Page 37

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

It was decided that the rest of Drake (“Darren” had been an alias) Morton the magic hunter’s interrogation would be best performed in Hawthorne Hall where the witches would have the advantage. Once again a man, and draped in Drake’s cloak, Allen led them through the woods at a quick march. The magic hunter followed after Lilac like a besotted puppy even with his arm dangling out of his socket. There was no need for any restraints, magical or otherwise, the brute obediently and eagerly following her every command.

“So, uh,” Boar began, raking a hand through his thick brown hair, “how much of a fool was I when I was under a love spell?”

“ Infatuation spell,” Lilac stressed.

“Not as stupid as I was,” Rose grumbled, looking like she might once again beat the magic hunter with the stick she was using as a walking staff. They had to bodily yank her off of him only a few minutes before.

“You called me ‘honey,’ ‘babe,’ ‘pumpkin,’” Allen said, ticking off the pet names on his fingers. “‘Handsome,’ ‘lover,’ ‘sugar,’ and I think that’s it. Frankly, I’m disappointed I didn’t get a ‘pookie’ in there to round out the set. ”

Boar groaned, dragging a hand over his face. “Oh my Green Mother . . ..”

“And while I’m flattered, I’m very much spoken for.” Allen slipped his hand into Lilac’s, earning him a snarl from Drake which he ignored.

The witch had commanded him never to use the fae inscriptions on his skin nor physically attack anyone, lest he lose her love forever. He hadn’t even defended himself when Rose had been waling on him with her stick.

At present, Lilac favored Allen with a soft smile and squeezed his hand.

Rose rolled her eyes. “First she hates your guts, then she’s freaking out because you’re missing, and now you’re holding hands? Am I missing something?”

“Yes,” Allen said, “there was this time in the attic—”

Lilac whumped him in the shoulder. “Say one more word and I’ll sic Drake on you.”

“I’ll rip out your heart with my bare teeth,” the infatuated magic hunter vowed.

“I think their relationship is the least of our concerns,” Boar said. “Allen, you’re a shifter.”

“One hundred percent.”

“Don’t joke about this. Our grandmother—”

“We’re not serving Allen up to that battle ax,” Rose interrupted hotly. She slung her arm around his shoulders, yanking him down so she could ruffle his hair. “He’s one of us.”

He gave her a genuine smile. “Thanks, Rose.”

“I wasn’t even going to suggest that,” Boar said tersely. “What I was going to say, is that we need to find a way to protect him.”

“Are you feeling alright?” Rose made to test her brother’s head for a fever, but he swatted her hand aside. “You’re willing to break the rules ?”

Boar looked Allen in the eye. Allen stopped walking, giving the witch his full attention. “I’ll break the rules for you, Allen Sharpe. Your secret aside, you are a true friend and ally. You saved my sisters. You saved me.”

“Technically I was the one who destroyed the ill-wish choking you to death with those garlands,” Lilac pointed out.

He shook his head. “I’m not talking about that. I . . . As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t have done this job without you, Allen. Your counsel and perspective were . . . needed. More than I thought. I don’t ever want to be one who is feared instead of loved.”

Swallowing thickly, Boar turned to his sisters. “In truth, I couldn’t have done this without any of you. The Power of Three is more than a trio of coven witches combining their efforts to accomplish something greater than one can achieve alone. I’d thought that was just about spellcasting, not . . . life . Not leadership.

“A-and I’m sorry. I’ve treated you like underlings instead of as my peers, my own siblings. You especially, Lilac.” Boar looked like he meant to reach for her, but he kept his hands at his sides, shoulders hunching. “Do you think you can forgive me? M-maybe not tonight, or even tomorrow, but eventually?”

She let go of Allen’s hand and approached her brother, but she didn’t touch him. “You wronged me in so many ways, Boar, all because of your vanity. Your selfishness, your blind obsession to uphold the Hawthorne name no matter the cost.”

He flinched under her words, but he didn’t deny the truth of them.

“But I’ll forgive you everything, in time, if you keep your word. If you protect Allen.”

“You have it,” he said hoarsely. “You both do.”

“Then it’s a start.” She returned to Allen’s side, taking hold of his hand once more.

“And my name is Allen Chase,” he announced. Rose and Boar shared a wild look, realization crossing their faces at the same time.

“Like—” they both began.

“Yep. Lewellyn’s my older brother.” Allen glanced at the trees in the direction of Hawthorne Hall and stamped his bare feet to get some feeling back into them. “We have a few more minutes before we get back to the Hall. Let’s get you two up to speed, okay?”

When they arrived at the Hall, the windows were dark and the sounds of merriment had ceased. The wards shivered in warning as Allen approached, the opal ring on his pinky finger twinkling madly.

“Hawthornes,” he warned, releasing Lilac’s hand and lowering into a crouch. “Stay behind me.”

The double doors burst open, and three witches he recognized from the dossier strode out: blond-haired weather witch Stag Hawthorne, the siblings’ father; Robin Hawthorne, his first cousin through marriage; and Lily Hawthorne, Robin’s wife. While Stag excelled in manipulating the weather, Robin and Lily’s talents lay with the earth.

Even through all the packed snow, Allen felt it vibrating under his feet, awaiting its masters’ commands.

There was more movement within the Hall, and Prue Stonewell and Zofia Hollyoak emerged, coming to stand beside Stag. The hedge witch gripped her witch’s knot, and with it, she levitated an unconscious Talia beside her. The practitioner was wrapped in what looked like threads of glowing green silk.

“Father,” Boar acknowledged, his chin lifted.

The witch’s blue eyes were like chips of ice as he regarded his offspring. They flicked to Allen, noting his bare feet and lack of clothes other than the cloak, and landed on Drake, snaking up the bluish-green markings on his bare forearms.

“Magic hunter,” Stag cried. “Robin, Lily!”

The earth erupted around Drake, sealing him in a cocoon of soil and roots all the way up to his neck. As ordered, he didn’t retaliate, though his eyes went wide. Robin and Lily shared a suspicious glance, then tightened the cocoon.

“He’ll tell you everything you want to know,” Lilac said quickly, “but—”

“Of course he will,” Robin snorted. “That happens when you’re being crushed to death.”

“But—”

“We’ve got it from here, dear,” Lily said.

“ You will listen to me! ” Lilac thundered.

All but Zofia, Boar, Rose, and Allen took a step back in surprise. Allen just looked at his mate with pride.

“I am not the woman you think I am,” she told them in a calmer voice, but it was still as sharp as fractured glass. “I am not Grandmother’s creation. I am a potions master, and a good one too. That ”—she pointed to Drake—“is Drake Morton, a magic hunter and someone I’ve dosed with a powerful love potion. He will tell you anything you want to know, but the effects will not last. We must be quick.”

“Lilac, honey, no love potion is that potent,” Stag said, his voice strained for patience. “Robin, Lily, take—”

Lilac crossed her arms over her chest. “Drake, tell them what you’re doing here, as succinctly as you can, if you please.”

“Right away, my love,” the brute of a man said, a wistful note in his gravelly voice. “I was sent here to keep the Hawthornes out of my master’s business in Redbud by any means necessary. It was clear the easiest path was to sow discord between you and Cailleach Lodge. By stealing Boar, Rose, and my dear Lilac’s magic and framing their deaths on the hedge witches, the remaining Hawthornes would be embroiled in a blood war.”

“I regret ever shoving my tongue down your throat, you bastard,” Rose snarled. “Steal my magic? Kill my brother and sister? Why you—”

Boar caught his sister around the middle and yanked the staff out of her hands before she could clobber Drake in the head with it. The magic hunter didn’t even flinch, his eyes glued adoringly on Lilac.

“And Talia?” she inquired.

“My lackey,” he answered readily. “She planted the ill-wishes to sabotage the Yuletide Gala and damage the reputation of the Hawthornes in Annesley Valley.”

“Why?”

“Because she was tired of being treated like pond scum. I promised her what she’d never get here: a chance to have real magic, respect, and love.”

“Was it you who attacked Zofia?” Allen demanded.

Drake ignored him.

“Answer the question,” Lilac told him.

“Yes,” came the immediate reply. “First in the street, in order to sabotage Hawthorne Hall. Without its caretaker, the Hall would have had to siphon power from the witches, making them weaker, vulnerable. Then again in the hospital to fully sever the link.” Drake flicked cold eyes to Allen. “You were always only a temporary ringbearer.”

His expression smoothed into adoration as he turned back to Lilac, making Allen’s stomach twist with jealousy. “Anything else, my love?”

That jealousy vanished with a grin as Lilac shifted her attention to the stunned faces of her elders.

“I think that’s all for now, Drake.” She arched her eyebrow in that imperious way of hers at her father. “Strong enough of a love potion for you?”

He refused to be goaded, though the other elders couldn’t keep their eyes from bulging out of their heads. “If things were so dire,” Stag began slowly, “then tell me, children, why it was the house elf who contacted the manor instead of my own flesh and blood to alert us of a Cailleach Lodge uprising?”

“I’m not sorry,” Zofia declared, thumping her cane. “You three risked being in over your heads even with your new caretaker, and I didn’t watch you grow up to lose everything your family has fought for. I couldn’t stand aside.”

“It’s okay, Nan,” Lilac said gently.

“Well?” The word stung the air between them like the lash of a whip.

“Because I foolishly decided I could handle it on my own,” Boar replied.

Apparently his bold statement startled his father more than Lilac’s demonstration, but he quickly regained his composure.

“I’d be happy to explain everything inside,” Boar continued. “Allen seems to have lost his shoes—”

“Ah, yes. Allen Sharpe.” Stag seemed to relax somewhat. “Zofia has told me all about you. So has Prue.”

Allen cast an anxious look at the hedge witch, but Prue only had a smug upturn of her lips for him. He knew she suspected the true nature of his identity, perhaps even knew it if Beverly had told her, but apparently she was keeping that tidbit of information to herself. For now.

“You have my thanks,” Stag continued, “but I must ask you to relinquish the ring. It belongs to Zofia. You may stay here tonight to collect your things and rest, but you must be gone in the morning.”

“Thank you, sir. ”

“You three.” He snapped his fingers at his children. “Pack up. We’re leaving.”

“But, Dad,” Rose protested. “We’re supposed to give gifts to the village tomorrow morning. It’s tradition.”

“You think I care one whit for tradition now that we have a magic hunter in our midst and our coven might be in danger in Redbud? Get inside and pack your things. We leave within the hour. Robin, Lily? You get this Drake Morton to the manor immediately.”

His cousins nodded, each placing a glowing green hand on either side of the cocoon before all three became blurs and streaked out of sight.

“We’ll have words when you get your house in order,” Prue Stonewell told him, gesturing with her witch’s knot and sending Talia’s suspended body down the path towards the village. The tip of her leather hat bounced as she marched after her prisoner. “In the meantime, I’ll take care of this one and explain the situation to the rest of the Lodge.”

“My thanks, Ms. Stonewell.” Stag turned back to his children. “Move. Now .”

Boar and Rose started forward, but Lilac stood her ground.

“I’m not going with you,” she said firmly.

Her father’s eyes snapped with warning. “Lilac Bougainvillea Hawthorne, you will—”

“Stay right here. If I go back to that manor, I might never leave it again. But what I have made here”—she took hold of Allen’s hand—“is worth the risk of Grandmother’s displeasure. I have a future as a potions master, Dad. If not here, then definitely elsewhere. And I want that life. I need it.”

Stag hadn’t missed his daughter taking hold of Allen’s hand, nor of their fingers interlacing, nor the way he had moved closer to show his support. “And him?” he asked, an edge to his voice that one could interpret as condemnation .

Lilac squared her shoulders, her ivy-green eyes bright and confident. “He is mine.”

The thrill that raced down his body at the sound of those words from her lips had Allen wanting nothing more than to bend his head and mark her with his mating bite to claim her as his once and for all.

Her father shook his head. “Lilac, didn’t you hear the magic hunter? His master, whoever he is, is clearly causing trouble in Redbud. You know, where your mother is. Now is not the time to be divided; you need to come back and watch over the children while—”

“The children ?”

From the way the corner of her left eye twitched, Allen knew exactly what she thought about that: her talents, once again brushed aside, for a role others deemed more valuable to occupy her time.

She shook her head once. “No. I will help Mom and the coven however I can, but I am not setting foot back in that manor until Grandmother accepts my decision.”

Stag looked from Lilac to his other children. “Neither of you have anything to say about this?”

“Would it matter if we did?” Boar asked. “She’s made her decision. The only thing we should do is support her.”

Allen felt Lilac swell with her brother’s hard-won encouragement.

“She’s not abandoning the family, Dad,” Rose said, passing him to enter the Hall. “She’s just forging her own path. Are we leaving within the hour or what?”

Their father sputtered at his offspring’s mutiny, then fixed his ire on Allen. “Did you put her up to this?”

He snorted. “Like I can make Lilac do anything? She’s her own woman. I’m just happy to be here.”

Lilac gave him a brilliant smile .

“This is a losing battle, Dad,” Boar said. “She’s like Mom that way. Once she decides something—”

Stag flung up his hand for silence, his blue eyes narrowing on his daughter. “I could make you, Lilac.”

The threat made Allen’s hackles rise. No one made his mate do anything. In one swift movement, he swept her behind him, shielding her from her father.

“Allen, don’t—”

But he had already given himself away by the flash of light in his golden eyes, the tell-tale cue that a shifter was about to sprout fur, fangs, and claws.

“Honey!” Stag cried, terrified. Blue-white magic appeared like sinuous coils around his hands and arms. “Get away from him. He’s—”

Lilac snatched Allen’s face in her hands and yanked him down for a passionate kiss.

“What?” Stag croaked.

Allen’s mind went temporarily blank, dazed by the feel of his woman’s tongue gliding against his, and hardly knew the kiss had ended until was hearing Lilac proudly tell her father, “I know exactly who he is.”

When his senses fully returned, he found Boar and Rose standing in front of their father, magic wreathing their hands.

“You all knew?” Stag bellowed. He turned to Zofia. “And you ?”

The tiny Slavic woman cupped both hands over the knob of her cane and made a show of leaning forward and squinting. “Hmm, seems these old eyes don’t work as well as they used to. Oh well.” Without further explanation, she turned around and trudged into the open Hall.

“You’ll leave him alone,” Boar informed his father firmly.

“Or you’ll be going back to the manor by yourself, Dad,” Rose added .

Lilac stepped up to join her siblings, creating a wall between their irate father and him. It would’ve been borderline emasculating had the three witches not resembled a pack. That’s what they were— his pack, his family.

“My name is Allen Chase, sir,” he called over their heads. “Yes, I’m related to Lewellyn; yes, I’m a wolf shifter; yes, I’m madly in love with your daughter; and yes”— in for a penny, in for a pound —“I was sent here by the Coalition to protect your children.”

“And the Power of Three protects him,” Boar growled.

Stag looked into the determined faces of his children, then down to the magic they wielded in defense of their caretaker. The magic they were prepared to use against him. Taking a step back, he snuffed out his power, but his children didn’t relax. They wouldn’t, not until they truly knew he wasn’t a threat to their friend.

“ Fine ,” he spat. “For now, Lilac, you will remain in Annesley Valley until you are summoned. Then we will discuss your rash choices as a family when we’re all back together. Agreed?”

“I can do that, if you promise not to harm Allen in any way. You, or any other Hawthorne or our associates.”

“ I promise,” he forced out.

“Thank you, Dad,” she said, nothing but heartfelt sincerity in her voice.

Her father deflated, but only slightly. He thrust a finger at Allen. “You might not be the Hall’s caretaker anymore, but you’re hers. For now. Understand me? You break her heart and I’ll break your legs. And that will only be the beginning of your suffering.”

Allen gazed down at his woman, knowing he didn’t need this witch’s permission to protect his daughter with his life. Their bond was something deeper than that. “Understood, sir.”