Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
We spent the next two nights chanting in the garden room.
The coven spell seemed to be taking forever, at least, to me. When I complained, Margaux and Bronwyn both assured me that was not the case. That they’d heard of coven spells that had gone on for an entire year, and that it would be done when it was done.
“You made me think this would be easy,” I muttered.
“That was hope talking,” Bronwyn said. “Nothing ever goes as planned with magic.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Margaux said. “Stop complaining about a little magical singing.”
We decided to take turns babysitting the spell. I took Sunday night, Bronwyn took Monday night, and Margaux took Tuesday. After the hunger-beast attack, I hadn’t expected either of them to offer, but they’d both just shrugged and said they’d be fine.
“We are not without power,” Margaux said. “Something you need to remember.”
“That felt like a dig.” I spread a clean comforter over the wicker chaise and tossed on a fluffed pillow. As an earth witch, I didn’t mind sleeping on soil-dusted furniture, but I was pretty sure Margaux would feel otherwise. She’d always struck me as kind of prissy in that regard.
“It was. You are witch, wolf leader, and demon, not to mention a strong woman in your own right. Why would you allow the hunger beast to frighten you so?” She huffed. “It should’ve been terrified of you, not the other way around.”
“I tried a bunch of magic.”
“Did you speak to it? Did you use your demon side to rebuke it?”
“Well, no. That would’ve worked?”
“We’ll never know now, will we?”
Goddess, she was annoying. “Forgive me for not thinking clearly. My oxygen was depleted, remember?”
She crossed her thin arms over her chest. She was dressed in a sleeveless nylon sports set. The pants were flared slightly, the top hung loose and flattering. It looked like something Ida would wear if it was lime-green or banana-yellow instead of jet black.
“Fine. You aren’t wrong. Next time, I’ll be less terrified and more proactive when a hunger demon with fifty eyeballs and a body like a stomped meatball oozes down the sides of my garden room.”
“Good.” She sniffed and sat primly on the edge of the chaise. “Will Fennel stay with me?”
“Yeah. This is his home.” I glanced around the room.
“He’s at Trini Alvarado’s playing with Autry right now.
Cecil’s around here somewhere. On that note, if you hear casino sounds, please text me.
I got him off the last gambling site, but those things are like whack-a-moles, and Cecil has access to a digital wallet. ”
She blinked slowly. Sighed. “Very well.”
I glanced through the window wall at Red. “I’m going to spend some time in the soil tonight.”
The saguaro was happiest in summer—even on a low-desert, one-hundred-fifteen degree day—and he had a way of letting me know it. It wasn’t anything I could explain that would make sense to Margaux, though. Just a feeling.
“Do they speak to you?” she asked softly.
“They?”
She gestured outside. “The saguaros. The plants. The soil. Do they speak?”
“They don’t have a voice like you and me. Their language is in the breeze that rustles leaves, the whisper of an earthworm softening the soil, the silent sift of roots. It’s a language of hope. Even the flowers, with tragically short lifespans, retain their optimism until the very end.”
“It sounds lovely,” she said.
“It is. Except for fucking ferns.”
Margaux cleared her throat. “Pardon?”
“Ferns can be real assholes—and don’t get me started on rose bushes. Bullies from the roots up. Jade plants, too. And then there are the grasses. Bermuda is the chill friend of the group, but St. Augustine is just plain mean. Grows how it wants, where it wants, and that thatch thing? Pure seethe.”
Again, she cleared her throat. “I can’t decide if you’re serious.”
“The worst are orchids. Whiny little things. So precious, too. Cecil gets into it with the ones he’s cultivating in the back corner of the garden room. He spells the area to respect their varied temperature preferences, and still they complain.”
“You’re joking, surely.”
“But most of them are wonderful.” I spun away from the window and headed for the door. “Sleep close to the lavender. It’ll make sure you rest well. Rosemary, too. They’re good herbs. Watch out for the garlic. They curse like a sailor with a stubbed toe.”
“Is it safe to stay in here with them? Betty? Betty!”
The soil welcomed me, as it had the other day, with a loving hug. I slid beneath the surface, my body weightless, my mind clear, my spirit complete. The tranquility fed my soul, brought peace to the witch, demon, and woman.
I’d been under for what felt like five minutes when Red’s roots squeezed my wrist, signaling urgency.
The soil pushed me to the surface where I scanned my surroundings as I dressed. The exterior of the garden room was intact. No meaty, bug-eyed, blob creatures.
Small wins.
Through the glass, I saw Margaux seated cross-legged on the tile floor at her spot on the circle. Her eyes were shut and her mouth was moving. The comforter I’d provided for her was tucked under her.
It was dark as pitch out but quiet. Not creepy quiet, either. Regular quiet.
Slowly, cautiously, I walked around the garden room, my skin still tingling with magic from the soil I’d absorbed. Power crackled around me like static electricity.
There was nothing on the backside of the room, nothing suspicious inside, nothing out of the ordinary around my house, either.
“Why’d you alert me?” I asked the soil.
There was a rumbling beneath me, a firm, persistent pressure against my feet that guided me to the gravel path leading to Ida’s trailer.
The soil led me to a secluded corner beside a bougainvillea bush that needed pruning—remind Cecil about that—between the back of Ida’s trailer and the front of Jacqueline and Xandra Britton’s.
I stopped a few feet from Violet, the tiniest saguaro.
She looked fine. Healthy and growling—growing.
Growling? The hair on the back of my neck went up. Why did I say—
A strong arm banded around my throat, brought me up against a solid chest. Male. Slightly furry, which meant the man wasn’t wearing a shirt. Ordinarily, that would be a red flag.
This was ordinarily. It was the reddest of flags. I wriggled, trying to break free.
“Stop moving, devil witch.”
“Mason?” I’d been a hairsbreadth away from magicking the guy into the stratosphere. I was brimming with power and spooked. Not a great combination.
“Shh,” he said.
“Let go.”
Oops. I’d accidentally put some power behind the last two words. Mason’s arm fell away, and a rush of cool air lifted the back of my top. I was standing on my own now.
“Damn you, I was trying to—” He stopped, nudged me toward the bougainvillea bush with the force of his stormy glare. “Quiet. Hide.”
“There are stickers in there. Thorns.”
“You’re an earth witch,” he hissed. “Shut up and get in there.”
Honestly, the man had no respect for my authority as his alpha.
“I can’t do it anymore,” a voice, high in pitch but presumably male, said. “It hurts.”
“Grow a pair, Stephen. If we’re going to get the pack back, we’ve got to find a way to make ourselves immune to the bitch’s magic.” That voice, much louder, was familiar: Brock Greer.
No, that name couldn’t be right. It was something more along the lines of Bingo. Bingo Griddlecake.
“Push into it.” Another voice, this one deeper than Stephen’s and decidedly female. “Further. Until your whole body is inside the spell.”
“I c-c-can’t. It’s like being kicked in the stomach by a mule.” Gagging, spattering, wet and sniveling sounds followed.
“Hey! Those are my work boots,” Bingo said. “I just bought the damn things.”
“Can’t help—” More vomit sounds.
“Drag him out of there, Helen,” Bingo said.
“Why don’t you do it? You’re the only one who hasn’t pushed past the spell. You haven’t set a foot inside the park. You scared?”
He let out a growl so fierce even I reared back. “I’ve been pushing at the witch’s spell for months, even before she took over. Alpha Pallás said she was a threat to the pack, and he was right.” He growled again. “Now, get in there and fetch your husband before he vomits himself into a coma.”
Grunts and more splat sounds followed. This went on for a solid ten minutes before the wolves all left together in Bingo’s truck.
Mason and I watched them drive away. “They’re trying to inoculate themselves against your magic. Interesting.”
“What’s the end game? A challenge?” I asked, but I knew the answer.
The wolves couldn’t outright challenge me, because I wasn’t a shifter. It wouldn’t be fair. I’d have to send in Mason or Ronan to fight as my proxy, and there was no way Bingo Griddlecake could win a battle against either of them.
“They’re going to kill me the second they think they can make it past the spell,” I said, answering my own question. “In my own home.”
“They’re going to try,” Mason said. “They won’t succeed.”
“No,” I said. “But my killing them will only piss off the fence-sitters in the pack.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” His expression was inscrutable. “There are wolves who dislike Greer, even among the fence-sitters.” Pretty sure he was including himself in that number.
“None who would lift a finger to help me.” I picked a thorny bougainvillea branch off my top. “I really need to hand the pack over to Ronan, don’t I?”
“Not yet.”
“There’s no point continuing with this farce. The pack couldn’t keep me safe from The Org even if they wanted to, which they very obviously don’t. I’m surprised Bingo Griddlecake hasn’t stuck a bow on my head and dropped me off on their front porch.”
Mason smiled for a half-second and mouthed the word Bingo. “He would if he could, but he’s not strong enough to take you on, and the wolf’s got just enough intelligence to know that.”
“Then why continue?”
“You think the pack isn’t keeping you safe from The Org because you’ve been attacked a couple of times?
” Mason smiled, and it wasn’t nice. “If the threat of the pack wasn’t slowing them down, The Org would be throwing everything they had at you.
I can’t fight that kind of warfare alone, and neither can you.
Neither can Williams or the witches. Your being alpha of a powerful wolf pack is making The Org think twice about their approach.
We’ve knocked them off balance, and that’s what we’re after. That’s why we’re doing this.”
I kicked a rock, and it ricocheted off the side of Ida’s trailer. “Is it?”
“If you were anyone else, The Org would’ve had this place surrounded by mages and witches working around the clock to bring down your protection spell.
They’d kill your tenants and your friends and call them collateral damage.
They’d use everything in their power.” Mason folded his arms over his chest and peered down at me.
“So far, their attacks have been narrowly focused. Surgical. Those types of strikes are generally effective against an enemy like you, but I’ve been able to counter most of them so far. ”
“You have?” I felt a little bad that I hadn’t considered that Mason might be working behind the scenes to keep me safe.
“Yes. Betty, I know these people. Very well.” The grim smile fell off his face. “I know them, because I trained them.”
“You what?”
He looked at me.
“That’s just great. You’re saying there are a hundred Masons out there hunting me?” I threw up my hands. “If you were trying to make me feel better, this was not the way to go about it.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel anything. I’m educating you. And there aren’t a hundred Masons hunting you. I am the only me. They know some of my techniques, is all.”
“Lovely,” I muttered.
“Also, it’s more like two hundred. I trained at least that many before being assigned to your case.”
“You’re terrible at reassurances,” I said. “Awful. Also, I hate you.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
“And yet you’re here. You really like Bronwyn that much, huh?”
He glared at me, moonlight reflecting off his golden wolf eyes. “Your insinuation is that I’m only helping you because of her. Maybe that was true initially, but it’s not the case now.”
There was something in his tone that gave me pause. Truth. He was telling the truth.
“So, why are you here?”
“Because I helped create a monster. I fight monsters. I don’t make them.”
“Does Bronwyn comprehend the full extent of the danger? Because she’s about to enter a coven with me. I agreed to it because I assumed she was cognizant of the risk.”
He shook his head. A quick, decisive chin-flick-snap. “Bronwyn was told only what she needed to know to do her job. She’s smart and resourceful, though. She proved that by goading your demon side into breaking the secrecy spell The Org had on her. I don’t imagine much gets past her.”
That wasn’t exactly how I remembered it, but I didn’t care to argue the point. “Sure, she’s smart, but she doesn’t know that there are two hundred Mason Hartmans out there hunting me.”
He looked like he wanted to tell me again that there was only one him, but in the end, he simply lifted and lowered one heavily muscled shoulder. “No. She doesn’t know that.”
“So, are you going to tell her, or am I? Because I can’t bring her into a coven with me unless she knows exactly what she’s up against. I won’t lie to her.”
“I’ll tell her,” he said.
We stood there, both staring at the place where the wolves had tried to gain entrance into the park, only a few feet away from Violet. The tiniest saguaro stood proud and tall, her tiny spines silvered with moonlight. Untouched.
For now.
Mason and I were interrupted by the sound of Margaux’s approaching footsteps.
“Summon Bronwyn,” she said. “It’s time.”