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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Blackberry. That was the scent on the ill-wish splinter. That was the scent on the ill-wish that had dropped from the garland and into Allen’s hands. Beneath the scent of fir and cinnamon had been the sweet aroma of bramble fruit.

The scent of Prue Stonewell.

The old hedge witch had finally succumbed to her jealous vendetta against Lilac and the Hawthornes.

Coward. Instead of challenging Iris Hawthorne directly, the hedge witch had gone after her grandchildren. Uninitiated witches. Good people who had given her the benefit of the doubt. And Prue Stonewell had repaid their leniency and kindness with petty and underhanded tactics.

He should’ve trusted his instincts, his misgivings about that encounter outside the Roots’ home. Prue’s reputation in the village had fooled him, as had her strange and strained relationship with Zofia Hollyoak. Just because she bore Zofia no harm didn’t mean her affection extended to the house elf’s employer.

It wouldn’t be the first time Allen’s intel had been wrong, but it would be the first time the woman he loved was in danger. The very woman who had disobeyed his command to remain in the safety of the Hall with her siblings and now was pressed against his back.

His wolf paced, whining. Lilac shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be anywhere near here. Yet there was nowhere he could send her that wouldn’t expose her to an attack. So he gripped her, hard, keeping his body between her and the two angry women in front of him.

“. . . ruining everything!” Prue was shouting above the wind. One weathered hand gripped what Allen now knew was a witch’s knot on her bandolier of charms.

The hedge witch was livid, her eyes blazing and her mouth open in a permanent snarl. He wasn’t sure if the storm was worsening in response to her mood or if it was merely the seasonal rage sweeping down from the mountains. Behind him, clinging to his arm, Lilac shivered. They’d both forgotten their coats, and the cold was sinking deep into her bones. Allen’s wolf kept him warm, but he wasn’t impervious. Not in this skin.

“You left me no choice,” the young practitioner countered. Snowflakes and threads of hair plucked loose by the storm lashed against her tear-stained cheeks. “I had to defend—” The rest of her words were snatched away by the wind.

“You stupid, stupid girl.” Prue yanked the witch’s knot from her bandolier, the charm glowing yellow in her palm.

“Hey!” Allen barked, hoping to drive some sense into the two women. This altercation was quickly escalating towards violence, increasing the chance of him blowing his cover. Not as an unassuming grocery delivery boy turned caretaker, but as a Nemean wolf. But more importantly, there were innocents nearby.

Most of the villagers who had fled the Hall and the pond had made it down the hill and to the outskirts of the town already, but if this got out of hand, they could be collateral damage. Not to mention his woman behind him. He’d never allow it. “Everybody just calm down,” he ordered. “It’s over, Prue. Your scent is all over these ill-wishes. Leave the girl alone.”

“My scent ?”

The hedge witch sent a scathing glare at her ex-pupil, and Talia cast him a panicked look. A plea for help. But he couldn’t help her without abandoning Lilac. She was on her own for the moment and she knew it. With grim determination, the young practitioner dropped to her knees to frantically trace a rune into the snow.

“You wretched girl,” Prue seethed. “They are blights upon this valley. And still you ally with them?”

“Prue Stonewell, you’ll stop this at once,” Lilac declared.

Spirits above, when had she moved out from behind him? His attention had been so locked on the women in front of him, he hadn’t noticed the witch pulling free of his grip. His skin must’ve been more numb than he’d thought.

Lilac looked ethereal in the swirling storm, long brown hair whipping out behind her head like a Valkyrie’s. Her dress, once violet, was now soaked through from the snow and nearly black. The tiny glowing leaves of her magic coursed around her hands, shining mutely through the curtain of snowflakes. Their world was covered in meringue, hard and white, but with no softness in the middle.

“Lilac,” he cried, swiping after her and missing as she stepped beyond his reach. Inside, his wolf yapped in alarm. They both knew from the color and vibrancy of her magic that she was weak; she had used too much growing those stupid garlands and wreaths. She didn’t even have the energy to activate her cuffs.

Prue Stonewell had known what she was doing, planting that ill-wish so a Hawthorne would discover it only after they had expended their magic. As Talia faced off against her old teacher, it was clear that she had discovered Prue’s treachery and had confronted her. It’s why the wards had gone wild, sensing malicious intent and the expenditure of foreign magic.

The hedge witch turned her disdain towards the Hawthorne, forgetting the practitioner tracing furiously in the falling snow. “You, mistress , should not meddle in things you do not understand.”

“You are on Hawthorne ground and will obey my order,” Lilac replied, her voice steady and unbreakable. “There will be no violence—”

“It has already come!”

Prue shoved her palm forward, the witch’s knot erupting with light. The rune Talia had inscribed activated, throwing up a weak force field that ruptured immediately. A shock wave knocked Talia unharmed onto her back.

“Prue,” Lilac tried again, her magic leaves spiraling up to her elbows. It was a fierce display of magic that was nothing more than a bluff. Allen could smell her sweat, the strain. “You still have a chance. No blood has been spilled—”

The hedge witch turned her enraged eyes towards the young Hawthorne. “ Yet .”

As the hedge witch lifted her hand for another strike, Allen went wild. He lunged, tackling Lilac from behind and sending her to the ground. He covered her with his body until the attack sailed past, then he rolled, bringing her out of the snow and shoving her back towards the Hall. Its wards rippled with iridescent light as it absorbed and deflected the attack. He sprang upright, whirled, and charged towards the two dueling women.

“Fool!” Prue ripped another charm from her bandolier and flung it. Not in Allen’s direction, but in Lilac’s.

Lilac yelped as the glowing spell hurtled right at her, bashing into the weak force field she’d conjured. Like Talia’s, Lilac’s barrier ruptured upon impact. The hedge witch was too strong for the weakened Hawthorne. Lilac wouldn’t survive another attack like that.

The wolf roared. Allen felt his skin tremble, the beast threatening to burst forth. In a minute, he might just let him, the consequences be damned. He’d just found his mate, the one thing that was supposed to be denied him for as long as he lived, and he would give up everything to protect her. His identity, his mission, his life.

On her knees in the snow, Talia cowered in fear and fumbled for something in her skirts. There was an insane light in Prue’s eyes as she thrust forward with her witch’s knot with another strike. Whatever it was the young practitioner searched for, she found it, and the hedge witch’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head as she screamed, “ No! ”

At the same time the air between the two dueling women detonated in bluish-green light, a magic missile—the remnant of Prue’s attack—arced through the air.

Right for Lilac.

The wolf erupted from the man’s skin. A massive beast covered in brilliant golden-white fur sprang free from a cloud of shredded clothing, jaws wide. Teeth whiter than the falling snow glinted in the meager light of the Hall, nails like silver blades stretching for the hedge witch.

The missile hit him square in the chest, and the snowy white world turned black.