by Elle Adams
The old witches had one thing right. Guys like Nathan were out of my league, in the normal world at least. But the paranormal world’s distrust of hunters and my own outsider status had somehow conspired to throw us together, and despite all the obstacles that had landed in our path, I couldn’t imagine life without him.
Nathan stopped walking, his arm sliding around my back. I leaned in and met his lips with mine, my arms wrapping around his back, feeling the shift of solid muscle under my hands. Nathan was built like what he was—a security guard and former paranormal hunter who’d chased down rogue werewolves for a living. His dark hair had grown shaggier like he’d neglected to cut it recently.
I released him. “I’ll ask Nina to give you a free haircut. It’s a wonder you can see where you’re going.”
He smiled. “I’ve been run off my feet, what with the ceremony. I came straight here from my shift. Which would explain the boots that woman rightly told me look like they belong to a troll.”
“She’s talking nonsense,” I said. “I like your shoes. Mostly because you’re the one wearing them.”
He laughed, took my hand in his and we made our way down the darkening street. It was amazing how quickly I’d adjusted to living in a town where everyone walked everywhere. After this, going back to a normal town with cars and public transport would be a major culture shock. Silence formed a backdrop as we walked, along with the faint crash of the waterfall which was only audible in the quiet of night. The winding streets had always reminded me of a picture out of a storybook—narrow, cobbled roads lined with pubs that my former friends in the normal world would probably describe as quaint. No night clubs with sticky floors here.
I halted outside the local bookshop when we passed by. It was closed, but maybe Sky had chosen an empty and freezing shop to sleep in rather than being within a mile of Aveline.
“I doubt he ran away for good,” Nathan said when I mentioned this aloud. “Most likely, he’ll show up at Vincent’s place. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”
“I guess he might be sulking in a coffin,” I acknowledged. “I asked Vincent to contact me if he spots him. Sky knows to avoid the house as long as Aveline is there. Actually, everyone should, if they know what’s good for them.”
“I agree,” he said. “Is she permitted to act however she likes, being Head Witch? Because it sounds like she deserves a stern talking-to at the very least.”
“Her prize possession was stolen,” I said. “But she was acting awful enough beforehand, and now she’s playing Scrabble with three of the suspects. Doesn’t seem like she’s all that fussed about the sceptre, unless it’s an act.”
“I haven’t had any alerts from the police on the matter,” Nathan said, “so I can only assume that the local coven leaders don’t see it as a cause for alarm. Do you really think one of the other witches might be the thief?”
“The odds of them being inside the house are stronger than most,” I said. “I planned to question everyone, but I’ll wait until we’re certain Aveline didn’t hide the sceptre in my underwear drawer for attention. At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
“She already searched your room?” he asked.
“Thoroughly.” Despite my bad mood, being with Nathan made a significant proportion of my stress melt away. Inside the pub, we picked out our usual table near the door, while I explained everything I hadn’t been able to fit into the text messages I’d sent this morning.
“Are you sure the thief didn’t get in while you were asleep?” Nathan asked me.
“I didn’t sleep.” I tapped the menu to order my food. “Aveline’s snoring was so loud that someone might have sneaked in without my noticing, but they would have needed to get her door open without waking her.”
A thoughtful look came over him. “I think the woman herself did it. Judging by what you’ve told me, she enjoys playing the victim.”
“I wouldn’t have thought she’d want the entire town to assume she couldn’t keep hold of her own sceptre.” My shoulders slumped. “I’m too tired to think of theories. Rob offered to come and sniff the thief out using his werewolf senses, but we’ve had people trampling in and out of the flat all day. I doubt he’ll be able to isolate the thief’s scent.”
The food and drinks appeared on the table. I dug in, having been too distracted to eat much today.
“What is it the sceptre can do, exactly?” Nathan asked. “Aside from giving the Head Witch her title.”
I put down my fork. “They say it contains enough power to part the veil between this world and the afterlife on Samhain, which is why they pick that day to let it choose a new owner. Other than that, I’m not convinced it’s worth all the marching around fields in the cold we’ve done over the last week.”
“I haven’t heard about the ceremony being cancelled, so I assume Madame Grey is confident the sceptre will be found before then,” he said. “Is there anything I can do to help, other than keep an eye out for Sky? If you find him, he’s welcome to stay at my house until Aveline leaves.”
That was Nathan—he always wanted to help out, and he always found a way to make me feel better. Too bad even he couldn’t work miracles.
“If you can think of ways to stop that mad old witch from destroying my room, I’m all ears.”
“I’m afraid all the solutions I can think of are magical ones,” he said.
“They still might work if she wasn’t the most powerful witch in the house—maybe even in the whole town.” I picked up my fork again. “And on top of that, she knew my mother when she was still alive. I was wondering why Madame Grey never told me about her before, but now I get it.”
Nathan put down his beer glass. “She did?”
I twirled pasta around my fork. “Yep. I don’t know if they were friends. Probably not. She doesn’t seem to even like her own daughter.”
“And you think she might let you speak to your mother’s ghost, using the sceptre?” he asked.
Despite not being a wizard, Nathan was as perceptive as any paranormal I’d met, and more than some.
I shrugged and returned my attention to my plate. “Since I’ll never get to meet her while she’s living…”
“I’m not about to stop you,” he said. “I assume you know speaking to the dead isn’t considered advisable.”
“This is different,” I said. “The walls between worlds are thinner at this time of year. I wouldn’t even think about it under normal circumstances.”
I wouldn’t at all, in fact, if my dad hadn’t put the idea into my head. There was just one slight issue… the sceptre had gone.
“I’m not an expert,” he said. “Do you need security tonight in case the thief comes back? Maybe the Head Witch will think twice about giving you trouble if I’m there.”
“Even Sky didn’t intimidate her.” It was tempting, though. “I doubt you’ll want to hear Aveline’s opinions on the hunters. I assume she hates them as much as she seems to dislike everyone else.”
“I’m used to it,” he said mildly. “Oh, by the way, Blair, your blouse is inside-out.”
You might know it. “Yeah, I didn’t get much sleep.”
“I noticed.” His mouth curled into a smile. “I may be able to procure you a potion which will make you sleep better tonight.”
“Alissa said she’d teach me an earplug charm, but I’ll go for that, too.” I sat back in my seat.
He leaned and tapped a drink on the menu. “I have it on good authority that this particular cocktail will help.”
“At this rate, it’ll take a bottle of wine to get me through the week.” I stifled a yawn, my jaw cracking. “Are you positive you want to keep watch outside the house? Her comments to you earlier…”
“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled. “I’ve spent years dealing with unruly werewolves. She’s going to have to work much harder if she wants to drive me away.”
5
The effects of the cocktail worked so well that I slept righ
t through Alissa’s return from her shift at midnight and would have been late for work were it not for the sofa falling out from underneath me. I hit the floor with a thud that sent stars spinning before my eyes and jolted me back to wakefulness.
“Ow.” I looked up at Aveline standing over me. She’d levitated the sofa into the air while I was sleeping on it. “What was that for?”
“Are you deaf?” she screeched.
“No.” Maybe I am, now. My head pounded, my mind feeling fuzzy. “Did another thief break in?”
“Certainly not,” she said. “That feline of yours decided to move into my bed in the middle of the night. Look what he did!”
She hiked up her dressing gown to show claw marks on her legs. Oh, no. Sky hadn’t run away… he’d taken revenge on Aveline into his own manner. Also, I could have lived a long and happy life without seeing her floral undergarments.
“Ah, sorry.” I scrambled to my feet, my head aching. “Like I said, he usually sleeps in my room. I’ll find him.”
I walked into the bedroom to find Sky stretched out on the bed, legs sprawled out the way he lay when he wanted to take up as much space as possible. He gave me a smug look. “Miaow.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, giving him a stroke. “I appreciate you not running off either. At this rate, she’ll drive both of us into an early grave.”
At the sound of footsteps behind me, I added, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Sky jumped off the bed and followed me from the room, hiding behind my ankles when Aveline stalked past. Alissa emerged from her bedroom, blinking sleepily. “What’s going on?”
“Are you deaf, too?” Aveline shot at her.
No, just wearing an earplug charm.
“What’s the issue?” she asked. “Oh, Sky came back. That’s good news.”
“No, it isn’t,” Aveline huffed. “That beast attacked me.”
Sky made a quiet growling noise that implied you haven’t seen anything yet. “Alissa, can you watch him while I get dressed?”
I really meant, ‘watch Aveline’, but I might have to take Nathan up on his offer to let Sky stay at his house until the madness was over. Assuming he got on with Nathan’s cats, which was debatable. He and Roald frequently got into territorial battles over the sofa.
I showered and dressed, emerging from the bathroom to find a message from Nathan on my phone explaining that he’d been called away during the night to solve an argument at the border between two hot-headed shifters. With a twinge of guilt for letting him stand on guard duty half the night, I ordered him to get some sleep rather than coming back to play security guard. In the meantime, I’d have to drop Sky off at Nathan’s house on the way to work if I wanted to avoid him turning the Head Witch into a pincushion.
Aveline watched like a hawk as I came out of the bathroom to retrieve Sky from the sofa. “Don’t think I didn’t see that boyfriend of yours hovering outside the window last night.”
“He offered to watch out for thieves.” Please tell me she didn’t try to flirt with him again. Brawling shifters were nothing compared to Aveline’s flirtation attempts.
She grunted. “That won’t do any good if the thief’s inside the house, will it?”
“You saw me question the Rosemary witches. They didn’t steal it, and nor did your daughter. That just leaves Shannon.” And you. “Do you think Shannon did it?”
“No.”
“Then who?” I rubbed my temples. Work today was going to be a trial, but not as much as a conversation with the Head Witch.
Her sharp gaze flickered over me. “Who can tell truth from lies?”
“Me, but I’m not the thief.” I tensed as she rose to her feet from the armchair, using a stick for balance she must have picked out to replace the sceptre. “My ability isn’t fool-proof. People can omit information, either by accident or otherwise.”
She sniffed. “Well, what good is that, then?”
“Good enough that I’m sure the sceptre isn’t in the house.” If one of the other witches had hired someone to act on their behalf, they must have hidden it elsewhere while Aveline tore the place apart.
I beckoned to Sky to follow me out of the flat, and Alissa came, too. Not a sound came from upstairs or the flat opposite, suggesting the other inhabitants were asleep.
“Are you going to question them now?” Alissa asked in an undertone. “I’m not staying here with Aveline until my shift, but if you think one of them did it…”
“I don’t know what to think,” I admitted. “If Aveline is behind all this, she knows about my lie-sensing power and she will have accounted for it.”
“Miaow,” said Sky, in a tone that implied he didn’t think she was clever enough to do so.
I crouched down to whisper to him, “Did you see the thief come into the flat?”
“Miaow.” He shook his head, his whiskers twitching.
Then they must have used a spell. Perhaps a stealth spell in combination with an invisibility potion and an unlocking charm—and those were just basic charms. Any of the witches in the house was capable of casting high-level spells I wouldn’t get to in my magical education for years. Then again, Madame Grey must have considered all the possibilities, right?
“What are you two whispering about?” Alissa’s brow puckered. “The thief? Did Sky see them?”
“No.” I straightened upright. “I’d better head off to work. Nathan offered to look after Sky until Aveline leaves town, so I was going to drop him off there on the way. He already has three cats.”
“I forgot,” she said. “I saw him outside last night, but he was gone by the morning.”
“He went to break up a shifter fight at the border.” I grimaced. “I think Aveline chased him off, to tell you the truth. I shouldn’t have asked him to play security guard all night, but that sleeping cocktail knocked me out.”
“I wondered why you slept through every question Aveline tried to ask you.” She glanced over her shoulder. “If you ask me, the reason the Head Witch in such a bad mood today is because she couldn’t stand being ignored by both of us.”
“Until she tossed me off the sofa.” I rubbed my sore neck. “She can’t seriously think I stole the sceptre.”
“I’m not sure that’s what she was implying.” She frowned. “Unless she’s the thief and she’s deliberately trying to throw us off the trace. I mean, she’s held onto the title of Head Witch for years, and it’s possible that she’s afraid of losing her position. She might have decided that if she can’t have the sceptre, nobody else can, either.”
“That does sound like her,” I said. “Thief or not, she always has to make everything about her.”
“Miaow,” Sky said in agreement.
“C’mon,” I said to him. “Let’s get you to Nathan’s. You’re not to start any fights with his cats while I’m at work, okay?”
“Have fun,” said Alissa. “Will Nathan be stopping by tonight?”
“Probably not, but Rob the werewolf from work offered to come back here to see if he can sniff out the thief. At least if Aveline tries flirting with him, he’ll tell her she’s wasting his time.”
Her nose wrinkled. “Who was she flirting with?”
“Nathan. It was scarring, to be honest.” I shuddered. “Can you find a way to distract you-know-who for half an hour or so in case she starts hassling Rob? Nobody deserves to be subject to that torment.”
Alissa snorted. “I’ll see if I can think of a way to distract the Head Witch if you bring the werewolf over.”
“Thanks, Alissa.” My phone buzzed with a message from Nathan telling me he’d left the cat flap open and enough food for Sky to share with the other three cats. “What d’you reckon, Sky? Nathan’s house or Vincent’s place? I know you and Vincent are friends, but it can’t be comfortable to sleep in a coffin.”
Then again, being a cat, he could sleep anywhere without the need for a magical cocktail. I regretted not starting my day with a double-dose of motivational coffee as I
trekked to Nathan’s house, though Sky followed without a fuss. He could be placid enough when he wanted to be, provided pointed hats weren’t involved.
“I can trust you not to fight the other cats, right?” I gave him a stroke. “Nathan left you some food in there. I’ll come and see you later, okay?”
“Miaow.” Sky wound around my ankles, demanding another stroke, before slinking through the cat flap into Nathan’s house.
One thing sorted. Shivering in the chilly air, I made my way to work. The effects of the cocktail lingered, but I was glad of the huge mug of coffee waiting on my desk when I walked in.
“Thanks, Rob.” I sat down and picked up the coffee, which was at a more drinkable temperature than yesterday. Better and better.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “How’s the old bat?”
“Unbearable.” I took a long sip. “I’d rather share a room with Vincent the vampire.”
Bethan spat out a mouthful of coffee. “You’ve obviously never heard a vampire talk in their sleep.”
“Speaking from experience, are you?” I put down the mug. “The Head Witch snores, flirts with my boyfriend, starts fights with my familiar, and tips me off the sofa when I’m not quick enough to answer her questions.”
“Okay, you win,” said Bethan. “Any news on this mysterious thief?”
“Nope.” And given the decisive answers I’d received to my questioning, either the thief was never in the house, or the culprit was savvy enough to get around my lie-sensing powers.
“You know you offered to sniff out the thief yesterday,” I said to Rob. “Can you drop by tonight? Say, half an hour or so after work?” I’d have to give Alissa enough time to turf Aveline out of the house so he could sniff around without her turning him into a chair.
“Sure,” he said. “Has anyone been in your flat since the incident?”
“A few people,” I said. “But not in my bedroom, which was where the sceptre was stolen from. I just need to make sure she hasn’t made too much of a mess of the place before I let anyone in.”
“I’m sure I’ve seen worse. You forget the pack lives in the forest.”