Sophie nodded. “I sure could use a few more eyes and shifter senses helping me try to flush him out.”
Bryce gave her a small smile. “I was hoping you’d say that. I want this bastard, Sophie. Whatever you need, to help you find him and make him pay, I’m in. We’re in,” he said, glancing around at his meager number of pack members. They all nodded or murmured their agreement, and Sophie looked up at Bryce again.
“I’m going to take the Shadow coven back to the meadow for tonight. They deserve this time to mourn, and I need to try to track his family down to have them collect his body,” she said, glancing at Rob’s body. “We’ll be back at it in the morning, watching along with you all.”
Bryce nodded, then shook her hand, a visual, official symbol of the agreement made between the shifters and the Shadow coven. Bryce grinned at her. “I’m pretty sure this is new ground, shifters and Shadow working together.”
Sophie smiled. “I think you’re probably right. Thanks, Bryce.”
He nodded, then shook Calder’s hand and left. As Sophie and the others watched, the shifters shifted to their wolf forms and melted into the surrounding forest, and soon it felt as if they’d never really been there at all.
“Let’s go home,” she said to her Shadow coven. One by one, they faded away. Calder bent and picked up Rob,’s body, and then Sophie took his arm and witchwalked back to her house. She felt relieved that they were working with Bryce’s pack. She hated feeling the strange divide that had existed between her and Calder and their friends after the pack trial.
At the same time, she could feel rage coursing through her, augmented by Shadow. One of hers had died. Murdered. One more name to the list of those Marshall would need to answer for.
And she would make him answer for his crimes, somehow.
She needed to talk to Esme.
Calder lay in bed beside Sophie. It was the pure dark that only came with a moonless night, and, exhausted as he was after everything that had happened over the last couple days, he couldn’t turn his brain off.
The parents of the Shadow warlock who’d been murdered on Bryce’s pack’s land had arrived, weeping, and taken their son home to put him to rest. He knew Sophie had expected anger, blame. She blamed herself, he knew, so why wouldn’t they blame her, too? Instead, his parents had hugged her and thanked her for giving their son a few weeks of peace and feeling like he belonged somewhere. It had left Sophie even quieter and withdrawn than she’d been before.
She’d spent a while on the phone with Esme, filling her in on everything that had happened, and their suspicion that Marshall had been involved. She’d heard her tell Esme, numerous times, to be careful. And when she’d finally fallen into bed with him that night, she’d curled up into him and held him tightly, as if she was afraid he, too, would slip away.
He’d watched her practice with Esme. Aside from the fact that watching her work with Shadow magic had left him more than a little horny, he’d seen that no matter what she believed, there was no way in hell Sophie was evil. He believed to his core that Shadow was evil and twisted. He could feel that, every time he was near any Shadow witch, including Sophie. There was something foul and angry about the energy it emitted. It felt less that way when Sophie used it.
Most likely because when he was looking at Sophie, Shadow magic was the last thing he was thinking about.
She wasn’t a killer. Esme had tried to tell her that she had to be, that she had to put aside the beliefs she’d lived her whole life with as a witch of the Light, to embrace Shadow. And he understood what Esme had said: if all Shadow witches were evil, there would be trouble. He believed that most Shadow witches were selfish and power hungry, and some took those tendencies to evil levels. He could believe that.
He watched Sophie as she slept, still holding on to him. It was easy for people to underestimate her, he realized. She looked so sweet and friendly. She was soft-spoken and kind, the type of woman who carefully picked up spiders and placed them outside rather than squishing them. She loved knitting and baking and gardening, and people took that to mean, for some reason, that she wasn’t as serious or as strong as other people.
The truth was, Sophie was maybe the only person he’d ever known who was completely herself.
As he thought about it, it dawned on him that that was part of what made this Shadow thing so hard on her. Shadow, by its nature, was determined to make her someone else, someone who was ambitious and self-centered.
He nearly laughed. Good luck with that.
She wasn’t perfect. He knew that. She could be cold and standoffish. She could say things sometimes, not realizing how much they hurt. And she had a bad habit of closing herself off from everyone exactly at those moments in which she needed them most.
He fantasized, not for the first time, about packing everything up and the two of them moving where no one knew them, where no one had any idea that they were a witch and a bear shifter and that they’d been cursed and lived through it. Somewhere woodsy, he thought sleepily. Somewhere where they could have a bunch of kids, if Sophie wanted them, and live the quiet, simple life they both seemed to crave.
He knew better, though. She loved this land. She swore that, even now, she could feel the spirits of her foremothers here.
Which was creepy as hell, the idea of generations of witches watching him do all manner of things to Sophie, but he tried not to think about that too much.
If those spirits were out there, he hoped they would finally find a way to make themselves useful. Get off their ghostly asses and actually help Sophie, maybe. Marshall had drained a witch. Calder knew, when Sophie had done that, that it had added to her own power. Marshall was preparing to come at Sophie, building his power so he’d be strong enough to face her. That much was obvious.
Why do it where they could see him doing it, though? Had he really expected them to miss that every trace of Shadow was gone from the guy he’d killed tonight, to buy that he’d been attacked by a wolf?
“What are you thinking about so hard?” Sophie murmured, curling herself closer to him. He wrapped his arms around her.
“How did you know I was thinking?” he asked.
“You’re doing that whole furrowed brow thing. And you kind of look like you want to hit something.”
“Hm.”
“So what were you thinking?”
He considered brushing it off, but he was tired of secrets, even small ones, between them. “Do you think he expected us to buy that a wolf killed that guy?”
“Probably. He likes to sow chaos. It would have driven a permanent wedge between us and the shifter pack, if we’d believed it. If you hadn’t started looking more closely at the body,” she added. “Why?”
“Doesn’t it seem kind of stupid to do this, to make this power grab, where you can see him doing it? Wouldn’t it make more sense to go somewhere else, gain power, and then come at you fully strong, surprising you? I just don’t get the reasoning here.”
“That’s because you’re being logical and thinking strategically. The allure here for him is not in being able to surprise me. It’s in watching me lose more people. He knows how much that hurts me, and he loves it.”
I have never wanted to kill anyone so badly in my life, Calder thought.
“He’s a sick bastard,” he said instead, and she nodded.
“He is. I’m glad the shifters are working with us. This gives us a better chance of finding him before he can hurt anyone else.”
“And before he can gain more power,” Calder added.
“That, too.”
“I’m going to bring Jon in on this, too. He can patrol with all of us. He’s probably a better tracker than I am, and he wants this asshole caught, too.”
“That’s a good idea. The more of us out there looking for him, the better.” She was quiet for a while. “He wants me to blame myself for Rob’s death. I’m sure of that. He had years of watching what guilt did to me, especially after he killed my first husband. I just shut
down. Lost the desire to do anything more than curl up in a ball. He’d randomly hurt people in my life, even people I didn’t know well, like it was some kind of game to watch me hate myself for the things he’d done.”
Calder closed his eyes and held her tighter.
“I think that’s why I’ve spent so much time pushing you away since we found out he escaped. If you’re not in my life, he won’t bother hurting you. Same with Cara and Layla. But it wouldn’t make any difference. He already knows how much all of you mean to me, and I’m not an idiot. I need all the help I can get.” She was quiet for a few moments. “You know those movies where the hero or heroine walks into danger alone, knowing they’re probably going to die?”
“Yeah.”
“I always think, 'how stupid are you?’ I mean, they know this person is dangerous. They know how important it is to catch the villain once and for all, to protect everyone. And now they know where he is, and they’re not going to call for backup, to make absolutely sure that they get the guy? So stupid.”
Calder couldn’t help but smile. Her voice had that far away, dream-like quality it got when she was half asleep.
She went on. “Maybe that makes me weak, that I’m totally fine with accepting help. Or not weak, but just… not tough, or something. I don’t know. I’m not Esme. Esme isn’t afraid of anything, really. She’d walk into that situation without any hesitation.”
“Esme doesn’t have a whole lot to live for, I think,” Calder said quietly.
“Maybe so. Either way, I’d rather be alive than be the type of person people remember as a badass after I get myself killed doing something stupid.”
“I am in favor of this worldview,” Calder said with a laugh, and Sophie pressed her face against his chest. Seconds later, she was asleep, and he felt himself finally drifting off as well. The last thing he thought before he fell asleep was that he hoped he and Jon found the piece of shit warlock before got anywhere near Sophie.
Chapter Fifteen
It had been a week since Rob’s murder. Bryce’s pack, along with Calder and Jon, had been tirelessly combing the forest, trying to track Marshall down. They’d gotten a few random scents, places they could determine he’d been recently, but nothing they could actually track. They were frustrated, and Bryce had confided to Sophie and Calder that their enthusiasm for the endless tracking and patrolling was starting to flag, but that he was doing his best to keep them focused.
Calder spent most of his waking hours patrolling, finally falling into bed beside Sophie exhausted every night. Sophie was worried about him. He seemed almost obsessed with finding Marshall, and Jon was no better. She knew that, for Calder, it was all about protecting her. But she’d never had a close relationship with Jon, even going back to when they were kids. No, Sophie knew that Jon’s dedication to the hunt was about two things: having Calder’s back and avenging everything their family had been through. They’d been cursed, ultimately, because Marshall had used Luc to draw Migisi deeper into Shadow. They all knew that now. Luc’s mistake had been falling in love with Migisi. Nothing more. And as a result, generations of his descendants had been cursed with the same madness Migisi had cursed him with. All of it, every bit of it, had started with Marshall.
Jon had taken care of their father in the last months of his life, when the curse had deteriorated his mind so badly that he was little more than a raving beast. Sophie knew that was what drove Jon. She was grateful he was there. Calder could more than handle Marshall, if it came down to actual fighting. But Marshall wouldn’t fight fair, he wouldn’t fight honorably, and Calder would, because that’s the way Calder was. That was what worried Sophie.
In general, things had been quiet, which made her nervous. She continued learning more about Shadow magic, both from Esme and from her own time sitting, meditating. She’d practiced what she’d done with Esme dozens of times now, and she could manipulate her power fairly easily. She was able to move things with her power with almost no effort at all. Esme was trying to teach her the basics of messing with someone’s biology, either the heart or the lungs, but it wasn’t easy to do without an actual living being to practice on, and Sophie refused to let Esme bring anyone in for that purpose. So she spent a lot of time listening to Esme, and visualizing what it might be like to actually do the things Esme was trying to teach her.
Of course, the idea of stopping someone’s heart made Sophie almost physically ill. But if it came down to her and Marshall, she would do whatever it took to protect herself and everyone else from him. Right now, her plan was to fight him off long enough to render him unconscious, then take the power he’d stolen from Rob, leaving him alive but weak in Shadow. Of course, he’d been able to escape the town’s prison in that condition, but this time, he wasn’t going to a human prison.
Bryce and his pack, between patrol shifts, had constructed a new building on pack land. One that would hold one prisoner. One that would be well-guarded by shifters and witches. He wouldn’t get free again. Of course, Bryce and Calder’s first preference was killing Marshall when they caught him, and she still didn’t doubt that, if they found him first, that’s what they’d try to do. If he happened to die, Sophie wouldn’t feel bad about it, at all. But if it came down to her being the one to do it, she knew she wouldn’t be able to. Even his life, a life that caused nothing but pain and turmoil…. Even taking that life went against every one of her beliefs.
The same beliefs Esme never failed to ridicule. And maybe it was naive to hold onto what she’d believed before. But the alternative, letting Shadow dictate how she would live her life, was something she refused to let happen.
Everything seemed like chaos, but a few good things had come out of it. The shifters were united, mostly, behind Bryce in the face of this threat from outside their pack. She and Esme mostly didn't want to kill one another anymore, though it was close sometimes, especially when Sophie had been practicing for hours and still failing to do what Esme was trying to teach.
But the best thing was the bond she and Calder were rebuilding. She’d been willing to lose him if it meant saving him and his family from further torment from Migisi’s curse. But having him back and feeling their relationship get stronger by the day… it was more than she could have ever hoped for.
Sophie woke every morning, this morning included, wrapped in Calder’s arms, her naked body pressed against his, feeling more loved, more protected, than she’d ever felt in her life. After days spent hunting and training, they spent their nights relearning one another’s bodies, telling each other without words (and sometimes with them) how much they loved each other.
I’m going to marry him, Sophie promised herself as she snuggled into his arms. The sun was shining brightly in the windows, but she had no desire to get up. I’m going to marry him, and live a long, happy life with him.
Finding Marshall and eliminating the threat he posed was the first step to her happily ever after. One more reason to continue hunting him.
As if she needed another one.
After a while, she made herself get out of bed, disentangling herself from Calder. She was going to Esme’s later that day, and she’d promised to meet her friend Thea for lunch. Thea had, from the beginning, been an amazing source of knowledge about both Copper Falls and Migisi. It was handy having an amateur historian and genealogist as a friend, especially when history seemed to be bound and determined to bite her in the ass.
After showering and getting dressed, Sophie put the kettle on for tea and started the coffee pot, knowing Calder needed to hunt in a while and would need the shot of caffeine. He usually ran right after waking up; her Shadow magic still kept his bear on edge, though he’d told her that the more sex they had, the easier that became.
She wasn’t entirely sure if she believed him or not, but she wasn’t going to complain about frequent sex with Calder, either.
The kettle started screeching, and she poured it over the fragrant tea she liked in the mornings, a citrus, green tea mix that she�
��d found the last time she’d been out with Cara.
It had been months, she realized. Literally, months since she’d seen her friends in anything other than a “the world is on fire and we need to fix it” capacity. She missed just sitting around with Cara and Layla, eating pastries and having book club meetings that had absolutely nothing to do with books, for the most part. She wondered, after everything that had happened — after their father’s death at Marshall’s hands, after Layla’s injury, after the battle between their pack and Calder — could they ever be that way again?
She blew out an irritated breath and took a sip of her tea. She was tired of Marshall messing up everything good in her life. Literally, everything. There was nothing she’d ever valued in her life that he hadn’t either flat-out destroyed or twisted nearly beyond recognition.
She felt her Shadow magic start to surge in response to her anger, and she took a deep breath. Not now. I don’t need you right now.
She took another sip of tea and then carried her cup to the front door. She liked sitting out there in the mornings. It was always quiet and she found the sight of the pines swaying in the breeze to be almost meditative. She missed the sounds of the birds that had once performed their own little concert every morning.
She was thinking about the possibility of whether or not she’d be able to get birds back on her land as she opened the door.
She nearly tripped over the body.
Her teacup crashed to the porch as she looked down at the pale, lifeless body of another of her Shadow coven. And not just any member, but Jayda, who had been the one who, she knew, kept the other Shadow witches and warlocks in line and organized their hunting schedules.
She let out a little cry and crouched down, tears stinging her eyes.
“Sophie? What’s—”
She heard Calder come up behind her. She couldn’t speak. Guilt and rage roared through her as she looked down at Jayda’s petite frame.
“Shit,” Calder muttered.
Light's Shadow (Copper Falls Book 3) Page 17