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Turning back to Gwen, I hug the book to my chest. “Thank you. Is there anything else you can tell me about Cleo?”
She grimaces. “If you mean ‘can you tell me what her weaknesses are,’ I’m afraid not. She’s an extraordinarily powerful witch, and if she has weaknesses, she kept them hidden from me. I can’t even tell you where to find her, since she uprooted the coven’s base several years after I left. Everything else I could tell you, you probably already know. She hates wolves. She’s ruthless. And she won’t stop until she succeeds in wiping them out.”
A shiver crawls through me at her words. I knew that was true of witches in general, but I didn’t realize until now how deeply the coven leader herself despises shifters.
Is that why the attacks on pack lands have gotten worse over the past few decades? Did witches always hate shifters, or is it because of Cleo’s vendetta?
“Thank you,” I say woodenly, standing up from the table. It feels strange to thank someone for delivering such terrifying news, but I’d rather know than not know.
“You must be careful, Sable,” Gwen warns as she accompanies us to the door. “Cleo is strong and clever. She’s more dangerous than you can possibly understand.”
“I’ll be careful.”
My promise feels paltry, and I clutch the book she gave me tighter, conflicting emotions raging in my chest.
On the one hand, I’m thrilled to have something that could actually teach me about the magic singing through my bones. But even so, it feels like a heavy weight in my arms, an anchor dragging me down. A responsibility I wish I didn’t have, along with this horrible link between me and Cleo.
I hate the book as much as I’m grateful to have it.
But I know I’ll need it. We’ve just found out how formidable our enemy is, so God knows I’ll need every bit of help I can get.
17
Sable
Standing in Gwen’s front yard, I slide my newly acquired spell book into my backpack along with my clothes, stripping down so I can shift to wolf form.
I catch a glimpse of Gwen’s pale face in the window as she watches me, a light of fascination burning in her eyes, and I flush, angling my nude body away from her prying gaze. I wonder if any part of her sees me the way my uncle saw me. Clearly, she’s not without enemies of her own, and if she sees my hybridization the same way Clint did, she might also think I’d be a formidable tool to have in her arsenal.
But it’s unfair of me to expect that of her. She fought us when we arrived because we’d infringed on her territory, not because she considers us enemies for being wolves. Gwen is a hermit, a mountain witch who seems most comfortable in her own area away from everybody else—witch and wolf alike. As far as I’ve seen, she isn’t our enemy, and she’s given me no reason to treat her as such.
She seems to be a sort of neutral player in all of this, unwilling to truly get involved. The only reason she helped us initially was to satisfy her curiosity about my nature, and the only reason she gave me the spell book is because she despises Cleo.
Once I’ve completed the shift and stand steadily on four paws, I glance back at the witch in the window.
Her expression is unreadable, though that gleam of interest is still there in her green eyes. But I don’t get the sense that she wants to use me for herself. And if she’s going to betray us down the road, there’s nothing we can do to stop that now—short of killing her in cold blood, and there’s no fucking way I’d do that.
I offer her a wolfish nod, and then fall into formation with my mates as we take off back the way we came.
It’s early afternoon, the hottest
part of the day, and the sun glares down on the mountains from high overhead. We pass in and out of shadows, cresting over hills and loping across valleys. We run at full speed, faster than my mates have ever pressed me before, until my muscles strain and my lungs burn. But I don’t complain. We are so very far away from pack territory, and we’re the only ones who know about Cleo and the knowledge she now has. I’ll run until I fall apart if it means we can reach the packs in time to stop a needless slaughter.
But the whole time I’m running, I replay my interaction with Gwen over and over in my head, questions burning through me.
Why did she leave her coven? What happened between her and Cleo? Why is she hidden so far in the mountains?
I hope like hell we can trust her, because she certainly seems like a witch with something to hide. She seemed genuine though, especially in her hatred of Cleo. Those two have a history I’m dying to know about, although at this rate, I’m not sure when—or if—I’ll ever see Gwen again. We’re racing headlong into what looks like war, and war has a tendency to keep people apart.
I want to trust her. But it’s hard to know who to trust, and witches have never been high on the list.
I’m so surprised by my own thought that I stumble over my paws and have to take a few uneven steps to get back into the rhythm of running, losing ground on my mates. Archer glances back over his pale blond shoulder and woofs at me, lagging behind just enough for me to catch up with him.
Check your prejudices, I remind myself. You’re part witch.
Sure, the packs have plenty of reason to hate and distrust most witches, but if my men thought that all witches were inherently evil, I’d probably be dead by now. They’ve accepted me despite my witch side, so I have to at least give Gwen the benefit of the doubt. I need to allow for the possibility that not all witches are bad. Just like my mates have had to learn with me.
I’m not bad. I know I’m not, even when my magic is trying to make me feel otherwise.
