Bane Read online

  Table of Contents

  Witchcraft Is Her Family’s Business.

  The Coven Series

  Bane

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Coming Soon

  MAGICK

  Author Biography

  Witchcraft Is Her Family’s Business.

  No One Quits The Family And Lives To Tell About It.

  My stomach churns at the thought that despite my desire to be different, I am still a product of the dark covens. It’s in the blood, and that’s one thing about myself I can’t change. Does that make me a part of the black heart of Satan? Even if I am a white witch, can I ever really leave all my darkness behind?

  I look at my fingertips. Smooth, unmarred skin stares back at me. You’d never know that only days ago I had massive amounts of lightning-like power shooting out of those same fingertips, sending the unsuspecting members of my coven fleeing . . .

  Praise for the Coven series...

  “Fresh, fun, and dangerous! I can’t wait for the next one!”

  —Sherrilyn Kenyon, #1 NYT bestselling author of the Dark-Hunter series

  “I cannot wait to read the other books in this series.”

  —Roxy Kade Blog

  “What’s not to love? There’s magic, romance, friendship, an evil coven on their backs. This is a great start in what’s measuring up to be a thrill ride of a series, and I’ll be re-reading the first until the next is released because I just can’t get over how enticing the story is.”

  —EmbraceYouMag.com

  The Coven Series

  By Trish Milburn

  Book One: WHITE WITCH

  Book Two: BANE

  Book Three: MAGICK (coming 9/2012)

  Bane

  Book Two of the COVEN series

  by

  Trish Milburn

  Bell Bridge Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Bell Bridge Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-148-7

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-134-0

  Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 2012 by Trish Milburn

  MAGICK excerpt Copyright © 2012 by Trish Milburn

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.

  Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover design: Debra Dixon

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Photo credits:

  Cover Art © Christine Griffin

  :Mbe:01:

  Dedication

  To Shane—Every girl deserves a hero, and you’re mine.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Joss Whedon and Eric Kripke, whose work inspired me to create the Coven series at a point when I needed a story about which to get excited.

  Chapter One

  I close the thick history of Salem, Massachusetts, and grip the sides tightly, as if the force might miraculously make the book useful to me. It doesn’t work. The dusty old book reveals nothing about the world’s dark witch covens or how I can defeat them. Not even a hint of a mention. Just like all the other books I’ve looked at over the past two hours.

  A growl of frustration wells within me, but I keep it contained. The last thing I want from the other patrons of the Salem Public Library is undue attention. More than ever, keeping a low profile is imperative. I can’t have the covens figuring out where I am before I know how to at the very least neutralize them, before I confirm I really am a white witch and what exactly that means.

  I look at my fingertips. Smooth, unmarred skin stares back at me. You’d never know that only days ago I had massive amounts of lightning-like power shooting out of those same fingertips, sending the unsuspecting members of my coven fleeing. I can still feel the thrum of power coursing through my body like it had when I was standing on that mountain in North Carolina, funneling magic up from the earth, through my body, and letting it explode into the night. It had frightened me as much as it had my father and other relatives, maybe more. That’s why I have to know what it means, how to control it, if it’s a good or bad thing.

  I stand and return the book to the shelf where I found it. When I step between the stacks, I do growl. Well, actually it’s my stomach reminding me that I haven’t eaten in something like fifteen hours. As I stare at the shelves of books in front of me, I can’t face delving into yet another one right now, not on an empty stomach.

  I take a moment to rub my tired, burning eyes before I climb the stairs to the second floor to find Egan Byrne, the only other witch in the world I trust.

  “Find anything?” I ask when I find Egan tucked away in a corner working on his laptop.

  He leans back and stretches. “Nothing we didn’t already know.” He turns sideways in the chair and stares at me. “Why am I looking at public records? You know I’m not going to find anything useful.”

  “You don’t know that. I refuse to believe there isn’t the least speck of information that will point us toward . . . something that will help us. Some mention of our families, lore about white witches, details about the formation of the covens, even something that’s framed as fiction that might in fact be truth.”

  “What if there are no answers for what happened at Shiprock? What do we do then?”

  I think back to the spirit coven that had inhabited the Shiprock outcropping on the side of the mountain above Baker Gap, how many people they’d killed over the centuries, how I’d destroyed them. How I’d then managed to turn myself into a type of magical conduit, lighting up the dark night like the sun.

  “There are answers,” I say. “We just have to find them.” I have to believe that.

  Movement catches my eye, and I look past Egan to see a librarian looking our direction. When we make eye contact, she smiles. I offer what I hope looks like an easy smile back, then refocus my attention on Egan. When he looks like he might ask another question, I hold up my hand to stop him.

  “Not here. Let’s get some lunch. My stomach is about to consume itself.”

  “That’s the best idea you’ve had all day,” he says and quickly shuts down his computer and slips it into his backpack.

  Egan tries to hide it, but I notice him wincing as we descend the stairs. We’re a block up the street, heading toward downtown, before I mention it. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine.”

  “You don’t have to be all macho about it. You were seriously injured, Egan. You could have died.”

  “But I didn’t.” I can tell by the way he says it that he doesn’t want to think about the injuries he sustained during the battle with my coven. Or how he’d walked out of that hospital, leaving the only girl he’d ever truly cared about behind without even a goodbye.

  A lump forms in my throat. I know how he feels becaus
e he wasn’t the only person to leave someone he loved back in Baker Gap. I’m lucky if I can go five minutes without thinking about Keller. My greater-good reason for being in Salem might be to find a way to make sure the dark covens of the world can no longer hurt anyone, witch or non-witch. But I have a much more personal reason for wanting to be free to live how and where I want. I want more than anything to be with Keller as I was during my brief time living my dream of being a normal girl. Or as normal as a witch dating a supernatural hunter could get anyway. I want to be able to hang out and do goofy things with my best friend Toni, who happens to be Keller’s cousin and the girl for whom Egan fell hard.

  We slip into a sandwich shop at the edge of downtown and place our orders. After we pick up our sandwiches and fill our drink cups, we retreat to the far back corner of the dining area, as far away from the other customers as possible.

  Egan is evidently as hungry as I am because he dives into his sandwich like he hasn’t eaten since he left Texas weeks ago. While we’re stuffing our faces, a young woman on her cell phone slips into a chair at the table next to us. Irritation has me staring a hole through her. I’m surprised she can’t feel the burning of my gaze, but she’s too wrapped up in her conversation to notice.

  I shake my head and shift my eyes away from her, already planning to get a good night’s sleep later so I’m not so grumpy. I notice Egan giving me an odd look, like he can read my mind. That gives me a jolt and makes me focus on what I’d thought had been my imagination. As I’m trying to figure out a way to ask the questions pressing against the edges of my brain, the chatty woman jumps up from the table and heads toward the front of the restaurant. I look over my shoulder in time to see her hug another woman, and both of them head for a table near the front window.

  I turn back to Egan before someone else decides to park next to us. “Did anything change for you that night at Shiprock?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  I hesitate and look down at my hands wrapped around my turkey club, suddenly worried that he might think I’m crazy, that all that power damaged me somehow. Though I didn’t invite him to join up with me in hiding, I don’t think I can face doing this alone again. He’s the only friend I have left.

  “Jax, what is it?”

  I meet his eyes. “I feel like I’ve changed since that night, like my senses are heightened.”

  “Like you’re not just aware of my energy signature anymore, and you can sense my feelings?”

  My mouth opens in surprise. “I thought I was imagining it. So you can sense my feelings, too?”

  Egan nods. “I don’t know if it’s just another thing that the covens didn’t tell us about, or if it has something to do with your little glow show during the fight, but something just sort of popped open inside me.”

  I consider Egan’s revelation for a few seconds. “Not like mind reading. Just our previous sensory abilities, only heightened.”

  “Yeah.”

  I drop my sandwich into the little plastic basket it came in and sit back in my chair. “Instead of answers, I feel like all I find are more questions.” Like if this ability has changed in us because of what happened during the battle, what else might have changed?

  “Does feel like we’re stumbling around in the dark, not even realizing the thing we’re looking for is a light switch.”

  I pop a potato chip in my mouth as I try to sort out my thoughts. When I swallow it, I lean forward. “I feel like if we can get to the source, something, anything about the formation of the covens, we can pull that thread and see where it leads.”

  “You don’t believe what we’ve been told about the covens’ beginnings?”

  “After finding out we were lied to about having our full powers before we turn seventeen, I’m looking at everything the covens ever told us as suspect.”

  “And what they didn’t tell us.” He looks past me to make sure no one is nearby. “Like do white witches really exist, and what they can do.”

  “Yeah. I’d kind of like to know if I’m some sort of freak of witch nature.”

  “And if it can help us.”

  I nod. “If there is any information on defeating the dark covens, it has to be here where it all began. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me.”

  “Even though I found the Beginning Book in Texas a Frisbee throw from the Mexican border?”

  “Minus the one page that may have the information we need.” Long thought lost or destroyed or perhaps even a myth, the Beginning Book was supposedly forged at the same time as the covens, created by the same dark magic drawn from the earth in Salem. Egan had found it, but one page was suspiciously missing, torn out for some reason I feel in my gut is important. “We have to have a starting place, and to me Salem is the most logical.”

  “And you think you’re going to find your answers at the public library?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But hopefully I’ll find something that will at least point us in the right direction. There has to be a way to defeat them for good, and I intend to find it. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on the run. I want to go back to Baker Gap.”

  Egan doesn’t respond, and I don’t press him to, especially since we get new neighbors, an older couple who might have to be rushed to the ER with chest pain if they knew they were sitting next to real witches with very real powers. I sense the older man staring at me, but I ignore him. I hate that my looks draw so much unwanted attention, but I’m used to it. And it’s definitely not at the top of my main concerns list.

  We slip into silence and eat our meals. When I finish, I grab my thick jacket from the back of my chair. “I’m going back to the library, take a crack at the area’s genealogy records.”

  I make the mistake of meeting his gaze, seeing his doubt that I’ll find anything useful. But I have to try. My gut is telling me that if I just look long enough, dig deep enough, that I’ll find a clue that will lead to another and so on.

  “I’ll catch up with you later,” he says. “I’m going to do some Internet research.” By Internet research, I know he means hacking his normal information sources to see if anyone has figured out where we are yet.

  When I head out the door, the wind whips around the corner of the building, smacking me with cold. We’re still more than a month from the start of winter, but already it feels like the inside of a freezer to me. Granted, I’ve lived most of my life in balmy Miami, at least until a couple of months ago when I took the drastic step of fleeing my coven. I know it will be the end of me if they ever find me again and I can’t pull out another miracle, but I long ago accepted that as a possible outcome if the other choice was living within the confines of the coven for the rest of my days. I don’t have it in me to kill without remorse, to take from others on a whim. That makes me a threat to the coven way of life, expendable like my mother was.

  A flicker of awareness causes my power to stir. Unwilling to make a sudden move and give myself away, I instead slow then stop and pretend to read a historical marker. Casually, I look back over my shoulder but don’t see anything out of the ordinary. I begin walking slowly then stop at a crosswalk to allow the traffic to pass. I open my senses up a tad more but don’t detect any witch power signatures. But there is . . . something. What is it? As I try to wrap my senses around it, the disturbance disappears.

  I scan my surroundings as I cross the street, wondering why I sensed something not quite right. By the time I reach the library, I still haven’t found an answer, and I don’t like not knowing. I glance back down the street one more time, but all I see is the librarian from earlier getting out of her car, probably coming back from her lunch break. She smiles again as she notices me.

  “Back for more reading?” she asks as she approaches while smoothing the sides of her hair that’s pulled back in a cute chignon.

  “Yeah.”

  “You seemed very into what you were reading earlier.”

  I fall into step with her as we climb the steps up to the brick a
nd brownstone building that was once the home of some wealthy merchant. “Yeah, I tend to get lost in books.”

  That much is true. Of course I don’t have to tell her that I’ve often buried myself in books to avoid the reality of life within a dark witch coven.

  “Well, if you need anything, just let me know.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I wish I could enlist her help, but I can’t exactly ask the local librarian if she knows how to rid the world of dark witch covens, can I? But suddenly the needle-in-a-haystack nature of my search for answers hits me. I shake it off as we cross the threshold. It’s too soon to be discouraged. I’ve barely scratched the surface of what the library has to offer. With that in mind, I head for the Salem History Room on the second floor.

  Several people are busy searching the Internet on the Reference Room’s computers. Most of them don’t pay me any attention, for which I’m thankful. But before I can sigh with relief, one guy glances up and gets that dazed look I so hate. Before he can say anything, I open the glass door etched with a sailing ship and slip inside the history room. Fate must be otherwise occupied today because the guy thankfully doesn’t follow me.

  I close the door behind me then scan the offerings—birth and death records, city statistics, newspaper clippings, annual addresses of the mayor. My gaze lights on the section devoted entirely to the Salem witch trials, and a sense of dread and foreboding shifts within me. Sixteen months of hysteria that led to three centuries of retribution by the dark covens I aim to destroy. I glance toward the door and take a deep breath.

  There’s a part of me that whispers that it’s no more than wishful thinking to expect that I’ll find anything here that will tell me if I’m indeed a white witch, if that was how I was able to win the battle I should have lost. That doubt tells me that if the covens have a vulnerability, I won’t find it here where mere mortals could stumble across it. Still, what choice do I have? I have to start somewhere. I’m certainly not going to find a way to live free from fear by moving from one town to the next in an effort to stay one step ahead of my coven. That’s no sort of life.