Page 67 of His Hunted Witch

“Why?”

“Why?”

She crossed her arms. “Why did you wonder? What did you think would happen next? I’d take a second look at your boy? Call my family off? Take a second look at you?”

He flinched, a millisecond tightening around the eyes.

“God, you too?” she asked, exasperated. “You know witches are women, right? What the hell happened to flowers and a beer? Stop following me.” As she said it, she realized she’d been hearing a rustling in the woods whenever she was outside Aiden’s house. “Do you follow me every time I?—”

Another man stepped out of the woods, younger this time, with a well-trimmed beard. “Nathan. Ma’am.”

“Nope.” Goldie threw up her hands. “I am not doing this. I am not joining some sick and twisted version of the shifter Bachelorette. Stop following me. You’re not protecting me. I’mnot picking any of you.”I’m already taken.Some small voice told her not to put Aiden in the line of fire by admitting that.

For one, it was the principle of the thing. She hated that the number one way to get a man to back off was to tell him she had a boyfriend. For another, these were dire wolves. For all she knew, they’d fight him over her. If that happened, she wasn’t sure he’d come back from it, regardless of who won.

“Well?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” the younger one said and stepped back.

She marched past them down the hill and only took a breath when she was sure they weren’t following. Still, she walked a little faster as she took the path behind the huge barn to a more modern house twice the size of Aiden’s. She knew it was his mother’s house by the fire pit out on the lawn with a stake for a cauldron. If a potion witch didn’t live here, she’d give him back his furniture.

As she raised her fist to knock on the door, it swung open.

“Darling, I’m so sorry. I wanted to get them perfect, but nothing ever is, and here you are with raggedy nails.”

“How did you know it was me?” Goldie asked. Kathleen didn’t have shifter hearing.

“Hmm? Aiden called.”

Goldie sighed as Kathleen swung the door wide. The woman held an array of bottles in her hands that originally started life as everything from spaghetti sauce to lip balm.

Kathleen looked out the door. “Did Ellis miss you?”

Goldie glanced back. “Who?”

“I sent Ellis out to see you safely home.”

Goldie winced. “I may have suggested that he not follow me and… something about never picking him and how sick and twisted he was for trying.”

Kathleen burst out laughing. “Well, that will show him. Come in, come in.”

Instead, Goldie twisted around to see two men at the edge of the trees staring in her direction.

Kathleen followed her gaze and sobered. “You never can tell who's in these woods.”

Goldie chuckled as she ducked inside.

“Was that funny?” Kathleen asked.

“It’s just, you have wards that literally keep everyone out. You know exactly who’s in these woods.”

Kathleen smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I think sometimes it’s the people you know the best that you know the least.” She waved Goldie through to a kitchen island stacked with another dozen bottles.

Goldie glanced around. The entire kitchen was made of stained pine, including the walls and cabinets. It was a little overwhelming.

“Now, I started with red,” Kathleen said, plucking a nail polish bottle out of the pile.

“Red?”

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