Free Rescued (Book One of the Silver Wood Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel by Hazel Hunter Page B

soon as she saw him. “I thought she was supposed to be gifted with plants.”
    “Sorry about the dandelions,” Troy said, and took down one of the wicker hampers and began filling it with fruit, bread and cheese. “We’re going to head over to my property so I can have a look around and see if there are any issues that need tending before the snow comes. We won’t be here for dinner.”
    “So I see.” Erica dried her hands and retrieved two unlabeled bottles from a rack on the wall. “Spring water with citrus and a bit of honey,” she said as she offered him the pair. “She doesn’t drink wine, and you need to keep your wits about you.”
    “Nothing is going to happen,” he assured her as he placed the bottles in the basket. “If it was, it would have already in our rooms.”
    “Not really,” the older woman said blandly. “I put a charm under her bed to keep you out of it.”  
    Troy cleared his throat. “A charm?”
    “Just a small one.” She pinched the air with her fingers. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. She’s very lovely, and you’re quite virile, and then there’s this desire curse. I considered it being proactive.”
    “Thank you, I think.” Troy kissed her brow and tucked the hamper under his arm. “How hopeless is she in the garden, really?”
    Erica’s expression grew pained. “She’s never been taught anything, or if she has she can’t remember, so she may improve in time.”
    “That bad, huh?”
    Her red curls bobbed as she nodded. “A swarm of starving gophers might be less destructive, but not by much.”
    “I don’t agree.” Aileen came into the kitchen with a basket of freshly-picked herbs, and looked completely unashamed about her obvious eaves-dropping. “Summer is hopeless in the garden because she’s not an herbalist. She has no empathy with growing things, nor any real interest in the green arts. I think her gift with plants is a side effect of some other power.”
    Since Aileen was one of the most gifted young herbalists among Wiccans, Troy knew she spoke from experience.
    “Do you know what her power could be?”
    The young witch gestured for both of them to follow her out into the kitchen garden, and pointed to some rather uneven rows of thriving dandelions.
    “She came back at midday when you were working at the loom, Erica. I watched from the window as she replanted them. She didn’t know what she was doing, but look at all the new shoots.”
    “When I saw them in the weed basket they were already wilting. They should be dead now,” Erica said. The High Priestess knelt down beside the bed and ran her fingers wonderingly over the plant’s yellow-flowering heads. “They are bigger and greener than they were before she pulled them out.” She stared up at Troy. “This is what she was doing in the park?”
    He shrugged, and helped the older woman to her feet.  
    “She doesn’t just make things grow like I do,” Aileen said. “I think Summer can bring dead plants back to life. Perhaps she can do the same with people.”
    “Like a necromancer,” Erica murmured. “But without those horrid spells and sacrifices.”
    “Have you ever known a witch to have a natural resurrection ability?” Troy asked. Erica shook her head, and Aileen did the same. “All right. I’ll get in touch with Boston tonight and ask them to search the archives again. There has to be some record of this somewhere.”
    “Troy, she’s not evil,” Aileen said suddenly, and touched his arm. “I have felt the goodness in her.”
    “We all have,” Erica said. “But to reanimate life is a black magic. If that is her true gift, my dears, then I’m afraid she was born cursed.”

CHAPTER NINE

    AFTER TEN MINUTES on the still-scary winding mountain road, Summer saw no sign of any cabins or houses.
    “Why did you build this place of yours so far away from the rest of the coven?”
    “I didn’t. It’s part of the Atwater family’s original settlement.” He detoured onto a