Witch Hunt

by Layla Nash

  And even there, something wasn’t right—too many vehicles parked on the street, none of the lights were on, a few stray dogs lingered on the corner... It just felt off.

  I chalked it up to the strangeness of the last few days, since none of my wards and alerts had been triggered as I made my way carefully to the porch and through the front door. I dropped the helmet on the couch and made it to the kitchen, but that was where my legs gave out and the room swam around me. My head ached and nausea gripped me. Maybe if I just took a little nap... Cricket twined around my legs, purring, and head-butted me as the room grew darker and my eyelids drooped.

  Chapter 31

  Evershaw

  Evershaw waited maybe five minutes before he started toward the house, with Mercy jumping out to go with him. Todd and Henry followed slowly, and Evershaw was glad they didn’t crowd him. He didn’t want anyone else around when he confronted the witch.

  She’d left the front door unlocked, though something zinged through him when he crossed the threshold. He ignored it and inhaled deeply from the air inside, searching for her, and found her in the kitchen. His hatred for the son of a bitch who’d spiked her drink reignited, and only his concern for Deirdre kept him from turning right around to beat the shit out of Palmer.

  He crouched next to where she sat at the kitchen table, her head pillowed on her arms, and rested his hand against her left side as he listened for her breathing. Thank God. She seemed sleepy, not sick. Some kind of roofie.

  At his touch, Deirdre stirred, lifting her head to blink at him. “What are you doing here?”

  Her words slurred and Evershaw’s grip on the chair leg tightened until the wood started to splinter. She sounded lost. And he fucking hated that Mercy lingered near the front door and both Henry and Todd had stepped inside while he talked to her. He wasn’t sure he wanted them to overhear, because it felt like a very private conversation even if he hadn’t earned the right to have a private conversation with Deirdre. He lowered his voice. “I came for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re going to stay at my house for a little while.”

  Her lips pursed but her eyes drifted shut again. “That doesn’t sound like something I’d agree to.”

  “We were both surprised.” He brushed the hair out of her eyes and held his breath when he touched her clammy skin. She needed the medic. Maybe there was an antidote for whatever the little prick gave her. He raised his voice slightly but didn’t dare look away from Deirdre. “Get Tom up here. Her heartbeat is erratic.”

  Mercy disappeared at a run. Evershaw started to growl with the sheer fury his wolf side just couldn’t process. Someone hurt her. Someone would have done something unspeakable to her... If it wasn’t Palmer, then it was someone else at that damnable meeting, that fucking coven. She’d trusted the wrong people, but he’d fix that. He would find a way to protect her.

  Tom eased around the table and crouched at the witch’s other side, moving careful and slow, and kept his voice so soothing even Evershaw felt the tension ease out of his shoulders. The medic put some kind of clip on the witch’s finger and rested his fingers against the inside of her wrist. “Well, hello there, Miss Deirdre. You’ve got yourself in some kind of a pickle, haven’t you?”

  “The rum tasted funny,” she said. She sighed and rested her head on the table once more, though her left hand drifted across Evershaw’s shoulder and the rest of him melted just a bit.

  “I bet it did, darling.” Tom frowned as he glanced at his watch, then checked the clip on her finger. “Are you thirsty? Too warm? Cold?”

  She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I’m tired. That’s it. Just tired.”

  “Then you can sleep at my house,” Evershaw said. “Henry and Mercy will pack a bag for you.” He glanced up and didn’t have to say anything else for Mercy to dash away, taking the stairs two at a time, though Henry followed at a measured pace. More of the team entered the house and dispersed, checking windows and doors and other security issues, and Todd got up to supervise.

  Tom glanced at Evershaw. “Her heartbeat is a bit erratic and I’d like her to have better oxygen saturation in her blood. It looks like some kind of narcotic or maybe Rohypnol. I can test her blood to figure out what it was exactly, but regardless, she should be monitored tonight to make sure she doesn’t get sick or pass out or start to have issues while she sleeps it off.”

  “Test her blood,” Evershaw said quietly. “I want to know exactly what that fucking prick gave her.”

  Deirdre didn’t react when Tom took a drop of blood from her finger and dropped the swab into some kind of test kit. It was an eternity until he said, “Yep. Rohypnol.”

  A white-hot fury gripped him. He was ready to jump up and start tearing things apart with his bare hands when the witch stirred. Her hand stroked along his arm and he stilled, paralyzed as she rubbed her palm against the smooth cotton of his shirt over and over and over again.

  Tom eased to his feet while murmuring, “That’s the drugs, boss. Textures and touch will feel strange for her, so she might get handsy.”

  He definitely didn’t have a problem with her being handsy; he’d stand there all night if rubbing his shirt made her feel better. Evershaw held his breath and waited until Tom had retreated before he leaned closer to Deirdre and inhaled from her hair. “I think it’s time to go, Deirdre.”

  The girl’s eyes fluttered closed and barely opened, as if she couldn’t stay awake, and Evershaw had to lean forward to hear what she murmured. His palm slid along her jaw and his fingers slid into her hair to keep her head propped up as he asked her to repeat what she’d said.

  “Cricket,” she repeated, forcing her eyes open. “I can’t leave Cricket here.”

  “You have a cricket?” He glanced at Todd, stumped. “Does it … does it live in a house?”

  She managed to give him a look that made him feel about two inches tall, and rustled her fingers together with a plastic bag on the table. “He’s my cat.”

  Like Evershaw was the idiot who named a cat “Cricket.” He didn’t know what the fuck witches named their cats—he figured it was something like Deathbane or Abracadabra or some shit. He pressed his lips together to keep from speaking his mind, since he needed the girl’s cooperation to save his life, and looked at Todd to say something about finding the housecat and stuffing it into a pillowcase so they could get moving.

  And then something roughly the size of a fucking mountain lion jumped onto the kitchen table in front of him, reared back on its hind legs, and hissed with enough force that Evershaw took a step back. The rest of the wolves blinked and retreated, staring at the animal, and its ears flattened as it growled and backed slowly up next to the witch, who sighed and reached out to scratch its back.

  Todd sniffed the air, a hint of uncertainty making his head tilt. “That … is a cat?”

  “He’s a Siberian Forest Cat,” the witch said, her eyes still closed. She rested her forehead against the cat’s back, the long poofy tail curling around her neck.

  “That’s a mountain lion,” Evershaw said under his breath. “You’ve got a fucking puma living in your house and you named it Cricket?”

  “He chirps,” she said, lifting her head enough to scowl and peer at him with only one eye open. “Jackass.”

  At least she was getting some of her fire back. He didn’t like seeing her so tired and weak. It wasn’t at all like the witch, and the wolf worried about her. He wanted to get her somewhere safe and warm before she slid out of the chair and fell to the floor.

  “Do you have a leash for him?” Evershaw resisted the urge to growl at the cat to remind it of its place in the hierarchy of predators. The beast apparently didn’t give a shit, because its claws dug into the table as it stretched, still crouched protectively near the witch as she sighed and put her head down again.

  Todd cleared his throat and glanced around the living room. “I don’t think you can walk a cat.”

  “Of course you ca
n’t walk a cat,” Deirdre said. She stroked the cat’s long fur, absent and sleepy. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Then how do you transport the beast?” Evershaw folded his arms over his chest, the wolf growing more and more uneasy. They needed to get her somewhere safe and calm and warm, some place that he controlled and could protect. “Does he have a railcar we can put him in? His own U-Haul truck?”

  Deirdre pushed herself up on her elbows to frown at him, and the cat took the opportunity to butt his head against her chin, purring loudly enough he sounded like a fucking Harley right there in the kitchen. “You’re so exhausting, Miles, I swear. There’s a cat carrier in the coat closet next to the door.”

  She might as well have jumped up and punched him in the chest. No one called him Miles. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard his first name without an expletive immediately after it. He was so stunned that he didn’t move, and Todd—wearing a shit-eating grin—sauntered over to the closet to retrieve a massive hard-sided cat carrier. A toddler could have comfortably hung out in the carrier for a long road trip without any issues. Maybe he could take that recommendation back to the pack to deal with some childcare issues that sprang if the one mated pair procreated.

  The cat started growling the moment he saw the carrier, or maybe it was just Todd’s proximity, but the girl nuzzled against the cat’s fur and it went back to purring. The rest of the pack finished packing things up and suitcases and other things went out the door, until it was just Todd and Evershaw standing there looking at the witch as she cuddled her cat.

  Todd cleared his throat. “Can you put him in the box? I’ll see if I can drag him out of here, but we might need a forklift.”

  “He’s not that big,” she muttered, though she grunted as she picked up the cat and stuffed him into the giant cat carrier.

  Todd hefted it and the cat started yowling inside, hissing and spitting as it reached a massive arm through the grate to snag Todd’s jeans. The wolf muttered curses as he held the carrier as far away as possible as he headed to the cars outside.

  Which left Evershaw looking at the witch who’d used his name and sighed like there was something between them. It had sounded like something said to a lover in tone and content, and it made him deeply uneasy. He didn’t have those types of relationships, where a woman called him exhausting and he just did what she wanted. He wasn’t that guy. Except, the wolf pointed out, he kind of was. When it came to her, maybe it wasn’t a bad thing.

  He sat on his heels next to her chair and rested his fingers against her arm, not wanting to startle her in case she had more of those spells keyed up. “Let’s go.”

  She blinked and lifted her head, and those enchanting green eyes stared at him from mere inches away. He couldn’t breathe. She literally took his breath away and everything else in the world disappeared as her dark lashes brushed her cheeks and her head tilted and the hair fell across her forehead. His chest ached. Ached.

  Deirdre started to straighten, frowning as she looked around the kitchen of the house. “Where…what are you doing here?”

  “You’re coming back to my house,” he said. He couldn’t help it. Evershaw brushed the back of his knuckles across her cheek, a soft graze against her softer skin. He wanted to memorize everything about her. He took a deep breath, like he needed to think, but he really just wanted to imprint her scent in his brain. “Don’t you remember?”

  “What about Cricket?”

  Evershaw frowned and leaned closer to inhale next to her skin. The drugs must have affected her memory, which wasn’t a surprise. “We have him in the carrier. We had to get the heavy-duty truck to transport him, though. The SUV axles won’t take the weight.”

  At least the corner of her mouth quirked up just a touch before she braced her hands on the table and tried to rise. “He’s not that big.”

  “Girl, he’s almost bigger than Todd.”

  That got a whole smile, the easy kind of relaxed smile that meant he talked to Deirdre and not the witch. She got ready for a hell of a retort when her face lost all its color, her eyes rolled back, and she crumpled in his arms.

  Evershaw caught her and started cursing, certain that something was wrong. He picked her up and maneuvered through the kitchen, turning off the lights, and carried her easily through the house to the front door. She weighed almost nothing and felt far too fragile in his arms. She kept her keys on a hook by the door; he managed to pick up her purse and the keys without dropping her or bumping her head on the wall and called for Todd to help lock up the front door.

  His cousin looked more than a little concerned as he studied the witch’s unconscious form. “That…doesn’t look good.”

  “No,” Evershaw said. He called for Tom to return, and the medic appeared and attached a blood pressure cuff to Deirdre’s arm.

  “Do we take her to the hospital?” Todd put the keys in the purse and followed Evershaw to the last remaining SUV, jumping into the front passenger seat after he opened the back door for Evershaw.

  He slid into the SUV, maneuvering Deirdre without too much trouble, although the cat kicked up a fuss when his boot accidentally kicked the carrier. He resisted the urge to rattle the cage a little, but he didn’t dare since the beast looked like it could smother him in his sleep without much trouble.

  “I’ve never seen a cat that big,” Todd said. He eyed the carrier uncertainly, like the plastic and metal wouldn’t hold and they’d end up with a furious hell-beast loose in the SUV. “How is that even possible for a house cat? It must weigh at least thirty pounds. And he looks like a fucking werewolf.”

  “He’s twenty-two pounds,” Deirdre murmured. She stirred just a little and turned her face into Evershaw’s chest, holding onto his shirt. “He’s just big-boned.”

  “That’s what Miles said about his beer gut,” Todd said, grinning. “He’s just big-boned.”

  The witch shifted her weight and patted Evershaw’s midsection absently. “It’s okay. More of him to love.”

  Evershaw scowled at Todd, pissed off, as both his cousin and Tom laughed out loud. He didn’t have a beer gut. He’d never had a fucking beer gut. And he didn’t need his cousin telling the girl that, even if she did think it was more of him to love. Chances were she meant it sarcastically. Todd just winked and faced forward once more. “Are we going to the hospital or back to the house?”

  “To the house,” Evershaw said. He gathered Deirdre up so she was tight against his side and he could loop his arm around her, until her head rested on his shoulder. He wanted her closer. He wanted to feel her skin against his. The wolf didn’t even care that the monster cat growled and hissed in the carrier any time he moved, and Evershaw could see the cat’s eyes reflecting the light back at him as they drove.

  Chapter 32

  Deirdre

  I felt everything moving in slow motion, muddled and delayed by something. It was like constantly being on the edge of passing out from drinking too much, like on my twenty-first birthday when I’d tried to be like normal people. I’d hated every minute of it. Everything blurred into darkness and softness and a lingering trace of something very masculine.

  But I woke up and there was only a slight sense of lingering disorientation. I pushed up on my elbows, once more in a strange bed, and managed to keep one eye open as I studied the room around me. It wasn’t the guest suite I’d been given at Evershaw’s giant house, nor was it in any of the coven’s houses. It was vaguely familiar, so I didn’t panic right off the bat, but I definitely couldn’t orient myself to figure out whether I should have been worried. I frowned, hungry and thirsty and confused, and froze as something moved under the covers next to me.

  Screaming and running seemed like a great option until I heard the purring and knew the motorboat who wormed around under the sheets was Cricket. That was even stranger. Where the hell was I that they let me bring Cricket? And why would I even need to bring Cricket? Surely I wasn’t going to be away from home for
long enough to make it sensible to drag the cat around.

  He popped up from under the covers and immediately head-butted me, purring enough to rattle my brain between my ears, and started kneading his paws against my chest. He was my white noise machine; I immediately started to feel sleepy again, wondering if I could reasonably just fall asleep in a strange place like that. As long as Cricket didn’t act too stressed, there didn’t seem to be much use in getting energized.

  And the bed was easily the most comfortable thing I’d ever lain on. The mattress was super sink-able and plush and perfectly soft, with the sheets smooth and cool against my skin and the down comforters creating a cloud-like layer over me. The pillows crushed easily under my head and made a convenient throne for Cricket as he maneuvered to knead his paws against my shoulder and sprawl across the top of my head. I reached up to scratch him, sighing.

  “Wave your hand if you’re being smothered and need assistance,” a dry voice said from across the room, and I tensed.

  Cricket growled and coughed a warning, but didn’t stop pushing his paws against my head and hair. I peered across the room as Evershaw appeared among the four plain doors. I hid a yawn behind my hand, a little perturbed that I wasn’t more upset at him walking into the room when I was half-naked in bed. “What…where am I? What the hell happened?”

  His eyebrows arched as he walked a few steps closer, though he’d lost some of his arrogance. He actually looked relaxed for maybe the first time I’d ever seen. “You’re at my house, as we agreed.”

  “Agreed?” I frowned and tried to sit up more, though I made sure the sheets were hiked up enough to cover all of me. My head ached and pounded at the same time. “I don’t remember that. And…this isn’t the guest quarters.”

  “No, it isn’t.” He eased to sit in a comfortable-looking chair near the window, still a good ten feet away. “You ran when the fight with RedCloud started. We found you at home in the middle of passing out, so I brought you back here.”