Chapter 12 #2
For whatever reason that last comment didn’t cut as much as it normally would have. Jena closed the door and trailed after the older witch. “Thanks,” she murmured, checking her phone. Nothing from Chase since the thumbs up for her order. She shot him a quick text.
The older witch humphed and marched up the steps with her head held high.
Jena blew out her cheeks and followed. When she got back up to the main room, any levity there’d been was gone.
Six witches, five warlocks, and Felix sat around the perimeter of the room, staring at her from over the rims of their teacups.
Felix patted the couch cushion beside him. She gratefully sat. At least she’d have one ally.
“Jena.” June Hill, the coven’s secretary, greeted her with a wide smile.
A smear of mauve lipstick marred the soccer mom’s front teeth.
“I was so happy to get your completed paperwork. It’s so satisfying that you’re finally stepping into your mother’s position and bringing us back up to thirteen members. ”
“What it is, is well past time,” Matilda groused. “And I still think we should’ve given it to the Cassidy girl. She didn’t up and leave.”
“She also didn’t get accepted by the node,” Sweets murmured.
Jena shot a look at Aggie, who shrugged back. Screw the node, what were they talking about? Her paperwork? Felix began whistling softly, damn him. “I appreciate you holding the spot for me,” Jena made herself say. When the hell had he sent that in?
Matilda snorted. “What a load of crap—”
“Enough of your doom. I want to hear about this threat,” Sweets said, crossing her arms over her wide bosom. “Why would the likes of Malcom be bothering himself with one of ours?”
Jena’s gaze went around the circle, her mouth opening and closing as she started to speak and then stopped again—
“Chase Montgomery is her fated mate, and he’s also late with my damned tea.” Aggie glanced out the window, then muttered, “It’s not like him.” She coughed.
It wasn’t, and his truck being gone was starting to really bother Jena.
Mr. Fynbender hummed from the loveseat across the room.
“Do you know something, Otis?” Ms. Hill asked, taking out a fancy leather-bound notebook. Her pen was topped with a sparkly poof of feathers.
“Hmm? No. Not a thing,” he said too quickly, then busied himself with his cup.
Sweets eyed him like she knew he was lying. “Then what in the devil’s all this with the wedding?”
“He said it’s his father…” Jena began, laying out what’d happened the past few days—well, not everything—then what Chase had said this morning. “…and that’s when he told me about Malcom. I don’t think they know about the mate thing.”
“Like hell they don’t,” Matilda spat. “If Crystal pitched a fit about the two of you stinking up his cabin, and Malcom showed up there, he’s well aware—which means Chase’s father is, too. He should’ve put the kibosh on the whole circus.”
“Agreed. I never liked that man,” Sweets said, rocking back and forth with her mouth screwed up like she wanted to spit.
“Malcom, Wallace, hell, I’ll throw that wife of his under the bus, too.
The troubles she caused for your mother after claiming to be her bosom friend…
uh uh. No. Something here’s not right. No one of sound mind’s going out of their way to mess with fate, and now you think Chase is missing? ”
Wait, they were friends? Jena went to open her mouth, and Matilda snorted.
“Malcom’s mind is about as far from sound as you can get, and he’s had Wallace wrapped around his finger since the word go.
I swear, nothing in this town has been right since Rebecca died.
Your mother—we had our differences, but she kept the covens together.
Without her maintaining the node everything’s fallen to shit, and uppity weres are only part of the problem.
” Everyone in the room looked at her like she had two heads. “What?”
“Not that I don’t agree, but I think that’s the closest you’ve ever come to a compliment.” Aggie coughed. “You feeling all right?”
Matilda glowered at her. “Are you?”
Mr. Fynbender cleared his throat. “Whether Chase is missing or not, the real question is, why is it so important for this wedding to happen? When he came in yesterday to pick out a ring—”
“Yesterday?” Sweets asked. “Then why’ve I been reading about this hullabaloo since Monday?”
“That’s what I’m trying to say. Chase wasn’t exactly invested.
” Mr. Fynbender’s eyes flicked to Jena. “I got the feeling he was being strong-armed into it, and when Crystal came in prior to that, most of what she said didn’t ring true.
Whatever she’s hoping to get out of this marriage, it isn’t love.
Quite frankly, I’m not even sure she likes him very much…
she did, however, like picking out her own bling,” he said, waggling his ring finger.
Well, that was on point, and the Fynbenders were truth-seers. Each of the coven members had an aspect of witchery they specialized in, and it was impossible to try to deceive him without pinging his power. If anyone would know Crystal was full of shit, it was Otis Fynbender.
“Have you seen anything, Aggie?” Ms. Hill asked.
The coven turned to her, and Aggie pursed her lips. “Flashes. The bit that worries me is going to happen at the seven standing stones behind the ruins the next time the moon is full.”
“That’s tomorrow,” Sweets murmured, “and on Samhain, no less.”
Matilda scowled. “Was the cauldron lit?”
“Blue flame.” Aggie nodded, and ice went up Jena’s spine.
“That’s witchery,” Sweets said. “But what would that have to do with a were wedding or Jena and Chase?”
“He told me his father said he had to give Crystal a ring by then,” Felix offered.
“She picked it up yesterday and wore it out of the shop,” Mr. Fynbender frowned. “And was none too pleased with Chase’s selection, I might add. Shoved it onto her finger and stormed out the door like it was an insult. I was surprised she didn’t exchange it when I offered.”
“Oh dear,” Kressida Pao murmured from one of the overstuffed chairs. The mousy woman was almost lost in the cushions. “A token given, signaling devotion, binding troth, his life to hers. That has the potential to be problematic.”
“Even if it’s not real, and he didn’t actually give it to her?” Jena asked.
“Oh, yes.” Ms. Pao nodded, her eyes magnified to twice their size by her cloudy glasses.
Her line’s power was with talismans. “Him buying it and knowing what it represents is enough. That magic is very old and doesn’t have modern-day nuancing.
Arranged marriages via proxy have been the standard from time immemorial, personal proposals and marrying for love’s quite modern. ”
Great. Jena glanced at the clock, seriously worried. Chase should’ve been back an hour ago.
“But again, that’s witchery,” Sweets said.
“Is it though?” Clint Rondo boomed from the chair beside her. The florid man tapped his blunt fingers against his beefy thigh. “I’ll give you that it’s magic, but we don’t hold the patent. Merfolk, sidhe, demons, quiet folk, succubi, any one of them, and a dozen others use it—”
“So then who’s Wallace Montgomery in bed with, and why is he needing to bind that first born son of his to that hag of a girl by the cross quarter day?” Sweets asked.
“And at the risk of pissing us and fate off,” Matilda added. “Both he and Malcom know better than to threaten one of ours…and trying to separate fated mates is just asking for the universe to come down on you. This stinks like a power grab, and it has to a doozy.”
“It does,” Sweets nodded, “and dollar to a donut, if we can figure out who he’s canoodling with, we’ll get the why along with it.”
“Chase said something…” Jena started, “Malcom told him to keep his distance from me unless he wanted me to end up like my mom. He made it sound like his dad and my mom had been more than friends?”
The coven went still.
“He said what?” Sweets snapped, halfway out of her chair.
“Well now, that’s beating the carpets for all the old dust,” Rick Kleppet said with a snort. He pinched his long nose and set his teacup down. “When was that, Max? Senior year?”
The tall warlock at the window with gray streaking his temples turned from the street to answer him. “Around then. It was right after Rebecca fell out with Mary and the Montgomery pack split, or thereabouts. For whatever reason Wallace started harassing Rebecca—”
“No mystery there. She was always tight with Phil, and Wallace couldn’t stand anyone having something he didn’t, especially his brother,” Matilda spat. “He and Mary are two peas in a goddamned pod. I never trusted that woman—she was always jealous of Rebecca.”
Max hummed. “Regardless, it was unseemly. He’d already graduated college when he started harassing her, and with the silence, Phil’s hands were tied, so Greg and I stepped in.”
A grizzled warlock across the room that looked way too much like a fictional gamekeeper in a kid’s wizard book snickered. “You remember the pie cantrip?” Rick gave a full belly laugh and so did several of the others.
“Ah, that was a good one…” Max wiped an eye. “Anyway, a couple of stunts like that and Wallace got the hint. Pretty sure he started officially dating Mary not long after, but I’ve no idea why she and Rebecca fell out.”
“She saw something,” Aggie wheezed. “What, I don’t know, but it was related to her power. She never talked about any of the sins she saw. Mark my words, Mary Montgomery’s got one hell of a skeleton in her closet and wasn’t happy Rebecca knew about it.”
“Begging your pardon,” Sweets interrupted, “but I’m still stewing over the first part of what Jena just told us. He used those words, ‘end up like your mother?’”
Jena nodded, still trying to wrap her head around her mom and Mary Montgomery being friends. “Do you think it’s possible he did something to her?”
Sweets sat back shaking her head. “No,” the big woman said. “I think it’s probable, and Malcom’s the rat in this wheel of cheese.”
Chase groaned and put a hand to his head as he came to. He winced, pulling his fingers away, sticky. What the hell had happened? He looked around, propped up against a curved concrete wall, sitting in at least three inches of water.
Where was he? Everything was a murky gray, and he was soaked.
A weird thrum of energy pulsed around him from the walls.
They curved around him to form a massive cylinder.
It shot straight upward for at least a hundred feet and ended in a circle open to the clouds roiling through the sky.
Rain splashed down with no sign of letting up.
He wobbled to his feet, dripping, and gripped his head, trying not to puke.
Fuckers had definitely given him a concussion, damn them.
He held an arm out, his balance screwed.
Christ, it looked like he was in one of those massive precast concrete tubes they used for drainage on civil engineering jobs.
Except he’d never seen one so long, and this one sure wasn’t doing its job.
He kicked at the submerged gravel and wet his lips, blinking up into the rain coming from the round dot of sky above.
Suddenly flying didn’t seem so bad. There wasn’t a chance in hell he was getting out of there any other way.
He wiped his sodden hair from his eyes and gingerly explored the bump behind his ear—Christ, that hurt—what had…his thoughts muddled, trying to piece together what he remembered. Malcom. He’d been talking to Malcom…but then who had hit him?
Chase laughed, then winced at the spike of pain it sent through his head. Jesus. In a town where he couldn’t scratch his own ass without it being on the front page, that asshole had abducted him off Main Street in broad fucking daylight. If that wasn’t just par for the course.
He patted his pockets, taking inventory. His hat was missing. Wallet and phone were gone. No keys. He hadn’t been wearing a jacket, and it was cold enough to see his breath down here.
And he was soaking wet.
Well, he supposed worst case he could shift if the chill got too bad, but that didn’t strike him as the wisest idea until he knew what he was dealing with. Depending how bad they’d fucked him up, he might not be able to shift back.
Shit. Jena was going to freak when he didn’t show up with breakfast. He groaned, stumbling back against the wall, his head throbbing.
Please, please, sweet baby Jesus, do not let her come looking for him.
She needed to stay at the shop where she was safe, especially after the shit Malcom had said.
If that asshole had put him down here, it was for a reason, and needing Chase out of the way didn’t bode well.
Marinate. Well, he was definitely sitting in soup. Goddamn it, if Malcom hurt her…
Chase bit back a growl, his wolf frantic to warn her, and he couldn’t do a damned thing about it stuck down here. He was positive that wherever he was, it wasn’t some place she or any other good Samaritan would stumble across him.
Okay, think, think…Chase ran a shaky hand over his face. If the beta had wanted him dead, he would be. Sooner or later, Malcom would come back to fish him out. Chase slid back down the curved wall, splashing as he sat.
There wasn’t anything to do but wait. For Malcom, for this headache to pass…but goddamn whatever that fucking hum making his teeth ache was. Jena would be okay. She was smart. He sent up another prayer she’d taken his warning to heart and would stay put until he could get back to her.