Page 54 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

“It’s not that,” he said darkly. “I smell smoke.”

Sorcha broke into a run. Aidan swore, his steps thundering beside her. When they crested the hill, the smoke was visible, a smear of gray against the bright sky.

Nettlestone was on fire.

Panic choked her for a long moment she could not afford. She could smell the smoke, but she could not see flames. “Where is it? Is it the bakehouse?” Every baker’s nightmare. One stray spark, one unattended coal. Granny had had the buildings constructed near the well, with stone for the floor and the surrounding area in the back courtyard. But fire was fire. Like magic, sometimes it made its own rules.

“This way,” Aidan said. “Stay behind me,” he added, which was ridiculous and did not even deserve a response. This was her home. Her family. “It’s not the bakehouse.”

“The stables?” Panic shoved her into a rush of movement.

Aidan caught the back of her dress. “Not the stables either.”

She trusted his wolf’s sense of smell. He must have noticed, because he released her immediately. He pointed to the open front door of the house, where Aesop was hauling an enormous bucket of water. “Your Minotaur seems to have it in hand.”

Simon filled more buckets from the nearest trough. The phoenix circled overhead, curious, calling to the flames. Sorcha whistled a haunting trill, a request to stay aloft. Fires responded to phoenixes, sometimes growing dozens of feet tall to try to reach them. And worse yet, a single red phoenix feather could start a fire that no water would put out. The crows lined the stable roof, cawing. There were seven of them.

One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth. Five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told.

Sorcha raced into the house, inserting herself into the chain of buckets being passed hand to hand at the top of the stairs. Aidan paced behind her, an enormous jug of water on one shoulder.

Their efforts seemed to be concentrated on the small morning room no one used. Thank the stars. Granny chose that moment to rematerialize in a pop of light that seared the eyeballs, her expression peevish. Ice instantly formed all around her, icicles bristling like the hackles of a disgruntled animal.

Aidan turned to shield Sorcha before she had a chance to greet her grandmother.

Again.

He was definitely making a habit of that. Must be all that earl etiquette. And the natural protectiveness of his wolf. She peeked around his shoulder. “Granny, thank the stars! You’re all right.”

“Takes more than that iron hex to banish me. Where is that lout?

“He’s gone.”

“Good. Now what’s all this, then?” Granny froze the walls to stop the fire from spreading. Sorcha tossed the contents of a bucket. It was a drop compared to the waterfall produced from Aidan’s jug. Aesop had pulled down the heavy brocade curtains and was stomping them out with his hooves, impervious to the heat. The smell of singed fur and hoof mingled with the burning of silk and the lacquered wood chess table. The damage to the morning room was extensive in one corner but had not spread to the hallway or the other chambers. The floor would need repair, and the settee replacing.

Sorcha was beginning to wonder if the curse breaking had worked.

“What happened?” she coughed.

“We don’t know,” Aesop said. “Simon smelled the smoke. It must not have been burning long, which is a blessing.”

“I’m so sorry, Sorcha,” Simon said, his eyes red. “I should have caught it earlier! That’s why you let me live here.”

“That’s not why,” she assured him. “Don’t trouble yourself, Simon.”

Aidan frowned at the burned wallpaper, the ruined drapery in a sodden, sooty mess on the floor. “You do not lead a quiet life, Lady Sorcha. What’s on the other side of this wall?”

“A linen closet.”

He nodded to the ruined wallpaper, the shattered portrait of Nettlestone Hall. “And behind this wall?”

“My bedchamber.” She wiped the sweat from her brow.

“It’s a lucky thing you weren’t in your bed.”

Simon, Aesop, and Granny turned toward her. “Yes, where were you, exactly?” Granny asked.

“It’s a long story.”