by Emma Savant
Across from me, Alec took a sip of his tea and winced. He was alive, with his torso bandaged up so tightly he could barely move. He wasn’t supposed to be out of bed yet, but Clancy had given up on trying to keep people in the infirmary who weren’t willing to stay there. Privately, I thought Alec should have stayed in the actual Glimmering hospital with the rest of the most badly wounded until he was recovered, but Brendan had told me in an undertone that he’d thrown such a fit about being away from the rest of the pack that the doctors had decided it would be more restful for him to recuperate at home.
It was almost sweet, the way Alec had settled back into the pack. He had been estranged from his family for years before he’d found his way home, and now it seemed like he was trying to make up for lost time.
A timer dinged, and Rowan bustled over to the oven to pull out a tray of apple streusel muffins. She’d been baking almost nonstop since Clancy had given her the all clear. I wasn’t sure whether she was trying to soothe us or herself with the steady stream of cookies and breads and pies that had been coming out of the kitchen over the last week, but none of us were about to complain—least of all the wolves, whose appetites seemed to have tripled since the battle. It was a side effect of being werewolves, Cate had told me. They had to heal two bodies at once, which meant twice the calories and twice the sleep.
Mom hobbled into the kitchen on a pair of crutches. She carried a bundled newspaper awkwardly in one hand and dropped it onto the table with a satisfied smile.
“Joseph Brick is in a whole cauldron of hot water,” she said.
I reached for the paper, but Ginger got it first. She unrolled it to show a mugshot of Brick’s face, under the headline FASHION DESIGNER CONVICTED AS LEADER OF VIOLENT GANG, GETS LIFE IN PRISON.
“That was quick,” I said.
“Queen Amani wasn’t messing around,” Grandma said. “I gave her a full update at that fundraising dinner, and she had people collecting evidence for his trial before the main course was served.”
“Shame she couldn’t have done that before our coven and pack got beaten to a pulp.”
“Now, now, sabre, that’s what we’re here for.” Grandma kissed the top of my head, then reached for one of Rowan’s muffins. “And you did a spectacular job, all of you. You fulfilled our mission. You saved the innocent—without alerting the innocent, despite Mr. Brick’s blatant attempt to terrify the lot of them with that spell of his.”
I twisted my neck to look at her, which sent rays of agony up into my head and down my back.
I was glad of the pain. It meant I had survived.
“As far as anyone knows, the jack-o’-lantern charms around the maze interacted badly with the ticketing system and caused the dome,” Grandma said with a laugh. “That’s the story we spread, and the Glimmering world appears to have bought it hook, line, and sinker.”
I stared at her. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Everyone knows how unpredictable magic can get when faerie charms and hedge witch spells interact,” Grandma said. “That’s what they get for allowing the Multicultural Youth Society to set up the enchantments this year without adequate adult supervision.” She smirked.
“What about Sienna?” Cate said. A giant white bandage was wrapped around her head, making her look like a Halloween costume of a mummy.
This was met with a long silence. We didn’t know. Grandma had been alert to news all week and had performed several locating spells. All her efforts had turned up nothing. Wherever Sienna was, she’d moved beyond the reach of our cunning and our magic.
Knowing that she had escaped filled me with a confusing mix of emotions I couldn’t quite untangle. Rage was there, but so was fear. Someday, maybe someday soon, I would have to face her again.
I waited until most of the Daggers had gone to bed and the wolves who were well enough to sleep at their den had left. I needed to rest, but I knew I would end up tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling, just like I had every other night this week.
Instead of going up to my attic room, I grabbed a large cloak hanging by the front door and headed outside. The night air was cold, which did a bit to soothe the heat that still clustered around my now-yellowing black eye and the lingering ache in my muscles. I wandered past Grandma’s rose bushes and to the back lawn, then spread the cloak out on the grass.
I laid down and gazed up at the stars. We’d had a few clear nights, and the lights overhead twinkled in patterns I’d learned almost as soon as I could talk. The night skies were familiar—familiar, and far away from me and my problems.
Slowly, my breathing settled to a gentle rhythm, and the cold seeped past my skin and into my bones. I was about to go back inside when someone dropped a fleece blanket on my chest and settled on the grass next to me.
“I thought you went to bed.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Brendan said.
Alec sat on my other side, wincing with every move.
I gave him a severe look. “You should be in bed in the infirmary.”
He shook his head, although I could see the effort it took.
“Clancy’s potions and spells have me healing right up,” he said. “Just a little tender, that’s all.”
“I believe that zero percent.”
He reached over and tucked the blanket up around my chin, then gingerly leaned back until he was lying beside me. Brendan threw himself backwards, and we watched the stars in silence for a long time.
“We all lived,” I said, breaking the silence.
It was my greatest consolation. Several of the Daggers and at least one of the wolves were still in the hospital, but they had all pulled through.
Most of the Burnside wolves had made it, too, which was less comforting. But they were safely locked up, far from Brick’s reach, and Grandma said there was a good chance some of them would be willing to testify in exchange for deals.
But Sienna was still out there, and I didn’t know how long it would take before she found a way to break her allies free.
“We all lived,” Brendan echoed.
“Some of us better than others,” Alec said dryly. He shifted a little and let out a soft groan.
“The Waterfall Palace seems to respect what we did, too,” Brendan said. “The queen invited me to bring a few wolves there when we’re feeling better. She wants to meet us.”
“That’s awesome.”
“Yeah.”
We fell silent again. A soft breeze rustled the forest behind us, and a single cloud drifted across the face of the waxing moon.
“And Brick’s in jail,” Alec said.
“That’s what he gets for being one of those big bad wolves who give the rest of us a bad name,” Brendan said. He smirked. “He stalked someone in a house of straw. His pack attacked a bunch of people in a house of sticks. And now the head of the House of Brick gets to rot in prison. It’s sweet, as justice goes.”
“Sienna’s not in there with him,” I said.
I sat up, suddenly hot with anger. I had fought her with everything in me, and had won, and she had still gotten away. It made my blood boil.
Nothing could take away the sting of it. Not Ginger telling me last night that I’d risen to the occasion back in the corn field, or Rose telling me that she looked forward to following the woman I would become. Not Grandma hugging me tightly and whispering how proud she was, or Mom delivering the news that Brick had been put away for life.
Everything else aside, Sienna was still free. Every other victory was diluted by that knowledge.
“Maybe she’s dead,” Alec said brightly.
I snorted. “Grandma ran a spell to check for that, too. She’s out there.”
She was out there, and she was waiting. She would attack again.
We had to be ready.
Stiletto
A Crimson Daggers Novel #3: The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids
1
“Drop your chin,” I barked.
Adamine lowered
her head and lifted an arm to block Kamala’s strike. I observed them for a moment, making sure their stances were strong and their focus sharp, and then moved to the next sparring pair. Across the ballroom, Mom watched me with narrowed eyes.
With me being the future Stiletto and leader of the coven, the tone of my training had changed. Now, I didn’t just learn combat from Mom and magic from Cardinal Saffron, I had to learn how to teach those things, too. I had to know every corner of the coven and how everything worked. It was overwhelming and everything I had ever hoped for.
“Remember to breathe,” I said to Maple, whose shoulders were creeping up toward her ears. “A relaxed Dagger is a responsive Dagger.”
She took a deep breath, shook out her shoulders, and danced around her opponent. She looked a bit like an overexcited squirrel, but, I reasoned, we’d all had to start somewhere.
Mom gave me a small nod of approval from across the ballroom that served as our training space, and she and I continued circling our charges, Mom coaching the novices, me doing my best to guide the teens. In a far corner of the room, Rowan worked with the youngest members of the coven, the ones who were barely old enough to train. She crouched down to get at Flynn’s eye level. The four-year-old listened intently to whatever Rowan was saying, then nodded and got back into her adorable little fighting stance.
I remembered being that age and how powerful I had felt when I’d finally been allowed to train with all my older sisters. I remembered Rowan’s freckled round cheeks and Autumn’s high ponytail and the sharp precision of Sienna’s movements, even at that age.
Autumn, who was now in prison for aiding and abetting the murder of several members of the Wildwood werewolf pack—the pack that now lived on the sanctuary of the coven’s land.
Sienna, who was still out there somewhere, lying in silent wait and taunting me with her absence.
Ember hooked a leg behind Sorrel’s knee and jerked, and Sorrel hit the ground with a thud. I jogged over and dropped to a crouch.
“You okay?” I said.
She winced and looked up at me. “Tailbone.”
“Clancy will fix it later,” I said. “Now get up and keep fighting.”
I could see that she wanted to protest, but I wasn’t just her older coven sister now. I was the future Stiletto, and my word was law.
To her, anyway.
The younger girls, at least, saw me the way I saw Mom and Grandma. My older sisters, on the other hand, still seemed torn between accepting me as a coven leader and seeing me as someone whose diapers they’d changed.
I held out a hand. Sorrel took it, and I pulled her back to her feet.
“Ow,” she announced. She turned to me. “How am I supposed to beat her when my entire butt is in pain?”
“Don’t focus on winning,” I said. “Focus on learning. There’s fifteen minutes still on the clock.”
She sighed sharply, then tucked her chin and got back into position.
“Sorry,” Ember said to her, and then they were back at it, throwing punches and grappling and honing the skills that would keep them alive someday.
Finally, the bell rang, signaling the end of the training period. I gave the girls a few last pointers, then waved them off to shower and eat lunch before their next lessons. Mom caught my eye and jerked her chin toward the ballroom door.
Brendan stood there. My heart jumped, sank, and jumped again all in the course of a second.
The Wildwoods had gotten a lot more comfortable in the mansion over the past few months, but even now, Brendan seemed a little unsettled within these walls, and he lingered behind the door as if he didn’t know whether he was allowed into our training space. I wasn’t sure whether his unease came from the mansion itself, filled as it was with witches whose sworn mission was to rid the world of rogue werewolves and evil vampires and other things that went bump in the night, or whether he was just skittish around me.
Up until recently, Brendan had been all confidence and swagger. But ever since we’d combined our forces to take down a violent rival werewolf pack a few weeks ago, he’d been acting strangely.
I followed him down the hall and outside. The autumn air was sharp with November chill, and the mansion lawn was covered with red leaves from the maple trees that shaded the property. Overhead, the sky threatened rain.
He turned, looking almost awkward. It was a strange thing to see.
“Hey, did Alec talk to you?” he asked.
“Not today,” I said.
A sinking feeling formed in my stomach. I knew what this was about.
Ever since Brendan and Alec and I had first met, I’d been up to my neck in work. I’d been pushing my way through my Dagger novitiate, helping Grandma run her growing fashion house, and occasionally taking down entire werewolf packs. Brendan had flirted with me plenty during that time—he couldn’t help himself—but there hadn’t been a spare moment for any of us to think about feelings we might have for each other while we were so busy trying to stay alive.
But now Sienna was lying low. The Wildwoods had finished building the den on Grandma’s property, and I had figured out a delicate balance between my Stiletto training and my fashion design work at Carnelian.
In short, things had gotten quiet.
And the quiet had given Alec time to walk up to the mansion a few times and talk to me in a way that felt more like flirting than work.
Which had given Brendan time to realize Alec was talking to me.
Which had led to a kind of tension I’d never dealt with before.
Sure, I’d made out with random dudes at parties and nursed crushes on guys I met through work. Rowan was still in vague touch with her birth father, and I’d hooked up with her cousin once when I’d gone with her on a visit. I’d met men before. But as a Dagger, living in a mansion full of women, I’d never actually been in a position to form a relationship with a man.
Now I had two guys living next door, and they both wanted my attention.
2
I frowned at Brendan and took off across the lawn as a light rain misted across my skin. He seemed startled, then jogged to catch up with me.
“Where are you going?”
“Greenhouse,” I said shortly.
He followed until I stopped at the greenhouse door. I didn’t know why I’d come here, except that I’d had to start moving before the awkwardness of the moment caught up to me. I pushed the glass door open and stepped inside. Humid warmth engulfed me, along with the scents of damp earth and growing green things.
“Do you not want to talk to me?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, no. I don’t not want to talk to you.”
He paused while his brain caught up with that train wreck of a sentence, and I marched deeper into the greenhouse and looked for some excuse to be in there. I found it in a spray of flowering fire basil, which had put out new buds. I was planning to make charm bags to help the teens get stronger control on the fire element, and these buds had to be harvested before they opened to do any good in the bags.
This was a Glimmering herb, unknown to the outside world where witches and big bad wolves and magical plants were nothing more than fairy tales. We had to grow it in the greenhouse, partially because it didn’t like too much water but mostly because we’d get in a lot of trouble if seeds from this plant drifted on the wind toward Humdrum property. Humdrums didn’t know about fire basil, which also meant they didn’t know to watch it for spontaneous combustion.
I pinched off the tight orange buds while Brendan came up behind me. His hand brushed against the small of my back, and heat bloomed from the spot he had touched. My breath caught in my throat, and I stood frozen until he pulled the hand away.
“Is that not okay?”
“It’s not not okay.”
There I was again, massacring the English language. I stepped away from him. “It’s just—”
“It’s Alec, isn’t it?”
It wasn’t not Alec.
But I didn’t
say that aloud. I pressed my lips together and tried, for once in my life, to think before I spoke. Finally, I dropped the handful of fire basil buds into an empty clay pot and turned to face him.
“I haven’t had time to think about any of this,” I said. “Like, since we met. And now there’s you, and there’s Alec, and you both clearly want something.” I gestured pointlessly at the air between us, like their interest was a physical thing I could shoo away.
Not that I wanted to shoo it away. But I didn’t want to accept it, either.
Brendan smiled, just enough that I could tell my getting flustered had amused him. “Of course I want you,” he said. The smiled widened. “Look at what we’ve done together. We’re a hell of a team. You’re a hell of a woman.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. The words were impatient, and it took me a moment to correct them. “Not that I’m a hell of a woman. But we do work well together.”
“But Alec’s in the way.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“He’d like to be in the way,” Brendan said.
“I’m becoming aware.”
He leaned in toward me, and it took everything I had not to close the few inches between our mouths.
“I’ll fight him for you,” he said. The corner of his lip curled up in a smirk.
I shoved Brendan away. Getting some distance between us was a relief, not because I didn’t want his closeness, but because I wanted it a little too much.
“You and Alec were divided for years before you made up,” I said. “I’m not getting in the way of that.”
“What if I want you to?”
“Not everything is up to you,” I retorted. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Daggers don’t do relationships.”
He folded his arms and propped himself against one of the raised beds lined in stone and filled with thriving herbs. He raised an eyebrow. “How’d you come to exist, then?”
It took me a second to realize what he was implying, and my cheeks flushed like I was twelve years old and barely apprised of the facts of life.