Free Eventide (Meratis Trilogy Book 2) by Krista Walsh

half a metre in front of Jeff and lifted its nose towards him. Very slowly, Jeff reached out a hand, not sure what he was doing, but unable to escape the feeling that it was waiting for him to do something. Just as his finger reached the creature’s ear, it pulled back its lips and hissed.
    Jeff jumped, lost his balance, and fell off the log, shuffling away from the beast. “What the hell kind of noise was that?”
    The forest replied with a haunting laugh, and the sound circled his head like the hum of bees. Jeff groaned and buried his face in his hands. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
    “What’s going on?” Cassie asked.
    “Company,” Jayden growled, hand stretched towards his dagger. The blade leapt out of its sheath and flew backwards, lodged itself in the trunk of a tree.
    Jeff looked back at the deer just in time to see it shimmer in his vision, its back legs elongating into creamy olive skin covered with a swath of sheer yellow silk. The snout shortened into a small nose, the eyes slanting upwards into exotic angles. Black hair rippled down its head and covered what the see-through material would have missed. In seconds, the deer had been replaced with a beautiful, familiar woman.
    “Lan,” he greeted, with all the enthusiasm of a trip to the dentist.
    “Storychanger,” she answered, the word rolling on her tongue with seduction in every syllable, pushing the flow of his blood downwards. “So nice to,”
    “See you again,” came another voice behind him.
    Jeff didn’t want to turn around and acknowledge the second witch. They were illusionists. If he didn’t believe in them, would they cease to exist?
    He stared at Cassie instead, watching her reaction. Her eyes widened as she twisted slowly in three directions, all three Sisters present and accounted for. He expected to see the awe on Cassie’s face. What he didn’t expect was the flash of jealousy. Seeing it gave him the confidence to meet the gaze of the other Sister that had spoken.
    “Hello, Aya,” he said to the black woman next to him, the scent of oranges and mint wafting from the waves of white hair pouring over her shoulders and the blue silk of her dress.
    She smiled slowly. “We thought we might come and,”
    “Welcome you back,” the third Sister said, approaching him. Kay’s cat-like emerald eyes held his gaze, her wicked smile made all the more tempting by the way her body swayed under the wraps of soft green. Her copper hair was pulled up and out of her face, revealing every detail of her figure beneath her dress.
    Jeff swallowed. “You make me feel so wanted. Pity I’m not as thrilled to be back here as you are to greet me.”
    Lan trailed her fingers across his back. “It seems our universe has not,”
    “Finished with you, Storychanger. Your story,”
    “Isn’t over yet.”
    “Wow, they actually do talk like this? I kind of thought you made that up for effect.” Cassie came closer, edging Aya out of the way. The witch’s eyebrows shot up.
    Jeff chewed his lips to hide the smile, amused just as much by Cassie’s bluntness as by the irritation that flittered across the Sisters’ expressions. During the few times Jeff had encountered these women, he knew their words were something to experience rather than understand, but Cassie didn’t seem interested in either.
    In a heartbeat, the annoyance disappeared, and the Sisters focused their attentions on Cassie.
    The air stirred with a sudden breeze, and Jeff picked up the scents of all three women: cinnamon, citrus, and vanilla—a hypnotic combination that made his mouth water. He swallowed again and glanced towards Brady and Jayden. The eyes of both men had glazed over, and drooped with fatigue. Jeff didn’t feel any similar lethargy, but neither did he have any interest in speaking, or moving.
    “A sweet child. Innocent and brave,” said Kay, brushing her hand down Cassie’s arm. “You’ve,”
    “Faced our world once and proved your strength.” Aya raised