Magic Misled (Lizzie Grace #7) - Keri Arthur Page 0,6
to find out.
You’re annoying, you know that?
I grinned but didn’t bother replying. Sooner or later, she’d admit the truth everyone else already knew.
Aiden opened the truck’s door, ushering me inside before running around to the driver side.
Once we were on the road and heading out of Castle Rock, I said, “So, what did you come to tell me?”
He glanced at me. “It can wait.”
There was an edge to his voice that had my eyebrows rising. “If that’s the case, you wouldn’t have come to see me, but would have waited until we were both home.”
A smile tugged at his lips. “True. But I didn’t have anything else to do, and now I have. It’ll wait.”
“I hate waiting.”
His glance was somewhat heated. “So I’ve discovered.”
I smiled at the smoky note in his deep voice. “Where in Fryer’s Ridge is the kid lost? It’s a fairly large area, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “It’s near the Oven Rock campground.”
“So called because it contains an oven?”
He laughed. “There is a natural rock formation that forms an oven, and campers do often use it to make damper, barbeque food, or boil water.”
“I’m gathering there’s nothing much in the way of facilities there.”
“Camping isn’t about facilities. It’s about the experience.”
“If there isn’t a proper loo and at least a lake to bathe in, I’m not interested.”
He cast me an amused glance. “I’ll keep a note for future holidays.”
“Then also consider that anything under four stars is akin to camping in my opinion.”
He laughed. “This from the woman who spent how many years on the run and often living in less than salubrious surroundings?”
A smile tugged at my lips. “It was all part of the disguise. Neither my father nor Clayton would have ever thought of looking for us in a hostel or boarding house.”
“At least now you’re free from all that.”
“I’m free from Clayton. Don’t for an instant think my father has finished with me.”
In fact, I wouldn’t actually be surprised if he was the reason for Sam’s presence here. Many of the Kangs were renowned lawyers, often holding prominent positions in the judiciary system. It would certainly be a worthwhile connection in my father’s eyes, and he was astute enough to realize the fact Sam’s branch of the family had a human ancestor somewhere in their past might make him far more attractive to me.
If that was the case, then it certainly meant he’d at least learned something from the whole Clayton disaster.
“Perhaps not,” Aiden said, “but you’re no longer underage, and he can’t spell you into anything anymore.”
I wasn’t so sure about the latter, but I didn’t bother admitting that. Live for the moment, worry about future heartbreak when it rolls around was the new motto I was trying to live by.
But it was damnably hard after all those years of worrying over every little detail or action.
A few kilometers outside Louton, he turned right onto a graveled road that—once we went over the rail bridge—got progressively narrower and rougher. I hung on to the handgrip in an effort to stop being tossed around, but it didn’t really help.
We eventually pulled into the camping area, although in truth it looked little different to the other scrubby, tree-filled areas we’d driven past in the last twenty minutes or so. Two green-striped, white SUVs were parked off in the trees to the right, but neither Tala nor Mac were visible.
Aiden parked his truck, and we both climbed out. I moved to the back of the vehicle and studied the area through slightly narrowed eyes. Though we were a long way from either of the wellsprings, tiny filaments of wild magic floated through the air. That seemed to be happening more and more of late, and it was decidedly odd. Layers of spells now protected the main wellspring, and it should have stopped any fragments of magic escaping. Unless, of course, these filaments were from Katie’s wellspring.
I raised a hand, and the nearest couple immediately deviated toward me. They curled around my fingers and wrists, fragile moonbeams that pulsed with power. Within that power was a sense of acknowledgment. Of kinship—and it had nothing to do with Katie, even though these threads were sourced from her wellspring. They were acknowledging the power within me—a power that burned so brightly it momentarily felt as if I was being consumed by fire.
But these filaments were her eyes and ears; they were her means of knowing what was happening within the reservation without having to leave the safety of her wellspring.