Page 109 of His Hunted Witch

She grinned. “At 12 AM. I had this extra table lying around, you know?” The look of love in Aiden’s eyes almost swamped her, but she pulled her focus to the boys who kidnapped her. “You boys are going to run it for me.”

Everyone in the clearing protested to that.

Goldie waved her hands until they quieted. “You’re right. We can’t go on as if nothing happened. Really terrible shit happened. You’ve got to atone for that, and the horses could really use the help.”

“They really could,” Aiden said feelingly, glancing at his stables where he’d put the nag she’d rode here.

She turned back to her family. “Which means they’re gonna have to stay with you.”

“I’m not hosting a bunch of damn dire wolves,” Becca said.

“And just how much atonement are you thinking?” Buck asked with a shadow of his old arrogance.

“A summer of mucking stables and dealing with tourists will help anybody find their true importance in the world,” Goldie said.

Becca snickered. “You sound like Great Aunt Andria.” The ninety-year-old had run the coven with an iron fist and zero bullshit for half a century.

Goldie bowed her head. “The dire wolves can’t attack there because the next generation will be in the line of fire, and my family can’t attack here because I’ll be here. Sound fair?”

There was a general roar of protest.

“Good. Nobody’s happy. My job here is done.”

“And my father?” Buck asked hesitantly. “He’s not getting stable mucking, right?”

“No, honey,” she whispered. “But I’ll be damned if I know what he does deserve.”

Aiden stepped up to her. “I love how you just declared you’re moving in while everyone we know is watching, and I can’t?—”

“Please don’t,” Becca said firmly.

Aiden looked back at the wolf still lying on the porch, covered in paint and flour paste slowly drying in his fur. “I’d banish him, but I don’t want to foist him off on anybody else.”

“I think that’s my cue,” a voice rang out. Kathleen stepped into the clearing.

“Ma!” Aiden ran for her and swept her up in a hug.

“I escaped a coven full of witches when I was a teenager. You think a couple wolves were going to stop me now?”

“I actually did,” Aiden said ruefully.

When he put her down, she strode to Goldie and squeezed her just as tight. “Welcome home,” she whispered fiercely.

“Uh, ditto?” Goldie said.

Kathleen laughed and held her hand as she faced her son. “The first day you lost control of your wolf, I started building you a house. I thought I was giving you safety, but in truth, I was building a prison.”

“Ma, no,” Aiden said quietly. “You did keep me safe.”

“And everybody else,” someone murmured from the crowd.

“I taught them to fear you instead of helping you.”

Aiden wrapped his arms around his mother. “Ma, no.”

She squeezed back, nearly lifting him off the ground before stepping away and glancing at Nathan. “I can build another.”

Nathan howled, and a few from the crowd ran to subdue him.

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