Whispers at Moonrise (Shadow Falls #4)(32)

"Shit!" Kylie said, and either there was an echo in the room or Holiday spurted out the same word. "Did I make it come alive?"

Holiday didn't answer; she was too busy watching the throbbing heart. Then the thing floated up and shot across the room. "Duck!" Holiday screamed.

Kylie dropped to the floor just as the paperweight whizzed past.

Unfortunately, Burnett walked into the room.

The heart went right for him.

Chapter Twelve

The heart paperweight hit him in the chest. Shocked, he tried to catch it, but missed. It bounced off his wide, masculine upper body and whizzed off. It stopped in the middle of the room, hung in the air like something filled with helium, and then it rocketed forward, aiming again for Burnett. And like the first time, it didn't miss.

But this blow was much ... much worse.

Right in the crotch. Or as Della would say, his "boys" took a direct hit.

"What the hell!" he growled. He doubled over in pain. The heart moved back, and he snatched the leather-covered, sand-filled paperweight from the air, and squeezed it until it burst. Unfortunately, when the sand exploded from his tight fist, it regrouped in the shape of a heart and managed to hover in the air.

"Is Miranda in here?" Burnett growled, still doubled over.

Kylie, realizing the screwed-up witch he sought was her, raised her hand and said, "Stop." When nothing happened, she remembered to extend her pinky. "Stop!"

The sand fell to the floor and scattered like ... well, like sand.

Holiday sat back up in her chair, looking too stunned to speak.

Burnett, fist still pressed into his thigh, rose up to his full height.

"Damn!" Holiday muttered finally.

"Damn!" Burnett echoed.

Kylie looked from the shocked Holiday to the hurting vampire. Kylie thought his outburst was due to the pain, but nope. He stared at her forehead.

"Interesting," said Holiday.

"Strange," Burnett followed, never taking his eyes off Kylie's forehead.

"Just lovely!" muttered Kylie. Their dumbfounded expressions were a foreshadowing of what was to come at breakfast. Leave it to Kylie to be the mealtime freak-show entertainment.

"You're a witch," Burnett said in disbelief.

"Appears that way," Holiday agreed.

"No. I'm a chameleon." And each time Kylie said it, she believed it a little more. It didn't matter that she could reverse spells and turn animals back into their normal form, or that she'd sent a heart flying around the room and ball-busted a vampire. Her father told her she was a chameleon and she believed him.

"Maybe chameleon means something else," Holiday said. "Maybe it has something to do with you being a protector. For that matter, all the other gifts could be due to that as well." The camp leader's phone rang. As if needing a distraction, she eyed the caller ID. Raising her gaze, she met Kylie's gaze with empathy.

"What now?" Kylie bellowed.

"It's ... Tom Galen, your stepfather."

Just lovely, Kylie thought. A call this early couldn't be about anything good. So, what new disaster did he want to add to the mix?

"Is everything okay?" Derek shot inside the office door. "I heard a commotion," he muttered.

"No," Kylie said just before Holiday answered the call. "At this particular moment, I can't think of one single thing that's okay."

* * *

After breakfast, Kylie and Miranda walked out of the dining hall to head back to the cabin. Della had some kind of meeting with Burnett. Kylie had begged out of Meet Your Campmate hour due to her sucky start of the day. Plus she was supposed to go to the falls with Holiday and Burnett as soon as Burnett talked with Della.

"They like you. They're just surprised," Miranda said, apologizing for the entire witch group, who'd done nothing but gape at Kylie's forehead during breakfast. "I mean, we all thought you were vampire or werewolf. Some people had bets on you being a shape-shifter, but none of us ever thought you'd turn out to be one of us."

"You seriously took bets on what I was?" Kylie asked.

"A couple of warlocks started it." She frowned. "Sorry. If it makes you feel better, I lost five bucks."

Kylie shook her head in disbelief. Not that it was just the Wiccan gals or guys reacting. The entire Shadow Falls breakfast crowd had ignored their runny eggs and raw bacon and had eyes only for Kylie's newly emerged witch brain pattern. Or they had until Della, bless her cold heart, tried to help.

The vampire had vaulted up in the air a good five feet, landing with big thump on top of the table-her black tennis shoes landing half on and half off several campers' trays of food. Then with concern for Kylie, Della announced that Kylie had just whispered a curse and anyone gawking at her forehead would be turned into a flatulent goose.

It was, of course, a bald-faced lie. Since Kylie had sent the heart paperweight zipping around the room, she'd been super-conscientious about not moving her pinky. Not an easy feat either when trying to fork up runny eggs. Nevertheless, her two pinky fingers were on time-out until Kylie figured out the witch thing.

Kylie stopped out front of the office and debated popping in and asking Holiday if she'd ever gotten in touch with her stepfather. The two were playing phone tag. Kylie also wanted to check and see if Burnett had heard from Malcolm Summers, her real grandfather.