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“Who are you?” he asked. So maybe it came out more like a snarl. After what Cilla did, he wasn’t feeling too kindly toward any witches—and this one was a stranger. “What are you doing here?”
“Maddox!”
“What?”
“Don’t pay my husband any mind,” Evangeline said. “I'm still trying to teach him manners.”
The look that flashed across the witch’s face wished Evangeline luck. Maddox bristled, torn between waiting for her answer and simply calling Dodge back to escort the human out of the Bumptown before he did something he regretted.
He didn’t get the chance to throw Cilla out of a window. Maybe he could take his revenge out on a different witch.
He must have given his thoughts away because the witch took a step back. She recovered quickly—he’d give her credit for that—and stepped toward him. Not too close, because it was clear that he guarded his personal space fiercely. Except for his mate, everyone else gave him a wide berth. The witch was no different.
Maddox gave her credit for that, too.
“My name is Shea. Why am I here? Well, that’s kind of a long story.” She swallowed, looking for the words. “My grandma finally convinced me that I should just come over here. You see— oh, goddess, I can't believe I'm about to say this—”
“Just spit it out,” growled Maddox.
“Maddox!”
“What? I don’t have time for this. Colt’s lying there, he won’t wake up, and you expect me to listen to some witch’s rambling? Luciana was bad enough, but she’s the head of the coven. This one’s got no reason to be here.”
Evangeline joined him by his side. She obviously heard the frustration in his grumble, the desperation he could never hide from her. It wasn’t about the witch. They both knew that.
She took his hand and squeezed it. “He’ll wake up when he’s ready. It’s just taking his body a little longer to recover than we thought, that’s all.”
The witch—Shea—made a small noise in the back of her throat. “So he’s not healing. I was afraid of that.”
“A witch did this to him.” That one? That was totally a snarl. He couldn’t stop it from escaping. “The magic is messing with his shifter abilities. Unless you know better than Luciana, you should probably just go.”
A small smile. It was fleeting yet sad, and Maddox realized that the shock of her wearing her witch’s eyes rather than a glamour hid the fact that she was pretty. She didn’t hold a candle to Evangeline, no one could, but she was pretty enough.
And she looked as if she would rather be anywhere other than where she was.
“I wish I could. Sorry. I didn’t want to come—”
“Then what do you want?”
“What do I want? For you not to bark at me, for starters. Please don’t think this was my choice. Any of this. It’s not.” She inhaled deeply, winced noticeably, then placed her hand against her side as she exhaled slowly. She purposefully met his alpha stare. “It’s getting worse for me, too.”
“Oh.” Next to him, Evangeline covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh.”
Pain. Despite the way Shea kept her scent muted, it spiked when she winced, fading as she controlled her breathing in an effort to fight through it. She’d hidden it well, but she was hurting. Inhaling deeply, Maddox realized that that was the reason she had muted her scent. Shit. How was she even still standing?
Glancing over at Evangeline, wordlessly asking for permission, he waited until his mate had nodded before he hurried over and scooped the hunched witch up in his brawny arms. She went rigid as soon as he grabbed her, swatting angrily at his arms as he crossed the r
oom.
He took her by surprise. Maddox never even gave her the chance to curse him, moving quickly before easing her into the high-backed chair next to Colt’s bed.
Maddox had dragged the wooden beauty up from Colt’s workshop shortly after they moved Colt to his room. His wolf was too anxious to sit and Maddox hadn’t used it; instead, he paced the lengths of the room, watching over his brother. Evangeline said the chair was too uncomfortable to sit in for long and usually sat by the window—as far from Colt as she could get while still being near to her own mate.
Maddox knew she was lying and didn’t argue. She was only thinking of him. On top of everything else that had happened, the strain of seeing his mate tend so closely to Colt had caused Maddox to snap. As soon as she entered the room, surrounded by Colt’s scent, Maddox lunged at his weakened brother, only stopping when Evangeline rushed forward and grabbed his arm before he could do any damage.
Since Colt had tried to accept the challenge, even injured and half-groggy from another hospital-grade sedative, they both decided that it was time to put him all the way under while he healed. That’s when Maddox remembered the sedative he used on Evangeline.
The witch looked like she could have used some of the same drugs. In spite of Evangeline’s claims, the chair was one of Colt’s masterpieces which meant that it looked pretty but, more importantly, was a great piece of furniture. Once Maddox placed her down, Shea immediately curled up against the high back, her hand rubbing her side.
