Entwined Enemies (5 page)

Mason isn’t listening to reason. I have to wound his ego a little, but it’s for his own good.

“You say those men caught you off guard? I believe that, but for how long? There was obviously a struggle here. You fought back. How did that go? Fighting two werewolves at the same time?”

Mason clenches his jaw.

“Did they even change, or were they men the whole time? When I saw them, their clothes were intact. Not stretched even a little. That means they didn’t change at all. Yet somebody had to leave these claw marks in my wall. You did. You transformed into a wolf, but they didn’t, and still overpowered you.”

Mason refuses to look at me. He doesn’t want to hear what I’m saying. He just wants to run off to get his revenge, but I’m making sense. I can tell I’m getting through to him.

I step in front of him, blocking the door, put my hands on either side of his face, and make him look at me.

“Those men were under orders not to hurt me. I can use that. I can make them believe that I’m scared and willing to play along.”

Mason frowns at me. “You’re not?”

“Yes, of course I am,” I reply, exaggerating.

“You don’t seem scared,” he says, “and there’s no scent of fear on you. Why aren’t you are afraid of them?”

That’s not a question I can easily answer. It would involve revealing that I’m a witch in a powerful coven. Even now, after everything that’s happened, it’s not my secret to tell.

“Let me agree to their terms,” I continue without answering his question. “You too. We’ll go together. It’ll be more convincing if we approach them at the same time. It’ll make Trent believe that we’ve been cowed by him. If I understand how he thinks, and I believe I do, he’ll like that. I know his type. He needs to feel dominant.”

I let go of Mason’s face, stand up straight, and finish my thought.

“That’s when he lowers his guard.
That’s
when we strike.”

“We?” Mason says. “No. I don’t like the sound of that at all. Not if there’s a chance you might get hurt.”

“Oh, I think she can handle herself,” a third voice adds to the conversation.

Mason is surprised by the person who snuck up on us, but I’m not.

Candice is standing in the open doorway.

“You’re back!” I exclaim.

“Trust me. I didn’t get far. I’m sure you can understand why.”

Candice would have sensed me tapping into the quicksilver pool, especially if she was casting at the same time. She would have sensed me casting Remove the Flesh right away. That would have set off her alarms.

“Did you have any luck following that
lead
you told me about? Because I may have some ideas about it,” I tell her.

The last time I saw Candice she was following a lead from the Romanian witch. I’m sure it has something to do with Trent.

“Candice,” Mason interrupts, trying his best not to sound terse. “It’s good to see you again, but I have to be honest. It’s not a good time.”

“I can see that just by looking around,” she says, casting her gaze at me with a raised eyebrow. “Who trashed this place?”

“Two men. Mason was attacked.”

Candice gives him a once-over. “Well, you look intact to me. That’s a good sign.”

“He was worse before,” I tell her. “We could use some help.”

Mason turns me toward him with concern on his eyes. “Jess, we need to deal with this matter, but on our own. I really don’t think we should involve your friends.”

“That’s noble of you, but we can handle ourselves just fine,” says yet another voice.

Saffron walks out of my kitchen, catching Mason completely off guard again.

“How did you get in from that direction? And so quietly?” he asks.

“We’re secretly ninjas,” Saffron says with a smile. “Either that or I climbed up the fire escape and let myself in through the kitchen window. Candice and I wanted to cover both exits.”

I rush over and give her a hug. It’s been a while since I’ve actually seen Saffron. She wraps her arms around me. Their timing couldn’t be better. Especially after my ordeal with Mason.

“Hello, little Maiden. Up to no good as usual, I see,” she says affectionately.

“It’s really good to see you both. You have no idea.”

Saffron is taller than me but shorter than Candice. I’m the brunette. Candice is the blonde. And Saffron is the ginger of our group. She remains stunningly beautiful. Preserved in time, yet so much older than both Candice and myself combined.

Saffron is the Crone of our coven, but you can’t tell by looking at her. Candice and Saffron arrested my age at eighteen. Candice holds fast in her mid-twenties, while Saffron hovers around thirty.

I step out of hugging Saffron for a moment and look back at Candice.

“Wait a second! If you’re both here, then who’s looking out for…?”

“Kumi can manage on her own for now,” Candice informs me.

“But shouldn’t there always be at least two people looking over her at all times?”

“The situation is not ideal, but will suffice for now,” Saffron adds. “After all the recent activity I
heard
about, it seemed prudent to make haste.”

Saffron means all the activity she sensed through the quicksilver pool. Still, for her to get here so quickly, she would need to cast a powerful spell. One that is extremely taxing to the reservoir. Not even flying is that quick.

“You got here so fast. I hope the journey didn’t put you out,” I say in front of Mason, and Saffron knows what I mean.

“The journey was costly, but nothing we can’t afford. Believe me when I say there’s more than enough in the kitty right now. My travel expenses barely made a dent.”

I haven’t even checked to see where I left the pool after siphoning Mason, but I’ve been casting a lot.

Let’s see, Discern What is True once, Remove the Flesh twice, both times unsuccessfully, Maintain the Flesh twice, and then I returned much of the lust I took from Mason back into his body, albeit with an improvised ritual.

I just assumed the pool would be nearly empty after all that.

I did cast Preserve the Lust on Mason right after he pulled himself off the spikes, but didn’t bother to check the current quicksilver levels after that. Mason was a wolf at the time. Not a half-man, half-wolf, but a massive dire wolf. Did it really top the pool up that much again?

“Are you sure it’s that full?” I ask Saffron. “Because I’ve been digging into that kitty a lot lately.”

“I know, but then all of sudden, there was more than either Candice or I knew what to do with.”

“There still is,” Candice adds.

Mason finally speaks up, trying to follow the conversation.

“Okay, you must be Saffron. At least, I assume you’re Saffron. Jess speaks very highly of you and Candice. It’s a pleasure to meet you, but I really wish it could be under better circumstances. Jess and I are kind of in a bind right now. There’s something we need to deal with, but on our own. Thank you for your offer to help, really, but I don’t think there’s anything you can do.”

Saffron smiles at me. “He’s more polite than I thought. I like this one.”

“That makes two of us,” I say.

Mason shakes his head. “Look, I’m sorry, but I really must insist. You both have to leave. It’s dangerous for you to even be here. It’s dangerous for Jess too, but I can protect her. I can’t make the same promise for the two of you. Thank you for coming so quickly, but now you really must go, for your own good.”

“And noble! He gets better the more he talks,” Candice adds with a grin on her face.

Mason shakes his head, exasperated. “I feel like you’re not listening to me!”

Saffron walks up to Mason and places a hand on his shoulder.

“We are listening. More than you realize. Not only that, we like what we’re hearing. A lot. Your heart is in exactly the right place. Jess chose well with you, even if we did have our reservations at first.

“I don’t know about what sort of bind you’re in exactly, but I couldn’t help but overhear a little of what Jess was saying earlier. If she’s come up with a plan that plays into the weaknesses of whomever you intend to meet, than I suspect it’s a good one.”

“You… you were listening to all of that? For how long?” Mason asks.

“Long enough to hear that you fought two werewolves at the same time,” Candice says.

Mason turns to me. “They know about me? You told them?”

“No,” Saffron answers for me, “she didn’t. She made us figure that part out for ourselves. But yes, we’ve known for a while.”

Mason stands with that knowledge for a few seconds, saying nothing. Finally his thoughts burble to the surface.

“Before Jess, the last time I met somebody who didn’t bat an eyelash when they found out I’m a werewolf was a Romanian witch.”

Saffron nods and smiles. “Well in that case, there’s a good reason none of us are batting our eyelashes, now is there?”

“So you’ve been a witch this whole time?”

I almost laugh at his question, but suppress the impulse. It’s not the right time. Mason can be adorable, even in the midst of chaos.

“The whole time, and for a lot longer than that.”

We’re standing in the kitchen. Candice and Saffron can hear everything we’re saying, but are giving us some space to talk privately. There’s a sense of urgency to my plan, but this conversation needs to happen, even if it’s compressed.

“I have so many questions, but only one comes to mind. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“The three of us have a pact not to advertise who we are to the world. I’m the newest member and therefore the most bound by that pact. Saffron recruited both Candice and I. Only Saffron can share the secret without consulting the other two, and she’s done that now with you.

“I don’t expect you to understand, but that gesture alone is enormous. She’s only shared our secret with one other person. Kumi, who you haven’t met. You’re the only other man I’ve known her to trust. Well, the second, actually.”

“Who was the first?”

“The father of Saffron’s daughter.”

Mason shakes his head. He’s not rejecting the information, but it’s a lot to take in.

“Why all the secrecy? I’ve met a witch before. The one who tattooed me. She was reclusive, but not secretive.”

“We protect somebody very important to us. Trixie. Saffron’s daughter. A young woman who has no idea that we guard her from a distance, but that’s not the only reason.

“Candice and Saffron have seen how public opinion can change toward witches. They’ve seen it throughout their lifetimes. Witches fall in and out of favor all the time, historically speaking, but even that’s not the reason. I keep what I am a secret because Candice and Saffron want it that way.”

“And that’s enough for you?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say without hesitating.

“You must really trust them.”

“I do, with my life, but I also feel the same way about you, pretty much from the moment we met. That’s never happened to me before. And if I trust you, then Candice and Saffron do as well. They trust my judgment of character.”

“You once told me that we all have dark secrets, but never shared yours. I didn’t want to pry.”

“Thank you for that. If you had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

Mason nods. I sensed he was tempted to prod once or twice, but never acted on that impulse.

“It wasn’t my business,” he says, “but I could tell that whatever secret you were keeping didn’t weigh on you like mine did for me. At least not at first. Now I can see why. You enjoy being a witch.”

“I do, but it’s also a lot of work. Most of it enjoyable. The hardest part was keeping the secret from you. It wasn’t always difficult. I used to like keeping the secret. I wore it around my heart like an invisible suit of armor, protecting me.

“Then I met you. I thought you were silly at first, needing to share everything about yourself, then I realized why. You were doing it to warn me. To see if I would be scared away. It was your way of testing the waters. I must have responded well.”

“You did,” Mason says, smiling.

“That’s when I began to see the appeal of sharing my secret with you. The depth of a connection that could be formed by revealing what I am. That’s when my secret began to feel like distance between us. I wanted to cross that valley, but it wasn’t my decision to make.”

“I could see that something was up. At least, I think I could. It’s impossible to say for sure now, after the fact, but there were times when I could sense you wanted to tell me what was on your mind, but bit your tongue.”

“You weren’t imagining it.”

“You were being loyal to your friends. I get that now. Heck, I respect it. To be honest, it makes me love you even more.”

I can’t keep the smile from erupting on my face, or the tears from welling in my eyes. I almost lost this amazing man today. I’m so glad I risked what I did to save him, even if I didn’t know what I was doing at the time.
You continue to surprise me, Mason Boone.

I throw myself against his tall frame and wrap my arms around his slender build, pressing my face against his chest. He staggers back, but then steadies himself, and returns the gesture. I can’t even look at him right now I love him so much. The Italians call this feeling “
nervio
.”