Chapter 16 Will #2
Of course. Will’s human mate couldn’t smell, couldn’t tell from the want in Carl’s eyes who the wolf was.
Carl felt invited, and stepped closer, not even having the courtesy to lower his head or tail in Will’s territory. He was bigger than Will, but Will didn’t give a fuck. Will growled.
“Oh for—wait. All the growling again. Carl? That you?”
Carl huffed and nodded in a very human way.
“Uhm. Okay. Is the loup-garou still around?”
Carl shook his head. Some tension eased out of Will’s muscles.
“Did you kill them?”
Carl shook his head, and the female wolf next to him made an irritated noise. Will thought they were probably littermates—twins—given how similar they looked in fur.
“Either of you hurt?”
Both wolves shook their heads, the female looking irritated as she did so. Will was glad these two had been here, and he wouldn’t want to end up on the wrong side of their muzzles. It didn’t mean Will would show his belly to Carl though, or let Sage out of his sight around him.
“Right. So I’m guessing you have a reason for showing up here just when some loup-garou freak managed to break through the wards.”
Carl made a wolf noise Will recognized as agreement, ramped up so a human could understand.
“Do you think you can call me and tell me in the morning? When talking’s on the table again?”
Carl nodded. He glanced at Will again, and Will could tell there was bitterness there. Will might even have sympathized if Carl’s interest had been focused on anyone other than Will’s own mate.
Before they left, both Carl and his sister broke into low howls. Will joined in, acknowledging that they had gotten rid of the loup-garou together.
“Okay, yeah, big bad wolf. Love it. Beautiful singing voice,” Sage said. He was still on his knees next to Will and was holding his ears. Will stopped and booped Sage’s nose. “Yikes! Wet wolf nose! Stop! I’m beginning to see Peter’s point about the manners. Bye, Carl, and whoever that is with you.”
Carl and his sister left through the open back door, moving as silently as they had during the attack. Will groaned and licked Sage’s neck before his mate could pull back.
“Fine, okay.” Sage eventually stood. “Right. Let’s go check why the damn warding didn’t do its job.
” Will didn’t especially like the sound of that, but he followed Sage, who put his palms on the walls either side of the laundry room’s doorframe, on the walls in the hallway outside, and on the back door and its frame.
Will always checked that it was locked, and the lock wasn’t broken.
“Someone used magic to sneak in here,” Sage said. “The warding’s still working flawlessly, but then, it wasn’t designed to keep other magic out. Granny made it so humans would stay outside.”
Sage opened the back door, and it looked to Will as if he wanted to go outside, so he carefully took Sage’s shirt in his teeth to hold him back.
Sage turned. “Stop that. I need to get to the witch’s stone in the garden. It anchors the protective wards, and I’d like to ramp those up, stat. You can watch my back, okay?”
Will growled, but he let Sage go. He didn’t like it, but if the loup-garou came back, functioning wards would be better than another surprise in the laundry room. Or worse.
Sage walked out into the garden. Will followed, sniffing the air. The wandering pond seemed to be at the far edge of the property. This close, he could tell Sage smelled like it.
How did he fall into the pond? Did the pond move again?
Sage walked to a patch of the garden claimed by orange and purple snapdragons. He carefully moved the flowers away and picked at a hunk of moss that had covered what Will now saw was a flat, round stone, about the size of a dinner plate. Sage put his hand on the stone, fingers splayed.
“Okay, let’s make you a little more unwelcoming, shall we?”
“You are the stone of hearth and home,
you are the Verts’ witch’s stone.
I call your binds and spells and wards
and bid you bind them heavenwards.
Bind double fast and double tight,
ward against each beast in sight,
who might—at will or wicked wish—
come with intent quite devilish.
Stone of earth and heaven cast,
may your spells forever last.
Keep out all harm to mine and ours,
at all the day’s four-and-twenty hours.”
Will felt the magic readjust and settle into place, like a pressure shift not heard, but felt in the ear. His spell done, Sage got back up and brushed his hands clean on his wet pants.
“Okay. I need to change.” Will yipped. “Yeah, you like that, don’t you? So funny. C’mon, you have blood in your fur. We could both do with a shower, I guess.”
In Will’s opinion, what he needed was to crawl into Sage’s bed and under the covers with him so they could cuddle until morning. Will had very nearly lost Sage, and he wanted to be close to him now, not least because Carl was apparently just waiting in the wings.
But Will could shower, especially if it meant Sage would shampoo him and shower with him. Will was pretty sure he could sneak some more licking in as well.