Soren
I’ve never been a fan of witches. I don’t trust them, and they smell strange. They don't smell like shifters do. They smell like… their potions and herbs, with the underlying metallic scent of magic permeating the air around them.
I tend to steer clear of them even though it's nearly impossible living in a place like Moonrise, their mecca.
Now, it’s completely impossible. The ancient stone cottage built in a grove of cottonwood trees tilts to the side, one corner sinking slowly into the soil over the decades. Four witches rush around the main room of the house, speaking in low tones as they grind herbs and toss them into a cauldron, all while I guard the doorway leading into the room where Maeve is prostate on a cot, covered in thick quilts stuffed with goose down, a fire blazing in the hearth only a few feet away from her.
The oldest witch, an elder, skirts in my direction holding a shallow bowl. It’s perfectly smooth on the outside, but the inside is ingrained in a series of symbols I don’t recognize, all of them inlaid with lines and swirls connecting the symbols to each other.
One of her younger assistants follows closely behind, the two of them brushing past me in a hurry.
“What are you doing?” I snarl when the elder witch hands the bowl to her assistant and kneels at Maeve’s beside.
The assistant glances at me wearily but says nothing as her mistress untucks Maeve’s arm from the pile of blankets. Her skin is tinted blue.
I brace myself in the doorway, unsure what to do, what to say, and how to feel when the elder witch slices across Maeve’s fingertips with a knife and tilts her fingers over the bowl, collecting a few drops of blood from each.
My stomach curls in rage. The doorframe groans and cracks from the pressure where my hands curl around the frame, squeezing, taking the brunt of my fury so I don’t go blind with madness and kill both witches for touching her.
The elder witch rises with the bowl, her milky eyes downcast on the symbols as she turns and brushes past me again, ducking under my elbow. I don’t look away from Maeve’s hand, however. Her skin is just… white. A sickly, whitish-blue that makes my chest convulse as the young witch weaves a bandage over her fingers and tuck her arm back under the covers.
I’ve been ignoring my own injury–a stab wound to the chest. That fucking bastard. I knew Duke would return. I knew I had to hunt him down and intercept him before he came back, and I should have done it a day ago but… I stayed. I stayed with Maeve. I stayed with her, knowing she was perfectly safe with Patton, and wasted time because I just didn’t want to leave her yet.
I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
“We need to dress your wound before it gets infected,” another witch says somewhere behind me. “Excuse me? Sir? Your wound–”
“I’m fine,” I rush out without looking in her direction. When the young assistant witch rises from Maeve’s beside, I step toward the foot of the bed, but fingers curl around my wrist.
“Leave her,” the elder witch says in a huff. “You’re bleeding all over the place. You need stitches. You cannot help her until you help yourself.”
I slowly look over my shoulder at the short, older woman. She’s in her fifties by my estimation, and beautiful, but dark circles line her eyes as she turns her face to the window. Gray, stormy morning sunlight drifts through faded yellow curtains. Rain hammers the glass, and beyond, the forest is lost in a wall of thick fog.
It took two hours to get here with Maeve slung over my shoulder for most of it. She woke when the rain started again, and from there, we hiked uphill, her arm slung over my shoulder as she trembled from bitter cold despite the heat and humidity driving the storm.
We reached the cottage as night bled into the earliest hours of morning. I pounded on the door, shouting for help, and help came in the form of a household of witches.
Maeve was quickly carried away, but she looked back at me, her eyes wide with fear and… raw emotion I didn’t think she was capable of. Fear, grief, and confusion made her eyes burn like fire-lit gems, and it gutted me.
She’s never killed anyone before. That was her first time.
I don’t understand any of this. I look at her profile, the dark circles beneath her eyes and the puff of cold mist every time she takes a breath. What’s wrong with her? Why aren’t her powers returning? It’s been days of this–this back and forth.
The old witch gives my wrist a tender squeeze, her dark eyes meeting mine. “Please, let me tend to you so you can tend to her.”
I hold her gaze for several seconds. “Here. I’m not leaving this room.”
“She is safe where she is. I need better light to see your wound. Come.”
I allow the witch to guide me back into the main room. Her assistant now sits at a wooden work table in the center of the space, scribbling madly in a little notepad while keeping her eyes on the strange bowl now coated in Maeve’s blood. The other witches station themselves at the fire over several large iron cauldrons, neither of them even looking in my direction as the old witch guides me into a chair and picks up a giant pair of steel scissors.
I close my eyes as she cuts through my shirt.
“It’s not as deep as I thought,” she whispers under her breath.
I breathe deeply, grimacing as her fingers prod the wound. “He got–ugh, fuck that hurts!” I growl, my upper lip pulled over my teeth while she pinches my skin together.
“Another half inch and your heart would’ve been pierced,” she says softly, turning and grabbing a stool before sitting back down and reaching into her apron. “Whatever blade was used hit your ribs. You were blessed by the Goddess at that moment.”
“The Goddess has nothing to do with it,” I grumble, wincing as my skin burns while she cleans the wound.
“She wants you alive for a higher purpose,” she corrects, those sharp, dark eyes meeting mine. “Regardless of whether you believe it or not.”
I stare at the woman, taking in her features. I’ll forget her. Her face will fade into oblivion like the healers who’ve tended to my body before, but her hands are soft, her motions kind, and when she finishes stitching my chest closed, I watch her move with a witch’s grace to the bowl.
I slowly rise from the stool, shrugging out of the remains of my shirt. The witch turns to me when she notices my movements, narrowing her eyes at the network of scars of my forearm. Her eyes go wide with shock. “Sit back down. I want to look at that.”
“There’s nothing you can do about it,” I tell her. “Other than maybe finding me a new shirt.”
The other witches are now looking in our direction. The elder witch moves toward me, clutching my forearm and turning the scar to the light.
“This is a silver burn,” she says, almost to herself.
“Yeah,” I confirm, not liking the look on her face.
“How long were you bound by silver?” Her eyes search mine, and I have an unsettling sensation that she’s looking right through me.
I wonder what she knows about men like me–like me and Patton. He’s practically her neighbor. She must have seen men in silver bands before, especially with an operation like hers. Every shelf is full of healing potions. Every drawer is full of medical equipment to stitch bodies back together. She hasn’t even asked my name, and I doubt she’ll give me hers.
It’s very hush-hush… but I know she’s aware that it’s the Princess of Eastonia lying on that cot just beyond the door. This situation is suspicious as fuck. I get it.
I’m also not in the mood to explain. I try to yank out of her grasp, but her grip tightens, showcasing an incredible amount of strength for someone her size.
“Years,” I answer, my voice low and emotionless. “Five years.”
“And she took it off for you, didn’t she? You wore a band.” She slowly lets go of my wrist, but her fingertips trail over the scars to the newest, still healing wounds. “You cannot feel your wolf powers at all, can you? What does it feel like now?”
“It tingles from time to time, but otherwise it just hurts.”
“It’s healing. Once that fresh wound on your forearm has scared over, you’ll start to feel the call of the wolf again. You’ll be able to shift again, one day. Probably soon, given the circumstances.” She turns back to the worktable, leaving me standing shirtless, jaw slack, gazing after her like a dumbass.
“What circumstances?”
A sharp, desperate knock on the door startles me, but the witches seem used to it. The young assistant moves from the table and peeks through the peephole before opening the door wide.
Patton steps inside, absolutely drenched, carrying a covered basket under one arm. His eyes meet mine in the fire-lit haze, and he exhales deeply, relieved to see me upright.
Then, he turns to the women, all of whom beam at him, fluttering their eyelashes as he presents the basket full of eggs and the mead he brews himself.
All but the old witch, who is currently still bent over the bowl, her face twisted in concentration. Patton glances at me over the witches encircling him, giving me a sharp nod, then tilts his head toward the door in a silent question. We’ve never been able to mind-link. Not while wearing silver.
I grab my jacket off a hook near the door, stepping out into the shadow of the covered front porch. Rain pelts the metal roof, which is obviously a new addition. Beyond the porch, the forest is thick and dark, with fog curling around the base of the trees like silver snakes.
Patton steps outside after a moment, shutting the door snuggly behind him. Before he can get a word out, I ask, “Were we followed?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “There’s no sign of the Hounds, nor any of the Viper’s guys.”
I take a breath, filling my lungs for what feels like the first time in hours. “What the fuck was that about, Pat?”
“I don’t know.” Patton braces his hands on the railing, leaning over to stretch his shoulders. “I don’t fuckin’ know, but while you guys were here, getting tended to, I went to Jameston Ridge, about ten miles from my place. It’s the biggest settlement this far north. That’s where Duke has been hanging out lately, drinking and gambling, trying to make some money. I talked to a few folks I know around town. I was told the Beta there holds the card games, and Duke owed quite a bit of money.”
“He went after Maeve,” I cut in, shaking my head. “What the fuck does she have to do with any of this?”
Patton rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “Look, Soren, you give me shit for keeping up with the royals, but I know for a fact Maeve’s ascension to the throne isn’t as popular as it seems, especially with you coming from a place like Moonrise. Here in the Roguelands… they barely tolerate Alpha King Ryatt. These Alphas weren’t old enough to remember what it was like before Ryatt and Ella took the throne and united Eastonia. They see someone like Maeve as a threat. She’s not like us. She’s not like anyone. She’s the only one of her kind.”
“So?”
Patton stares at me. “She’s… she’s dangerous, Soren. People are scared of her. Alphas are scared of her. You think there’s not people out there trying to figure out how to get rid of her? Of doing the impossible and killing her?”
My body feels tight and uncomfortable. My hands curl into fists at my sides around a sensation bordering on rage. I’ve never cared about the royal family. Never. I don’t involve myself in politics. I’ve always been on the fringes, doing what I had to do to survive, to be free.
Now I want to… I want to cut through anyone who remotely looks like they have anything bad to say about the woman lying on the cot inside, fighting for her fucking life.
Because that’s what’s happening, isn’t it? She’s losing her powers. Her body can’t handle the constant charging and expelling of those gifts.
I can feel Patton watching me, inspecting my face, trying to see past the expression of neutrality I’ve spent a lifetime trying to master.
“I don’t think,” Patton says after several long, tense moments of silence, “Duke was trying to kill her. I think he planned to… I don’t know, take her back to town and sell her to one of the guys he’s in debt to, maybe, so they could use her to get a ransom from the royal family.”
“The royal family doesn’t pay ransoms,” I reply under my breath. “Alpha King Ryatt and Queen Ella would’ve burned that town to the ground to find her.”
“Duke didn’t know that, or he didn’t care. Either way, I buried him a few miles from my house. He’s gone.” Patton straightens, turning back for the door. “You can’t stay here long.”
“You can’t go back to your house for a while in the event he did, in fact, find the Hounds and told them where I was.”
“I’m aware. Don’t worry about me. Helena owns this place and will get you both out of here and into the Highlands. That’s the safest place to be, especially with this storm system rolling in. It’ll be like this for a few days, at least. The roads north will be bogged down, and Maeve will have some time to rest.” Patton runs his fingers through his hair, then checks his watch. “I’m going to board the house up and leave.”
“Go to my safe house in Twin Rivers,” I tell him, and he nods.
“I was planning on it.” He starts to step off the porch but stops, his hand clutching the railing. “Can I tell you something without you getting fucking pissed off?”
“What?”
“You screamed for her, when Duke was on top of her. I’ve never heard you–” He licks his lips, his eyes meeting mine in the stormy darkness. “Do you feel anything, Soren, now that your band is gone?”
“What are you asking?”
“You looked like a man who was watching his mate get killed. It–it tore me shreds.”
“She’s not a shifter, Patton. She can’t be my mate.” Why does the thought of that–the thought of her being… mine… make me want to set fire to the world that’s constantly hurting her, criticizing her, and forcing her into a little box?
This woman–this force of nature–kept her powers in a necklace so she wouldn’t hurt anyone.
I get it.
I also fucking hate it.