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“Somewhere in there, I went berserk. My killing power lit up and in order to escape I killed those two witches. I produced the strangest glittering gold streams of power.”
She lifted her left hand and stared at it. “I haven’t used it since.” She took a moment to take a few deep breaths. “Veyda never bothered me again after that. I think I did more than kill those witches but I honestly don’t remember. The next thing I knew, I was standing in front of Kiara’s door.”
“Who were the witches you killed? Do you know their names?” He’d asked her before while his investigations. But it couldn’t hurt to pose the questions again.
Her gaze shifted to the empty grate. She shook her head. “I can’t even remember what they looked like. I can see a lot of other things, like the scarlet velvet drapes, the general beauty of that terrible room. It looked high-end. But I can’t recall the witches in any detail. Only that I killed two of them.”
“You don’t regret it, do you?”
“Not at all. I hate that I’ve taken lives, but there was so much darkness in that room. I could feel how many people had died there. I’m convinced, too, that it’s the same place Veyda has been torturing Kiara and the other women in those cells.”
She shook her head back and forth several times. “I’ll never forget Kiara’s kindness to me when I showed up that first night. Do you know she hugged me? She wrapped me up in so much love I fell apart then and there. I sank to her entry floor and wept. And you know, I’m not a weeper, Braden. I never was until I landed in this horrible place. But that hug broke down enough of my walls to start talking. I owe Kiara so much.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, but he smiled. “It’s her witch magic. She did the same to me. Got me to talking.”
Maeve shifted her gaze to him, her light blue eyes firing up. “Not everything a witch does is about her magic. She’s just…gifted.”
“I agree. I was being—”
“Ridiculous?” she offered.
He chuckled. “No. I guess I was trying to be clever. I knew it wasn’t magic. I felt like I was talking to a friend. Much good it did. She urged me to go back to Savage, to pick up my life. But I couldn’t. Though Warren keeps pushing me to get my furry ass back to my pack, I can’t leave Elegance. I’m committed to finding out what happened to Laura, how she died that night.”
He considered her for a moment. He hadn’t told her earlier about her alpha-mate capacity, but if they were going to work together, she needed to know. Even as he watched her, his mating drive kept opening up. He’d shut it down several times already, but he wasn’t sure how easy it would be to control if they were going to spend a lot of time together in close proximity. “I have something I need to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
Well, she was a no-nonsense woman, so he said it flat out. “You’re alpha-mate material, even though you’re witch.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Kiara said something earlier about that. I told her I could smell your Madagascar scent. She said she’d heard that kind of scenting could indicate I might be able to bond with an alpha. Though I should say it makes no sense. I’m a witch. What would I have to offer a wolf pack?”
Okay, he liked this woman. “I don’t know. But Alpha Fergus recently bonded with a fae.”
“Right. But she’s a veterinarian. She could offer a bunch of wolves her surgical services, if nothing else.”
He chuckled. There was so much more to being the alpha female of a pack, but he didn’t go into that. He didn’t see the point. The last thing Maeve would want was to move to Savage and join a wolf pack. He’d heard her views on the violence of wolves enough times to know she’d be miserable in Savage Territory. “Mary’s a good, strong woman. Big-hearted and she’s changed Fergus’s life for the better. The pack will benefit from her leadership.”
He decided to switch subjects. “So, we’re agreed then that we’ll work together to get Kiara out of Veyda’s compound.”
She nodded and rose to her feet. “Yes, but we’ll need to understand the level of each other’s power and abilities. For instance, I have a few spell-tricks that would stop you in your tracks before you even got started.”
“And I’d have you flat on your back before you could blink.”
She tilted her head. “Do I smell a challenge, Officer?”
One thing he knew about Maeve, she meant what she said. But if he gave her free rein, she might set him on fire if her killing power suddenly lit up. She was a young witch and had resisted developing her powers the entire time he’d known her. The fact she’d killed a couple of witches while in a rage, made him wary about what she was capable of. “All right. Let’s take this down a notch. How about you show me what your witchy spells or you kill power can do without destroying me or your apartment.”
She smiled then laughed. “It’s probably best I take it easy, especially in my own home where I care about keeping everything safe. But I am competitive.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“All right, go to the bottom step of the stairs, like you’ve just arrived then come at me as though you mean to do me harm. But come fast. Use all your wolfness.”
Braden pivoted then levitated swiftly. The moment he reached the stairs, he didn’t give her time to even think. He swung back her direction in a blur of wolf speed.
He’d intended to grab her up in his arms and levitate her in a circle. Instead, he found himself on his back and on the stone floor. “What the hell?” For a moment, he wasn’t sure where he was.
He blinked a few times. His recollection of what happened came back to him. He’d reached the bottom step then shot in her direction. She’d smiled as she’d waggled her fingers at him.
