Chapter Seventeen #2
Her mouth tightened as a mini web of magick showed on each of the Rabid’s eyelids.
Motherfucker.
The air in his lungs hot with rage, Ripper stormed up the path toward the manor.
He could hear a vehicle approaching fast; knew it would be the Watchers.
One of his wolves had called to say that Emberlyn had reported yet another Rabid incident.
Ripper had leaped into his truck and hightailed it here in record time, determined to get to her; having no fucking clue if she was injured or not.
Again. She’d found herself fronting a Rabid again. There was something very fucking wrong with this picture. No way was it a coincidence.
He cleared the porch steps with a single leap. The front door opened . . . revealing no one. The manor’s sentient power had apparently decided to bid him entrance. A thought he shoved aside, his only interest in tracking down the occupant.
He stalked inside. ‘Emberlyn?’ he called out, his voice unintentionally sharp.
No response.
Knowing she’d reported that the Rabid had entered her backyard, he made his way toward the rear of the house, again calling out her name.
The back door creaked open, and there she was. Her brow creased in a surprised confusion. ‘How did you get in?’
Making a beeline for her, he swept his gaze over her body. There was no blood or visible injuries. No indication she was shaken or upset. In fact, she looked her usual calm and steady self. ‘The manor let me in,’ he replied.
Her brows hiked up. ‘Well, that’s a – no, you don’t want to get close to me right now, Rip, I have dirt on my clothes.’
He kept on forging forward. ‘I don’t care.’ Finally reaching her, he curved his arms around her. She stilled in surprise. Okay, so he wasn’t much of a hugger – so what?
Relaxing, she settled her hands on the twin columns of his back.
He pulled in a breath through his nose, clenching his teeth so hard a shooting pain lanced through his jaw. Frustration, agitation, fury – the emotions boiled in his gut. ‘You hurt?’
‘No. I managed to get behind the house’s defensive barrier before the Rabid could get to me.’
Relief should have coursed through him at that, but the dark emotions simmering in his system left no room for anything else.
He smelled the spot behind her ear, taking her scent inside him.
‘You should have called me,’ he insisted, his voice roughening with a barely contained growl.
They weren’t an official couple, no, but she was under his protection.
‘I knew one of the Watchers would call you, so I also knew you’d already be on your way here by the time I’d put the Rabid to sleep – assuming you weren’t busy with other things.’
Feeling his brows snap together, Ripper pulled back enough to meet her gaze. ‘Look at me. It wouldn’t matter what was going on around me. If you had even the slightest brush with danger, I would come to you.’
She stared at him, her expression unreadable. ‘Even when there’d be nothing you could do?’
‘Even then.’ He smoothed a hand up her spine. ‘Now, where’s the Rabid?’
‘Outside, asleep. I was pruning herbs in the garden when I saw that Lucie was staring at the woods. Then she started growling. I walked over to see what had unsettled her, and I noticed the Rabid in the trees. I fended it off with magick as I fled to the porch, knowing it wouldn’t manage to bypass the protective barrier. ’
‘How long will it stay unconscious?’
‘Until I or another witch awakens it. Don’t worry, it isn’t going anywhere.’
A brisk knock came at the front door.
‘That’ll be the Watchers.’ Ripper slowly released her. ‘I’ll let them in.’ He stalked to the door and opened it wide. Kerr, Shane, Logan and a male witch filed inside. The latter was Ward’s brother but, unlike Ward himself, Marvin was a decent guy.
‘How’s Emberlyn, and where’s the Rabid?’ Logan asked.
‘She’s fine,’ Ripper replied. ‘And it’s outside.’
Moments later, they were all gathered in a circle around the sleeping Rabid.
‘You don’t often see any Rabid in town this early,’ Shane noted.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Ripper planted his feet wide. ‘This is the second time one came at Emberlyn. It happened last month, too.’ It was no coincidence. It had likely been lured this way using a dead animal, just like the last Rabid.
‘There’s a chance this guy is one of my wolves, Lincoln Mathers,’ said Shane, his expression grim. ‘He turned Rabid two years ago. That scar on his throat? Lincoln had one just like that. What’s that crisscross pattern of magick on its head?’ he asked Emberlyn. ‘The sleeping spell?’
Beside Ripper, she nodded. ‘As for the little webs over its eyelids, they had nothing to do with me.’
He regarded her closely. Her tone was cool and controlled, but it held the slightest edge of anger. If Ripper hadn’t spent so much time around her, he wasn’t sure he would have picked up on the latter.
She went on, ‘Somebody else did that. I just unveiled the spell.’
Kerr frowned. ‘What’s the intent behind it?’
‘To haze the Rabid’s vision with a killing rage,’ Marvin said in astonishment as he held his hand above the Rabid’s eyes, reading the spell.
‘The fuck?’ Logan bit off.
Emberlyn breathed in through her nose. ‘As I see it, there’d be no reason to do that unless a person wanted to set the Rabid on somebody.
In order to do that, though, they must have first captured it – probably while it slept.
Moving it wouldn’t have been easy, so they likely knocked it unconscious before bespelling it.
I don’t think they then released the Rabid in a random spot; that it coincidentally happened upon the manor.
I think they placed it some distance from here deliberately before waking it. ’
Ripper felt the corners of his eyes tighten. ‘In other words, someone sicced it on you?’
‘That would be my guess,’ she replied.
A scolding lash of anger whipped at Ripper, and he whirled on Marvin with a snarl.
The male witch threw up his hands. ‘I knew nothing of this! I swear! Emberlyn, I . . . I don’t know who would do this, but I can tell you it was not a coven-wide effort.
I would have heard about it, and I would have put a stop to it.
This was one person acting alone or a few people secretly working together. ’
‘Like who?’ demanded Ripper. ‘That damn faction your coven likes to claim doesn’t exist?’
Marvin hesitated. ‘I don’t know. It’s a simple spell – a witch of any skillset could do it.’
‘The effect is only ever temporary,’ Emberlyn cut in. ‘So this Rabid was bespelled at some point this morning. Would Carver or one of his wolves have captured it if asked?’
Ripper gave his head a stiff shake. ‘No wolf would do this. The Rabid are still thinking beings; they’re victims of circumstance.’
Shane nodded, the move hard and curt. ‘They don’t deserve to be used like this, and none of our kind would condone it. It’s fucked up.’
‘I agree,’ Marvin said quickly. ‘It’s cruel. I can’t think of a witch who would do it either.’
‘Well, at least one of the coven did,’ said Kerr, cricking his corded neck. ‘And something needs to be done about it.’
Ripper grunted, his muscles tight with anger. ‘Twice now Rabid have been used as attack dogs. There needs to not be a third time. Not only for Emberlyn’s safety, but because it’s utterly inhumane.’
‘We should hold a meeting at the town hall for all of Chilgrave and address it there,’ Shane declared. ‘For witches to hold a grudge against another is one thing. For them to drag the Rabid into it, bespell and use them this way is another.’
Logan dipped his chin. ‘Whatever culprit or culprits is behind this . . . they’re fucking cowards.
They should have gone at Emberlyn head-on themselves.
At which point she’d have made them suffer, yeah, but that’s the risk they’d take.
If you ain’t prepared to be part of a fight, you don’t use someone else like a puppet to do it for you. ’
Ripper rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off the irritability that raced through his veins, making him feel antsy and on edge. He had no idea who’d done this, which meant he had no one he could punish. The annoyance of that grated his skin.
Shane looked back down at the Rabid. ‘Let’s take him to the office so we can work on reversing his mental state.’
As a team, the Watchers deftly carried the Rabid through the house and over to their all-terrain vehicle.
From the porch, Ripper and Emberlyn watched them drive off. He then turned to her and palmed her neck, his hold gentle even as rage beat at him – hit, shoved, kicked, slapped him; pressed his every hot button. ‘Come to my place with me.’
‘I’m supposed to be stopping off to see Paisley in a little while.’
‘I’ll go with you. I need to check in with her anyway. You can stay with me until then.’
Her brow lifted at what even he had to admit was a slightly tyrannical tone.
‘Emberlyn, any number of things could have happened to you today. You could have failed to notice the Rabid until it was too late. Or you could have fallen while fleeing, enabling it to catch up to you. Or Lucie could have pounced on it, at which point you wouldn’t have run because you would have wanted to save her.
Those scenarios – and many more – are playing out in my head.
I don’t want to leave you alone, and I’d rather you were away from here for just a little while. ’
Her brow knitted. ‘I’m not unsafe here.’
‘The house can protect you, I know that, but . . . just come with me.’ His instincts were driving him to take her to his den, a place she was just as safe. He wanted to feed her. Make her tea. Fuss over her. Keep a close watch on her.
Maybe she sensed that, maybe she understood, because the lines in her face fell away and she dipped her chin. ‘Okay. But I have to change and put my gardening stuff away. Then we can go.’