Seduced by Innocence (The Seduced Saga Book 1) Read online

  "This picture was taken 25 years ago at a charity event. That's David O'Conner, head of Rose Botanicals." She pointed to a man in an expensive suit. He reminded me of Derek, but probably any good-looking man would remind me of him just then. I was so tempted to call him and beg him to come over and get me out of here, but I couldn't leave Ocean.

  There had to be a way to be with him and protect those here as well. Mother's new rule had to have a loophole, but I couldn't see it through the horror of this night.

  "Rose, look! The woman he's got his arm around, do you recognize her?"

  I looked more closely at the grainy black and white photo and my heart stopped.

  My mother stood arm and arm with our enemy, and she looked very much in love.

  "No, this can't be. This doesn't make sense. It must just be someone who looks like her."

  "Rose, look at her necklace."

  I did, and my heart sank. She wore the rose pendant that my grandmother had given Mother to pass down to her first born daughter. Me.

  I reached for the pendant hanging around my neck and stroked the hand painted rose, custom made for my grandmother when she was my age.

  My mother and the Druid's leader had been involved, and she'd lied about it all these years.

  The horror didn't end as Ocean kept speaking.

  "Maybe he's attacking us out of jealousy or something. But by all accounts, he's a happy family man with three kids and a loving wife. Not much is mentioned about them in public, but they seem like a solid family. Rose, I'm so sorry to say this, but what if we have this all wrong. What if there's something more going on than we realize?"

  My mind couldn't process anything else in that instant and I lay back against the couch and closed my eyes, willing everything to just go away.

  TWELVE

  This Day's Black Fate

  DEREK

  This day's black fate on more days doth depend;

  This but begins the woe, others must end.

  — William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

  THE MOON HUNG low in the sky, full and bright. We had no more compulsion to shift on a full moon than any other night of the month, but it did bring out our more animal nature.

  I'd tried to sleep, to read, to work out, but nothing could pull my mind away from Rose. Grabbing my phone, I gave in to the need to call her, despite the late hour.

  "Hello?" She sounded dried out and scratchy, like she'd been crying.

  "Rose, it's Derek. I'm sorry to call so late, but I had to see if you're doing okay."

  I paced back and forth, leaving footprints in the light dusting of snow that coated the courtyard behind our house.

  "Derek. Um, I can't really talk now. And I'm not sure I'll be able to make our date tomorrow night. I'm sorry." Her voice cracked and she stopped talking.

  "Are you okay? What happened?" She hadn't said she didn't want to see me at all, so there was some hope.

  "Someone killed a litter of puppies tonight. I'm the one who found them… " Her voice trailed off as if she'd left something else unsaid. But what she had said was bad enough. I wanted desperately to hold her and take her away from all the pain she'd experienced today, but that wasn't yet my role. I was still a relative stranger, despite a few intimate moments.

  "God, I'm sorry. Do you know who's responsible? Can I do anything to help?" I silently begged her to say yes, that I could help by coming over and being there for her.

  "No. Thank you, but I have to go. It's been a tough night. I'll try to call you tomorrow."

  "I understand. I'm here for you if you need me, Rose. Get some rest."

  I slipped the phone into my pocket and walked toward the one place I might be able to find some peace.

  As I walked through the woods, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, as if someone were watching me. I looked around but didn't see or hear anyone. Using my shifter senses, I inhaled deeply to catch the scent of anyone unfamiliar, but got nothing. I shrugged it off as my own paranoia after the night I'd had.

  A field of magic surrounded the hidden garden, and for a moment I worried that being away might have turned it against me, but I slipped through without a problem.

  Inside I stood in awe at the beauty of this place. No matter how many times I came here, it always stilled something restless inside of me.

  Exotic flowers grew side by side with indigenous trees. Mossy boulders had been placed strategically for sitting or leaning against. Ripe fruit hung heavy from trees long out of season, and in the center of it grew the most perfect rose bush I'd ever seen.

  Roses of every color grew from one bush, always fragrant, no matter the weather, petals pristine and powerful.

  Each rose color held different magical properties, and the tonics that we derived from them and oils we culled from them had made up the bedrock of my family's successful business at Rose Botanicals.

  The few remaining Druids heavily guarded this power source, as it also held the heart of our power.

  I didn't want to admit, even to myself, how much I'd missed being in proximity to these roses, to my family. Here my soul began to mend, filling out like a person starved and dehydrated who finally found their oasis. I couldn't allow myself to accept the truth of that, because if I did, I would have to choose this life, and then I would lose any semblance of freedom and choice I'd ever have.

  Shoving those thoughts aside, I plucked the right combinations of petals to make the cream I'd need to help Rose heal her arm. Even her scar would heal almost completely, leaving only a faint line to indicate anything harmful had ever befallen her.

  All the equipment I needed to make a basic healing salve was hidden in a secret compartment in one of the rocks. I pulled it out and began crushing the roses, mixing and blending.

  "Would you like some help?"

  I looked up to see my father standing over me. My instinct to fight him in everything fell flat as I looked at the mess I was making with the salve. "Yes. Thank you. I guess I've lost my touch since I've been gone."

  My father sat next to me on the ground and looked at what I'd made. "Not so, you've got the basics. We just need to add a few more ingredients and get a cleaner sample of the oils in the rose. May I?"

  I handed him the bowl and watched him work his own magic, turning my mush into a fragrant cure for serious cuts.

  "Are you injured?"

  "It's not for me."

  "I see."

  He didn't ask, and I wasn't planning on telling, but my stupid mouth didn't feel like listening to my brain. "I met a girl. She's special, Dad, real special. I took her out tonight but the whole date was a disaster." I told him everything that had happened. "This is for her arm, but I don't even know if she'll see me again."

  "Do you think you could love her?"

  I might have been falling for her already, but that was a tidbit I'd keep to myself. "I could, with time."

  "Is she worth it? Is she worth whatever it would take to make her happy, to love her and be there for her?"

  Yes. "I don't know."

  His eyes settled on mine without judgment. "Son, I think you do, or you wouldn't be out here in the middle of the night mashing rose petals together."

  Crap. "We've only had one date and one training session at the studio. No one can fall in love that fast."

  "Really? I see. Well, let me ask you a question." Uh-oh. He had that voice that said I'd be learning a lesson. "Do you think your mother and I are in love?"

  "Of course." They'd been deeply in love for as long as I could remember.

  "Did you know that I told her I loved her after our first date?"

  Double crap. "No, I didn't know that."

  He mixed in another oil and stirred some more, using his Druid magic to accelerate the process. "It's true. I met her at a bookstore. She looked stunning standing in the classics section browsing through Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I wanted to impress her with my charm and brains, so I struck up a conversation and told her that I thought that the t
rue tragedy in Romeo and Juliet wasn't in their love and death, but in their misguided notion that they had really been in love at all. Infatuation, I said, was at the heart of that play. Foolish, youthful lust."

  I laughed, trying to imagine the look on my literature professor mother's face as my dad criticized her favorite play.

  "You can imagine her response. She defended them and spoke eloquently of social injustice and sins of the father and how the true tragedy lay in their family's inability to look past ancient grievances and see into a brighter future. She postulated that the deaths of the two young lovers spurred a renewed self-reflection in their families and forced them to consider the painful arrogance and futility of their struggle against one another.

  "Before she had even stopped speaking, I knew I would spend the rest of my life with her. I asked her out on the spot and proposed to her, ring in hand, that night on our date."

  The romance of his courtship stunned me. I'd always seen my dad as a business man, a good father—if a bit overzealous in turning his kids into his corporate puppets—and a devoted husband, but never an impulsive romantic. "Did she say yes?"

  "Of course not." His deep laugh rumbled through the garden. "She hardly knew me. But it didn't take long to finally convince her we were soul mates."

  "Do you really think Rose could be my soul mate?" The idea terrified me, but also gave me an uneasy joy.

  "Only you can answer that but, based on what you've said, I'd say yes."

  "Are you just trying to convince me I'm in love with her so I'll stick around and join the business?" I didn't mean it to sound as accusatory as it came out, but he didn't flinch or frown.

  He smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. "Son, all I have ever wanted is for you to be happy. I don't care if that's with Rose Botanicals, or the studio, or driving your motorcycle around the country. I apologize for the things I said when you turned eighteen. I realized after you left that I'd driven a wedge between us, and it's pained me ever since. The only question I have for you now is: are you happy? Truly happy?"

  In that moment I knew the answer. I'd been running my entire adult life, trying to find that one thing that would make me feel alive. I'd never found it, but when Rose walked into the studio that day, it found me.

  "I think I might be starting to find happiness. But what if it's too late? What if I've already lost her?"

  "It's never too late." He handed me the salve. "This is ready. Go to her. Fight for her. Show her you love her and won't hurt her. Trust your heart above all else."

  THIRTEEN

  So Gentle in His View

  BLAKE

  Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof

  — William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

  YOUR DAD IS wrong. Sometimes, it is too late.

  The coven's magic weighed heavy in me, like eating a dinner that sat wrong in your stomach, but it did its job and kept me hidden from the Druids by masking my scent, hiding the coven's magical signature and cloaking me in darkness so that their eyes glanced off of me.

  I pulled out my phone and called Rainbow. "It's Blake. You were right, they have a power base. It's in a secret garden in their woods. I couldn't get close to see it, but it sounded like a rose garden from the way they talked about it."

  "Good. Come home now so we can create a plan."

  "There's more."

  "What?"

  I debated whether to share this information. Rose had grown into a beautiful young woman, and if I played my cards right, I might be able to use this situation to my advantage and finally have a chance with her.

  Once upon a time, we had been friends. I didn't know exactly when that had changed, but I was determined to renew the affection that once existed between us. My thoughts traveled through time, to fonder memories.

  "Blake, could you help me with the puppies? I can't carry them all."

  It was Rose's thirteenth birthday, but still she chose to help with the kennel.

  "Sure, give me that big guy and let's get them to their new potty place."

  She smiled brightly as we marched the puppies to the yard.

  We sat on a swing, watching the puppies play and explore the outdoors. I had my arm around her in a friendly way.

  "What's it like, going to a regular school?"

  Her question surprised me. "I don't know. It's all right. Mostly, it's a lot of busy work and waiting. I think you're lucky to get to work at your own pace and do the things you want to do."

  "But you get to meet new people, right? Date girls, have friends, go places." She tried to hide the longing in her voice, but I could hear it.

  "I guess. But I don't really have friends outside of the community, and I'm not dating anyone."

  "Have you kissed a girl before?"

  "Yeah, sure."

  "What's it like?"

  "Kinda wet, but a little fun too. Haven't you kissed anyone?"

  She shook her head. "How would I have? I never leave this place."

  Something inside me buzzed as I considered the possibilities. "Would you like to know how it feels? To kiss someone?"

  She turned her face up to me, hope in her eyes. "Yes. Very much."

  I leaned in and kissed her gently. She tasted of birthday cake, sweet and good.

  When I pulled back she still had her eyes closed, and she licked her lips.

  "What did you think?"

  She opened her eyes. "It was nice. Thank you, Blake."

  Rainbow's voice pulled me out of my memory. "Spit it out, Blake, or come home. I don't have time for this."

  "The rose garden is guarded by powerful magic. Even with the power of the coven, I couldn't penetrate it."

  "That will be handled. Get out of there before you are seen." The phone clicked, and I knew I'd been dismissed.

  I hadn't lied, exactly. She hadn't sent me here to spy on that bastard who was taking advantage of Rose. I'd given her the information she needed. I could handle the Derek situation myself. When Rose realized that she'd been dating the son of our enemy, she'd be inconsolable, and need someone there to comfort her. Maybe she'd finally see me as more than the maintenance guy, as someone who could love her and take care of her, way better than this rich prick. Maybe she'd remember that first kiss and realize I was the one she was meant to be with.

  As the two O'Conners came out of their secret garden, I slipped back into the woods and headed toward my truck.

  Rainbow had promised me power, real power, if I could help them secure this source. I knew I could do it, and with that power I could finally make Rose mine.

  FOURTEEN

  Stony Limits

  ROSE

  Stony limits cannot hold love out,

  And what love can do, that dares love attempt.

  — William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

  Dear Diary,

  This disconnect that has wedged itself between me and Jasmine hasn't always been here. There was a time when we were close, the three of us. When we played and danced and sang, and when Jasmine wanted to be just like me when she grew up.

  Jasmine has earth magic, and she and Ocean would have great fun weaving together their gifts to make Mother Nature their playmate, while I smiled on, content to be the observer in these fanciful games.

  It was a winter much like this one that killed that play and replaced it with wary jealousy.

  Jasmine had been five that year, and Ocean and I thought we knew everything at the mature age of eight. We'd been snowed in for two days, forced to stay indoors as Mother Nature played without us. Mother would not budge on this, insisting that we keep warm. In retrospect, I think she just didn't want to deal with the hassle of feeding, warming and bathing three girls, cold and wet from playing in the snow, so she banned play altogether.

  One morning, while Mother checked on the puppies, we decided to sneak out and make our own fun. We hadn't had a chance to build a snowman yet, and with Jasmine's and Ocean's magic, we were sure we could b
uild the best one ever!

  I wish I had a picture of us from that day, hair wet from snow, eyelashes sparkling with ice crystals, as we did indeed create the best snowman ever. If we'd had a few more minutes to ourselves, I feel certain we could have brought to life Frosty the Snowman in all his glory.

  But our magic was cut short by an irate mother who stormed out of the house hollering our names.

  We ran back as fast as we could through a foot of snow, fear chilling us more than the snow ever could.

  She stared down at the three of us with fierce, unreadable eyes.

  We waited for our punishment in silence, but I couldn't let my best friend and little sister get in trouble.

  I stepped forward. "It wasn't their fault. They tried to stop me, but I went out anyways. They were coming to bring me back."

  Mother pulled me into the kennel and instructed me to drop my pants and bend over a crate as she pulled out a paddle.

  With Ocean and Jasmine forced to watch, she paddled my bare bottom, waiting for me to break.

  By the third hit, I cried out in pain as fire shot through my skin, burning me raw.

  Jasmine ran forward to stop her, slipping from Ocean's grasp.

  Mother threw her aside like a bag of rice, and she fell to the floor, twisting her wrist when she landed on it. She crawled to the corner and cried while Mother counted off to ten, a sadistic gleam in her eyes as she beat me.

  I couldn't sit for a week, but it was Jasmine who bore the scars of that day.

  While none of us made a habit of disobeying after that, Jasmine withdrew into herself and coveted from afar the friendship Ocean and I still nurtured.