MAKING MAGICKAL ALLIANCES: A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Novel by Leigh Raventhorne (best color ereader .txt) 📗

“I did a thorough background check on all of my niece’s friends shortly after she arrived. She spoke very highly of the three of you. I had a feeling you would join her sooner rather than later. None of you had any real ties up there, after all. Roxanne and Zara told me how well you worked as a team against the Curtens the last time she called me over.” Her brow wrinkled as she looked around the room again. “Where is your other friend, Roxanne? Anastacia and her daughter? I thought surely they would be here with you, as well.”

“Oh, um, I invited Annie, but she’s having issues with her business back in Michigan and hasn’t been able to come down. Plus, her daughter has disabilities and Annie’s mother helps with her care.”

“Why don’t you just buy her business out? From what I read of her daughter’s medical problems, she would be far better off down here anyway.”

I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it. Was that even an option? If Annie ever found out, she would probably murder us all in our sleep. Or put hot pink hair dye in our shampoo, at the very least. Why on earth had my aunt done all of this research?

Sam answered for me. “Annie is very proud, Madame Devraux. If she suspected any sort of charity, she would be upset. Plus, I don’t know if her mother would move down here or . . . be okay with, er, all of this.” She made a vague gesture around the room.

Tess mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “That’s an understatement.”

Stella waved Sam’s words away. “Just buy it out through a third party and then resell it. Her mother doesn’t have to move in here; in fact, she would probably appreciate a bit of independence. Set her up with something closer to the city. That way, she can still see her granddaughter whenever she wants, but there’s also some distance. For her own protection, of course.”

I hadn’t been too sure about where my aunt would stand when it came to my friends moving in with me, but I hadn’t been overly worried about it. Still, all of this was unexpected. However, we were getting way off track here and this wasn’t why I had called her back, though it gave me a lot to think about.

“Aunt Stella, I need to know what you can tell us about Margo.”

“Margo?” She looked confused. “What on earth would you need to know about her?”

Now it was my turn to be confused. “She betrayed you. She sent Harris, Lawrence, and Pauline to you on false pretenses. They completely ransacked the house every chance they had, searching for something. When I wiped their memories and sent them away, it was supposed to be permanent. Now Harris is back in town and apparently in league with her somehow, there are water fae children missing, and it seems they were kidnapped. We’re trying to find them.”

She looked down at Zara, conversing with her former familiar silently. When she lifted her gaze back to me, she looked upset.

“I don’t understand. Her magick isn’t even close to the strength it would take to break a memory spell. She’s little more than a lesser witch, at best. Margo has always had her . . . quirks, but she’s never been openly dishonest. She was simply jealous most of the time. She did become quite upset when I had to quit supplying her with jewelry to be sold on consignment, I know, but not to the point of what you are describing. I barely had enough magick at that point to keep up the protection spells and I’d never really needed the money. I supplied her mostly as a favor, to help keep the shop successful. For some reason, many of the witches in the area had stopped buying supplies from her. And the jewelry only held small spells, really. They were more trinkets than anything.”

Sam caught my eye from across the room and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. How could Margo have pulled the wool over my aunt’s eyes so completely?

Zara, would you explain it all to her, please? I think she’ll be more inclined to believe you than she will any of us. I knew Zara had overheard everything the witches had told me back at the law offices, plus she couldn’t lie to her bondmate, though I wasn’t sure if that applied to fromer bondmates, as well. Surely Stella had to have had some inkling of what had been going on right under her nose for so many years.

Without answering, Zara fixed her gaze on Stella. Seconds later, my aunt’s expression darkened with anger and disbelief.

“But how? And why was none of this brought to me before?” Her voice shook with agitation.

That’s what we all wanted to know. “How much interaction did you have with the witches in New Orleans?”

She pursed her lips. “After Margo took over the shop, very little, I suppose.”

Maybe the problem was twofold, then. My aunt’s oblivion and the town witches’ fear and reluctance to go against Margo.

I sighed. “Well, we’ll figure that part out. Nobody seems to know much about Margo’s magick, other than the fact that it’s not very strong. When I saw her earlier today, she was literally dripping with magickal Items. She was covered from head to foot in layers of them, glowing like a firefly. I have no idea what I’m up against. I don’t even know if she’s the one involved with the disappearances, but we don’t have anywhere else to look, so far.”

“There’s still that delivery service, Paragon,” Tess offered.

Stella sat up, her eyes sharpening. “What did you say?”

Tess cleared her throat nervously.