Chapter One - Demon Bound (Book 3 in the Crescent Bound series)

Chapter One


His gloss black BMW M3 Alpina maintains the same speed as I, holding exactly one block over from me. Through the darkened tinted windows flicker a shine from the solemn streetlights as I drive one avenue after another, addressing the streets with caution. I'm just on the outskirts of Ontario, Canada heading toward a narrow winding secluded road, a road which leads us straight to the witches of the dark arts known as The Brotherhood of the Raven. Weeks have slithered past as we have watched and waited from a distance, beginning to feel as if I work for some Black Ops agency, instead of being a typical twenty-one year old witch. The things I have experienced within the last few years, makes me truly wonder if I am not a hundred year old witch instead.

Various witches from our coven scatter throughout the proximity of a cliff side mansion. Along with our natural born elements of fire, water, air, and earth, some even have unique abilities such as enhanced night vision, levitation, mind-reading, and supersonic hearing—I'm able to hear fragments of numerous conversations as I park in front of an obscured driveway. I tune out everything and listen, nothing substantial yet, the Brotherhood knows we surround them. The only reason we have not moved in with deadly force is that they hold human females against their will, for sacrifices in their demonic rituals.

My lifemate is one of the rarest witches of our time, his element is ice. He parks his BMW on the opposite side of the iron gated driveway, which has his position sitting directly across from me, we stare through our windshields at one another. His voice carries over to me through my wireless micro-sized earpiece, in a very suave and aristocratic tone. “So...you have plans for this weekend?” I quickly switch over the channel on our headsets so no one else can hear our private conversation. “Channel two, over,” broadcasting a command to switch over to a secure channel and Marc’s voice mimics my own.

Clearing my throat I reply back rather demurely, “Well, I um…don’t know for sure, you'll have to ask my husband.”

I can hear him take in a deep studious breath. “Hmm, husband huh? Aren't you a little young to be married already?”

A devilish grin spreads across my face. “It's a bit difficult to explain really.”

“Try...tell me, what does he have that I don’t?”

Licking my lips in a slow delicious appearance, I slowly skim my tongue over my top lip hoping he can see and use the best alluring voice I possess. “He’s placed a spell over me, and...I can't seem to keep my hands off him.” He leans over the steering wheel more, as if he is trying to watch my every movement.

“I see...so, I would have to break this ‘Spell’ he has over you in order for me to touch you?” The timbre of his voice is capering, but with a hint of bawdiness. Running a hand through my thick wavy hair, I tilt my head just slightly, and press the earpiece closer to my ear. Just the sound of his intoxicating sexy voice brings my body alive in ways I never thought possible.

Lust driven, I close my eyes, and envision his ample hands on me. “Sorry,” I whisper back, “but I don't think you, or even an entire coven of witches can break this spell.” I hear him rumble a deep laugh as if it pleases him to hear my words.

I happen to glance up at the glint of lights in my rearview mirror and see headlights racing closer. Switching the channels back, I hear several voices speaking over the main channel, and the bit of information I pull together is that Cecil just left. A silver Audi flies past us both, and closely following behind, is my dad in a black BMW. With a push of a button, I start my car, lights flash across Marc's metallic black hood as I pull out.

Hitting the gas, I peel out, as two other cars approach at an unfathomable speed. Glaring back I see Marc swing his car around heading my way. Shifting through the gears fast and hard, I swerve around the precarious corners at ninety miles per hour and then pick up speed once again. Cecil must have one hell of a driver because I can no longer see her car. Focusing all my attention on my dad, I take note of the two Audi’s in hot pursuit. Soaring past me as if I am at a complete standstill, their seek-and-destroy mission is my dad and it’s as obvious as a brilliant red neon sign glowing in the dark astringent night.

We race down a two-way street which gives a bit more room, but not much with a cliff nestled dangerously on the edge. Casual human drivers also accompany this encumbering street, unaware of the impending danger. Disapproving horns begin blaring as I speed past them, navigating my car in and out of the traffic, fluently chasing down the Brotherhood that has only one thing on their defiling minds.

The road swoops upward and takes a sharp turn becoming a tunnel through a concave mountain. My dad has this impeccable skill that I never knew any being could have, as he drives effortlessly between various cars and work trucks. The humans cause a new detrimental caution for us, we must never harm them, one of the reasons we are so dead-set on exterminating the Brotherhood coven. Stopping them will end the sacrifices from continuing.

Slamming into the last gear, I finally gain the speed I need. Just a few feet behind one of the Brotherhood’s Audi, my mind runs wild with what my next move will be. Marc’s voice has my every nerve heightened as his tone wafts through my earpiece drenched with concern, “Alyssa.” It is only one word, but it is laced with more than one meaning. His car lingers with anticipation directly behind me, but just between us is a very frantic driver desperately trying to pull over on the sliver of the constricted roadway. A truck erratically slams on his brakes, locking them up in front of my dad’s car. Without missing a beat, he swiftly maneuvers into the next lane, barely missing an oncoming car, and manages to get back in the next lane to safety. I thought my sporadic heart desperately needed a jump-start, as my mouth becomes insanely dry, and I grip the chrome Alpina shifter tighter in my clammy hand, forging ahead with the chase.

I have to do something soon, my narrow gaze checks the rearview mirror several times, I see Marc veering around chaotic obstacles. As we emerge from the tunnel, I begin building speed as the Audi astutely deviates around the truck my dad just slipped past. Closing in on my target, I encounter no other oncoming traffic and my foot nails the pedal completely to the floor, pushing the BMW to its full limit. I have my strategy laid out, and if it is one thing I know how to do, and do well, is to drive. Taking each murderous curve as if I was born to do as the fear in me simply vanishes and my blood pumps through with pure sublime adrenaline.

The road ventures in a downward path and I can now spot my dad drifting the curves with two guards hot on his tail. Faster, is the only redeeming word I’m thinking. I grind my teeth in frustration as I'm forced to shift gears, slowing down enough to take the hair-pin turns. As my opportunity reveals itself, I claim it. The road straightens out for a good couple of miles and no other cars seem to be around, I hit the gas. I glide over into the oncoming traffic lane driving my car beside the Audi and with one jerk of the steering wheel I slam into his drivers’ side door.

That’s when I realize there is a gun aiming at me, I release quickly off the accelerator, but my car bumps into his back quarter panel. And in these life or death moments for me, time always gives this impression of a slow motion experience, because I hear the blast from the gun which hits my front passenger tire. In the same instant his Audi swings around sideways, precisely in front of me. All the meticulous lessons my dad taught me, about what to do when you have tire-blow-out, hurtles itself out the window.

I’m more distracted with the car colliding in my grill. High speed driving with a blown tire is currently making my steering much more of a hindrance, so I jam on the brakes. Ideally, he would have soared right on past my car, but to my grave disappointment we hit making my entire body shake from the bone-rattling impact.

As time begins to speed back up, the next thing I know both of our cars are diving over the metal railing. It happens eminently fast, and the all too familiar motion of flipping in midair and the gut-wrenching sounds of the car being crushed as it barrel-rolls downward has me mortified. I grip the steering wheel, but the profound force has me jarring all around. Once the commotion stops and I deflate the airbag, I realize immediately I’m hanging upside down in the mangled car. This particular position really brings back warm and fuzzy memories from my last blazing car wreck.

Twisting in my seat, I pat my body for a damage assessment and remarkably find that I’m unscathed. Reaching across to release the seatbelt, I discover it is gridlocked into the console. Still physically psyched-out, I will my shaking hands some control, and grip the belt along my chest and call my ice element. The racing adrenaline fuels it through my veins in a fury, raging a path into my hands, my fingertips and even my fingernails are coated in ice. Seeping into the high-quality durable seatbelt until it is nothing but a frozen icy material. So much for extreme climate resistance, I make a tight hold on the ice encasing the belt and shove my chest out and it shatters easily apart.

Gravity wins, dropping me to the vinyl lined headliner; climbing around I tug on the door handle with no results, just my outstanding luck I seem to posses, it too is jammed shut. My stomach turns as fear burrows inside me and I have this skin crawling thought, what if this car is sitting on the edge of a cliff, and with just the slightest movement it will topple right over to my death. Just like in the scary movies, a Final Destination – five or six something, or other, they seem to have so many nowadays I can't keep track. Making jokes right now is not going to help the situation, I chastise myself.

I inhale a steady breath to calm my nerves; cautiously, I reach my hand out for the driver’s side window and again summon my element. Devouring the glass in a crystallized sheet of ice, I slam my other hand into it. Ice splinters in every direction and exposes a way out for me. Just as I crouch down to crawl out, a hand reaches toward me. I hesitate and wonder what happened to the Brotherhood guard I was chasing, but I know, if he's anywhere close to my car it would be blown to bits by now. They don’t mess around; it’s you or them in this duel of death.

The night air blows a very accustomed scent that I don't think I could ever forget and I recognize who it is. David slips his sizable hand endearingly around mine and pulls me through, asserting his concern in a rough voice, “Hey, ice breaker, you okay?”

I brush a hand through my hair, pulling it away from my face, I twist around my body double checking myself. “Yeah, I think so.” I steal a quick glance at our surroundings, a motorcycle, David rode down here lays in the dirt, the drop off is about two hundred feet down, but that's only the first drop, just twenty feet from us, is the cliff of hell that's decorated with jagged rocks and frame the lurking ominous water below. The Audi I had followed rests on its side. No movements comes from it.

David and I stare blankly at each other and then direct our suspicious glare back at the car.“Do you think he’s dead?” he asks.

Raising a questioning brow at him, I hiss back in a brassy tone, “How should I know? Just because I can dream the future David, doesn't mean I’m an expert on death.”

He takes a few intimidating steps closer to me, almost nose-to-nose, he pitches back a deep threatening voice, “Hey now...I ride down here as your heroic knight in shining armor and this is what I get....disrespect from the fair lady in distress?”

I shove his right shoulder back in a taunting way. “Ah, sorry to burst your bubble, I wasn't in distress and you’re not my knight in shining armor but...I do appreciate your help.” I spin on my heel from him and start to stroll away, when I stumble over a neighboring rock, unable to counteract my balance and I fall ungraciously to the ground, splicing my knee wide open from one of the razor-sharp rocks. Rolling my eyes at myself and my bruised dignity, I really showed him. I crumple defensively and sit attempting to peel the denim aside. David scoots down on one knee, bending over he examines the cut, a trickle of blood streams down and soaks through my torn Escada jeans. He places his hand over it and a brilliant soft glow forms around his hand and my knee. When he removes his hand the cut is completely gone, no trace I had ever been injured there.

A tiny minuscule amount of my blood remains on his hand and I watch disgusted as he licks it off, his green eyes glint deviously into my own as he jeers, “I swear Alyss, you walk away from a near fatal car wreck, and then the very next moment you take two steps, and cut your knee? Well, if you were mine, I would lock you up and throw away the key.”

I narrow my eyes at him and jump up immediately giving us some distance, as I begin walking toward the guard’s car. I reply over my shoulder deliberately avoiding any further contact, “David, I was yours for two years and that was enough torture for me.”

He shifts in front of me, gripping both of my arms and blocks my path.“Wait, let me go first.” Obligingly I nod and switch my weight from one leg to the other impatiently, he shifts to the top of the driver’s side door and crouches downward, I can’t see much other than the pulverized car planted skyward alongside the cliff. So, I stand here fussing at myself for not going with him, my hands become cold and then arctic numb as I bite my lower lip in worry. Without any warning, David shifts directly in front of me.

“Well? Is he...” I inquire of him as I swallow the bitter lump down.

He peers over his shoulder and divulges, “Yeah, he’s definitely dead. The impact must have broken his neck.” With mind-blurring speed, he emits out a trail of blazing fireballs at the car, and with the same hyper-sonic momentum, he tugs me around the waist and shouts, “Shift!” I focus my energy to follow his and realize he is standing on the other side of my car. Once my form manifests he shields his body over me, protecting me from the explosion.

Kneeling on the ground, through the busted-out glass, I notice the fire smolders away suddenly, like someone blasting a fire extinguisher. An intense sensation runs along my spine. I peek over my car and see Marc standing just a few feet away, facing the car with his icy hands raised out as he shoots a white freezing mist, eventually making the remnants of the car nothing but a block of solid ice. It takes him a couple of stealthy, powerful blows with his massive fist and the car shatters into unidentifiable chunks of ice.

David shifts next to him demanding, “What are you doing?”

Marc takes a brief glimpse around the area and casually retorts back, “Taking care of business, I should be asking you the same question.” His cruising dark eyes lock on mine within the next instant he asks, “Alyssa, are you okay, babe?”

I lean on the flipped over car and rest my arms on the undercarriage. “I am now.” An ice melting smile bestows over his gorgeous chiseled face. My instincts tell me to stay right where I am for the moment, the testosterone levels are rising.

Marc looks back at David skeptically. “What is it with you fire witches, always with explosions, and fire shooting everywhere like some kind of fireworks display.”

David crosses his arms over his broad chest. “Hey, I had it well under control.”

Marc shakes his head in utter disbelief and snaps back, “Tell me this then...were you trying to draw the attention of the humans too?” Exasperated, David starts stalking over in a hurry to his bike, mumbling under his breath.

While we conduct the last banishing spell, we are notified that Cecil has conveniently disappeared on us and the remaining tormented and abused women have all been freed after receiving a mind sweep spell. Mainly to keep their sanity intact and to keep our kind from any exposure. Between the six of us, we have taken care of four Brotherhood guards, which now, hopefully, only leaves a couple on our most wanted list.

I was raised on the Witch’s Rede, eight words that are embedded into my very being. “An ye harm none, do what ye will.” My father told me that after the witch hunts and inquisition times, a new Rede fell into place. “Lest in thy self-defense it be, ever mind the rule of three, everything comes back in threes, be forever mind-full of thee.” And so our province begins, just how much more bloodshed will it take before it to come to an end?