Chapter Thirty-One
Mayor Hedrick called just as Sam and Lucy returned from town. They came into the kitchen, their arms full of shopping bags. Ash ran to greet them, wiggling his little butt off, impatient for whatever treasure Lucy had brought back for him.
I stood so I could pace while I talked. I had a lot of food energy. “Mayor,” I answered. “Everything okay?”
“Hello, Kait! Everything’s fine here. How are you?”
“I’m great,” I said. “I’m looking forward to seeing you and Amy Sunday.”
“That’s why I’m calling, actually. We had something come up Sunday, and I know it’s short notice, but I wondered if there might be a chance you were free this evening instead?”
Lucy gave Ash his present, and he plopped down on the floor to chew on it, content. She put some of her bags on the counter, blew me a kiss, then hurried back out of the kitchen. Lucy was like a tiny whirlwind.
“I could come before work,” I told the mayor. “But that might be too early for dinner.”
“No, no. Early dinner is good. Shall we say four-thirty?”
“I’ll see you then,” I told him.
I was just dropping my phone into my pocket when Rick’s phone rang. “The mayor,” he said dryly, then answered the call. “I’m with her now, Louis. Yes. I’ll be there.”
I laughed after he ended the call. “Is he matchmaking, Rick?”
He grinned. “He thinks we belong together.”
His gaze snagged on mine and held it fast, and finally, Sam’s chair scraping the floor as he pulled it back broke us apart.
“Zach and I will meet you at the office since Rick will be with you at the mayor’s,” he said.
“And Remy,” Zach said, carrying his coffee cup to the sink. “Though he’ll probably be slow at getting there.”
“I’m getting an itchy feeling,” Sam told us. “Something’s going to happen. We’ll want to stick close. Maybe we should wait outside the Hedricks’ place just in case.”
I trusted gut feelings, but I doubted Gavin Voss was going to show up at the mayor’s house to cause trouble. “No sense in that,” I told him. “I’ll see you at the office.”
He didn’t argue. “I have something I need to take care of anyway. If you need me, call me. I won’t be far.”
I was afraid I knew what he needed to take care of. I didn’t look at Rick, but I could feel his narrow-eyed attention on Sam. The shapeshifter had stopped killing close to home, though, so maybe he just had some more shopping to do or something equally benign.
Zach crossed his arms. “I’m riding with you to the mayor’s,” he said. “What time are we leaving?”
“Zach,” I said. “I just said you don’t need to—”
“I’m coming with you,” he told me. “I’ll walk around outside the gates while you visit.” He gave Rick a nod, then left the kitchen, Sam at his side.
Rick was already on his phone. He murmured into it for a few seconds, then smiled at me as he put his phone away. “Louis says Zach is more than welcome to join us for dinner.”
“Thanks, Rick.” I shook my head. “He’s overprotective.”
“You saved his life.” He walked to me and stood close enough to touch. “You save a lot of lives. And we’re all going to be a little protective.”
I lifted my nose to the air, subtly inhaling his scent. Even my wolf appreciated the detective’s scent, though it made her hungry. It made me both hot and relaxed at the same time.
His cell rang once again, and he sighed as he pulled it from his pocket. He frowned. “Excuse me, Kait.”
He went outside through the kitchen door to talk while I cleared the few dishes and straightened the kitchen. It was already after one o’clock, and I wanted to visit my mother before I went to the mayor’s for dinner.
Rick was back in five minutes. He didn’t say who’d called him, but he was once again tense and somewhat bleak.
I wondered if it had been Beth on the phone.
He squeezed my arm, and part of me wanted to grab him and refuse to let him go. “I’ll see you at the mayor’s,” he said, and then I was alone with Ash in a quiet kitchen.
I went to my bedroom, stocked a bag with supplies, then grabbed my keys and headed outside.
Zach and Remy fell in beside me as I walked to my car. “I’m going to Shadowfield to see my mother,” I told them. “Remy, I’ll call you if I need you. Zach told you I’m having dinner with the mayor?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll drop in at the office tonight. If you need me before then, give me a call.”
“Thanks, Remy.”
When Zach and I arrived at Shadowfield, we went straight to the Shadowfield Inn, where my mother was staying. She wasn’t there, so I called her. “I’m at the Inn,” I told her. “Where are you?”
“So I’ve recently purchased a house, honey. I’m there, getting moved in.”
I stared at my phone. “What do you mean, you’ve purchased a house? When? What house?”
“Chill out, man,” she said, then, “Come to the witchwolf’s former cottage. That’s where I am.”
Then she hung up.
Zach stood from one of the patio tables when he saw me coming. There were approximately seventeen female wolves gathered around him with their great gaping maws, and I was exaggerating only a little.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, falling into step beside me and leaving his disappointed fan club behind.
“My mother,” I bit out, “has moved into Lennon’s house.”
“And there are monsters in the basement?” he asked, as I hurried down the sidewalk.
“It’s Lennon’s house,” I said, not caring if I was being unreasonable. “That place will have teeth, Zach. My mother shouldn’t be living there.”
“It’s just a house,” he told me. “She can disinfect it. Light some candles or wave some sage at it or something.”
“She’s a wolf, Zach, not a witch. And Lennon would have made the house a place of punishment for whoever came after. She was the seer. She probably knew that someday my mother would live there.” I shook my head and strode toward the witchwolf’s cottage. “No. She absolutely cannot live there.”
My mother begged to differ.
The cottage was set back slightly in the woods, surrounded by nature, with a stone path leading to the front door. Lennon had planted herbs and flowers and thorny plants that had no business growing so well in the shade.
Rosemary crowded the walkway, and lavender leaned over the stones, teasingly brushing my boots with dusty purple heads. Other things I didn’t recognize grew in neat colors beneath the windows, too deliberate to be wild and too stubborn to have died just because their witch was gone.
It was gorgeous. But beneath the beauty was a darkness that maybe I couldn’t see, but I could damn sure feel. Surely my mother could feel it, too.
Which begged the question…
“Why, Mother? Why here? There are other houses in the village. Lennon’s house is dangerous. Jared should burn it down.”
She pulled me through the little cottage, so excited and pleased it was hard for me to bring her down. But I genuinely believed Lennon’s house was poison, just like the witch who’d lived in it.
“Lennon was a horrible person,” she said, “but she loved nature. She relied on nature. She wasn’t going to harm it. And her cottage was her sanctuary. There’s nothing bad here. The bad shit is dead.” She looked around the kitchen, smiling. “It’s only a house, and it needs someone to love it.”
I wasn’t convinced.
The cottage was in nearly perfect shape. Jared made sure it was kept up. The kitchen was the biggest room in the place, with curved windows and beautiful wood floors. There was a fireplace in the living room, tons of natural light, and the smell of fresh paint.
“I love it, sweetheart,” she said, patting my arm. “I truly love it.”
She was happy. She was also an adult and could make her own choices. If something dire did rise up in the house, she was surrounded by wolves who would rush in to protect her.
And she was close to Jared, the biggest protector of them all.
My breath caught and it didn’t matter that he’d just left my bed hours ago. I missed him fiercely. I texted him the second I was outside.
Checking in, Alpha. Everything good?
He didn’t return the text but called me as I was driving out of Shadowfield. “I got a lead on Voss’s location,” he told me, his deep voice causing goosebumps to pop up on my arms. “He wasn’t there when we arrived, but there was no doubt he’d been living there. It looked like he’d moved on.”
I nodded. “He won’t be staying in one place for very long. He’s smarter than that.”
“He’s enjoying every second of this,” he said. “He likes that I’m hunting him while he’s hunting you.”
“He’s all kinds of fucked up,” I told him. “I’m sure he’d like it better if I were running from him. After I see what the council wants, I’m going to go after him, Jared.”
“You can hunt with me,” he said. He wasn’t going to argue. He’d rather I hunt with him than be hunted without him.
“I will,” I said. “I’m just leaving Shadowfield. I stopped by to see my mother. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to let her move into Lennon’s house.”
“She wanted it, Kait. I’m not telling her no. Every wolf in the village loves Susan. We’re not letting anything happen to her.”
“I know. I just…it’s weird.” I sighed. “But then, so is my mother.”
He laughed. “Where are you going?”
“I’m having dinner with the mayor.” I glanced at Zach, who’d put his seat back slightly and appeared to be sleeping. “Zach’s with me, and Rick will be there. I’m going to talk to Bastien tonight, too.”
I could hear the frown in his voice. “Bastien?”
“I’ll explain when I see you. I need to tell him about a ghost.” I hesitated. “Let’s have an autumn ceremony, Jared. In October…at Silverwood. Is that okay with you?”
“Whatever you want, Kait. I don’t care where it is, as long as it happens.” He paused, and in the silence was a whole world of emotion. “I love you, Wolf.”
In October, I would marry my alpha.
Despite everything—the loss of my blade and my magic, Voss causing issues, and what appeared to be another Jakeston serial killer—I was so very happy.
And I ignored the growing sense of unease in my gut.
Life was good.
No one was taking that from me.