His eyes softened when he looked at me. If fact, they looked a little sad. The vulnerable moment reminded me of the few times in our teens when he’d let his walls down. It didn’t happen often. I was surprised to see that now. “There’s nothing below average about you, Maisie. Not even close.” He said this so quietly and yet so decidedly that I wasn’t certain I heard him correctly. And it softened him to me.
I gulped and pushed my old feelings down deeper. They had no place in my world today. I cared so much for Mason, and I wanted him in my future, no matter what. Not just because he was good, but because he was good for me. I felt guilty for allowing even a sliver of my old feelings to creep up near the surface. It was hard to forget someone you loved. You never really got over it. Like a wound, forever scabbed, you left it alone, hoping one day it would finally heal. You didn’t go picking at it. Simply being near him picked at that old wound. And it stung.
You knew you were almost home when you reached the end of a long, straight stretch of blacktop and the ocean stared you right in the face. From there, you either turned left to head to Queen’s Gate, or right to Clover. I turned right and followed the snaking coastline for another ten minutes. Tall evergreens packed tightly together flanked the road, infrequently broken apart by houses. On the left was the ocean. It came so close to the road that when storms rolled in, the road often flooded, and people who lived along it were cut off from the rest of the town. Until the next day, when the clouds cleared, the water receded, and the only trace of a storm were old nets, sand, pebbles, and seaweed littered on the road.
I started to turn right onto Main Street because I figured I had to go to Laird’s house, the one he’d once shared with my mother, me, and his son, Seth. I choked up and swallowed a hard lump from just thinking about Seth. I didn’t think about him too much because I’d never truly dealt with his death. When I’d left town, I left my grief with it, where it belonged.
Noah pointed straight ahead. “Just keep going straight.”
I turned off my blinker and kept cruising. “Where we going?”
“I wasn’t going to bring a dead body into one of our homes. We’re keeping him in a cabin out in Beaverbank Woods.”
That made sense. Though him referring to Marco as a body didn’t sit well with me. Werewolves didn’t mourn their dead. I never understood why. I suppose these strong, tough men and women didn’t want to have an occasion to show emotions. Sadness equaled weakness to them. When one of their own died, they cremated the body and tossed the ashes. No viewing. No funeral unless it was to avoid suspicion. And after they’d tossed the ashes they rarely spoke of the person again. They moved on with their lives like the person was never a part of them. That just seemed cold to me. But I guess I’d done the same thing after Seth died, so who was I to judge?
Beaverbank Woods was cottage country, mostly hunting and fishing cabins. Over the years, as the economy in Clover failed with the lumber mill fire and the window manufacturing plant going out of business, most of the cabins were left empty. And the land purchased to build on was never fully realized.
I took the turnoff for Beaverbank and continued along the gravel road for a few miles. A handful of basic cabins with wooden walls and shuttered windows dotted the road, but the farther we traveled, the fewer cabins we saw until the road narrowed and the diversity of trees increased. At one section, tall trees with long, flowered branches hung over the road like a canopy. The car rocked gently from side to side as we traversed the growing potholes. My little car was not built for off-roading, and if it got any worse we would have had to get out and continue on foot. Maybe we should have used his car. Wait?
“How did you get to Gravewood, anyhow?”
“You want the truth?” he asked.
“No, lie to me.”
“I stole a car.”
I frowned at him.
“Relax. I had a car I needed to ditch. And it was better to do it in the city than in my own backyard.”
I tapped my fingers on the wheel, debating on whether or not to ask him to elaborate. “Do I even want to know?”
He met my eyes for a long moment. “I doubt it.”
I shook my head at him. The circumstances didn’t matter to me, and I supposed the less I knew the better. I continued driving forward, dodging craters as best as I could, but my night vision wasn’t great and I hit a massive one straight on. A loud thud echoed through the car, and I jumped out of my seat almost high enough to hit the ceiling.
Noah said, “Still a fantastic driver, I see. Some things never change.”
I glared at him. Then the car moved forward lopsidedly, a persistent, hollow, thumping noise sounding with each turn of the tire. I stopped the car and climbed out. Noah followed me. In the dark, with the headlights still shining, I stared at my flat right front tire. I didn’t think I had a spare.
“That’s just great. How the hell am I going to get home?”
“That’s your problem,” he said casually. It wasn’t just him pretending not to care. He genuinely seemed not to.
While I stared at my wheel and shook my head, Noah walked away from me, up the winding path. I turned off my car, locked the door, and jogged after him. I absolutely didn’t want to be stuck in the woods in the dark. Not when there could have been hunters lurking about. I tripped in potholes and over some stray random rocks and thin branches. Noah didn’t notice and didn’t bother to slow his pace. He seemed to forget he needed my help and not the other way around.
“Is it much farther?” I asked, unable to keep the exasperation from my voice. Truth be told, I struggled to breathe normally.
“It’s just up here,” Noah said.
Thank God. The outline of a small cabin appeared in the shadows ahead. As we moved closer, I could barely make out the wooden walls and the closed shutters. Through the cracks, hints of golden light peeked out. Out here, nestled in the thick of the woods, I assumed the structure was a simple hunting cabin. And it was. Just four walls and a chimney puffing some smoke from off the west side. When we got to the porch, I reached out to grab one of the wooden beams holding up the overhanging roof. As Noah knocked on the door in a simple triple-beat pattern, I kicked off some leaves that had stuck to my once-white sneakers. They would never be white again.
A hooting owl on a nearby tree branch caught my attention, and I looked around to make sense of the shadows. Then I returned my focus to the cabin door, worrying what awaited me on the other side. I assumed Laird would be here, and I didn’t look forward to that reunion. Not when I near-loathed him. How would he respond to me? He was the Alpha now. Would that have changed him? It wouldn’t have made him softer. I felt sure about that.
The door creaked as it swung open. Laird’s brother, Rex, greeted us. I heaved a sigh of relief. Seeing Laird would have to wait, and I was grateful for the extra time.
Rex narrowed his eyes on Noah. “I thought I told you to be quick.”
“She had say goodbye to her boyfriend,” Noah said. I didn’t miss the sneer on his face when he said boyfriend. I rolled my eyes.
“It’s good to see you, Maisie.”
A weak smile curled along my lips. “You too.”
I liked Rex. Though he always wore a serious, thoughtful expression, his laugh had always struck me funny. He hadn’t done it often, but I remembered laughing along every time I heard it. It was broken, like a machine gun. And of all the wolves in the pack, he’d spoken up at my stepbrother’s trial to try to help him. He’d been the only one. Not even Laird had done that.
“Can I see Marco?”
Rex nodded and stepped off to the side. Inside, two oil lamps lit the space, one on the counter in the kitchenette and another on the table near the small wood-burning stove. My eyes locked onto the table when I saw Marco’s dead body on top of it. He lay with his shirt ripped open. Blood covered his chest, pooled on the table, and dripped onto the plank flooring. I stopped in my tracks.
Death was hard. No matter whether you loved or hated a p
erson, when you looked at death it made you think of life and how short and how fleeting it could be. Working in a hospital and on a floor that housed palliative patients, I’d seen death a fair bit, but it hadn’t made me numb to it.
I made the sign of a cross over my body. Dad might have been a warlock and had taught me a thing or two about the goddesses, but Mom made sure I had a Christian upbringing. She refused to compromise with Dad where religion was concerned.
After getting over the initial shock of Marco’s lifeless body, I walked over to his side. I looked into his big, brown, unblinking eyes and cringed. Werewolves were so big and strong. Laying here like this, he seemed so young and vulnerable. I reached out and laid my hand on his wild blond hair.
If we removed the magic, or the spell, or whatever had killed him, would it bring him back? It was a foolish thought. People couldn’t be brought back from the dead. At least, not in any way that resembled who and what they once were. Dad once told me raising the dead had consequences—big ones—and you tended to only get an animated body with a demon hitchhiker inside. They liked to do that. Demons. Find a body to cling to in order to escape hell.
Rex joined me at the table, but not Noah. He didn’t come in. Had he left? Not that it mattered. I still didn’t know how I was going to get home. I hovered my hands over Marco’s bloody chest and tried to feel magic attached to his body. Though I wasn’t a skilled witch, I could feel magical energy. I guessed all witches could. Sometimes I felt it in the city or the hospital, but I always ignored it. I preferred everyone to think I was normal, though I most definitely was not. Of course, I felt the normal magic that cursed Marco and his blood ancestors to be werewolves, but I already knew what that felt like so I could easily ignore it.
“There’s definitely more magic here than normal.”
“Normal?”
I shrugged. “You know,” I shrugged, “because of what you are.”
“Oh, right. The curse.”
“But there’s something else.”
I bit my lip and sighed, knowing what I had to do: dig into this poor man’s chest. I’d done a lot of gross things working as a nurse’s aide, but I’d never done or seen anything like what I was about to do now. And I would do it. If one werewolf could have fallen so easily, it meant the others were at risk. Noah, too.
“Do you have any gloves?” I asked.
He tipped his head to the side. “What do you think?”
Sigh. “Right. Here goes nothing.” The hole looked jagged but still round, about the size of a tiny fist. I could easily reach in and dig around, but I wasn’t looking forward to it. I straightened my fingers and held them close together and dipped inside. His flesh was cold and wet, but it didn’t burn. Not like it had burned Noah. I pushed deeper until the hole narrowed and splayed my fingers best I could to search for anything solid, anything I could wrap my fingers around. It took me maybe ten seconds to find it, though it felt like considerably more. “I got it.”
“What is it?” Rex put his closed fists on the table and leaned in for a closer look. He held my eyes and then looked down, waiting to see what I’d found.
“It’s small. Round.” Cold and hard, it was about the size of a large marble. I couldn’t imagine what had shot this into his chest. I tugged at it, but it was stuck to his skin. It wouldn’t give way. “It won’t come out.”
Rex stepped away and spun around. I continued pulling while he opened and slammed drawers at the kitchen counter. When he returned, he had a knife. “If it won’t move, you’ll have to cut it out.”
My jaw fell open. “I don’t…”
He held it out to me. “Take it.”
“Rex.”
“That ball is the only thing we have to help us figure out who did this. Do it.”
I stilled.
“Do it. None of us can.” He held out his hand. He had the same raw, red burn marks on his fingers that Noah had, only it covered every finger on his left hand.
I swallowed a lump in my throat and, with hesitation, I slowly took the knife from him. A goddamned steak knife.
This was going to be messy.
Three
Sweat beaded on my forehead. Carving a small golden ball from the chest of a werewolf made my stomach turn in ways that only vomiting would satisfy. I’d dealt with gross things for my job, but nothing like this. I couldn’t even focus on the object, only on the jagged flesh and the crimson pool of blood on the table. I looked down at the carnage, disturbed and sad for the man who’d lost his life.
Rex lowered his voice and kept his tone soft when he said, “Whoever did this is dangerous. The rest of us could be in danger too.”
“Was anyone else in Kyle attacked or killed?”
He hesitated, but then slowly shook his head. “Not yet.”
“It could have been random,” I suggested half-heartedly.
He gave me a look. “How many humans get shot with a golden bullet that burns werewolf flesh but not a witch’s?”
“Point taken.” I walked to the sink and began to rinse the blood from my hands. It streaked down the metal sink as it curled down the drain. Poor, poor Marco. I hoped he hadn’t suffered.
“Whoever killed him meant to kill a were. Otherwise, they would have used a regular old bullet. No. This bullet had a supernatural’s name on it. I just don’t know if that name was Marco’s.”
“Marco was sweet. I couldn’t imagine him having enemies.”
Rex wouldn’t meet my eyes, and I wondered why. I’m sure they weren’t telling me everything. They never had, so I didn’t expect them to start now. But I knew better than to push for answers they weren’t keen to give.
He handed me a towel. I wiped my hands but kept the towel wadded up in my hands while I thought. Then, I picked the ball up from the counter and drew it close to my face. I swore I saw letters carved along the diameter. They faintly glowed in the dim light. “I need a magnifying glass or something.”
He patted his pockets and then frowned. “I’m fresh out.”
I made a face at him. “I have an idea.” I ran the ball under the warm water. Some of the crimson stains remained, and I scrubbed them off with the edge of the towel before drying it. The faint light shone a touch brighter, and the gold all but sparkled. Satisfied, I pulled my phone from the pocket of my sweater and zoomed in on the fancy scrawl. Under the magnifying lens, the scrawl became a sentence.
“Fyre navid, tortura a tilafyre,” I said, speaking the words in the way I thought they would sound when spoken out loud.
Rex regarded me with his eyebrows arched.
“It’s Wiccan.” Though I couldn’t understand all of it, I did recognize two words: fyre and tilafyre. Fire and hellfire. I peeked at Rex and hoped he couldn’t see my concern. I had a sneaky suspicion Marco would not rest peacefully in his afterlife. The thought made me ill. He didn’t deserve that.
“Fucking witches,” Rex said with a growl.
I raised my eyebrows.
“Sorry. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“What does it mean?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know the language well enough.” I had no living family who were magical and who could teach me. Mom had made me stop doing magic after Dad died in a car accident. She said it was dangerous, and she made me bury my Book of Witchcraft before we moved to Clover to start our new life with my stepfather—who I never considered could be a werewolf and have magic of his own kind. We didn’t know we’d married into another world of magic until almost six months later.
“We need to know what that says and find a way to stop the next bullet from killing someone else.”
“Of course.” I was still upset with the pack, some members in particular, but I didn’t want anyone else to die, not if I could help it. “I’ll do whatever I can.”
He quieted. I should have comforted him, but I knew he wouldn’t accept it. It would have been awkward, and there wouldn’t have been any benefit to that. Not for him, and certainly
not for me.
“Do you need a minute?”
He nodded, his head hung low. Then he pulled up a chair near Marco’s body. He bowed his head and closed his eyes and said nothing. The moment felt really personal, and he didn’t need an audience. Marco was his sister’s kid, and they’d been close. As far as mourning went, this might be all Marco got from his pack members. I pushed the ball into one of my sweater pockets and stepped outside, lightly pulling the door shut after me.
It surprised me to find Noah siting on the porch, gently rocking in his chair and staring out at the forest. The trees swayed with the slight breeze, and the leaves crinkled. He watched carefully, his red eyes searching for danger. I could see it in the set of his jaw and the rigidity of his back. He sat straight up, his arms on the armrest, but his hands clutched the wood, like he was ready to spring at the smallest hint of danger. He didn’t look my way.
“Still dead?” he asked.
I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. But then, I didn’t always get his sense of humor. “I can’t heal him.”
“You healed a bird that fell out of a tree the night of your graduation. Did you forget that?”
I hadn’t. It was one of the reasons I wanted to work in a hospital. Why I’d tried, though unsuccessfully, to replicate what I’d done to that bird on patients who were in pain or who had cancer or terminal illnesses. Because one magical night I’d wanted to help a living creature, and I shockingly found the magic inside of me to do it.
Anthony Melvin had gotten good and drunk. He’d climbed a tree and knocked out a nest of birds. Then he’d fallen out himself. He was mortal and he’d survived, though he’d passed out shortly after a laughing fit. I’d gone to him to make sure he still had a pulse.
I’d seen the birds earlier that night, young and about ready to fly on their own. Two had been killed, but one tried to flap it wings and couldn’t quite make it off the ground. When I’d picked it up, I’d noticed its wing lay crooked. I didn’t mean to heal it. I mean, I’d wanted to but didn’t know I could. I cupped my hands around it and quietly prayed for it to be okay. Noah came up to me, real close, and put his arms around me. I’d almost thought it was for comfort, but it had been something else entirely. He told me my hands were glowing. He was trying to hide me so everyone else couldn’t see I wasn’t like the rest of them. When my light died and he’d stepped away, I’d opened my hands and the bird miraculously flew away.
Pack Witch (Captured Souls Book 1) Page 3