by Haley Weir
“So many people are going to get hurt, Beth. Abbey and the others are out there fighting my battle. Kaia is here for me,” she argued. “Ethan won’t stop until—”
“Wait...who’s Ethan?”
“The man who took me.”
“Charlotte, the man who took you wasn’t human. It was the Wendigo Spirit. He took a new body. Itsá thinks he was out there for a different reason, but your gift called out to him.” Beth brushed a lock of hair out of Charlotte’s face. “That’s why it was so hard to track you. He obscured the path and attacked them with wendigos every time they got too close. And by ‘them,’ I mean Wesley and me.”
“Sometimes, I think you were right about destiny not being all that great.”
“I can be a little bitter at times,” Beth snorted. “Just make sure we don’t all end up regretting this fight. I’ve been trying to survive all my life; now it’s time to start living, and someone’s trying to take that away from me.”
The clock at the end of the hallway ticked by the hours as Charlotte tended to Beth’s wounds. She was still weak from her escape, but she focused her power on her friend to help her recover. Kaia warned Charlotte that exerting herself would cause her gift to grow weaker until she rested. When Beth was bandaged up, Charlotte sat beside her and hummed softly until Beth fell asleep. She tried to think of something to keep her mind off of worrying for Wesley, but it was pointless as the door opened.
Charlotte jumped to her feet as Wesley appeared in the doorway.
She tucked Beth in and followed him into the study down the corridor.
“Abigail said she’ll come inside and check on her in an hour. Right now, she’s patching up Sam.” Wesley held his hand out, and Charlotte walked into his arms. “We protected the ranch from the witches, but Boone is convinced we should send the servants and workers home until we're certain it's safe. I ain’t too certain the ranch can afford to lose any profit. Winter months are hard as it is, and our people know working here can be dangerous.”
Wesley leaned against the desk and held Charlotte close.
“I’m sorry I brought all of these problems here. I never intended for anyone to get hurt.”
Lips brushed against the curve of her ear. “No one is blaming you. Boone, Jesse, Sam, and me...we’ve been running from our fate for a long time. We were too stubborn to see past our own selfishness. You were just thrown into our world, Charlotte.”
She tilted her head back. “You’re worth it, Wesley.”
~*~
Wolf Valley
The spray of bullets followed Wesley as he leaped for cover behind the upturned wagon. Shards of wood showered down upon him as the bullets tore through the bottom. He pressed his chest to the ground and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. Turk and Jesker Wallis cackled loudly, giving away their positions. Wesley did not know how they got caught up in trading those tainted weapons, but he intended to find out.
“We ain’t givin’ up, Wesley! You best stand down.”
Wesley clenched his jaw and flipped open the cylinder of his revolver and loaded in more rounds. He peered around the wagon and saw that the other patrons in the saloon had joined the fight. His breath exploded in an irritable sigh as he cocked his Colt and shot the gun out of Jesker Wallis’s hand. The outlaw yelped and hurried to hide behind his brother as Wesley vaulted over the wagon, landing right in the thick of the brawl.
Boone came barreling through the swinging doors, but it was too late to give fair warning.
The new sheriff of Wolf Valley was knocked to the ground just as Wesley was tackled. Dirt puffed up as his back hit with such force that it rattled his bones.
He brought his knee up and slammed it into the other man’s abdomen. Patience wearing thin, Wesley fired three warning shots and then aimed at Turk Wallis. Boone went in for the arrest as Beth came to stand beside Wesley with her gun drawn. “Miss me?”
“Where the heck were you? You were supposed to have my back.”
“Just wait and see.”
The saloon doors squeaked open once more, catching his attention. Wesley glanced at Ethan Tate and his crew as they emerged from the back room with cigars in their hands. Wesley did not like the way Ethan Tate looked at him with disdain written on his gaze. The Wendigo Spirit flashed for a moment, and Wesley felt his confidence dwindle slightly. But sheer determination caused him to walk right up to the foul creature.
“We want to meet with you and your kind. Tomorrow night. Quarry.”
“You expect me to agree to somethin’ like that?”
“The way I see it, you ain’t got much of a choice. I got something you need.”
“And that would be?” the man with the false face asked.
“Charlotte.”
A loud scream distracted Wesley.
He turned to face the sound just moments before gunfire erupted and fire roiled towards the sky. Wesley jumped into action and dashed down the road towards the bank. He coughed and choked on the smoke as people began to panic. With burning eyes, Wesley burst through the front door. No one was inside, and the money was still in the vault. He cursed himself for being so foolish. A distraction.
The thick smoke in the air made it hard to breathe.
A window shattered, and Wesley was nearly caught by a burst of flames that bellowed towards the ceiling. He hurried out of the bank. Wesley blinked through the tears streaming down his face from all the smoke. “Beth! Help them put out the fires.”
Boone rode up with the horses and a small posse. The skinshifters were outnumbered and running out of time. Wesley threw himself into the saddle and raced towards the trees. It was the perfect spot for an ambush. The dark thicket was dense, and for all he knew, there were rifles perched somewhere in there with him in their sights. Wesley hesitated. “We lost him.”
The others stopped right beside him.
Boone shook his head. “There was nothin’ you could do. They set you up, partner.”
“No...this wasn’t planned. It was too messy. Ethan knew we were after him, but he could not have planned this. Not with the way we were tracking him down,” Wesley explained. “We got his attention, though. He knows a bit of what we’re capable of, and he’ll show up at the quarry for the meeting. Be ready when he does.”
“How do we know he won’t go after Charlotte?”
Beth cleared her throat and answered for Wesley. “He won’t. Charlotte is getting stronger. He would not risk angering her until he knew whose side she was on, right?”
Chapter Eleven
Silver Fox Ranch
“I’ve come to a conclusion, Charlotte Woodberry. Want to know what it is?” Wesley asked from the doorway as Charlotte soaked up to her neck in the warm water. She stopped humming and glanced over at the handsome man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Charlotte waited patiently for Wesley to continue, feeling her patience begin to dwindle as he gave her that devastating lopsided grin.
“Out with it, Wesley!” Charlotte demanded when he pulled the hand-rolled cigarette as he stared at her lush lips. Lips that Wesley always seemed to have trouble looking away from. He lit the end of his cigarette, filling the room with the bitter aroma. Tendrils of smoke curled out of a smirking mouth as a perfectly arched brow quirked in a silent challenge.
If she were to be completely honest with herself, Wesley James was the most handsome man she had ever seen. She believed she had loved him since the first time she laid eyes on Wesley—that day when he had rescued her and the others. Now, he lurked in the doorway with a question hovering between them as she raked her gaze appreciatively over his sculpted chest.
Charlotte blushed as Wesley caught her staring and moved into the room. He closed the door with his foot and ran a hand through his hair. The top was much longer than the back and sides, but most of it was streaked with threads of gray that she absolutely adored. Though his hair wasn’t nearly as white as Jesse’s hair, she found it attractive on him.
Wesley knelt beside the bath and b
alanced his cigarette on the table where her soaps rested. “I’ve decided that I ain’t going to resist my urges with you anymore.”
“Oh?” she squeaked.
“I reckon we’ve waited long enough, don’t you?”
Yes. In fact, she was excited by the prospect of being intimate with Wesley. “Yes.”
He licked his lips, and Charlotte tracked the movement with her eyes. Wesley leaned forward and she tasted the tobacco on his lips. Charlotte moaned as his tongue flicked against the seam of her mouth and he slipped inside. Water splashed over the edge slightly, wetting his bare chest and the fabric of his trousers. A very obvious erection tented the front.
Charlotte whimpered in protest when Wesley pulled away from her.
To her surprise, he climbed into the tub along with her, causing the water to splash over the rim. Wesley ignored it and claimed her mouth once more. The slide of his skin against hers was nearly too much. She felt his hands slip between their bodies and flinched when his fingers stroked something that lit a fire within her womb. “Oh…”
Wesley chuckled into the crook of Charlotte’s neck and kissed the place where her neck and shoulder met. “I can’t wait to mark you, to show the world that you belong to me.” The deep rumble of his voice caused a pleasant current of tingles along her torso. “You will make a perfect mate for me. So strong. So lovely."
"Wesley, I-I've never been...no one has…"
"We can stop now if that's what you want, sweetheart," he said softly, but his words were sincere. "Just say the word, and it ends there. I'm perfectly fine with just holding for the remainder of my evening.” Wesley stilled his motions, going entirely rigid. Charlotte’s toes curled in the water, and she nodded eagerly. Wesley’s eyes seemed to search her gaze for something before he continued. One of his hands moved to the back of her neck while the other brushed against something that made her muscles clench.
Charlotte felt wild and curious. She moved against his hand as it explored her body. None of the books had prepared her for the pleasure of a man’s touch. But Charlotte doubted any man could have pleased her the way Wesley could. Each gentle glide of his fingers caused her thighs to flex and her body to tremble. Her every being was tied to him. The sound of his growls in her ear was enough to bring her to the edge of euphoria.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
Charlotte hadn’t realized she had squeezed her eyes shut, but she obeyed his order. She felt as though her body was betraying her, dancing to the rhythm of his fingers.
“That’s it...let go. Don’t fight what’s happening, Charlotte.”
There was a surge of pleasure before the tension within her increased to the point of near pain. It lasted for several seconds before Wesley forced it to release with an expert motion that caused Charlotte to scream into the crook of his shoulder. He kissed her gently as the blood rushing through her ears settled, and Wesley removed his hand from where it rested against her mound. The tenderness with which he held her filled a part of Charlotte that had felt like a gaping wound since she had become an orphan.
“Thank you, Wesley,” she whispered sleepily.
“Never thank me for this, Charlotte. This is a gift that I will never take for granted.” He stood up from the water, causing more to splash onto the flooded floor of their bedchamber. Wesley disappeared behind the privacy screen and returned with a bundle of extra linens. He used them to wrap around their bodies before carrying Charlotte to the bed.
She sighed happily and nuzzled into him. “Have you ever been in love, Wesley?
“No. Not ever. But I saw how it destroyed Sam and that made me cautious.”
“What happened to Sam?” Charlotte asked.
“He tried to have a normal life. Sam opened up a shop in town, got himself a home, and met a lovely woman named Savannah. They were in love, and Sam was happy.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
Wesley shook his head, but Charlotte saw the sadness etched into his expression. “Savannah accepted Sam’s red eyes and surly attitude, but the rest of the world did not. Folks liked to antagonize him, and Sam lost his control one night. He shifted in front of a human who was already half-mad with envy that the woman he wanted had chosen Sam. The man came in the night and burned the house down with them inside.”
“Oh, no!”
“The fire killed Savannah and their little girl, Malia, but Sam survived. He had to watch them die and has relived that moment since the day it happened,” Wesley explained. “Sam killed the man and has never allowed himself to be vulnerable again.”
Except with Mary Ann, Charlotte thought to herself.
~*~
The first hint of light peeked through the windows as Wesley made his way down the stairs. Charlotte sat at the table with Abigail, Beth, and Mary Ann. She handed him a buttered roll and kissed his cheek on his way out to the stables. Wesley popped on his old hat and pushed his way out the back door. Jesse and Sam waited near the stables with their horses. He strolled over to them and caught sight of Boone pacing angrily in front of the scullery.
“What’s going on with Boone?” he asked Sam.
Boone’s brother shrugged his shoulders. “Ain’t our problem. We got work to do, and it ain’t gonna get done with us sittin’ around twiddlin’ our thumbs, is it?”
Wesley shook his head at Sam’s attitude and climbed into the saddle. They waited patiently as Beth came trampling out of the house with a biscuit clenched between her teeth and a wicked-looking knife in her hands. She secured the blade in a sheath and hopped onto the mare that she had taken a liking to. Beth munched on her breakfast and talked around the mouthful of tacky bread in her mouth. “Itsá made it,” she explained when they gave her inquisitive looks. “He wants me to test it against some wendigos.”
“What makes it so special?”
She shrugged her shoulders in a manner that was all too much like Sam. “Some creepy ritual stuff that I did not care enough to ask about.”
The others snorted as Wesley led them towards the hovel where he and Beth had found Charlotte the day she escaped. “We need to be careful. Itsá said witches tend to stick together and build their covens in a place that makes it harder to fight them,” Wesley announced. “The witches that attacked might not even be here, but it don’t hurt to be prepared.”
He jumped from the saddle and led the horses to a small spring behind the shack that hadn’t yet frozen over. Wesley loaded his pistol and crept along the exterior wall, gritting his teeth as he approached a crack in the wood. There were bandits holed up inside. He cursed their foul luck and motioned for Sam to go around to the other side.
His boots crunched upon the dense snow as he made his way around the opposite side as Sam. “Come on out of there,” Wesley called. Beth and Jesse moved into position in front of the door with their guns drawn. “Nobody will get hurt if ya’ll stand down now.”
Gunshots rang through the frozen tundra, and Wesley jumped back away from the door.
He counted to ten and then dropped low, rushing into the hovel as fast as he could. Bullets pelted the wall above his head and his shoulder hit the second door hard. Wesley crashed into one of the vicious outlaws. The other man’s gun clattered to the floor. Wesley hammered his fists into the bandit’s face until he was bucked off. A solid punch landed against his jaw, and it caused his head to spin. Lights danced in his vision and his stomach heaved slightly, but his steps did not falter. He waited patiently and then landed a swift kick to the bandit’s chest.
“Things always turn sour so quickly with you,” Beth said accusingly as she shoved a second bandit off of herself. “What is it with you in attracting trouble wherever we go?”
“Now it’s my fault? I was careful!”
Wesley rolled into a crouch as he evaded another blow.
Jesse flew past him and pushed the bandit against the wall. Sam fought at his friend’s back and dropped down to pull a knife from his boot. Jesse distracted the outlaws while Sam made quick w
ork of ending their vile existence. Beth cut her eyes at them. “Did they deserve to die like that?” she asked scathingly.
Sam shrugged once more as Jesse explained the situation. “I recognize all of them from the wanted posters. Trust me, it’s better that it ended this way. And at least now we know if they were hunkered down in here, the witches probably moved on from this site.”
They broke through the barricaded entrance to the crypt that Charlotte described and moved deeper into a small series of tunnels. Wesley could not help but admire the simplicity of the system as he pushed on. It was Sam who found the entrance to the crypt. His senses had picked up on unique energies that he could not quite describe. Wesley did not argue. Instead, he followed Sam’s lead until they came upon a strange chamber that was exactly how Charlotte described.
The walls that had held her captive were formed from some strange type of crystal. A ghostly light filtered through the room and glittered off of a shallow pool of water on the other side of the crypt. Notches had been carved into the crystal to house what looked like human skulls, but he knew in his gut that they belonged to shifters.
There were jars of feathers, ashes, blood, beetles, and other unnerving things. Jesse described them as ingredients. Wesley doubted they were cooking up something sweet with all of that, so he had Beth bag everything up and carry it out to the horses. When the three shifters were alone, he dropped his voice to a whisper. “They’re using our kind to fuel their magic.”
“What?” Sam asked skeptically.
“I mean it. These shifter bones? I think they’re ground up and used to give them more power, which is why they were nearly impossible to fight during the attack. Everything that’s working for the Wendigo Spirit can be tracked by their desires.”
This time, it was Jesse who eyed him with suspicion.
“Hear me out,” Wesley said. “The humans join him for the money, the weapons, the glory, and the loot. Witches join him for power. Wendigos follow him out of hunger and because he’s their creator. Itsá said it’s drawn to greed. Follow the riches, we find the humans.”
