Chapter 18
SILVER AND SALT
where did gus’s wolf friend go?
— gus
The Alpha is running his fingers through his hair as he walks into the shop. He trails his hand down the back of his head, scratching the side of his neck before he reaches out, tugging Honey close to him.
He sighs then, and it’s like just holding onto his mate allows him to release some of the tension that followed him here from downtown Moonburrow.
Honey braces the flat of her palm against his chest. “Max? Any news on Riordan?”
“I called in every tracker in the pack. We hit every part of Moonburrow. They found his scent trail easily enough. But you know my brother. He’s kept himself on his leash so long, he was bound to go wild when he let himself off.
If Riordan or his wolf doesn’t want to be found, we won’t be able to find him…
and that’s if he’s in Moonburrow. His trail makes it clear he left. He’s gone.”
“Did you try calling him?”
“He left his phone in the station. His badge, too. Something happened in there, Killer. And I hate that I don’t know what went down. Barrow told me what he could, about how Riordan brought the witch down to the holding cell and, when he came up again ten minutes later, he just… took off.”
“Riordan wouldn’t do that without a reason,” Honey says, trying to cheer up her mate. “You know that.”
“I believe that,” Max says, correcting her gently.
“But the only thing I know right now is that Riordan’s scent trail is hours old.
He left around noon, shortly after he finished booking the witch.
” As if suddenly realizing that he has an audience to their not-so-private conversation, Max’s golden eyes find me.
“My wolves found notes of ice and burnt sugar. Your sister is gone, too.”
“Good.”
Max nods. “If she comes back, you let me know. For now, I need a favor.”
I point at my chest. “Me? You need something from me?”
I’m not being a smartass. Usually, when I’m around Max and Honey, I have fun busting their chops.
If he wasn’t in the middle of a murder investigation and dealing with a runaway Beta (and brother), I might have.
Considering he helped me with Crystal by throwing his alpha wolf around, I’m more than willing to help him.
I just can’t believe that Max Lobo is asking me for a favor.
He sucks in a breath through his nose, his sharp cheeks going taut. “The only other person who might know what set my brother off is currently in my holding cell. One problem: she’s refusing to speak to anyone except you.”
“Me?”
He nods.
“Why me?”
“She won’t talk to the coven,” Max says. “Barely says two words to me or any of my deputies. I brought in a healer, she shut down. Right before I was ready to give up and let her have the night to think it over, she grabbed the bars and said she’d tell you what happened.”
“Between her and Riordan?” I ask. “Or with Olivia?”
Max’s expression goes flat. “Both.”
Great.
This sucks. You know why? I like Penelope.
She was awkward and nervous and so genuinely worried about messing up her magic that she practically apologized every time she readied herself to cast a spell.
But she also was the only one—except for Riordan—who really seemed to give a shit about what happened to Ash.
Sure, she showed interest in the compact I found in the dumpster.
She was more determined to figure out why anyone thought Ash was cursed when it was as simple as silver poisoning.
I still don’t understand why anyone would think that Penelope Willows could be a murderer. If they said that she was casting a spell that went sideways and that ended Olivia’s life, I’d buy that more easily than that Penelope did it on purpose.
“I don’t understand it. She was so nice when we met her, but then she accidentally gave a wild opossum the power of speech for about twenty minutes,” I tell Max. “If her magic backfires as badly like that all the time, maybe whatever happened to Olivia was another magical screw-up.”
Honey’s head snaps toward me so fast I’m surprised she doesn’t get whiplash.
“She what?”
Oh. Yeah. We never got around to telling Honey that part of our adventure yet.
“Wait,” Honey says, pointing dramatically between me and Gus. “Can we just hold on a second? Are you telling me that some witch miscast a spell and Gus talked?”
As though he’s snitching, Gus chitters excitedly from the top of the counter he’s been sprawled out on.
Honey turns on me. “You didn’t think to call and tell me that Gus could talk?”
“In fairness,” I point out, “there was kind of a lot happening at the time. Ash was dead, there was the whole thing with the silver needle, then we figured out we were fated mates, and then, well, you don’t want to know what happened after that—”
“Roxy…”
“What? You want to know what happened after that? Okay, it involves a lot of clothes coming off and—”
“Roxy! You know that’s not what I mean. I’ve had Gus as my sidekick for eight years. Eight years. He’s never once been able to speak to me!”
Is she kidding? “He talks to you all the time.” Gus makes a clicking sound, and I point. “See?”
“There’s a difference between understanding what he’s trying to say and hearing him use actual words. What did he say? How long did it last? Why didn’t anyone call me? Do you think Penelope can do it again?”
“Penelope is currently being charged with murder,” Max murmurs against her hair.
Honey purses her lips. “Oh. Right.” She frowns, and then: “But after that?”
With the arm not holding his mate to him, Max lifts his hand and pinches the bridge of his nose.
Honey looks wistfully at Gus. “I just want to know if he’s happy. If there’s something I could do to make his life better. That’s all.”
And because my mate is fucking amazing, Ash decides to jump into the conversation with the absolutely most perfect thing he could say: “Honey? Did you know Gus refers to you as Mother?”
Honey looks hopefully at her cousin. “He does? I mean, I sometimes jokingly refer to myself as his mom, and Max says he’s his adopted opossum son, but…”
“You don’t know?” I ask, surprised. “He doesn’t say that to you?”
“When Gus talks, I don’t hear words exactly. I just know what he’s trying to say. When he talks to me, I always get the idea that he thought of us as partners in crime. Like me and Gus against the world, until he decided Max was okay and he let him into our family.”
“Our clan,” murmurs Ash.
“What was that?”
“I think I understand Gus better,” he admits almost apologetically. “Whether it’s because we’re both males or he thinks of me as Brother, but you… he worships you, Honey.”
“I don’t know about that—”
“He says you feed him and protect him,” Ash explains. “You love him, and you’ve been there for him since you found him as an abandoned joey all those years ago. Who else would you be? You’re… Mother.”
Honey’s eyes fill with tears as the emotions overtake her. “Gus…”
And then, in the middle of my shop and to my complete surprise, she immediately starts tugging her shirt over her head.
What the—
“Nope,” I snap.
Ash startles as I jump behind him, reach up, and slap both hands over his eyes. He doesn’t play dead, though. There’s no reason for him to. Now that we have a mate bond stretching between us, it’s almost impossible for him to be afraid of anything I do—even when I jump at him like that.
“She’s my cousin,” he protests weakly beneath my palms.
“She’s my mate,” Max growls at the exact same time.
Honey ignores both males, and because I can practically feel the Alpha tiptoeing dangerously close to the edge of going a little feral there, I turn my back while Honey finishes undressing.
“And I’m the raccoon who only just marked her mate,” I inform Ash. “Cousin or not, the only female you’re seeing naked is me.”
Ash shivers under my touch. “Does anyone else think it’s super sexy when she gets possessive over me? No? Okay.”
Silly opossum. With our backs to Honey and Max, I let go of Ash’s eyes, gripping his chin with my right hand so that I can jerk his head enough to find his lips.
I kiss him because I think it’s super sexy that he thinks it’s super sexy when I show my jealous side, and I don’t stop until I’m sure that Honey’s finished her shift.
Of course that’s what she’s doing. To save her clothes before she went furry, she’d strip, and since most shifters don’t mind nudity, she probably figured no one would care.
Wrong. I cared, but that’s okay. My mate thought it was sexy and I got to kiss him. I consider that a win-win all around.
A few seconds later, Max murmurs his mate’s name. I take that as a sign that it’s okay for us to get a look.
When I finally lower my hands from Ash’s eyes and turn the both of us around, Honey is curled beside Gus atop the counter in her opossum form, snuggling up against her sidekick—her opossum son—while Gus chitters happily into her fur.
Alpha damn it, that’s pretty fucking cute.
Jeez. What happened to you, Rox? You fall in love with one opossum, and now you’re fond of two more. Or maybe… maybe I was fond of two opossums, and now I love three.
Shit. It’s a good thing Max ran Crystal out of town. She damn well would’ve gotten a kick out of teasing me about that.
We have to go. If Penelope is willing to talk to me, I don’t want to show up too late and discover she changed her mind.
At first, I suggest leaving Honey and Gus behind to do their opossum bonding thing.
Then I ask my mate if he wants to join in on the snugglefest. I don’t even care that I’m obvious as fuck.
If Penelope really is a murderer, I’m willing to risk myself having a one-on-one with her.
I don’t want anything to happen to the opossums I’ve somehow found myself in a clan with.
I’m not worried about Max. He’s the most powerful shifter in Moonburrow.
I highly doubt that Penelope’s twisted magic can do a single thing to harm him, but Ash?
Honey? Gus? It’s probably for the best that they stay here, head to the bakery to check on it, or hide out in the Alpha cabin on pack territory.
Of course, right when I make those suggestions, Honey shifts back.
My possessive raccoon is single-mindedly determined to make sure that Ash doesn’t get an eyeful of his naked cousin or my sister earlier.
I leap to cover his eyes again. Max leaps to cover her body so he can shield her from anyone walking past the shopfront as Honey starts to re-dress.
Gus leaps so that he isn’t left out.
After that, there are no arguments. Max says he’ll drive all five of us to the station, and though I’m willing to walk there, one glimpse at his wolf peering back at me in his eyes and… yeah. I’ll squeeze in the back with my mate.
Gus perches happily on Honey’s lap during the short drive downtown. Though Ash wants to join me when I go to see Penelope, Max tells him to stay in the front room of the sheriff station with Honey and Gus.
The deputy at the desk is a female wolf shifter.
There’s no sign of Barrow like the last time I was here, and though Max leads me into the next room—the interrogation room where I sat in the hot seat last time—before going through the side door that Riordan had come in through.
As I find out, that doorway leads into a hall with four other rooms, two on each side, and a final door with a lit EXIT sign over it that must be the back entrance to the station.
Max takes the second door on the righthand-side. Throwing it open, he reveals a downward-sloping staircase behind it.
“There are two holding cells downstairs,” Max tells me as he leads the way.
“One has silver bars where we put shifters that we need to put down. The other is salted because the coven claims that it’s the only way to temper their powers.
I’ll be honest with you, Roxy, since I’m bringing my mate’s closest friend down to see a suspected murderer: we’ve never had a reason to put a witch in that cell.
I don’t know if the salt does shit or if the head of the coven was blowing smoke up my old man’s ass. ”
Wonderful.
I also notice that Max doesn’t point out that he has had a reason to use the shifter cell.
Last October, after it came out that Leo Holloway was the mastermind between the first two murders in Moonburrow, he made a point to say that there were more on his side who wanted to overthrow the Alpha and lead the pack instead of Max.
Holloway is gone now—Max did his duty and ended him, plus a good chunk of his followers—but if there’s more, here’s where they will go until they’re exterminated.
Does the salt work against witches? No clue, but I can tell you that, the deeper I go down the stairs, the closer to the silver bars I get, the more uncomfortable my raccoon feels. Coming from a female who spent a good chunk of her kithood trapped in dumpsters, I’m feeling claustrophobic as fuck.
I can’t wait to get this over with and return to my mate.
“Where is she?” I ask the sheriff as we both make big strides past the empty cell with the silver bars.
Stupid question. Right next door, there’s a cell with steel bars, the cloying stink of too much salt in one place, and a pale, red-headed witch curled up in the far corner of the cell.
Max raps his knuckles against the steel. “Penelope? You said you would talk to Roxy Kane. I brought you Roxy Kane.”