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“Did you close the wards?” She stepped forward. “Why did you do it?”
Louis stepped back uncertainly.
“Ma’am, please,” Paul blurted out.
“He was one of them,” she said to Paul. “Did your wolf tell you that? Or can you only tell magical matches, not magical predators?”
“We’re all magical predators.” He put himself bodily between her and the boy. “And Louis…”
Louis retreated, leaving the cart where it was.
“I will not insult him by saying he didn’t know what he was doing,” Paul said. “But I will say we don’t know what he does and doesn’t understand. He’s never spoken. Not once. Kathleen sayshis wolf is too dominant. I understand revenge, but it wouldn’t be revenge.”
All the fight drained out of Goldie.
She’d accepted the fact that her fearsome kidnappers, the ones who had menaced her family for months, were actually a roving band of teenagers with far too much time on their hands and nobody to whack them upside the head. Her terror through the ordeal felt cheapened by that fact, but unfortunately, not lessened. Paul was still right; Louis was not her enemy.
She thought of her Aunt Grace. “Some witches can talk to animals.”
Paul’s eyes lit.
“I can’t. That’s not my talent.”
“But you know a witch who can?”
She bit her lip before she offered Aunt Grace to the dire wolves to help Louis. Grace lived in the woods alone with her animals and the parrot rescue she ran. She was one of the most vulnerable in the coven. No one in this dysfunctional pack could know about her.
“No.”
Goldie had to forget about magical connections or what Paul’s wolf sensed about her and Aiden. She had to get to Buck—her actual problem—then get the ward open and go home.
“Louis is a good egg.” Paul scratched his beard again and then scratched the nearest horse’s nose in the same gesture. “One thing you learn around here is how little words mean.”
She laughed, startling Blue Roan and the horse across from him, and immediately quieted. “You have no idea how much I wish that were true.”
Words were the bane of her existence.
“We need a damn mount. Louis?” someone shouted from the opposite end of the stalls.
They pivoted to see three guys in the doorway to the stables, standing with hands on hips and legs spread wide. The one in front stood strong and tall, while the two in back mimicked his stance. They were identical twins, carbon copies of each other.
“Buck?” she asked, feeling something like relish.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Paul asked.
“Going for a damn ride, old man.”
“Please tell me that’s Buck,” Goldie said.
“That’s Buck. He’s never mucked a stall in his life, and it shows.” Paul started toward them, shouting, “Not on these horses, you’re not.”
“Just saddle one. You know we’re gonna go in a circle, and I’m gonna win.”
“They haven’t eaten. They need brushing. We’ve got half waiting to get out in the fields. We’ve got a full day’s work ahead of us. You gonna help with any of that?”
“That’s for the hired help.”
“We can help,” one twin said hesitantly before Buck cut him off.
