Chapter 20
Tracey
The woods told the secrets of the pack. They whispered to us as we walked through the trees and overgrown brush. There was so much to be learned in the places that the pack ran. A few wolves in this pack were sick and a few had been actively poisoned with wolfsbane. I ran my fingers over the rough bark on a tree before I heard it. A branch snapped in the distance.
We were being followed. I stopped and tilted my head to help me hear better. It was no use. There was magic here. It tainted everything in this pack. The sickly sweet smell coated everything. Even the grass slightly sparkled in it. A wolf wouldn’t be able to see or smell it the way I could. The little part of my blood that held witch in it could identify what we were up against. I had seen the shimmering web of control wrapped around Jade the day before. The magic was strong and old. Telling Rafe wouldn’t have helped us any either. He didn’t know I could see the magical tethers in the world.
To be honest, I hadn’t really known I could see it this well until we had stepped out of the car and onto this land. There were different kinds of witches in the world but they were all interconnected somehow. All of our blood was similar, even if our magic wasn’t. I had always been around my grandmother’s magic growing up. Seeing something like this was a shock. My granny’s magic didn’t coat everything like this. It didn’t shimmer or sparkle. Something wasn’t right about the magic and I couldn’t say anything until I asked Granny about it. I was sure she would know. She had left her coven for a reason. I would need to know that too.No more secrets.
Secrets were what had gotten us into this mess. If only we had all been honest. But sometimes, honesty made everything worse. It was a massive tangled web that I so desperately wanted to get out of but I couldn’t leave.
Knox twitched beside me. “She’s here, but is this a trap?”
My ear twitched. I still couldn’t hear anything. I wondered if it was the magic doing it. I didn’t like it. The sickly sweet scent was starting to coat my mouth.
Rafe’s eyes scanned the trees. “I don’t think it’s a trap, there is only one person with her.”
“It could be a witch,” The magic was starting to make me uneasy. The coating in my mouth made me feel sick and lightheaded.
Knox narrowed his eyes. “It’s a wolf.”
How were they able to scent all of this? How could they tell? All I could feel, taste, and smell was the magic in the air and on my skin. It was thick and toxic. It made my head swim. Granny’s magic had never made me feel like this before.
I blinked a few times and then there she was. Jade stood in front of us but this time, magic didn’t coat her skin. She wasn’t tangled in the web of magic. I could barely smell her wolf. She was actually okay.
My head swam and I fought to stay upright. I needed to get out of this forest but not before we got Jade. Jade was all that mattered.
