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“First, it’s not a high and I didn’t say I hadn’t tried it before. The amount I use in my potions is incredibly small. When I said ‘a touch’, I meant it. What I meant was, I’ve never been over to Veyda’s prison in an enhanced state.”
“Why not?” He drew closer to her, his concerns mounting.
“I was afraid. I had no idea what the consequences could be. If I was able to smell the drug on an invisible Veyda, could she do the same with me? Would she somehow know I was there because I’d used emerald flame?”
“So, you’ve been waiting for back-up.”
“I guess you could say that. Are you game?”
It seemed the question of the hour. “Let me see your process.”
She nodded. Her lips might have curved a little. But overall, she was dead serious about what she was doing. He liked that. New weapons required a respectful attitude.
Sheba jumped from the counter to the worktable and took up a place near the mortar as well. She seemed to approve of what Maeve was doing. Oddly, it gave Braden confidence.
She pulled her mortar forward and used a clean dry cloth to wipe it out. She showed him the cloth. “I’ve already rinsed this in water and scrubbed it with a brush. It’s been dry for some time. When I start a potion, I make sure the vessel is clean.” She dropped the cloth in a basket beneath the worktable.
She began adding ingredients one at a time, using her fingers for the most part. “I’m going by my alter witch sense as I focus on Kiara, the prison, and getting her out.” She took mint from the pouch dangling on the leather around her neck. She added things that sounded like she was making a soup: Bay leaf, tarragon, basil. Kitchen herbs. A bit of lavender.
Then she stopped. “This is the right combination.” She ground the herbs together into a fine powder.
Sheba meowed, adding her two cents.
The odd thing was, he could sense it as well, that she’d gotten the mixture right, as though his proximity to her witchness was affecting him. He’d felt this before, an alignment with Maeve he didn’t understand unless it was part of the alpha-mating process.
She grew very still. He felt her nerves. This was no easy thing she was doing. Good.
She opened the plastic lid, but this time she didn’t use her fingers. Instead, she took a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass and damn if she didn’t pluck particles out of the emerald flame drug, individual grains that had to be the size of powdery sand.
“When you said ‘a touch’ you meant it.”
She put them in a small glass bowl not much bigger than a quarter. “I only needed five of these.”
“I know.” And he did. But how did he know? What was happening here?
She set the tweezers down and lifted up. She even turned toward him. “What do you mean, you know?”
He parted his hands. “I seem to be connected in some way to what you’re doing. I know as in know or sense, or whatever, that you’ve got it right.”
“But that’s a warlock ability, Braden. What do you think it means?”
“Haven’t got a clue. We seem to be connected.”
“Actually, now that I think about it, I know what you mean. I’ve been feeling your wolf as well. Maybe because you’ve got my blood roaming around in your body.”
He frowned. “That’s right. You transfused me.”
“I did.” She turned back to the table. “Okay, we can figure that out later. Let me get this potion made.”
She was all business, this solid witch with red hair. He’d come to love her curls and held back a sudden impulse to run his hands through them. His heart flipped a couple of times in his chest. Longing surged. He wanted this woman and for a soft, sudden moment, he knew he needed her, too.
He wrangled his thoughts in and set them aside.
She handed him the magnifying glass. “Have a look.”
He took the glass and bent over to peer into the small dish. There they were, five irregular grains of one of the flame drugs that had torn through the human world and created a whole new set of addicts.
Five grains.
