“There’s a coven full of witches downstairs that hunt wolves and dedicate their lives to defending themselves from you. And you just walked in here.” She remembered the witches’ warnings about raccoons. They could not ward the stairs. Dear god.
“So, youarea witch,” he said, sounding relieved.
Belatedly, she realized the risk he’d just taken by revealing himself.
“Why the hell did you tell me that?” she demanded
“I, um, heard you talking at the race about magic. I thought maybe it was the right kind of magic.”
“To do what? Fix a werewolf? How could any witch help you?”
He put his head in his hands. “You don’t know.”
“I don’t know what?” she whispered and had no idea why she was whispering. They didn’t have magical hearing downstairs. The one with magical hearing was the guy sitting in front of her. Of course, he had overheard her.
“Of course you don’t know,” he said to himself. “Why would you know?”
“Why would I know what?”
“Witches made shifters.”
She blinked twice. “What?”
“I’ve lived with a witch my whole life, my aunt, so I forgot. I just forgot. We don’t have anyone with animal magic close, but I thought if that was you, maybe you could help. But I was clearly wrong.”
Her brain shuddered at the confession that his aunt was a witch.
“I don’t believe a word you’re saying,” she said. “That’s absurd. We’ve been enemies for centuries. We’ve slaughteredeach other for centuries. We’ve dedicated our lives to defending ourselves from you.”
“Oh boy, same. But, um, not all witches?”
“You are literally in the heart of the coven.”
His eyes closed. “TheCauldron and Broom. That really should’ve been my first clue.”
“They will kill you and ask questions way later. You have to go.”
He stood up, not fighting her for a second. “I understand.”
“How are we going to get you out of here?”
“I’ll walk?” he said. “You really can’t tell from just looking at us.”
“Apparently not!”
“We could have been so much more together,” he said quietly, and her heart broke a little as he slipped out the door. She took one step toward him until she came to her senses and sat shaking in the upstairs room, waiting for the sounds of a crossbow below, but the chimes went off and nothing happened.
“Did one follow you home?” she murmured to herself, staring at the tips of her fingernails.
Yes, one did.
4
Asher had tried something, and it didn’t work. That was it.
He had no reason to be disappointed, and heartbroken was plain ludicrous.
Why did it hurt more to lose hope than when he never had it in the first place? A week ago, he’d accepted that this was forever, balanced on a razor’s edge between human and gone.
