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ChapterOne
Evil brushed my psychic senses, a dark wind that pulled me from a deep sleep. The magic that protected the café above which I lived remained undisturbed, so whatever I sensed wasn’t close. That didn’t mean it wasn’t a threat, however,
I tossed off the sheets and padded naked from my bedroom. The air was still and heavy with heat, and sweat prickled my skin. Though December wasn’t usually the hottest month of summer, the last couple of days had been unbearably hot. Worse, the nights hadn’t dropped below twenty-five degrees Celsius. I normally didn’t mind the heat, but pregnancy seemed to have changed all that.
Moonlight filtered through the glass sliding doors at the far end of the living room, bright enough to sweep aside the shadows that normally held the room captive. The moon was full tonight, which meant the three werewolf packs that lived within the Faelan Reservation would be out and running.
Aiden would be with them.
The mere thought stirred the ache in my heart and sharpened the longing in my soul. I loved the damn man, and I had no doubt he loved me, but pack politics continued to get in the way of our relationship. The fact that his mother—who remained pack alpha despite the death of her mate—hated witches in general and me in particular wasn’t helping matters.
But werewolves weren’t the only ones called by the full moon. Witches, particularly dark witches, often used her power and beauty to fuel their spells.
That dark wind had held an undercurrent of magic.
I had no idea whether it was connected to the evil I sensed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. The Faelan Reservation was regularly invaded by all manner of supernatural and demonic types, thanks to the largest of her two wellsprings being left without any sort of protections for well over a year. Wild magic—the raw, unbridled power that came from deep within the earth—was neither good nor bad, but, if left unguarded for any length of time, it always caught the interest of those wanting to claim its power for themselves. Sometimes those claimants were human, but mostly they were not.
I grabbed one of the hairbands sitting on the coffee table, then opened the sliding door and stepped out onto the balcony. A soft breeze stirred around me, but its touch was heated and did little to cool. I swept my hair up into a ponytail, then walked over to the balcony and leaned on the top railing. This portion of Castle Rock was basically a retail area, so the street below was empty—probably a good thing, given my nakedness.
The moon rode high in the sky, and her power sang through me, fierce and bright. It made me itch to run, to feel the soil between my toes, the brush of leaves against bare skin, and to raise my voice with the rest of the pack in praise of the moon’s glory.
But I wasn’t a werewolf, even if I carried the child of one. I had no idea if it was her presence—however beanlike she might yet be—causing the need to run, or if it was simply a result of my deepening connection to the land and the wild magic—a magic that was now changing my DNA. And yet, for all the enhancements it was making, both physical and magical, it could never do the one thing that would truly make a difference to my life.
It could never make me a werewolf.
A gossamer thread of wild magic drifted toward me. I raised a hand, and it slipped around my wrist, a fragile moonbeam that pulsed with a deep sense of kinship and an even deeper sense of urgency, though I had no idea why. The thread belonged to the main wellspring—my wellspring, as I now thought of it—which was located within the O’Connor compound. Apparently, the wild magic had gotten fairly volatile during my absence, causing rockslides and minor quakes, but things appeared to have settled since I arrived back home.
But if the almost agitated pulsing coming from this thread was anything to go by, something was still going on, and I had no real way of uncovering what. The wellspring might well be gaining some form of sentience, but it wasn’t like I could communicate with it, even if I could use and direct its power. And it wasn’t as if I could approach the spring, given its location.
There was, rather unusually, another wellspring within the Faelan Werewolf reservation—a newly risen one that lay within the Marin pack’s home ground. It was guarded by not only the soul of Katie O’Connor—Aiden’s sister—but by the ghost of her witch husband, Gabe. Until recently, very few within the reservation had known of its existence, but that had all changed when I’d confronted the werewolf council and challenged Aiden’s mother to a fight.
The fallout ofthatparticular situation had yet to be decided, though I suspected it was partly responsible for the delay in Aiden’s confirmation as pack alpha—a status that would allow him to confront their biases about wolves marrying outside their own kind, and the only real hope we had of a long-term relationship.
Not that he’d actually asked me to marry him, or even discussed his plans and intentions. The man could be remarkably tight-lipped when it came to such things. Hell, we weren’t evenina relationship right now, and he certainly didn’t know about my pregnancy. And wouldn’t, not until I knew for sure what his intentions were. If hedidintend to ask me to marry him, I wanted it to be because he loved me, not because I carried our child.
Of course, that was a secret I could only keep for a couple more months, at most, because he’d smell the hormonal changes once I neared the end of the first trimester.
The magic riding the night seemed to be coming from the direction of Émigré, the nightclub my psychotic ex had destroyed during his rampage of revenge against me and Belle. Said nightclub had been owned by a very old, very polite, but ultimately very scary vampire who had decades of murder and mayhem behind her. To say he’d gotten a brutal comeuppance for his actions would be an understatement.
The evil was more difficult to pin down, but maybe that would change once I headed out and looked around. I was briefly tempted to do so alone, rather than wake anyone I cared about over something that might amount to nothing, but given my track record of finding bloody chaos, it wasn’t worth the risk.
I’m glad you came to that conclusion, because I was beginning to wonder if pregnancy had killed off a few brain cells.
The dry comment whispered into my mind, and I couldn’t help laughing. One of the many benefits that came with Belle being not only my best friend but also my familiar was the ability to share thoughts and psychic abilities. It was a connection that had saved both our lives more than once over the years.
The only thing that’s killing my brain cells at the moment is the heat. I pushed away from the railing and headed back inside.What are you doing up at this hour? Or shouldn’t I ask?
It’s far too hot for sex, if that’s what you’re implying.
I’m betting Monty would disagree with that.
Monty’s a man, and we all know they have no brain cells when it comes to sex.
I laughed again. Monty wasn’t only my cousin, but also the designated reservation witch, a position assigned by the High Witch Council and one that generally meant doing nothing more than passing on the occasional high council decree and providing the rangers with magical assistance if and when needed.
It had been needed alotover the last year.
You’ve only been engaged for a couple of days, I said dryly.Don’t tell me the bloom has already started to fade.
