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“Cort!”
He set the book aside, scrambled off the bed, and walked into the living room to find Grey rubbing his temples. “What is it? Another headache?”
“Warning spell,” he bit out, brow furrowed with deep lines. “Wonder if it’s this painful to the others.”
“Shit, that means someone is coming, right? We should go to the main house.”
Grey nodded and stood. He walked behind Cort through the kitchen to the stairs and they hurried down them, then through the backyard. Once inside the main house, they walked into chaos. Weavers and their mates were running through the house with guns, headed toward the front of the house. Alarmed, Cort stood for a moment, watching them. Swallowing hard against the knot of fear in his gut, he led Grey in that direction with a hand on his arm.
Clay shot out orders as he held a gun. “Dane and I will watch from the doors in the dining room. Lucien and Calder, you take one of the doors in the library. Grey, can you tell how many there are?”
Grey’s brows furrowed in concentration. “Just one.”
“This could be the things I ordered for the spell,” Wiley reminded them. “I’ll be on the porch with Baer, Grey, and Cort. We’ll hide the guns.”
Cort led Grey through the front door to the porch and he spotted a brown UPS truck coming up the drive.
“Someone fill me in,” Grey said. “See anything?”
“UPS truck,” Cort told him.
The truck pulled to a stop and nothing happened at first. Every hair on Cort’s body was standing on end as he waited to see if this was a real delivery man or one of the pestilents’ lackeys. Finally, the door slid open with a metallic rumble.
The guy hesitated when he stepped down from the truck, his wary gaze on all of them on the porch. Cort nearly rolled his eyes at them. If this was a normal guy, they were acting incredibly suspicious, like characters from a creepy horror movie.
“Afternoon,” Cort called out, raising one hand in greeting. “I’m sure the holiday shoppers are keepin’ you busy.”
“Are you flirting with the delivery man?” Grey demanded in a harsh whisper.
Wiley snorted. “It’s called southern hospitality.” The young man paused, and his smile turned a little wicked. “Though he is kind of cute.”
As Cort expected, the lion at Wiley’s feet gave a disgruntled growl.
The friendly smile that had lifted the delivery driver’s lips melted into a look of pure horror. Cort followed his gaze to the enormous lion with the shaggy mane stretched out across the porch as if he were a housecat sunning in the late-afternoon light. He yawned, showing off sharp teeth.
In the next instant, the delivery guy screamed and hurled the box toward the porch. He ran back to his truck and scrambled inside before peeling out onto the gravel road.
“Guess it was just a delivery after all,” Wiley mused, his voice breaking on a laugh. “Poor dude.”
“You just had to make it worse by winding up Baer,” Cort said with a grin.
“Wait. He wasn’t cute?” Grey asked.
“He wasn’t bad, but ain’t nobody as cute as my man.”
Grey sighed, wrapping his arm around Cort’s shoulders. “That’s it. Stroke the poor blind man’s ego.”
“Soak it up while you can. You’re in your last days of pity,” Wiley tossed over his shoulder. He walked toward the box and picked it up, grinning. “We got the stuff for the spell!”
The UPS truck was hightailing it down the road, gravel and dust spinning out behind the tires. Cort watched it leave, more than a little amused himself. He couldn’t imagine walking up to this situation while expecting to make a usual delivery. “In case you didn’t hear him being all growly, Baer turned into a lion,” he told Grey.
“We just went on some No Delivery list—you guys do realize that.” Grey chuckled, shaking his head. “Nobody is going to want to come here. I doubt anyone believes him, though, especially if he tells them about the lion.”
Cort watched Wiley tear into the box. “Bloodstone,” he said, holding up a dark-green crystal with red spots. He held up a clear stone. “Clear quartz. And this one is black tourmaline.” This crystal wasn’t as smooth as the others and was black with silver lines in it.
“So, he’s got crystals,” Grey mumbled dully. “That’s what we needed?”
“Yep,” Wiley replied, still grinning. “They’re for Dane. And this”—he held up a small jar filled with something that looked like herbs—“is agrimony. “I’m going to pour boiling water over it and well, we’ll all have to bathe Grey with it.”
“We’re going to give Grey a bath.” Clay stepped out of the door and laughed as he clasped Grey’s shoulder. “This should be interesting.”
“He can wear swim trunks or something,” Wiley instructed, humor lacing his voice. “But Dane and all the Weavers need to have rags that you’ll dip into the doctored water.”
