Chapter 21

As usual,Flora was the first to recover and got right down to brass tacks. “Okay, wolf boy, spill it.”

Grumpy didn’t answer her, didn’t even look at her, his golden gaze fixed on me as he took a step forward. “Meadow—”

Every alarm bell in my head went off. “My name’s Misty,” I corrected sharply.

I didn’t even know why I’d bothered to speak, for green light shot to my hands, writhing up to my shoulders. Not like vines, but like snakes. Vipers, each prepared to strike to keep my secrets hidden. Though I’d never met this shifter before last week, he’d said my true name so confidently, there was only one place he could’ve learned it from.

Home.

Or… the rival coven.

“You’re clearly frightening the young woman,” Daphne said gently, not realizing the danger she was in. What they all were in. Before I could protest, she removed her floral shawl and offered it to him.

He plucked it from her hands and knotted it around his waist, barely taking his attention off me.

What could I do? How could I get my friends away from him and protect myself all at the same time? The parasite bracelet was back on my wrist, and sparing the time to yank it off would lose me precious seconds.

Sawyer, ever aware of my aura, arched his back and bushed out his fur until he was the size of a (small, but ferocious) porcupine. Ame had bristled similarly in Shari’s arms.

“What’s going on here?” Flora demanded, already moving to place herself in front of Daphne and Shari, her wand tip glowing. “I said you had some explaining to do, wolf boy. Get to it. I won’t give you much time before—”

“Time.” His focus snapped off me and turned inward as he counted back the days. “It’s been seven days, right? I have to go. But I’ll—”

“You’re not taking one more step, mister!” Flora shrilled, but it was my magic that flared, darkening to the point where it could activate my cuffs if I wanted it to. All I needed to do was drag them across one another, like flint against steel, and I would tap into a power he would not walk away from. “Not until we get some answers.”

“You’ll get them,” he barked, making the garden gnome flinch. “But I must go. Now. Or Misty”—he flicked those golden eyes at me, giving me a very knowing look—“will have worse things than me to worry about.”

“Where do you have to go?” I demanded. Thistle thorns, my whole body was shaking with anticipation. I was on a hair trigger as the gravity of the last few seconds hit me like a freight train.

A tracker had found me.

Despite the power of my hearth, despite my alias, despite the parasite ring and bracelet, I’d been discovered. And the grimoire was not yet free of its curse.

Only prey panics, a voice reminded me. Dad again, not Grandmother. Hawthornes are never prey. You might be in pain, you might be in danger, but you will not panic. You will think, and then you will fight your way out.

“To my car. In Tussock. But you have my word I will return.”

“How can I trust it? And you?” I forced out. Like I had with Brandi, I let my true heritage glow green in my eyes—a warning. These last few days had lulled me into a false sense of security, of hope. I’d never once thought this werewolf was in town for me.

He didn’t back down, meeting my stare. “Because you fought for me when we weren’t even friends. That means something to a wolf.”

By the Green Mother, don’t let me regret this! I swallowed hard, the light fading from my eyes. The dark hue of my magic faded too, returning to vibrant emerald green. I didn’t release my hold on it entirely, in case this was all a show. My heart hoped it wasn’t.

“Misty,” Flora warned.

But Grumpy knelt, focusing on the hissing tomcat in front of me. “Look at me, familiar,” he instructed calmly. “I will not hurt her.”

“I went for the eyes of the last man who did, wolf. And I’m not her familiar.”

“But you are bonded.”

To my shock, Sawyer’s fur smoothed and his spine flattened, but his ears were still lowered, the tip of his tail flicking. Backing down.

“Stripes,” Flora protested.

“Are you sure?” Ame pressed, a warning note in her voice.

The young cat ignored them all, looking over his shoulder up at me. “He means what he says; his aura proves it. He’ll be back.”

“You’ll get your answers then, I promise,” the tracker assured me.

My heart was pounding, the magic tendrils along my arms lashing like ribbons in the wind. But Sawyer’s gaze was steady. “O-okay,” I finally agreed, and my magic disappeared.

Straightening, the man stalked forward and bowed his head. A silent demand to remove the collar.

A zap of green magic dulled the thorns and nullified the anti-tampering spells, and I lifted it from his head. A shiver of relief rippled over his skin as he stepped away, untied the floral shawl, and handed it back to Daphne.

He truly looked at her now, a slow up-down assessment that brought a girlish blush to her cheeks, though she didn’t drop her gaze. “Thank you. And I appreciate you not… nicking anything.”

Between one heartbeat and the next, he transformed into that golden-white wolf and shot off to the west.

“I-I think I need a drink,” Daphne murmured.

“Good going, cider witch,” Flora groused. “Who knows if he’ll actually come back?” Then she huffed. “What do we do now?”

That was a loaded questioned, for she wasn’t asking Misty Fields, but rather the witch on the run who had a stolen grimoire under a mountain of ashes and rosemary sprigs in her crawlspace.

“Why did he called you Meadow?” Shari asked.

Even Daphne, who insisted a woman’s past was her own, was drilling me with a blue-eyed stare, expecting an explanation.

“Everybody inside,” I said crisply. “Sawyer, you run and tell the hobs to go hide in Grandpappy’s whiskey cellar, wherever that is, until I say otherwise. Then you come back to the farmhouse.” The hearth would protect them. But against my family, or the coven who’d cursed them, would it be enough?

Then I sucked in a shaky breath, realizing what I had to do. They deserved to know. After their selfless kindness, welcoming me into the Crafting Circle, into their lives, and especially after what they all did for me in Tussock, donating their own life essences to help me create the Hunting Spell… they deserved to know the whole story. And what their friendship with me might have cost them. “I’ll tell you everything, but first I have to run into town.”

“Not away?” Shari quipped immediately. That crafter could be so perceptive when she wasn’t battling her own personal demons.

“Not yet.” I had a little time, or so the tracker had made me believe. The image of a countdown timer on a bomb came to mind—he was rushing off to delay something, and, in turn, giving me a chance to protect what I loved.

As the Crafting Circle ladies and Ame traipsed onto the porch and into the house, Sawyer still loitered by the fence, not yet high-tailing it across the orchard to complete his task. His paws minced, claws grinding the dirt below them, amber eyes wide and glassy. I knew why, and I hoisted that soft ball of stripes to my chest and lowered my head to nuzzle his. “I’ll come back for you,” I whispered to him. “Always.”

His return nuzzle was rough, forcing that affection through me and into my soul, and then he leapt down to his task, streaking through the dead wildflower fields.

With a backwards glance to the farmhouse and finding all the ladies and Ame packed against the dining room window, watching me, I got into my car and headed to the Barn Market to retrieve a certain crystal.