by Emma Dean
Chapter Two
Hunter
The potion glowed a luminescent purple, so obviously a witch creation it was nearly laughable. Hunter eyed it as he considered the woman they’d nearly lost it to.
“She smelled like nothing,” Ash murmured, following his silent train of thought like he always did.
Hunter didn’t say anything as he considered the possibilities. She was no fox or they’d have recognized her on sight since there weren’t many of them, but she sure looked and acted like one.
He grinned slowly, staring at nothing. He liked her. A lot. She was spunky and full of fire. Not many managed to best him, even if it was for a brief moment.
She was…intriguing.
“I want to know more about her,” Hunter said softly, tracing the curve of the bottle. Why did she want this so badly she was willing to steal from the most powerful Alpha west of the Rockies?
“What do you want to know?” Ash asked, raising an eyebrow in question. Hunter never gave a shit about anyone and this was – unusual.
“Everything,” Hunter told him. “Anything and everything you can find on her.”
“Girl was bangin’ and can choke me any day,” Finnick said as he brought in pizza. “Daddy liked.”
Hunter rolled his eyes, but he was just as interested.
“Well what did you find out about her when you tracked her on the dark web?” Ash asked. “There had to be something there or you wouldn’t have been able to plan this heist so perfectly.”
Why did she want the potion?
This constant question had kept him from turning it over just yet. Money was always nice, but they had a lot of it. There might be something more interesting he could get in exchange for the potion other than cash.
“She left nothing but a whisper on the servers,” Hunter told him. “I had no idea who would be breaking into Samuel’s vault, only that they planned to and when, based on their questions. But I definitely didn’t expect her to be the one to pave our way.”
Hunter wasn’t surprised often, and he loved it. He wanted more of this female who could shock him. What else could she do?
Ash tapped furiously on the laptop while Hunter rolled the bottle between his fingers.
She’d smelled like absolutely nothing. Only thing in the universe that could pull that off was a witch. But he’d watched her break in and she’d never used her own magic. A human then? That didn’t really make sense. Humans aware of the paranormal with witchy connections were rare so he knew all of them.
This girl he didn’t know.
And that gorgeous hair that reminded him of chaos and fire – what would it smell like when her very scent wasn’t magicked out of existence? Something spicy and sweet probably.
“I just ran the picture you took. It comes up with nothing,” Ash reported.
“Tech magic then,” Hunter said, looking up. “Give me that.”
Without question Ash handed over the computer and took a slice of pineapple and Canadian bacon pizza. “How do you know it’s tech magic?” Ash asked.
As the second-in-command to their little trio Ash rarely doubted him, but he questioned when needed. It was what kept the three of them so strong, that – and their past.
“She was covered in it. I couldn’t get her scent, but the metal and ozone of the magic was clear enough.” Hunter dug and dug. There were only a handful of people with the access or skill to build that kind of tech.
When her picture came up Hunter stared, squinting slightly as he took her in. His fingers tapped a rhythm on the potion bottle as he considered.
The witch who wasn’t a witch.
He’d heard of her once or twice, but hadn’t known what she looked like. A powerless witch was practically unheard of. Hunter normally didn’t pay attention to witches other than when he needed to buy from them.
All these years and now she went after a potion that could grant powers? Something didn’t make sense.
His eyes went to the scars proudly displayed on her ivory skin. Hunter smiled slowly. A survivor then. There had been a moment in the Alpha’s office when they’d stared at each other and his soul had pinged with familiarity – he hadn’t known her at all, but there was still something between them, recognition of kindred souls maybe.
Hunter bit his lip as he remembered how she’d looked up at him as she slid through his legs. Fuck, he wanted to slam her against the wall and see how sharp her teeth really were. Would those full, soft lips be the contrast he thought they’d be?
“Who is she?” Finnick asked when he saw him fiddling with the potion bottle, barely blinking.
“A Kavanagh witch from the Bay Coven, but she was born without her own powers.”
“So that’s why she wanted the potion?” Ash asked.
It was hard to get a read on his second sometimes. He was a lot like Hunter that way. All three of them were – damaged, but Finnick dealt with it differently than they did. He preferred sarcasm and wit.
Finnick was the perfect distraction in their little games.
Ash and Finnick would die for him, but sometimes Hunter wondered if they knew they were the only two people in the world who he’d return the favor for. When he’d found them, they’d saved him too.
“She wants the potion, but I don’t know if that’s why,” Hunter admitted. “For some reason I don’t think so.”
“The Bay Coven was invited to the West Coast Pride Fourth of July barbecue,” Ash reminded him.
“Yes!” Finnick pumped his fist in the air. “Samuel always has the best fucking shit at his parties. I could do with a cute little puma for the night.”
“Recon only,” Hunter told him. “Or did you forget we stole from him tonight?”
“Samuel won’t know it’s us,” Finnick rolled his eyes. “He hires us enough he’d never suspect.”
Still, this would be a risk and all three of them knew it.
For the most part they stayed in Six Rivers. Registered with the pride and working as mercenaries they didn’t have to do much outside the minimum requirements. They paid their fees and the Alpha left them alone. She didn’t really care as long as their activities didn’t affect the pride.
They were a strange pride after all. The lynx took in the broken and damaged, the castoffs – the ones who were underestimated and set aside for something better, something ‘normal.’
Hunter bared his teeth at nothing. Everything he did, he made sure it never made it back to the pride. Lavi didn’t deserve that after taking him and the other two in. His previous group of foxes – his leash – had tried to execute him until she’d put her foot down when they were all nothing but teenagers.
“Recon only,” Hunter repeated, staring at Kenzie’s picture.
The strength he saw in her eyes…he wanted more of it. He wanted to see what else she could do. It was rare any female interested him and this one – this one had a raging fire in her he wanted to burn alive in.
Chapter Three
Kenzie
It was nearly three in the morning, but no one in her family cared about her whereabouts. Kenzie had her own entrance to the house and they all left her alone for the most part.
Witches lived with their families forever. And witches were always stronger together. Most families went back ages. It was like…nobility in a way. If she had to compare Kenzie would say it was like being a Rockefeller, a Kennedy, or a Disney. Everyone in the community knew you by your name.
Mackenzie Kavanagh – born of fire – child of the wise leader. In Gaelic.
Her parents thought when she came screaming into the world with a full head of bright red hair that she would be the next leader of their clan and then their coven. That she would do great things with the intense power her clan was usually gifted with.
But her powers never developed.
The matriarch of the family at the time, her great-grandmother, tried everything including pain to get them to manifest. The first six years of her life were utter torture until fi
nally her grandmother Edith said enough. Her seventh birthday the matriarch of the Kavanagh family declared her an abomination.
Then Selene was born.
Her hair was jet black instead of red. She took after their father where Kenzie looked like the women in their family – another disappointment when she’d appeared so promising. They both had the same blue eyes and white as porcelain skin, but that was where the similarities stopped.
Selene was born with her own magnificent power and then some. It was like everything Kenzie was supposed to have been was manifested in her little sister. Seven years apart and barely more than a human slave by then – Kenzie practically raised her when Selene wasn’t in lessons to control this power no one in the Kavanagh family had seen since the matriarch was born.
On her third birthday Selene was named the heir to the Kavanagh fame and fortune.
The most powerful witch in the family was always named heir, regardless of age.
Despite all this Kenzie never hated her sister, she was never bitter about any of it. How could Selene possibly be to blame for an accident of fate? Neither of them could control how they were born. They could only make the best of what they were given by the Fates.
She tossed her keys on the entrance table with a sigh and tapped her watch, pulling up the various programs she’d had installed.
The Kavanaghs owned a split level mansion in San Francisco and she’d been given the lowest floor on her eighteenth birthday. It was honestly more than Kenzie had anticipated. Despite her status as abomination – a powerless witch – her parents kept her trust fund intact instead of breaking it up and taking it back.
Not that she needed the money.
She’d anticipated her family kicking her out of the house, but apparently that would look bad on them. And Fates forbid that they ever be tarnished with a scandal. Kenzie rolled her eyes as the lights came up slowly, leaving the floor dim and mysterious.
Then she looked up at the family portrait she hadn’t had the heart to take down. It had come with the floor, furnished and perfect like everything her mother did, but no one had bothered to come down since her eighteenth birthday except Selene.
Kenzie was no longer her family’s problem outside social obligations. As long as she didn’t do anything to embarrass them – they left her alone.
The only reason she hadn’t removed the family portrait along with everything else her mother had stuffed into the floor was because Selene was sitting in her lap, arms wrapped around her neck, and Kenzie was smiling down at her.
It was the most real thing in her life – that photo, the representation of her relationship with her baby sister.
Kenzie stripped off the rest of her gear and tossed it in the fingerprint-locked front closet. She supposed she could cut the rest of her family out, but that’s not the way witches worked. They all had to suffer each other forever.
At least her great-grandmother had the grace to die not long after Selene was named heir. Their mother ran the family until Selene took control when she turned eighteen – the youngest witch matriarch in generations.
“How did it go?” Selene asked.
Kenzie jumped and then cursed her sister up and down. “You know I hate when you do that,” she snapped, grabbing a long-sleeve shirt to cover the scars her grandmother had left on her body all those years ago.
“You know I hate when you cover those up,” Selene returned mildly, standing from the couch where it looked like she’d fallen asleep. “I still have the potion to remove them if you want.”
Kenzie didn’t want to feel exposed at the moment. She’d failed the mission and her old insecurities were rising to the surface yet again. Kenzie bared her teeth. “You know I don’t want to get rid of them. I want to remind everyone what they let happen to me for as long as they live.”
Selene smiled gently at her – she was a thousand year old soul in the body of a nineteen year old. Her sister was wise, patient, gentle, and kind…all the things Kenzie was not. But that had always been the way with the two of them. Selene was the moon and the cool night sky and Kenzie burned hotter than the sun, nothing but pure flame and rage.
They were the perfect balance, even if their family couldn’t see it. The universe knew – there always had to be balance. And if Kenzie had to be born without powers so someone as kind as Selene could have them all…that was okay with her.
“I didn’t get the potion,” she told Selene, turning away from her sister and walking deeper into the house. “You have two floors all to yourself. Why are you down here?”
“The house is too big when you’re gone, Kenz,” Selene said as she followed her through the kitchen and into the bedroom.
Kenzie kicked off her boots and then went through her closet and down the steps into the underground room that was the size of her entire living room. She added it one year when the family went back to Ireland without her to meet the oldest living Irish Kavanagh witch.
Only Selene knew it existed – and maybe Edith. The old crone was too smart for her own good.
“What happened?” Selene asked as she sat in her usual chair. Anything not exactly ‘kosher’ was done in Kenzie’s workroom.
The two of them were the cutting edge of tech magic. Not even Morgan could do what they did and she was the most powerful witch on the West Coast.
Sitting down at her desk there were five monitors and three keyboards. Four different servers whirred as they ran her programs. “Three fox mercenaries from what I can gather. One of them said they were paid a lot of money to acquire the potion. But don’t worry; I was able to set a tracker on one of them.”
Selene sighed. “I wonder how they knew you were stealing it tonight.”
“So do I.”
One of them had to be able to reach the dark web and navigate it, as good as her or better at computers. It was the only way anyone could possibly guess at her plans, and she’d been so careful to cover her tracks. That rankled. Kenzie prided herself on her computer skills. ‘Genius-level at the age of ten’ per her tutors and teachers. Not that her family cared. Tech magic was strange to the older generations.
“It’s a shame they don’t recognize what you can do as valuable,” Selene murmured. “If I can replicate the potion I’ll make one for you.”
She said it enough Kenzie knew it for what it was – an apology.
“I don’t want witch powers,” Kenzie told her for the millionth time, but now she meant it.
And Selene sensed it. She tilted her head and arched a black brow. “What changed?”
Kenzie shrugged and started the tracking program. “I don’t need them. The only reason I would want them now is so I can finally be accepted by the witch community, but if that is the only thing that would get them to talk to me? Then fuck them.”
“Yeah, fuck them.”
She glanced over at her sister and Selene was grinning at her. “It’s no picnic, but I’d gladly hand over matriarch duties to you.”
Kenzie snorted. “Hell no, going to this stupid Pride barbecue on the Fourth of July is going to be bad enough. At least I won’t have to kiss everyone’s ass too. I’ll make sure to bring extra Chapstick for you though.”
Selene laughed and it was a beautiful sound. Her sister was perfection and Kenzie was glad she’d never felt the animosity towards her that she knew some sisters had. No, Selene was her baby sister – and they’d been best friends for years now.
“I might need at least three tubes of Chapstick,” she admitted. “I still can’t believe you wanted to steal the potion so close to Samuel’s barbecue. It was a bit risky.”
Kenzie leaned closer to the monitor and slid on her computer glasses. “But he also wouldn’t expect someone to be so stupid, so it was the perfect opportunity.”
“If I don’t get my powers back I’ll have to hand over the title of matriarch to Martha, our lovely cousin,” Selene murmured, checking her long, red nails. “I don’t know how much longer I can hide this. Someone will figure it out
, or someone with enough powers will be able to scry through Mom and Dad’s obfuscation spell.”
“Found them,” Kenzie told her. “And no, Martha isn’t going to be matriarch, fuck that bitch. I’ll get this potion, Selene, I promise.”
“Mackenzie! Don’t say that.”
She flung herself around and the chair spun one full rotation before stopping in front of her sister. Crossing her arms over her chest she arched a brow in a silent question.
Selene huffed and looked away. “She is a bit of a bitch, but you shouldn’t say so out loud.”
“You warded this entire floor. I don’t think even Morgan could get in. We’re fine,” Kenzie scoffed. “Now, do you want to know where these bastards are, or not?”
“Where are they?”
Kenzie grinned. “Santa Rosa, California. They’re just up the coast. How much you want to bet I’ll find them on the Six Rivers Pride register?”
Selene frowned. “Why would they steal from the Alpha of their Alpha?”
It didn’t matter to Kenzie. She was more interested in how they’d managed to fool all her gear and then just…disappear. Shrugging she went back to her computers and started digging for more information. What could her programs find out about three mercenary fox shifters?
“I don’t know, but I have to get the potion from them before they hand it off to their buyer. So give me some time to dig for that contract and I’ll update you tomorrow. Get some sleep, S. I’ll be home from work at two.”
Selene got up and ran her fingers over the unfinished projects she’d had to abandon after losing her powers. “Are you going to go to sleep?”
“Nah, I have to be at work at five thirty. I’ll sleep after I get home and update you. Then we’ll make a plan.”
Selene gave her a hug around the shoulders. “It can’t be on the Fourth, just remember that. I need you by my side.”
Kenzie rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know. And I’m not wearing that stupid dress you bought me.”
“Yes, you are.”
