by Mindy Klasky
“It’s not that simple. They’re werewolves, not shifters. They don’t keep any conscious memory of what they do in wolf form. They know where they stood when they turned last night. And they know where they woke this morning. But everything between is lost.”
David suspected his frustration was nothing compared to the alpha’s. Nevertheless, he started half a dozen sentences before he settled on, “So that’s it? It’s gone forever?”
Connor sighed. “Not forever. They can take us to it next month, when they’ve turned again. But I can’t wait that long to get it back. Not with the rest of the pack grilling steaks in the back yard. Apolline will have to negotiate.”
“You don’t have a leg to stand on!”
“I have four,” Connor said, his lips quirking ruefully inside his beard. He sobered and said, “I just need you to explain all this to the salamanders.”
David’s laugh was harsh. “Can’t do it. Pitt is waiting for any excuse to terminate me.”
Connor flexed his fingers, taking care to show David the flat of his left palm. Not just the flat of his palm—the long white scar that bisected his flesh.
Reflexively, David glanced at his own hand, at the matching scar glinting against his silver ring. “Forget it,” he said.
“Blood brothers,” Connor answered. And just like that, David was back in the basement of his father’s house, bracing Rosefire against a workbench with his left hand, biting hard on his lip to find the courage to slash his palm against the blade.
“We’re not ten years old anymore,” he said, folding his fingers into a fist to hide the evidence of boyish folly.
“I need your help,” Connor said. “Back me up at just one meeting. I can’t lose face with the pack when they’re already straying.”
I can’t. I’m afraid of the consequences.
But that’s not what Connor would have said, no matter what enemy they faced, no matter how much personal danger loomed. “Con…” David said, fighting for the right words.
“You need to stand up to that bastard,” Connor said.
For just a moment, David pictured doing just that. He could best Pitt in any physical fight; that wasn’t a question. He was willing to stake his magical ability against his boss’s any day. But David was a creature of rules and regulations. He’d learned on his first day in the Academy that any warder who openly declared war against another would automatically be deemed unfit to serve a witch.
And there was one witch he was pretty sure would need protecting, sooner rather than later. No matter what promises she’d made to him the night before. One witch whom Hecate had led him to…
“What?” Connor asked.
David was annoyed he’d given something away without saying a single word. “Nothing.”
Connor sniffed, reminding David that the shifter had a whole range of senses beyond the human. “You weren’t thinking about Pitt there.” Another sniff, more of a snort this time. “Who is she?”
He wasn’t surprised to hear the question—chagrined, but not surprised. And he knew damn well he couldn’t get away with a lie. Connor was like a dog with a bone when he’d caught scent of a secret. “A new witch. I met her last night, just before you called.”
“What’s her name?”
“Jane. Jane Madison.”
Another telling sniff. “You like her!”
“I barely know her.”
Connor whistled, long and low. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
David shook his head. “She’s a pain in the ass. Worked her first spell without a clue. She woke a familiar on the night of a full moon.”
“Sounds like she needs a little expert…guidance.” Decades of familiarity turned the last word into a dirty joke.
“Get your mind out of the gutter. If I work with her, I’ll be her warder. Nothing more. But it’s a moot point anyway. She promised not to work any more spells.”
“Whatever you say, dude.” Connor’s shoulders shifted beneath his sweater vest. “But you warders are way too uptight. You need to give in to your wolfish side once in a while.”
Right. Like your brutes did, stealing the karstag.
But David recognized his friend’s need to blow off a little steam. So he settled for flashing Connor an obscene gesture before he fumbled for another beer—anything to take a break from the current conversation.
Before he could snap the cap off, magic splashed across his consciousness. A wave of jasmine rolled on a torrent of golden light that flooded every synapse in his brain. For just a heartbeat, he thought he was trapped in the past, reliving the moment he’d first been summoned to the cottage in the garden. But no drumbeat rolled across his astral hearing this time. No steel string pulled him toward the Osgood collection.
Jane Madison was working another spell.
10
He materialized on the threshold of Jane’s cottage, having left behind Connor, Spot, and a perfectly good evening relaxing in the privacy of his own home. The power of the witch’s spell was different this time—bigger, wider, and filled with more pure potential than he’d ever imagined a witch could have.
But she’d promised not to work more magic, so he closed his fist around the Hecate’s Torch in his pocket—the symbol of his own vow to keep witches safe—and he turned his words to iron as she opened the door. “Miss Madison,” he said.
Her cheeks were flushed. She was dressed in black stretch pants and an over-size T-shirt, as if she’d just strolled in from the gym. One hand rested on the doorknob, and the other curled around a highball glass that sported a cloudy half-circle of liquid in the bottom. Green flecks of mint clung to the side. “Would you like a mojito?” she asked.
He pushed into the living room. “I thought we’d reached an agreement.”
“We did,” she agreed readily enough. “I didn’t work a spell.”
He didn’t even need to voice his skepticism. She read his expression flawlessly. “Well, I didn’t mean to,” she amended. She looked at her arm, as if she expected it to fly away under its own power. “Um, I’m not even sure it worked.”
Just that morning, he’d gotten Pitt to divulge everything the toad knew, just by keeping quiet. He applied the same technique again, tightening his jaw and waiting to see what Jane Madison would confess. She broke even faster than he expected.
“I don’t even know what it was supposed to do!”
“And that is precisely why you should have some guidance. Some training.” He sighed and gestured toward the basement door. “You might think that this is all Bewitched, but I can assure you it is not. There are consequences for your behavior.”
“My behavior! What about Neko! He’s the one who made this happen. He’s the one who gave me the stick—”
“Neko.” He raised his eyes to the kitchen doorway. Sure enough, the familiar stood there unabashed, holding his own mint-traced glass.
David craned his neck and caught a glimpse of a spell-book on the kitchen table: A Girl’s First Grimoire, opened to the love spell. He recognized the formula because Haylee had once tried to work the same magic on him. She’d thought she had enough raw power to get past the spell’s automatic block on a witch’s own warder. She’d been wrong, but the attempt had proven mortifying for both of them.
And now Jane Madison had tried the same working.
In the presence of a mundane.
Because a third person stood in the kitchen, a woman. She was short, barely as tall as Neko, and she was dressed in the same gym gear as Jane Madison. Her shoulder-length blond hair was blunt cut, and her eyes were shrewd.
Apparently he passed whatever inspection she made, because she nodded and ducked back into the kitchen, only to reappear holding a pottery plate sporting some sort of chocolate-covered pastry. She ducked her head and peered up at him through glistening eyelashes. “Lust?” she asked.
Caught by surprise, he blushed.
Neko gasped.
David couldn’t say whether the familiar reacted to t
he woman’s blatant flirtation, or if he was shocked to catch a discomfited warder. In any case, his voice was gruff as he demanded of Jane, “Who is this?”
“My best friend. Melissa White. She’s a baker. Almond Lust is her specialty.”
Well, that explained the come-on. Hopefully.
“Look,” Jane said. “I had a really crappy day, and she brought the bars over, and we decided to make some drinks, and she asked about the library downstairs, and Neko brought up one of the books.” Apparently realizing she was rambling, she caught a deep breath.
And he nodded, because he knew all about really crappy days. But none of that explained why she’d worked a spell, especially after she’d explicitly promised to leave magic alone. Even if she were inclined to experiment with the books in her basement, her familiar should have known better. David turned to glare at Neko.
The creature was suddenly fascinated by his empty glass. “Whoops!” he said. “Time for a refill!” He dashed into the kitchen with a theatrical flair.
The familiar’s antics gave Jane Madison the moment she needed to regroup. David watched her steady determination as she crossed the room and collected her friend’s pottery plate. She settled the pastry on the coffee table in front of the two couches. Without any visible hesitation, she sat on one of the overstuffed cushions, adopting an unconscious air of authority.
In other words, she acted like a witch.
So he acted like a warder.
He sat beside her, scarcely waiting for Melissa White and Neko to follow suit. “This has to stop,” he said. “You don’t understand. Witchcraft is powerful. The surges you released from the house tonight could be felt for miles.”
“Felt?” Jane Madison’s voice was suddenly very small.
But he drove his point home, fully intending to put the fear of Hecate in her. “By warders. And other witches. And by the creatures that seek them out.”
She rubbed hard at her arms. Still, she set her jaw defiantly. “Now you’re just trying to frighten me.”
“I hope that’s what I’m doing.” He leaned forward and reached for her glass, settling it on a slate coaster. Her fingers were cooler than he expected. “Listen. We can end all this right now. The Covenants grant priority to any witch who actually possesses the materials—books, runes, crystals. You don’t have to take advantage of that presumption, though. If you’d like, you can give back everything in your basement.”
“Give it back?”
The three words shot adrenaline into his heart. He didn’t want her to know her options, even if he was bound to tell her. He forced himself to say, “The coven would gladly accept them. As it is, they’ll likely contest your ownership, but things move slowly in Hecate’s Court.” Then, because she had to understand, he used her first name. “Jane, this is serious.”
Neko snorted.
David rounded on the familiar. “Laugh all you want. But you’ll be the first thing transferred if Hecate’s Court takes over. And no other witch will awaken you on the night of a full moon.”
Neko squirmed for a moment before looking away. David returned his attention to Jane, only to find that he couldn’t look away. Her eyes were hazel, dark gold flecked with green. A spray of freckles splashed across her nose. When he’d seen her the other night, he’d thought her hair was brown, but in this light, he could see it was shot through with red.
For just a moment, he imagined kissing her.
Connor had planted the thought, damn his wolfish abandon. The baker friend hadn’t helped, with her coy offer of Lust.
He could smell mint on Jane’s fingers, along with lime. He’d taste mojitos on her lips, sweet rum beneath her own hidden flavor.
She felt something too. He saw that—in the flush of her cheeks, in the sudden softness around her eyes. She leaned toward him, just a fraction.
And her motion broke the spell.
Spell.
She was a witch.
He was a warder.
And Hecate wasn’t likely to be impressed with his kissing a newfound witch, a woman vulnerable with power she’d scarcely begun to understand. He should be spending more of his energy thinking about how to please the goddess than how to seduce Jane Madison. A hell of a lot more of his energy.
“So,” he said, pulling himself back to the edge of the couch. He ordered himself to think about ice storms. Blizzards. Glaciers calving in the Arctic Sea.
She blinked hard, clearly coming to her own senses. “So, what now?” she asked.
She phrased it as a question, but he could hear the decision in her tone. She’d already accepted his basic proposition. She’d stand against the court. She’d fight for the Osgood collection.
Neko understood that too. He started bouncing up and down on the couch, like a kid who’d been handed the keys to a candy shop. Or a City Center fashion boutique, as the case might be. “Yes!” the familiar exclaimed. “This is going to be perfect!”
The mundane best friend lagged behind. “What?” Melissa asked. “What’s going on?”
David looked back at Jane. “Will you tell her, or shall I?”
She swallowed hard before she pieced the words together. “I’m going to learn about this. I’m going to learn how to be a witch.”
“First things first,” he said, glancing toward Jane’s empty glass. “No more alcohol.”
“For tonight?”
“For good.”
Melissa laughed like he’d told some sort of joke. “Well that’s not going to happen,” she said.
As Jane glared, he addressed his reply to the mundane. “It will, if she wants to learn more.”
His words set Jane off. Her spine straightened, and her eyes narrowed, as if she were looking at something in her past. She broadcast the air of a strong woman who wasn’t about to let any man tell her what she was going to do or when she was going to do it.
Meeting his eyes, she said steadily, “I won’t drink when I’m working with you. I won’t drink when I’m being a witch.”
Neko laughed. “You’re not the one who gets to set the rules!”
Jane scowled at her familiar before she turned back to David, her gaze as hard as jade. “I’m serious,” she said. “It’s not like Melissa and I get drunk every night. But I can’t let this witchcraft thing take over my entire life.”
“This witchcraft thing…” He shook his head. “You don’t understand—”
“And I’m not going to, if you set rules that change who I am. I won’t let you lock me up in a convent.”
Convent? Where the hell did that come from? He definitely wasn’t thinking of Jane as a nun.
But her furious blush made him realize he had to give her something. Hecate would want one of her witches to think she’d won. And he needed to impress Hecate, if he didn’t want to work for Pitt another year.
“Very well,” he said.
“Very well?” Neko squeaked.
David chose his words carefully, crafting a compromise syllable by syllable. “Very well. You may have a drink, or two. But not when you’re working magic. And not when we work together.”
It wasn’t perfect. His father never would have agreed to a pact like that. Pitt would throw an absolute fit if he found out.
When he found out. Because this arrangement was going to end up front and center at the court, at the Washington Coven, everywhere. There was no way a witch of Jane’s power could be kept secret.
But David extended his hand, waiting to see if she’d accept his offer.
Her lips curled into a wide smile. She took his hand firmly and shook three times, as if she’d just negotiated the land-grab of the century.
He didn’t allow himself to consider the meaning behind the wave of relief that threatened to swamp him. Instead, he said, “We’ll start tomorrow.” But it was already nearly midnight. He clarified. “Rather, Wednesday. With dinner.”
“With dinner.”
David nodded decisively. He’d gotten what he wanted. He could see a clear path
to the future. To Samhain, even. And beyond. Before anyone could say anything to set things back, he headed toward the front door.
But then he remembered that pottery plate with its glistening chocolate pastry. He hadn’t eaten dinner; he’d planned on feeding Connor roots and leaves and whatever else he could summon from his refrigerator to satisfy the vegan shifter.
He rounded back on the table and scooped up one of the bars before anyone could say a word. The first bite was heaven—shortbread and almonds and that coating of rich dark chocolate. “Mmmm,” he said, chewing carefully before he swallowed. “Lust, indeed.”
Melissa’s jaw dropped, and Jane’s face flamed crimson again. Which didn’t exactly make him unhappy.
He met his witch’s eyes. “Until Wednesday,” he said.
“Until Wednesday,” she echoed as he stepped into the night.
11
Very slick, Montrose.”
Pitt spoke from the shadows before David made it halfway across the garden. David swore silently.
He hadn’t lied when he told Jane her spell had been felt far and wide. Sure, he’d gotten a stronger blast, because he’d already been reached by the collection. But every witch and warder in DC knew something powerful had happened on the grounds of the Peabridge Library that night.
At least David had gotten to the cottage first. And now Jane was stepping up as the rightful owner of the Osgood collection.
For now, a stinger of doubt weaseled into his brain.
Swallowing hard to chase away the last vestige of pastry, David planted his feet on the gravel path. For just a moment, he imagined telling Pitt he was quitting his job at the court. He was going to work for Jane full time.
But she wasn’t ready for that. She might crumple the first time he told her about the true extent of modern witchcraft. Their dinner might be a disaster. And then he’d be back at square one, without proof of his dedication to Hecate, and Samhain looming even closer. So he closed his fingers over his Torch and managed to keep his voice mild as he answered Pitt’s sneer. “Nothing slick about it. I’m sworn to protect witches, wherever they’re in need.”