Free Bound In Blood (The Adams' Witch Series Book 1) by Erin Butler

loud, exclaiming, How lucky is Drake to get the only hot chick? and Do you think they’ve done anything yet ?
    I squirmed in the seat, wishing I hadn’t agreed to come to this Wiccan meeting. Drake insisted though. He said there would be a party afterward, and of course, that my dad would’ve gone if he were here.
    The real reason I agreed to the party, even though I half suspected Drake lied about my dad coming to these things, was for my dad. I’d finally made it to a place where he belonged. I felt as if he sat next to me, moved me forward when all I really wanted to do was turn around.
    When I was little, Mom went through a phase where she absolutely believed in all this metaphysical stuff. Tarot cards, psychics; you name it, she did it. She burned through tons of money to ‘cleanse her soul’ and ‘get in touch with nature’. Blah, blah, blah.
    A few years ago, Cici dragged me along with her for bonding and thought it would be fun to get a dual reading. I tried to play along until the tarot reader pulled out the death card on me. The woman swore it didn’t mean anything, but I was done. Had enough. No more supernatural crap. It freaked me out.
    Except when that crap made me feel like Dad was with me apparently. Maybe he’d smile at me like I imagined when I was younger, or tell me things would be alright, even good, maybe.
    A bump in the road tossed me back to reality. Looking out the windshield, the trees had grown sparse and a vacant green area loomed a little ways in the distance. A few people stood in the clearing and others in long cloaks with their hoods up, sat in a circle. Candles flickered in the breeze, the flame bending low, bowing to the hooded party.
    “Tell me again why you guys do this?” I asked, partly because I wanted to know and partly to drown out my name being thrown around back and forth behind us.
    Drake couldn’t be that deaf. He looked relieved to hear me talk, or maybe because I didn’t react to what his friends were talking about. “Adams just really embraces its……culture.”
    Drake parked his truck next to a rusted-out old Jeep. The truck bounced as Pete and the guys jumped out of the bed.
    “I thought the settlers left to get away from witchcraft.”
    “They did. It followed them.” He smirked and pulled his ball cap down. “Weren’t you paying attention last night?”
    I jumped out of the truck and met Drake around front. “Yes. I just don’t understand why, if people were all afraid of witches here, do witches come around now?”
    “Why are they attracted to Salem?” Drake shrugged. “I just think Wiccans are drawn to here. It’s a part of their history and ours. And listen,” Drake said, putting his arm around me, “sorry about my friends’ conversation back there."
    I smiled. “Whatever do you mean?”
    He shook his head and laughed. “Come on.”
    He walked toward the group. Marlene was there, she immediately gave me a dirty look and started whispering to her friend.
    “Looks like we’re the talk of the town,” Drake whispered.
    He seemed back to normal after our conversation from earlier today. It was almost as if it didn’t happen.
    The cloaked group stood and one of the figures began to speak. I couldn’t see which one talked, since half had their backs to me and the others’ heads were bent so low their hoods covered their mouths. “We will start the meeting by doing the drawing of the circle.” The voice young, feminine, and powerful. “And then you will all be invited into it.”
    My jaw dropped. “What? You said we were going to a meeting, not that we’d have to participate in it.”
    “Just…go with it,” Drake said. “It's fun.”
    A soaked, dead weight sloshed around in the pit of my stomach like that time I’d ate a whole bag of Swedish fish at Cynthia Cramer’s thirteenth birthday party.
    One of the cloaked figures held a candle high in the air and brought it down to light another. “That’s the high priestess,” Drake