The Promise (The Coven Series) (28 page)

“You’ve
already seen it, Cassie Jayne.
 
Let me
tell you the rest.”

“No.”

“I
will save you even if means giving up my life to do it.”

And
I knew, looking into his eyes, that he would tell me.
 
The determination to save my life at the cost
of his own was written in his golden eyes.
 

“I
bind thee, Roger Michael Bishop, from doing harm unto yourself,

You
shall never speak nor write nor convey in any way the curse unto me.

Earth,
Air, Fire, and Water, come unto me now.

Spirit,
bind these Elements around him to prevent him from harming himself.”

“CJ,
no…what did you do?”
 
He looked
horrified.
 

“I
won’t let you die, Daddy.”

“Do
you know what you’ve done?”
 
His voice
shook with fear.
 
He stared at me much
the same way Jeff had when I called the Elements to hide us that day at the
Hall.
 
I scared him.

“It’ll
be fine, Dad.”
 
Fine?
 
Who was I kidding?
 
I was set to die tomorrow night.

“No,
it won’t.
 
I will find a way to unbind
this spell, Cassie Jayne.
 
You can’t stop
me from trying to save you.”
 
He stood
and
left,
a look of concentration on his face.
 
This was not a fight he was going to give up,
but he was my dad.
 
It’s what dad’s were
supposed to do.
 
I just had to find a way
to avoid him until this was over.
 
He was
a Coven Master.
 
If anyone could find a
way to unbind my spell, he could.

I
tried not to panic.
 
I couldn’t forget
his saying I was going to die.
 
The curse
would kill me?
 
My death would bring
vengeance for the thirteen men and women betrayed that night so long ago?
 
How could that make sense?
 
They were avenging their deaths.
 
Why would I need to die for that to happen?
 

Blood
promise.
 
The curse was a blood
promise.
 
I remembered that much.
 
Maybe spilling my blood would keep whatever promise
they made to the gods?
 
Oh, so not gonna
happen.
 

Dammit,
I needed Emily’s Book of Shadows.
 
She’d
figured everything out.
 
Why couldn’t I
find it?
 
I didn’t want to die.
 

My
phone went off to the tune of Fall
Out
Boy’s I Don’t
Care.
 
I reached for it and glanced at
the text.
 

Meet
me n the park 5
mins
– E

Ethan?
 
Ethan was home?
 
And all I got was a text?
 
He hadn’t even bothered to call me?
 
Meet me in the park, my ass.
 
He was gonna get a mouthful on boyfriend
etiquette.
 
I jerked on my UNC sweatshirt
before running down the stairs and pulling on my coat.
 
My mom was in the living room watching
TV.
 
Only the Fates knew where Dad
was.
 
I channeled my growing panic into
the anger building inside.
 
I’d much
rather be mad than scared.

“Mom!
I’m going out for a while.
 
I’ll be back later!”

I
escaped before she could ask questions.
 
I walked to the park which took me ten minutes instead of five.
 
I needed the time to prepare myself.
 
I knew when I saw
him,
I’d lose some of my anger.
 
I always did,
but I refused to let him treat me like this.
 
I had deserved at least a text before now.
 
He’d said he loved me.
 
That’s not how you treat someone you love.

I
stopped when I saw him.
 
He stood at the
entrance to the park in front of an old Chevy pick-up.
 
He was dressed in slacks and a red button
down shirt.
 
He seemed older somehow
today, more mature.
 
It was the
clothes.
 
They made him look more grown
up.
 
He looked like the man he would
become.
 
I forgot to breathe.
 
I’d missed him so much.
 
My heart swelled with love and all I wanted
to do was wrap myself in his arms and feel how much we loved each other.
 
Furious or not, I needed that right now.

His
eyes watched me.
 
I could feel the
intensity of their stare even from here, a good ten feet away.
 
It made me start to burn the way his kisses
did and I took a deep breath.
 
I never
understood how he could make me feel like this.
 
Damn, but I’d missed him.
 

He
crooked his finger and beckoned me to come to him.
 
I shook my head no.
 
As much as I wanted to run to him, to feel
his arms around me, I held onto the last vestiges of my anger.

After
a minute, he shook his head and came to me.
 
Gray eyes turned to molten silver and blazed with a heat that rivaled
the memory of the flames on my skin as they stared into my own.
 
I shivered in response and he grinned at the
reaction, his dimples deepening.
 
Curse
the Fates, but he was making this hard.
 
I clenched my hands into fists to keep them from going around his waist.

“You’re
mad at me again.”
 
His grin turned
rueful.
 

“What
makes you say that?” I asked, hating the tremor in my voice.
 
Damned M&M.

“You
look like you can’t decide if you want to hit me or if you want to kiss me,” he
laughed and tried to kiss me.
 

I
evaded him.
 
“I do want to hit you.”

“Why?”

“Why?
 
Seriously?”

He
nodded and had the nerve to look confused.

“Ethan,
you’ve been gone almost an entire week and not once did you even bother to call
me.
 
Nor did you think to send me a text
or an email.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”
 
That’s all he had to say?
 
Oh.

“I’m
sorry?” he asked tentatively.
 
“It’s not
my fault.
 
I didn’t have access to my
phone or email while I was away.”

“Where
on this planet can you go without access to a
wi-fi
connection?” I demanded.

“The
mountains,” he answered promptly.
 
“Mom
was freaking out about my learning about this side of my heritage and flipped
out a bit.
 
Dad bundled us all up for a
week in the mountains and away from the Coven to soothe her.
 
There was no time to send you an email or
voicemail.
 
By the time I found out where
we were going, I’d already lost all bars.”
 

“Okay,
so let’s say I buy that nonsense.
 
Why
didn’t you call me the minute you were within the range of a cell tower?”

“Because I didn’t want to ruin your birthday surprise.”

Huh?
 
Birthday surprise?
 

“It
took me all day to get it set up.
 
If I’d
called, you’d have been after me to come see you and as much as I missed you,
Cassie Jayne Bishop, it wouldn’t have taken much persuading on your part to get
me to do just that.
 
So, I didn’t call
until everything was ready.”

“My
birthday’s not till tomorrow.”
 
He
planned a surprise?
 
That was so
sweet.
 
And I knew for a fact you
couldn’t get a signal deep in the Appalachian Mountains.
 
Kay, Jeff, Billy and I had gone backpacking
in West Virginia over the summer.
 
We
hadn’t been able to get cell service until we hit I-77 in
Wythville
,
VA.
 

“I
know.
 
Kay has a huge party planned and
besides, your birthday is in exactly four hours and twenty nine minutes,” he
corrected me.
 
“Midnight.”

“Well
if you want to be technical, I wasn’t born until thirteen minutes after…”
 
Thirteen minutes.
 
There it was again.
 
Thirteenth daughter, born
thirteen minutes past the hour.
 
But so was Kay.
 
She could be the
thirteenth daughter, too, I reminded myself.
 
Either way, I was worried.
 
I had
to save one or the other of us.

“Hey,
what’s wrong?”

“Absolutely
nothing,” I lied and did what I wanted to do.
 
I wrapped my arms around him and was rewarded by the feel of his pulling
me close.

“So
am I forgiven?” he teased.

“Depends on the surprise.
 
A week is a long time.”

His
lips brushed the top of my forehead.
 
“Trust me, Cassie, it’s worth it.”

I
tilted my head back so I could look up at him.
 
“That has yet to be seen, Mr. Warren.”

His
sexy smile reappeared.
 
“You won’t be
disappointed, Miss Bishop, I promise.”
 
He
kissed me and I was lost.
 
It was one of
those slow, lazy kisses that turned my mind to mush and all I could think about
was fire blazing to life and running through every nerve ending in my body.
 

When
he pulled away this time, I could see the effort it cost him.
 
His eyes were glowing sliver and his breath
came out in short, heavy gasps.
 
He took
several deep breaths before he was able to uncurl his fingers from around my arms.
 

“Miss
me much?” I laughed.
 
It wasn’t often I
saw him lose control.

“More
than you know,” he grinned.
 
“Come on,
let’s go.”
 

After
we were buckled up and on the road, I asked him where we were going.

“The
lake,” he told me.
 
“There’s a small
piece of land on the very western edge that has an old cabin on it.”

“I
didn’t know you had a boat.”

“I
don’t,” he agreed.
 
“I borrowed
Billy’s.
 
What did you do to make him so
pissed anyway?
 
I almost thought he
wasn’t going to let me borrow it.”

“It’s
a long story and not one I want to get into right now.”
 
Just as I suspected, Jeff was right.
 
Billy wouldn’t do anything to make Kay mad at
him again.
 
“So what kind of surprise is
it?”

“That’s
the whole point of a surprise, Cassie,” he laughed.
 
“It’s a surprise.”

“Just a little hint?”

“Nope.”

“Dammit.”

He
winked.

Ten
minutes later we were on board Billy’s smaller boat, Mystery, and headed out
onto the water.
 
I was glad of the
sweatshirt I’d pulled on over my tee.
 
It
was freezing.
  
It had been years since
it was this cold in October.
 
The last
time I could remember it getting this cold so early was when I was eight and we
got a foot of snow dumped on us.

“Cold?”
he asked after a while and threw me a blanket.

“How much farther?”
I asked through chattering teeth.

“About five more minutes.”

True
to his word, five minutes later we pulled up to an old abandoned dock.
 
He tied off the lines and helped me down from
the boat.
 
I practically ran to the
cabin.
 
I could see a fire blazing inside
and I was freezing.
 

Throwing
open the door, I stopped and stared.
 
OH.
MY.
GOD.

Daisies
filled every surface I could see.
 
A
table had been set up in front of the fireplace and two plates were waiting,
silver lids covering the delights underneath.
 
Candles of every shape and size cast off a soft light.
 
It was beautiful.
 
He really had worked hard on this surprise.
 
I walked over to the table and fingered the
lone white rose that lay there.
 

“Do
you know what the white rose stands for?” he whispered from behind me.

“No,”
I shook my head.

He
turned me around and tipped my head up so he could look at me.
 
“I could have given you the red rose for
passion, the yellow rose for friendship, or the pink rose for love, but instead
I chose one that meant all of those things and more.
 
The white rose stands for commitment.
 
You belong to me, Cassie Jayne Bishop, now and
forever, just as I belong to you.”