by Kaia Pierce
In the end, I decided that it was.
We moved into the kitchen, and I sat across the table from her as she assembled the ingredients for the spell.
“By the way,” Sarah said as she pounded dry herbs with her mortar and pestle, “I have some leftovers from a spell I did this morning if you want it.”
“What does it do?” I asked.
“It’s a secret light in the dark. It’ll be a big help, trust me.”
Keeping my earlier promise in mind, I asked, “And what will I owe you for that?”
Sarah shrugged again. “Nothing.” Then, she laughed. “It’s already mixed, so it won’t cost me anything. I’m giving it to you because I like you. You’re a lot more interesting than Kaden Daniels. So do you want it or not?”
I figured I needed all the help I could get. “I’ll take it.”
Sarah handed me the finished invisibility spell, neatly packaged in a fist-sized leather pouch. Then, she dug out a smaller pouch from a kitchen drawer. This one had two long drawstrings, which she tied in a knot and hung around my neck.
“Make sure you keep this to yourself,” she said. With nimble fingers, she picked at the collar of my shirt and dropped the pouch underneath it.
Now, I could still feel that spell sitting right on top of my chest. My meeting with Sarah had merely been a few hours ago, but the little pouch seemed to be vibrating, as if it was already pulsing itself to life.
Kaden cleared his throat, and my fingers twitched around the pouch in my hand, the only spell Kaden knew about, the one he thought would gift us with super-strength.
“It’s almost time. You ready?” he said.
I shoved the leather pouch into my jacket pocket, ignoring the growing sense of dread inside of me. “Ready.”
Once again, it was another lie, but this time I had no choice. Garland expected us to show up, and the head witch expected her favor. The trap was set. Now, I had to see it through.
Kaden backed out of the parking spot, and we hit the highway, heading east with the sun setting at our backs.
By the time it rose again tomorrow, everything would be different.
*
The trees of Dover Forest Park looked gnarled in the silver moonlight, their branches like groping fingers against the night’s shade. I couldn’t help but shiver, thoroughly creeped out by their ominousness, by the darkness, by the silence. Kaden walked steadily beside me, his jaw set in a way that made me think he was trying very hard to stay quiet.
“Something on your mind?” I said.
Kaden didn’t answer for several seconds. His silence made me wonder if I should ask him again a little louder, but he suddenly stopped and grabbed my arm before I could get the chance.
“Caleb,” he said softly.
I turned around and stared down at his fingers against my bicep, and then I looked at his face. A shadow fell over his left eye, but the serious lines of his expression were clear.
“There’s a good chance that we might not make it tonight. How confident are you in that spell in your pocket?” he said.
I saw a flash of distrust in his eyes and felt a stab of resentment in return. Kaden and I had the same face, yet I hated him with every fiber of my being. I hated him enough to pretend to be his ally for this long, just to make sure I would fulfil my life’s purpose.
I’m so close to the end! I thought desperately.
“I’m extremely confident,” I said.
Kaden nodded. “Good. In that case, I can’t wait to be a good uncle to your child.”
He extended his hand to me. Numb with shock, I took it without thinking and shook hands, locking us together in a secret, unspoken promise to survive tonight. Kaden believed in me and the little spell in my pocket.
I thought it should make me feel powerful, but it didn’t. The moment Kaden brought up the child, my mind instantly went to Liam.
My gaze rose to the night sky. How many miles until you leave the state? I wondered, imagining Liam’s sedan streaking down the interstate. Suddenly, survival seemed pointless unless I could keep him in my life.
I will survive. I will raise my child.
Reflexively, I tightened my grip on Kaden’s hand. “How can you stand it?” I whispered.
Kaden’s lips parted in surprise. His fingers twitched. “Stand what?”
“Being a father. Being a mate. The instinct to protect your family, feeling that urge every single day?”
To my utter shock, Kaden began laughing.
“You’re feeling that way already? Brother, it’s only going to get worse. Just wait ‘til the baby comes,” he said.
Our hands fell apart, and I nervously wiped mine on the seat of my jeans. If Kaden felt the same way I did just then, how was he not in agony?
“But you seem so happy,” I said.
Kaden finally stopped laughing, but the smile remained on his face. “I don’t know how to explain it, except to say that it’s worth it. Joshua and my kids, they just make it all worth it. I would do anything for them. They give me more love than I deserve, so I’m happy to keep them safe.” He placed a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll see what I mean. Come on. Let’s go.”
His warmth caught me off-guard. Wordlessly, I followed him as he walked past me, more conflicted than ever. I was staring at the back of Kaden’s head, which was identical to my own, and suddenly found myself wondering how my life would have been different if we actually grew up together.
Maybe we would have spent evenings just like this, exploring the woods, having conversations without a soul in sight to hear us.
I always wanted a brother.
But that was before, when I still lived with my adoptive parents, before I even knew of Kaden’s existence. Finding out about my twin, the copy of me that got everything in life while I was discarded, had changed everything.
No, this was the right thing to do. Every hard year of my life led me to this moment. The spell would win the fight, but that win didn’t belong to Kaden. It belonged to me.
“Are we almost there?” I asked impatiently.
Kaden’s head was slightly bent to read the GPS coordinates on his phone. “Just about.”
We hiked for several more yards before Kaden stopped me again.
“Listen. Garland and three of his buddies are standing just on the other side of these trees. I have no idea what they have planned for when they finally spot us. I’m going to be ready to shift at any moment. You have to be ready to slip away with that spell and do what you gotta do to make sure we win,” he said.
His voice was even and steady, but his eyes had the crazed look of a man desperate to get home alive. For the first time, I knew exactly how he felt.
“Of course,” I said. And inside, I swore it. I’m going to win this fight.
His eyes still blazing, Kaden nodded. He took off his leather cut and flannel shirt and hung them on tree branch. He kept his undershirt on, exposing the colorful tattoos running up and down both arms.
He didn’t even shiver.
Chapter 19: Secret Light in the Dark
Tattooed arms bared to the night air, Kaden stood with his back to his brother, facing a row of four majority shareholders of Grayback Industries.
Garland Grayback broke away from the others. He was shirtless and shoeless, wearing only gray slacks. A shudder passed through his body.
It was the last thing Caleb saw before the spell took effect.
Caleb lit the match and dropped it into the mouth of the pouch. The moment its contents caught the flame, all the light in the world ceased to exist, at least to everyone else. To Caleb, it simply appeared as if a thick fog had descended upon the scene.
Caleb glanced down at himself. He was not invisible. He wondered if Sarah lied to him about the spell. But once he looked around at the others, he noticed that he was the only one who could see through the fog. Everybody else had gone rigid with shock, eyes wide as they groped helplessly at thin air.
Secret light in the dark, Caleb t
hought to himself, touching the small lump on his shirt. The spell in his hand had turned everyone blind, and the one around his neck gave him sight. So he might as well have been invisible.
He clutched the pouch in his right hand, where the flame ate up the leaves, bark, and oils of the coven’s spell. The leather was thick and strong. Only a single tendril of smoke drifted out of its drawstring opening.
What next? he wondered.
Caleb began moving through the fog until he was standing in the middle of the clearing, the only sighted alpha amongst the blind. One of the shareholders shouted in alarm. Caleb could see him through the drifting haze.
It was Carl Henderson.
Caleb’s wolf was startled awake the moment he recognized the gold studs in Carl’s ears.
The alpha who ruined Liam’s life, he thought to himself.
Briefly, he fantasized about how it might feel to attack Carl right then and there, but only briefly. Before he could make a decision for himself one way or the other, he spotted another small figure scurrying out of the trees and into the foggy clearing.
Inexplicably, it was the fox shifter, Stevie Bishop. She was in jeans and a crimson Washington State University sweater, wisps of hair falling out of her beanie. She had a gun in her right hand, the same one Caleb had traded to her for the files stolen from Garland’s computer. A leather pouch hung around her neck, covering the “S” in WSU.
She had her very own secret light in the dark.
At this point, Caleb was too shocked to do anything else but watch.
As the other alphas stumbled around the clearing, Stevie made a straight path towards Carl Henderson. He stood with his left side facing Caleb, waving his hands in front of him. He must have heard Stevie’s footsteps behind him, because he made a half turn in her direction. She raised her gun hand and pointed it at his heart.
Her hand flexed as she pulled the trigger.
Transfixed, all Caleb could do was watch.
A loud pop split the air, as if God himself split the earth with his own God-sized ax. A spark erupted from the end of Stevie’s gun.
Less than a second later, Carl’s chest exploded in a shower of blood. Immediately, Stevie ran back into the trees, and the fog began to dissipate as the spell ran its course, slowly restoring sight back to the clearing.
With the tail-end of the gunshot echoing far in the distance, the other alphas swiveled their heads in Carl’s direction. By then, Stevie and her gun were gone. All they could see was Carl’s thick body slumped on the ground, his chest torn open, his face still frozen in that look of blind confusion.
Chapter 20: Caleb
Garland looked both horrified and confused, his face white as bleached bone, as he gazed down at the dead Carl Henderson. Then, he lifted his gaze and searched the clearing, eventually spotting me several feet away.
The moment his eyes landed on the spent spell clutched in my fist, his face paled even further, turning slightly greenish.
“You’re in league with the coven,” he stammered with quivering lips. It was the first time I’d ever seen him afraid.
His colleagues looked immediately stricken. Now, there were only two alphas to back up Garland, a ginger-haired man in his forties and an older gentleman, his graying hair shaved into a buzzcut. Both seemed anxious to leave.
“That’s right,” Kaden said, stepping forward. “The coven knows about this little shareholders’ meeting, and they’re on our side.”
Garland made a twitchy attempt at a smile, but it did nothing to mask the fear in his eyes. “I don’t see the point of involving them over such a small matter. Don’t you agree? How about we forget all of this ever happened and just continue on with the truce?”
“With one change,” Kaden said. “My brother stays, and you don’t bother us.”
Garland chuckled uneasily. “So be it.”
My eyes raced back and forth between Kaden and Garland. “And what about the body?” I said.
It was clear that both of them had almost forgotten about Carl Henderson when their heads whipped to the side to gaze down at his cold body. Already gray with lifelessness as he lay amongst the dry grass, his half-intact body looked like a ragdoll that had been tossed down from the sky. A ragdoll with a jagged, bloody crater in his chest, that is.
“We’ll take care of it,” the elder associate whispered fearfully. The other shareholder looked just as afraid.
Secret light in the dark, Sarah’s voice echoed in my mind.
Everybody must’ve thought that Carl was killed by the witches. I was the only one who saw what actually happened.
Garland nodded silently, his expression guarded, his jaw clenched tight.
“So that’s it, then, right?” Kaden said, raising his voice. “The truce is still on.”
“Yes, yes, it is,” Garland said hurriedly.
He began directing his colleagues to help carry the body away. He grabbed onto the ankles, while the other two took an arm each. Then, hefting Carl with as much ease as if he truly were a ragdoll, they ambled across the clearing and into the woods, unknowingly following the same path Stevie had taken during her earlier escape. I hoped that she was long gone by now as I watched them disappear into the shadowy trees.
Now, it was just me and Kaden.
There were only a few feet of hard, bristly ground separating me from my twin. I looked at him, unsure of how I was supposed to feel, because I’d hoped for him to be dead by now. Mentally, I was still trying to catch up to the moment when Stevie raised her gun at Carl Henderson.
“Well, that was definitely not the spell that I expected,” Kaden said.
I caught myself just in time to remember that I’d expected to turn invisible, but Kaden had expected to gain superhuman strength.
“Yeah,” I said, “but it looks like we didn’t even need the extra strength.” I gestured around us at the empty clearing.
Kaden shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. Sarah told me she was giving you a blindness spell. But I guess that truth serum spell she cast on you didn’t apply to her.”
Half of my brain was still mulling over when the forest was still veiled in fog, but what Kaden said finally tore me back to the present.
“What?” I said numbly.
Kaden grinned, but it wasn’t his usual. He smiled with only half the energy, looking almost defeated.
“Before you went to go meet Sarah,” he began, “I asked her to put a truth spell on you to find out what you were doing here in Riverrun.”
My entire body went cold from head to toe. His words rang in my ears. Dumbstruck, the only thing I could say was, “Truth spell?”
Then, my eyebrows shot up.
The incense.
“I needed to find out if I could really trust you, so I had her do it. Then, I asked Sarah to give us a spell to help defend us against Garland and his shareholders,” he explained as I recalled the swirling smoke and Sarah’s oddly probing questions. He smiled wryly. “She told me the spell would make everyone blind.”
I remembered that I’d felt sluggish sitting there in her living room, inhaling that sweet, heady smoke. I also remembered being a little more honest than I intended.
“So why didn’t you tell me when I lied to you about it being a spell for strength?” I said.
“I guess I wanted to give you a chance, anyway,” he said.
“Even after Sarah told you what I really had planned for tonight?”
Kaden’s face fell, and he looked visibly uncomfortable.
My cheeks were burning, but while most people would’ve felt ashamed or embarrassed, I was simply irritated.
“Don’t pretend that she didn’t,” I snapped quickly. “Yes, I was going to kill you and take over your pack, all right? And I lied to you about the spell because Sarah told me it would turn me invisible. But what happened instead was—”
“That thick, black smoke that floated around everywhere, making it impossible to see? Yeah, I got that part,” Kaden s
aid, raising his voice slightly. Suddenly, he was equally irritated.
“Exactly,” I said without missing a beat. “So if you knew all of that, why didn’t you just kill me yourself? Why did you let me think that my plan wasn’t complete bullshit?”
And let me make a fool of myself? I mentally added.
Kaden sighed, and for an instant I saw a flash of rage in his eyes that reminded me, of all people, me.
“Because you’re my brother, and that’s what brothers do. They look out for each other,” he said stiffly.
Nobody asked you, my mind automatically spat out in rebuttal. But my body moved faster than my mouth. Before I could even utter the first word, I launched myself at him.
My fists swung. Kaden ducked out of the way just in time. The knuckles of my right hand whizzed past his ear, while my left was suddenly caught in Kaden’s grip. He let go when I shoved his chest and sent him sprawling across his back.
I jumped, he rolled, and our limbs caught one another. Now on the ground, we continued to swing at each other. I was aware of his fists pounding my flesh, but there was too much adrenaline in my system for me to feel much pain. Instead, I let my rage propel my own fists against him, feeling a secret joy every time I felt myself landing a punch.
Kaden wrestled himself on top of me. “Let’s not—” he managed to utter before I shut him up with a swift uppercut. He fell to the side, and then it was my turn to be on top.
It was a graceless and clumsy fight. It would’ve been better if we were wolves, but for now it felt good to be human, to look at my brother’s face and be newly inspired to tear him apart with my own two hands.
Unfortunately, my human body was weaker. Once my adrenaline ran out, so did my energy.
“Are you done?” Kaden asked when he noticed me winding down.
I rolled away from him to catch my breath, and he sat up.
“I don’t want to fight you,” he said.
I pushed myself upright and glared at him.
“Why are you doing this?” I said sharply. “You knew I was planning to kill you, so why didn’t you just kill me first? You had the upper hand. You could’ve taken me by surprise.”