Barrett shook his head. “It’s fine.” He looked back towards the forest, and a worried look came over his face.
I frowned. “What’s wrong?”
His nose twitched, like he’d just smelled something bad. “The wards around your town. How do they work, exactly?” It wasn’t exactly a secret, but I wasn’t sure if it was something I should tell an outsider. I looked around at the trees, and then nodded with my head for him to follow me inside.
There was something unsettling about having this conversation outside as the sky grew darker.
“I don’t know all the details, honestly.” I didn’t pay that close of attention, something I now regretted. Maybe if I was more in tune with everything happening around me, I might have had more answers. “Every full moon, we do a spell that’s supposed to recharge them. It combines all of our energies—all of our magic—to renew what was cast centuries ago.”
“To keep you safe.”
I nodded. “Yes. But wecanleave, you know. Plenty of witches choose to live outside Pleasant Grove.” It was a life that required you to lose your connection to magic, however, because we all knew what would happen if we were caught by humans. Persecution. Fire. Trials and thousands of our sisters lost. Thousands of innocent lives, because humans were scared of what they didn’t understand.
“Did you?” Barrett asked, shaking me from my thoughts of pyres and witch hunts.
“Did I what?” I tilted my head to the side.
“Leave.”
Oh. “I thought about it, for college.” Wendy and Rina both had, and I knew they didn’t regret their years of playing human. I shrugged. “But… I love this town. It’s always been home. Even if I’ve spent most of my life on the outside of society, I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Losing what makes you a witch… sacrificing that to be among the humans… it just sounds awful.”
“I agree.” He rubbed his chin, at the reddish stubble already growing in. “We feel the same in Walnut Ridge.”
It was the second time he’d mentioned his hometown. “But you left, didn’t you?” I asked, rubbing Nutmeg’s chin one last time before putting her back in her large enclosure.
“Left is a big word. I travel a lot for work, but it’s always home. Wolves are pack animals, after all.”
I nodded.Home.“Right. And your job is… what, exactly?”
Barrett turned away, like he knew exactly what he’d been keeping from me. His mouth formed a straight line, and I could practically read the turmoil on his face.
What was so bad that he didn’t want to tell me?
“Why did you come here, Barrett? To Pleasant Grove. What attacked you?” I looked back outside. “What did you find out there?”
His amber eyes flashed to mine, darkening like the eyes of a predator. “Are you sure you want to know, Eryne? Because once you do, you can’t go back. You can’t unlearn everything I’m about to tell you.”
“I want to know,” I insisted. “No, it’s more than that. I need to know. So please. Tell mewhy.Because I don’t understand why I feel so connected with you. Why I…”don’t want you to leave.It was on the tip of my tongue, but I held back.
Barrett sighed. “Okay. But maybe you should sit down.”
I complied, sliding onto the couch and resting my legs underneath me, grabbing one of my pumpkin pillows and holding it against my middle for support.
Pacing back and forth, he raked his fingers through his hair, messing up the dark red strands. “I’m a huntsman.”
I was pretty sure I’d heard him wrong. “A what?”
“A monster hunter.”
Guess I’d heard him right. “That’s a real thing?”
He shot me a glare before continuing. “Yes. We’re a small team, but our focus is keeping people safe. Both the paranormal communities and humans who don’t even know we exist. We eliminate threats before they become a big enough problem for humans to notice. And then we make them go away.”
“So the thing that attacked you…”
He cursed. “I got a report. And I was the closest, so I was investigating. I should have waited, but I didn’t want to lose my lead. The scent trail was running cold, and I knew I only had a few hours… But I was rash. And look what happened.” Barrett gestured to his body, and I could still picture the way I’d found his wolf, bleeding and crying out.
“So, what was it? A vampire?”
