Free Warlock Unbound: Heart's Desire, Book 4 by Dana Marie Bell Page B

cast in and remains in the workroom?”
    “Exactly.” Gareth’s eyes gleamed with approval.
    “So, what about witches?” Kerry leaned forward, fascinated.
    Jo folded her hands on her lap. “A witch is guided solely by instinct. She can cast a spell spontaneously, without the need of ritual, which gives her a greater versatility than a wizard at the cost of exhaustion of her power. This leads to witches collapsing if they use too much power to overcome something.”
    Gareth nodded. “I’ve seen it in Lana. She collapsed when she held back Cole’s storm, and Zach collapsed after defeating Davis Godwin and saving Chris from Cole’s curse. It takes a lot of power to do those spells, so the stronger the witch, the stronger the spell.” He put the ice pack back on his eye at Jo’s quiet urging. “There can seem to be more power in a witch than in a wizard, but that’s mostly because they tend to throw everything they have at you all at once, whereas a wizard is always holding something back. You won’t see a wizard fall to exhaustion unless it’s a truly lengthy battle. Completing a spell doesn’t take much energy, but it does take some.”
    “Is that why Annabelle’s spell couldn’t kick the hex off of me?”
    Jo and Gareth exchanged another glance. “No, I don’t think so,” Gareth answered slowly. “I think it had more to do with how powerful the hex is than the amount of power Annabelle has. While she’s strong, she’s not Own strong, and that’s what this hex needs in order to be removed.”
    “So I get to drink from the fire hose instead of the water fountain. Great.” Kerry leaned back in her chair, more questions bubbling in her mind now that she had two magics willing to talk to her about it. “Right. I think I get it, but what about warlocks?” Kerry shivered. “No offense, but the few I’ve met have been nuts. No offense to Gen, by the way. She’s awesome.”
    “Yes, she is.” Gareth leaned forward, placing his hand on Kerry’s. “I promise we’ll stop Arthur before he gets to you again.”
    “You think it was Arthur who put the sleeper hex on me?” It made a certain amount of sense. Davis was dead, and Hugh had been too busy trying to get the wizard king’s power to cast a sleeper hex. “How long would it take to cast something like this?”
    “A while, and it would take significant amounts of power.” Gareth shook his head. “Gen’s told me a lot about warlocks. They do rituals like a wizard, but can spontaneously cast like a witch. The only difference is their power comes from the outside rather than inside.”
    Jo nodded. “Yeah.”
    “Damn.” Kerry ran her free hand through her hair. “All right. Educate me, Professor Yashodar. Give me Warlocks 101.”
    Jo grinned. “You’ll be getting a test on this later.”
    “I’m an ace student.” Kerry winked. “Lay it on me, sistah.”
    “A warlock’s magic comes from without, not from within as it does with witches and wizards. They’re attuned to forces outside themselves, and draw their power from them. Most warlocks wind up being seduced by demons at an early age, around puberty, with little recourse but to accept the demon’s proposal.” Jo frowned. “Before I met Gen, I assumed that was how most warlocks got their power.”
    “Damn.” Kerry was fascinated. “They like them young, don’t they?”
    “And easily malleable. The young ones don’t fight all that hard, not when the demon whispers to them that they’ll have everything they desire. All you have to do is pay the demon back, usually with your soul or the souls of your victims.”
    “Which is what the Godwin boys are doing.”
    “Not exactly. Davis Godwin was powering up, trying to bring his demon here to earth. If that happened, the demon would have used him to try and take over the magical world. Once that was accomplished, it would create an army of magics, forcing us to go to war with the mundanes. The end of that would be—”
    “Hell on