Beauty and the Beastmaster - Linda Winstead Jones Page 0,69

an old house and looked to be deserted, so there was no telling where those spiders had come from.

“Help me,” he said, crying. Blake fell to the ground and closed his eyes tight. He protected those eyes with his hands, as the birds’ attack came closer and closer to them. His face was bloody. So were his hands. His clothing was tattered. Blake sobbed again, and then the birds were gone. At Silas’s direction, she had no doubt.

When Blake opened his eyes again and allowed his arms to fall to his side, he found himself staring into Judge’s condemning eyes.

At that moment, Jenna sighed and changed sides. “He still needs his hands to do anything.”

Silas stepped on one wrist; Travis put a boot on the other.

Blake looked at one man and then the other, and then his gaze shifted to Judge, who answered with a low growl. Only then did he look at Gabi.

“Gabi is mine,” he wailed. “You have no right to keep her from me.”

She could run and leave Blake to the men of Mystic Springs. But damn it all, she was tired of running. This was her fight. “I’m not yours. I was never yours.”

Her ex looked pathetic, pinned to the ground tattered and torn, bleeding and scared. “I love you, Gabi. Help me. Help me.”

“You don’t even know what love is,” she said.

As she turned to walk away he called out, “Mia is my child! You can’t keep her from me!”

“Try me,” Gabi said beneath her breath.

“She looks like me,” Blake yelled. “She has my eyes, and one day she’ll have my power. She’ll be just like me!” And then he laughed, all words of love gone.

Gabi turned just in time to see Silas lean down, increasing the pressure on Blake’s wrist. “Mia might have your eyes, and yes, one day she will be powerful. But lucky for us all, she has her mother’s heart.”

Silas looked at her then, and in that moment Gabi began to believe in love again.

Blake Pierce didn’t care much for the Mystic Springs jail cell where he’d been housed for the past three days. He’d tried multiple times to use his newfound powers to free himself, or to hurt those beyond the bars, but the spell that had been cast on this space held strong and he remained powerless.

Jenna should be in the cell beside him, but as they’d taken Pierce into custody, she’d somehow blended into the crowd and disappeared. With any luck, she was already well away from Mystic Springs. Her spell had no chance of success with direct opposition. Her only hope had been to catch them all by surprise.

If Silas hadn’t come to his senses, she might’ve succeeded.

It was election day in Mystic Springs. Since the voting population was a small one it wouldn’t take long to count their paper ballots. By early evening either Clint Maxwell or Harry Milhouse would be the new mayor. From everything Silas had heard, Clint would win in a landslide.

Even Gabi was going to vote. She’d been busy the past couple of days, not cutting and coloring hair but getting a driver’s license and a new car tag. She’d registered to vote.

She had a new cell phone.

Now that she was no longer on the run, it seemed a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She smiled more. She hugged more completely.

Would she stay in Mystic Springs? She hadn’t said. He hadn’t asked.

Nothing was holding her here. She could go anywhere in the world she wanted to go, without ever again needing to look over her shoulder.

He’d like to think that maybe she’d stay for him, but they were too new for him to be sure. If she’d stay a while and give him a chance, give them a chance, maybe they could make something of whatever this was.

Silas ran the dogs through town, on this mild March day. Their polling place was at the school, which was a couple of blocks off Main Street, so there wasn’t much activity downtown today. A couple of people at Eve’s. Someone at the boutique on the west side of the street.

And Gabi, standing at the window of her shop. Judge was at her side. Mia slept in a stroller, her face turned away from the sun.

Gabi had a tool of some kind in her hand, and she was busy scraping the painted Beauty Shop off the window.

Did she hate it here that much? Was she going to erase something of her home before