Love's a Witch (2 page)

The only other hobby I had was my art. I did keep a few sketch pads with me when we took off, but I could only draw for so long. It was a bit bittersweet every time I picked up my colored pencils. Memories of the mural I had been doing at the children’s hospital snuck into my thoughts. Now I had filled up cheap notebooks with the way Craig looks staring out the window of the car, or the way he stands outside our hotels to sniff the air and make sure we are safe.

I begged Amber to let me watch them change into wolves once for a little more inspirational material. She told me they got naked first. I told her I
really
didn’t mind, but it was a definite Do-Not-Pass-Go. She said I was her best friend and she wasn’t going to risk losing me. I think that was a bunch of bull. I’m human, sure. But I hung out with a lot of supernatural beings before. Only difference now was that I knew what they were.

I put down the cleaner and broom, and started throwing clothes into my duffel bag. Craig was right. We were definitely leaving. No way were we getting our continental breakfast after this.

Chapter Two

Craig

I flipped the doorknob in the air at least a dozen times on my way to the front desk. I tried just holding onto it, but the cheap metal was bending under the crush of my fingers. No need putting this off. When I plopped the doorknob on the counter in front of a woman in an oversized suit jacket uniform, she went from friendly smiles to pursed lips.

You probably aren’t surprised at how annoyed hotel employees get when you let them know you trashed their rooms. Part of me thought about having Jake dazzle this little angry woman and get out of the trouble without paying, but as long as we were able to, I wanted to do the right thing and give the hotel the money.

Handing the doorknob to the desk clerk was the least of my worries. Craig Alakin, now Hart, reduced to apologizing to a human woman in hopes that we wouldn’t attract the attention of the local authorities. If only my parents could see me now. I discovered a long time ago my parents were wrong about a lot of things. I always tried not to care what my parents think, but I still wonder what they would think of who I became.

The clerk was mollified when I emptied most of the cash from my wallet and left the address on my ID to send a bill to in case the money I had didn’t cover the damage. Sure, it was the address to my former Alpha’s home, but he did tell me to send word if I needed help. The blackened windows in Mary’s room seemed like a good thing to cash that favor in for. It would also give him a bit of information about where we were and that we were okay. I made sure the bill was sent under the name of one of the wolves in the Pack to keep news of the Hart Clan from being intercepted.

I have been so many people before now. It was only a couple decades ago that I became Craig Mathews. The Alpha to the Paulson Pack took me in under my new name. That Pack was so different from the one I was born into. They worked with and blended into the human world. Despite the sneers my parents had given to the idea of a werewolf who began his existence as a human, I found myself drawn to Mr. Paulson.

Alpha’s daughter, Amber, had always been kind of a nuisance. Talk about a woman who had no idea who she was. I watched her avoid information like the plague. She would skip the council meetings I was honored to be a part of. She would spend her time avoiding any and everything that involved Pack history.

She was nothing like me. I could never get enough information. It was probably where my parents and I finally fell out. I wanted to read, I wanted to learn, and while our council members were amazing story-tellers, I always felt there was something special and concrete and magical about the printed word. Humans wrote. Humans had books and libraries, and they had schools. Attending schools and learning everything I could about, well,
everything
was an amazing experience.

Paying out a weeks’ worth of hotel bills for the single night we’d spent here was not one of those amazing experiences. I really wished Mary would stop burning things down. A wolf, or a vampire, or a hybrid would have strong enough skin, and fast enough healing to handle a few scorch marks. But Mary wasn’t any of those things. She was a human. Her skin was soft and vulnerable, and it took every ounce of control to not check her for injuries again once I returned to her room.

Mary was my responsibility, and from time to time I just wished I could wrap her up in a million sheets of flame retardant bubble wrap. The woman kept insisting she needed to go out and learn about her heritage. She needed to learn magic, sure, but I don’t know why she couldn’t just read about it. I told Amber about the books I found by Scott Cunningham. He had books about solitary practice. After Mary had come back bleeding from the amateur with the athame, I was ready to pull the plug on the whole real life experience thing.

Jake insisted he had found the perfect solution. He found someone who was known to his miasma to have quite a bit of magical power. She was a solitary practitioner. Unfortunately she still used fire and sharp objects. If I couldn’t bully my way into keeping an eye on Mary this time, I planned on being within viewing distance whether they wanted me there or not.

Mary was so young. She carried delicious lush curves on a short frame, and I wondered if she wasn’t throwing off some magic without knowing it. Parts of me flared whenever she got too close. One part in particular, if I was honest with myself. I wanted her in a way I had never wanted another female. I had to mentally restrain myself when she was near, and it wasn’t all about checking her for damage.

Lucky for me, I knew a few magical tricks of my own. Even though my parents believed werewolves were a superior race, and considered mingling with other species to be beneath us, they still used what they called “necessary magic”. Enchanted items, spells performed by local covens, they knew the value of cloaking who they were. Not many in my Pack had been literate. I learned to read mostly from the spells they bought. The witches wrote on paper.

The first spell I memorized was an emotional shield. Disagreeing with an Alpha werewolf could be hazardous to your health, and I disagreed with my father on many levels. Thanks to the amount of practice I got, with just a little bit of the enchanted dragon’s blood resin, I could block myself off from everyone now. Annabelle, the witch who taught me how to use the shielding magic, popped into my head. I hadn’t spoken to her since I left the Alakin Pack. I wondered how she was doing.

I was no witch, and I could never enchant herbs myself, but the dime-sized amount of powder inside one tiny vial had been the only thing I took with me from my Family’s stash. Annabelle had sold it to my parents, but I knew she had meant it for me. I was the only one she’d taught the spell. It worked on keeping everyone at a distance. Everyone except Mary.

That woman got under my skin. I felt my teeth itch as I picked up her bag. She was arguing with me, but it wasn’t the upbeat banter I had come to expect from her. Over the last few weeks, something was dimming in her. She didn’t push as hard. She didn’t argue as loud. I wanted to ask her why, but it didn’t seem to be my place. I could also reduce the use of the dragon’s blood and let myself explore the connection we had to force the issue, but I didn’t want to drop my guard yet. Although another week or so, and I wouldn’t have any choice. My blocker spell wouldn’t work without that resin powder and it was almost gone.

When Mary hadn’t known I was a wolf, the flirting we did was fun. Now it was wrong. This was my Clan leader’s best friend. And this was a witch who had an amazing gift she had no idea how to tap into or control. She needed to focus. I needed to give her space.

I stood outside her room and reminded myself of that. I also reinforced my shields with a few grains of the dragon’s blood under my tongue as we made our way back to the van that would take us to the next stop. God, why did she smell so good? It wasn’t the first time I had to breathe through my mouth to avoid the embarrassing side-effects her scent had on my body.

We all packed into the van, and I stretched my legs out on the middle bench seat, forcing Mary into the back. I would have rather driven, but Amber and Jake took the front of our ride.

The scratch of Mary’s pencils on her sketch pad was just as soothing as the music on the radio as we started towards our next stop. That scuffle of lead against paper was a sound my brain associated with Mary at this point. Knowing she still kept that beautiful innocent part of herself with her settled me.

I had done the research on this Bed and Breakfast. The witch we were headed towards lived surrounded by nature. Her business drew in humans who wanted to get away from city life. Lucky for us, she refused to take more than a few tenants in at a time. We would have all that nature to ourselves.

“Can we stop before we head out? I’m hungry.” My stomach wasn’t the only hunger I had, but carnal desires weren’t the priority right now.

Amber brushed the hair out of Jake’s face as they drove. He nipped at her finger, and Amber licked her lips. Well, carnal desires weren’t a priority for those of us who weren’t mated.

“We’ll eat when we get to the B&B, Craig. Be a good boy and be patient, and you can have dessert when you finish your meal.” Amber loved verbally petting me on the head.

I flashed some fang.
Wait.
Easy for her to say. I could remind her the human needed to eat as well, but I didn’t want to deal with Mary right now. Something tickled in the back of my brain whenever I talked about her…or to her…or near her. I didn’t want to think about it right then. So I stared out the window, and tried to ignore the fact Mary was drawing something on her sketch pad that looked suspiciously like my face.

Chapter Three

Mary

We were in a van again. Not the same child-kidnapping monstrosity we drove out of Indiana, but not much better. I was glad this one had air conditioning that didn’t carry the smell of cigarettes in the vents. However, the tension thickening the air around us was just as unpleasant. I am usually a very happy person. Failing this many times in a row was a new record for me, and it was dragging me down. I couldn’t shake the fact that the mural I had been doing at the children’s hospital would go unfinished. Maybe I would go back and finish it before the vampires found me and used me as a drinking fountain.

Jake’s voice pulled me out of my head. “I’ve got another contact for you a few hours south of here, Mary. Her name is Kari. She’s a solo practitioner. We have reservations at her bed and breakfast. I figured we would be able to be a little freer with ourselves at her place.” Jake was a good guy. I was a little jealous of the relationship he and Amber had, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t happy for my friend.

“She knows about werewolves and vampires?” That would make things easier. Someone to talk to would be good.

Jake spoke loud enough so I could hear from the back of the van. “Sorry, kiddo. No. She is a witch, and she understands magic, but she does not know what we are. Witches are still human and we tend to keep the human population in the dark. Unless she was traveling with us we would never reveal ourselves to her.”

While driving our latest untraceable vehicle, he reached for Amber’s hand. She had shotgun of course. I never got shotgun. When Craig drove Jake got the seat and Amber sat in back with me.

“Whatever. How long until we get there?” I asked from the kid table.

All three of them looked at each other like I was being unreasonable. I had the power to be unreasonable. Being unreasonable was easy. Too bad nothing else with these guys was easy. Guess I could just be unreasonable until I figured out how to be useful.

“We have somewhere between two and three hours before we arrive.” Jake shouted over his shoulder. The supernatural trio were doing their wordless communication thing again. They all looked at each other before one of them responded.

“Wake me up when we get there.” I laid down, and pretended to sleep. Learning how to regulate my breathing and heartbeat was the one useful thing I mastered from my time with the coven. It was a good technique to work yourself into a trance. It also turned out it was a good way to fool a car with a werewolf and a pair of hybrids into thinking you were asleep. Just a few minutes passed before they started talking quietly again.

“You know she’s the key to all of this, don’t you?” Craig’s words were the ones I latched onto first. For once someone was talking about me as if I were more than just an extra task to check off the list.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Amber’s voice was higher and louder when she was mad. Her short temper helped the conversation stay at a level that was easy to hear. “Mary’s my best friend. She’s here because she needs protection, not to be used to our advantage.” And my bestie just called me useless. Nice.

“She’s psychic. If we can tap into what she sees, if we can help her realize her potential…” Craig’s voice trailed off. What did he think I could do? Other than combat fabric with poor candle work, I couldn’t see what he was talking about. “Amber, she’s got one of the most coveted forms of magic on the planet. Foresight is valued above all else among witches.” Well that was new.

I concentrated on my breathing. I definitely wanted to hear the rest of this conversation. Luckily, Craig kept talking.

“I’ve been doing some research, and there’s talk of witches being kept against their will, compelled to tell their captor what they see. It would explain why you see a lot of really wealthy vampires.”