“Um, Miss Jones? What did you want us to do with the potatoes and carrots?” She indicates behind her where a pile of peeled and chopped veggies sits on the counter.
I hide the dirty kitchen towel behind my back. “You can call me Skye. And come on, I’ll show you how to make my favorite soup.”
An hour later, a clatter at the door announces the arrival of the parents. I jerk in alarm before realizing one of the guys must have led them here. They rush in to hug and kiss their kids, both adults and children crying with relief. The noise fills the main room and the hallway, and I have to fight through bodies in wet clothes to get to the front door. Mrs. Hobb and Miss Georgia reinstate order to make sure none of the sleeping little ones are woken up.
I find Ty and Aiden at the end of the group, holding back to allow everyone else to enter before them. With a cry, I launch myself at them, and we end up in a tight hug, me squeezed between them. They smell like soot and seawater, and they look deathly tired.
“Where’s Jack?” I ask after they release me.
I peer down the path into the morning mist, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
“At his parents’ house,” Ty says. “There was some water damage from where we pumped water all over the village to stop the fires from spreading.”
“Gods,” I breathe. “Is everyone okay?”
The guys exchange a look. My stomach drops.
“Tell me,” I plead. “Did anyone get hurt?”
Aiden’s sigh forms a cloud in the air between us. “We found Devlin Ward’s body in the bay.”
My hand flies to my mouth. “What?”
Ty takes my elbow and leads me to the bench on the porch. There are too many people crowded inside the Lodge.
“The tide brought in his body.” Ty drops on the bench beside me. “He was still in his dragon form.”
My eyes go wide in shock. “So the witches…”
“They probably know about us, yeah,” Aiden replies to my unspoken question, his voice hollow.
Holy gods, this can’t be happening. “Did they kill him?” I ask.
Ty swallows hard, his face pale. “There were scorch marks on his neck. It looks like he might have been strangled.”
My fingers tremble as I wrap my cardigan tight around me. I never liked Ward, and he certainly didn’t keep his disgust over my presence here a secret, but I didn’t wish him dead. To know that someone from my old coven might have murdered him is terrible. Was it Cameron? Did he bring anyone else with him? What if it was mysister?
I shake my head. Alice wasn’t capable of murder, I was sure of that. We’d seen my family do questionable things over and over as we were growing up, but she never crossed a line into dark magic. Her power was all about light and open spaces. Air magic.
That urge to crawl somewhere safe and wait out this storm surges again, and I swallow down the bile that threatens to rise in my throat. This has gone too far. I need to expand the spell and protect the entire village, not just our Lodge. Then I need to find a way to get rid of my family forever—even if that means leaving here and returning to California for a final reckoning.
“The good thing is we have a safe space,” Aiden says, peering up at the Lodge. “The kids will remain here while we hunt down the witches.”
I gape at him. “What do you mean, hunt them down? You said they killed Ward! You can’t go out and confront them.” I spring to my feet and grab his shirt, bunching the material in my fist. “I won’t let you!”
Aiden’s fierce expression softens. With infinite gentleness, he takes my hand and pries my fingers open. Then he brings them to his mouth and presses a kiss to my knuckles. “I have to,” he says simply. “These are my people.”
I go still, rigid with anger and fear. Strong arms wrap around me, and I bury my face in Aiden’s chest, wishing I could turn back time and make it all go away. I would travel several months into the past, to the moment when I decided to accept Aiden’s offer to build a website for the Lodge. Right then, I would decline, knowing that would keep them safe.
It would have been a tragedy—I never imagined love like this could exist—but they would have been safe. Protected by their remote, anonymous location.
Aiden holds me, stroking my hair. “Come on,” he says finally. “Let’s get you inside.”
Ty takes my hand and interlaces his fingers with mine. “We’ll figure it out.”
I pull myself together for them. I lift my chin and blow out my cheeks. “Okay.”
Thankfully, the Lodge is so crowded no one notices us. The villagers are eating soup out of various bowls and even coffee mugs while talking in subdued, worried tones. There’s got to be fifty people in the main room, but I know that’s not all of them. Some must have stayed behind, like Jack and his family, to do damage control.
