Marianne Morea
Coventry Press Limited
Coventry Press Ltd.
Somers, New York
http://www.coventrypressltd.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 Marianne Morea
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions of thereof in any form whatsoever without written permission.
ASIN:
First Edition: Coventry Press Ltd. 2020
Printed in the USA
“Happiness is a gift, and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.”
~Charles Dickens
Chapter One
Gabrielle Sancier rolled over, sliding one arm under her pillows. Sleep eluded her tonight, the same way it had for the past week. Her cellphone sat against the night table lamp, its clock ticking off the hours, one sluggish minute at a time. Three am, and her restlessness wouldn’t let her…well, rest.
Lace sheers fluttered in the open window, and the hoot of an owl in the distance punctuated how she felt.
She was in over her head.
“Okay, Mr. Owl…I got to the candy center and enjoyed every lick. What do I do now?”
Bunching her pillows together, she cradled her head against a dull ache between her neck and her shoulders
Ugh. “This brooding is for the birds.” The owl hooted again, and she closed her eyes with a tired chuckle. “No offense, feather face.”
Not that she had time to brood. Not during the day, anyway, and not since meeting blood witch, Capiria Byrd, last month in New Orleans.
One month. Who would’ve thought a single life could change so drastically in so little time? And who would’ve thought all this crazy would land her back in Montreal as part of a ragtag coven?
They were at Chateau Laval on the eastern shore of Lac des deux Montagnes, forty-five minutes from Montreal city, but a whole world away.
Gabrielle punched her pillow, rolling over again. Bourbon Street was 1,600 miles away. As was her job bartending at the Absinthe House. It’s where she met her demonologist best friend, Raven Montgomery.
Ray was the one with the fancy degrees and academic accolades. She, on the other hand, barely graduated college. So how did they both end up here? At a chateau straight out of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
The answer? Men.
Sex-on-a-stick wolf shifters, to be precise.
She exhaled. As sexy and spontaneous as that sounded, it was much more complicated than that. Which was why she couldn’t sleep.
Gabby hadn’t crossed the border back into Canada since her family moved to the States fifteen years ago. They settled in her mother’s home town in upstate New York, and then like most senior citizens, her parents retired to Florida. She followed them south, but to New Orleans, instead.
Her father never understood her fascination with the Big Easy. Still, she didn’t give two figs for him or his opinion. Since her mom died, they barely spoke.
With its history and innate magic, New Orleans called to her as if calling her home. Since meeting Capiria and the others, she finally understood why.
No one in her family guessed her unusual abilities. To be honest, they weren’t interested in what her jerk of a father called paranormal mumbo jumbo. So Gabby kept her intuitive, and sometimes clairvoyant nature to herself, sparing her mother the sordid details she both saw and felt, courtesy of daddy dearest and his smarmy, extramarital activities.
Being an empath was cool. Not quite a witch, but a kissing cousin. Or so she thought.
“So you think you’re an empath.” Capiria cocked her head, studying Gabrielle. “I think there’s more to you than that…an empath is not just about reading the joys and woes of the world. An empath is a witch whose potential was stymied.”
The elder witch sensed her latent magic within a day of their first meeting. Of course, the old woman promptly turned into the Wicked Witch of the South, drill sergeant style. Making it her personal mission to rectify Gabrielle’s stalled paranormal nature.
Gabby’s brain was near bursting with everything Capiria pounded into her head this month. Still, she was the one who asked, and the old witch delivered. There was a definite method to the woman’s madness.
“Hell, no, you crazy old witch! Can’t you hear that thunder?” Lightning cracked seconds later, illuminating the sky like a strobe light. “It’s directly overhead!”
Wind lashed, bending the trees to near snapping. “Good! Lift your hands, Gabrielle. Call the lightning the way I taught you. My hunch is you were born for this. And my hunches are never wrong.”
“It’s too dangerous!”
“Trust yourself. You know you have the power, now use it! Control the flash. Call it. Direct it into the water.”
“No! What if someone’s out there? It’ll kill them.”
“Then send it into the sand!” Capiria was barely five feet tall, but she stood behind Gabby, shoving her toward the edge of the beach.
Even now, Gabrielle’s skin prickled remembering the connection. The hair on her arms and legs stood on end, and her blonde hair glowed as if lit from within.
Fighting the strength and pull of the charge, she harnessed the current gathering in the sky. Like slippery, stinging satin caressing her skin before she thrust it out, directing it to the beach.
“I knew it!” The old witch’s grin made her gnome-like under her old-fashioned rain bonnet. “You’re an Elemental!” She giggled, doing a
