Witch Hunt

by Layla Nash

  “I know how to cast truth spells.” It would have taken me three days and a hell of a lot of larkspur, but I could definitely do it. They didn’t need to know the details. I even held up my right hand, curled into a claw, and scowled at all three of them. “Too bad it lasts for a couple of days. Seems like that could cause some damage if you couldn’t lie for that long.”

  Henry and the stranger took deep breaths and bore up, preparing themselves to be cursed, but Mercy couldn’t take it. She blurted out, “It means you’re his soulmate,” and bolted for the exit.

  I stared at where she disappeared, impressed with her speed despite the grenade she’d dropped right in the middle of my life, then looked at Henry. “What the fuck did she just say?”

  He ran his hands through his hair, expression dark, and jerked his chin at the other shifter so the guy took off after Mercy. Then Henry gestured for me to start walking. “It’s not our business to discuss with you. The alpha should have said something.”

  “Well, clearly he didn’t,” I said. “And at this rate he won’t have a chance to, because I’m getting the hell out of here as soon as I can. What’s with all the secrets, Henry? You guys are killing me.”

  “We have soulmates,” he said. “Every one of us has one person born just for them in the whole world. Some people are lucky enough to find theirs. You’re Evershaw’s.”

  “And I don’t get a say in this?”

  He hesitated, then shook his head. “It’s just how it is. It’s fate.”

  Fate. Fate was bullshit, too. “That’s just fantastic. Where’s Miles?”

  “He...” Henry’s gaze drifted away. “Has a business meeting still. Busy day. I’ll take you back to the suite, and this afternoon he can—”

  “Sounds fantastic,” I growled.

  I tried to keep my cool as Henry took a direct route back to the suite, and managed to recognize the turns and stairs that would get me back to the main part of the house. I needed to think, get myself squared away, and figure out how to separate Miles and me from whatever bound us together. Maybe he only thought the mate thing was true because of the geas Smith used. That seemed like the most logical answer, since the odds of crossing paths with a single person out of the entire world were minuscule. And maybe that was all I felt, too. I hadn’t lost my head and ended up in bed with a guy who’d kidnapped me a couple of days before. I was smarter than that. It had to be magic or Smith, not fate.

  Chapter 59

  Miles

  Evershaw would have been fine never seeing Deirdre’s aunt ever again. He liked her even less when she took him away from spending the morning entertaining Deirdre. His temper boiled a little hotter for every second the woman was late, and he didn’t give a shit when she hurried up to the agreed location in the old cemetery, looking frazzled and almost falling apart.

  Her lip still curled when she got close to him; Evershaw’s wolf growled in response. The older woman frowned and drew herself up, trying to smooth her wild hair. “Well. I am glad you’re here.”

  “Let’s make this fast,” Evershaw said. He kept his arms folded over his chest, attention on the witch as Todd watched their surroundings. “What do you want?”

  “The magic in this city has been disturbed for the past week,” she said, her hazel eyes going flinty. “Right around the time you and your animals decided to... liaise with my niece. Whatever it is you’re doing, stop. I don’t know why you’ve made deals with the ErlKing, but I’ll not allow your shenanigans to cause irreparable harm to this city or my niece.”

  “Your niece is safer with me than she ever was with you and that shitty coven,” Evershaw snapped. “And I’m not doing anything to the magic, lady. That’s all on you and your people.”

  “It’s not,” she said. Her lips thinned until they nearly disappeared.

  He took a gamble. “Then why did your people hex me?”

  Her eyebrows arched and she stared at him like he’d just dropped his jeans and shit in front of her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Someone hexed me,” he said, lowering his voice to a growl and leaning in to dominate the space. “Deirdre herself recognized it. And since there aren’t a lot of witches in this city, that leaves your people. Give me a reason not to hold you responsible for it right now.”

  The witch retreated a step, though she wasn’t really looking at him. Her eyebrows drew together and she seemed, for the first time, like a grief-stricken woman instead of an angry harpy. “No one would... No one in my coven would...”

  She clutched at her hair, murmuring to herself, and turned away. Evershaw shared a look with Todd. It was a pretty good act if she were faking it, but part of him knew she wasn’t. The witch was genuinely surprised to hear that he’d been cursed or hexed or whatever the fuck it was.

  He snapped his fingers to get her attention. “Focus, lady. Who else could have done it?”

  His tone definitely got her attention, and she hit him with a wet-hen look that reminded him just a touch of Deirdre. “Young man, do not snap at me as if I were one of your animals. I certainly don’t know who would have cursed you, but if Deirdre was able to contain it, then you are lucky. Very, very lucky.”

  “Who else in your coven could have done it?”

  “None of them would have,” she said. “Stay away from my coven.”

  “Look, lady,” Evershaw said. He grabbed a fistful of the woman’s shirt, yanking her up on her tiptoes. “Deirdre is going to get hurt if I get hurt. The old man tied us together with some kind of spell, so if I die, she dies. Tell whoever the fuck in your coven did this that they’re only hurting her. If they want to take a shot at me, great—go ahead. But come at me and not her. Make sure they know.”

  “It wasn’t anyone from—”

  “I don’t give a shit,” Evershaw said. “Tell them. If they try to kill me, she’ll be hurt. I’m guessing there aren’t enough of you witches out there to justify getting rid of her just because they don’t like me. I still don’t know what the fuck I did to piss you people off, and I still don’t care. Figure your shit out.”

  Her nails dug into his wrist where he held her shirt. “Try your friend the ErlKing.”

  He released her with enough force she almost fell; he would have felt just a little, tiny bit bad for throwing an old woman on the ground, but not enough to help her up. The witch staggered and regained her balance, shooting a deadly look at him. Todd cleared his throat and muttered, “Maybe not the best way to avoid getting hexed again, man.”

  The witch straightened the front of her shirt and took a deep breath before looking at him again. “I do not know who cursed you; on my sister’s soul I swear it to you. I will warn the rest of the coven that anyone who might have had a hand in something like that would only be hurting Deirdre. This is the last time I want to see you.”

  “Ditto,” Evershaw said. He and Todd remained where they were as the old woman walked away, disappearing a lot faster than a normal person would have. Evershaw ground his teeth until his jaw ached. “Do you believe her?”

  “I believe she doesn’t know who hexed you the first or second time, but I also believe she’ll probably be the one who does it the third time.”

  Evershaw growled and headed back toward the SUV. What a fucking waste. At least an hour, closer to two, away from Deirdre for nothing. For absolutely nothing. “Let’s go.”

  Todd shook his head and followed in silence, though Evershaw was reasonably sure he could hear his second-in-command rolling his eyes.

  Chapter 60

  Deirdre

  I paced through every inch of Miles’s suite after I told Henry I meant to take a nap. The door to the hall remained open, so I could tell that he lingered out there, but no one else came in. I wondered what happened to Mercy for spilling the beans. I couldn’t really blame her, though, since over the past week it would have made sense for Miles to have taken one of the many opportunities when we were alone to tell me I was supposed to be his soulmate. I growled in agitation a
nd ignored a haughty sniff from Cricket, who lounged on the couch and took up a good chunk of the chaise. The beast was getting spoiled, not just by the food but with the new furniture and comfy blankets and real feather pillows.

  Pacing didn’t really help my mood, since it kept me all wound up, but at least it helped me think. And I had a lot of thinking to do.

  Soulmates. I never really believed in fate, mostly because I didn’t like the implication that the misery I’d endured and all the losses and grief had been predetermined, that I’d never had a fair shake at life. For some reason accidents and bad luck felt easier to deal with than a miserable slog to the end without any hope for improvement.

  And the thought that somehow my road led me to Evershaw on purpose... That was ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. How many other people suffered on the way to having the ErlKing trapped in the Betwixt, and in all the misadventures Nikolai the wolf had before he needed my assistance, and with the pack that trapped the ErlKing? Just to set the conditions so Miles and I would know each other? What a waste. Or a loss. Or just a tragedy.

  Maybe it wasn’t fate. Maybe it was just happenstance and we were alike enough that something clicked. It wasn’t a forever kind of thing, but a “just in case if you want to” kind of thing.

  I didn’t want to be stuck. I’d been stuck in so many other ways—stuck in the city, in the coven, at a low income, alone. I wanted choices. I wanted Miles to be my choice, and for me to be his choice, not for some bullshit fate monster to have decided millennia ago that we were supposed to hook up. That wasn’t how things were supposed to work.

  How could I trust that Miles actually liked me and wanted to be with me if there was always the question in the back of my mind about the fate thing? What if that was why he wanted me to move in? What if that was the only reason why?

  My eyes burned at the thought, a knot forming in my throat, but I pushed it away. It couldn’t be the only reason. What I’d felt last night... That was more than just a “supposed to” thing. A lot more. and he’d been nice to Cricket at least a couple of times, which was clearly out of character but something Miles wanted to do for me.

  I paced into his bedroom and past the dresser, bumping against the corner in my distraction, and a pile of change and other pocket litter fell to the floor. I grumbled and picked it up, since I didn’t want Miles to think I’d been snooping, but something bit at my fingers and I dropped all of it immediately.

  Magic. Something magical. I went to the kitchen to get a wooden spoon, shooing Cricket away from the bedroom when he started to look too curious about what I’d been throwing around, and crept closer to the little pile of paper and coins. I stirred the contents with the spoon and moved the coins out of the way, since magic didn’t bind well to metal, and instead focused on the random receipts and slips of paper and a business card.

  A business card with Palmer’s name on it. I sat back on my heels, my heart thumping a little oddly. Why did Miles have one of Palmer’s business cards? And why did strands of magic cling to the stiff card? I nudged it with the spoon just to make sure, then gingerly picked it up by the edges. Definitely a hex.

  Palmer. Maybe he’d been an innocent way to delivery the hex, or maybe... Maybe he and my aunt were on the same side and playing the same game, trying to set me up. I shuddered and put the card on the end of the spoon, carrying it into the bathroom to drop into the sink. I ran the tap over it, letting the water render the magic inactive, and took the spoon back to the kitchen to run through the flame on the gas stove.

  I felt like I walked through deep water as I went back to the bathroom and watched the water eddy and flow around the card. Telling Miles would just end in a confrontation; he’d go racing off to deal with Palmer and wouldn’t bother to listen to what the kid had to say. Maybe Palmer had been worried about me, like he’d said, and wanted to free me after he figured out I was with the shifters. I’d been kidnapped, after all, and Palmer had no reason to believe the wolves would release me.

  My stomach clenched. I wished I could have believed all of that. I needed answers. I needed to know if my aunt was complicit in the cursing and hexing, and if Palmer was the only one who did it, and who made the hex to give to that pack that started this whole thing off. There were too many questions and not enough answers, and chances were I wouldn’t get much of the latter if Miles led the charge.

  Palmer responded almost immediately to my text asking to meet, and said he’d heard some interesting news from my aunt. He suggested meeting at my house, since he was in that neighborhood, and agreed to a time that would give me enough leeway to make it there before him. Even though I wondered what my aunt could possibly have been sharing that would actually be interesting, I put that aside and concentrated on the task at hand—getting out of the warehouse without a trio of wolves as my babysitters.

  I got some salt from the kitchen and glanced into the hall, though nothing stirred, and returned to the bathroom. I could do a “don’t see me” spell and walk out of there, confront Palmer and my aunt, and be back before Miles was done with his meeting. And if I wasn’t... Well. I was his guest or his mate or something, but I wasn’t his prisoner.

  Chapter 61

  Miles

  They met with Edgar Chase again downtown, sketching out the basics of the conflict between the witches and the wolves, though Evershaw glossed over some of the details of Deirdre’s role. He didn’t want the lions to know too much about her until Evershaw sorted out how quickly he could make her officially part of the pack. The security chief listened silently, nodding, and was just about to offer some advice when a phone rang.

  Todd held out the phone to Evershaw, his expression carefully neutral. “It’s the old witch.”

  Evershaw gritted his teeth and debated the wisdom of just hanging up. But if she’d talked to all of her coven, then maybe she knew who’d tried to kill him. Putting up with her shit for a few more minutes would be worth tying a bow on a shitty week so he could focus on integrating Deirdre into his life. So he took the phone and hoped he didn’t regret it. “Yeah.”

  She sounded uneasy, which set his hackles on edge. “I spoke with the coven but was unable to locate Deirdre. I went by her house and found some things out of place.”

  “Like what?”

  “In the workroom on the first floor, she’d put out all the ingredients for a love spell. It is not something we would work in my coven, since it affects a person’s ability to choose their own partner, but she had the book out and all the correct ingredients.” The witch paused, then took a deep breath. “Perhaps she was the one who worked a spell on you, wolf, though it was not the curse you thought it to be.”

  Evershaw shook his head, even though she wouldn’t be able to see it. “No.”

  “Very well.” The witch let the silence stretch, then bit off each word like it tasted like ass. “I trust this is the end of our association.”

  “You and me both.” Evershaw ended the call and tossed the phone back to Todd, irritated that Edgar Chase would be there to overhear. “She thinks Deirdre worked a love spell on me. She went by the witch’s house and saw all that stuff laid out.”

  Todd’s eyebrow arched but he only grunted, and Evershaw watched him a little closer. “You got something to say, wolf?”

  His cousin shook his head. “You know how I feel about this shit, man. Be careful and think with your brain, not your dick. Okay? That’s all I ask.”

  Evershaw scowled and stared out the window, then shoved to his feet to shake Edgar’s hand. “We still have more shit to figure out, Chase. I’ll be in touch after we straighten this out.”

  Chase nodded, a hint of amusement around his eyes. “Anytime, Evershaw. Just let me know if I can help.”

  Todd didn’t talk as they got to the SUV and Evershaw worked through the mess of noodles in his brain. Something wasn’t adding up. He thought it had to do with the witches, but after the previous week... anything was possible. He went over and over the old witch’s comments
to try to sort out what caused his wolf side to get nervous, and he kept circling back to what she said about the love spell. Why would Deirdre leave the ingredients out like that if she’d made and used the spell a few days earlier? And where was the workroom on the first floor? Deirdre’s work space was on the top floor near her bedroom. She hadn’t even mentioned a first floor space.

  He squeezed the door handle and leaned forward, urging the car to go faster. “Something isn’t right. There’s…something is wrong. Go faster.”

  Todd didn’t argue and stepped on the pedal. Evershaw shook himself. Maybe she hadn’t wanted him to see the first floor workroom because that was where she’d made the curses to set on him. He didn’t believe it for a second. Deirdre wasn’t messy enough to just leave things out, which made him think that whoever was using the first floor workroom wasn’t Deirdre and wasn’t done with their love spell. Which presented some problems.

  He called her phone but she didn’t answer. Henry said the witch hadn’t left Evershaw’s room, that everything was quiet even though Mercy accidentally disclosed the mate bond thing. That barely made a dent in Evershaw’s rising panic. He could recover from that. He could not recover from something happening to Deirdre, and the sinking feeling in his gut told him that was what was about to happen. He ordered Henry to find her, despite the wolf’s assurances that she was still in his suite, and told him to get the security office to review the surveillance tapes outside the building to make sure no one tried to get into the compound.

  Even that wasn’t enough to manage the insane need to see and touch her. Todd took one look at him and calmly called the third-in-command, Andy, to do a full sweep of the building for intruders, then gunned the SUV and ran through every red light until they screeched to a halt outside the building.