4. Oh #2
In my experience, shifters—especially predators—are a perfect male specimen; on the outside, at least. Max has a very nice chest. I admit that. I’m also getting a little hysterical following the events of the evening because the most inappropriate thought pops into my brain:
I wonder what Riordan looks like without his shirt.
Bad Penelope. Lusting over a wolf shifter—especially that wolf shifter—isn’t something you do when you haven’t been dragged out to a crime scene. So get your eyes back in your head, stop thinking about the one male you keep torturing yourself with, and hope that this will all be over with soon…
Honey doesn’t give Max the same opportunity to hurry past what just happened.
The mated pair have a quick, hushed argument under their breaths, as the powerful Alpha basically pleads with Honey to go home, that he’ll explain later, and Honey digs her bare feet into the ground and says that she can’t believe he didn’t tell her that there was another murder in Moonburrow.
“I had to find Declan’s body. And I haven’t forgotten about Abigail. I know you want to shield me from the realities of being the Alpha and the sheriff, but if someone is killing again, I’d like to know.”
“Honey—”
“What if you’re in danger?”
Olivia clicks her tongue. “For once, you don’t have to worry about that. Well, they don’t. Penelope… just solve my murder before the wolf comes after you and you’ll be fine.”
Hang on—
“There’s a wolf killing witches? Seriously?”
“How did you know that?”
I didn’t until Olivia said something…
Honey grabs onto Max’s question. “A witch? It was a second witch? Who else died? And wolf? Penelope… what do you mean wolf?” Her head swivels, finding Olivia’s body. For a moment, she stares at it before she turns back to her mate. “Max…” She gags. “She’s been mauled.”
“So kind of you to notice, you overgrown rat,” Olivia mutters.
She glares at Honey before shooting a spectacularly loathsome look toward Gus.
The wild opossum is perched by Honey’s ankle, oblivious to Olivia’s obvious hatred.
That’s right. Gus was the one who attacked Olivia and basically slobbered all over her.
No surprise she’s holding a grudge even after death.
Max scratches the back of his neck. “She has. By a wolf, I’d say. Just like the other witch.”
“Say? Of course it’s a wolf! That’s what I told you, you brainless doggy! Tell him, Penelope. Tell him that.”
I already passed on all of the details about Olivia’s death that I could. I see no reason why I should repeat Olivia’s insults.
Luckily, before I can hush her, Honey momentarily sets aside her annoyance that Max hid the first murder from her—and, well, Moonburrow—to think over the situation.
She shudders out breath, forcing herself calm. “How could this have happened? Which of our people did this?”
And there it is: the undeniable truth that it has to be some sort of predator. A wolf in particular. Does that mean it’s a member of the pack? Maybe… maybe it’s a stranger. A supe, definitely—and a predator clearly—but that doesn’t mean it’s someone Max and Honey know.
Right?
Then again, Max said something about the wards being locked-down. What did he mean by that? I knew the wards were strengthened recently due to the coven finding weak spots, but did they really close them completely to outsiders?
“Um. Excuse me?”
Max looks over at me. “Yes?”
“I only came here two months ago. The wards recognized me as a witch and let me in. I was under the impression that’s how they work.
If you’re a shifter or a witch with good intentions, the spell lets you in.
Is it possible that someone came through the borders, like Olivia did, and then they killed her? ”
“That’s how it worked then. Delilah suggested strengthening them after Olivia escaped my holding cell, making it so that you need a key to get in or out.
At first, I refused since I didn’t want my brother to take that as a sign he couldn’t return.
” Oh, Max. He says that so matter-of-factly, he has no clue that just hearing him mention Riordan is like an ache I can’t deny.
I try to hide it as he continues, “Eventually, though, I had to admit she was right. It wasn’t worth risking the town for one packmate.
I gave her permission and she sent Faith Mathers to close the borders about a week or so ago. ”
Faith. I know Faith. She’s a ward specialist and, while friendly enough during the couple of weeks I spent living in the coven house before I moved into the apartment over Dough You Believe in Magic, she’s undeniably part of the same witchy clique as Olivia.
Max clenches his jaw. “It was Faith. She was the first murder victim. She had her throat clawed out. One of the other witches found her on the edge of town, near pack territory, just like this.”
Honey gasps. I have to grit my teeth together to keep from getting sick.
Olivia perks up. “Faith? Goddess… I didn’t know she was dead. Is that why she never came back?” She glances around. “Where is she?”
“Not everyone who dies becomes a ghost,” I murmur to Olivia. “She’s not here.”
A slight pout to the older witch’s near-transparent lips. “Well, that sucks. I’d much rather spend the next part of my afterlife with Faith than some hoity-toity witchling from Salem.”
I pointedly ignore that, thinking about what Max said.
“The wards didn’t protect her?”
“If only. No. Faith was out, checking on the weak spots, but she was murdered before she had the chance. Delilah came with two of her witches to claim the body, then she returned with three others to strengthen the words for good. Now no one can come in or out without this.” Max pulls something out of the back of his jeans pocket, showing me the half-dollar shaped, circular stone. “She has one and so do I.”
It looks like a polished piece of glass, but I know better.
We call them lodestones. They’re basically keys, like Max called it before.
True lodestones are really magnets. Pieces of age-old stone, they can attract magic while, at the same time, creating borders and wards on the land where they’re buried among other things.
Morrigaine’s mirror is enchanted to amplify magic.
Legend says that, as powerful as it is, it’s only a quarter of the strength of a true lodestone.
There are only about fifty lodestones that exist in the world nowadays, though not even half of them are in use.
Most of the ones that are are in Europe, though a handful have made it across the seas as ancient covens relocated to the new world a few centuries ago.
You can’t create them, and if you unearth one, the magic can turn a weak coven into one that rivals the one in Salem.
Of course, you need to know how to wield it, and because lodestones are so rare and guarded, there are very few witches still existing who have that knowledge.
Witches, as a whole, are a superstitious lot.
We might not have many of the original lodestones, but we kept the term, using it to refer to charmed crystals that have slightly similar properties.
In this case, after Delilah and her coven reinforced the wards to the point that they’re un-passable, they would’ve charmed the piece of glass to act like a key, giving one to the Alpha and keeping one for the coven for when they need to drop the wards quickly and not unravel them completely.
“You told me that, but you didn’t mention that you finalized them because Faith Mathers died!”
“Honey, I would’ve. But the investigation is on-going—”
“I am your mate.”
Gus rises up on his back legs, chittering loudly like he’s telling Max off. When he’s done, Honey nods. “Right. And Gus is a deputy. You tell me—us—everything. Don’t you?”
“I try, Killer. And it’s not like I make a habit of hiding the important stuff.” He lifts his hand, fake-coughing as he says, “Scent-reducer charm.”
She points at him. “That’s a low blow and you know it.”
Max exhales, though not before I notice how his lips twitch just enough to noticeable.
“You’re right.” He sobers quickly. “And it won’t do us any good, arguing about this now.
I have to call Delilah. She’ll need to recover the body.
Whether Olivia was on the outs with her coven or not, I’m sure the coven leader will want to help her rest in peace. ”
Right. And then the ghost expects me to figure out who did this to her…
I furrow my brow, thinking. Olivia’s description of her killer says that it was a big, black wolf. That’s not much to go on when there are more wolf shifters in Moonburrow than any other supe.
There’s one thing I notice, though. If Faith died a week ago, and the wards were locked-down for good right away after that, but Olivia was killed around midnight tonight…
“It’s not a question of how they got in,” I say out loud. “But how did they get out?”
Honey looks at me. “What does that mean?”
I wish I didn’t know.