Maria ran inside her house long enough to jet up the stairs to her room. “Where the hell did I put that bag?” She mumbled to herself as she began tossing things around her room. “You mean this?” Isabel said dryly from behind Maria as she held up a burgundy colored velvet bag. “Why do you want your crystals? What in the world are you planning in that head of yours?” “Something that you are going to totally want to be a part of,” Maria said as she snatched the bag from Isabel. Then she turned back to her room and moved over to her bed. “There you are,” she said as she pulled a black velvet bag out from under a pile of discarded clothes. She also grabbed her spell journal and turned back to grin wickedly at Isabel, she’d never looked more like the witch she was. “Now we can go. Michael’s probably is going mad by this point anyway.” “What are you doing Maria?” Isabel repeated as they made their way out of the Deluca home. “Why do you need crystals, herbs, and your spell journal?” “We are going to perform a little experiment when we get back to your house,” Maria said with a cunning look as they neared the Jeep. “But shut up for now,” she added in a whisper. “I don’t want Michael to know yet.” Isabel looked like she wanted to argue with her friend, but she took one look at Maria’s determined expression and sighed. Maria was so going to get the third degree once Michael finished with her. And judging by the scowl that her adorable brother was wearing, Isabel thought that it wasn’t going to take Michael long at all to yell at Maria. With a weary sigh Isabel climbed back inside the Jeep and returned to her new favorite position, snuggled up to Alex. Less than five minutes later the Jeep was stopped again, this time at the Guerin household. Michael didn’t give Maria much time to do anything but grab her stuff before he yanked her out of the vehicle and began dragging her forcibly into the house. “Out,” he barked at the twins, Leigha and Jessie. “Now,” he said when all four began to protest leaving his precious PlayStation2. They all took one look at his stony expression and quickly filed out of the room, leaving Maria to handle his anger on her own. “What the hell is wrong with you?” She asked him as she sat down in his leather desk chair. She’d always wondered just why he had a desk chair – it wasn’t like he ever sat there to do any homework. “Did something come along and bite you in the ass while we were at my house?” “I just happened to finally realize that you and Izzy were there at Max and Liz’s by yourself,” Michael growled as he leaned over her and glared. “What the hell did you two think you were going to do…cheer them to death?” “I think you know just as well as anyone else Michael that I can take care of myself and Izzy very well…just as good as you could.” Maria’s own voice rose in indignation. How dare he sit there and question her actions, she was the leader damn it. Why is it that when she finally started acting like one everyone began to question her? “And since we both know that there isn’t much you can do that I can’t,” Maria said, her eye flashing in her own repressed anger, “what the hell were you and Alex doing there alone?” “Maria,” Michael warned, “Don’t even pretend to think that you and Izzy going there alone is even in the same hemisphere as Alex and I being there. We both know that Alex and I are more equipped at handling the situation.” “How so?” Maria asked pointedly as she stood up and poked him hard in the chest. He took a step back as she stepped forward. “You and I are one hundred percent equal in power and range Michael, we’ve known that since we were five playing outside in my yard.” She was referring to the first time that the two of them had realized that they were different from the others. Tess, Alex and Izzy had all had their burgeoning powers for weeks and Michael and Maria still hadn’t done anything remotely like what the others had done. But then they had, and it had occurred two years before the infamous incident at the beach, none of the others knew about it because neither Michael nor Maria liked to talk about it much, it still freaked them out. “And Alex and Izzy’s powers are so much alike that they might as well be considered equals,” she added. “There was absolutely nothing that you two could have done that we couldn’t have too.” “They were hunters Maria,” Michael said, his voice still sharp with anger and the repressed urge to just hit something…hard. “They’re prepared for witches.” “Which is why we went there,” Maria told him with a nod of her head. “We knew that the two of them were probably here because us Willow Oaks Witches are one of the oldest surviving original covens around. All Hunters come here to us at some point so we knew that they’d be gunning for something. Thus we went over there in hopes of catching you and Alex before you got yourselves in any trouble or hurt. We weren’t going there to attack them ourselves Michael,” Maria said in a softer tone. She understood his anger in part…how could she not? Inside she was just as mad at him for taking the risk as well. “We were just going there to stop you from doing it alone. We all know that the best way to handle an enemy is together.” “You should have left it to us,” Michael said, still mad, but finally calming down. “And you know that I wouldn’t have just gone over there and done anything without proof.” When Maria looked at him pointedly he had the decency to blush a little. “Alright, sometimes I may run around half-cocked, but in this case I knew what I was doing. We were just going over there to warn them off…it’s not like we were going to try to kill them or anything…at least that wasn’t a part of the original plan.” “Michael,” Maria said softly as she reached up and gently touched the side of his face with her palm. “They’re hunters…they would have tried to kill you. We all made a pack when we were seven that we weren’t going to ever face Hunters alone unless we had to.” “I know,” he sighed, finally letting go of his temper completely. He sat down on the corner of the bed and pulled her down beside him. “So did you find Kyle?” He asked her as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah,” Maria said with a small grin as she moved behind him and began to rub his shoulders. “We found him freaking out from seeing mom and the new Sheriff making out at the shop.” “You’re joking right?” Michael said…then he let out a groan full of pleasure. Maria was erasing his anger and worry with every movement of her tiny hands on his neck and shoulders. Maria laughed and shook her head. “Wow,” he added as he turned to look at her. “You ok with that?” “Yeah,” Maria said with a soft shrug as she continued to work at calming him down. “Mom doesn’t date much…maybe two or three guys in my entire life…and I like Kyle’s dad. He didn’t arrest the twins the other night so that’s a mark in his favor. But, anyway, we told Kyle to meet us on the beach later and he said he would. Tess stayed with him because who knows how he’s going to handle hearing the truth tonight.” “I still don’t think that we should tell him,” Michael said softly. “It’s dangerous, not only for us but for him. If we tell him the truth we bring him into our world. Hunters want all traces of our kind wiped out, that includes the humans that know about it.” “Michael,” Maria said with a sigh, “he is Tess’ soulmate…she’d never be able to keep it from him. And besides…I know that he’s supposed to be with us…that he’s a part of our circle. I don’t know in what capacity yet, but I feel it just as much as I feel you. Trust me on this…either we have Kyle with us or whatever is on its way will win.” “Fine,” Michael said as he turned around completely and stopped her hands from moving any more…they were distracting him. “I trust you Maria, more than I trust my own family and that’s saying something. So if you say we need him then I’ll stand behind that. But the minute he puts you, any of you in danger…” “He won’t,” Maria said confidently, “not on purpose. I know that instinctively. So does this mean that you’re not mad at me anymore?” “I guess not,” Michael said with a smirk. “Good,” she said as she kissed him softly, “cause I don’t like it when you’re actually mad at me. I don’t mind when it’s some little war or challenge between the two of us…I crave those actually.” He grinned wickedly at her and she giggled. “But it was different this afternoon on the beach.” “I know,” he said as he grin disappeared. He pulled her to him and kissed her on the forehead gently. “It’s just that I just found you Maria, really found you, and I have this scary feeling that won’t go away. I can’t help feeling like you could very easily be taken from me right now and I will do anything to keep that from happening.” “Michael Guerin you’re my soulmate…no you’re more than that…you are my soul.” Maria pulled away from him to look him in the eye, to drown in his intense amber-like gaze. “I’d be with you even if I were dead. We are one now, totally and completely, and there’s no turning back from that. I can’t be taken away from you…not when really all I am is you.” Michael didn’t answer her, he just took the opportunity that their momentary truce and aloneness offered them. He pulled her to him again and began to gently kiss her, wanting to commit even the texture of her lips to memory. But as always with them, nothing ever remained gentle and peaceful for long. Within seconds they were devouring each other like starving people, the connection forming and growing instantaneously with their hunger and desire for each other. Michael, with a fleeting care for decency, managed to move his eyes away from her to concentrate on the door. With an audible click the door locked them in and everyone else out. Maria growled at even that much distance and pulled him back to her. In the back of her mind, before she lost the ability to think of anything but the Maria/Michael entity that they had become, she remember that she was supposed to be going over something with Isabel. But that could wait for another hour or so. This was way more important. ***************** “Didn’t think you were ever coming down,” Isabel remarked to Maria over an hour later. Behind her the front door opened and slammed, and running in was one little hurricane named Andrew Guerin. “Where’s Michweal?” Andy asked as he tried to run up the stairs, stumbling over every other one. “He’s in his room little man,” Maria said as she picked him up and placed him upright. “Hold on to the railing and don’t run,” she added to him as he began to try to move faster towards Michael’s room. What was it with all the Guerin kids and Michael anyway…the PlayStation2 wasn’t that much fun. Maria grinned to herself…Michael had so many other wonderful ways to pass the time in his room. “Wipe that satisfied grin off your face young lady,” Alex said sternly. “Isabel and I already have a pretty good idea what you and Michael were doing in there, we don’t need visible proof of it.” Alex shuddered…he really didn’t need to even joke about it. Maria really was like his sister. “I’m going to go play TH3 with Michael. I’ll leave you two to girl talk.” Isabel sighed as he left. She was one lucky girl to have a soulmate like him. Then she turned back to Maria and held up the two velvet bags and the journal that Maria had dropped when Michael had first drug her up the stairs. “Spill…just what do you have planned for Courtney Boyd?” “Have you ever wondered about Courtney?” Maria asked as she followed Isabel up the stairs to a room that was as familiar to her as her own. Isabel shrugged and shut her door to drown out all the noise from the twins’ room and Michael’s room. “Well see I have…I’ve spent years wondering about Courtney, especially this summer when I was trying to avoid Michael. I did a little research this summer at the library when I took that job there in June. Seems that the Boyds have been in Willow Oaks almost as long as we have. They moved here less than five years after the town was founded.” “But that’s back when only witches knew about the place, no one else did,” Isabel said a confused frown wrinkling her forehead. “And Courtney isn’t a witch…we know that for a fact.” “Yeah,” Maria said with a knowing grin. “We do, but that doesn’t mean that Courtney doesn’t descend from something else entirely. And I have a way to find out if she does. And I’m going to need your help, well yours and Tess’ to do it. This is a spell for women only, and I need my girls with me. Plus the power of three can’t hurt at all.” “Exactly what are you planning to do?” Isabel asked her interest peaked. Maria handed over her journal silently. “Turn to the last entry,” she said calmly. “I think it’s self explanatory.” Isabel opened the book and began to scan the last couple of pages. Her eyes widened and she looked at her friend in a whole new light. “Maria,” she said in awe, “the way you have this worded it seems almost as if you think she might be descended from the…” “Wolves,” Maria said with a shrug. “I would make sense. I always thought that Courtney was extra bitchy at certain times of the month. And we do have a fair amount of wolf activity around here, odd considering that this is costal North Carolina and there aren’t that many wolves around here. But I just left it alone because…please…like werewolves are really a threat to us. They’re stupid and weak, and everyone just uses them as messengers and errand runners. And it fits in with Max and Liz…werewolves, if they are of diluted blood, like Courtney would have to be, they need a sacrifice to awaken the powers…they need a blood ritual.” “So you’re going to…” “Correction Isabel,” she said with an evil laugh. “WE are going to simply do what witches were meant to do…werewolves are our servants…everyone knows that…they are beneath all of us in our little underworld. They are made for controlling and I think it’s time that Courtney, if she really wants to awaken her heritage, learned what it all meant. Courtney, by the end of the week will belong to us, and everything she says or does, everyone she comes into contact with, will become party to us. I can’t help but feeling like that cold little bitch is up into this…force or whatever…that is coming for us, and I’m going to use her for all it’s worth to find out just what she’s up to. Now are you in or not?” “Like I would turn something like this down,” Isabel said with her own evil laugh. Courtney Boyd had been asking for it for years, it would be their pleasure to give it to her. “Tess is going to love this…mind control is right up her ally.” TBC

Part 19