“You assume there’ll be a next time?” I said.
He bristled and leveled me with a glare.
My insides burned, and so did my hands. He could never make things easy. He had to bully and intimidate. I bit my lip. Grin and bear it, Maisie. For you and your mother.
I could have probably figured out what the ball said, but prevent it from hurting someone else? I wouldn’t even know where to start. “I don’t know any witches. It’s one of the reasons Mom made me stop practicing witchcraft altogether. I had no one to train me. And what makes you think some random witch is going to be willing to help me any more than they’d help you?”
He held up a hand to silence me and he gritted his teeth. “I don’t care. That’s your problem. That little ball is deadly to my kind. I need to know exactly what it is and how to protect against it. You figure that out, and I’ll consider allowing you to go back to the city.”
“What do you mean you’ll think about letting me go back? I have to go back.” I refused to entertain the idea he might keep me here forever. I wouldn’t allow it.
“You stay here until I let you leave. Understand?” He pointed a finger in my direction. “You are still part of this pack, and you will do as I say. Unless you’d prefer I banish you and your mother. That’s an option.” A slow smile spreads across his lips.
I swallowed air. I wanted to leap from my seat and pound my fists on his chest. If he removed Mom from the pack she became a mortal who knew about their existence. Rule number one in the werewolf world was no mortal could know about their existence unless they were part of the pack. Without the pack, my mother would be killed. And as enforcer, Noah would have to do it.
“You’d do that to my mother?” I asked him point blank.
He shrugged. “She left me. Correction: I let her leave me. I have to keep her close to keep her a member of the pack. But I’ve kept her a part of it, to keep her alive. I don’t have to do that. Certainly, not for someone who betrayed me. But I’m less inclined to help her if you’re of no use to me.”
“So that’s it.” It all became clear now. I’d always wondered why he fought to keep her in the pack. I’d assumed it was because he loved her and that there was a shred of decency in him somewhere. That maybe, deep down, he was remorseful about what had happened to Seth, and he didn’t want to hurt someone he cared for again. I should have known his reason wasn’t quite so pure. His awfulness ran deeper than I’d thought.
“You kept her in the pack for leverage. Over me.”
He lowered himself into the seat across from me. He had a much better poker face than I did. I couldn’t tell if he still cared for my mother enough to keep her a member. And I couldn’t risk him meaning what he said.
“Fine. I’ll help you, but I need to go home first. I have work and a boyfriend. I can’t just up and leave like that. They need to know I won’t be around for a few days or they’ll start asking questions.”
“You don’t need to leave to do that. Call them.”
“Laird.”
He pounded his fist so hard in the center of the table the coffee cups toppled over and the hot liquid spilled into a dark pool that trailed to the edges of the table. My heartbeat spiked, and though the coffee dripped into my lap and soaked through my leggings and burned me, I couldn’t move. I stared at him, unblinking. His eyes blazed. The fire in me died. I felt like a fifteen-year-old girl again, getting screamed at by her stepfather for sneaking out in the middle of the night. Only my stepfather had fangs and scary yellow eyes when he was pissed off. And the nails on his hands grew more elongated the angrier he got. One slice, and he’d have cut me to the bone. Literally.
“You’ll do what I ask. And you’ll be quick about it.”
His guttural growl filled the room as he stood and leaned over the table until his face was but two feet away from mine. His warm breath hit my face, and I closed my eyes to avoid staring at his incisors.
I hated that he scared me. I hated that I couldn’t do anything about it. I felt like I was drowning and couldn’t move my limbs quick enough to reach the surface. I had no choice but to fall deeper and let the water fill my lungs. The fire and burn inside of me died out.
The growling stopped. His warm breath faded. I opened my eyes and found him sitting back down with his hands folded on the table.
“It might take some time. I’m going to have to find a witch who’s willing to help me, for one. That might not be easy. And I might have to leave Clover to find one.”
“Ask your mother where to find one.”
“How would my mother know?”
He laughed at me. “You think your mother tells you everything? You think she was married to your warlock father and never met another witch in her life?” He shook his head at me, clucking his tongue. “I didn’t realize you were stupid.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your mother wanted you to be normal, like her. She said what she needed to say to keep you that way.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He hitched a shoulder. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”
I stared at him for a long moment, processing what he suggested. My mother had lied to me? Made me fear my magic? Had there been someone who could have taught me to control it? To develop it? Harness it? Could I have been helping, healing, people all this time? There had to be more to this than that. If it was true, it meant my mother had betrayed me. I couldn’t accept that.
“Wait here.” Laird turned away and padded out of the kitchen, leaving me alone with my thoughts. When he returned, he stopped in the entryway. In his hands, he carried an old book, thicker than any book I’d ever seen before except for one: my father’s family Wiccan book. But I didn’t remember it being so thick. At least a thousand pages from the look of it. The cover was black leather with a pentagram etched in gold leaf. The pages were stained a pale shade of tan.
“She dug it up?” I say. I shook my head in disbelief.
“Yes.”
I wouldn’t have remembered the place Mom took me to bury this when I was only fourteen. We’d traveled to Bear Woods and must have walked three or four miles before she’d picked a spot. I hadn’t wanted to bury it. I’d clutched it tight against my chest, promising I wouldn’t craft as long as she let me keep it. She’d still made me. She wanted a normal life with her fiancé, Laird. She didn’t know at the time he was less normal than I was. What were the chances?
I touched the cover gently, my fingers skimming over the curved lines in the pentagram. I looked up at Laird. My dad once told me this book should only be in a witch or warlock’s possession. That it was the most precious thing in the world to a witch, and it should be protected at all costs. I couldn’t imagine how he’d have felt if he knew a werewolf kept it now.
I flipped the pages. Pagan symbols and images filled the voids of text. I couldn’t understand any of it, except a few words here and there.
“She gave this to you?” I said, though I already knew the answer. I guess I couldn’t believe that she’d do that. It had meant so much to me and my dad’s family.
“Don’t be so quick to blame her. She knew you’d want it back eventually. And I told her I would give it to you when the time was right.”
I snapped the book shut and hugged it tight to my chest. It was mine again, and this time I’d never let it go. Though I’d never thank him for returning it. I could only have imagined the conversation he and my mother had had for her to give it up. She wouldn’t have done it willingly, that’s for sure. Had he forced her? Hurt her?
I swallowed my outrage, though it must have shown on my face.
“You can’t ignore the witch inside of you forever. Sooner or later, it’ll come out. Maybe the book will help you figure out how to control it.”
“You just want to control me.”
He grinned. “Maybe. But how about this: that magical ball was meant for someone like me. What happens when the next one is meant for someone like you? You won’t be a
ble to protect yourself any more than we could protect Marco. And what happens to the people around you? Like your mother or the doctor? What if they’re around you when someone fires a bullet with your name on it. You can’t fix dead. Not even you can manage that.” He ran a hand through his thick hair and leaned back in his seat. A sliver of emotion crossed his face in the form of deep frown lines on his forehead. Did he feel guilty about my stepbrother now? Did his inactions keep him up at night? Give him nightmares? God, I hoped so.
“I can’t be what you want me to be. I wouldn’t even know how. For the most part, when I try to do magic, all I manage to do is set fires.”
“Nothing wrong with a good fire.”
I clucked my tongue at that. “The constable of Clover would disagree with you.”
“Like I care about what that prick thinks. Let me put it this way, you have a duty to the pack. Find out all you can about the ball and figure out a way to protect us, and I’ll let you live your life as you see fit. But for now, you’ll do it here in Clover.”
“Laird…please, reconsider.”
He held up a hand. “I’ve spoken. I’ve left you alone for years in order to give you time to get over your hatred for me. But we both knew you were always coming back. Marco’s death just pushed up the timeline. You belong here with the rest of us who don’t quite fit in with the rest of the world.”
“I fit in just fine.”
He chuckled darkly. “You don’t get it, so I’ll make myself as clear as possible. Family. Is. Forever. I forgive you for turning your back on us and leaving. Because I know you needed it to heal. Just like I know you’ll do what’s right for your family right now.”
He stood from the table and took a couple of steps back until he reached the far counter of the room. Then he leaned back and glowered at me. Did I like life? Did I like it enough to live under this thumb? I could tolerate it in the short term, but then what?
“If I refuse?”
His stare grew more intense, and his eye color deepened until it flashed crimson. “I’ll banish you and your mother. I swear I will. You’re supernatural, so I suppose the pack might let you live, though probably not. You’d have no loyalty to us anymore. No incentive to keep our secret. But your human mother? There would be no debate. She’d have to die. Our rules are clear on that.”
I bit my tongue. I wanted to spew hate at him, and to hurt him as badly as he’d hurt me and my stepbrother. I pushed away from the table. We were done.
“I sure hope your boyfriend doesn’t know anything about us.”
“He doesn’t.”
“Keep it that way.”
“Are we done?”
He nodded, smiling. I wanted to slap that grin right off his face. Or maybe burn it off. He walked me to the door, and I was halfway down the front steps when he called out to me.
“Family dinner tomorrow, Maisie. I expect you to be here.”
“I’ll be too busy trying to help the pack.”
“Take a break. Marco’s dead, and his death weakens the family. We need to be there for each other and to remind each other we’re unified and stronger together. And I want them to see we have a witch on our side.”
I kept walking.
“It’s not optional.”
I waved at him over my shoulder with my full hand and not with my favorite finger.
Not optional? Was anything optional in this family?
Five
It was after one in the morning. I sat in the passenger seat of my own car while a man I’d thought I might never see again drove me to my mother’s house. At twenty-one years old I guessed I was moving back home—at least, for now.
I chewed on my nails and focused on the dark outlines of the trees hugging the road, their branches stretching out like reaching hands on long, slender arms. Soon, the woods became bushes and weeds and then we reached the coast where my mother’s A-frame home sat by the water. She’d bought it when she’d moved us out of Laird’s home just a month or so before I left town.
I couldn’t believe how easy it had been for us to leave Laird back then. I’d expected a war, but it hadn’t come close. One day I’d gotten home from school and our bags were packed and by the door. I knew Mom wanted to leave, but I didn’t know how soon. To my surprise, he’d stood by the door when we’d walked out, and he’d said absolutely nothing. Not a single peep or awful comment. It had seemed really out of character to have let us go like that and to have kept us both in the pack. I’d always felt that I’d missed something. Some key detail that would have helped me make sense of it. Now I knew why: he hedged his bets that he might need me some day.
“Your silence concerns me,” Noah finally said as we reached my mother’s driveway. He turned down it and pulled over beside her sedan. Not a single light remained on in the house.
I tipped my head back on the headrest and rolled it to the side so I faced him. My anger for him had faded. Truth be told, I’d used up all my anger on Laird. He scratched his nose and turned my way. Once I’d thought him beautiful. Once I’d had a crush on him bigger than any boy band or actor on the big screen. But I’d always thought no one was good enough for him—that I wasn’t good enough for him. I was just the little sister. I’d gotten over my crush on him quickly because I’d known he was a lost cause. That, and I knew our oil and water interactions would never lead to anything more than fighting. Or maybe just fantastic sex.
“Thank you for earlier.”
He hooked an eyebrow. “For what?”
“At my house. For not blowing up my life.”
“I told you I’d give you a minute.”
“Yeah, you did. And you did it because I promised to help, but…you gave me more time than I needed, and you didn’t cause a scene, so…”
He ran his hands over his thighs and said nothing. It was as hard for him to say thank you as it was for him to say you’re welcome.
“Did you know he was going to make me stay here indefinitely?” I asked.
He turned off the car and held up his hands. “What did you think was going to happen? You knew when we got in your car to come here that this trip wouldn’t be quick.”
Did I? “You could have warned me.”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“No. I suppose not. Maybe I could have come up with more convincing reasons why I couldn’t stay.”
He chuckled humorlessly. “He wouldn’t have cared.”
“No. He wouldn’t have.”
He leaned back and mirrored how I sat: head back, face toward the center of the car. His eyes focused intently on mine. The middle of his eyes blazed like tiny bonfires in the dead of night.
“He threatened my mother,” I said.
He nodded. “Are you surprised?”
I didn’t have to give that question a moment’s thought. “No. But do you really think he’d hurt her?”
He hitched a shoulder. “She’s his leverage.”
“Right.” I released a weary sigh. “Would you hurt her? If he told you to?”
He stared straight ahead into the night. “I’d never have to. Because we both know you’ll do what you need to do to keep her safe.”
“But would you?”
Slowly, he pulled the keys out and held them out to me in his closed palm. I guess I had my answer. It saddened me. I knew what his role was and that the pack would have chosen him because he could be ruthless and push his feelings aside no matter what. They’d given him a family when he’d no longer had one. They had his loyalty, no matter the cost. I couldn’t fault him for that. I put my open hand under his, and he dropped my keys onto my palm.
He stepped out of the car and began to undress, tossing his clothes on the ground.
“What are you doing?” Not that I really minded.
“How do you expect me to get home?”
Humans would have just walked. I supposed I could have loaned him my car but, in not so many words, he’d just told me he’d kill my mother if he had to, so… I
hoped the wind was cold on his dangly bits. I started to turn away before he was bare ass naked, but I couldn’t help but peek from my peripheral. Though I could barely make out the curves of his tattooed muscles in the dark, I saw him well enough to commit the curves of his abdomen and his arms to memory. I tried hard not to let my stare dip lower. He let out an agonizing moan as his body blurred between human and wolf form, his bones breaking and morphing. The way they changed had always intrigued me. It was when they were at their most vulnerable. I climbed out of the car, and a streak of ginger raced through the night toward the road.
As much as I disliked the pack and being forced to be a part of it, I still saw the beauty in their curse. Something meant to punish them gave them strength and power. Things many humans would have killed for. No, I might not like the pack right now, but I could appreciate them.
I gathered up his clothes and folded them neatly. Then I felt a hint of irritation at my situation and crumpled them up. I’d give them to him the next day if he asked. If he was nice to me.
Inside, the house was still except for the hum of the refrigerator and the quiet tick of the cuckoo clock hanging on the wall in the dining room. Working and owning a bakery meant Mom worked early hours so she rarely stayed up past nine. She was most definitely asleep. When I was young, I used to crawl into bed with my her. She was my security blanket in a world where I imagined scary things that went bump in the night. This was long before I knew they truly existed. Before my dad had told me I was a witch and before my widowed mother had married a werewolf.
Though I hadn’t lived in this house long, I navigated the space easily. The kitchen, dining room, and living room were open concept, and the bedrooms and single bathroom were all on the main floor. There was an office upstairs and a den in the basement. I stood under the frame of the doorway to her bedroom and watched her sleep peacefully, on her back, with one arm bent above her head and her lips gently puckering with each quiet breath. It had been so long since I’d seen her last. I wanted to crawl into bed with her now, fall asleep and forget about life and duty, but I worried I’d startle her. She didn’t even know I was coming home. Hell, neither had I. She’d think I was an intruder. Hell, she might have a gun under her pillow. I’d have had one if Laird was my ex.
Pack Witch (Captured Souls Book 1) Page 5