by Jody Wallace
“We need to get going.” It would take time and energy to cast the car’s disguise spell. She hadn’t tried to mask a wolf before. Too bad she’d burned through a lot of her magic reserves earlier today.
If she’d known she’d be going on the lam with Harry, she’d never have cheated on her gardening or prepared a batch of healing salve, both of which involved a sizeable magical outlay.
If she’d known she’d be going on the lam with Harry, she’d have worn more practical clothing than her pink shirtwaist.
At the same time, she didn’t hate the fact she looked pretty the first time she officially met him.
Stop that. Bad June. Not going to happen.
“So Sandie knows about me? About…all of this?” he asked again. “Why didn’t she tell me? I thought we were friends.”
“Can we discuss this on the road?” Tentatively, she reached out her gloved hand and tugged him. He wouldn’t budge. She hated to use magic when she needed it to cloak the car, but his stubbornness was putting them in danger. She rustled in her bag, pulled out some dried lavender and crushed it in her fist.
He sniffed. “Lavender?”
“It won’t hurt you.” She funneled a tweak of power through it and flicked the scraps on his bare arm.
He whuffed out a sigh as the magic calmed him. Lavender didn’t work that well on humans, but on shifters it was marvelous. “Why did you do that?”
“It’s good luck before traveling.” Well, it was good for her if the werewolf in her car wasn’t fuming. “Plus, it smells nice.”
“Are you saying I stink?” His lips quirked in a welcome twitch of humor. Excellent, the spell must have worked. “Is that a species-ist comment?”
“Of course not. You smell fine.” In fact he smelled meltingly masculine.
And there she went again, getting sidetracked by his sexiness. Poopy doop, maybe she shouldn’t have dropped so many of her customary barriers. She ought to save a teeny bit of power and cast that libido dampener before he noticed she had a thing for him.
The deep thrum of powerful motors on the highway reached the garage, and they both stiffened.
“Quick, Harry, get in the car.” If it was the pack, she barely had time to cast the spell before the motorcycles reached his garage. She had her components organized in the passenger’s seat.
“I’m driving.”
Dang it, he was supposed to be compliant! June pried him away from the driver’s side. “It’s my car. I’m driving.”
“This may get tricky,” Harry argued. “I’m driving.”
Not the time for his alpha gene to kick in. She plucked a piece of lavender off her dress and flicked it at him.
“Hurry up,” she urged with a touch of magic. He nodded and stepped away from the car. Thank Goddess.
“Going somewhere, Harry?”
Bianca, completely nude and surrounded by wolves like some ancient deity, stepped out from behind the garage.
Blast. June had bespelled the female alpha to be true to what she’d told Harry and not show up until three. Must have been bum parsley if Bianca had already shaken the compulsion. Magic was wonderful, but limited when it came to harming or controlling others. Now how was she going to get Harry out of this?
“Been skinny dipping, Bianca?” He averted his gaze from the statuesque woman. June didn’t.
Bianca stroked the head of a wolf, a pale beauty who was likely female due to its smaller size. “I thought you’d be more interested in our party if I showed you what you’d be missing. I hear you have an eye for the ladies.”
Harry grunted. “The nice ones.”
“Who’s your friend?” Bianca ruffled the ears of the wolf, who pressed against its alpha in obvious affection.
“Nobody,” he answered.
Bianca’s eyes glinted as she inspected June and June inspected her. Bianca made no move to cover herself.
Well. This was awkward.
“I’m June,” she said. “Gosh, you’re a very…genuine person, aren’t you?”
“You could say that,” Bianca agreed.
Bianca was pack. Alpha. Her senses would be stronger than Harry’s, as would the shifters on four legs. June shoved her gloved hand into her purse, slipped off the latex and dug a fingernail into the special talc in her compact. Channeling power through the herbs that augmented the talc, she increased her I’m-a-human glamour.
Beside her, Harry rubbed his temples, likely feeling discomfort as the relaxation spells warred with fight-or-flight.
“Are these your dogs or are you a dog walker?” June asked Bianca. She had to be close to people in order to affect them. Approaching Bianca was problematic, but the important thing was getting Harry out of here.
“They aren’t dogs. They’re wolves.” Bianca regarded her with a frown, head cocked to one side. The chopper contingent of Bianca’s dishonor guard seemed to be idling halfway down Harry’s long driveway, blocking anyone from coming or going.
Well, burn the bread and spoil the milk. June would have to brute force their way out of this. And first, she had to touch Bianca.
In her natural form, June’s blond hair and youthful appearance often caused people to assume she wasn’t intelligent. Her talc spell included rosemary to encourage this impression, and she hoped Bianca would fall for it. She hated improvising spells almost as much as she hated eating at fast-food restaurants.
She smiled, fluttering her eyelashes. “Can I pet your wolf dogs?”
“They’re not safe.”
Not true. They were safe as long as they thought she was oblivious. Shifters were canny about protecting their secret. The pack would have come in human form if they’d known Harry wasn’t alone. Acting like barbarians, yes, but two-legged barbarians—in clothing.
She had to give Bianca props for bluffing through this.
“You must be from that nudist colony on the Hartsell River. In town you’re supposed to put on clothes.” June giggled as she felt around in her purse for the lavender. Hopefully there’d be enough. If she could find her cayenne mix, it would help, but she’d lost the pesky vial days ago. One of the disadvantages to overstuffing a supply kit. “I have one of those fold-up raincoats you can put on.”
“How civilized of you,” Bianca said. “June’s very civilized, Harry. I hope you weren’t planning on inviting her to our party. She won’t like it.”
June reached the edge of the milling wolves and hoped her talc spell would hold. It wasn’t strong enough to fool a shifter who touched her for long—hence the rubber gloves. When wolf fur brushed her legs, her nylons decreased the skin contact.
“Nice doggies,” she said.
One of the wolves growled.
Her fingers encountered something crinkly. The lavender. She squeezed a few leaves with her power and stroked the growling wolf with her other hand, sending peace and harmony through it. Her bare skin increased the purity of the charm. The wolf plopped down and panted.
“Good doggy.”
“I said don’t touch them,” Bianca instructed, somewhat amused. “They bite.”
“I’m sure they don’t.” June crouched down with a fistful of lavender and spelled it, her magic welling like an underground spring. In a singsong voice, she said, “They’re good doggies. Aren’t they? Yes, they are. Good boy. Good girl.”
She caressed each wolf with a touch of lavender magic. None shied away, which meant they weren’t agitated. Several snuffled her. She spelled them before they had a chance to sort through the complexities of her scent.
“I hope you’re not angling for an invitation,” Bianca said. June could feel the alpha’s annoyance. Her amusement had waned.
“I’m busy tonight, but thanks.” June tousled another ruff, pushing magic. The wolf rolled onto its back, offering its belly for a scratch. She needed to end this. Fast. Shifters weren’t usually killers, not with the advances in forensic science, but people tended to disappear when they veered close to the truth. “That’s a good boy. I love animals.�
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Their coats were rough but pleasant. They didn’t smell like dogs—one of the easiest ways to tell weres apart from canids. Thank Goddess she’d packed a lot of lavender. She flipped leaves at the wolves as discreetly as possible. The calming effect was temporary, and from the sound of it she and Harry had several motorcycles to get through.
And Bianca. Two-legs were harder to control than four.
Big, strong hands dragged her to her feet. “June, that’s a really bad idea.”
Harry was proving exceptionally hard to control, as well.
“But I like dogs.” She smiled and hoped he understood. For good measure, she lavendered him again, allowing their bare flesh to connect. “And they like me.”
For a moment, they locked gazes. Recognition flashed in his face before the lavender took hold, amped by the contact. He let her go and yawned.
With great daring, she extended her hand to Bianca. “By the way, it’s nice to meet you. Thank you for letting me pet your puppies.”
Bianca arched a thin brow. “I didn’t let you.”
June stood there with her hand out. If she pretended to stumble, she could toss lavender at Bianca. Would it work? It was weird enough that she, a presumed human, was nonchalant about Bianca’s nudity. If she started throwing twigs, it might break Bianca’s patience.
She returned to her purse. “Let me see if I can find you that raincoat. This has to be embarrassing for you.” She could stick the lavender to the inside of the coat, and voila!
“Not really,” Bianca said. “Harry, your girlfriend is going to have to leave now.”
“But I just got here,” June protested.
“She’s right.” Beside her, Harry sighed, his voice resigned. “There’s nothing anyone can do now. Tell your grandmother I said… Tell her I said thank you for everything.”
Drat, she’d mellowed him so he’d cooperate with her, not Bianca. Perhaps the triple hit of lavender had been a bit much.
Instead of the raincoat, her questing fingers landed on the glass vial of cayenne mix.
Bingo.
She wrapped more lavender around the vial and pulled the whole thing out. “Oh, this isn’t the raincoat.”
Bianca solved part of the problem by advancing until her prominent breasts were almost touching June. The woman glared down her proud nose in true alpha style, dominance rippling off her. The wolves, already pacified, dropped to the ground. Harry remained standing, which surprised June, but there was no time to dwell on it.
Bianca’s rude maneuver would have worked on a human female, provided that female weren’t already scuttling away from the naked person.
June wasn’t a human female, but she needed to pretend she was.
“My goodness,” she squeaked, backing up. She slipped the purse strap up her arm and cupped her hands protectively at her chest, frantically twisting the vial.
“It’s time for you to go,” Bianca said.
The lid stuck. Cayenne tended to grit in the threads, especially primed cayenne. Crap.
“Gosh. I only wanted Harry to, uh, check my tires,” she lied, hoping Bianca couldn’t smell it. “I can’t drive around on unsafe tires.”
The metal lid screeched against glass as June broke through the corrosion.
“What are you doing? Give me that.” Bianca reached for the wad of leaves and vial. Because her reserves were half-drained and her normal protections gone, June struggled against the pressure to obey Bianca’s command.
“You’re v-very rude,” she stammered. The metal top flipped toward the ground. Bianca snatched for it, breaking the compulsion on June.
June poured powder into her hands. Cayenne had no capability of its own but could be used to store magic. She had combined hers with poppies for a super-duper forget-me blend.
Cayenne also had side effects. The red grains scorched her skin. Her eyes began to water.
“Oh, Christ, don’t cry.” Bianca offered the cap with a grimace. “Just leave.”
Instead, June shoved Harry out of the way. With a deep breath, she forced magic into the lavender and cayenne, which blew it into a swirling cloud around Bianca and the pack.
Each and every one of them sank to the ground, unconscious.
“Did I just see what I think I saw?” Harry said.
“Nope.” A buzz of referred pain from the cayenne muffled June’s hearing. Tiny blisters formed everywhere the cayenne touched. No time. Still had the motorcyclists to deal with. Goddess, she hoped the shifters forgot this so the coven didn’t have to wipe them. She would be in enough hot water when they realized she was the reason Harry had escaped.
“Get in the passenger’s side,” she yelled. She couldn’t grab him or he’d get burned by cayenne. Maybe knocked unconscious, and it would be a trial stuffing his big body into her car.
Harry complied. They slammed the doors of her microcar simultaneously. The concealment spell components she’d arranged on the seat scattered all over the interior.
“Gather all that up, we need it.” She gestured at the assorted twigs, berries and packets. Again, Harry complied without question.
June turned the key and revved the motor. Her hands ached so much it was hard to concentrate. She gunned down the driveway, jouncing through ruts, wondering how she was going to break through the bruiser barricade that awaited them.
They reached it too soon. Five choppers. Bugger. The bikes were bigger than her car. None of the shifters wore helmets, and they all looked mean.
She didn’t have time to activate the car’s disguise spell. She slammed on the brakes, the car skidding in the gravel like a top. Rocks sprayed the shifters.
“I don’t know what you did back there, but we can’t fight them.” Harry placed the last of her supplies on the dash. “You need to stay out of this, June.”
“Sorry, my friend.” With one blistered finger and some degree of regret, she touched Harry’s hand and knocked him out.
When she jumped out of the car, the shifters were pissed.
“Are you nuts, lady?” one yelled. “You could have hit us.”
“You chipped my chrome,” another complained.
“Please move your bikes. I have an emergency.” An emergency getting away from them.
“Sure,” the biggest guy said. “Just leave Harry here.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.” Since the guards couldn’t see the garage, they’d have no idea what June had done. She walked up to the shifter and smiled.
He smiled back. It wasn’t as if shifters disliked small, blonde human women.
She reached toward him. “Night-night.”
He slumped over his bike like a half-empty sack of corn. Luckily he’d put down his kickstand while he and the others waited out the confrontation.
“What did you do?” one of the remaining shifters exclaimed.
Now she had to rush. She got two before the rest wised up and avoided her. One grabbed her from behind with the strength of five men.
As if that would help. She smacked his hand.
Pain erupted as blisters on her fingers burst. She yelped, but the cayenne and poppies worked. Four down, one to go.
The last, a fellow she knew, backed away. “You got knock-out drops or something?”
“Something.” Lionel wouldn’t recognize her like this, so she couldn’t play the friend card. “How about you move your bike out of the way?”
“Forget it.” The scruffy guy circled her. Flippin’ flapjacks. No way could she out-agile him, no way could she lay a hand on him if he didn’t want her to. Not without different supplies than she currently possessed. But he had no way to get close to her, either, and no experience dealing with a member of a coven.
Not that he’d remember.
“Did you kill them?” he snapped.
“Of course not. I don’t hurt people.” Except herself. She jittered her hands, trying to shake the pain. Her arms throbbed up to her shoulders, which is why cayenne was an emergency resource only. “Lionel, you need
to let us by.”
His glower deepened. “How’d you know my name?”
“I know a lot of things. I know we’re at an impasse.”
“You better back off. We will hunt you down and make you suffer,” he threatened.
She didn’t really believe him. He’d never been the violent type.
“That’s not neighborly.” If she could grab him, none of the shifters would remember her. Probably. Her cayenne-poppy blend hadn’t been tested on actual shifters. This was some field trial.
She edged toward her car. He cut her off. As they played cat and mouse—or wolf and witch—she considered the bikes, lined across the road. Just enough room for her car to squeeze past. Good thing she hadn’t driven the Caddy.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she begged, allowing tears to drip from her eyes. Considering her blisters, it wasn’t hard to fake a sob. “I went to Harry’s and this strange woman and her dogs attacked us. I’m taking Harry to the hospital. He got hurt.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She sniffled. “Why not?”
“There’s no way you could have gotten Harry away from…” His teeth flashed, sharpening. “You little snake! Did you hurt Bianca?”
His fingers curled into claws, and he swiped at her in frustration.
With a gulp, she stepped into the blow.
His nails ripped her sleeve and sliced her forearm. Pain shocked through her, and she tamped it down with effort.
Lionel reared back, eyes wide. “I didn’t mean to—”
She leaped forward, knocking him out with an extra zing. He’d be lucky to remember what he had for breakfast when he woke up.
But ow! First the cayenne, now a flesh wound. Lionel hadn’t put his heart into the blow, but it hurt like mad. Blood streamed down her hand. She whipped up her cotton skirt and staunched the flow.
Enough blood was on the ground that the wolves would be able to isolate it. Lightheaded from pain and panic, June yanked open Harry’s door and dragged out her purse. The cedar was still viable, so she used it to alter the blood evidence. Carefully, carefully. She couldn’t remove it, but she could remove what made it identifiable. A breeze whisked around her legs, chilly despite her nylons. She was approaching the end of her power. If she reached it, there’d be no hiding Harry from Bianca.
