Hunted Sorcery (Jon Oklar Book 2) by B.T. Narro (chapter books to read to 5 year olds .txt) 📕

of water hovering in front of her as she made a face of concentration.

“Jon!” she called as I left the apartments. “Would you come here?”

Kataleya always practiced near the well, letting her water fall in when she was done using it. She already had a sheen of sweat on her face, her chest swelling with each heavy breath. I tended to be distracted by concerns these days, except when I looked at Kataleya. Then everything seemed to become clearer.

Her cunning eyes, a sharp gray-green hue, made me curious as to what was going on in her mind. She always had wisdom to spare, and I didn’t believe it had much to do with her being two years older than me. It seemed to be more related to the kind of person she was.

It almost felt as if I had a second mind when I started to look at a woman in a romantic way, as was clearly happening with Kataleya. There were thoughts that came, always unbidden, that would get me in a fair bit of trouble if I was to ever speak them aloud. For example, this second mind brought my attention to the ample size of her bosom beneath her shirt.

I found myself slowly losing the desire to stop these thoughts the more they made my chest burn. Instead, I wanted to act on them, to find some way of showing Kataleya how beautiful I thought she was.

“Good morning, Kat,” I said with my best smile. “You look nice.”

“Do what you did to Cason’s dteria, but to my water.”

My heart sank at her lack of a reply to my compliment. “What?”

“He grabbed my energy.” She didn’t seem to find what she was looking for as she glanced at my confused expression. “We spoke about this. Remember?”

I was still lost. “We did?”

“Yes, while you were healing.”

“Oh, I was in such a daze then. I don’t remember.” But I did remember grabbing Cason’s energy. I wasn’t going to forget something that felt like it had put a temporary tear in my brain.

Kataleya made her wall of water again. It looked identical to the one she’d created in front of herself in hopes of blocking Pearson’s energy.

Now I knew what she was doing. Pearson had grabbed her water and moved it with ease.

“Grab it, Jon. As hard as you can.”

“There’s no way I’m doing it that hard. The last time I did—”

“All right, just tell me when you have a good hold.”

Her arms shook.

I focused, telling my mana to take hold of her water as I casted the spell of lG, G, and uG. I could feel it understand my wishes, surrounding Kataleya’s wide block of dense water. I closed my hands into fists as I tensed my mind.

“I have a firm hold.”

She tried to move the water with jerks of her arm. I felt it with my mind. The whole wall of clear blue jittered. It was like an arm wrestling match, Kataleya pushing up harder while I pulled down with equal strength.

“Harder,” she said.

I gritted my teeth as I collapsed my energy around her water.

The wall started to bend at the edges, curving inward.

“Oh god, you’re strong,” she said, as if startled. Then she groaned and spread her arms away from each other. I felt a great push against my mana as her water evened out into a flat wall again.

It was tiring, to say the least. I couldn’t hold it much longer.

“Try to take it away from me,” Kataleya said.

I clawed my hand slowly through the air, forcing my mana to move in tandem.

Kataleya jumped and leaned back, as if a rope were between us and she was trying to pull me the other way. “Rgh,” she groaned. “Are you pulling as hard as you can?” she asked through her strain.

“I will now.”

I jerked her water the opposite way, but she must’ve let go at the same time as I did it. The wall of water became a jet as it speared toward the apartments…where Michael was coming out.

It happened too fast for him to do much besides get his arms up and let out an expletive. Water hit him so hard that it picked him up from the ground and threw him back inside the apartments.

I ran after him, worried he might be injured. But he was getting up when I arrived and seemed more angry than hurt.

“I just took a bath, Kataleya! What the hell?”

“I’m sorry.” She had her hands over her mouth, but her squinted eyes made it clear she was smiling.

“Are you all right?” I asked Michael.

He swore again as he lifted up his shirt to reveal shallow cuts all down his chest. “Stings like the nails of a woman scorned. Did I scorn you, Kataleya, hmm? Did I?”

She laughed a little. “I didn’t mean for you to be hit. I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“You don’t sound very sorry. Was that on purpose?”

“No, of course not! And can’t I be sorry and find it humorous at the same time?”

“No! That completely goes against the apology. Go ahead and heal me, Jon.”

“Jon and I were…I suppose ‘wrestling’ would be the best way to describe it?”

“Take your wrestling to the bedroom next time and leave me out of it.”

She smacked his bare stomach with the back of her hand.

“Ow!”

“Oh god, I didn’t mean to hit you that hard!”

“Yeah right!”

Her cheeks were red as she held in a laugh. “We were wrestling with our mana,” she specified. “And I wanted to see what would happen if I suddenly let go.” She showed me a serious look. “You know, we might be able to use this concept for something. It’s like slingshotting a spell.”

“It does sound like something we should test.” I then focused on healing Michael’s shallow cuts.

He let his wet shirt down. “Better go change, again. Thanks, Kataleya.” Then he started up the stairs with a squish on each step, leaving wet footprints behind him.

“I’m sorry!” she called after him, then immediately turned to me. “We should