Chapter 8
“Here you go, Cece.” Kat placed a steaming mug of coffee in front of her.
She took a sip. “It’s really good. Thank you, Kat.”
Kat nodded before sitting on Ronin’s lap. They, along with the others, were crowded into the kitchen. Kat and Ronin’s kitchen wasn’t small, but with that many shifters, two of them as big as Briggs and Bishop were, Cece couldn’t help but feel a touch of claustrophobia.
“Are you able to take some time off from work?” Mal asked her.
“No, I… shit!” She stared at the clock on the wall. “I’m supposed to be at work right now. I have to go.”
Before she could stand, Willow, who was sitting next to her, pressed her hand on Cece’s arm. “I called the greenhouse this morning.”
“You did?” Cece said. “How did you know I worked at the greenhouse?”
“Your aunt,” Willow said. “I talked to your boss, Leonard, and told him you were okay but that you’d been in a car accident and wouldn’t be in today. He said to take Monday off as well, and to call him if you needed more time.”
“It’s probably best if you take a few weeks off,” Mal said. “It’s easier to keep you safe if you’re not surrounded by strangers at work.”
Cece made a noncommittal sound. She couldn’t afford to take that much time off work. Hell, missing work today and Monday would mean eating ramen for a few days. But she wasn’t about to admit that in a roomful of strangers.
“How long have you been… watching me?” she asked.
“Since the morning after you were attacked,” Willow said. “Garth has been watching you during the day, and Davis, he’s a lynx shifter, sits outside your house overnight.”
“Oh,” Cece said. “Um, not to sound ungrateful, because obviously I’m very thankful you were there last night to save my life, but I can’t afford personal security.”
“We take a number of pro bono cases each year,” Mal said.
“Okay, but maybe this was just another coincidence,” Cece said. “I mean, people get road rage, right? I was driving kind of slow, maybe he just got pissed off and took it too far.”
Willow squeezed her hand. “Honey, do you really believe that?”
She sighed before shaking her head.
“If these witches are so powerful, why do they keep sending humans to try to kill Cece?” Bishop asked.
“We don’t know for sure it was a human driving the car,” Garth said. “It could have been a witch behind the wheel.”
“It wasn’t,” Cece said.
“How can you be sure?” Garth asked.
“They’re sending humans after me because then I can’t go to the WWC and file a harassment complaint against them,” Cece said.
“This family is well known and doesn’t have a single blemish in the witching community.
They’re not going to risk that when they can send a human to do their dirty work.
They would have done their research on me, right?
They’d know my magic abilities are low.”
“So, potentially, if the humans keep failing, they may eventually turn to using magic,” Mal said thoughtfully.
“Maybe,” Cece said.
“Okay.” Mal glanced at Bishop and then at Kat. “So, with what happened last night, I think we should step up the security. With your permission, Cece, I’d like to have Garth stay at your house and -”
“I’m taking over the security detail,” Briggs said.
Mal stared at him, raising one eyebrow. “Is that right?”
“Oh, you missed the fun,” Ronin said with a grin. “Briggs and an army of plant vines convinced old Garth here that Briggs should be watching over the tiny tree witch.”
Mal turned to Garth, who stared at Briggs before nodding briefly.
“All right, Briggs is on security detail,” Mal said.
“If we’re going to be dealing with magic at some point, maybe we should assign Ronin to Cece,” Bishop said. “He’s the only one with some sort of protection against a potentially deadly magic spell.”
“No can do,” Ronin said. “You’ve forgotten that I’m on protection detail for Keegan’s fiancée whenever she’s outside of her home. Her ex is causing some issues and has amped it up ahead of the wedding.”
“I still can’t believe Keegan is getting married,” Bishop said.
“Tell me about it,” Ronin said. “Koren is being a total dick about it and driving Marika crazy.”
“We’ll send someone else for the security detail. Her ex is human, right?” Mal said.
“You know Marika will have a fit if we pull Ronin,” Kat said.
“It’s true,” Ronin said cheerfully. “She fucking loves me. I can’t blame her, but…”
Mal rubbed at his jaw. “We can speak with her and -”
“You pull Ronin, and she’ll retaliate. You know how she is,” Kat said. “She’s responsible for a good sixty percent of our current corporate clients. We’ll lose them all in a heartbeat if Marika starts shit talking us. Which she will.”
“Fuck, you’re right.” Mal glanced at Briggs. “You good with the additional risk and the 24/7?”
“Yes,” Briggs said.
“Okay. Cece, are you good with having Briggs stay at your house with you?” Mal asked.
“I… like some kind of bodyguard, you mean?” Cece could feel the colour rising in her cheeks when she risked a glance at Briggs, who leaned against the counter behind her.
“Basically,” Mal said.
“I can’t afford that,” Cece said.
“Pro bono, remember?”
Shit. Her plan to avoid Briggs wouldn’t work if he were living in her house. Feeling a bit panicky, she said, “My house is, like, really cold, so -”
“That’s perfect for Briggs. He’s a polar bear shifter,” Willow said.
“I’m not sure that… ” Cece couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“Honey, this is for your safety, okay?” Willow said earnestly. “Your aunt is so worried about you.”
Cece sighed and relented at the mention of her aunt. “Yeah, okay.”
“Good,” Mal said. “Briggs will provide security coverage while we work on a solution to the problem.”
“Sorry, why are you doing this? Helping me, I mean,” Cece said. “You don’t even know me.”
“We can help, so why wouldn’t we?” Willow squeezed her hand.
Her throat suddenly too tight to speak and blinking back hot tears, Cece just nodded. Willow handed her a tissue as Mal said, “All right, we have a plan. Let’s get to work.”
The little witch’s house was a large Victorian with a rotting front porch, shutters barely clinging to the windows, and a roof that might cave in.
Briggs followed Cece into the house, watching as she pushed hard on the front door when it didn’t close. She gave it another push and then, her face red, threw her curvy body against the door. It shut with a groan and a squeal, and she cleared her throat. “Sometimes it sticks.”
She turned the flimsy deadbolt and then, her cheeks still red, slid the tiny chain across the door that wouldn’t keep out an imp, let alone a powerful witch.
“Okay, well, um, this is it. Home sweet home,” she said. She didn’t take off her coat or her boots, and he didn’t blame her. He could see his breath, and while it suited him just fine - most of the time he was much too warm - she would freeze to death if she didn’t turn up the heat.
Like most Victorian homes, the house had high ceilings covered with decorative roses.
Ahead and to the right was a staircase, and he could see the entrance to the kitchen further past the stairway at the end of the hallway.
There was a door directly to their right and one further down to their left.
“Um, that’s a guest bathroom,” Cece pointed to the door on the left, “and this door here is the living room.”
He stepped into the room, taking a moment to appreciate that the doorway was tall enough that he didn’t have to duck for a change.
The room was large, with a wood fireplace and an enormous bay window with a window seat below.
He studied the flimsy locks on the windows before turning his gaze to the old but comfortable looking sectional, the wooden rocking chair, and the far wall that held three bookshelves.
The shelves were brimming with books, knick-knacks, parchment papers, and candles.
A small wooden altar with more candles and two cauldrons sitting on it was pushed against the remaining wall, and a dark blue witch’s robe was flung haphazardly over it.
He studied the substantial hole in the wall next to the altar. “What’s the hole from?”
“Oh, uh, there was a small leak in the upstairs bathroom, and the plumber needed to open up the wall.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say, and Aunt Sybil didn’t ask. I came home from work one day to find it like this,” Cece said.
“Did he fix the problem?”
“No,” she admitted, “but the second plumber did.”
“Why haven’t you repaired the hole?” he asked.
She flushed. “It’s on my to-do list. The house has good bones but needs a lot of work.”
“Did you buy it like this?” he asked.
“My mom and aunt did,” Cece said. “They had plans to renovate it themselves, but it was more work than they thought, and neither of them was particularly handy at home repairs. Contractors were out of their budget, so we’ve just been living with it.”
She wrapped her arms around her torso. “I love this house, but it’s too big for one person and expensive to maintain and heat.”
“Is that why it’s an icebox in here?” he asked. “Because you can’t afford to heat it?”
“Well, I do keep the heat low to save costs, but it’s not usually this cold.
The furnace isn’t working well, and it’s too old to be fixed.
I’m currently saving for a new one, but the water heater went, and I had to replace it and…
anyway, if it’s too cold for you, I’m sure I’ll be perfectly safe in my own house, so you can go back to your place, and I can call you when I need to go out or whatever. ”
“It isn’t too cold for me, and” he dropped his travel bag on the floor with a heavy thud, “you’re stuck with me for the foreseeable future. Inside your house and out.”
“Right,” she said. Her gaze flickered down his body and then bounced away.
“Anyway, I plan to sell, but I need to do some repairs first. Contractors aren’t in my budget either, but I’ve been watching YouTube videos on DIY home repairs, so I can,” she gestured toward the hole in the wall, “learn how to patch that and other stuff.”