Warlock Brothers of Havenbridge 01 - Spell Bound by Jacob Z. Flores

supposed to do. This isn’t you.”
    I scoffed. “Yeah, well, it’s the new me.”
    Charlotte turned away, gnawing on her thumbnail.
    “Let’s go somewhere,” Adam said. The previous tremor had been replaced with a low, soothing tone. “So we can talk.”
    “No.”
    He took two steps toward me anyway. The man with the hose was practically standing behind us. Either he was working his way down the sidewalk or he wanted to eavesdrop on what we were arguing about. Either way, it didn’t matter. Seeing him gave me an idea.
    “ Madesco ,” I whispered. I couldn’t wait to see my little spell in action. My hex would upset the man and his hose, and he’d get the Proctors and their little friends wet.
    When the man tripped over the hose, I eagerly waited for the water to spray them from head to toe. Instead, the hose turned on me.
    My breath caught in surprise as the cold water shot in my face. Gasping for air, I held up my hands to deflect the spray, but the hose had developed a mind of its own. It wiggled like a snake in the worker’s hand, drenching me to the bone.
    Miranda and her friends laughed. The only other sound I heard was Adam. He mumbled, “ Aqua, averte ,” and the water instantly shut off.
    “Jesus Christ!” the man who’d been fighting the hose said. He gaped at the hose and then back at me. “I don’t know what happened. Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine,” I replied, wiping the water from my face. I glared at Miranda, who was practically rolling on the pavement in laughter. Charlotte walked away to spare me the pity that no doubt hooded her eyes, and Adam opened his mouth to say something before thinking better of it.
    When he closed his mouth and trailed after Charlotte, I walked in the other direction.
     
     
    I WALKED the few blocks to the common nestled in the quadrangle that made up the downtown center. A construction crew busily worked on the courthouse remodel along the western side of the square. It had been going on for over a year and still wasn’t finished. Scaffolding covered the entire front face of the building, and men in jeans and hard hats worked like ants across every level of the wood-and-steel structure.
    A crane operator was preparing to lift a pallet filled with the new twenty-foot-tall windows the town fathers had insisted be a part of the new building’s look.
    While the men fastened the bundle to the crane, I made a beeline for the white gazebo in the middle of the open town square. There, I’d be out of the shade of the tree-lined perimeter, and the sun would have a chance to dry my sopping wet clothes. Once I no longer squished while I walked, I could head back to where my car was parked in front of Starbucks.
    By that time, the Proctors would be long gone, and I could get in my car without getting the interior all wet.
    I lifted my face to the warmth of the sun’s rays and let its heat sap the anger that still boiled in my blood. If there was one bad thing about being a warlock, it was our tempers.
    Wizards were our complete opposite. They were the calmest of all. Their gray magic demanded balance in all things, emotion included. They were the strategists, the thinkers, the ones who could see all sides of a problem and figure out a solution. Witches were superior at defense. Their charms and protection spells were a bitch to bypass because they added an important ingredient to their spells—their hearts.
    Warlocks were the muscle. We made up the offense and were ruled by our emotions as well, but they were a different set than the witches used. We incited fear, we used intimidation, and we harnessed and directed our anger like a missile strike to obliterate our enemies.
    That was why a protector coven from each order was chosen. Together, we had what it took to keep the Gate safe from those who wished to destroy it.
    Well, at least everybody but me did. I couldn’t even work a simple spell on a fucking hose!
    That wasn’t Charlotte’s or Adam’s fault. Not