Chapter 4
Jena threw the last few spell components into the cauldron and set the egg timer.
She pushed back from the kitchen island with a huff of satisfaction.
Done! She was done! God, this stupid town, stupid weres…
for a brief moment she actually missed the city.
Not that there weren’t supes there, but they tended to keep a lower profile when there were more normys around.
You never knew how a non-powered human was going to react when they found out their roommate could hex someone with acne or bad teeth.
“Ask me how I know…” Jena murmured, laying out a silver talisman engraved with the phases of the moon along the knife-scarred counter.
“How do you know what?” Aggie asked, her shuffling feet rasping against linoleum. She plopped onto one of the narrow kitchen chairs, out of breath, then frowned, tapping her fingers on the worn tabletop as she sniffed the air. “Wolfsbane? Tell me there’s not a heliotrope in that cauldron.”
“There’s not a heliotrope in this cauldron.” There totally was, along with obsidian and amber. “You should be using your cane.”
“Don’t tell me how to live my life,” Aggie scoffed, picking at the papers littering the table. “So what happened that you feel the need to whip up a batch of were-b-gone?”
“Crystal was being Crystal, and stupid Chase decided to ride to Felix’s and my rescue.
” Jena frowned, sweeping some loose herbs off the butcher block and into her palm to toss into the garbage by the door.
Aggie’s supply of herbs was questionable to say the least and more threadbare than Jena liked.
Aggie grunted. “You got amber in there?”
“I do.”
“Don’t forget to add salt.”
Jena hadn’t, but put in an extra pinch anyway. “I got the quote for the bathroom.”
“And?”
“Twenty grand, just like she said. It’s there on the table if you want to look at it.”
Aggie waved it away with a cough, and Jena’s gaze went to the plastic covered windows behind the older woman, hoping there wasn’t another draft. “You know I don’t understand half of that stuff,” Aggie said. “If I did, I might actually have a nest egg to help pay for it.”
“You do, but it’s in retail form.” The timer binged, and Jena cut the gas to the stove.
“Stir it widdershins.”
“I’m aware,” Jena said, doing just that. Energy rose around her, condensing to prickle her fingertips and her lips as she spoke the incantation.
“Ahaashi, not Ahahshi,” Aggie murmured.
“Do you want to do this?”
The older woman held up her hand and let Jena finish, the cauldron flaring violet as the magic took root. “Not bad,” she said.
Jena dipped the talisman into the rapidly cooling liquid. “Thanks. I had a mediocre teacher.”
Aggie snorted and pulled a scarlet envelope from her caftan. “This came for you.”
“What does it say?”
“I didn’t open it.” Jena just looked at her until Aggie relented. “But…I’m assuming it’s the coven wanting to know when you’re officially joining and taking guardianship of the node.”
Jena frowned, not about to have that argument again, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t expected them to make contact. Especially after she’d invoked that boomerang hex on Crystal. Too many people had seen her practicing, and without coven approval, that was a big fat no-no.
“Can’t I just say I’m visiting?”
Aggie’s brow quirked. “Are you just visiting?”
That’d been the plan, but…Jena’s brow furrowed as she hung the talisman on a cabinet pull to dry.
The charm spun, glints of light pinging off the backsplash’s avocado tiles.
All that was left to activate it was the light of the full moon—though the waxing gibbous would do in a pinch. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you should probably figure things out.” Aggie coughed into her handkerchief, then tapped the contract for the bathroom renovation. “Starting with this. It’s your building, what do you want to do with it?”
Jena huffed. It was, but she really didn’t want to deal with that right now, either.
She’d gotten her mother’s percentage when she turned eighteen, and Aggie had ‘sold’ Jena the rest, along with the business, when they’d got her diagnosis.
It was the only way to keep any of it when the medical bills started pouring in.
As far as the state was concerned, Aggie was destitute.
Which honestly wasn’t that far from the truth.
“Fixing it up to sell isn’t the worst idea, and that Caldwick operation certainly sounds like they’d do right by the old girl,” Aggie said, her eyes on the raised tin ceiling, the framework for the crappy suspended tiles the old owners had installed still crisscrossing the space.
Thank God they hadn’t replaced it with popcorn.
“And if you’re not keen to sell, you could always rent it out. ”
Yeah, Jena could, but neither option was particularly appealing. Nor was spending the rest of her life dealing with Crystal and the Montgomerys…but being here with Aggie and having Felix to hang out with again more than made up for—
Wait a minute. “Felix never said anything about the coven sending me a letter.” And thanks to his mom, if there was one thing he was plugged into, it was witch politics.
Jena dried her hands and checked her phone.
Nope. Crickets on that front. Huh. She picked up the heavy envelope.
Her name in golden gothic script was on one side, and a black wax seal with a raven on the other.
“At least they’re not pretentious,” she murmured.
Aggie snickered. “June Hill is secretary this year and took a calligraphy class. She got a fancy kit somewhere online. Pretty sure she does that with her shopping lists too. You gotta admit it’s more impressive than Rick Kleppet’s chicken scratch on the back of gas station receipts that used to get delivered. ”
She had a point. Jena cracked the seal and pulled out a photocopied application for membership and something printed on foiled cardstock. Wow. That had to be one heck of a kit…crap. “They’re inviting me to the Samhain fire. Did you get one of these?”
“They know better,” Aggie scowled.
Jena pulled out a chair and sat, tapping the invitation against her knee as she chewed her lip.
Samhain was one of the four cross quarter days—the days that fell between the solstices—that all practitioners celebrated as high holidays.
She’d never been to any of them, mainly because Aggie refused to go, even though she was a coven member.
Something about the energy around the bonfire affecting her divination and making her squirrelly.
Well, squirrellier. “Why would they invite me?”
“You know damned well we’ve been saving your mother’s seat for you, much to Matilda Hanson’s dismay.
But even her sour puss can’t dispute how strong your line is, and that node out on the tor hasn’t had a guardian in far too long—despite them trying to get it to accept someone else.
I’m assuming that invite’s an olive branch to lure you back into the fold and get you to clean up the mess of magic out there. ”
“A trail of sweets leading to a candy cottage in the woods might be more effective.” Jena snorted. Especially if it was made up of peanut butter cups and sour gummies. “And the strength of my line has zero to do with me.”
“Just because you don’t use it, doesn’t mean you don’t got it,” Aggie said, bypassing their usual argument on the topic. “And joining might not be the worst thing. You’d have the coven’s backing if a certain were gets uppity.”
If? Crystal had already gotten some asshole to spray paint a slur across the sidewalk in front of The Witchery, but joining the coven wasn’t happening.
She’d heard more than enough about their shitty politics from Felix while she’d been in the city, and being a part of their stupid little sorority hadn’t done a damned thing to save the rest of her family.
“Think about it.” Aggie wheezed, struggling to her feet. “They could stand to have their feathers ruffled, and I’m certainly in no shape to do it.”
Jena put down the invitation to help her. “Are you going to tell me to ‘be the change’ next?”
“No, I’m going to tell you to help me sit my ass on the john. That way if I fall in, I’ll take you with me.”
Jena laughed, steadying Aggie as she toddled down the hall. “And what a glorious end that would be.”
“Maybe in my younger years, now it’s as flat as a pancake. Flaunt it while you got it.” Aggie leaned heavily against the sink, huffing as she pulled her caftan aside. “God, I fucking hate this.”
Jena helped her sit down, agreeing. She fucking hated this, too.
Chase sat in his truck outside of the pack manor, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel.
He’d expected a call after what’d gone down at the cantina, but not from his father.
Wallace Montgomery might be head of the Westside pack, but he rarely involved himself in anything outside of golf and lining his pockets.
He left the day-to-day operations and pack minutia to his beta, Malcom, or Chase’s younger brother, Patrick.
The fact that the message had been from the old man and not through a proxy was troubling, to say the least.
Chase turned at a rap on his window, and rolled it down. Jesus. Speak of the devil, and Malcom was definitely in the same category. Something about the were chafed, and it wasn’t just his shitty people skills.
The beta leaned in through the open window, his folded arms on the sill. “You planning on coming inside, or are you just gonna sit here?”
“You giving me a choice?”
“No.”
Chase sighed and unbuckled his seatbelt, cutting the engine as the beta stepped back.
“You know what he wants?” Chase asked as he got out. The door closed behind him with a heavy thunk. It was a stupid question. The two were in lock-step. Malcom probably held his father’s dick when he pissed.
“I do.” The whip-thin older man hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. “And they’ve been waiting on you.” He held out a hand for Chase to lead the way. “After you, son.”