Resented

by Amelia Rademaker

  Resented

  Wolves of Black Bird

  By Amelia Rademaker

  Copyright © 2020 Amelia Rademaker

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is coincidence.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  About Amelia Rademaker

  Other books by Amelia Rademaker

  Snippet from Rejected

  Dedication

  To my mom, who managed to find one of my nombe de plumes. I love you for your dogged support. Now, if you love me, skip chapters eighteen and nineteen. It’ll only make us both uncomfortable. The old ladies are for you.

  To my favorite ARC reader, Devan, you are awesome. I love your feedback and I feel so lucky to work with you. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, love you.

  Prologue

  Ezra stared at the garage door. He wasn’t really seeing it. He could see Ezekiel in the corner of his eye sitting just as motionless. They should go inside. Their sister was probably inside probably worried about them.

  Their Pack had just run a some of rogues out of their territory. They had been led by the son of a neighboring Pack’s Alpha, a man by the name of Lawrence McDowell. It had been a nasty fight. Anyone who could fight had been called to help. Everyone else had been sent to the high school.

  He and Ezekiel had been awake since yesterday. His body ached. He had gouges from a rogue wolf that should have been cleaned hours ago. He still didn’t move.

  “How did we not sense it?” Ezekiel sounded as dumbfounded as he felt.

  The shock hadn’t worn off for him. Ivy Stevens, their mate, was a fucking powerful witch. They had known that she could use magic, but in the year they had dated she never had. She had never brought it up. Never mentioned growing up in a Coven. Nothing.

  He had assumed she was a null. A born witch who couldn’t use magic. It would explain why she smelled like magic even if she never used it.

  “We didn’t want to know,” Ezra admitted.

  Ezekiel flinched but he didn’t correct Ezra. It was true.

  Because if they had taken one second to investigate Ivy’s heritage, they would have been forced to admit that their mate was a full-blown witch. Something neither of them had wanted to do. Because then, they would have had to do break up with her.

  Wolves and witches didn’t mix. Anciently, witches viewed shifters as animals. They were only useful for their magic. Times had changed but not drastically. Rightfully so, shifters stayed the hell away from magic users. Ezra and Ezekiel could testify of that. They had their own reasons to stay as far away from witches as they could.

  It was why they hadn’t tried to claim her. They had made some upspoken agreement to test the waters before they told her they were her mates. So, they had dated her. They had taken things slow and over time, they’d fallen in love.

  At that point, he and Ezekiel had decided to be honest with her. They would come clean about their past and tell her that she was their mate. They were ready to claim her.

  Now, he was so fucking glad they hadn’t.

  Ivy Stevens had power and she knew how to use it.

  In the last twenty-four hours, he had seen her identify an ancient spell, lift a curse from Grace Copeland, and then set a magical bomb off in the woods. Ivy’s magic was intense and impressive. It scared the shit out of him.

  “How are we going to explain this to Cassidy?”

  Cassidy, their little sister. The biggest reason he and Ezekiel had thoroughly checked Ivy out before deciding to date her. They’d never told Ivy about her and they’d never told Cassidy about their mate.

  Cassidy was terrified of witches. She wouldn’t have welcomed a witch into their house just because she was their mate. They wanted to be able to tell her that Ivy wasn’t a threat. That’s not something he could say honestly to her now.

  “Fuck,” Ezra murmured. “Do you think she’s home?”

  Ezekiel nodded, “Carol called me to say that the lockdown had been lifted this morning so she was driving Cassidy home with strict instructions to keep the doors locked and to stay inside.”

  “We better get in there before she wears a hole in the floor,” Ezra mumbled as he opened the car door.

  He had barely turned the front doorknob when it was ripped out of his hands.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Cassidy chanted in his ear, hugging him so tight he felt his bones creak.

  “Hey, pup, glad to see you too,” he murmured in her hair, gently stroking a hand down Cassidy’s back.

  “I was worried sick,” Cassidy’s voice cracked.

  Ezekiel swopped in before the tears could really start rolling. “Hey, hey, hey, we’re alright. We came back.” He kept whispering reassurances until Cassidy stopped trembling.

  On a shaky breath she leaned back. Dark circles hung under her too wide eyes. “You guys are okay?”

  Ezra gave her a cocky grin. “Do you really think a few rogue wolves could get the drop on us?” He showed her the scratch on his arm. “One of them got lucky while I was trying to keep Ezekiel out of trouble.” He didn’t mention the broken ribs and deep gashes that had been treated earlier. No reason to get her more worked up.

  Cassidy gave the cut a quick glance before meeting Ezra’s eye, “Cal Johnson said you were guarding a witch.” Fear scented the air.

  Ezra’s heart sank. Cassidy was worried about them but not because of the rogues. She was worried about Ivy.

  He looked up at his brother. Ezekiel gave him a bleak stare. Guess they were doing this now.

  “Her name is Ivy. She is the reason we beat the rogues,” Ezra couldn’t lie. Ivy had saved the day. “She saved Grace’s life.”

  Cassidy’s mouth dropped open. “There isn’t such a thing as a good witch.”

  Ezekiel sighed.

  Cassidy’s eyes shot between the two of them. Her chest was heaving. A look of confusion crossed her face. “Wh-what is that smell?”

  Ezra cleared his throat. “Does it kind of sting your nose?” Cassidy nodded. “Witch. We just dropped Ivy back in Monroe Springs. That’s where she lives.”

  Cassidy shook her head shocked, “I thought there weren’t any witches here. That’s why we moved here. They hate witches.”

  Ezra shrugged. “She’s the first witch in the area since we moved here. That’s practically none.”

  “Two,” she whispered, “two witches in ten years. Lawrence McDowell is a witch.” Her face dropped all
emotions as she took in Ezra and Ezekiel. “You two hate witches as much as I do. They killed our parents!” Cassidy yelled, making Ezra wince. “Now, suddenly you come home smelling like one?” She started shaking her head frantically, “No, something is wrong. You were both mesmerized or something.” She started to back up pulling her cell phone out.

  Ezekiel reached out to grab her, “Cassidy-”

  “No,” she cried, flinching away from Ezekiel tears in her eyes, “you’ve had a spell put on you. I’m calling Alpha Thompson right now.” She pulled her phone out.

  “Cassidy,” Ezra started.

  “No,” she repeated more firmly, “my brothers wouldn’t ever think a witch was good. She did something to you two.” She sprinted up the stairs as Ezra heard Ben answer his phone.

  “Fuck,” Ezekiel groaned. “What do we do?”

  Ezra just stood there frozen. He had not expected Cassidy to react so strongly. He had assumed that he would have a chance to explain. “We pretend we never dated Ivy Stevens.”

  Chapter One

  Two Months Later

  Ivy Stevens heard the overhead bell ring. She didn’t move.

  She was sitting behind the counter of Chic Chick, the cutest boutique in town, organizing receipts. If she stood up, she would be able to see whoever had just walked in.

  Not that she could do anything with that information. She had to deal with whoever came in. She was the only employee.

  And every one in Black Bird knew it. Nearly half of the town had stopped in since she had started working there. Women were making up excuses to buy new dresses. Men came in to get their wives, mothers, sisters, and great-aunts something nice. At least the kids were honest. They pressed their faces to the glass for one reason; to see a witch.

  Not that she blamed them. They were curious. Some of them had probably never seen a magic user before she moved to town. Witches didn’t usually hang around in shifter territory. The two didn’t mix well.

  She caught a flash of white perm near the winter coats. Ivy’s shoulder’s slumped. She could deal with the stares at the grocery store. She could ignore the people who crossed the street when they saw her. She was even okay with the occasional growl from her neighbors. What she could not deal with were the old ladies.

  Last week, a woman with a cane had chased Ivy out of the produce aisle. Ivy had not moved fast enough and the old bird had managed to clip her with a tennis ball. One good thing came out of it though. The grocery store delivered to her now. Honestly, Ivy was pretty happy about that.

  There were actually a lot of things to love about Black Bird. She already had a few people she could call friends. She had a job. Her apartment was within walking distance of practically everything. It really would have been a nice town to live in.

  There were a lot of things that Ivy hated about Black Bird. Despite her friends’ efforts that list kept growing longer. First, and foremost, on the list was the fact that Ivy hadn’t wanted to move to Black Bird. But when a mob of angry shifters decides to chase you out of town, you aren’t given much a choice in the matter.

  Until recently, Ivy had lived in the town next to Black Bird, Monroe Springs. The towns were similar: small populations, tight knit communities, and nearly all the citizens were shifters. Each town had a few token humans.

  The towns shared one important thing in common though. They hated witches. They were famous for it. It was the reason Ivy had moved to this part of the country.

  Back in the east, magic users told stories about what happened to witches west of the Rockies. They made the western United States sound like a lawless place where witches weren’t welcome. Most of them were urban legends meant to scare the piss out of kids. Some of them were true though. Elder magic users still warned Covens about traveling through those woods.

  Which was great for Ivy. She was a witch who hated other witches. In fact, Ivy didn’t practice magic at all. She had no problem living with shifters, and never using magic again, if it meant she could avoid other witches.

  She had lived in the area for a few years, undetected. In Monroe Springs, no one had known that Ivy Stevens, local gardener, was a witch. Why would they? She didn’t use magic.

  Ivy could have lived that life forever. However, Black Bird’s own Grace Copeland had accidentally stumbled across a Pack of rogue shifters living in her family cabin. That had turned Ivy’s life around. It had turned everyone’s lives around.

  From what Ivy could gather, rogue shifters were like the criminals of the shifter world. Most had been kicked out of their own Packs for being too dangerous. They were violent and aggressive. Her friend Anne said they lacked control. Ivy had no idea what that meant exactly. All she knew was that they were scary.

  Rogues were the worst kind of lone wolves. But that was the thing. They were always lone wolves. They didn’t have the temperaments to fit into a normal Pack. Hence why most rogues got thrown out.

  They weren’t made like other shifters. Rogues didn’t typically hang out together, let alone gather in organized groups. While they were very dangerous, one was easy to deal with.

  That was the problem with the rogues Grace had run across. They had formed a Pack. Having a Pack of rogues was a first. Instead of one singularly focused psycho, there was an entire Pack of them. No one could have prepared for that.

  Then, Grace had found a spell hidden under the floor boards of her cabin. It had been an old spell that would have granted temporary immortality to anyone it was cast on. That was when Ivy had gotten dragged into things.

  At the time, Ivy had been dating Ezra and Ezekiel Tate, two of the Black Bird Packs’ Enforcers. They had been at the cabin when Grace found the spell.

  They immediately came to Ivy and asked for help. Ivy hadn’t realized that they had known she was a magic user. She certainly hadn’t told them. She tried to deny that she was a witch. They had only gotten more insistent that she help them. Ivy only found out later that shifters can smell lies. They had known about her the entire time.

  They wore her down and she let them catch her up on what was happening; that a Pack of rogues had been using Grace’s semi-abandoned cabin to hide a spell.

  Once she heard about what was going on, she knew she had to help. She had been digging into her trunk looking for an emergency spell kit before they had finished explaining things. Ivy knew how much trouble magic could make. The last thing she wanted to do was leave a bunch of wolves to deal with unknown magic. They weren’t prepared for that.

  It was a good thing she had been there too. Grace had stumbled across a real doozy. Ivy had never seen a spell like it before. She doubted she’d see one like it again. Which was saying a lot considering she had been raised by witch historians. She had helped translate magical texts alongside her parents when she lived with them.

  But that spell had been something unique unto itself. The words had been written in an Italian dialect that Ivy didn’t recognize. She could only loosely translate the words at the time.

  The spell itself had been formatted strangely. It had no incantation. It had no list of offerings. There weren’t any instructions. She had no idea how it worked.

  She had recognized that it was a dangerous spell. When performed at the right phase of the moon, it granted temporary immortality. Anyone under its magic would be unkillable for a time.

  Ivy wished she could study the spell again, but she had accidently destroyed it when she saved Grace.

  The owner of the spell had put a magical booby trap on it. Grace had accidentally triggered it when she touched the vellum. She was possessed for her troubles, and ended up nearly giving the spell back. Ivy stopped her before she could, accidentally blowing up the spell at the same time.

  She kept kicking herself about that. The spell had been one of a kind. The historian in her wanted to pour over every inch of the old vellum trying to learn more about it. The realist in her was glad that no one else couldn’t get their hands on it. Especially when she knew who wanted it.

&nbs
p; The instant Ivy had seen Lawrence McDowell across the battlefield, she knew they were screwed. He was the son of Monroe Springs’ Alpha, Adam McDowell. Alpha McDowell was a cruel man Ivy avoided. She only recognized his son because she had seen him around town. The only thing she knew for certain about Lawrence was that he was a shifter. She had seen him at Pack gatherings. And yet, she had also seen him wield magic in those woods.

  Somehow, a known wolf shifter had wielded magic. That should not have been possible. Ivy saw it though. Lawrence wielded magic in those woods. Thankfully, everyone had seen him so she knew she hadn’t imagined it.

  Word spread fast in small towns. The people of Monroe Springs heard about Ivy’s magic, the rogue wolves, and Lawrence McDowell before she had gotten back into town. They decided that Ivy had cast a spell on him. In fact, she had cast a spell on the rogue wolves too. That was the only explanation for it all.

  She snorted in irritation. As if she would cast a spell on anyone. She didn’t even turn her magic on the people who broke into her apartment the day after she helped the Black Bird Pack.

  The morning after the rogues had been driven off, someone had knocked on Ivy’s door. It turned out to be half the town. Ivy had only registered their angry faces when they rushed her. She was shoved to the ground as people poured into her apartment. It had been terrifying.

  Before anything could happen to her, Ivy found herself laying on the asphalt outside of the Black Bird’s city hall.

  She still wasn’t quite sure what happened. She must have reacted on complete instinct because she hadn’t even felt her magic build. One second, someone was grabbing her, the next she was miles away, safe.

  One of Black Bird’s Enforcers, had seen her suddenly appear and called for backup. A dozen Enforcers rushed to the boundary to make sure no Monroe Spring wolves crossed the border.

  That had surprised the hell out of Ivy. Seeing wolves protect a witch. That was when Ivy learned that her boyfriends had negotiated a service fee from Ben Thompson, Black Bird’s Alpha, on her behalf. For her help with the rogues, Ezra and Ezekiel had Ben make Ivy a member of the Pack.