Chapter 13
Ophelia
Istared in horror as Henry flew across the porch after my magic discharged from the iron control I’d used to make it across the lawn. He slammed through the outdoor furniture and collided with the porch railing, so at least he didn’t fly off into the house next door. I clapped both hands over my mouth, dropping my loom bag, and braced for Deirdre to lash out at me.
She just stared, first at me and then at Henry. Then back at me. Then at Henry. Then she muttered, “Oh damn,” and jumped forward to catch my arm, trying to drag me inside. “Come on. No, come on.”
I looked over and sucked in a desperate breath as I watched Henry change his shape again. It was like he turned inside out and all his insides ended up outside. The iron tang of blood hit the air and made my stomach turn over. I almost barfed right there on the porch. And then he stood there as the enormous timber wolf, snarling and shaking himself, and the wild gold eyes found first Cricket, then me.
The house cat wasn’t impressed. He kept on licking his paws and washing his ears, his tail lashing to demonstrate how very unimpressed he was.
But my heart dropped to my feet and I had to clench my legs together to keep from peeing myself when those wolf eyes found me.
Turned out they were just as terrifying in pure daylight as they were in the dark.
Deirdre cursed more and hauled me into the house, kicking the door shut. “Damn it. Miles!”
I winced as she shouted, but Deirdre was busy locking the door and bracing a chair under the knob. She waved at me to get away from there and instead pointed me toward a sweeping staircase off to the left of the door. “Get away from there. He should be fine, but if he was hurt, he might not be as much in control as we’d like.”
“What do you mean?”
She glanced out the window once more, checking on where the wolf was, and didn’t turn as a huge guy with dirty-blond hair wandered into the living room, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. “What are you yelling about now, woman?”
My eyebrows arched as I surveyed the guy; he was tall and broad and really, really handsome, although he also had the posture and confidence of someone who was accustomed to getting his way. Deirdre sounded irritated as she checked the window again. “I never yell and you know it, Miles. We have a…challenge.”
Miles glanced at me and offered a single chin-jerk in acknowledgment of my existence on his way to stand next to Deirdre. His non-sandwich-holding hand settled intimately low on her waist. He must have been her “mate,” whatever that meant, although I couldn’t really understand how that worked with what little I knew about Deirdre. “What kind of challenge?”
“Well, Henry was on the porch with Ophelia here and there was a small magical—event—and then Henry shifted.” Deirdre flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and swatted his wandering hand away as it drifted down her ass. “Now he’s on the porch. Still a wolf.”
Miles grunted, uninterested, and turned to study me. “He’ll be fine. You must be Ophelia. Did you mean to hex him?”
“Um…” I looked between them, still concerned about there being a timber wolf at the door, and adjusted my grip on the loom bag. “No. It happens, sometimes.”
“It happens? You just randomly hex people?” His attention slid to the other witch and a hint of mischief crossed his expression. “So now there’s two of you.”
Deirdre snorted and punched his arm, attention still on the wolf. “I only hex you when you deserve it. Asshole.”
It felt like an oddly intimate moment, despite the wolf prowling on the porch. “Is he… Is he going to get in here and…you know?”
“Bite you?” The guy, Miles, glanced back out the window before turning his attention back to Deirdre. “Nah. He’ll pace and growl for a while, but Henry’s got good control. It’ll come back eventually.”
“Eventually?” My voice cracked. Had I done permanent damage? He didn’t look injured, but I knew better than almost anyone that mental damage could scar far more deeply than physical.
Miles shrugged. “Hour? Maybe two. Any longer than that and I’ll go kick his ass to wake him up. It’ll be fine. He probably deserved it.”
“He didn’t,” I said, and my hands started shaking. It had been long enough since the last time it happened that I’d thought maybe I was over it, that somehow the magic had fixed itself. But of course it happened. Of course I was still damaged. And dangerous. “It was all my fault. It’s… I can’t control it.”
Deirdre’s eyes narrowed as she watched me, then she shooed Miles away with a darker look. “Go make lunch.”
He sighed heavily and wandered toward what I assumed was the kitchen, shouting for Mercy to get her ass inside and make lunch. Deirdre shook her head and muttered under her breath about her unhelpful fucking mate, then gestured for me to sit near an antique piano. “All right, spill. What’s up with your magic?”
It took me far too long to sit, though I kept a hand on my loom bag just in case. The very last thing I needed was to accidentally cause a fire in her living room and burn down the whole house. But there was the promise of relief, of being able to share things with her that the coven had despised and ignored before they kicked me out, along with the threat that Deirdre would be like them. She’d invited me into her house thinking I was just a witch in trouble, not a defective witch who couldn’t control her magic.
I struggled to find the words as I weighed how much to say. Maybe a few half-truths would suffice… But Henry saying they could smell lies gave me pause. Was it true? Had he just been fucking with me? I cleared my throat and didn’t even try to meet her even, dark gaze. “I have…a problem. I can’t always control my natural magic. Most of the time I can channel it, to store it here,” and I patted the loom bag. “In weaving or knitting or something. I thought…as long as I can siphon it off into something else, it would be safe. I haven’t had…an accident like that in a while. Weeks, definitely. Maybe months.”
Monthswas optimistic, but still within the realm of possibility. The last time trying to escape from Rocko didn’t count as an accident. I’d mostly meant to do it on purpose.
Deirdre didn’t speak right away, instead nodding thoughtfully as she kept watching me. The scrutiny grew unnerving, even more so because I could hear the click of nails on wood as the wolf paced on the porch. As Henry paced on the porch, after what I’d done to him. My fists clenched, balanced on my knees, as I tried to look at anything in the room but her.
