The Spell

Chapter One:
“The Illusion”

“What’s not to love about you, Danny? You’re magic incarnate, girlfriend. You can do
anything
, for goddess’ sake.”

“Not all werewolves like magic, Imani. And why are you trying to sell them like this, anyway? Give me a break, girl. I’ve got enough on my plate.” Dannai took a long pull of her beer and shot her friend a side-long glance. Unconsciously, she gently touched the golden Thor’s hammer necklace she wore, and then returned her attention to her drink. The covens were a mixed pot as far as culture and religion were concerned. A single witch could believe in all of the Greek gods, respect the goddess Gaia, and pray to Thor.

Imani Zareb chuckled, the sound a low rumbling kind of chord that made Dannai go weak in the middle. Danny had always loved Ima’s purring voice. It was sexy as hell. If it weren’t for that voice, Danny would be straight – and that would be it. But Imani was a stunning woman of Brazilian and African American descent, tall and strong, thanks to her father, and well endowed, thanks to her model of a mother.

One of Dannai’s favorite things in the world to do was coax a moan out of her dear friend and there were only two ways to do that. Chocolate and sex. Usually for Imani, the two went hand in hand.

“I’m
selling
them because I know how hard this is for you, Danny.” Imani turned on the swivel stool at the bar and fixed Dannai with a hard gaze. “Girl, you’re exhausted. I can see it in your weird-ass eyes. Not that I don’t love your weird-ass eyes, honey, but they
are
weird. You gotta admit it. And right now they’re
tired
weird-ass eyes.” Imani shook her head and, because she wore a strapless top, her crystal chandelier earrings brushed enticingly across her bare shoulders. “I know you think the coven will freak if you let up and give in, but the shield you constantly wear is draining you.”

Dannai found that she had nothing to say to that. Her friend was right. She’d been wearing the shield since she was twelve. Every morning, just as she brushed her teeth and showered and pulled on her clothing, she mouthed the simple words to the spell and, suddenly, to anyone bothering to take a supernatural sniff, she would smell somewhat normal. Human. Albeit, a magical human, but a plain old human otherwise.

It was important. Because without the shielding spell, the werewolves she’d vowed to help every day of her life would have been able to scent what she
truly
was. And then everything would fall apart. It would all come crashing down. Just as soon as one of their alphas caught a whiff.

Dannai rolled her beer bottle between her fingers and sighed heavily. “It’s not just the coven, Ima. It’s me. What if Lalura is right? What if my changing makes my… You know – ability – go
poof
?” She blew air through her fingers and then shook her head. She managed to suppress the shudder of dread that the thought invoked, but it wasn’t easy. “I can’t throw this gift away, Imani. People will die without me. People that I could otherwise save. Throwing away this gift would be, hands-down, the most selfish act in human history.”

Imani watched her friend for a moment, her dark chocolate eyes taking everything in. Dannai’s long, sultry black hair fell to the small of her back, but when she turned her head, the long, thick locks slid to the side, revealing the open-backed shirt she wore and the expanse of tanned, smooth skin beneath.

Dannai was incredibly attractive. Breathtaking, without a doubt. She had some very lucky ancestry, whoever her parents may have been. They’d given her skin that had a perpetually tanned look, even though Dannai hated the sun. And her features were as fine as a doll’s. Her big, bright eyes were sultry and strange, a startling mixture of green, blue, and gold. They were stunning, in their own right. She had the most seductive lips, unendingly swollen and red, as if she’d just been fiercely, deeply kissed. She was a knock-out.

But Imani could tell that her friend had lost weight. The toned muscles in her arms and back were starkly outlined against her skin, with little to no fat to smooth out their lean, cut lines. And Imani could see ribs. The sharp angle of Dannai’s jaw and the dark circles under her eyes didn’t help. She still looked gorgeous – but in a shadowy and troubled kind of way.

“As far as I can see, girlfriend,” Imani began softly, “you’re killing yourself so that you can save the world. I wouldn’t call that selfish, Danny. I’d call it self
less
–
damned
selfless. And nothing lasts forever, honey. One of these days, somethin’ in you is gonna break. I hope it’s your will and not your mind. ‘Cuz I’d much rather see you shacked up with one of them fine alphas than wrapped in a tight white and sleeping in a padded cell.”

Dannai sighed, again, and straightened on her stool. The bartender wordlessly took her empty bottle and replaced it with a frosty, full one. Dannai nodded her thanks, giving him a small smile, and then turned her attention to her companion once more. “Ima, I told you. Not all wolves like magic.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Imani asked, a frown furrowing her smooth brow. “What’s that got to do with-” Imani broke off as comprehension dawned on her. “Oh no, girl. Lord, no.” Her eyes were wide and she leaned in to whisper, conspiratorially, “You’re dreaming of them, aren’t you?”

“Damn it, Ima, keep it down!” Dannai glanced around nervously, wondering just what might be in the shadows of the rather quiet bar around them. She’d been using transportation magic to bring her to this particular bar for years. The bartender was also the owner of the establishment and was a friend, more or less. She trusted Ted to keep anything he might overhear to himself. After all, she’d saved his life once, when a drunk man had attacked him with a broken beer bottle because he’d thought that Ted was sleeping with his ex-wife.

Ted was okay. And, like so many of the people she’d helped over the years, he was grateful enough to her that there was little in the world that would cause him to betray her trust. But she didn’t know anything about the other patrons of the pub tonight. It was quiet, but things weren’t always as they seemed. She of all people would know that.

“
Please
. I don’t want Alberich to know about the dreams. He would…. Well, he would
freak
. And you know it.” She glared at her friend, her multi-colored eyes glittering in the dim light of the pub.

At that, Imani’s face went stony, her look dark. She grabbed her friend by the arm and pulled her off of the stool. “Come on. We gotta have a girl talk.”

Dannai blinked, almost spitting out her beer, and stumbled after her friend, whose grip on her arm was merciless. She swallowed hard and gasped out a few words. “Ima, what the-"

“Shh!” Imani shushed her and then she was shoving through the girl’s restroom door and leading Dannai inside. When they were both locked into a very crowded stall and a dumb-struck Danny was straightening out her clothes, Imani put her hands on her hips and pinned her friend to the spot with a no-nonsense gaze.

“Listen up, girl. I shouldn’t say this, because goddess knows that the walls have ears and eyes and scrying is a very easy spell. But, I’m gonna say it anyway. Jason Alberich is not who his father was. He’s mighty keen, yes. But he’s not as wise and he’s not as…
kind
. He may be the new herald, but I didn’t vote for him.
No
one voted for him, Danny. Because no one
got
a vote. And I don’t like that. It may be how the coven has operated for thousands of years, but I don’t care. Jason….” She lowered her voice and Dannai could see that she suppressed a shiver of her own. “Well, Jason Alberich gives me the creeps,” she whispered. “And, that’s not all, honey. I think Lalura is influenced too much by him. I can’t help but question all of her insistence that your powers will be lost if you do the horizontal two step with an alpha.”

Dannai’s jaw dropped. “You would question Lalura? Ima, she’s, like
ninety
! She’s got to be the oldest and wisest in our coven!
Everyone
respects her prophecies and
no one
takes her advice lightly. How can you say that about her?”

“It isn’t her - It’s Jason. I think he can be very influential. He’s handsome, he’s charming, he’s smart and he’s very powerful and he puts it to good use, Danny.”

Dannai shook her head and backed up against the door of the stall. She threw her hands up in the air in a helpless gesture. “Regardless! Why on earth would Lalura be lying about something like this?”

“Be
cause
, Danny,” Imani leaned forward until they were mere inches apart. Her steady, dark gaze penetrated Dannai’s gemstone eyes and held her. “Alberich has a thing for you. He has for
years
. Decades.
Every
male member of the coven has!” She threw up her own hands in frustration and straightened again. “Can you seriously not see that? Except, Jason’s the only one who might be able to do anything about it. You know how Lalura felt about his father and how she feels about him, too. She
adores
him! What if he’s filling Lalura’s head with lies – and she’s passing them on to you?” She poked Dannai in the chest with one long index finger, punctuating her point.

Dannai was stunned speechless. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. There was no way in hell that Jason Alberich would do that kind of thing just for a chance at sleeping with her. He had his pick of women in
and
out of the coven and he enjoyed them regularly, but Dannai had not been one of them. Not that she minded. She wanted to keep that part of her life separate from her personal life.

Imani was the only coven member she’d ever gone to bed with. And Imani was a woman. And a friend. So, it didn’t count... At least, that was what she told herself.

But worse than her insinuation that Alberich could be interested in her in that way was Imani’s implication that Lalura, the coven counselor, could be lying about Dannai’s gift and how it would disappear should she ever become a turned werewolf. It was something she’d been told for twenty years – since she was twelve, when she had realized, with abject dread and horror, that she was not only a witch – but a dormant.

Lalura had raised her, nearly from infancy. Dannai’d been abandoned as a babe, her real name and origins utterly unknown. It was Lalura, the coven counselor, who had recognized the magical talent in the tiny infant at the orphanage and adopted her into magic’s fold. It was Lalura, a great fan of Greek mythology and a lover of the Iliad, who named her. One name. Dannai, after the mother of the Greek demigod, Perseus. It was Lalura, also, who helped her create the shielding spell that she now wore.

Danny had been protecting herself with it all of this time because her power was incredible and irreplaceable and vastly important. No one else in the world possessed a power such as hers. She was the most coveted member of the coven, and for good reason.

She could heal an individual with nothing more than a touch and a thought. Any injury whatsoever would simply heal up and disappear, as if it had never been.

There was no way that Lalura would lie to her about this great gift and anything that might happen to it. The woman was like her grandmother.

“Danny, I can see the wheels spinning in your head again and I know you’re still misunderstanding me. I’m not saying that Lalura would do anything to hurt you. Goddess knows she loves you. But I
am
saying that she may not
know
she’s hurting you, because Alberich may be pulling her strings.”

“For twenty years, Ima?”

“If I recall correctly, Alberich was quite a trouble maker in his dark, brooding teen years. And, as I recall, he had it bad for you even then.”

Again, Dannai couldn’t believe that Imani was saying this. Before she could retort with anything clever, Imani cut her off. “Girl, you’ve been working with werewolves for so long that you’ve forgotten how normal humans behave,” she continued. “A
human
man doesn’t mark his mate and turn her into a female dog, Danny. He does
other
stuff – and Jason Alberich has done it
all
when it comes to you.” She shook her head in dismayed scorn. “You’ve apparently just not noticed. Which, if you ask me, is just plain head-up-your-ass, girl. I mean, I don’t like the guy, like I said. But a girl
notices
when someone like that takes an interest in her.”

It was a while before Dannai could speak. But by the time she finally could, she had realized that there was no arguing with a person’s opinions or fears. What Imani was suggesting was that there was simply a
chance
that not everything was as it seemed. And, again, Dannai couldn’t deny that possibility.