Chapter 23
THORNE
I stared at the solid wall of stone that had just eaten our only exit.
For one wildly and deeply irrational second, I considered asking Calder to break it.
He had the brute strength of an alpha. Surely, he could crack that wall in half.
But then I really took in our whole situation.
Namely, the purple, humming deathward pulsating behind us and the ancient, overpowered witch seated comfortably in her chair.
We weren’t going anywhere.
Punching would only break Calder’s fist, and Selene would turn us both into toads before letting us escape—keyword: letting. We were trapped and at the whim of her decisions.
“What’s going on?” Cassian’s voice shot through the earbud. “What was all that noise? Thorne, are you in trouble?” When I didn’t respond, Cassian cursed. “Ricky, start the truck!”
“I’m already in Drive,” he called back. “Say the word, Thornicle, and I’ll smash right through their front parlor.”
“Do not drive the truck into this house,” I hissed out loud, clapping a hand over my ear. “That is the literal opposite of stealth. Besides, we’re already caught.”
“Your brothers?” Selene asked.
I grimaced and nodded.
“Tell them if they harm my hydrangeas, I’ll curse them to speak in limericks for the next century.”
Despite the situation, my lips twitched. Selene noticed and winked at me.
“What’s the plan then?” Felix asked, his tone completely casual.
“I’m disconnecting the call now,” I told them. “I’ll call you once we’re done here.”
“Thorne, no—” Ricky started.
But I disconnected the call with a quick tap on the earbud, then pulled it out of my ear and slipped it into my pocket. Relief had me closing my eyes for a brief moment. It was nice not to have them shouting in my head right now.
“Think that was wise?” Calder asked.
I spared my mate a glance, then nodded. “If she wanted us dead, we’d be dead already.”
“Accurate,” was all Selene said.
Sighing, I faced the witch, then gestured toward her chair with a hand. “Wanna conjure two more of those?”
She raised a brow, but a moment later, did as I asked.
I took a seat and waited for Calder to do the same.
He hesitated, clearly not enjoying the thought of lowering himself to her level.
I couldn’t blame him. He’d spent five years traveling with a black witch.
He knew exactly how dangerous they were.
A witch had magic at her disposal every second of every day.
She merely had to flick her hand. It didn’t take long for a werewolf to shift, but if it came down to magic over shifting, magic won every time.
Selene leaned back in her chair and eyed us. A moment later, a table materialized in front of us, set with what looked like three lemonades, a platter of tiny donuts, and some fancy napkins.
“Help yourself,” she said.
Complimentary snacks and drinks. Hmm. I eyed the drink with a scrunched nose, sniffing for poisons or spells.
“It’s just lemonade,” she assured me. “Nothing else. I figured we could use a little sugar boost.”
She lifted her glass and took a sip, then placed it back down on the table, as though to reassure me she hadn’t laced it.
I raised my own glass and took a sniff, but my wolf didn’t detect anything out of the ordinary, so I took a sip.
Bittersweet liquid rushed down my throat, and for one moment, I reveled in the deliciousness.
Calder reached for one of the mini donuts, eyeing the confectionary treat like it might grow teeth and bite him. Considering the Ravenspell’s plants could do just that, his caution was warranted.
When the snack didn’t attack him, Calder popped it into his mouth and chewed. A moment later, his eyes fluttered closed, and he groaned. The sound shot straight to my groin, and I inwardly swatted myself. Fantasize later. When a witch wasn’t holding us prisoner in her basement.
“I know this looks bad—” I started.
“Is look the right word?” Selene mused. “This is just plain bad. You broke into my house in the middle of the night. I caught you trying to bust into my vault, which is where my family and I keep an assortment of incredibly powerful artifacts. And you’re teamed up with your ex-husband who, if my memory serves me correctly, is a relic hunter.
I’m no genius, but even I can do that type of math.
So, how about you just tell me what’s going on instead of me assuming? ”
Her words were calm and level, but deep in her eyes, anger flared. And for a moment, magic suffused the basement.
I considered lying. But what would that achieve? She was our only way out of this damn basement. Presumably, lying would only make things worse. My brothers’ words from earlier came to mind: If this Evander guy is so dangerous, why not tell the Ravenspells what’s at stake?
Calder claimed they’d never help, nor give us the artifact.
Except that information had come from Wren, and we all knew she wasn’t trustworthy.
Black witches rarely were. The old Theodora Wolfe would have agreed with Calder that the Ravenspells would never help.
But his information was outdated. We weren’t the only ones who would do whatever it took to protect their home, and loved ones.
Maybe it was time to test this new truce.
Only one way to find out I suppose.
Decision made, I sucked in a massive breath and plunged into my explanation.
“Basically, a human named Evander, who has a massive dossier on every illegal thing my family has ever done, blackmailed Calder into becoming his personal artifact-hunting lapdog. Now, Evander wants his final prize which happens to be the Star of Avelon sitting right behind me in your vault, and if we don’t give it to him tonight he’s going to unleash your sister Wren—who is totally on his payroll by the way—to tear down the town’s defensive wards, thereby exposing our home and town to the human world, and hand me and my family over to the government as proof the paranormal exists.
We broke in to steal the Star for him so that he’ll call off Wren and leave Calder and my family alone. Sorry.”
I exhaled in a hard rush, my lungs burning from the lack of oxygen.
Selene just sat there, staring at me. She blinked once. Then twice. After a third blink, she joined me with her own exhale.
Calder slowly turned toward me. He stared at me like I had suddenly sprouted a second head, complete with a third eye and antlers. He’d spent all this time keeping secrets, and I’d just blurted it out in one breathless, incoherent paragraph to a Ravenspell.
“Well, that’s one way to completely screw us,” Calder muttered.
“I didn’t think she’d let us go if I lied. Besides, Selene has been helping me with some personal stuff.” I didn’t feel like now was the time to go deeper into detail. “It felt right to tell her the truth and lay everything out. Wren is their sister. They deserve to know what she’s up to.”
Selene nodded. She didn’t immediately speak, but she did reach across the table and pop her own mini donut into her mouth. Calder and I sat in silence, waiting.
“That was a lot of information to get in one breath,” she finally said after swallowing. “Wren has never been picky about her associates, but I never thought she’d go this far.”
“Can she do it?” I asked. “Can she tear down the wards and expose us to humans?”
“Oh, very much so,” Selene replied, her tone deceptively calm.
Personally, I didn’t find that reassuring. I’d been hoping for something more like, “No, Thorne. We’ve spent years modifying and strengthening the wards to keep this exact scenario from happening.”
“Great,” I deadpanned. “Just great.”
Selene smoothed her hands down her emerald dress. “This explains quite a bit. My family and I had recently felt Wren’s presence. But we couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Or how.”
“She tampered with the clocktower,” Calder said. “I didn’t make the connection until last night. She’s dampened the wards and been slipping through town.”
Selene slowly rose to her feet, her chair dissolving in a puff of silver smoke.
“Lyra has been looking into the clocktower,” Selene said. “It’s been behaving oddly. I suppose that explains why.”
“Does Lyra understand the severity of this? Because she’s with the sheriff right now.”
Selene’s eyes widened. “And you know that how?”
I just shrugged.
“Not important.” She lifted her hand, and a cell phone magically appeared, already nestled in her palm.
With a concentrated scowl, she typed furiously on the keyboard, then pressed send perhaps a bit too forcefully.
Less than a minute later, her phone chimed, and Selene closed her eyes.
After typing out another seemingly heated message, she waved her hand and the cell phone vanished.
“Lyra is on her way to the clocktower now. She’ll repair it as soon as possible. But that doesn’t stop Wren from doing this again. That’s an entirely separate issue. Tell me about this human, this…?”
“Evander,” I said.
“Wren isn’t his only companion,” Calder chimed in. “He travels with another. A bear shifter named Adrian. Trust me when I say he’s not someone you want to cross paths with.”
“Ah, yes, the bear shifter. We’ve spotted him. His aura is a deep red and streaked with black. Dangerous. A killer. But not out of necessity. He enjoys it.”
Oh joy.
“Okay, so we know how to solve all this,” I said. “You give us the Star, we hand it over to Evander, and presto, they leave town.” At least that was the plan. Whether or not everyone upheld their word was another matter altogether.
Selene fixed me with a disapproving look—one she’d likely perfected on her younger siblings centuries ago. It was so similar to Ricky’s that I actually ducked my head.
“Do you honestly think handing over a mythical fae artifact to a human sociopath is going to solve our problems? What does he intend to do with the Star? And how does he even know about it?” she asked Calder.