Spells & Stitches by Bretton Barbara

Author:Bretton, Barbara [Bretton, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2011-12-06T05:00:00+00:00

Laria had a healthy appetite for someone not even twenty-four hours old.

I was tapped into her frequency and I was up and by her side with each whimper, checking her dchedeeper iaper for activity, then delivering her to Chloe for another meal. I was pretty much running on autopilot at that point while Chloe struggled to wake up long enough each time for the baby to latch on. I caught up with the Pats on my cell phone while Laria nursed, then burped her and returned her to the bassinet.

Neither one of us was sure how much colostrum Laria was actually getting at this point, but Lilith and Janice (and probably every other female in Sugar Maple) would be stopping by in the morning to help Chloe master the fine points of breastfeeding. I wasn’t sure if magick made a difference or not. Then again, there was a hell of a lot about the subject I didn’t know.

Mostly I stared up at the ceiling, hyperaware of every sound within a five-mile radius. This was Sugar Maple. Walls and windows and alarm systems didn’t mean a hell of a lot around here. The protective spell kept human dangers out, but what about evil hidden within? I had firsthand experience dealing with supernatural evil, and let me tell you, it was nothing like what you saw on TV. They fought dirty and they fought to win and there were just so many times a man could get lucky.

I was glad Elspeth was gone, but something about her abrupt departure gnawed at my gut. Let’s face it, there was gone and there was invisible and a world of difference in between.

The troll could cloak better than the Klingons in Search for Spock. She could be sitting at the foot of the bed right now, dressed in her yellow-and-white-striped nightshirt, and I wouldn’t know it.

Hard to sleep with that image in your mind.

And then there was Chloe’s snoring. Nobody could sleep through that.

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t going to get much rest after all. I could deal. Sleep was overrated anyway. I’d catch up after Laria went off to college and I could retire the dragons, drain the moat, and invest in heavy-duty earplugs.

Chloe stopped rattling the windows a little before dawn. The baby was full, dry, and deeply asleep. The room was comfortably warm and quiet. My guard slipped and I felt myself sinking into something halfway between sleep and a coma, when a high-pitched cry pierced the fog.

I was instantly awake, but I couldn’t move. At least I thought I was awake, but I might have been trapped in one of those dreams that make you think you’re awake but you’re really not. Whatever it was, I felt like a human panini, being squeezed by an unseen press. There was no pain, no discomfort, nothing except the fact that I couldn’t fucking move.

Just beyond reach, Laria’s cries grew more frantic while Chloe kept right on sleeping. What the hell was going on? Had I been hit with a massive stroke overnight?

The pressure on my chest and back increased.

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