Page 98 of His Hunted Witch

Becca pulled away to look her in the eye. “I love you, too. I missed you.” She sniffed. “I know it’s nothing to what you were going through, but I’ve been so scared.”

Goldie grimaced. “Honestly, I think I might have gotten the better end of the deal. I knew I was okay; you didn’t.” She gestured for Becca to come inside.

Goldie wrinkled her nose as she smelled the burnt popcorn after the fresh air outside.

“I smell that your cooking skills haven’t improved,” Becca said as she laboriously climbed the rickety stairs to her loft. Surreptitiously, Goldie readied a spell to catch her if she toppled backward.

Becca settled on Goldie’s desk chair, the only other place beside her bed to sit in the room.

“You can take the bed.”

Becca shook her head. “I’d never get up.”

“How are you doing?” Goldie asked.

Becca ran her hand over the bump. “Not long now. I feel like the third trimester is a genius plan to help women get through labor. The last weeks are so terrible, you actually think getting him out won’t be that bad.”

Goldie blanched and sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t think that’s true.”

Becca chuckled. “No, labor is worse.” She took a deep breath. “I wanted to tell you they’re sending out a party.”

Goldie’s heart rate skyrocketed. “What?”

Becca held up a hand. “To make peace. To come up with a treaty.”

Goldie clenched her hands. “Because if they hurt anyone—” She thought of the twins, of Louis, even of Buck, not to mention all of her family who would be attacking. “We can’t turn into the worst stereotypes of backwoods hillbillies feuding in the woods.”

Becca held a hand over one spot on her belly, and Goldie was alarmed to see her shirt ripple as the baby moved. “I think they’re more worried about an international response from every shifter and witch in the world.”

Goldie slumped, horrified by the idea that she would draw more people into danger. “This has to stop.”

“We know.” Becca squinted at her. “Do they know?”

Goldie bit her lip before she said that they did. What if Nathan succeeded in his bid for alpha? Would anyone ever be safe? Now that she’d wrecked the wards, anyone could find them.

“Goldie?”

“Yes, they know.” They had to know. Oh, Aiden, what were they going to do now? “I wish everyone hadn’t made such a big fuss over me.”

Becca straightened. “Afuss? The last we saw of you, you were getting carried away by a huge, poisonous wolf. We were worried sick.”

“I’m not worth it.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I mean, I’m not worth a damn war!”

Becca heaved up and marched over to her. “Yes, you are!” Becca sat down next to her on the bed and took her hands. “You know why you’re named Goldie?”

Goldie sighed. “Yes, but you’re going to tell me anyway.”

Becca squeezed her hands. “Mama was sick the whole time she was pregnant with you, and when you were born, she slipped away.”

“How peaceful. How bloodless. Definitely not my fault when I literally killed her but do tell me differently.”

Becca summoned a travesty of a smile. “Dad named you Goldie because he said you were worth your weight in gold.”

“Worth your mother’s death?”

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