Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
IZZY
The next few weeks are relatively uneventful. I still haven’t run into Michelle again, which is a relief, but I also don’t have any more secret rendezvous with my mates.
Soraya kicked them out of the covenstead shortly after our conversation, and I haven’t heard from them since. I’m just incredibly grateful I was able to be with them, at least for a short period of time.
Fire rushes through me at the memory of their hands on my skin, their lips tasting my own, Ethan’s cock pounding into my pussy.
And his whispered, “I love you,” a second before he thrust inside of me.
I know I didn’t say it back, but to be completely honest, I don’t know how I feel about him. He hurt me—all of them did—but I forgave the twins the second they shaved their hair, stripped naked, and apologized profusely to me.
So why can’t I say those words back to him? Is it because I don’t love him? Is it because I’m confused? My emotions are too turbulent to understand or articulate with words.
And don’t even get me started on Ansel…
He’s not ignoring me per se, but there’s a tension within him that hasn’t been there prior. Whenever he glances at me, he blushes and quickly looks away. I tried to ask him about it a few times, but he always makes an offhand comment about needing to figure things out. Whatever that means.
Cryptic boys.
At least today is one I’ve been looking forward to since this entire situation began—freedom.
For one weekend, I get to go home and finally, hopefully, get some answers.
Delaney’s waiting for me at the entrance of the covenstead, her ruby-red lips pursed in obvious distaste. Well, fuck her and her opinions. She purposely manipulated me to get her way, so I don’t give a damn if she’s unhappy right now.
I ignore her entirely and instead focus on Soraya.
“So how does this work?” I ask—more like demand.
I’m desperate to get out of here and see my friends, family, and mates.
“It’s simple.” Soraya’s lips curve into a mischievous smile.
“A spell will be placed on you before you’re allowed to leave the premises.
It’ll make it so you forget everything that happens from this point onwards.
Slade”—she gestures towards an unfamiliar warlock with shoulder-length brown hair and a solemn expression—“and I will drive you home. You’ll ‘wake up,’ so to speak, as soon as you’re there. Does that make sense?”
“Umm…” Trickles of unease reverberate up and down my spine, sinking into my skin like jagged claws.
I don’t like the prospect of losing chunks of time with no way of knowing what happened to me. But, at the same time, I trust Soraya. Or at least, I think I do.
I certainly trust her more than any of the other witches or warlocks here.
“Okay, whatever. Let’s get it over with.” I fold my arms over my chest.
I’ll do anything to see the people I love.
Even lose my memory.
“It’ll feel just like going to sleep…” Delaney interjects, stepping forward.
A twisted smile materializes on her face, and that trickle of unease transforms into a torrential downpour.
Delaney lifts one finger in the air, mutters a word under her breath, then—
It isn’t like going to sleep. I don’t suddenly wake up or jerk to awareness or anything like that.
No, one second, I’m staring at Delaney’s grinning face, then the next, I’m staring at the front of Hale and Gerry’s house.
My house.
“Home sweet home,” Soraya coos, and I startle, having not realized she’s directly beside me.
“W-what? How?” I blink at her, alarm sluicing through my veins, but she simply arches an eyebrow.
“Don’t worry, Izzy. Nothing happened. You just got into the car with me and Slade, and we drove here.” Her features twist in sympathy. “I know it can be…unnerving.”
“Unnerving?” My stomach tightens into a thousand tiny pretzels. “Ughhh. I think I’m going to be sick. Is that normal?”
“That can be a side effect of the spell.” She winces. “It should wear off in a few minutes.”
“And we have to do this every time I return home?” I place my hands on my knees and inhale greedily.
The fresh air does wonders to quell my nausea, though not enough.
“Unfortunately.”
I’m saved from responding by the front door to the house opening and a familiar voice exclaiming, “Isabella Gracie Martin! You are in soooo much trouble!”
A second later, Jake bounces down the staircase—a golden retriever contained in a semi-human body. His blond hair glints like molten gold in the sunlight.
Tears instinctively prick my eyes at the sight of my foster brother. I really, really missed him.
Jake pulls me into his arms, and an embarrassing sob breaks free. I hope he thinks I farted or something. That would definitely be less humiliating.
He pulls back just slightly to look me over, his brows arched over glowering eyes. “How fucking dare you get yourself kidnapped by witches! Do you know how worried I was? I half expected you to return home with green skin, wearing a pointy hat with a wart on your face.”
He swivels to level a penetrating glare on Soraya. “And you! You’re one of her kidnappers, aren’t you? I don’t care if you’re a goddess incarnate, with all that flowing red hair and those curves to die for and—”
“Simmer down, my knight in shining armor,” I deadpan.
Jake ignores me and wags a finger at Soraya. “You’re on my shit list.”
Then, without another word, Jake links his arm with mine and leads me inside the house.
Soraya’s chuckle reaches me before the closed door cuts it off.
Jake leans against it and thunks his head against the wood.
“Motherfucker. This is absolutely crazy,” he laments.
I spin towards him instantly, my heart racing. “What’s going on? Where are Hale and Gerry? Lissa? Seth?”
A frown touches the edges of Jake’s lips, and he finally pushes away from the door, moving to stand beside me once more. I follow him into the living room and settle on the couch, placing my legs underneath me. Jake sits beside me.
“Look, I don’t know everything that’s going on,” Jake hedges, his tone placating, which instantly makes me uneasy. Someone is only placating if they have bad news to share and is trying not to spook the other person or elicit a freak-out. “There’s a lot that they haven’t shared with me.”
“Tell me what you know.” I lean forward at the same time he does.
“Hale and Gerry are meeting with the Council and a bunch of other important wolves.” He hesitates, clearly debating his next words, before blurting out, “They’re planning on going to war with the Hunters.”
I blink, certain I heard him wrong. “The Hunters? Didn’t Grayson and Ethan tell them what happened during the attack? That it was the vampires behind it all?”
Jake nods stoutly, his frown deepening. “They did. Well, Ethan did. Grayson is staying away from them for the time being.”
“And…?”
“Andddd…the Council insists on fighting the Hunters.” Jake stares at me helplessly, a lock of curly blond hair falling across his forehead.
“I know Hale and Gerry are trying to talk them out of it, but it’s not doing any good.
” He glances in both directions, as if he half expects someone to be lurking behind one of the curtains or behind the couch listening in on our conversation, and then leans in even closer.
“Something really fucking weird is going on.”
I struggle to wrap my head around everything Jake just told me.
The wolves are going to war with the Hunters, despite the attackers being vampires? What the fuck? Why would they do that? Are they insane?
It only reinforces what Soraya alluded to back at the covenstead.
Someone is trying to pit all of the species against each other.
The question is…why?
It doesn’t make any sense, and the more I try to articulate an explanation, the more confused I become. I feel as if I’m staring at a half-completed puzzle, and all that remains are pieces with jagged, sharp edges. No matter how hard I try, I can’t fit them all together.
“I can talk to them. Explain what actually happened,” I say.
After all, I was the one who heard the vampire confess.
Maybe the Council needs to hear the truth from me?
Jake nods, though I can tell he isn’t entirely convinced.
“And Kain?” I ask, unsure of how much information Jake has been given.
But when his face clouds over with a rather familiar darkness, I know he’s heard of Kain’s betrayal.
“Still in the wolfy prison, I think.” Jake shrugs a shoulder, still scowling. “Don’t know. Don’t care. Fuck him.”
I scrub a hand through my hair as my thoughts race in tandem to my galloping heart.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” I murmur.
“Maybe it does make sense, and you’re just not looking at it the correct way.” Seth’s voice precedes the boy himself entering the living room, dressed in an oversized hoodie and ripped blue jeans. A pair of oversized headphones rests on his shoulders around his neck.
Jake lifts a brow. “Care to elaborate, baby bro?”
Seth’s fingers begin to tap against his thigh as he focuses on the wall, the ceiling, the framed photographs in the corner…anywhere but us. “Maybe you need to look at it differently, that’s all.”
With that, he turns on his heel and exits the room.
Jake and I stare after him in confusion.
“That’s… Well, that was something,” Jake says, forking his fingers through his hair and ruffling the strands.
“He has a point,” I say.
Jake nods. “I’m just wondering if it’s more than just a point, if you know what I mean. Maybe he…knows something that we don’t.”
All four of us foster kids—Jake, Lissa, Seth, and me—are a part of the supernatural world in some capacity.
I’m, apparently, the offspring of a witch and a wolf.
Jake is a golem. But Lissa and Seth? We still don’t know what they are or the powers they possess.
It’s entirely possible that Seth has insight we’re not aware of.
“How is Lissa, by the way?” I ask, thinking of my younger foster sister with her jubilant smile and love for pink.
Or at least, that was the case until recently. After she discovered a dead body in an abandoned barn, she changed, turning into a shell of the girl I remember.
I miss my bubbly sister.
Jake hesitates, and unease curdles in my gut.
“What? How bad is it?” I demand.
“Did you see what she did at the picnic? I didn’t, but I heard about it.” Jake nibbles on his lower lip—an obvious sign of his distress.
“Yeah. I mean, I don’t understand what happened, but she was there—”
“And I screamed.”
Lissa’s voice makes me jump a foot in the air.
I don’t normally lower my guard, but being around Jake—in a house that has become more familiar to me than anywhere else in the world—has made some of my tension drain away until I felt almost…normal.
Something I’ll definitely have to rectify. In this world, you can’t afford to lose your defenses, even for a second.
Jake and I both turn to see Lissa watching us from the doorway, still dressed entirely in black. Black sweatshirt. Black leggings. Black shoes—though I swear at one point they were white. Did she paint them?
“I screamed,” she repeats, her voice an emotionless monotone.
“I screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until everyone’s ears and eyes bled.
You want to know who else screams?” She cants her head to the side, a strand of dyed hair sliding over one shoulder.
“Or, a better word is, what else screams? A banshee.” Her upper lip curls away from her teeth in what I’d almost describe as a snarl. “I screamed like a literal banshee.”