Page 66 of A Touch Enchanted

The smoke blocked their access to whatever it was preparing. Which made me think we were about to face something we hadn’t seen before. Within a few minutes, the sound of crumbling leaves started. Smoke poured out of the trees.

“Could be a mental attack,” I said. “It’ll pull your worst memories from you and force you to relive them again. Don’t listen to anything it tries to whisper to you.”

“What if this is my worst memory?” Kenna asked.

I rolled my eyes. “What a charmed life you must’ve had.”

Donovan held his arms out, bringing us all to a stop. He took my hand, charging the energy between us. Out of the smoke, a hedgehog the size of a small kitten waddled onto the trail. He turned his itty black eyes up to me and wiggled his nose. I wanted to build him a dollhouse and dress him in top hats and bowties.

“He’s so cute.” I crouched in front of him and held out my hand.

His eyes turned red and he bared his teeth. He hissed at me and began to expand. It was like watching a balloon fill with helium. The tiny little hedgehog became a six-foot monster with spikes along his back that stuck straight up, their points sharper than knives.

I backed away slowly. “Less cute now.”

Donovan grabbed my wrist and pulled me against his side as a stream of fire shot past me, close enough to singe the hair off my arm. The hedgehog instantly caught fire and exploded in a cloud of dust and ash. Only a pile of matchstick-sized needles remained on the path.

“Shit.” Kenna shook out her hand. Galen had disappeared altogether, but the lower half of his body materialized next to her. “I’m so sorry. Did I burn you?”

“No, you just missed me, but holy shit.” I jumped up and down. “That was so badass! Your fire barely touched that thing and it was toast.”

“I don’t think I like this.” Kenna looked down at Galen’s dick as the rest of him came into view. She swallowed and looked away again. “I don’t like this at all.”

Galen gave her a cutting look. So at odds with his extremely obvious erection. “Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to keep my hands to myself unless absolutely necessary.”

Donovan just raised his eyebrows at me. We kept walking.

All along the trail, the curse would throw various mutants at us—snakes, wasps, warthogs—and Kenna would blast them with her fire. Every time she touched Galen, she’d clench her teeth, as if she was under extreme duress. Sweat began to dot his forehead. The side effects were taking more of a toll on them than their magic, but they pushed on.

Once the curse figured out it couldn’t match the strength of Kenna’s fire, it changed tactics. My dad stepped out of the tree line and blocked the trail, but it wasn’t my dad. Half his face was eaten away, and worms fell from his unhinged jaw.

The faux-Dad held his arms out. His hands had been burned off, leaving two smoking stumps that still had bits of stringy meat hanging from them. “Come give me a hug, Squirt.”

I shuddered and turned to Kenna, who had paled and stumbled back a step. “It’s okay if you fire at him. That’s not really my dad.”

“I’m not seeing your dad at all.” Her voice shook. “Jocelyn is blaming me for not warning her about the magic. About what it would do to her. Oh, God. All the skin is melting off her body.” She gagged. “I can see her bones.”

I glanced at Galen, who looked just as disturbed. The curse must’ve created an illusion that was specific to whoever viewed it. It was a form of a mental attack. Wes and Audrey had faced something similar in the woods before.

“Blast it with fire, Kenna.” I gave her a gentle squeeze. “That’s not Jocelyn.”

Galen reached for her hand, as if he couldn’t get rid of the horror in front of his eyes fast enough. Fire, red hot and uncontrolled, shot out of Kenna’s palm. Lime green and purple light burst between Galen and Kenna and the looks they gave each other could’ve competed with the blaze now cooking the curse’s illusion to a useless crisp.

This was going to be a problem for them.

Donovan cleared his throat. “I think it’s dead. You two can let go now.”

Kenna and Galen jumped apart like they’d been zapped by eels. She pressed a hand to her stomach, her breathing heavy and uneven. Galen turned his back on us to adjust himself. I didn’t even want to know what would’ve happened if Donovan and I weren’t here.

Kenna pushed between us, her face a light shade of pink. “Let’s keep moving.”

The curse tried hitting us with a few arrows, but Kenna burned everything in her path the moment we heard the crumbling leaves. Eventually, we made it to the circle of birch trees. If Kenna hadn’t been with us, we would’ve been dead ten times over. Her fire packed a serious punch. Not even Wes and Audrey’s lightning could work fast enough to stop the arrows.

All remained still within the dead zone. The curse didn’t try to throw another attack at us. At the cave’s entrance, a flat rock had been pushed over the hole and the trunk of a charred oak tree had been thrown on top of that. There would’ve been no way to move it from the inside.

“Can you burn the rest of that trunk?” I asked Kenna.

She touched Galen’s hand with her index finger. Just from that small bit of contact, she released a stream of fire strong enough to compete with the largest dragons. I could only imagine what kind of damage she could do with full-body contact. Neither one of them were prepared to handle that yet, though.

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