Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
The wolf pendant was exactly what it appeared to be.
No strange spells hiding deep in the silver or entwined in its original purpose.
The necklace was meant to suppress shifter magic, and while I wasn’t sure I would shift, I tugged it over my neck anyway.
The full moon was only a few days away and I couldn’t risk turning furry while grocery shopping or worse.
In my limited knowledge, I knew shifters could transform any time they wanted to, but the full moon forced one on them.
The last thing I needed was for that to happen while I was in public.
Everyone knew I was a witch. Seeing me shift into a literal werewolf would cause a shitstorm of epic proportions. My life would never be the same.
Not that I was a shifter or a hybrid shifter, or even becoming anything of the sort, but the evidence of something startling and unprecedented happening to me became more evident with each passing day. Since the pendant had one purpose, I’d be a fool not to wear it. Just in case.
The bigger question was who sent it and how did they know what had happened and my subsequent symptoms?
Symptoms, I should not be having. In some ways, I felt better than I ever had.
My skin and hair looked like I’d been on a long-term juice cleanse.
In other ways, I sometimes felt unmoored, like I was standing on a boat in the middle of a rocky sea and had no idea how to swim.
While my blood cravings were almost unnoticeable, I still had the occasional intense craving for meat so rare I had to suppress the urge to scope out a farm and go midnight hunting.
Occasionally, I felt the urge to strip off my clothes and run through the woods like a wild thing. Fortunately, I was a witch with the willpower to squash down those urges because the need for answers was far more pressing than getting popped with a public nudity charge.
Thus why I’d sequestered myself in my basement, poring over old texts while I tried to find any history of something like this happening. My energy still felt off from last night, but it was way too soon to do another cord-cutting ritual.
Mom had urged me not to perform any other high magic—a rare note of warning in her voice as she helped me perfect the cord-cutting ritual.
Her mixed magic made her more flexible when it came to experimenting with herb combinations and spells.
But that night, she was adamant I should only use the Archangel’s help when my energy was so damaged it prevented me from performing my other magic to my usual abilities.
Alric’s energetic presence still lingered today.
I’d already soaked in a salt bath and cleansed the space with lavender and sage, keeping the white sage wand burning and letting it flow over my skin and hair.
Slowly, as my aura regulated and settled, the Prime’s presence finally wiped away.
The phantom feeling of his hand wrapped around my neck would haunt me, but I would soon no longer feel Alric’s energy.
Despite my encounter with the Prime, Beckett’s presence felt darker, a presence I needed to cut away immediately—something about his energy disturbed me on a cellular level.
Unlike Beckett, I felt like the Prime did not want to possess me, at least not in the intense and permanent way Beckett did, and Alric’s energy felt different.
Energy like the Prime’s would fade away, but I didn’t want any lingering residue around me as I worked.
While the fear from our encounter lingered in my psyche, the bath had washed most of his presence away, the sage erasing the rest. Beckett’s had lingered, seeping deep into my psyche, so deep I was forced to ask for angelic help.
I closed my eyes for a brief moment, settled my mind, and got to work. If the Prime came around again, I’d be ready. The flower trick wouldn’t work on him more than once, but I still planned to preserve several more hair pins and wear them to work.
Even in that alley, I’d felt like Alric was more dangerous than the Shifter King. Or at least more dangerous to me. The shifter had tried to help and hesitated to leave me there.
I didn’t feel any warmth for either of them.
The King had left me to die, same as Alric, but he got a little credit for his hesitation and for not showing up to strongarm me afterward.
Alric tracking me down was odd. I was supposed to be dead, and him showing up inside my coffee shop after trailing my scent was unusual.
The wolf pendant arriving to my house was a strong indicator the Shifter King knew I was still alive.
Or, if he was planning for a just in case, the attention from Alric sending that insane vehicle for me last night was also a good clue I was still alive and kicking.
The entire neighborhood was buzzing about the Rolls Royce and vampire driver they’d seen at my house. I’d noticed at least two posts on our neighborhood board, and someone had gone so far as to tag me asking to share the “hot goss.”
I shunned social media for the most part. The only reason I had an account was to keep tabs on the neighborhood goings-on, things like power outages and construction, simply to keep Edmund up to date. He cared about that stuff, only so he could monitor whether the Wi-Fi might be off.
I found myself wishing that all I had to worry about was the Wi-Fi.
A few hours later, I had several more hair pins created and a number of orders filled for the apothecary, but I’d gotten no further with figuring out what was happening with me. Nothing had popped up in any of the books I’d flipped through except the usual.
According to every internet search and every book I picked up, witches could not be infected with vampirism or lycanthropy, and certainly not both.
Being an impossibility was never a good thing. It attracted attention, and that was the last thing I wanted.
I gathered up the pins and packages and brought them upstairs.
The orders went straight to the mud room.
Alric’s threats about my apothecary lingered in the back of my mind, but I’d be damned if I changed anything for him.
He wanted me to dance to his tune, and I couldn’t do that if I were in jail, could I?
He’d think twice before reporting me to anyone.
Smiling to myself, I tucked one of the pins in my purse to wear to work in the morning, along with a recipe for scrying herbs I rarely used but might need soon.
Most people thought a hedgewitch was a natural witch.
While that was true, this was not the only thing we were.
Hedgewitches were walkers of a sort. We “rode the hedge”, which meant we could astral travel or journey through the spirit world.
I rarely used this talent, finding little reason to explore other realms. It was difficult enough to live in this one.
But after everything that happened, I needed more guidance.
Marinka had offered very little help, except for the address she’d scrawled across that slip of paper.
I planned to head there tomorrow after work, but I wasn’t confident they’d tell me what was going on with me and why I was changing.
Still, it was more of a lead than I’d ever had, and if a visit might point me in the right direction, I’d be a fool not to make the effort.
Riding the hedge might offer up a spirit guide to help me. I’d never sought one before for reasons I wasn’t sure of. Most witches had guides, but I had Mom to teach me. When she left, I felt like seeking out a guide was replacing her, so I could never bring myself to go through with the search.
I took learning seriously, but now I was a solo practitioner. Anything I learned came from trial and error and books. While covens existed and most witches belonged to one, Mom had urged me to be independent and assured me that any magic a coven could do, I could do by myself.
When I asked about group spells being more powerful, she’d scoffed and waved her hand. “Our power comes from here.” She’d touched her chest. “Group spells are good for some things, but in a coven of thirteen, there are thirteen chances for something to go wrong.”
At my look of dismay, she’d ruffled my hair. “You are young, Alex. As you grow older, and people show who they are, you will realize it’s far easier to trust one or two people than a baker’s dozen. Keep those trusted few close, darling.”
Her words proved right over the years, and I’d never found a coven I wanted to join. But sometimes when I was down in the basement sitting in my circle, my chest ached with loneliness, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake somewhere along the way.
And then…
“If you keep eating like that, you won’t be able to fit through the basement door, Alex.”
I’d inherited Edmund.
I paused with my fingers over the freezer door. “You’re just jealous you don’t have a stomach.”
“Maybe mix in some fiber sometimes.”
“I had a salad yesterday.” Magic took a lot of energy, and refueling became a necessary evil. Edmund’s words stung, but they were untrue. Most witches ate double the amount a human did. Working witches sometimes tripled that.
I opened the freezer and pulled out a pack of chicken thighs and a bag of frozen broccoli I shook up at the ceiling. “Look. A veggie. Now hush.”
Edmund harrumphed. “Did your research turn up anything?”
Hours of fruitless skimming had turned up nada. “Not really. I might have to rob a blood bank soon.”
“Once you upgrade the service, I’ll see what I can find online.”
“You could do that now, you know?”
Edmund sighed. “I could, but it will take me twice as long. Your internet runs at the speed of a depressed donkey. I need to keep you motivated to hurry up and upgrade the service. Also, I noticed you aren’t eating steak tonight.”
I glanced at the chicken still in my hand. “Huh.” Edmund was right. I hadn’t had any weird cravings for hours. “Maybe this necklace is good for more than shifting.”
“Every gift comes at a price.”