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The blinking increased, and I’d swear I spotted the sheen of tears. “Surely Monty—”
“It’s a father’s duty to walk his daughter down the aisle, and you are the closest thing to a father—or at least a grandfather—that I now have.”
“Ah, lass, it would be my great honor to do so.”
“Good.” I smiled. “But you should know that the wedding will be held in weeks, not months—”
“More a matter of days, rather than weeks,” Aiden corrected as he approached. “I’m not risking her escaping me again.”
Ashworth laughed and clapped Aiden on the shoulder. “Oh, I doubt there’s any risk of that. You’ve been the problem, lad, not our girl. However, I’d advise waiting until we’ve at least dealt with our current vampire problem.”
“That goes without saying.”
But the look he cast my way was determined. The alpha had finally set his mind on marriage, and he would not be persuaded to delay very long.
I couldn’t say I in any way disagreed with that determination.
“As long as we have time to get my mom and Belle’s family down here,” I said, “I really don’t care when the wedding is held.”
“Good. I shall start immediate arrangements.”
I laughed. “And off goes the alpha without consulting his wife-to-be about said arrangements.”
“The alpha has absolutely no intention of doinganythingin that regard without preapproval from said future wife. I have learned that lesson the hard way.”
“Happy wife, happy life,” Ashworth said. “Glad you’ve learned it early, lad.”
“Righto, gentlemen,” Joel said. “We’re a go here whenever you’re ready.”
Aiden turned. Joel had secured the ropes to the larger of the remaining stumps, and he, Monty, and Eli were now wearing harnesses and hard hats.
“You’ll probably lose phone signal down there,” Aiden said. “So make sure you use the two-way to keep me updated.”
Joel nodded, then carefully went over the edge, feeding out the rope as he disappeared down the shaft. Once he’d given the all clear, Monty and then Eli followed him down.
Leaving us and the darkly pulsing spell stone in the bright sunshine.
I took a deep breath and released it slowly. It didn’t calm the nerves. Didn’t calm the sudden certainty that this would all go horribly wrong. “Okay, let’s get this bit over with.”
Aiden walked around the protection circle to stand at my back, his closeness sending skitters of awareness down my spine. With the two of them guarding me, I should be safe.
So why did the opposite feel true?
Precognition? Or simple fear?
I did my best to shove it—whatever “it” was—away, and carefully peeled the glove away from the stone, dropping it into my palm.
For several, seemingly long seconds, nothing happened. The darkness continued to pulse from within the stone’s black heart, but my psi senses didn’t immediately react, as they had with the blood.
But maybe that was because I was currently keeping a very tight leash on them.
I took another of those long breaths that didn’t calm the growing sense of danger, then released the leash. My psi senses immediately leapt away, chasing the faint line of the heartbeat at dizzying speed, not giving me any chance to see the lay of the land or where we might be heading.
Only to stop with an abruptness that had my breath catching in my throat.
Once again, nothing else immediately happened. The steady beat continued, but I was surrounded by blackness. Then, gradually, images formed. This time, they weren’t coming from the mind of whoever owned this stone, but rather the cold hearts of theotherspell stones.
Which was not something I’d ever thought possible, although in truth there weren’t many witches who made a habit of losing spell stones, either, and therefore little reason for anyone to employ a psychic to find them. Aside from the fact good stones capable of enhancing a witch’s magic were rare and expensive, it was often better to buy a new set than try to match the harmonics of a new stone to older ones.
