Spell Bound (Darkly Enchanted) by Stephanie Julian Page B

about their parents. It was just too difficult for both of them. “Hungry?”
Those wide, dark eyes regarded her with…what? Anger? Fear? Despair? She waited for him to say something else. Anything. But after a silent minute, she caught back a sigh.
“Leo, come here.”
She opened her arms and he bounced off the bed, throwing his arms around her waist and squeezing tight. She hugged him back just as hard.
Her heart pounded almost painfully. Goddess bless her, she loved this little boy with all her heart. He was all she had left of family and she was terrified of losing him. Terrified of screwing up and losing him to the monsters that chased them. Of getting herself killed trying to protect him and leaving him alone.
Without help, how long did they have until the men who’d killed their parents—who’d been so much stronger and had still gotten caught—found them?
They had to run.
“I love you, Leo.”
He squeezed tighter but didn’t say another word, his small body warm against her own.
Damn that bastard Brown for refusing them. They needed to get the hell out of Reading. Tonight. After one more night of work to get her last check.
Then they’d go. And maybe…maybe there was something she could do to help them get away.
“Hey, Leo. You want to help me with a spell?”
Pulling out of her arms, he looked up at her, eyes bright as he nodded.
She smiled, trying to look excited. And confident. Yeah, right. “Alright, bud. You sit here for a sec.” She pointed to the space in front of the altar then grabbed her backpack from beside the bed and pulled out their mom’s grimoire.
She paged past spells to cure warts and heartburn, spells to induce comas and even one titled Love Potion. She’d had a few private laughs over that one.
But now… There it was, near the back. Concealment Spell.
Glancing through, it didn’t look that difficult, and she had all of the ingredients they needed on the altar. Of course, nothing ever looked difficult until you were ass-deep in frogs, as her dad used to say.
Oh, Daddy…
Shaking off those thoughts, she grabbed what she needed and sat in front of Leo, placing the abalone moon bowl between them.
“Okay, bud. Let’s do this.”
In the bottom of the bowl, she placed the bloodstone and sprinkled dried heliotrope over it.
With the grimoire on her lap, she held out her hands and waited for Leo to place his in hers. She’d been teaching Leo as much as she could about spell casting. Which wasn’t as much as it should have been.
She’d been a lousy student, which was why she hadn’t attempted this spell before. It took a lot of power and an equal amount of control. And she didn’t have much of either.
She closed her eyes, knowing Leo would follow her lead.
“Great Goddess Uni, Mother of all, protector of the Etruscans. We, your children, beseech Your aid.”
Their hands warmed as power built between them, causing goosebumps to coat her arms. Lowering their hands, she wrapped Leo’s around the edge of the bowl, then did the same with her own, funneling the power into the bowl and the bloodstone.
“Danger follows us. Evil tracks us. Bless us, Great Goddess, with a veil to hide us from those who seek us and mean us harm. We beg You to answer our plea.”
The bowl shook beneath their hands, rattling against the floor, making the moonstone dance like a Mexican jumping bean in the bottom.
Shit, that was so not good. They were drawing too much power. She wouldn’t be able to contain it for much longer.
Please, Goddess, just long enough to charge the stone.
“For your aid, we thank you, Uni, Lady of the Sky, the Earth and the Water.”
Okay, time to release the spell into the stone.
“Leo, let go of the bowl. Slowly, bud.”
He did it perfectly, sliding his palms then his fingertips from the lip of the bowl until he was no longer touching. As if he’d been casting for years. He probably had been. Her mom had started her training when she was four.
The bowl continued to rattle.
Shit.