The Wolf Queen’s Curse (Witch of the Wolves #2)

Chapter One

ONE

The first order of the day is food. Finding food, that is, which is going to mean stealing it, and stealing enough not just for me and my new husband but for what remains of his werewolf Pack. Ten very hungry werewolves with stomachs even more bottomless than my own.

This endeavor would be so much simpler if either Bishop or I had ever actually stolen anything.

That isn’t entirely true. We have stolen something—clothing and saddles, taken only a little while earlier, from clotheslines and stables outside the village where we now seek breakfast. At least we already had the horses, though that is the only thing we were able to take with us when we fled the burning of Trevelyan last night.

I do feel bad about stealing the saddles and clothing.

If I had coins in my pocket, I’d have left some behind, and I suppose—lacking that—I could mentally promise to return and repay them, but that’s where the line falls in my ethical landscape.

I feel guilty, but our own situation is too dire to worry about repaying stolen goods.

Unsurprisingly, Bishop has found the butcher shop, and that’s where we are. I’m crouched low behind it while taking advantage of the fact that I’m wearing men’s clothing. We also stole a dress for later, but the menswear makes running and hiding so much easier.

Bishop is dressed in homespun—laborer’s clothing, which looks odd when I’ve never seen him in anything but the most fashionable gentlemen’s attire.

It suits his long, lean frame, though he keeps tugging at the cuffs in obvious irritation and smoothing his jet-black hair, as if the waves are in disarray. Which they are, but I don’t mind.

While I can smell fresh bread nearby, I know meat will be the best source of sustenance for his wolves. He must catch me looking toward the bakery, though, because his dark eyes soften.

“You’d like that?” he asks.

“No, this is fine.”

“Come.”

He extends a hand and leads me down a passage between buildings, expertly making his way to the bakery. The ovens are in the rear, surrounded by a high fence. Without a word, he grabs the top and swings himself up with an ease that leaves me breathless … and envious.

I still have so much to learn about werewolves.

I’m a witch, descended from a long line of dark witches. While that might seem obvious from my very fleeting moral quandary about our thefts, I’ve discovered that my mother and aunt’s “dark” is really more a middling shade of gray.

I’m also a lycan, which means my father was a werewolf and I inherited some of his secondary traits, such as an improved sense of smell. Sadly, I did not inherit the sort of easy athleticism and grace Bishop displays hopping a six-foot wooden fence.

I take a moment to watch him crouch on the top, admiring him, the sharp line of his jaw, the unruly dark hair curling around his face, the intense burn of his eyes as he focuses on his goal. Then he springs, as nimble as a cat, hitting the ground silently.

As Bishop lands, I peer through a knothole. To conserve magical power, I won’t preemptively use a blur spell here, but I watch with a spell at the ready.

Bishop looks about and then grabs several sacks from a pile.

When he eases open an oven, I expect him to use the sack to pull out the hot bread, but he only snatches out loaves with his bare fingers, making me wince.

Once two sacks are full, he opens the second oven, grabs something, drops it inside a bag, and hops the fence again.

I take his hands and whisper over his scorched fingers.

“We heal quickly,” he reminds me, but I keep casting. The spell will relieve the pain.

He opens one bag and hands me what he’d snatched from the second oven—a currant-dotted sweet bun.

I grin and take a bite. When I offer him some, he shakes his head and pulls out a loaf of bread, rips off a chunk as big as my fist, and has it gone in two bites, which also gives me permission to be less dainty with my bun.

I devour it and sigh happily. He eats another piece of bread and then we creep back to the butcher shop.

“I took the bread first because this will be trickier,” he says. “We’ll have to flee as soon as I’m done.”

I nod. “Tell me what spells you need.”

He considers and says, “It’ll be best if you follow me and use whatever works. Just … remember that I need to feed my Pack.”

I arch my brows, but he’s already on the move.

He sets down the two bread-filled sacks behind the butcher shop and keeps the two empty ones.

Then he listens at the rear door. I can make out two voices within.

When the customer leaves, Bishop eases open the door.

He pauses, listening, but the only sound is that of someone moving about inside. A raised finger asks me to wait.

I cast a blur spell as Bishop slides through the doorway. He reaches the end of a hall and peers into the shop proper. Then he motions for me to follow.

I creep after him until I can see the butcher cutting up meat. I cast a lock spell on the front door. Bishop slides behind the butcher and then, when the man puts down his knife, Bishop grabs him, his hand going over the fellow’s mouth.

Bishop glances my way, as if gauging my reaction, but I have none—I didn’t expect him to ask nicely for free food.

His attention turns back to the butcher, and the brawny man fights, but it’s like seeing a child grapple against an adult.

Werewolf strength means Bishop doesn’t even struggle to hold him.

Bishop’s other arm goes around the man’s neck, and his face remains impassive as he holds him there. Seconds tick past. Then the man slumps, and Bishop lowers him to the floor.

The way Bishop carefully lowers him tells me the man is alive, but he still looks my way and murmurs, “He’s only unconscious.”

I nod, and I hope my expression reassures him that I’m fine with this. The Alpha will do what he must to feed his Pack, as he said. He didn’t need to kill this man, so he didn’t, but if it came down to that, he’d weigh his options and make the choice he had to.

Bishop wasn’t raised in a Pack. I wasn’t raised in a Coven. But I think anyone who grew up in a loving family understands this. When it comes to survival, we have our priorities. We must.

Bishop and I begin to fill the sacks as quickly as we can. We’ll be emptying the poor man’s shelves, but again, there’s nothing to be done for it. Maybe, in this case, we’ll find a way to repay him.

As I grab hunks of meat, I keep one eye on the front door. There’s a small window next to it, and I watch that for the shadow of a customer. Yet when someone does come, they approach from the opposite side. Bishop hears the person first, his head jerking up.

The person—presumably a customer—yanks on the door, expecting it to open. I ease over and see a middle-aged woman in a day dress and bonnet.

Bishop and I duck down behind the butcher table as I consider spells. Fog? No, that’d look odd indoors. A cover spell? I think we’re hidden enough and, again, I need to conserve power for an actual emergency.

A shadow passing over the window means the customer is peering in. A loud rapping follows.

“George?” she calls. “George, are you in there?”

“Ma’am,” a man’s voice says. “Might I trouble you for directions?”

Bishop’s head tilts, his eyes narrowing. A stranger to town diverting the woman’s attention when we need it diverted? That’s much too coincidental. The obvious answer is that one of the Pack followed us, but that narrowing of Bishop’s eyes says he doesn’t recognize the voice.

“We should leave,” I whisper.

He looks toward the door, where a conversation continues. Then he nods abruptly, and we grab what we can, our sacks already almost full.

We slow at the rear door and listen, but it’s quiet out back. Bishop cracks open the door and inhales, and I swear his hackles rise.

I sniff and frown as a smell wafts around the building, familiar in one way, unfamiliar in another. “There’s a werewolf at the front door?” I whisper.

Another abrupt nod.

“But not one from the Pack?” I ask.

A grunt that means yes, it’s not a werewolf from the Pack and also, that’s a problem.

Bishop takes the sack of meat from me. “Carry the bread, please. We’ll get to the horses as quickly as we can.”

I only nod, but he still says, “I’m not fleeing. I need to lure him out of town before I confront him.”

“I presumed as much,” I say, and we hurry along the back of the buildings.

We reach the horses. While Bishop arranges the sacks of food, I pretend to wander, checking a buttercup here, smiling at a little yellowhammer there. Putting on a show of communing with nature … while keeping all senses on alert.

“Nothing,” I say when I return to Bishop. I hadn’t gone far from him. If I had, he’d have reacted and given away our game of acting as if nothing is awry.

“It can’t be a coincidence, can it,” I say.

“No.”

“My grandmother implied she has werewolves in her cabal. That would be who she’d send to track us.”

“It would,” he says grimly as he helps me onto the horse.

Until yesterday, I knew nothing about my grandmother.

I’d heard of cabals, but they were European or American and always run by sorcerer families.

Werewolf Packs and witch Covens are for specific supernatural types and open only to that type.

They’re tight-knit community groups with a chosen leader and strict rules that keep their members safe.

Cabals are businesses. At the top is a spellcaster family, which surrounds itself with supernaturals of all types. While some of these supernaturals are bound by blood oaths, most come for the same reason anyone takes employment—money.

I would presume a cabal offers benefits similar to Packs and Covens, which provide much-needed services supernaturals struggle to find elsewhere—like Bishop’s cousin Julius being the Pack doctor, with a full understanding of werewolf physiology. But, in the end, a cabal is all about making money.