A candy-pink Victorian-style home with frosting-white trim, it had sharp peaks on the roof, wild landscaping with big, unnaturally threatening-looking plants all around it, and to top it all off, as the car doors opened, an eerie sense of intense foreboding washed over me. I wanted to run away and never set eyes on the place again.
Odd, given it looked like somebody’s daughter had drawn it, probably with a rainbow unicorn in the stables out back.
It must have been the warding, and I took it as a good sign that we could already feel it from the street.
Hopefully, it would be enough.
The guys grabbed our minimal luggage, and by the time we were all on the sidewalk, a tall, thin witch was waiting for us on the front porch. Lucien held our bags in one hand and pulled me along to meet her with the other.
It was a great improvement from the early days, when he’d barely looked at me, let alone spoken to me-but just this once, I might have been fine to let him handle the witch alone. Granted, the utter terror that had rolled over me the second we stepped foot on the lawn probably had a lot to do with that.
“Inez. Thank you for meeting us on such short notice.” Lucien spoke as if he wasn’t feeling an ounce of what I was feeling, and I envied him his composure.
“Councilman Lucien. Our coven is always happy to help out the council. Please, do come inside so I can tailor the wards to your personal auras.” She grinned, waving us all inside. But to me, it looked like she was starving, teeth sharp and threatening, and if we stepped foot across the threshold, she’d surely chop us up and put us into her evening stew.
I dragged my feet as Lucien stepped confidently through the door, but in the end, she didn’t attack us as we came inside.
There was a large black cauldron bubbling in the fireplace, and I took a wary step away from it as soon as I noticed it. It made my skin crawl, and all I wanted was to run out the door. But quick as a flash, Inez darted around the room, plucking a hair from each of us before tossing the whole lot into the pot and stirring.
The house seemed to shudder around us, and then the pot belched a great cloud of green smoke from its belly, and everything went still.
“There. Is that better?” She turned and studied us.
Now that she’d mentioned it… yes. The terror and revulsion I’d been feeling had drained away, leaving nothing behind but my own emotions. She no longer seemed as if she wanted to toss us into her stewpot. So freaking weird.
“Yes, thank you.” Lucien inclined his head politely. “So the house will admit only us?”
“It will admit all of you as well as the leadership of my coven. Which is me, Jarynda, and Kelley. We felt this was a matter best kept to the leadership instead of spread to the whole coven. Loose lips and all that.” She mimed zipping her lips shut and throwing the key into the fire.
I jumped when it flared under the still-boiling pot.
“I’ve left instructions for you here on the mantel, but it’s best that one or two of you memorize them, just in case. For every day you need continued protection, you’ll need to throw a few ingredients into the cauldron and stir it three times clockwise. If a full week passes, I’ll need to return to revive the spell. If I return in a week and you’re not here, well, I’ll assume our barter is complete and let you know when we need to cash in our favor.”
Lucien maintained his smile, though I felt… annoyance? I wrinkled my eyebrows in concentration. It wasn’t my own, but how was I feeling that?
Before I could figure it out, it faded away, and I shook it off. Whatever it was, it was gone now.
Kane stepped forward, extending a hand for her to shake. “We appreciate your help, Inez. But as Lucien mentioned over the phone, we’ll need a bit of extra reassurance to ensure there are no issues.”
The witch was tall, but still had to look up at the towering high alpha. “Yes, yes. He mentioned. Barbaric, you wolves.” But still, she held up a palm and turned her head away.
Kane lifted her hand, pricking just her fingertip with one long, extended canine before releasing her. Oh, man. I’d never seen a blood bond before. My heartbeat sped as I watched.
“It’s settled. Who has access to this home while under the current wards?”
“Inez, Jarynda, Kelley, and the wolves gathered here in this room.” She rattled off the list as if she were bored.
“Truth. Are there any exceptions or loopholes to the protections?”
Inez hesitated, then shook her head. “None that I’m aware of, but it was a very potent spell, and it took all three of us to apply it to the home.”
Kane frowned but soldiered on. “Truth. Do you swear a binding of silence-effective for your entire coven-as to our presence and purpose inside this safe house for the duration of our time here, plus fifty years?”
Her lips pursed into a pout, and she crossed her arms angrily over her chest. “I do.”
“Thank you.” Kane stepped back to the pack, casually looping his arm around Brielle’s waist, as if he hadn’t just permanently linked himself to the witch, absorbing a thread of her power through her blood.
The amount of power he must wield on a daily basis was mind-boggling to a weak nu like myself. I was comfortable with my wolf and my place in the pack, but I knew I was low on the totem pole, had been since my wolf presented in my late teens.
Inez stepped forward to shake Lucien’s hand, so he dropped mine to shake it. The second he touched the witch, he gasped, staggering back, clutching his face, and dropping to his knees.
“Councilman, I swear that wasn’t me! Nothing should be able to harm you inside the walls of this house, not even me!” The witch jerked back with her hands raised, as if the pack was about to turn on her.
Gael appeared at her side in an instant, escorting her out the front door and to the street as the rest of us crowded around Lucien-except Samuel, who bolted up the stairs to give Lucien space.
“Shit.” He moaned, clutching his face as both Brielle and I dropped to our knees in front of him.
“What happened?” I asked, gently peeling one of his hands away from the scar. It looked the same as ever, though, and a frustrated helplessness filled me.
“My wolf reacted badly to me dropping your hand to touch another female. I think I’ll be okay in a moment.”
I blinked, surprised by that explanation.
Brielle, however, had her head in the game. “That is a really good observation, Lucien. It works with my theory that the pain is damage to your bond with your wolf, and if your wolf was angry about your actions because your bond with Olivia is still not complete, well…”
It strained their damaged bond.
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