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And I knew who had the answers.

Panting, I stood over the feral’s body and called to Agatheena. He’d put up a serious fight, I was bloody and battered, but the job was done. She wanted proof, I had her proof. I just hoped she gave me some answers as well. After I’d dropped Jaz home, I’d come out hunting.

Agatheena knew what was going on with Jasmine, why she’d changed. Something was seriously wrong and I needed her to tell me. The small but fierce witch appeared on her porch, squinting down at me. “He still warm?”

“Yes.”

She waved a hand. “Good. Bring him here.”

The low hum of her magic vanished. She’d dropped the ward so I could pass. Grabbing the feral’s hind legs again, I dragged him down the path to the cottage.

“Around the back to my shed,” she said, coming down the stairs to lead the way.

I followed her along the side of the house and around the back. She waved her hand again, and the door to the small shed flung open. I followed her in, and lamps on the walls ignited, lighting the space. There were hunks of meat already dangling from meat hooks. I wasn’t sure what kind, but there was a bloody pile of clothes in the corner.

“Hang him there,” she said. “Upside down.”

With a grunt, I lifted the massive feral wolf, forcing the hook through flesh, and stepped back. The witch shuffled up, took a vicious-looking knife from the wooden bench beside her, kicked a bucket under the feral wolf shifter, and slashed his throat. Blood immediately spilled from the deep slice.

She walked back out and I followed her, the door slamming behind us.

“I’ll be in touch if I need you for anything else,” she said, dismissing me.

“I need to ask you a question, something you said about Jasmine.”

She climbed the stairs to her cottage and turned back, eyes narrowed. “And what was it I said, fox?”

“That I’d missed my chance, that I was too late. Why did you say that? You know something, don’t you?” I was trying to keep the desperation out of my voice and failing badly.

“I know many things that you don’t.”

I ground my teeth. “Jasmine’s changed. I want to know why.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Fucking tell me.”

“You may regret asking for the truth, fox. The truth isn’t always easy to swallow.”

I swallowed down my snarl. “Tell me. Christ, she used to look at me like, like—”

“Like she was in love with you?”

My breath shuddered. “Yes.” My hands shook at what I saw in her eyes. “And now, when she looks at me, there’s—”

“Nothing?”

“Yes.”

“It’s simple, fox. Jasmine has been in love with you since the first time she met you. She continued to love you, even while she was forced to watch you drown your pain in booze and other females, knowing there was nothing she could do, knowing that you’d never be hers. After you rejected her, her pain was unbearable. It hurt so much, she knew the only way she could help you heal was to let that love go. So she did. She let you go the only way she knew how.”

I was going to be fucking sick. “She let me go? What does that even mean?”

“It means she doesn’t love you, not anymore.” Her eyes flashed red. “Unrequited love’s a bitch, fox, but I think you’re finding that out for yourself.”

Then I was airborne, Agatheena’s magic snapping around me, gripping me powerfully before dragging me back down the path and launching me out of her property. I landed hard on the ground as her cottage door slammed shut.

I stood there, breathing hard, feeling sick to my fucking stomach.