Chapter Fifteen
Bridget Winslow
Ashes and Accusations
I take a toddler from a mother carrying two and help her over to the closest paramedic.
Tear tracks cut through the soot on the little girl’s cheeks, her pink unicorn pajamas singed at the edges.
The mother’s arms tremble as she clutches her other child, her voice breaking when she thanks me.
I squeeze her shoulder, trying to offer what comfort I can. “You’re safe now.”
Emergency vehicles’ flashing lights paint the scene in surreal pulses of red and blue, illuminating clusters of shell-shocked families and tourists.
They huddle under emergency blankets in the square, as far as possible from the inn’s blackened skeleton.
The acrid stench of burnt wood and melted plastic fills the air.
I trudge away from the paramedics and back toward the inn.
When Bast dashed away from me at the memorial I thought about running again, but I couldn’t stand by and do nothing to help. There were so many people fleeing the fire. So many children.
I pat my front jeans pocket, fingers trembling slightly as I pull out the phone.
No new messages. Just that ominous “hold” order staring back at me.
Why couldn’t they be more specific? Why couldn’t they have said stand by?
That would’ve meant I had more time for sure.
I need more time. More time to figure out what’s happening in this town and more time to examine why everything I’ve been taught is starting to feel like it might be a lie.
But at least it wasn’t an extraction order… My stomach twists at the thought. They’d drag me back to Salem, back to the Mathairs, and my sister would pay the price for my failure. I shove the phone back into my pocket and look up, trying to shake off the weight of those two terrible possibilities.
I scan the crowd, taking in the shell-shocked faces of tourists and locals alike. Soot-stained cheeks, wide eyes brimming with unshed tears, hands that tremble as they clutch bottles of water or the edges of scratchy emergency blankets. The scene is surreal, like something out of a disaster movie.
But it’s the boldness at the edges of the crowd that has me stunned.
Wolves.
Massive, powerful creatures—like Bast, but so many of them—shift right there in the open.
No attempt to hide, no hesitation as they transform from fur to flesh.
Where beasts stood moments before, naked bodies emerge, streaked with ash and sweat.
My hands clench into fists. How can they be so careless?
One scream, one photo, one viral video, and their entire secret would shatter.
My gaze drifts to a grimmer sight. A group of men are hauling away the bodies of fallen wolves.
They work quickly, efficiently, loading the lifeless forms into the back of a pickup truck.
The sight of those massive bodies, once so powerful, now limp and broken, sends a chill down my spine.
I count at least three dead wolves before I have to look away, my stomach churning. Who died?
My gaze darts around, certain that at any moment, someone will start screaming. The tourists, the news crews that have started to arrive—surely they can see this too? The shifting, the bodies, all of it?
But then I notice something else. At the fringes of the gathering, figures move with purpose. Their hands weave intricate patterns in the air, lips moving in silent incantations. I recognize the gestures, the telltale shimmer of magick.
Witches.
They’re casting spells—blurring spells, if I had to guess. Powerful enchantments designed to cloud memories, to make the impossible seem mundane. To hide the things that humans should never see.
Except some of the humans are definitely helping the wolves. Some of the humans are quite aware.
I watch as a group of tourists who had been staring slack-jawed at a transforming wolf suddenly shake their heads, blinking in confusion.
Their gazes slide right past the naked man now standing where the wolf had been, focusing instead on a firefighter helping an elderly couple.
Even more remarkably, they seem oblivious to the grim task of removing the wolf bodies, their eyes skipping over the pickup truck as if it isn’t there at all.
It’s an impressive bit of magick, I have to admit. Far more complex than anything I was taught back in Salem. The scale of it, the coordination required—it’s staggering.
A flash of movement catches my eye, and I turn to see a familiar face. Dave Gallagher, the man from the hotel lobby. He’s speaking urgently to another man, his expression grim.
“…can’t stay at the inn, obviously,” Dave is saying, his voice low but carrying in the relative quiet. “We need somewhere to put them up while we go hunt that bastard down.”
Hunt who? Did someone start the fire on purpose?
The other man nods, running a hand through his dark hair. “The O’Connor ranch has plenty of room. We can set up temporary housing in the big barn, maybe use some of the guest cabins.”
O’Connor. Bast’s last name.
My stomach does an uncomfortable flip at the thought of him, and I realize with a jolt that I’ve been searching for him this whole time—his russet-gray fur, his broad shoulders, any sign.
The admission burns worse than the phantom flames I felt earlier.
Where is he? The question rises unbidden, unwanted, but impossible to ignore.
Just like this damn bond pulsing between us, a constant reminder that I’m caught in something I never asked for and can’t control.
I press my hand against my chest where the connection thrums, faint but steady.
He’s alive. The relief that floods through me is yet another betrayal of everything I was taught.
I shouldn’t care. I should be plotting my escape, not tracking his ghostly footsteps through our bond, not remembering how I had to sit and breathe through his pain when the hotel’s heat seared across our connection.
The Mathairs never mentioned this in their warnings about wolves—this invasive intimacy, this forced caring.
Will distance break it? Or will I carry this unwanted tether all the way back to Salem?
A hand clamps around my arm and I yelp, spinning to face my attacker. “You have some explaining to do.” Dark eyes meet mine, cold with fury. I try to raise my hand for a defensive spell, but his whispered binding comes faster, rope manifesting around my wrists. Fuck.
The binding is stronger than anything I’ve felt before. The rope writhes like a living thing, pulling tighter with each desperate twist of my body until my arms are crushed behind me. My heart slams against my ribs as I struggle to breathe through the panic.
Another quick spell binds my mouth and now I can’t even cast to defend myself. My trainer would be embarrassed. I let myself get completely incapacitated without striking a single blow myself.
A male witch. He’s a male witch.
“Mmmmmrrrrrrahhhh,” I growl out, and try to wrench myself free, but it’s like fighting a fucking mountain. His fingers dig into my arm harder and tears well in my eyes, halfway blinding me.
What is he going to do to me?
I don’t recognize the man, but Rachel, the witch from the tea shop, is right beside him and not at all surprised that he’s taking me hostage.
She points to my wrists behind my back. “That’s her. She’s wearing bond marks.” Rachel looks at me carefully and her eyes widen slightly. “You were in Ash Hollow too. At my shop.”
I growl again on principle, but ice spreads through my veins. There’s no point in denying anything—the marks on my wrists might as well be a signed confession. Even if they don’t know the full scope of my mission yet, Bast will tell them soon. And then what?
Everything I’ve witnessed or observed about the pack and their witch allies, all of it will paint me as exactly what I am—a spy, an assassin, a traitor to the mate bond itself.
And I’d do it all again to save Brianna.
The angry male witch’s eyes flash dangerously. “I know exactly who you are, why you’re here, and what you’re capable of. Don’t think for a second I’m going to give you the chance to hurt anyone here.”
Anyone? My chest tightens at the accusation. I had one target—Meredith. Clean, quick, and then home to my sister. But looking at this man’s face, twisted with protective fury, I realize how naive that sounds even in my own head. Of course they’d assume I’m here to destroy their whole community.
The Mathairs are defenders and protectors of witches, but standing here now, I’m the monster in their story.
The assassin sent to murder their friend and their neighbor.
Still, the Mathairs know best. They keep the witch community safe as a whole.
There has to be a reason they felt like Meredith was a threat.
Rachel places a hand on his arm, a gesture meant to calm, but her own posture is tense, ready for action. “Lawrence, not here—”
“Shut up,” he cuts her off, his gaze never leaving mine.
Lawrence… Holy shit. In Meredith’s file, it’d said she was married to a male witch named Lawrence. Of course I fucking stumble not only into a male witch unaware, but to my target’s husband.
Everything I’ve been told my whole life is coming apart at the seams. I’ve never seen a werewolf. Never seen a male witch. Male babies are not allowed in covens. The boys are taken and eliminated by the Mathairs for everyone’s safety. But was that a lie too?
The hatred in Lawrence’s eyes is so strong it almost physically hurts to look at him. The spells he’s used to bind my wrists, my voice. They’re strong. His magick is so powerful.
I don’t want to die. The thought flashes through me and I struggle again to get away from his bruising grip on my upper arm. But just like the spells, he digs in harder every time I move.