Read Online Darkbound (The Legacy of Moonset) by Scott Tracey - Free Book Online Page A

facade started to crack. He started blinking rapidly, swallowing over and over again, even though his mouth was probably dry as dust. “Come on, Mal. It’s just a joke.”
    “Jenna made the whole school fall in love with me,” I said tightly. “That’s not a joke. It’s the precursor to justified homicide.”
    He squirmed back, holding up a finger. “They’re not ‘in love’ with you. Love spells are against the law. But spells that help people realize their healthy attraction to the male form, well there aren’t any rules about that.”
    That wasn’t Cole talking, it was Jenna’s words coming out of his mouth. Crap, she’d already started forming her defense. That meant Maddy and I were probably right, and this was all about getting us kicked out of school. “Why’s she doing this, Cole? Didn’t Quinn say that we weren’t going anywhere no matter what?”
    Cole didn’t have an answer for that. He shrugged, looked away, avidly interested in what everyone else was doing. “Hey, how come you’re not interested?” he said suddenly, focusing on Maddy.
    “I—you—” Maddy’s face went slack, the need to come up with a suitable response chasing literally every thought from her mind.
    “It’s doesn’t work on anyone who’s already in love with someone else.” I smacked Cole on the head like he should have figured that out already. Maddy’s mouth tightened, but the look she shot me a moment later was relieved. And yet suspicious.
    That was a conversation for another time, though.
    “It doesn’t?” Cole frowned. He had the same look when he found out Santa wasn’t real (Bailey had known for two years by that point). He was just too trusting sometimes.
    “How’d she do it? How do I turn it off?”
    “I—you can’t?” Cole did his best to look helpless and innocent.
    I grunted and turned away. “Can you call somebody?” I asked Maddy.
    Her lips twitched. “You need me to call an adult before someone bad-touches you?”
    A bad touch was the least of my worries right now. Now that we had a modicum of privacy, the extent of what just happened really started to sink in. The way everyone had stared. The crammed feeling of the hall when everyone stopped to see what was going on. All the eyes turned on me, watching, judging.
    Everything grew hazy for a moment as the room started to spin. I reached out to steady myself, grabbed Cole’s shoulder and held on. The dizziness passed, but the moment wasn’t lost on him. “Are you okay?” He looked up at me with wide eyes. “Jenna said you wouldn’t be hurt. She said it was just a joke, I swear.”
    My stomach gnawed on itself, as if to remind me what was really to blame. “I’ll be fine once Jenna unravels whatever it was that she did,” I said, not feeling entirely guilty about letting Cole think her spell was hurting me. It was better than the alternative.

t e n
    Magic can do many things, but it cannot create something from nothing. Love spells are notorious, but impossible. The best you can hope for is an attraction, an obsession, a debilitating need that surpasses all other needs. It isn’t love, though.
    Magic and Subjugation:
Emotional Influence in the Modern Witch
    My locker had been molested by an invasion of puff paint and glitter. Pink and red, mostly, heaped in oozing quantities as one poster had been pressed over top of another, the puff paint barely having a chance to dry and instead acted like a gluey substance, holding them all together like a serial killer’s mosaic of victims.
    “Malcolm,” a voice called out from down the hall, “there you are. Come with me, please?” Kelly appeared, face pinched in irritation.
    “Thank god,” I exhaled, feeling the tension already pooling out of me. “Where have you guys been all day? I’ve been calling Quinn since this morning. Do you have any idea what it’s like—”
    “I know exactly what it’s like,” she said crisply, leading me down the hall. The other students gave a