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“How are you feeling?” I ask. I mean for the words to come out kindly, but I’m in such a hurry to speak, to add my voice to the conversation, that I basically fumble over the statement and scream it at her.
Smooth. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why does she affect me like this?
But Sable just smiles weakly and rubs her chest with two slender fingers. “I can feel the magic inside me. It’s like… a rolling, throbbing sensation. A bit like having a stomach ache without the pain.” She sighs and picks at the eggs on her plate. “How could I have been a witch my whole life and not known? Was my uncle a witch? Or my parents? I just don’t understand.”
I school my face into something I hope looks like sympathy. She’s asking all the right questions—all the questions I have myself. But none of us have the answers. When it comes to witches, the only thing shifters know for certain is that they’re the enemy.
Even so, I’m also damn sure Sable isn’t my enemy at all.
I’m hoping Ridge or Archer knows the right thing to say, and I look to them to take the lead on this one. But before either man can speak, the sound of rustling drifts in from outside the open window.
Somebody’s out back.
6
Sable
My entire body stiffens, mirroring the postures of the three men around me. My fingers are still pressed to my chest where I can sense the magic inside me. Before the noise came from outside, my magic was light and fluttery, as if it were a butterfly in my chest. Now, as adrenaline rockets through me, the fluttery feeling has turned to a thick, rolling turmoil. I’m surprised the black marks aren’t visible on my skin, though I’m thankful they haven’t appeared since I don’t seem to have any control over them.
I freeze as more rustling from the backyard filters into the cabin, followed by a small whine.
All three men are on high alert, like wolves with their hackles raised as they stare at the open window over the kitchen sink. They’re so stone-faced and still that they look like statues, and I wonder if they’re even going to move at all. Trystan is the first to stand, his face hard as he stalks quietly to the front door.
Archer and Ridge stand to join him, so I do too. But Ridge holds out an arm across my chest and shakes his head, indicating silently for me to sit back down.
Yeah, right.
The last time I let him go check out a noise alone, he got shot with a tranquilizer dart and I got kidnapped by my sociopathic uncle. I won’t let anything like that happen again. I’m going into this with my eyes wide open, thank you very much.
I follow close on Ridge’s heels as the three men cross to the door and open it. Trystan and Archer step outside to investigate while Ridge stands in the doorway, forming a barrier between me and the threat outside. I tiptoe forward to peer over his shoulder and search the clearing in front of the small cabin.
A black wolf is limping out of the woods with blood dripping from a wound in his side and his back leg dragging across the ground unnaturally. Fear and shock renders me mute as I recognize the shifter.
Dare.
My heart nearly stops. I shove past Ridge with more strength than I knew I had in me and hurtle out the door. All I can think is to reach the injured wolf, to be at his side. All the anger and hurt I’ve been harboring because he left can’t measure up to the horror I feel at seeing him in such rough shape, wounded and weak. What if he’s dying? What if his injuries are too great for his shifter magic to heal him?
If Dare dies, I feel like a part of me will die too.
I sprint across the clearing in my bare feet, ignoring the dry, rough grass and hard ground scratching my skin. Dare shimmers with magic, still moving toward the cabin with that horrible, aching limp. The change steals over him and turns his dark, shaggy form into a mirage of colors and light until he’s human again. His naked body is covered in blood. Too much blood.
I skid to a stop before him and reach out to catch his arms as he stumbles. He’s too weak to find his own balance, and I’m not strong enough to hold him up, so I do my best to keep him from falling face-first into the ground as we both sink to our knees. Archer, Trystan, and Ridge gather around us, all of them wearing looks of concern.
“What happened?” I ask as I rake my gaze over Dare’s body. Deep lacerations decorate his skin, as well as strange, painful looking burn marks. A chunk of flesh is missing from his ankle, and I try not to gag when I realize I can see bone.
“Witches,” he snarls, his brown, gold-flecked eyes wild and unfocused. He jerks his arms away from me.
I gape at him as he lands heavily on his butt, putting distance between us. He’s mildly incoherent, and he still hasn’t looked me directly in the eye. I’m not sure if he’s just acting strange because he’s in shock… or if he doesn’t want me to touch him.
As Dare rolls to his knees to stand, fresh blood flows from his wounds.
“Hey, buddy. Let’s not do that,” Archer says quietly, reaching down to take the bigger man by the elbows. “You’re already weak. No sense in losing more blood with all of these sudden movements. You’re safe now. Let’s go inside and clean you up.”
As Archer helps Dare stand, Trystan steps in to balance the wounded man from the other side. His lips are turned down in a scowl, and he’s none-too-gentle as he manhandles Dare into position beside him. “Fucking idiot and your stupid suicide vendettas.”
I realize with a shock that Trystan is probably right. Dare must have left the cabin and immediately gone back to his old habits of patrolling the boundaries of pack land. But this time, he obviously found actual witches rather than just hints of their presence.
With Dare supported between them, Archer and Trystan begin a halting march back toward the cabin. Ridge turns to follow them, but I remain on my knees in the grass, still devastated by the way Dare tore his arms from my grasp.
