Page 18 of Spirit Witch

I wanted to ask Judge what he thought about all this.

Could my suspicions that I had some Spiritwalker tendencies be right?

It was clear I did not share his ancestry, you just had to look at us to see that, but could it be Spiritwalkers and spirit witches shared similarities?

Would he even know?

I’d spent the last few hours of the night, right before dawn, perusing a pile of books Enok had brought up from the archives, including the one he’d found the small passage about spirit witches in.If I was truly what they suspected, a spirit witch, I wanted to be prepared.Unfortunately, not enough information existed about them.The Somnior Coven had been disbanded, and many of the old tales and diaries had not survived the Witch Wars.At least, not in the libraries at Westwood.

It was like they’d been expunged from history.It wasn’t the first time the Council had done something like that.Just look at what they did to Mabe and blood witches, not to mention the Mobilis Coven.Painting blood witches as dark magic practitioners instead of the vampire witch hybrids they were was abhorrent.

“You’re late,” a voice said, and I paused in my steps to see I’d made it to the exact dot that had been blinking on my phone.With my mind wandering, I hadn’t been paying close attention to where I was going, but somehow, I’d found it and him.

Judge was leaning against a bare branched walnut tree, simply watching me as if he’d been there all the while.He was wearing faded jeans that molded to his muscular thighs.He wasn’t wearing a shirt, despite the thin blanket of snow on the ground, and I shivered with something other than cold as I took in the curves and ridges of his hard body.

He was tall, at least six foot four, and his shoulders were wide, ringed in thick tribal tattoos that spanned both arms, like sleeves, but he had nothing on his chest.I could not see his back from where I stood, but I admit, I was curious.

His hair was held back in a low ponytail.I frowned, my fingers were itching for me to untie it and run them through his inky black tresses.I didn’t know what was wrong with me, only that I was strongly attracted to him.This stranger I didn’t know from Adam.

“I would not say that, Nizhoni.You know me, you just don’t remember,” he growled, pushing off the tree and blurring so fast across the distance I was barely able to follow his movement till he was right in front of me.

“How did you do that?”

“No questions.Come on,” he murmured, his cinnamon bark colored eyes boring into mine before he turned and led the way through the copse of trees to our right.

“Come on?Where?I thought we were just meeting in this clearing,” I began.

“We met in the clearing.But if I am to guide you to discover your powers, you must trust me, Enid.Can you do that?”

I paused in my tracks, my heart pounding so loudly it filled my brain with its deep, steady tattoo.It was the first time he’d called me by my name, and my gut twisted.I did not like him calling me Enid, which was totally freaking weird because that was my actual name.Not the one he used whenever he spoke to me, both in dreams or in this reality.

Judge paused in front of a large tent that suddenly seemed to blink into existence.It was huge and ancient looking, with animal hides covering the outer frame that appeared to be made of wood, stripped branches and the like, held together with strips of leather and dried sinew.The hides were a myriad of colors, from pale tans to dark browns, and surprisingly, it held no scent other than the smoke I could see drifting through a hole in the very top of the structure.It had to be at least eight feet tall, which was plenty high.

My heart squeezed again, and it was like the emptiness I always felt there was trying to tell me something.Like it recognized him.But that was impossible.I shook my head, trying to stop my inner quarrel so I could just get on with this.I had a job to do and mooning over boys was not in the description.

Focus, Enid.

Judge stood patiently, waiting for me to take in the structure.I was glad he didn’t rush me because, as strange as this all was, it seemed very familiar to me.He held the flap open and turned to face me to get the answer to his question.I was still mulling it over.Trust was difficult to come by, especially for people who grew up in foster care.I’d been let down plenty of times, a fact of my past, even if I could not really recall it in any detail.

I titled my head back to look into his eyes, sucking in a sharp breath when I saw swirling rivers of gold inside the deep brown there.

Gods, he was beautiful.

More so than any other man I had ever seen.There was something between us, and even if I was cowardly by nature, I wanted to understand why this stranger seemed to know more about me than I knew myself.

Discomfort and misgivings aside, I needed to take this journey.Nodding my head, I gave Judge my answer, and stepped through the flap to discover the unknown that was me.

“Yes.I trust you.”

CHAPTER8

Inside,the tent was even larger than I suspected.Thick reed mats covered the entire floor.In the center was a fire ringed by stones.They were all the same size and measure, with flat tops upon which sat several little bowls filled with powders and liquids the likes of which I had no idea.There were also several instruments propped up against the stones, rattles made of rawhide, turtle shells, and bone with leather thongs tied around them, some with beads and feathers dangling from them.

There were two fur-covered cushions facing each other beside the fire and near the bowls and instruments.Those were for us, I quickly deduced, and waited for Judge to give me further instruction.

He closed the flap, tying the leather strings to keep the wind and elements from getting inside.Once more, I was taken aback by how comfortable I was with him.It should have been weird or foreign, at the very least.But I felt a sort of kinship, and odd as it sounded, I really did trust him.

“Are you ready, Nizhoni?”he asked, and something in me warmed at the use of that name.

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