parking lot, she kept to the shadows and practically tiptoed, to keep her steps as silent as possible. She paused every few seconds to listen, but all she heard was the sound of a dog barking in the distance and a few lonely crickets chirping wildly.
The motel office was around at the front of the building and the room she and Torin had taken was at the very back of the motel. Since the fire in Arizona, she hadn’t been willing to put any innocents at risk, so she had insisted on staying as far from everyone else as possible.
There were only a few cars in the lot. She hurried past them, hoping no one glanced out their windows to see her. This was a risk and she knew it. Just as she knew that everything depended on her regaining her lost memories. Should she have remained in her motel room, safe but ignorant? Or was it better to trust her instincts and call down the moon while hoping for the revelation she needed?
She had no doubt what Torin’s opinion would have been. But this was her choice. Her decision. She wasn’t being reckless. She was being proactive.
Torin would be furious if he returned and found her outside, unprotected. And maybe it was foolish, she told herself. But at the same time, if she didn’t find a way to unlock her past life, her past mistakes, how could she ever correct what had once gone wrong?
She kept her head down and hurried across the darkened parking lot. Across the street, there was a row of trees and beyond them, she knew, was a meadow. She’d seen it when they had arrived earlier that afternoon.
Shea sent furtive glances up and down the quiet road, then darted for the treeline. She pushed past the low-hanging branches and inhaled the scent of pine. Fallen needles under her feet cushioned every step, as if even nature were helping her remain hidden.
She kept walking when she reached the meadow, wanting to get as far from the road as she could. There were no homes within sight and the silence was cathedral-like. The only sounds were the soft sigh of the wind through the knee-high grasses and the distant roar of an engine as it traveled along the road.
She didn’t have much time and she knew it. Torin would be back soon. She wanted to be in their motel room waiting for him.
Alone beneath the moon, Shea glanced up at the wide night sky. A hazy light seemed to filter down from the heavens and as she drew the night into her lungs, she felt the power of nature slide through her veins. This was witchcraft at its best, she thought, not even sure where that insistent thought had sprung from. A witch and the night. This was where power was to be found and knowledge gathered. This was where the heart of her strength resided.
She’d always loved the night. Even as a child, she’d felt drawn to the darkness. To the sweep of stars overhead. To the phases of the moon. More comfortable in shadows than in bright light, Shea had never asked herself why she was so much more a night person than anything else. It just . . . was.
Now, at last, she understood.
Her body felt alive. The hot, damp air clung to her like a lover’s hands. She ached for Torin’s touch and knew that the pull of the moon combined with her connection to her Eternal was ramping up the desire she always felt for him.
But then, what better magic was there than sex well done?
Shea?
Jolting, Shea realized that Torin’s voice was whispering into her mind.
Are you safe?
She focused her power on reaching out to him. Closing off the fact that she was outside and on her own, she simply assured him, I’m fine. Just working on a spell.
That was true enough anyway.
I will return shortly.
Which meant, she thought as she closed her mind to him, that she didn’t have much time.
Smiling, she shook her hair back from her face and accepted that the time was right. But this was magic and she had learned from her dreams and memories that high magic was best done skyclad.
She glanced around her one more time, just to make sure she was alone; then she took a breath, snapped her fingers and the clothes she’d manifested that morning vanished. She stood naked and warm beneath a sliver of moon.
The wind kissed her skin and