devastated and debilitated.
    Just before Karsh died, she’d gotten what she’d wished for all her life: to know who her real father was. Karsh had promised to tell her one day. Before he could, she’d found out. The one person on Earth she hated morethan anyone, her sworn enemy, the vile Lord Thantos. He was her father.
    That was the moment Ileana had lost it, ceased being herself.
    To say the least.
    She seemed to have lost the supernatural skills and hypersharp senses that had made her an outstanding witch.
    So it was very likely that the feeling she had, that Cam — or Alex — was wandering into dangerous territory, was totally wrong. Meaningless. A fear fueled by guilt.
    Ileana should have been the one showing the twins around Coventry. She was, after all, their guardian. She should have been introducing Cam and Alex to those who’d heard of but never met, them: to the Exalted Elders of the Unity Council, to Karsh’s many friends and grateful fledglings, to the island’s best and brightest youngsters …
    Instead, she paced the slate floor of Karsh’s cottage, tracing with the soles of her feet the grooves the old man’s tread had