“I’d been living there just over a year by then—it was the first place I’d landed after leaving North Carolina, and I’d fallen in love with it immediately. It had the small-town, artsy vibe I’d always wanted, and the people were so friendly and open. I found work right away, waitressing in a place that catered mostly to witches. I’d recently started dating, and saving for my own place. I thought I wanted to set down roots, you know? I still wasn’t sure why I’d felt called to move there, but at that point I was happy to roll with it, trusting that when the time was right, all would be revealed. But then things started getting weird.”
“Weird how?” I asked
“A few of my regulars—they’d started acting kind of paranoid. At least, that’s how I saw it at the time. Whispering about old hunter conspiracies, and witches being murdered in their beds… I… Sorry, Gray. I didn’t mean…” Her cheeks darkened, and when she met my eyes again, her own were full of compassion. “I know they weren’t rumors after all, but at the time, no one had heard from the hunters in decades. It all seemed a little far-fetched—like everyone had heard it from a friend of a cousin of an ex-husband, but no one had any firsthand info.
“The vamps and shifters,” she continued, “who normally stayed pretty sequestered in their own territories, started getting into skirmishes. One night a family of lynx shifters was slaughtered in their home, little kids and everything, and their whole community blamed the vampires. After that, things started going downhill fast. My restaurant shut down, and I was laid off. I was in shock, literally wandering the streets with my head hung, wondering what my next move was going to be. I swear—the second the question was in my mind, I felt it.”
“Felt what?” I asked. I’d long since given up on chopping. Haley and I, along with the other witches in the kitchen, were all riveted by the story.
Sadly, I was pretty sure a lot of them had similar tales to tell.
“That foreboding. Like when every hair on your body stands on end, and your heart just starts banging away for no reason. I reached in my bag for my mace, but by then, someone was already on top of me, jamming in the needle.” She closed her eyes, a full-on shiver working its way through her body. I could sense the uptick of her heartbeat, the adrenaline spiking through her blood as remembered panic set in. “I woke up in a cell. You can pretty much figure out what happened next.”
It was a good thing I’d already set down the bottle of herbs I’d been working with, because I was pretty sure anything in my hands would’ve shattered in that moment.
“Addie,” I said softly, forcing myself to keep my voice calm. Gentle. For my sister’s sake. For the sake of every witch in the room who’d gone through the same impossible hell. “You’re safe here. All of you are safe here. And I promise you, we’re going to kill every last one of those motherfuckers if I have to tear their throats out myself.”
I was shaking with rage, so consumed by it that I didn’t even notice Haley standing in front of me until she reached out and grabbed my arm. “Gray? Take this. Please.”
I blinked back to reality, taking the steaming mug from her outstretched hand. Closing my eyes, I took a second to dial it down, then managed a tight smile. “I appreciate the effort, but I don’t think Merry Mint is going to do the trick this time.”
“This brew is.” She winked at me. “My own special blend. I call it Vampire’s Delight.”
I brought it to my nose, inhaling the scent. I smelled the mint first, then a subtle pinch of dried hawthorn—nothing that would knock me out, just strong enough to blunt my sharp edges—finished with a spoonful of O-positive. I sipped it slowly, forcing myself to relax.
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s actually… really good.”
“Told you.” She handed a mug to Addie. “This is straight-up honey lavender. No blood, unless you’re into that sort of thing.”
Addie laughed, happily wrapping her hands around the mug. “I think I’ll stick with the honey-lavender, thanks.”
We sipped our tea and got back to work, giving Addie a few moments to gather her thoughts. Whatever she’d gone through, it was clear this was the first time she was talking about it out loud, and I knew this was only the very first crack. Eventually, that crack would turn into a fissure, and all hell would break loose.
The difference now was that she wouldn’t have to go through it alone. Not anymore.
After a few moments of companionable silence, Haley turned the conversation toward our other sister. “How do you guys think Georgie got tangled up with Trinity when the rest of us managed to stay under her radar?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m guessing Trinity found her somehow. Maybe that’s how this whole thing got started. Now that we know she’s involved with the Fae Council, we can connect her to Orendiel and the hunters. So it’s possible that Trinity found out that we were still alive, and set the wheels of her plan in motion.”
“But why would she track down Georgie and not the rest of us?” Addie asked.
“Maybe she’s still looking for us,” Haley said.
That thought sent a shiver down my spine, but there was no room for fear. I grabbed Verona’s instruction list, scanning for the next batch of poisons. If and when Trinity came for us, we’d be ready for her.
“You guys said that we were all called to the Bay,” Addie said. “That we sensed each other somehow.”
“That’s what Deirdre thinks,” I said.
Addie capped off another one of her bottles. “Do you think Georgie senses us, too? What if she’s trying to get back to us, and Trinity’s holding her hostage?”
“We can’t assume Georgie is a hostage,” I said. “For all we know, she and Trinity are working together.” I hated myself for saying it, but someone had to. The girl we’d seen in our vision during the blood spell hadn’t looked like a hostage to me.
Haley looked up from her bowl of herbs, glaring at me across the counter. “Do you actually think our sister is evil?”
“I’m not saying she’s evil, Hay. But we can’t know her motivations. She might not realize what’s going on. Our mother may have twisted everything, manipulated her into doing her bidding.”
“She’s not a child, Gray,” Haley said. “She’s a grown woman.”
