Hey, even Raphael would admit the Fey were fair game.
He was waiting for Sophie to wake up when he heard someone yelling downstairs. Despite the happenings of the day, he allowed himself a small smile. As he’d expected, Cael had found Theo watching over Aiyanna. From the sound of it, he wasn’t pleased.
Sebastian stepped out into the hall, where he could better hear what was going on and keep Sophia within his sights.
“I’ll take care of her from here,” Cael was saying, his tone leaving no room for argument. Theo didn’t catch on.
“Are you her mate? Her boyfriend?”
Silence.
“In that case, I’m sticking around,” Theo said lightly. His laidback persona was a farce; he was as lethal and aware as Heath, even on his more paranoid days. Sebastian had seen people fooled by Theo and his brother more times than he could count. “She’s fair game, and I think I like her.”
“Keep away from her.”
“No.”
Something downstairs shattered, and something else hit the floor with a dull thump. Now all Sebastian could hear were the grunts and curses of two werewolves fighting. Since it wasn’t already over, Theo kept it a fair fight, reining in his elemental powers considering Cael’s had been bound.
If the situation were reversed, Cael wouldn’t have held back. Theo would be out in the street, with a car on top of him. It was why he hoped Theo would back off—he was no romantic, but only a blind moron would think Cael and Aiyanna didn’t belong together.
“Bastian?” Tinged with pain, Sophie’s voice was a knife to Sebastian’s heart. He hurried over to where she lay in the guest room Leila preferred. Mary’s younger sister always said it was homier than other rooms—likely because she’d stashed frilly pillows everywhere and thrown an oversized pink beanbag in the corner. Given her condition, Sebastian figured Sophie could use whatever comforts he could give her.
“I’m here, Soph.” He pulled the more sensible wooden chair from the corner and dragged it beside the bed.
Sophie tugged the thickest of the blankets up to her neck, exposing the large Greek letters printed onto it. “I have to go after those faeries,” she said, determined. Still, Sebastian noticed she was careful not to move.
Ignoring her declaration, he said, “How much does it hurt?”
Sophia grimaced, pulling her arm out from underneath the blanket to expose furious, barely healing burns. “What do you think?” she snapped. Guilt flashed across her face, and she took a deep breath. “This isn’t normal,” she murmured. “By now I should’ve healed more than this.”
Sebastian told her about the sphere, how Heath and Harry were gathering information on it as they spoke.
Sophie uttered a particularly vulgar curse. “You sent Heath? Really? That chauvinistic asshat probably thinks I burned myself from cooking for a man.”
“You like cooking,” Sebastian said dryly.
“For myself! He thinks I’m weak, Sebastian.”
True enough. When Heath and Sophia first met, they’d instantly clashed because Heath tried to stop her from being taken by the botos. He’d almost thrown the entire operation when they did kidnap her, coming scarily close to tearing humans, who’d drugged her, into pieces before they could even take her to their car.
It was strange—Heath wasn’t someone who could be considered protective. That label went to Cael, who Sebastian hoped wasn’t lying dead downstairs.
“He cares about you,” Sebastian said, knowing it to be the truth. Again, he didn’t quite understand why, but if that meant Heath would help him solve this problem for Sophia, he wasn’t going to ask questions.
The issue was, Sophia wouldn’t want them to fix this for her. Normally Sebastian would applaud her strength, but this time she’d been hurt too badly to have a fair fight against a brownie, much less a faery.
“I need to leave—and can you get me some clothes that aren’t this?” She threw a horrified look at the loose dress Sebastian had put her in, which Leila had left hanging in the closet. It was made from soft cotton, and he’d picked it because it wouldn’t rub against her burns. The garment wasn’t something anyone would wear to fight, which was exactly what Sophia intended to do.
She cringed as she pulled the sheets from her body, closing her eyes when she had to pull hard in places where the fabric stuck to her burns. He’d seen this look on her face once before—the night she came back from Kiril’s. The same night that landed Sebastian in New Orleans.
In that second, he knew.
“Kiril’s back, isn’t he?” he asked in a low voice.
Sophia’s expression hardened even more. “I smelled him on the woman, the faery who did this to me.”
Sebastian broke off the chair’s arm. That meant there were two people looking for Sophia: the man who would stop at nothing to have her, and that man’s woman, who surely wanted her dead.
If the two were mated, it explained why Kiril would dare to go back to Halifax. With access to the powers of the Fey along with his fire abilities, he would be nearly unstoppable.
Sebastian didn’t break the rest of the chair into small pieces, nor did he punch anything within reach, as he wanted to. He kept his composure because he knew, despite her bravado, his sister was terrified.
She had every reason to be. If Kiril had those powers, Sebastian wouldn’t be able to fight him and win. Only Raphael would have a small chance, and that stung.
What kind of man was he if he couldn’t protect his only sister?
Chapter 3
“THIS could use a good shine,” the female witch said cheerfully, using her scarf to wipe the side of the sphere, “but it should work great!”
Harry had convinced Heath that going straight to the coven would be a bad idea. After his descriptions of the hexes that would be thrown at them, Heath decided he liked all of his anatomy, not to mention he was forced to turn into a wolf three days each month. He didn’t want to be a frog the other twenty-seven days.
So Harry called up a witch he said was “cool,” and they met in a park uptown. While the woman sitting on the low-hanging tree branch in front of them was objectively pretty, she definitely looked like a witch. Her hair was a riot of dark curls that reached her hips, and she wore layers of flowing, lacy clothes to keep her warm in the chilly November air.
“We know it works,” Heath said irritably. This woman had no reason to be smiling the way she was. Did witches have their own version of Prozac? “It blew up and burned the living hell out of one of our friends.”
The smile vanished, but Heath garnered no satisfaction from it. “You mean the hacht liath was used recently?” she asked in a hushed voice.
So that’s what the damned thing is called. “Today,” Heath answered.
“She’s really badly burned,” Harry added, his hair turning a pale purple. Heath wondered if he liked this girl, or if it the change was due to sympathy toward Sophia.
“Oh no.” The witch lost all color in her face. Her eyes paled too, changing from a rich brown to the color of a slightly muddy puddle. “That won’t do,” she murmured, seemingly to herself. The branch she sat on, surely hundreds of years old, withered underneath her.
“We’ve upset him.” She turned to the tree, reaching to pat a healthy section. “I’ll help the girl.”
A scrawny branch grew in, replacing the one that easily supported her weight moments ago.
“You can help her?” Heath asked, relief washing over him. Sophia wouldn’t want to be scarred forever, and he had a sick feeling these burns weren’t the type weres could heal from properly.
He thought Aiyanna had a point—whoever hurt her wasn’t trying to kill her, but intended to break her spirit, weakening her. He couldn’t let that happen to Sophia, the only woman who’d ever looked at him not with fear or disgust, but with challenge. Shortly after she’d kneed him directly between his legs, which infuriated him as it would any other man, but even as he was reeli
ng from the pain, he was also in awe of her.
She was a tough, proud woman who took no shit from anybody, and Heath respected the hell out of her.
The witch shot Heath a duh look, followed by a knowing grin she flashed at Harry. She turned, layers of lace swinging around her curvy frame with a swish. “I’ll also help you,” she threw over her shoulder. “I know there’s something else you want, but you’re keeping yourself from asking for it.”
She stopped and pinned him with a hard stare. For a very strange woman, she looked utterly at home with nature surrounding her. The browning leaves rustled at her feet. “The colors of your aura show you’re arrogant and furious,” she said, her darkening eyes narrowing. “But I see concern buried deep underneath it. That’s why I’m helping you.”
She walked to an old, beat-up brown pickup with flowers painted on its rims. The abhorrent sight made Heath do a double take. Luckily she didn’t notice, her focus on the tree they’d stood before earlier, a smile playing at her mouth.
“Kurt Cobain!” Harry shouted, crawling into the backseat on the passenger’s side. It took a moment before Heath understood.
“That’s just wrong,” he muttered, noting both witches seemed to be a few beers short of a six-pack.
“Put your bike in the trunk so we can go,” the female said breezily. Heath wasn’t fooled, hearing her authoritative undertone clearly. He did as he was asked, hoping his favorite bike wouldn’t sustain too many bruises from the trip.
Before he climbed into the truck, he looked to see why the witch had been smiling. When he saw, he shook his head; the tree had grown back completely, aging hundreds of years in minutes. He knew werewolves weren’t what humans would consider normal, but his life was nothing compared to that of a witch or a faery.
Damn if he wasn’t grateful for it—he didn’t think he could handle someone as eerie as this witch on a daily basis, or even Harry. How did Sebastian do it?
“You said she was burned?”
Heath grunted an affirmative. Harry elaborated, “Not by fire, but with—”
“Just because we’re helping the werewolves doesn’t mean they get to learn our secrets,” the female said mildly, a kindly rendered warning.
“What’s your name?” Heath blurted out. For some reason, it felt it was important for him to know.
She ignored his question. “I know what you were referring to, Harry, and I’m sure you’re right. That’s what we use most often with a hacht liath.” She smiled grimly at Heath, not blinking when she hopped a curb. He cringed, thinking about his Ducati bouncing around behind them. “You get the most bang for your buck using what they did,” she said with a nod. “They wanted to inflict the maximum amount of damage.”
“Could it have killed her?” he ground out.
She shot him a sharp look. “If they wanted it to, it would have.” He swore the weapon in question was gathering light in its place where she’d tied it into her scarf.
At second glance, the light was gone. Weird-ass witches, Heath thought, turning to look out the window. He wasn’t surprised they were crossing the river, headed into the bayou toward Barataria. He’d heard rumblings that the witches’ coven was out there, but he’d never cared enough to confirm.
Half an hour later, and a few cringe-inducing incidents involving a curb and the mailbox of someone the witch apparently did not like, they reached a small house on stilts facing Bayou Barataria.
Heath knew one thing for certain—this wasn’t their coven.
“Welcome to my home,” the witch said, smiling sunnily. She flounced ahead of them, meeting a silver-haired woman at the door. “This is Big Mama.” She squeezed the woman’s shoulders. “My grandmother, and the woman who’ll be able to help with your problem. Big Mama, this is Heath.”
He hadn’t yet told her what he wanted—to find the witch responsible for binding his powers, and for chaining him to New Orleans.
Well, apparently that wasn’t true. He was outside the city now, just as he’d been able to travel to Slidell in the past. A few miles farther south, and he was sure he’d have been thrown to the back of the truck by the invisible shield that kept him in his prison, forcibly torn through the window if the truck didn’t stop.
He’d tried it before with Alexandre, and it had taken them a full week to heal.
The witch helped Big Mama to a reclining chair covered in crocheted cushions before taking Harry’s arm and dragging him to the kitchen. “I’m going to whip up something that’ll heal the burns,” she said. “Harry’s going to assist me. Your job is to talk to Big Mama.”
He looked at the elderly woman, who was prettier than he’d first thought. She had lines about her face, but she was glowing in the same way her granddaughter did, her eyes the same shade of brown.
Both women made Heath feel profoundly uncomfortable, but he followed the witch’s suggestion. This woman was certainly old enough to know who could have bound him, and somehow he didn’t doubt that the other witch genuinely wanted to help Sophia. Judging from her reaction when Harry said Sophia had been hurt, she seemed the type to dislike when others were in pain. Something told Heath that she had a good heart…even if she was half-crazy.
“I’m a criminal,” he started simply, before he told her everything she needed to know in order to answer his question.
Big Mama didn’t seem surprised that one of her own was involved. In fact, little emotion showed on her aged face, her eyes focusing on him with intense intelligence. “What did you do?” she asked. Her chair faced the water, which she now turned to, frowning slightly. “You don’t think I’m going to help you regain great powers if you don’t deserve them, do you?”
Great power? Heath had been fairly skilled with water, but he was no great power—not like his brother or his mother. Rather, he inherited his father’s element and ability, without the man’s gentle temperament. When he was alive, his father was a beacon of happiness; he was magnetic, drawing people into his warmth. It was obvious to Heath even as a small child.
If he were being honest, Vale was the genetically gifted one—he had the same effect on others as their father, with their mother’s rare ability. It was no wonder he’d risen in the ranks of the weres, becoming a head soldier, whereas Heath had been left to rot in New Orleans, where it took hundreds of years for the Elders to notice Hey, something’s wrong here.
That was how little anyone cared about Heath or his abilities.
“I’m no great power, but there is a reason I received my sentence.” Heath told the woman everything about his pack and stepfather, deciding Big Mama would likely be able to cut through any crap he tried to feed her. So he spoke true, hoping she didn’t condemn him to a permanent sentence.
After he finished speaking, she was silent for longer than Heath would have liked. He felt like a child waiting his mother to decide his punishment. I’m free, he reminded himself. For all intents and purposes, I’ve been pardoned.
He’d told Big Mama that, but he doubted she cared for werewolf politics.
A few minutes later he discovered just how right he was.
“Briony!” Big Mama called toward the kitchen. Steam was rising from something on the stove, its green tint matching its overpowering scent of spearmint. So that was her name, Heath thought when Briony, the younger witch walked over. Despite her attempts to keep her name a secret, she didn’t seem angry with her grandmother.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I want a hot buttered rum, and so does he,” Big Mama said, reaching over to pat Heath on the knee. “Make his a double.”
She waited until Briony brought over their warm drinks, taking a long pull of the sweet liquid before she spoke. “You should have never been sent here,” she said, watching a couple of small boats float by. “It would have been more beneficial for your pack to have made you their Alpha and take your stepfather out of the position.”
“That’s not how it works.” It would never work that way�
��when immortals ruled for thousands of years, they tended to dislike change.
Big Mama waved her hand, as if his last statement was an irritating fly she could swat away. “I know that,” she muttered, draining her cup. Heath hadn’t touched his drink, unwilling to trust the two witches not to poison him. He held his chipped porcelain cup in his hands, letting the warmth seep into his fingers.
“All of them are dead.” Big Mama’s glass shattered in her fragile hands. For a brief moment blood appeared, disturbing Heath more profoundly than he would have liked, before the wounds stitched themselves closed and the shards disappeared into nothing.
Heath looked down at his hand, which showed him exactly what he expected to see: his eye regarded the older witch very, very carefully.
He should have consulted his eye earlier; he’d underestimated Big Mama.
“The witches who bound us?”
She nodded, her lips thinned to a furious line. “Jeremiah, the man who hired them, killed every single one of them.” She pointed a finger at Heath, her skin paper-thin. “One of our witches died for every one of you werewolves.”
Rage had Heath clenching his hands around his claws. He could feel his teeth elongating but spoke anyway, knowing this woman would never fear him—nor would she have reason to.
Jeremiah had only stained their souls further, added to their list of what they were expected to be ashamed of. Our list of atonements. The injustice of it made Heath wish he had no part of the werewolf culture, a notion he’d considered for years.
There was no punishment for disappearing.
“We didn’t know,” he said, his voice thick. “Jeremiah’s dead now, but I don’t doubt what you said. I witnessed him slash the throat of our Alpha’s mate.” Anyone who hurt Mary was without redemption. There was no question. She annoyed Heath to no end with the pictures she took of them, telling him to “work your best angle” so she could “paint him looking his best.”
Hunted Page 3
