by Callie Rose
“Gwen. It’s… it’s nice to meet you. I hope you’ll spare me a bit of your time,” I say quietly, feeling as if I’m navigating a minefield with every word. “We come in peace. We want no trouble, and I promise that we won’t harm you as long as we maintain a truce.”
The witch crosses her arms over her chest. She’s wearing practical clothes—a long-sleeved shirt with faded pants and heavy boots. None of it looks new or particularly elegant, but somehow, there’s still an otherworldly quality about her, a kind of ethereal beauty that shines through her plain clothing.
She doesn’t accept or deny my proposition, only says, “Why are you here?”
“We heard you’re… unattached.” I hesitate slightly, stumbling over my words. That term doesn’t seem quite right for the situation, but I’m not sure what the correct phrasing is. “Um, unaffiliated with a coven. A solitary witch. We’ve come to ask you for help.”
“I don’t have any help to give.” Gwen lifts her chin stiffly, her voice cool. “You might have taken the hint that I want to stay far out of both pack and coven business. Why do you think I live all the way up here? I know where the pack lands are. You must’ve had to trek through dozens of miles of wilderness to find me. That’s a pretty big damn clue I’m not interested in whatever fight you’re chasing.”
I take a step forward. “We aren’t chasing a fight.”
All four of my men growl and move to follow closely on my heels, but I hold out a hand to stop them. They halt, though I can sense they aren’t happy with the situation, especially when I take one more step forward.
“I love these men,” I tell Gwen, motioning to the wolves behind me. “We’re mated. All of us. But with the power of my witch half and the wolf power swirling around inside me, things keep going wrong. I keep manifesting witch magic. I’m terrified I’m going to hurt one of them. I’ve tried to learn control, to practice what little I could. But I need help from someone who knows what they’re doing.”
Gwen’s eyebrows shoot up. Her green eyes are alight with interest now. “Mated? To all four of them?”
“Yes.”
“How unusual. A wolf-witch hybrid mated to four men…” The witch trails off, her shrewd gaze studying each wolf in turn.
She seemed floored by the fact that I’m both witch and wolf, but her sudden interest in the mate bond worries me. It occurred to me then that maybe I shouldn’t have let Gwen know about that particular secret. Even in shifter circles, a female mating with more than one male is apparently rare and non-traditional.
But it’s too late now. I’m all in, and if this is the piece of the puzzle that gets the witch to agree to help us, then so be it.
“All right,” Gwen finally says with a decisive nod. “Come inside, and I’ll see what I can do.”
She turns on her heel and strides off toward the cabin, not even bothering to check to see if we were following.
I hesitate, watching her squared shoulders march away from us. Could this be a bad idea? Could this be some kind of trap?
Well, it definitely could be.
But is it? And is it worth the risk?
My men glance at each other, obviously debating amongst themselves in mindspeak. I’m sure they noticed the same thing I did—how deeply intrigued Gwen was by the mate bond—and they likely harbor some of my same worries. So I stand and wait, breath held, watching as Gwen vanishes through the door of her homestead, leaving it hanging open behind her.
My hands are shaking as I crouch by my backpack and reach inside for something to wear. It was hard enough to stand before that woman naked and exposed while I begged for her help—I’m definitely not staying that way. I pull out one of Amora’s tank tops and a pair of cotton pants that are just a little too big for me, then quickly pull on both and tighten the string on the pants as far as it will go.
I glance around at my mates, adrenaline buzzing like a swarm of bees beneath my skin. “I have to go in. I have to. Will you come with me?”
Moving like a single unit, they all step closer. Archer nods, and Ridge nudges my side, urging me forward.
Trap or not, Gwen is my only hope.
At the very least, I have my four shifters by my side in case anything goes wrong.
With that knowledge helping me cling to my last shred of hope, I lead the way into the witch’s cabin.
16
Sable
I don’t have any expectations of what a witch’s home should look like, but the moment I set foot inside the small cabin, I know I’ve stepped into a place of magic.
Bundles of dried herbs hang from the rafters, creating a forest of fragrant leaves that spreads out over the room. Some of them hang low enough that I have to brush away long branches of sage and rosemary with my fingers as I head toward Gwen.
A small fire burns in the hearth, making the cabin feel stiflingly warm and intensifying the herbal scent. The mantel above the stone fireplace is laden with a number of glass jars full of strange liquids and other things I don’t even want to guess at.
The cabin is simple enough that it’s just one big room with two doors, and Gwen’s small bed sits in one corner, the blankets neatly made up and a number of quilted pillows perched against the headboard. Other than the bed, there’s a storage chest and an armoire, plus a small kitchenette area equipped with a wood stove, a hand-pump sink, and a kitchen table with three chairs.
But much more interesting than the rustic mountain atmosphere of the place are the sigils.
There’s evidence of magic all around Gwen’s home. I notice sigils painted on the walls and floors, black marks on the furniture, and little bits of black smoke twisting lazily in the hazy air. My skin runs cold as I watch my mates pad softly through the room, too close to the black smoke for my comfort, but the wafting magic doesn’t seem to care about their presence. My men eye the smoke warily, hackles raised as if waiting for the other shoe to drop, but nothing happens.
Even as terrifying as it is to see so much witch magic everywhere, as ingrained in this cabin as the trees that built it, something about it feels familiar too. As if an entire half of my soul recognizes the witch magic as an ally, making it feel almost comfortable to be around it.
Reaching down, I slide my fingers into Ridge’s thick fur, and he follows me across the floor of the cabin without a sound. None of my men shift to human form, which makes sense. Even though those forms would be less of a threat to Gwen, they want to stay in their strongest forms, ready to attack if the witch puts even one toe out of line. I know that being in this cabin surrounded by witch magic goes against every instinct my mates have, and I’m infinitely grateful they came with me.
As Ridge said the night I ran off on my own, they’ll follow me even if I walk through hell.
I halt just beyond the kitchen table. It too is covered in black sigils that seem to waver with smoke when I look at them sideways. My heart thunders in my chest, and as if he can sense my rapid pulse, Ridge leans closer to me.
Gwen slides a thick copper kettle into the flames in the fireplace. “Tea?”
“No, thank you.”
She looks up from behind her curtain of red hair, an amused smile crossing her face. “I wouldn’t poison you, wolf witch. It’s not my style.” She straightens and pulled two mugs from the dish drainer on the counter behind her. “I promise you sanctuary while you are here in my home.”
Ridge nudges me with his nose, then glances pointedly at the kitchen table with his eerily human eyes. It’s clear he wants me to sit down and start a dialogue with Gwen.
His silent encouragement helps, but I’m still scared. As much as I want this, as much as I fought for it, I’m afraid of what will happen next. Whether she helps me or not, I have a feeling that nothing will be the same from this moment on.
But I nod and walk forward, choosing the seat farthest from the fire.
Gwen watches the flames lick at the bottom of the kettle as she says, “Sable, you said your name was?”
I nod, but she
isn’t looking at me. The flames reflect off her green eyes as if they live inside her. “Yes,” I say. “My name is Sable.”
“It’s an animal, you know. The sable. Cute little fluffy thing, looks kind of like a cross between a fox and a ferret. The fur is a precious commodity in Russia, used to make sable fur coats that can net a hundred thousand dollars, easily. A symbol of status.” Gwen scoffs and tosses me a look. “They’re commercially farmed, you know. Sables. The Russians breed and raise them only to slaughter them and make a profit off their beautiful coats.”
I don’t know why she’s bringing this up. Is bringing up this atrocity against animals her version of small talk? Maybe she’s been alone too long and lacks normal people skills. But something about the way she said “breed and raise them only to slaughter them” sends a chill down my spine. I think of Clint, spilling his life’s blood onto the ground even as he congratulated himself on a job well done. On breeding me from a wolf and a witch. Boasting how I was to be his great weapon.
“That’s horrific,” I murmur, though what I really want to say is, I empathize with the sables.
“It is.” Gwen snatches a pot holder off the mantel and reaches into the fireplace to remove the copper kettle. Then she turns to the counter and fills both mugs with steaming water. “Humans are the cruelest race on this planet.”
I nod emphatically. “You and I agree on that point.”
Gwen picks up both mugs and joins me at the table, sliding one my way. “So what is it you want, Sable?”
I accept the mug from her, wrapping my hands around it and letting the warmth seep into my skin. She takes a sip of hers, and I consider doing the same to be a polite guest, but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. Logic tells me that if she wanted to kill me, she could’ve done it outside the cabin rather than inviting me in and tricking me into drinking poisoned tea.
But still, I’m not quite ready to hand over complete trust yet.
Rather than taking a drink, I meet her gaze and answer her question as bluntly and honestly as I can. “I can’t control the magic in me, and I need help.”
Gwen brings her mug to her lips again, watching me intently. “Explain.”
Taking a deep breath, I give her a brief explanation of what’s been happening to me. The way my magic seems to have a mind of its own, the way it gets out of my control and tries to push me into doing things I don’t want to do. I stop short of telling her about the voice that comes from the dark cloud, the one that keeps whispering insidious commands for me to hurt or kill my mates.
A disembodied voice telling someone to do bad things isn’t normal, no matter who they are or what magic they carry.
“I just need someone who understands how witch magic works to teach me how to use it,” I finish. “How to rein it in when it gets out of control so I don’t accidentally hurt someone.”
Gwen’s long fingers tap against the side of her mug as she stares at me, an odd look on her face. For a moment, I expect her to say she won’t help us. That she has no interest in dealing with the mess of trouble we’ve brought to her doorstep. That none of this is her problem.
But instead, she looks almost concerned as she speaks.
“Sable, what you’re experiencing isn’t normal for witches. Your magic should be a part of you, as easy to control as your very thoughts. Yes, you’ll need to learn spells and sigils to guide the energy, but your magic shouldn’t be fighting you or controlling you like this. That’s not how it works.”
“What?” The word slips dumbly from my lips. Of all the things I expected Gwen to say when I finished with my fucked up story, that wasn’t one of them.
“Come here to me,” Gwen commands, her gaze moving over my bare arms. “I want to see your scars.”
I’m so surprised by what she’s told me that I immediately get to my feet and circle the table to sit in the other chair beside her. My mates bristle at our proximity, and I can sense just how much they’re not okay with the situation, but I ignore them. Compared to any other avenue I’ve found, Gwen is the absolute best source of magical knowledge.
If she wanted to kill me, she could have already.
I repeat the words over and over in my head as I extend my arm toward her.
Her fingers are cool against my skin as she takes hold of my forearm and turns it toward the firelight, exposing the pale flesh of my wrist. She studies the series of slim, pearlescent scars on my skin for a long moment, before she says, “Call up your power. Just a bit, just enough so that I can see the magic on your skin.”
I flush hot, and it has nothing to do with the fire in the hearth. I hate seeing those black marks pop up on my body and color my scars. But I shove aside my misgivings and close my eyes, focusing on the magic I can always feel just out of sight inside me. It’s like opening a door and letting the energy out—it blossoms through me as if black smoke is flooding every limb.
When I open my eyes, my scars are painted black.
Gwen traces a few lines with her fingertip, her eyes narrowed and dark with worry. She leans closer, examining my bicep before shifting her focus up and over my shoulder to my collarbone. “Are there more?”
I nod and lift the front of my tank top, cringing at the sight of the marks all over my stomach.
She keeps her hands to herself this time, but as her gaze moves over my torso, her face hardens. “These are binding sigils. You’ve been bound to someone, likely to another witch, using the magic of these sigils and through a sort of psychic link that’s been built out of them.”
My mouth falls open. My skin chills deep to my bones as I release my shirt back over my stomach. I let go of my magic as if it’s burned me, shoving it down as deep as I can, and the black marks fade away, leaving my scars the same pale tissue they usually are.
Uncle Clint gave me each and every one of these marks. I always thought… I just thought he cut me up to feel good about himself, because making me hurt made him feel powerful. Even when he was dying and confessed that he tortured me to try to force the witch or wolf out of me, I came to the conclusion that carving into my skin had been yet another way to try to make me snap.
But it wasn’t.
Or at least, it wasn’t just that.
He was marking me with sigils. Sigils that connect me to someone.
What the hell? Is that why I keep having these weird episodes? Why the darkness whispers horrible things to me?
“Do you have any idea who this witch might be?” Gwen asks, jarring me from my thoughts.
I shake my head. “No. I mean, it could have been my fake uncle, but he’s dead. He found me after I ran away from him, in a cabin out in the woods—I always wondered how he managed to track me down, but now I think he must’ve used magic. But if we were connected, wouldn’t his death have…”
Then I recall the words Clint spoke before he died, and my voice dies out on a whisper.
You better hope she doesn’t find out about you.
I asked him who “she” was, demanded to know, but he didn’t have a chance to respond before he lost consciousness. Or maybe he just decided to take that secret to the grave, one last way to fuck with me.
Could the woman he referenced be the person I’m bound to?
“What should I do?” I ask Gwen, and my voice comes out tight and strained. “I don’t understand what this means. Can you please help me?”
The witch drinks from her mug, a line etched between her brows as she stares at me over the rim. When she sets it back down, she sighs.
“It seems likely that it didn’t bind you to the man you thought was your uncle, although he’s the one who cast the spell. Bonds formed by a third party are never as strong, although given the number of sigils he put on you, he was trying to make it as powerful as possible. Still, there’s a possibility that if that other person doesn’t know about you or the bond, they might not have noticed the link between you.”
I have no idea how Gwen can deduce all of that just by studying the sigils scarred in
to my skin, but I’m suddenly grateful as hell that we managed to reach her cabin. Without speaking to someone who knows magic like she does, my mates and I could’ve spent days or weeks guessing at answers without ever getting closer to the truth.
“I think, first and foremost, we should attempt to find out who this person is,” Gwen says, eyeing me with a look of curious fascination. “If manipulated correctly, the bond will help you do that. You can creep into this person’s mind and get a glimpse of who they are and what they know, and they’ll be none the wiser about your presence.”
Ridge lets out a small whine from the other side of the table, and I voice what I’m pretty sure we’re both thinking. “Are you sure they won’t know I’m there?”
“There are no guarantees. But if you follow my instructions, you should be safe,” Gwen assures me.
By this point, I’m ready to trust her implicitly, but a chorus of low growls rise up as soon as she finishes speaking. The other three wolves stalk forward, teeth bared and hackles raised. Clearly, they’re not on board with the idea.
“We have to try.” I turn to face them, meeting their growls with a plaintive look. “We’re closer than ever to getting answers. We can’t stop now.”
I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I can’t communicate with them via mind speak when I’m in human form. I have a feeling if I could speak to them right now, all I’d hear would be a cacophony of arguments against this.
Instead, the whole debate plays out almost silently, punctuated only by soft growls as I hold their gazes for a long moment.
Finally, Ridge huffs in a mixture of agreement and frustration. Archer drops to his haunches and whines in agitation while Dare and Trystan continue to stare darkly at Gwen.