30. The witch
Tony
I paced. I hated. Every step I took felt like I was losing control, but I couldn’t help it. It was either this or murdering my entire pack. I tried not to think of the row of graves that weren’t even a decade old as I pushed my instincts to pick up something. But there wasn’t even a trace that she had ever been here. I looked up at the window of the luna’s chambers and tried to breathe through my fury.
This can’t go on. I told Matt as he came up to stand beside me. I can feel my control slipping.
“We’ll find her,” Matt said. “If we can just figure out how she could have been taken from the estate without anyone knowing…”
If they’re all in on it because she’s only a half breed…
“We can’t jump to that conclusion yet,” Matt said, wincing. “I really hate being the voice of reason.”
Tony snorted. Can you feel her at all?
He winced at the question. Matt’s shoulders slumped.
“I… Tony, I couldn’t ever feel her.”
I nodded stiffly. Me either.
I couldn’t feel her even when we were nearby. Being mated to a half breed was nothing like the books said being mated to a full werewolf was like. I swallowed as my doubt made my stomach turn. Could we have made a mistake? Was she not our mate? Was I just losing control because we were nearing that age? I looked at Matt and saw the same doubt on his face. I shifted back into my human form and put a hand on his shoulder.
“We’ll find her,” I said, trying to fight the wolfish growl in my voice.
“Tony… I…”
“I know,” I said. “We can’t worry about that right now. We need to find her.”
I kept walking around the perimeter of the house, trying to find a trace of her scent, of how she might have been taken out of the manor, but there wasn’t even a pair of footprints that couldn’t be accounted for. Normal wolves could miss things, but our senses were at least five times more sensitive than the average werewolf. Still, there was nothing.
“What could this mean?” Matt asked.
I clenched my jaw as a thought came to mind. “It means that magic was involved…”
Matt went still and I stared out into the forest. “It means… she could be anywhere.”
Matt
“Anywhere?” I asked. “But… no one even has magic and if they did why would they take Lucy?”
Tony crossed his arms staring up at the face of the house. I looked up at it with him, trying to make sense of it. How could someone have used magic in our den and no one notice?
“We think no one has magic,” he said. “No one in the werewolf community at least, but just like we can make friends with dragons… other people can make friends with witches.”
I winced at the thought. “You think… Really?”
“What else would make sense?” He looked at me, his eyes flashing. “Other than everyone in our pack being traitors?”
I shut my mouth and nodded. “Magic. Got it.”
He turned and headed into the house. No one got in our way. They seemed to be trying to escape being in the same area as us. The pack doctor just remained still, holding her necklace like it would protect her.
“Call your friend,” Tony said. “Your witch friend and see if she can tell what kind of poison it is.”
She looked up at him and narrowed her eyes. “She’ll be here in about ten minutes.”
Tony’s lips twitched. “That soon?”
“She was helping deal with the mess on the freeway several miles from here.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Wolfsbane bullets and humans swearing there were white wolves running across the road?”
I frowned, looking between the two of them. “Who is this woman?”
“She helps keep us hidden,” Tony said. “I’ll at least put on pants.”
“How kind of you.”
He headed upstairs, each of his steps seemed heavier than they had been before. I winced at the prowling smoothness of his movements. For a moment, I wasn’t watching my brother, but my father walking up those stairs and I hated it.
We had to find Lucy.
“He’s losing it,” she said. “He’s… more affected than you.”
I winced. “Well… he’s the oldest and Tony… Well, Tony’s always been more high strung than me.”
My stomach twisted with guilt. He wouldn’t be so high strung if I had helped more. She eyed me as if she didn’t believe that was all of it, but I didn’t have an answer for her. I let the patrol know to expect her friend and hoped that she would be able to give us some answers.
Less than ten minutes later, a tall, willowy woman walked in our front door. She smelled like chamomile and wore a lot of yellow. There were a bunch of flowers in her hair. She looked more like a nymph from human mythology than a witch. She looked around with wide eyes.
“Never been inside an actual den before…” she said and hummed. “You all could really deal with some better security.”
“Tell me about it,” Tony groused as he came down the stairs. He looked a little calmer, but his eyes were still glowing. “It’s this way.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going up there.”
Tony’s eyes narrowed. I went still hoping that this wasn’t going to turn into a fight of some sort.
“What?”
“I’m not going up there,” she shuddered. “There’s nothing good up there.”
I frowned and looked up the center staircase before looking back at her. As far as I could see and smell, there wasn’t much up there but the lingering scent of whatever poison had been used on Lucy.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Poison.” She wrinkled her nose. “Well, not exactly. It’s pretty poisonous to people with magic at least. I’d basically be signing up to being very sick for a long time… or dead.”
I looked at Tony who narrowed his eyes at her. He came down the stairs, prowling towards her. She didn’t seem afraid, and I could tell if that was a good thing or not.
“People with magic?” I said slowly. “What do you mean by that?”
She blinked. “Exactly what I said.”
Tony growled and she looked at him with wide eyes. “Ooh… you’re on the edge, aren’t you? Fascinating, I’ve never met a pure Blue Moon wolf… You’re what? Almost thirty?”
I clenched my jaw. “What do you mean when you say people with magic? Werewolves…don’t have magic.”
She frowned then sighed.
“Right all that Moon Goddess nonsense. Look, every supernatural creature has some form of magic. Yours just happens to be related to moonlight. If you ingested or inhaled enough of that poison lingering up there, you’d be sick, at least. I’d suggest you open a window.”
“Not dead?” Tony pressed.
She shook her head. “Werewolves don’t have the right kind of magic or enough of it per se to end up dead. No spell casting, etc.”
I felt Tony’s relief wash through our bond and my shoulders sank. Him relaxing was a good thing.
“That has to mean that Lucy is…”
“Could you find out where someone has been taken?” Tony asked.
She blinked. “Probably? How were they taken?”
“We don’t know. All we know is that she… might have been in a locked room.”
She nodded looking up towards the top of the center staircase. “That would explain that.”
“Explain what?”
She gestured above my head. “All that other lingering stuff. Got to say it’s a shame you can’t smell spell work. It would be really helpful, wouldn’t?”
She shrugged and wrinkled her nose. “Well, never fear. The spell isn’t that strong. She wouldn’t have been transported far.”
“How far is not far?”
She hummed. “Well, she should at least still be in the state.”
My heart sunk. “The state border is over a hundred miles away! How is that not far?”
She blinked and her cheeks turned pink. “Sorry, I forget you all… Well… For witches it’s not far.”
Tony growled and turned to stomped off, yelling for a phone. I rubbed my head trying to think of all the territory lines she could have crossed if the state border was as far as she could have been sent. She could be anywhere in the Black Moon or Blood Moon territories. Hell, she could be in something else’s territory too. She could have been taken to the middle of a human city for all we know.
“I could… try to search for her,” she offered. “Do you have something of hers I could use maybe? Something she’s owned for at least a few months.”
I wanted to say yes, but I couldn’t think of a single thing she’d had for more than a month. The aunction had anything of hers to give us and we threw away the dress that she had been auctioned in. My shoulders slumped and I shook my head.
“We… haven’t even known her that long.”
Tony came back with a phone crushed in his hand. “Can you give us a general direction? Something? Anything?”
She worried her lip and shifted her weight. She looked down at the floor and worried her lip as she gripped the strap of her bag.
“I can try.”
“Thank you.”
“Though… it might be easier to find who made the spell in the first place…”
Tony went still and his eyes narrowed. “We find Lucy first. We’ll pay you for your time.”
She shrugged and took a seat at the table with the doctor. She pulled out a scroll and set four stones on top of it, on in each cardinal direction before pulling out another large clear stone.
By the Goddess, I hope it worked. I looked over at Tony who leaned on the back of a chair, staring at the paper and stones as if he would be able to read it just as fast as the witch could.
I took a seat and decided to watch because there was nothing else I could really do.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
